The Portrait of Elizabeth

by Jane Angwin

  "I have found his behavior quite odd though, Mr. Bingley. He stares at me as if he is displeased, and he says nothing at all when he is in our company. Then, without any explanation, he can be very charming and acts quite the gentleman. I cannot at all determine what he is about. "

  "Yes, Miss Elizabeth, you are right on both counts. Darcy is a complicated man, but it is mainly because when his parents both died, he was thrust into a position of grave responsibility at a very young age, and much is expected of him. He is the heir to one of the largest estates in all of England, and he also is guardian of his young sister. You have just made his acquaintance and have undoubtedly observed his reticence to easily converse, but he is merely uncomfortable being with people he is not well acquainted with. And as for the other side of his personality, I am probably his closest friend next to his cousin, Richard, and I have never known him to be anything but a gentleman. I see no reason why he would have taken a dislike to you, Miss Elizabeth. Quite the contrary, I must say!"

  "What do you mean, Mr. Bingley? I do not understand your meaning."

  "I only meant to say that I have never seen my friend smile at a woman the way he did with you today. Darcy usually wears a mask of aloofness and disinterest whenever he meets a woman. He is extremely careful to not give any indication of interest or it will heighten the lady's expectations and be the talk of the town the following day."

  "Well, we are not in town, Mr. Bingley, and I doubt if anyone noticed him smiling today." Little did she know that Mr. Wickham had noticed.

  They arrived at Longbourn, and Bingley bade her goodbye and asked her to give his regards to her sister. "Jane or Mary, Mr. Bingley?" she teased. This time, he smiled at her but blushed once again. "Thank you for escorting us home, Mr. Bingley. I will look forward to having you join us for dinner this evening." Just then she noticed Jane looking down at them from her bedroom window. "Oh, look! There is Jane! She is looking quite well now, don't you think?" Bingley looked up and saw Jane, who was staring down at him. She smiled and gave him a small wave, and Bingley waved back at her, grinning like a fool. Elizabeth allowed them to have their romantic moment, but she heard a very loud and shrill voice coming from somewhere upstairs, and she knew that Jane was about to be joined by her mother. "Thank you again, Mr. Bingley. I must say goodbye." She glanced up and noted that Jane had left her spot in the window, and Mr. Bingley reluctantly turned away, returning to Netherfield.

  ****

  "Darcy, what in the world happened to you today?" Bingley met him as he entered the house and Darcy was walking to the library. "I must say, I have never seen you react quite like that before, old man! I learned from Miss Elizabeth that the soldier who was there is George Wickham, your late steward's son. Isn't he the ne'er-do-well that was at Cambridge when we were there? I know that you don't particularly care for him, but I have never known you to react so brusquely."

  Darcy bristled and asked, "Did he speak to Miss Elizabeth after I left? Did you hear anything that he said to her?" Darcy was much more agitated than Bingley had ever seen before, and it was obvious that something grave had occurred that he was not aware of. "If he was inappropriate with her, I will kill him." Darcy paced back and forth in the library, talking out loud. "That reprobate must be stopped. If he lays one finger on Elizabeth I will shoot him myself." Darcy didn't realize that he had spoken these words aloud and had called Elizabeth by her Christian name. Darcy had never expressed such emotional words about a woman, and it was now eminently clear to Bingley that Darcy must have feelings for her.

  "Yes, Darcy, he did speak to Miss Elizabeth. I must tell you that although I only heard some of it, what I did hear was highly inappropriate. He apparently had disparaging things to say about you, but she was rather surprised that he related such private things to a perfect stranger, and I don't believe she accepted all of his words."

  Darcy was now seething with anger. How was it possible that this man had entered his life again to hurt the people he cared for. He had to be stopped. After the abomination with Georgiana and the pain Wickham had caused her, he had to make sure that Mr. Bennett was made aware of his treachery. If anything happened to Elizabeth or any of her sisters, he would never be able to forgive himself.

  "I must go to Longbourn immediately" he declared to Bingley. "I must speak to Mr. Bennett and warn him about Wickham. I fear that he will once again hurt someone near and dear to me to get his revenge."

  "Alright, Darcy. You have not shared with me why he would seek revenge, and I know not who he has hurt in the past, but it sounds quite dire. Perhaps you can enlighten me before we arrive at Longbourn so that I am aware of what we are dealing with." Bingley knew that Darcy would only share what was absolutely necessary, but he hoped that it would answer some of his questions. The most burning question he had was when did Darcy become infatuated with Elizabeth, but he knew that he would not get that answer. At least not yet.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  A warning to Mr. Bennett

  As Elizabeth entered her house, she could still hear her mother's hysterical voice upstairs. Instead of facing her mother again, she knocked on her father's study door, and he allowed her to enter. "Papa, I can still hear Mama wailing upstairs. I am so sorry to have caused such a problem for our family. I know that I should be willing to help our mother by marrying Mr. Collins, but I simply cannot do so. I have been thinking about what I can do now to help dissipate some of Mother's anger and the angst in our home, and I feel that it would be best if I go away for awhile. Aunt Madeline wrote to me and asked if I would like to join them on a trip they have planned to the Peaks and the Lake Region, and I would very much like to write back to her to see if I might go with them."

  "Well, I do agree that your mother will carry on like this until she finds something else to lament about, but I dislike the fact that you feel forced to leave home over this ridiculousness. I plan to tell Mr. Collins that he has to leave right away, and that will eliminate some of your discomfort. And perhaps, if we are lucky, your mother will eventually settle back down to her normal hysterical behavior." He laughed at his admission about his wife's peculiarities.

  "No, Papa. I feel that Mr. Bingley will soon express his desire to court Jane, and that will hopefully help to stop Mother's mad obsession of having Collins marry one of us, but it is much more than that. Mother has disliked me for a long time, and my refusal to marry Mr. Collins to save her future has greatly deepened her resentment. It is best that I go away for a little while. I will miss you terribly, but having me out of the house will hopefully decrease Mother's anxiety, and one less female in this house could be a good thing for you, Papa!" She got up and kissed his cheek. "I will go and write to Aunt Madeline and prepare for my trip." As she turned to leave, she said "And Papa, please keep a close watch over Lydia in my absence. As you know, she is enthralled with the militia, and one soldier in particular has caught her eye. I witnessed her improper flirtatious behavior with him, and he was entirely too familiar with her and did not act as a gentleman should with a young, naive girl. He was also quite familiar with me, and I made it clear that I did not appreciate it, but Lydia did nothing of the sort. I fear that he will take advantage of her if she is not watched carefully."

  "What is this soldier's name, Lizzy?" Thomas asked.

  "His name is George Wickham, Papa. Perhaps you can speak to Mr. Darcy about him as they have a history together, and please do not allow Lydia to further her association with him." She turned and left the room, hoping that her father would attempt to curtail Lydia's freedom.

  Not long after she left his study, Mrs. Hill announced that Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley were there to speak to him. "Send them in, please" he said. Darcy entered his study and Mr. Bingley followed behind. "Good afternoon, gentlemen. Please, have a seat." He motioned to two chairs near his desk and pulled out his bottle of brandy. "Would you care for a drink with me?" They agreed, and he poured three glasses and shared them with his visitors. "Now to what do I owe the pleasure of
this visit?" He sat back in his chair with a quizzical look on his face, although he felt certain it had something to do with the soldier that Elizabeth had told him about.

  "Sir," Darcy began, "Thank you for seeing us. There is a matter of grave importance that I need to discuss with you. I have learned today that there is a militia soldier here in Meryton that I have a history with, and I must take the liberty of informing you about him to protect your daughters." He looked down at the brandy in his hand and was silent for a moment. "His name is George Wickham, and he and I grew up together on my parents' estate in Derbyshire. He was the son of my father's steward, and as we were the same age, my parents allowed him to spend a great deal of time with me, even including him in my studies with my teachers. He was a gregarious and charming boy, with a personality that entertained and delighted all who knew him, but from an early age I knew him to use those attributes in a rather manipulative and cunning manner, much to his advantage. In time it turned much darker into a deviousness that my parents did not realize. He also made no secret of his resentment toward me and the life that he felt should be his, and he found ways to pin the blame for his exploits on me."

  Darcy felt quite uncomfortable sharing such personal memories, but he knew that Mr. Bennett needed to hear the seriousness of Wickham's threat to his family. He took a sip of the brandy that he had been holding, and continued. "As we grew older, Wickham's interest in females became paramount in his mind. He bragged to me about his exploits, and there were many servant girls as well as girls from the nearby village that mysteriously disappeared. I was well aware that it was George that had ruined their virtue, and that they had to leave Derbyshire for obvious reasons, but George felt no remorse and simply continued his shameful behavior."

  Thomas shook his head. "Didn't you inform your father about his antics?"

  "I did at first, Sir. But for some reason, even when presented with proof, my father would not acknowledge George's bad behavior. I believe he thought George was just a prankster with a penchant for mischief and that I was wrong to malign him, so quite frankly, I just stopped going to him about George's schemes and crimes."

  "I assume that since you are here to enlighten me about this man, Mr. Darcy, that his behavior has not improved."

  "No, Sir, it has not. When our steward became quite ill, and we knew that his days were few, my father promised him that he would take care of George and his education, and he sponsored him to attend Cambridge with me. As Bingley here will attest to, George was quite wild at school and there were many similar scandals and rumors that followed him there."

  "Bingley nodded his head, adding "Yes, I do remember that he had quite a reputation for his dishonorable lifestyle. He drank and gambled and caroused his way through school, but he somehow managed to graduate. I was in lower grade classes than him, but having become friends with Darcy, I was privy to a lot of the tales that surrounded Wickham."

  "What I don't understand is with an education from Cambridge, why has he not amounted to more than being a low paid soldier in the Militia?" Mr. Bennett inquired. "It seems that he could have certainly found an honorable profession and made something more of himself."

  Darcy took a deep breath and continued. "Yes, that is what I have been leading up to. Wickham believed that he was in line to receive a large sum of money from my father when he died, and he did little to better himself in the meantime. He still received an allowance from my father, but he drank and gambled it away, and he mounted great debts wherever he went. When the time came that my father did pass away, George learned that instead of providing monetary resources for him, my father had instead designated a living to him to go into the church when the position at Pemberley became available. George was quite incensed that there was no pecuniary gift, and not being at all suited for a life in the church, he came to me and demanded the monetary value of the living instead. I knew that the church was no place for him, so I agreed. I even added to the amount in order to make him promise that he would never return to Pemberley, and he took the money and left. It was a substantial amount of money that should have lasted for a long, long time, but in only three years time he was back, demanding the living in the church after all. I, of course, declined, reminding him of his promise to me, and in anger he left, vehemently threatening revenge."

  "This is quite an account, Mr. Darcy. Is this the first time you have seen him since then?" Mr. Bennett asked.

  "No, Sir. There is much more to the story that I am not at the liberty of disclosing to you, but let it be said that he attempted to hurt someone I know well to get back at me, and it nearly had a tragic ending. I was able to stop the reprehensible plot, but that person is still suffering, and I refuse to allow Wickham to repeat his deplorable behavior with the ladies in your family. And even worse, I fear that he now knows that I am acquainted with your daughters, and he may attempt revenge on me again by hurting one of them. I will soon leave Hertfordshire, but before I do, I wanted to make you aware of his sordid history to protect your daughters."

  "Thank you for this warning, Mr. Darcy, although I am already aware of this man's arrival in Meryton. My daughter, Lizzy has told me about their meeting in town today, and I trust her conclusion that he is someone to watch carefully." He shifted in his chair and continued, "My youngest daughter, Lydia is quite gripped by the romantic idea of the red coats for some reason, and it is my concern that she will not discourage his advances should he attempt to seduce her. This is grave indeed."

  Darcy took a deep breath and said "I should also add that he will undoubtedly attempt to impress the townsfolk with his charm and convincing ability to deceive, and I also think you should notify the shopkeepers in Meryton that they should not extend him credit. He will not repay them."

  The men thanked Mr. Bennett for the audience and said they would return in an hour for dinner. Mr. Bennett welcomed them to stay until dinner if they wished, and he escorted them to the sitting room where Jane and Mary were embroidering. Charles did not try to hide his delight when Jane saw him and smiled. "Good afternoon Miss Bennett, Miss Mary," he said. He and Darcy bowed and waited for Mr. Bennett to speak.

  "Perhaps you would like to take a turn around the garden, ladies," he said. Mary looked quite miserable at the prospect of being in Mr. Darcy's company while her sister and Mr. Bingley were undoubtedly only interested in each other, but she did not wish to be rude. As they moved to the front hall, Elizabeth descended the stairs, and Mary seized the opportunity to ask Lizzy to replace her due to a pressing matter she had to see to upstairs. Lizzy knew that this was a falsehood, but it was too awkward to decline, so she agreed to accompany Mr. Darcy outside to properly chaperone her sister and Mr. Bingley. She was hopeful that she could somehow learn a bit more about the mysterious encounter with Mr. Wickham earlier in the day.

  Darcy politely extended his arm to Elizabeth, and she self-consciously accepted his offer, placing her hand gently on the crook of his arm. As they walked, without thinking, he placed his hand on top of her hand, and she felt a warmth course through her that made her blush. She looked down at his hand on her hand, and then looked up at him and their eyes locked. They both quickly looked away, and Darcy removed his hand, realizing his mistake, but once again, each one had definitely felt something happen during that brief moment. They walked in silence, allowing Bingley and Jane to go on ahead. Once she had sufficiently recovered from her improper feelings, and as soon as she felt it was acceptable, she said, " I couldn't help but notice Mr. Darcy that you were not at all pleased to see our new acquaintance, Mr. Wickham this morning. I must admit that after you left in such a hurry, for some reason he chose to relate the nature of your relationship to me. I cannot fathom why he decided to share such intimacies with me."

  "Mr. Wickham has a very easy time making new friends, Miss Elizabeth, but I daresay he has a difficult time keeping them. I would advise you and your sisters to keep your distance from him. He is not an honorable man."

  "That is quite a coincidence
, Mr. Darcy, as he said the very same thing about you! I wonder how a lady should go about determining which of you is telling the truth!" Elizabeth gave him a saucy grin and thought it was quite witty of her, but when she saw Darcy's face turn into a scowl, she realized that this was no laughing matter. "I do apologize, Sir, if I have said something to displease you. I was simply trying to make light of something that is obviously nothing to trifle with."

  Darcy stopped walking and turned to look at her. She removed her hand from his arm and took a small step backward, as his eyes had turned dark, and she was afraid he was going to lash out at her for her misguided remark. "Miss Elizabeth, I realize that you may not have a favorable impression of me based on my poor manners at our first meeting at Netherfield, as well as my inexplicable rudeness this morning in Meryton, but I must implore you to heed my warning regarding Mr. Wickham." He began pacing in front of her, deep in thought and then stopped in front of her and began again. "I am unsure what he related to you regarding my relationship with him, but it is imperative that you not believe his lies. I do not wish to adopt the same improper behavior as he did by telling you the intimate details about our past, but I sincerely hope you can believe me when I tell you that you or any one of your sisters could be in danger of potential ruination if you allow him to deceive you. I have had a long and difficult relationship with Mr. Wickham, and I know of many such occurrences with other ladies, and would not wish to have you harmed as I have seen happen to others."