A grave chill coursed through Wickham as he bowed, then departed like a dog in disgrace from its master for disobeying a command, retreating with its tail between its legs. But you are a terrible tease, he mumbled to himself.
Darcy and Bingley entered the ring to congratulate the victor, Darcy helping the Irish into one of his own silk dressing gowns. They led him out of the gymnasium and took him by carriage back to the Bingley’s where they all celebrated with champagne. Pippa attended to her husband with cold compresses and applied a small bandage to a cut on his forehead. He had survived with even less bodily damage than he had expected.
“You fought like a gladiator,” said Darcy. He had admired Sean previously, but now had even greater admiration for him. The Irishman might look like a pastry, but had the hidden strength and fortitude of a full side of beef.
Wickham’s retreat was to the pub in the nearby Royal Arms in Meryton where he proceeded to get foxed on both ale and whiskey. To salve his conscience, and make himself an innocent victim of Mr. O’Reilly’s rejection of him, he began then to make Mr. Darcy the whipping boy. He irrationally blamed him for his falling out with Mr. O’Reilly, and thinking to get revenge.
While pondering on how to accomplish that, and to prove that he would win the fight with his inner demon and convince it that the socially acceptable part of his nature was the dominant persuasion of his sensibilities, he decided to obtain the company of one of his favorite mistresses. He would call on Deidre and intended to spend the night with her in one of the inn’s upstairs bedchambers.
Before Wickham could finish his final mug of ale, burly Constable Rock Feeley approached his table with nightstick drawn. A giant of a man, and of decidedly disagreeable countenance.
Without asking permission, Feeley lowered himself into the seat opposite Wickham at his table and explained his presence, his eyes narrowing as he frowned.
“I was in attendance at the fisticuffs this evening. I saw you perform as the young Irishman’s handler, removing his fighting costume in public, and the later liberty you took in massaging him over his shamrocks. They were acts in public that are against the laws of the land and an affront to the King and his subjects, myself included.”
Wickham sat frozen and ashen-faced, starting to tremble.
“I could issue an arrest warrant against you, and you would end up in Margate prison, but do not think you would like that. Would you?” “I should not,” Wickham replied sheepishly, envisioning himself to be imprisoned with robbers, murderers, and deviates, although some might be comely. Thinking quickly, he asked, “Have a beer?”
The constable ignored the invitation, which he considered to be a bribe. “I have a proposition, about which if you approve, I will let you go, although not immediately or entirely.”
Mr. Wickham expected Constable Feeley to extort money from him, so he began agonizing as to how he could raise the sum, whatever it might be. Whom could he ask for a loan? Certainly not Mr. Darcy. He doubted his former friend would pay even a farthing to have him released from jail on bail, but rather would let him rot in prison.
Dear God, he wondered, what has my lack of temperance this evening gotten me into?
“I am not a wealthy man.” “Keep your purse closed. I will keep my mouth in similar fashion, but have the aforementioned proposition to put to you.”
What could the man possibly want of me?, Wickham wondered. Then a fear came over him that he began to pray would not materialize.
In a whisper so that he could not be overheard, the constable said, “Come with me to my flat and spend the night in my company.”
Dear God, wailed Wickham silently as he got up and obeyed the law. Will this night ever end? Will my torment? What is wrong with me?
Chapter Eighteen
Mr. Bennet was pleased when he received a letter from Lord Henderson.
Dear Mr. Bennet, Come visit me for a weekend of fishing in the lake on my estate, or longer if you wish. I should like that. It could be a reprieve from husbandly activities. I know how that is.
Ms. Henderson has a tendency to talk incessantly and complain about her illnesses, which are all imagined. She often thinks she has some maladies she has read about in books that even doctors have never heard about and that happened in Asian countries centuries past. She is as healthy as a horse, but is riding me to death.
There is nothing better for the soul than quiet, and now there is an abundance of that here, since Mrs. Henderson is away taking the mineral cures at Bath.
Do come fly-fishing with me. Your devoted friend, Raymond.
P.S. I should like to introduce you to mint juleps. Mr. Bennet wondered what those were, but was delighted in having what he believed to be a new friend. He wrote back hastily a reply that he would be honored to visit him. He did not add that he cared not a fig for fishing of any kind, but did not think that would matter to Lord Henderson. The invitation was mainly for friendship, and that pleased Mr. Bennet exceedingly. He now had trouble thinking of the lord as merely Stanley.
He suspected that Mrs. Bennet had designs on Stanley's brother, Mr. Henderson, should he, Mr. Bennet, pass on. But he doubted Mr. Henderson had any intention regarding Mrs. Bennet. Yet, time would tell. To venture into that direction would mean Mr. Henderson was as silly a man as Mrs. Bennet was a silly woman.
Yet, somehow, Mr. Bennet, despite many challenges, managed to retain some degree of the feelings he had had for Mrs. Bennet when they first met and she was more carefree. The weight of having five daughters and the fear of losing the roof over her head had caused her to be a woman different from the one he had wooed and won. Or lost, after marrying her, he chuckled to himself. Meanwhile, he could retreat to reading. He wondered about Mr. Henderson’s marriage and if, perchance, he was as fond of reading as he was.
Mr. Bennet hurriedly prepared a suitcase with his necessities, hoping to escape to Lord Henderson before Mr. Darcy would find Lydia and return her to him or, rather, to Mrs. Bennet.
Mr. Bennet arrived at Lord Henderson’s estate that very evening and they began to discourse over a mint julep of bourbon, water, and fresh mint over ice. Mr. Bennet found it to be very refreshing on the hot night.
They did not go fishing but, at Mr. Bennet’s suggestion, went kite-flying. He felt like a boy again, running under a sun-filled sky over hills and meadows with a friend as they navigated their kites higher and higher and zoomed down and around.
Lord Henderson was just as happy. They were like boys, just a couple of kite runners.
That evening Mr. Bennet made some fudge.
“I watched my daughters make it. The three youngest love it almost as much as they love new bonnets and soldiers in uniform.” “I’ve never tasted fudge as good,” said Lord Henderson. “My daughter only made conversation, like her mother. One-way, of course. She is a dear girl, otherwise. I mean my daughter.”
Mr. Bennet said, “I like children, if someone else rears them. You buy them new dresses and shoes all the time and they grow up and marry and leave you to go to another city or America or Australia.”
“My daughter and her husband have invited Mrs. Henderson and me to visit them in Virginia and perhaps stay. They have suggested I sell my newspapers and retire to a nice house near theirs.”
“That sounds very agreeable,” Mr. Bennet said.
Lord Henderson lit a pipe and offered one to Mr. Bennet. They sat and smoked contentedly in the quiet of the large house. Said Lord Henderson, “It doesn’t get much better than this.” Mr. Bennet nodded that he agreed, then said, “Some people are meant to marry. It feels right to them. Others, not.”
He hoped that things could get better at home since Kitty and Mary had become engaged and were to be married on Sunday.
Said Lord Henderson, “Some people prefer dogs to having children.”
Mr. Bennet agreed .“You don’t have to buy them new shoes every year, or send them to college.”
His host chuckled. “I should miss you, I dare say. I feel we could
become good friends.”
Chapter Nineteen On a cloudy Sunday morning at Hunsford, family and friends of Mary and Kitty Bennet began entering the church, gathered for the girls’ double wedding, greeted at the door by Mr. Collins. They included the Bennet’s, Darcy’s, Bingley’s, O’Reilly’s, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Mr. Wickham, and his former wife, now again Miss Lydia Bennett.
Lydia was almost thunderstruck as she saw Pippa approach on the arm of her brother. Just for a moment, which seemed to be hours, she fantasized about being with the Irish lass. They were alone on a sunny beach and entwined in each other’s arms and legs.
As Lydia took a seat by herself in the back row on one side of the church and her former husband sat alone on the other side, she watched as her sisters began walking up the aisle. She thought they looked beautiful in their white wedding gowns, veils, and holding bouquets of flowers. A feeling of regret began to overcome her, that she was not with them for a triple wedding.
Mr. Bennet walked up the aisle with Mary on one side and Kitty on the other. Mrs. Bennet sat in a front pew with the Darcy’s, Bingley’s, and O’Reilly's. She could not stop weeping for joy. Lydia thought it was from thinking the house would contain two fewer spinsters. She wondered what could she do about being the last Bennet sister to be married and leave the house, this time permanently.
Both grooms looked uneasy. Ahab in his white captain’s uniform and Rover in his white trapeze tights, as Kitty had requested. Lydia thought they looked like they were going to the gallows.
As Mr. Collins began reciting the wedding service, “We are now gathered…” Lydia had a grand illusion, She envisioned herself standing with her sisters, also in white gown and veil and holding a bouquet of flowers. Beside her was Pippa, not in a wedding gown but in a Hussar’s uniform.
Mr. Collins soon pronounced the couples man and wife and Mr. Rover slipped a wedding ring on Kitty’s finger while she put one on his. At the same time, Captain Ahab slipped a ring on Mary’s finger and she put one over his hook.
Lydia was again both mentally and physically back in her seat in the back row of the church. She saw the constable seated next to another man in the pew in front of hers, both looking very masculine in their police uniforms. She couldn’t decide which of them she would rather spend the night with. Perhaps with both of them, although neither was very agreeable-looking. They did wear uniforms, although not military.
While engaged in that dilemma, a young militiaman entered the church and sat next to Lydia on her bench. He was, she thought, uncommonly handsome. She remembered a gypsy reading her fortune, that she will meet a tall dark stranger. It had become part of her Big Bang theory and fireworks went off in her head. Seeing the militiaman, it was more than just love at first sight for her; it was marriage at first sight.
The handsome, dark-haired militiaman leaned toward her and whispered, “If there is a dance afterward, may I have two with you?”
Lydia said with a sigh, “You may dance with me all evening.”
Said the militiaman, “I detest weddings and will have none for myself. Wedding bells have broken up that old gang of mine.”
Lydia would not be put off. “I should like to dance with you all my life. I love weddings, especially when it is my own. Will you marry me?”
The militiaman agonized. “You talk, but you do not listen! Marriage vexes me! I disdain weddings, especially the thought of my own!” The officer got up and hurried away from her and out of the church as the organist began playing and the combined children’s choir began singing Johann Sebastian Bach’s Crucifixion cantata, “It Is Expedient That I Go Away.” Chapter Twenty
“What are you girls doing back home?” asked Mrs. Bennet when Mary and Kitty appeared unexpectedly the night of their weddings, still in their bridal gowns. “Aren’t you on your honeymoons?”
Mary reported, aggrieved, “Our husbands have departed us!” “Gone with the wind!’ said Kitty. “Hours after our wedding we were all in a carriage, en route to Brighton Beach, when they told the coachman to stop. We saw our bridegrooms depart into some woods, thinking they had to relieve themselves.”
“That was the last we saw of them. We waited for hours, but as night came on, they had not returned, so we had the coachman turn the carriage around and came directly here. We have no money and no other place to go.”
“I am vexed!” declared Mrs. Bennet. “Exceedingly vexed!”
Mr. Bennet felt another bout of indigestion come on and thought perhaps he would pay Mr. Henderson another visit. That same evening, Elizabeth eagerly awaited a ball to be held at the Meryton Assembly Hall. She could hardly wait to dance again with her husband. Since the general public would be welcome, she decided it would be of interest to the young people from Ireland and when told about it and invited to accompany them, they happily agreed.
The day before the dance, the Darcy’s invited the O’Reilly’s to Pemberley and they would go by coach together to Meryton the following day. That evening at Pemberley, while her husband and Mr. O’Reilly played billiards in the game room, Elizabeth and Miss O’Reilly sat conversing in the parlor. Elizabeth began to study Pippa’s simple green frock. It would never do, she thought.
“I will loan you a gown,” said Elizabeth, thinking of it being the one she wore when she first danced with Mr. Darcy.
“I should be most grateful.” Mr. Darcy offered to loan Mr. O’Reilly the proper attire of gentlemen who would attend the Meryton ball: shirt, ascot, long coat, and satin breeches. But Mr. O’Reilly declined.
“I thank you, but I have dance attire at my rooms in The Arms. I won it in a craps game when I learned about the dance. It may attract attention because it is so unlike men’s formal wear here. It is called a tuxedo, a black dinner jacket and trousers, white shirt and black bow tie. I won it off a militiaman who said he won it playing craps with a man from Paris whose face was very pale and said it was his work attire. It came with a long black cape, but I let the loser have it so as to cover himself. Besides, it had some blood on it. The man in Paris said he bit something, or something bit him. It made no sense.”
“You do surprise us with your unusual attire,” said Darcy. “But it always is most becoming.”
After riding in the Darcy carriage for some time, en route to the Bingley’s, Sean asked Darcy, “Do you expect that Mr. Wickham will be attending the ball?” Darcy replied with some apprehension. “The general public is invited, and most gentlemen in need of a wife generally attend because the dances are commonly an occasion for matchmaking. Since Mr. Wickham’s wife Lydia has left him, I fear he may be among those gentlemen, although he has proven again and again that he is no gentleman.”
Sean thought he could attest to that.
The Darcy’s and their guests rode first to Netherfield where they visited the Bingley’s. Then the three couples rode on to Meryton.
At the ball, Mr. Wickham, wearing his Hussar’s uniform, thought Mr. O’Reilly was most handsome in the very different evening clothes he was wearing.
“I must learn who your tailor is. In Dublin, I assume?”
“The suit is called a tuxedo, from Paris. I won it in a craps game.”
“Of course,” said Mr. Wickham. “It is out of this world.”
“I feel a little strange wearing it. Like it has a life of its own.” “I should like to win it from you.” “Over my corpos-mort,” replied Mr. O’Reilly. “And somehow, I have the disturbing feeling its original owner is looking for it.”
Mr. Wickham then asked Elizabeth if he could have a dance. “For old times’ sake.”
“Bugger off!” said Mr. Darcy.
Bloody bastard, Wickham said silently as he turned away and renewed his pledge to himself. He would yet take his revenge on Mr. Darcy.
“I confess,” Darcy said to Wickham, “I do not understand you. What do you want in your life?”
Wickham smiled and replied, “More. I cannot deny myself. I want the best of all possible worlds. Or at least, the one that is u
nacceptable, unattainable.”
Darcy did not understand a word of it. Walking away, Wickham took some solace in drinking heavily from the brandy flask he took out of one of his breast coat pockets. He had drunk it empty before leaving The Royal Arms and had refilled it. He hoped his flask’s contents would last him the evening, since no alcohol was allowed at the ball.
Mr. Bingley, who had been standing just behind Mr. Darcy during his discourse with Mr. Wickham, began to feel an overwhelming itch over his whole body.
Mrs. Bingley, noticing her husband scratching behind his neck, then his arms, whispered to her sister, “I believe Mr. Bingley may be allergic to Mr. Wickham.”
Mr. Darcy returned to his wife and the others who had watched the adventure from nearby.
Mary and Kitty entered the dance hall, looking greatly disturbed, and went directly to Mrs. Bennet.
Mrs. Bennet suggested, “No sense crying over spilled milk. Your husbands have flown the coop. Perhaps you may find replacements here this evening.” While the Darcy’s, Bingley’s, and the Irish danced with their partners or exchanged partners, Miss Bennet stood on the sidelines watching with her three young now-again spinster daughters, Lydia, Kitty, and Mary. She was looking over the crop of single gentlemen, considering each as a possible husband for them, or even for herself.
She worried that Mr. Bennet, who had gone off to again visit Mr. Henderson, might never return from Downtown Abbey. Or he would die there and she would yet lose the roof over her head.
When asked where Mr. Bennet was, she had a ready reply: “He is away, fishing with a friend.” A distinguished and presumably wealthy young man in riding attire entered the assembly room and stood looking over the crop of eligible ladies. Mary walked boldly up to him before he might choose someone else to ask to dance with.
“Pardon me, sir,” said Mary. “We have not been introduced, but I could not help but notice you are a horseman. From her reading about horses, she said, I’ve been wondering, which do you prefer between draught horses… the Clydesdale or the Shire?”
The horseman replied indignantly, “Neither. I prefer the Suffolk Punch draught horse, of course. I am president of the Suffolk Punch Draught Horse Society. You obviously know nothing of British horse breeds. And you are too forward, Miss. I do not ask to dance with ladies to whom I have not been introduced.” He then walked on to survey the crop of remaining young ladies.
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