Lessons of Advantage

by michael sand

  In this way, brother and sister were enabled to part, happy at least in the closeness of their attachment.

  Before dinner that day, Darcy informed the assembly gathered in the drawing-room, that Miss Bennet and her party would be unable to join them, a family event of some urgency having called them home. This announcement was met with great satisfaction by some of the party; but in Mr Bingley it was the cause of anxiety.

  “Did Darcy knew the nature of this emergency? — Had Miss Bennet given any hint? — Were any of Miss Bennet’s family unwell? Her parents — her sisters?”

  Darcy assured him that to his knowledge, all Miss Bennet’s relations were in health. In spite of the relief he then expressed, Bingley’s countenance bore a look of settled concern very different from its usual cheerfulness. It was not in Bingley’s nature to make a display of despondency, but Darcy could guess that Jane Bennet continued to influence his thoughts; and that he naturally would hide those thoughts from the friend who had persuaded him against pursuing the attachment. For some time, the recollection of his interference there had been the cause of increasing discomfort to Darcy. He could not at that moment open upon the subject to Bingley; but it afforded him another motive for his resolve, if more were needed: Lydia Bennet’s ruin would mean the ruin of Bingley’s hopes. No respectable man could attach himself to that family after such an event. But if he could compel Wickham to marry Lydia, Darcy might undo the harm his interference had caused. The relation with Wickham, which would make it impossible for him to connect himself with the Bennet family, would be no bar to Bingley.

  After dinner, Darcy drew Bingley aside, and enlisted his assistance on behalf of Georgiana. Bingley could not conceal his surprise “Of course, I shall do whatever you ask,” he said. “But this is very mysterious. What can be calling you up to town at this time of year?” But as Mr Darcy could offer no satisfactory explanation without revealing matters which must be kept secret, he was obliged to leave his friend in a most unsatisfactory state of darkness.

  When Darcy took his departure, early the following morning, the portrait of Elizabeth Bennet, carefully wrapt, had a place of honour in the carriage.

  Chapter Four

  Before setting out on his journey, Darcy had given thought to how Wickham and Lydia might be traced and their place of concealment discovered. If they were truly bound for Gretna Green, they might defy discovery; but Darcy was certain that Wickham would never marry Lydia except under compulsion. They had been traced almost to London — so Miss Bennet had told him; and as all London roads joined at Clapham, that was where his first inquiries must be pursuing. To Clapham, therefore, he directed his coach; and by sleeping only one night on the road, he was able to reach it by evening the following day. He set down at the Anchor Inn, the chief coaching establishment of the place; and having ordered dinner, he asked the landlord whether there had been any travellers come from Brighton the previous Saturday; in particular, a lady and a gentleman who might then have exchanged into a hackney coach. Before he could reply, the door opened, and a stout, red-faced lady bustled in, carrying a pair of candles, which she set down peremptorily on the table. “My dear,” said the landlord, “here is a gentleman asking about parties from Brighton.”

  “No end of folk seem to be asking about parties from Brighton,” said the landlady, with an angry glance at Mr Darcy.

  Guessing from her words that Mr Bennet might be pursuing the same line as himself, Darcy asked, “whether some other gentleman had called of late with similar inquiries?”

  “A gentleman was making inquiries — if you could call him a gentleman,” the landlady replied tartly. “That gentleman come into my house, and took it on himself to ask a great many impertinent questions. And what right he had to ask them, I’m sure I don’t know. What business was it of his? — or yours, neither, come to that!”

  Darcy explained that the situation was one of some delicacy. The gentleman was the young lady’s father, he himself a friend of the family. It was to be hoped that the young lady might be recovered before any serious evil was accruing, beyond what had already been lost on the side of character. At this, the landlady’s choler burst out in a new direction. — Why were there so many enemies to honest affection? If young people loved one another, why should not they marry?

  “You mistake the matter, Mrs Hodges,” said Darcy. “No-one is an enemy to honest affection. The young lady’s family are only anxious to be assured that marriage is intended. If it were learned that the young couple had taken coach for Scotland, for example, their inquiries might probably be dropping. But there is reason to believe that the gentleman has no such intention. It is feared that he has taken the young lady to London; — and I need not tell you what might befall her there.”

  “People have gotten married in London, before this,” Mrs Hodges declared, but with a shade less assurance.

  “Quite so, Madam, — but not so expeditiously as in Scotland, nor with so little expense. The gentleman has but little means at his disposal.”

  This intelligence was what struck Mr and Mrs Hodges forcibly. They stared, and the mouths of both fell open. Mr Hodges was the first to recover his voice. — “What could he mean? The gentleman looked to be very prosperous. — Every thing in the best style.”

  “It is possible to possess things in the best style without having paid for them, Mr Hodges. That gentleman, as you call him, has left debts behind him wherever he has gone.”

  “Heaven help us!” cried the landlady, sinking onto a chair. “Twenty pounds he had off of us — and give us his note of hand. Show him, Hodges! The beggarly rascal! — cheating decent people!” With a shaking hand, Mr Hodges drew out a paper from his pocket. It was a note, written in a flourishing script which Darcy recognized: a few lines directing the —— Bank of Lombard-street to pay to the bearer, &c. &c. Surely this gentleman did not mean to say — was not intending to imply — Default was such a dreadful word; the landlord could hardly bring himself to utter it.

  Mr Darcy returned the paper. “He was sorry to cause Mr and Mrs Hodges concern, but to the best of his knowledge, the subscriber was not known at that bank.”

  What an outcry was then mounting! Mr Hodges groaned, while his wife alternately hurled imprecations on the head of the man who could blithely defraud honest publicans, and berated her husband for being a trusting fool. Darcy calmed the storm by offering to discharge the debt, if Mr Hodges would endorse the bill over to himself. In an instant, the tide of popularity turned against Mr Wickham and in favour of Mr Darcy. The Hodgeses could neither of them thank the one gentleman fast enough, nor blacken the reputation of the other in sufficiently damning language. Mr Darcy then repeated his inquiry, whether anything was known of how “the monster and his prey” (to use Mrs Hodges’ terminology) had left the inn, and whither they had gone. The landlady vowed that he should have the intelligence that instant, if any was to be had. “Boots should be fetched up! Boots would know, if any one did.” The landlord quitted the room; but soon returned, followed by a short man in a leather apron, who gave off a rich scent of blacking. “This gentleman has some questions,” said the landlady. “See you tell him what he wants to know. Come along, Hodges, you needn’t stand gawking. There’s the gentleman’s dinner to be getting.”

  The bootblack declared himself at Mr Darcy’s service. He knew the party the gentleman meant, remembered them perfectly. Lady and gentleman, arrived from Brighton by chaise. — “Did the boots know where they had continued on to?” — Boots did: they had stepped into a hackney bound for London. Now came the material point. “Could he remember the number of the hackney, or any other particular by which it could be traced?”

  That rather depended, the bootblack said, on whether the gentleman was prepared to turn a blind eye. Cabmen sometimes picked up fares without informing their proprietors, especially when they would be making a return journey empty. Boots was eager to help out a gentleman as liberal as the gentleman had shewed himself to be, but he did not want to
get his friend, the driver, into trouble. If the gentleman would condescend to give his word —

  Darcy had acknowledged that he would have to stoop to base measures, and he could not complain of it now; he must ignore the disgust this participation in corruption was giving rise to. No sacrifice, either of esteem or principle, nor even of his feelings as a gentleman, must be allowed to deflect him from his goal. He therefore promised that he should do nothing to bring the cabman to evil notice. The bootblack then told Mr Darcy the hackney’s number, and where he might be found. Another thought was then starting. —“Had this intelligence been imparted to the other gentleman who had made inquiry?” — If Mr Bennet were to be pursuing the same line as himself, their paths might cross. Mr Darcy wanted to avoid a meeting at all costs: any encounter must lead to awkward questions, and even more awkward explanations.

  “T’other gentleman? — Oh, no, Sir! — (with a decided shake of the head.) —He didn’t learn nothing here. Bit of a pepper pot, he was — begging your pardon. Popped his questions out very smart, and without so much as a by-your-leave. Missus took against him.”

  Mr Darcy had no difficulty in apprehending, that any one ‘Missus’ had taken against would learn nothing to the purpose at the Anchor Inn.

  When Darcy had resolved upon tracking Wickham down, wherever he might be hiding in the vast obscurity of London, he had been in possession of a clue which he believed should enable him to succeed in his quest. He doubted whether any of Wickham’s former town acquaintance would afford him refuge now. The fashionable set, in which he had once sought to travel, would coolly cut a man who had lost his fortune — for fear lest losing fortunes should prove contagious; but there was a person to whom Wickham might turn, one whom his crime would not shock, and whose ill-opinion he need not fear — Mrs Younge! Who so fit, who so likely to take in the runaway, and give asylum to the seducer, as his erstwhile accomplice? But how was Mrs Younge to be found? Where was she to be looked for? Here a piece of information which had come Darcy’s way by chance, might be of use: a report of Mrs Younge’s being reduced to taking in lodgers in one of the meaner parts of town. One of his London footmen had passed on the intelligence, disguising his satisfaction with the lady’s downfall under a pretence of commiseration. — “Poor Mrs Younge, as always held her head up so high, — come to this!” Mrs Younge’s letting rooms made it the more likely that Wickham would seek accommodation with her. Let him only gain some hint of where the fugitives had directed themselves, and Darcy would canvass every house in the quarter till he had discovered them!

  In the event, Mr Darcy was not required to undertake so arduous a proceeding. The hackney driver had proved as taciturn, when first encountered, as the boots had been talkative; but a promise of silence, together with the offer of half-a-crown, soon loosened his tongue. He had driven Mr Darcy through a maze of byways behind Soho-square, pulling up in a street of dingy private houses, once fashionable, but now sunk from their former glory. Here, he said, his passengers had alighted: he had handed down their boxes, received his fare, and driven off. “Which house had his passengers entered?” The cabman didn’t know — couldn’t say — hadn’t stayed to find out. Nor did he wait on the present occasion, but pocketing the stipulated reward, whipped up his horses, and galloped off round the corner.

  Darcy stood surveying the street, and observing the many houses whose doors bore notices of lodgings to let. He had no doubt that he would find his quarry behind one of them. It only remained to determine which house belonged to Mrs Younge’s. Looking round for some one to whom to apply, Darcy had immediate choice of an apple-seller crying his wares, a small boy on a donkey with a parcel to deliver, and a groom exercising a horse in the mews at the end of the street. This last seemed the most likely to be knowledgeable about the inhabitants From him, Mr Darcy learned that Mrs Younge’s house was in the middle of the row.”

  Now that the moment had arrived, Darcy felt a degree of nervousness. Wickham he could face without a qualm; but he must first brave Mrs Younge, who guarded the entrance, like a female Cerberus, and the memory of how he had allowed her to flatter and deceive him continued a source of shame. However, it must be done. Mounting the steps, Darcy knocked sharply on the door. It was opened by a slatternly girl, who led him into a small and dingy parlour. “He wished to see Mrs Younge — the maid was just to announce ‘a gentleman.’” While she went off to seek her mistress, Mr Darcy stood with his back to the door, pretending to inspect a picture. He was still inspecting it, when the door opened, and he heard a familiar voice say in an accent of ingratiating gentility —

  “You wished to see me, Sir? But if you are come to inquire about lodging, I fear I shall be unable to oblige you. At present all my rooms are — Oh! (as she recognized whom she was addressing) — Mr Darcy! I had not known it was you!” Then, throwing greater coldness into her manner, “To what did she owe the honour of this visit?”

  Darcy thought that there was little enough honour in the case; but he only said, “Would you be so kind as to inform Mr Wickham that I should like the opportunity of a private interview.”

  It did not accord with politeness to turn away, as Darcy did at that moment; but he could not hide his disgust at being obliged to ask even so small a favour of Mrs Younge. That lady might be pardoned for taking offence. “You are quite mistaken, Mr Darcy,” she replied, swelling with disdain. “The gentleman whose name you have mentioned, is not under this roof. I am sure I have not the least idea why you should think he is. — However, that is nothing to me. And now, if there is nothing else — ”

  Mrs Younge’s triumph was unmistakable; and though Darcy wished to disbelieve in the truth of what she said, a moment’s thought convinced him that she would not so securely deny Wickham’s being in the house, if he might be appearing at any moment to confute her assertion. The impetus which had been driving him ever since his departure from Derbyshire had now received its first check, and for a space he was at a loss how to proceed. Then inspiration showed him what must have happened. Wickham had arrived in Edward-street, — had expected to find shelter there; and Mrs Younge had been unable to receive him, from the occupation of her rooms; had been compelled to send him away. But she might probably know where he was to be found. She would never reveal this of her own accord, however. He had weapons enough to threaten Wickham with, but none that would work upon her. With a sinking heart, Darcy perceived that he should have to bribe and suborn her to betray her confederate. Overcoming with an effort his disgust at the base measures he must therefore employ —

  “I shall intrude my presence on you as briefly as possible, madam,” he said. “I accept your word that Mr Wickham is not in the house; but it is possible that his whereabouts are known to you. If so, you may believe me when I say that it will be to your interest, (stressing the word significantly,) to impart the intelligence to me.”

  For some moments, Mrs Younge regarded the other in a cold and offended silence. Then,

  “I am surprised, Mr Darcy,” she began, “that you should have the audacity to be coming to me, — that you should be asking me for favours after the injury you have done me. To dismiss me from your employment as you did, without a character, and without allowing me a single word in my own defence! — And when I consider that I met Mr Wickham under your roof, and in circumstances which seemed to shew that he had your countenance — How was I to know your prejudice against him? Miss Darcy gave me to understand that Mr Wickham had grown up in your house, under the special protection of your father, — almost a member of your family. Was I at fault if she wished to recognize the connection — if she chose to be at home to Mr Wickham, to allow his attentions? — But it was easier to punish me for your sister’s improprieties.”

  Mr Darcy received this outpouring (whose purpose was as much to justify its fabricator as to impose upon him) with the greatest indignation. — That Mrs Younge should ascribe to Georgiana the tainted views of her own corrupted mind! His heart swelled; but he restrained himself wi
th an effort. The practice of bribery had been repellent enough; he now saw that a greater price was to be extorted than one of mere money. But he had vowed to repair the harm he had done, and he would do so, even at the expense of his pride. It cost him a struggle to maintain the appearance of composure; and as he would not open his lips till he had attained it, it was some moments before he could speak.

  “I beg your pardon, Mrs Younge,” he said at last, in grave, measured tones, “if my actions caused you unwarranted suffering. If the accusations I made were false, — if my censures undeserved, — if the blame misplaced, then I am truly sorry. Self-deception is very common among mankind. I believe we are all capable of deceiving ourselves about the disinterestedness of our motives.”

  Mrs Younge’s satisfaction in seeing Mr Darcy thus (metaphorically) at her feet, made her slow to forgive; and it was some time before she unbent her reserve so far as to indicate that she might be prepared to accept his apology — whose flattery she found gratifying, though she was happily deaf to the Delphic nature of its utterances: all of which might be true, without having the slightest application to herself.

  Mr Darcy felt that he might now return to the business still pending. “If Mrs Younge would allow him to refer to the subject of Mr Wickham once again,” he began. He believed that Mr Wickham had arrived on her doorstep the previous Sunday, unexpected and unannounced, and that she had refused to receive him into her house for the best of reasons — because she had not wanted it to become the scene of infamy. “For Mr Wickham did not arrive alone. He had with him a young lady, with whom he had eloped when he absconded from his regiment.” Naturally, Mrs Younge had wished to avoid countenancing impropriety; but it would be blameless in her if, as a friend, she had been willing to assist Mr Wickham to the extent of helping him find other accommodation. Mr Darcy hoped that Mrs Younge had done so, because in that event, it would be in her power to perform an action which would be of benefit to more people than herself.