“Good morning, Miss Bennet, Mr Bennet.”
Mr Bennet finally came out of hiding from behind his paper.
“Bingley,” he said, acknowledging of the young man’s greeting.
Taking a plate from the sideboard, Charles began to pile food onto his plate. Sausage, bacon, kidneys, egg, fried potatoes and a hot muffin. Taking the seat between father and daughter, he began to attack his food with relish.
Elizabeth and Mr Bennet watched as he devoured half of his meal with alacrity before the older man could not help but comment.
“Slow down, lad. You’ll give yourself indigestion wolfing it down like that, upon my word.”
Bingley emptied his mouth and took a swig of the hot coffee in his cup, before saying,
“Sorry, sir, but Darcy instructed me to make haste over to Louisa’s this morning. I am to pack Caroline and all her belongings back off to Scarborough. Darcy feels a period away from polite society will give her time to reflect on her disgraceful behaviour.”
“Does he now?” said Mr Bennet, who then looked at Elizabeth with a cynically raised eyebrow.
“I fear it will take more than a spell at the coast to soften and mend your sister's heart and ways, Bingley. A lifetime of indulgence cannot be reversed in a few weeks by the seaside, lad. But, go if you must, and I suppose you must go. Mr Darcy has recommended it, and so it will be done.” He sighed.
Bingley was puzzled by Mr Bennet’s words. Mr Darcy was always most solicitous of his friend's needs, and he had often turned to him for advice and instruction.
“Sir?” Bingley asked Mr Bennet.
“I do not slander Mr Darcy, not by any means. I only meant that he possesses a forceful and demanding personality. I find he is a man one would not dare say no too.”
Bingley looked down at his half-empty plate, and, decided not to eat anymore, pushed it away from him. Already Mr Bennet’s observation was proving correct. Charles Bingley was even now beginning to feel an uncomfortable pain in the region of his stomach.
Taking one last gulp of his coffee, Mr Bingley bid them a good day and then left, rubbing his stomach as he did so.
Elizabeth felt alone and isolated. Even though her father sat only yards from where she was sitting, he might as well have been back at Longbourn. With Miss Darcy gone and now Mr Bingley, it left only Mr Darcy, her father and her. How she missed Jane. Dear Jane, whom, she could talk freely to and discuss openly with any thoughts or notions that invaded her mind.
Kind Jane, who acted as her voice of sense and reason, subduing her impulsive and rashness that sometimes bubbled up and spilt over, causing her embarrassment and shame. Now, she felt the need to unburden herself, to hear the sound advice and reasoning that only Jane could offer her. Especially around her thoughts and dreams of Mr Darcy. Dear, sweet, sensible Jane, how she missed her.
The first thing either Mr Bennet or Elizabeth knew of Mr Darcy’s return, was when they heard his raised voice call for Miller.
“Miller, in my study now if you please,” Darcy shouted.
Miller, who had been a butler at Mr Darcy’s London residence for the past five years, was rarely surprised by his master. That was until two weeks ago. It had been the first time young Mr Darcy had ever raised his voice to him, and today was the second.
Hurrying to the study, Miller was still buttoning his jacket as he entered the room.
“Sir?” he asked breathlessly.
“Ah, Miller, will you ask Mr Bennet and Miss Elizabeth if they would join me without delay. Then, you are to go to Coutts & Company and pick up a sum of money I ordered this morning.”
“Yes, sir,” said Miller, with no thought of questioning his master.
“Mind, you are to go in person, Miller. They are expecting you.”
Millers’ chest puffed up with pride. It was a great responsibility being Butler to a man such as Fitzwilliam Darcy, but it was also a great honour. With a reputation for treating his employees fairly and generously, Darcy had the undying loyalty of all his servants.
Miller nodded and then went to convey Mr Darcy’s request to the Bennet’s.
Elizabeth took a chair near the fire, while Mr Bennet elected to remain standing, as did Darcy.
“So, what news is there?” Mr Bennet asked.
Before he answered, Darcy’s eyes lingered on Mr Bennet’s face. Was it his imagination, or had Elizabeth’s father aged since they arrived in town? No matter, if things went well tomorrow, he could return to Longbourn in a day or so.
The news he bore for them was mixed in nature. The brunt of the expense he alone would shoulder, but the emotional damage; that would be down to the Bennet family to try to repair.
Turning, so he was facing them both, Darcy got straight to the point.
“I have been to speak to Wickham this morning. His terms are harsh, but I have agreed to meet them.”
Darcy recalled his meeting, omitting the less savoury remarks and insults Wickham had unleashed on Darcy and Lydia
.
Having arrived at the Inn a little after eight in the morning, Darcy had expected to find Wickham and Lydia still asleep. But when Wickham opened the door, not only was he dressed, but he appeared was alone.
Wickham stepped aside, allowing Darcy to enter the room.
There was no sign of Lydia.
“You took your time; I expected you to return yesterday. Why have you kept me waiting until now?”
Darcy looked around the room. The impression he got was that it was only one step above squalor, and certainly not a place to bring a young lady of breeding.
The covers on the bed were grey and rumpled, and there were several empty wine bottles scattered around the room and on the floor.
A tray with two metal plates on it rested precariously on the window sill, but only one dish of food had been eaten.
At the window, curtains that had once been bright and colourful were now held together with only dirt and spider webs, while the windows behind them were opaque with grime.
Darcy gave an inward shudder.
Wickham sat at the table and folded his arms across his chest and began to tap his foot impatiently as he waited for Darcy to answer him.
“Where is Miss Lydia, Wickham?”
“Safe enough,” Wickham replied.
“I have nothing to say…or to offer until I have seen Miss Lydia with my own eyes,” Darcy replied, the coldness of his voice conveying his resolve.
“Very well, see for yourself,” Wickham jeered and tossed his head towards a door next to the bed.
With purposeful strides, Darcy walked to the door and pulled it open.
It was not, as he expected, another room, it was a closet. Just thick enough and broad enough to fit a single chair in. On that chair, with her hands tied to the back rails, and a cloth tied over her mouth, sat Lydia Bennet. Her dirty and tear-stained face barely visible in the darkness of the confined space, and her hair tangles and scruffy.
It took every ounce of Fitzwilliam Darcy’s willpower to remain calm and project a cool exterior as he turned back to face Wickham.
From their previous encounters, Darcy knew that Wickham intended to goad and bait him until he would offer him anything to be rid of him. Though this time, Darcy had not only expected such a ploy, he had prepared for it.
“Well?”
A single look told Darcy all that he needed to know. Gone was the handsome gentleman who had smiled and charmed all the ladies of Meryton. In his place stood a man barely identifiable as George Wickham. The uniform that Lydia had been so fond of, which had drawn her to Wickham in the first place, was almost unrecognisable as it hung off his hungry frame. Where the liquor stained jacket fell open, it revealed a shirt marked with several patches of what Darcy could only assume were dried food and spilt wine. His hair was unkempt, and he was sporting at least three days of stubble. Wickham was desperate.
“I take it you have no intention of marrying Miss Bennet?” Darcy asked.
“Heavens n
o! Tie myself to that penniless nobody for the rest of my life? Certainly not, Darcy. There are far richer pickings for me to choose from…” Wickham paused to sneer at Darcy, before saying,
“Once you have paid me what’s owing to me.”
Darcy said nothing; he did nothing, only returned Wickham’s stare with a steadfast gaze of his own.
Wickham became worried. Perhaps this was a trap, and the magistrates’ men were waiting for him outside? He leant forward and pulled the pistol from the back of his waistband, then placed it on the table with the muzzle pointing towards Darcy.
“That is what you came for, isn’t Darcy? You’re not just wasting my time, are you?” Wickham asked menacingly.
“Have you touched the girl, Wickham?” Darcy asked.
It did not escape Darcy notice that no sooner had he asked this of Wickham, that the other man rubbed at what appeared to be a bite mark on his hand.
Wickham, in a show of bravado, cocked his head to one side, and said,
“Not my type, Darcy. You should know I like my women thinner and fairer… much like your sister.”
For the second time that day, Darcy had to call on his willpower to stop himself from striking Wickham a blow.
Turning back to the restrained girl, Darcy gently removed the gag covering her mouth, and spoke soft words of comfort and reassurance before he asked,
“Take heart, Lydia, it will be over soon enough, I promise you.” Darcy felt uncomfortable and unclean as he put the question that must be asked, to the fifteen-year-old Lydia Bennet.
“Miss Bennet…your virtue…are you…?”
Between gasping for air and her quiet sobbing, Lydia managed to say,
“I am not injured, sir.”
Straightening, Darcy turned back to Wickham and asked the question he thought never to ask again.
“How much, Wickham?”
Full of cockiness and triumphant swagger, Wickham said a figure that shocked even Darcy.
“Ten thousand pounds.”
“Two, and I tear up all the promissory notes I have purchased,” Darcy counter-offered.
Wickham tried to tot up the number of notes Darcy might hold of his, but the names of the of towns, the shops, the brothels…it was too many for him to recall. Guessing it must be close to fifteen hundred pounds, Wickham pitched.
“Five.”
“Three thousand five hundred pounds, Wickham and all the promissory notes I hold. That adds up to five. It’s a final and definitive offer. One that expires when I leave this room.”
George Wickham knew when Darcy had been pushed far enough. If he tried to push him any further, there was every chance he would withdraw his offer and have him arrested. To part with such a sum of money, confirmed Wickham’s belief of how much Darcy loved Elizabeth Bennet. Ah, yes, the lovely Miss Eliza…
“I will accept your offer, Darcy, but I have a condition.”
“What is it?”
“I want you to invite me to your wedding to Miss Elizabeth?”
“You what!” exclaimed Darcy.
Wickham knew he had hit a nerve, but it was too late to back down now.
Darcy stepped forward, raising himself up to his full height, he looked down at the visibly shaken face of his nemesis, and hissed,
“If you come within a hundred miles of Elizabeth, I will personally slit your throat and throw you in the Thames.”
Wickham stood and backed away a few steps, stumbling over an empty bottle as he did so. Safety seemed to lie in returning to the subject of money.
With his words tumbling out, Wickham tried to distract Darcy.
“Do…do we have a deal?”
His breathing was ragged with the effort of suppressing his instinct to beat the man before him to a pulp, but through gritted teeth, Darcy replied.
“We do.”
“Such a sum of money, how am I ever to repay you, sir?” asked Mr Bennet
Perplexed that the financial arrangement was Mr Bennet's first concern, Darcy’s reply to him was somewhat curt.
“Repay me, sir? I need no repayment. Miss Lydia’s safety is my chief concern.”
Elizabeth stepped in at this point.
“And we are grateful for all you have done, sir. When may we see Lydia? We need to make arrangements to take her home.”
Biting back a curse on Wickham, Darcy went on to reveal the terms Wickham had insisted on before he would release Lydia.
“I want Miss Elizabeth to be the one to give me the money in exchange for her sister,” he had demanded.
“No!” Darcy replied flatly.
“No deal then, Darcy.”
“Do not test me, Wickham!”
For some minutes they argued the toss, but Darcy had no intention of capitulating. Then he heard the gentle sobs of Lydia, still locked in the closet, filter out through the cracks in the wood and into the ether of the room.
Seeing him weaken, Wickham pushed his point.
“If I am to never see Miss Elizabeth again, Darcy, at least let me say goodbye. I promise I will never seek either of you out again.”
As if to push his point home, Wickham picked up the pistol and rested it over his forearm.
The threat, though not spoken, was clear. Realising the status quo had changed, Darcy knew it was a small price to pay for the release of Lydia Bennet. He agreed. Elizabeth could be present, but only to aid the rescue of her sister.
It was enough to satisfy Wickham, and they agreed to the handover time of four o’clock the next afternoon.
Mr Bennet made some minor form of protest at his favourite daughter being involved, citing the unsavoury location of the docks as his main bugbear, but all to no avail.
“I will do it father, for Lydia’s sake.”
Elizabeth was determined to go. Darcy and Lydia needed her to go. The safe return of Lydia depended on it. She was going.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Darcy sat at his desk, the only light was the glow from the fire. He had dashed off a brief note to his cousin, detailing the time and place of the handover of Lydia, but it did not sit well with him.
Richard was the brother he had never had, and they were close, but first and foremost, Richard was a soldier. Could he, in all good conscience, hand Wickham over to Richard and live with that knowledge? On the other hand, could he continue to go through life constantly fearing where, and whom Wickham might target next? For both financial gain and his own sadistic pleasure of persecuting him for a slight, he had not committed?
The answer was simple. No. He had already endured many situations in life instigated by Wickham’s hatred and greed.
It had all started when they were children of about nine or ten. Darcy’s father owned a superb gold hunter pocket watch, which Darcy was to inherit. When Wickham discovered how much his young playmate admired the watch, he started a full-out campaign to flatter and cajole Darcy’s father into parting with it. Until finally, to please the boy, he had relented and given him his watch. Darcy was devastated and told his father so, only to be reprimanded for being selfish.
Wickham’s relentless charm offensive had won him the prize and taught him a valuable lesson, one he would use throughout his life. And so, Wickham’s turn from the path of truth and right had begun.
Elizabeth had stood silently watching Darcy for some minutes. So, deep in his own thoughts, that he had neither seen nor heard her enter his study.
It was the flickering light of her candle which disturbed the shadows on his desktop, that finally alerted him that he was no longer alone.
Surprised to see his intended at this late hour, Darcy stood and made to retrieve his jacket from the back of his chair.
“Please, do not be concerned on my behalf. The room is warm enough, and the sight of you in your shirt-sleeved does not offend me,” Elizabeth told him.
Darcy replaced the jacket on the back of the chair and then turned to face Elizabeth.
“You should be resting, Elizabeth. It is past midnight.”
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“I could not sleep. I must do what my father has failed to do. That is to thank you, sir, for all you are doing for Lydia, for us.”
Darcy’s eyes wandered over the features of Elizabeth’s face. Taking in the brightness of her eyes as they reflected the flame of the candle, to the soft, red bow of her lips. He missed nothing. And not for the first time, he wondered, how could he ever have thought her plain?
Coming from behind his desk to stand before her, he took the candle from her hand and placed it on the desktop.
Being thanked for his actions was all very right and proper, but what he wanted more than anything, was for her to love him, to show him some sign that she cared for him. To take his hand, or touch his arm or face in some small gesture of affection. To bridge that small space between them, which he felt kept them emotionally, miles apart…
Resisting the urge to reach out and pull her into his embrace, Darcy said,
“I do not want your father’s thanks, Elizabeth. I think only of you… of your happiness…” he paused, then quietly added, “of our happiness.”
How materially her thoughts and feelings had changed since first being proposed to by the Master of Pemberley. Her initial surprise and horror had quickly been reasoned away, to be replaced with practical acceptance. But now…having been made aware of the depths of depravity her once favourite admirer could, and had, stooped to, she was sickened when she remembered her past infatuation with Wickham. So, how could she blame or sanction Lydia, when she too had almost succumbed to his charms. But she was not the only one to have changed.
The lengths Darcy was prepared to go to, solely to retrieve her sister, was extraordinary. Besides the financial cost, there was no doubt it reminded him of his own sisters’ recent escape. And now, every time he looked at Elizabeth, his future wife, would he be reminded of the events of this week? Had Lydia’s foolishness forever tarnished Darcy’s opinion of her? Though it mattered to her more than she could put into words, that he thought kindly of her, still loved her, still…wanted her, Lydia’s elopement had sullied all that might have been.
Mr Darcy's Proposal Page 18
