At this, something in Darcy snapped with an almost audible report; the Corporal was standing to Darcy’s right, staring angrily down at Wickham; without thought, Darcy snatched the big knife from behind the Corporal’s back and, lunging across the table, swung it down at Wickham; in later years he never could be sure just how he stopped from killing him—he believed it may have been a fleeting thought of Elizabeth that deflected the blow and spared the life of his enemy; but whatever it may have been, he buried the tip of the blade two inches into the table top between Wickham’s elbows, rather than his chest. “One…more…word,” he ground out, “and I…will…kill you.” His eyes blazing not a foot from Wickham’s, he kept his hand on the blade, almost hoping Wickham would take up his dare.
But Wickham was no fool when it came to his own skin, and held his tongue; in any event, he looked too frightened for speech. When Wickham’s terrified eyes looked away from his, Darcy felt the murderous rage leave him; he sat back, working to control his breathing. The corporal reached over to take the weapon out of the table, but it refused to yield. Grunting in surprise, he applied both hands to the task, his muscles straining; slowly the wood groaned and released the blade. All the men around the table looked at Darcy in amazement at this evidence of the force of the blow: the Corporal looked uneasily at him; he inspected the tip carefully before turning a shocked face back to Darcy.
“I do apologise, Corporal,” Darcy said, passing a hand across his brow. He had almost undone the good that all their discipline and restraint had done for Elizabeth and the Bennets the night before, not to mention that one simply did not take another’s weapon without permission.
“That’s all right, Major,” the Corporal replied, still looking at him in wonder. “I always like to know just ‘ow far I can trust a blade; I guess I can trust this one ‘ere with just about anythin’.”
Darcy was quite overset: he had allowed Wickham to get under his skin again, something he had sworn he would not do. It was thus every time he argued with the man; immune to logic, blind to right and wrong, Wickham always succeeded in enraging him; when they were children, however, Darcy had not the ability to do the harm he had only just missed doing here. He needed to go where he could not see Wickham for a time. To the Corporal he said: “I will return,” and he walked out of the inn.
Darcy walked back towards the city proper, going as far as Aldgate. He stopped at the old pump and cooled his brow, still in the grip of the savage emotions Wickham had triggered. It distressed him deeply that he had almost killed a man out of temper, but even now half of him wished he had finished it; it almost seemed that his emotions were breaking free with greater and greater frequency and strength, since his having met Elizabeth; the wounds she had received at Wickham’s hands burned within him, and in great measure were driving his recent actions; yet, had he followed the dictates of that pain, he would have done far worse by her. He grimly took hold of himself and started to re-trace his steps, applying his mind to this new twist of Wickham’s as he returned to the inn.
When he arrived shortly thereafter, he said in a flat voice that brooked no discussion, “I am going to settle on Miss Lydia Bennet, as dowry, enough to give you an extra eighty pounds per annum as income. Added to that which you will earn as an officer in His Majesty’s Army, you should, with a modicum of prudence, be able to live comfortably; in time, with advancement, even well. The principal will also, used wisely, provide for an easier life, and allow for emergencies. The dowry will be left in your wife’s name, so she, and only she, may dispose of it. Do you understand?” he demanded of Wickham. He nodded mutely.
“This is your very last chance, Wickham: have you anything further to urge? Once we are done, I will hear nothing more on the matter.”
“Lydia has mentioned some money coming to her from her mother,” he said, averting his eyes from Darcy’s angry gaze.
“Find out the particulars,” he instructed brusquely. With that Darcy left, offering no further word; quitting the inn, he stalked almost all the way to the Bank of England, seeking to clear his thoughts. It is perhaps not surprising that no one sought to interrupt his walk through Whitechapel, as his face would have quelled the most determined hawker, or put off the boldest muslin.
Darcy’s next errand that day was to have been finding Mr. Gardiner in Gracechurch-Street, in order to acquaint him and the Bennet family with the current status of his scheme. However, his state of mind left him ill-suited for civil intercourse, and the time he was spending in Whitechapel lately was tending to make him feel rather coarse; he therefore decided to return to Grosvenor Square, where he spent the night quietly reading Montaigne, as one of the more cultured and enlightened authors in his collection, and trying to forget the fact that he had almost killed a man that day.
By morning he felt himself much more equal to the task of speaking with Lydia’s uncle; but, on the assumption that Mr. Gardiner’s days would normally be taken up with his business concerns, he determined to set out to discover him rather late in the afternoon. The majority of the day he spent quietly at home, still seeking to forget his transport of rage, and the damage he had almost done Elizabeth and her family. In the morning post he received a note from Colonel Fitzwilliam, saying that the commission was secured, and, as Darcy had requested, Wickham’s posting was to be in the north, at Newcastle.
Well into the afternoon, he set about his task; he first went to Whitechapel, to hear from Wickham the details of Lydia’s inheritance, and to see how things stood with the Corporal, and Tewkes, especially. He received a favourable report on the injured man; he was doing well, and sent Darcy his thanks for sending the surgeon to him. Wickham gave him the intelligence he required without offering Darcy any further aggravation. Darcy then proceeded to the Gardiner’s. Gracechurch being rather a populous street, he made but little progress until he chanced to spy the postman making his rounds; he asked the man for the proper direction, and five minutes later he was knocking at the door. The girl answering it was, by her dress, a maid, and unaccustomed to the activity: seeing a gentleman before her, she dropt a quick curtsey and explained herself before he could even speak: “Begging your pardon, Sir, but Mrs. Carstairs is that busy just now. Can I help?”
Darcy, who was by habit soft-spoken with female servants, replied in well-moderated tones, “Is your master in? I was rather hoping I might see him.”
“Oh, Sir, he is in, but he just this very minute sat down to dinner with his brother from Hertfordshire, and him only here till morning.”
This was a situation Darcy had not anticipated; he hesitated, uncertain how best to proceed. That Mr. Bennet was with Mr. Gardiner was a bit perplexing: properly speaking, it were better for Darcy to take the matter up with him; he did not, however, think that that would be the best way forward for the enterprise he had brought thus far along. Deciding delay was to be preferred to the possible failure of the thing altogether, through an explicit ban from Mr. Bennet, he determined to return the next day. On his hesitating, the maid asked, “Is it very important, Sir? Shall I interrupt the master then?”
“No, please do not trouble him; I shall call again another time.” He nodded a good day to the girl and returned to his carriage.
On the following day, he presented himself at the Gardiner’s in mid-afternoon, well before the dinner hour: the woman who met him at the door this time was a respectable-looking woman of middle years, with iron-grey hair and a very proper manner. She took his card and ushered him into a pleasant sitting-room in which a number of books were distributed about, left ready to hand to be taken up again by their owners; the wide variety of reading matter told Darcy that some of the readers were quite young, informing him that the Gardiners were eager in the instruction their children. In very short order, Mr. Gardiner appeared at the door, still buttoning his coat.
“Mr. Darcy?” said he as he entered. “Is it indeed you? This is an honour as delightful as it is unexpected, Sir!”
After their bows and compliment
s, Darcy shook hands with him, gratified at being received thus gladly, as what he had to relate would be as unpleasant for Mr. Gardiner to hear as it would be for him to tell. The other offered him refreshment, which he declined, suspecting his welcome would be in question after his news.
“Was it you, then, who stopped by yesterday?” Mr. Gardiner enquired.
“It was,” Darcy admitted. “but you were just sitting down to dinner, and I put off my call.”
Gardiner air became momentarily gloomy. “Ah, yes…but I would certainly have delayed my dinner to receive you, Mr. Darcy,” he said.
“I felt the matter was better put before you alone; I gathered that you were with Mr. Bennet.”
Gardiner looked surprised and puzzled. “Well then, Mr. Darcy, I surmise some very particular need has carried you here,” said he, ”not just to my door, as it were, but to London at all; I had thought you still in Derbyshire with your friends. So: in what way may I serve you?”
“It is rather I who hope to be of service to you, Mr. Gardiner,” said Darcy. “But first, I must ask your forgiveness.”
Mr. Gardiner looked at Darcy with a curious and amused expression. “Before receiving a pardon from the bench, perhaps I might hear the charges laid against you?”
“I fear that I have inserted myself into your family’s affairs; I have no excuse to offer other than the responsibility my own family, myself most especially, bears in the case.”
Mr. Gardiner, looking at him dubiously, waved him on: “Do go on; I am all anticipation to hear what you might possibly have done to affect us, and how your family could conceivably be obligated to mine for anything at all.”
Darcy gathered his resolution and stated, in as careful and unprejudiced a voice as he could command, “I have taken upon myself the discovery of Miss Lydia Bennet’s whereabouts. I have seen her: she is well, but I fear she remains committed to her chosen course.”
Mr. Gardiner, after looking searchingly at Darcy, rose without speaking and went to the mantel; there he pulled the bell rope and stood, occasionally looking over at Darcy, but still without speaking, until a manservant shortly appeared, whom he told, “We shall require tea, Carstairs, and we are not to be disturbed.” He then resumed his seat, looked at Darcy with all interest, and waved for him to continue.
“I happened upon Miss Elizabeth Bennet at almost the very first moment she learnt of the affair,” Darcy explained. “In the distress of the moment she revealed it all to me; concealment, circumspection even, could not be expected of any one under such circumstances—notwithstanding, I was honoured by her faith in discovering it to me. But, realising immediately that, had Mr. Wickham gone to ground here in Town, it would be a miraculous stroke of luck if you were to find their trail…” at this, Mr. Gardiner inclined his head in agreement; his rueful expression spoke of the efforts he been to in vain, “…I therefore set out from Derbyshire only one day later than yourselves,” Darcy went on. “You are perhaps unaware that I have been associated with Mr. Wickham throughout my life; he was raised at my father’s expense, and largely under his direction. This explains my family’s responsibility for his actions in the present case.”
“A slender reed,” said Mr. Gardiner, looking at him thoughtfully, “but I will allow it in evidence. Do go on.”
“More particularly, I have known Wickham well, and have seen him dishonour my father’s efforts and esteem on many occasions, yet I failed to give warning of his ways to the world at large; I erred on the side of familial pride, not wishing to connect his name with our honour; and I erred on the side of personal pride, not wishing to admit any association with him myself; my character was to speak for itself, and he must make shift to get through life on his own: such was my thinking. But I have lately learnt that character is mute, and only one’s actions speak in ways that others might hear. Had I taken the steps I ought, had I endeavoured to make his character known, he could never have insinuated himself into decent society, and this attack on your family would never have taken place. My responsibility, and my duty, was clear in the matter; and, as I know Wickham and his associates, I took those steps only I could be in position to take.”
“And so you found them. How, if I might ask?”
“Knowing him as I do, I felt sure I knew where he would go first. I was correct in my assumption, and after such a beginning it was not difficult to pick up their trail.”
“What are my niece’s circumstances? You say she is well, but where, and under what conditions, has he kept her?”
Here Darcy hesitated. “Might I ask that I not be obliged to give a description of the place, or its direction? I have no wish to compound your concern; can we allow it to rest at the fact that she is fed, clothed,” here he stumbled somewhat, remembering her state of undress when he interviewed her, “and free to come and go as she pleases? Their lodgings are such as only Wickham would dream of taking any woman, regardless of quality, but she is quite content to remain. I have offered her my personal assistance to be reunited with you, for whatever that is worth, but she is determined to stay with Mr. Wickham.”
Mr. Gardiner’s expression said he would have something to say on the subject of her obstinacy, were it not for Darcy’s being a comparative stranger. “What does this Wickham have to say for himself?” he asked.
“George Wickham is a man utterly without conscience,” Darcy told him. “Having determined to run from debts he had incurred in Brighton, he brought your niece along apparently as an afterthought, or so he says; for its motivation he imputes her own enthusiasm to be off on an adventure. He makes no apologies, and to the best of my belief, feels no guilt, let alone remorse. He never has, in the whole course of his life; never have I known any one so totally devoid of better feelings. In my anger with him at times, I confess, I have thought him something other than human, as we are by nature able to tell right from wrong—yet he seems incapable of making the distinction.”
Mr. Gardiner contemplated this statement for a time, then asked: "But how, then, can he be prevailed upon?”
“Here again is why I felt compelled to take action in the case: no one else could know him well enough to work on him to effect; but the fact is that he is a remarkable compound of avarice and indolence; he is therefore always short, and open to the persuasive influence of ready money.”
“An altogether exemplary young man,” said Mr. Gardiner sourly. “Just the man for my niece to have attached herself to.”
“Yes,” agreed Darcy, “he is quite a specimen of his type; I have, however, recently met with worse among London’s society.”
“It can always be worse, is that it? Cold comfort, Sir,” remarked Mr. Gardiner wryly.
“I beg your pardon,” Darcy apologised. “My comment was more a reflection on my own amazement at finding he was not the worst of humankind, than an attempt to offer you a sadly hackneyed consolation.”
“Better and better,” said Mr. Gardiner sardonically, although he smiled as he said it. “For more than twenty years you believed the man of my niece’s choosing to be the worst humankind had to offer? I am so relieved to know you now find yourself mistaken, and he is only the second worst.”
“I do not seem to be getting much forwarder,” Darcy observed, reproaching himself for not being more sensible of Mr. Gardiner’s position. “Let me just move on: Wickham has agreed to marry your niece, so long as his more pressing debts be covered; Colonel Forster very honourably stands ready to accept his immediate resignation, and has further gathered together Wickham’s debts in Brighton, not excepting a rather stiff accounting of gambling debts to the other officers, for the whole of which I have pledged myself. I have arranged a commission in the regular army for Wickham, upon execution of which he will be posted to Newcastle, if all goes according to plan. All this, I am sure you will readily understand, is no more than what is due from my side, having left a man raised in my family to prey upon the innocent, unchecked.”
“Allowing that to stand for the moment, althou
gh I do not feel inclined to accept your position at all, what further terms does he require?”
“I am given to understand that there is an inheritance due the lady on the decease of her mother and father: she wishes to be secured of it; I have also agreed to settle two thousand pounds on her as dowry, to help them get a start and provide some additional income.”
“That is the sum of their requirements?” Mr. Gardiner asked.
“It is.”
After a moment’s reflection while gazing over Darcy’s shoulder, Mr. Gardiner looked back and said, “I see; this, then, is the case against you, and the accused stands before the bench for sentencing: I find, young man, that your actions are not satisfactory, and do not answer the occasion.”
“Mr. Gardiner…” Darcy began to expostulate, but Gardiner held up a restraining hand. “You have made no allowance for any contributions from her family, no way for them to moderate their own guilt, which must be brought into account for the failings of their unfortunate offspring.”
“Because I perceive none,” Darcy protested. “Were it not for my nonfeasance, Wickham’s malfeasance could have had no effect on the Bennet family.”
“So you see no culpability on that side at all?”
“None, Sir. Every thing that has occurred would have been prevented, had I not thought it beneath me to lay the affairs of my family open to the world.”
Mr. Gardiner gave Darcy another long, concentrated look. When he spoke, however, it seemed to be on another topic entirely: “It was my niece who told you of this at Lambton; do I recall correctly?”
“Yes, Sir; before you and Mrs. Gardiner were returned that morning.”
Mr. Gardiner thought for a long moment. “Well,” he said, “I truly have no wish to disrupt the negotiations you have been at such pains to finalise, Mr. Darcy; however, while the terms thereof may be acceptable to Mr. Wickham, I cannot accept them; in particular, I find it wholly inappropriate that my brother Bennet should have no hand, suffer no hardship, in rescuing his daughter from her own folly.”
Darcy's Tale, Volume III_The Way Home Page 16
