Sorrow and Second Chances

by E Bradshaw

  “He has not given a false impression,” argued Lydia, though there was no mistaking the note of doubt which had crept into her voice.

  “Well, let me tell you the secret that Mr Wickham speaks of – and which he thinks to extort money from me in order to keep – and then you can make up your own mind as to what sort of man he truly is,” Darcy responded in a grave tone.

  At first, Wickham had merely looked scornful in response to Darcy’s words, but as Darcy went further and stated that he actually intended to reveal his sister’s secret, Wickham’s face spread with an apprehensive sneer. “What?” he jeered; “you actually mean to tell her all, and in doing so, blacken your precious family reputation?”

  “Yes,” replied Darcy with more calmness than he actually felt; “I will tell her, if it means that she can be freed from your dishonourable ambitions.”

  Seeing that Darcy was truly in earnest, Wickham abruptly tried to change his tactics. “Come, Miss Bennet,” he cajoled in an insistent tone, as he attempted to take her hand in his and tuck it under his arm; “we have tarried here too long already, and I for one am bored of Darcy’s meddling. It was an amusing diversion at first, but I have no wish to stay here and listen to another of his pompous sermons!”

  As Wickham spoke, he turned away from Darcy and attempted to pull Lydia along with him, but to his surprise, Lydia’s expression grew mutinous all of a sudden and she determinedly dug in her heels to resist his tugging. “No,” she protested; “I want to stay and hear what Mr Darcy has to say! If you’ve nothing to hide, then you will not mind him telling me his secret.”

  Wickham rolled his eyes and a look of angry impatience crossed his face, before he quickly schooled his expression once more into a mask of amiability. “Very well,” he shrugged, as he attempted an attitude of nonchalance, “I will indulge Darcy on this occasion, since it pleases you. But I caution you, my dear, that Darcy can’t speak a word of truth and he hates me so much that every word he utters about me is solely aimed at blackening my reputation.”

  “I could well say the same about you, Wickham,” retorted Darcy darkly.

  Lydia tutted with frustration at the two of them and so, with some difficulty, Darcy swallowed down his feelings of rage and instead turned to address her directly.

  “Firstly, can I ask, what do you believe Mr Wickham’s intentions are towards you?” Darcy asked her, as he inwardly wondered how far their secretive courtship had already advanced.

  Lydia blushed at the directness of his question, which in itself gave Darcy enough reason to be concerned.

  “Mr Darcy,” she admonished him, “it is not gentlemanly to discuss such matters so openly, nor for you to ask me such a direct question!”

  Darcy could not help but roll his eyes to himself; it was not the first time that one of the Bennet sisters had called him ungentlemanly – but at least on this occasion, the rebuke caused him no pain. “I beg your pardon,” he responded with laboured patience, “but I ask such a question, Lydia, because I am concerned about you. I am soon to be your brother, and therefore I feel it is my duty and my right to protect you. You have never had a brother before, but I intend to treat you in just the same way as I do my own sister – and I think that Mr Wickham knows this very well.”

  “Whatever do you mean?” asked Lydia guilelessly.

  “Only that Mr Wickham knows full well that I take my responsibilities very seriously – and so I believe that, given the chance, he would take full advantage of my ties to your family to once again attempt to extort money from me.”

  “It is always the same with you, Darcy,” interrupted Wickham with a scornful laugh; “you make everything about money! Miss Lydia knows full well that my feelings for her are real – no matter what you might try to say to the contrary.”

  “Oh, yes?” retorted Darcy dubiously. “So your ultimate intentions were to marry Lydia, were they?”

  “Yes, of course he intends to marry me!” exclaimed Lydia hotly, clearly moved by her sense of loyalty to defend Wickham. “Indeed, he is so eager that he even spoke of us running away together!”

  Darcy looked at her sharply in response to such a disturbing admission, and Lydia blushed a deep shade of crimson as she belatedly realised what she had just revealed.

  “Though I had not yet agreed to his idea,” she excused sheepishly.

  “I am very glad to hear it,” responded Darcy solemnly. “For no honourable man would speak to a young woman of elopement. Instead, he would speak directly to her father about his intentions and would court her openly and honestly.”

  “You are mistaken, my dear,” Wickham corrected Lydia through gritted teeth; “I did not speak to you of elopement. I was simply expressing the ardency of my feelings for you, and you imagined the rest!”

  Lydia looked hurt and confused by Wickham’s denial, and Darcy quickly thought to take advantage of her sudden doubts about him – and by doing so, give her an insight into Wickham’s real intentions.

  “And so how were you to live?” he asked Lydia pointedly. “If you and Mr Wickham had run away together to be married, how would you have afforded accommodation, and everything else that a married couple needs?”

  “I don’t know,” Lydia answered hesitantly. “I thought that Mr Wickham would know about such things; I thought he would provide everything.”

  “I am afraid that an officer’s pay does not stretch as far as you might imagine, Lydia,” replied Darcy in a gentle tone. “And from my experience, Wickham’s income is no doubt even less than the average officer’s, since he usually fritters it away at the gaming tables. There would have been very little left over to provide you with suitable lodgings, with clothes, or even with the basic necessities of food and home comforts. Consider how you live now under your father’s care and compare that with the life that you would have had living on such a small income. The reality is that you would have been very poor.”

  “But I don’t care about money!” exclaimed Lydia forcefully. “I love Mr Wickham for himself; I was not thinking of trying to marry for a fortune!”

  “You see, Darcy?” interjected Wickham smugly; “I do not need a fortune to attract love, as you do.”

  Despite the provocation of Wickham’s words and his maddeningly smug expression, Darcy once again resisted the overwhelming urge to throttle Wickham. Instead, knowing that Lydia needed to comprehend the truth of Wickham’s depraved character for herself, he determinedly focussed himself on staying calm and gave Lydia his entire attention.

  “Besides,” she continued on a brighter note, “Wickham said we would not struggle for money.”

  “Oh, yes,” Darcy replied quietly, “and why was that?”

  Darcy suspected that he already knew the shameful reality behind Lydia’s guileless comment, but he wanted to have Lydia repeat Wickham’s scheming words out loud. He wanted her to comprehend for herself just how mercenary and calculating Wickham truly was. And indeed, it was clear that Lydia had begun to understand that Wickham’s words had been immoral, for she blushed once again and looked ashamed as she answered.

  “He said that you would be generous to us,” she admitted contritely. “He said that you would not wish to see his sister-in-law suffer any hardship, and that Lizzy and Jane would always be kind to us. He said that you would come to regret your treatment of him and that you would pay to protect your family’s honour.”

  Darcy slowly breathed in and then out again as he grimly endeavoured to hold onto his self-control. It was patently obvious to him that Wickham had once again plotted against him, using Lydia as his pawn, to try yet again to extort a fortune from him. No doubt Wickham had planned to elope with Lydia and then shame her, and would only have agreed to marry her in return for a large settlement from himself. Darcy wondered if Lydia had understood anything of what Wickham had planned, or whether, in her naivety and feelings of utter infatuation for the treacherous snake, she had truly thought that he and Wickham would be reconciled after her marriage had taken place. If
so, she was about to be rudely enlightened with the truth.

  “I did not put it quite like that,” interjected Wickham, clearly feeling uneasy that his scheme had been so patently laid bare.

  “Of course you said it like that!” snapped Darcy. “And no doubt you intended to get as much from me as you could! It is always the same with you,” he added bitterly; “you never could apply yourself to trying to earn an honest living. Instead you spend all your time and energy plotting over how you can win or cheat a living out of others.”

  Darcy’s words had obviously touched a nerve, for Wickham’s mood quickly soured. “You owe me, Darcy!” he suddenly exploded. “I shouldn’t have to live like this! I shouldn’t have to endure a life of monotonous drills, of taking orders, of eking out a living in the mud and dust! I was supposed to be given an inheritance by your father so I could have lived an independent life! I had it all secured; I felt sure that your father had left me a generous settlement – but somehow, by the time his final Will was read out, it turned out that he had left me nothing but a pitiful rectory living! It must have been you!” he exclaimed, as he angrily jabbed a finger at Darcy’s chest. “You must have persuaded him to change his mind!”

  “I assure you,” retorted Darcy in a cold tone, “I had no idea of my father’s intentions of bestowing you with a living in the church. If I had, I would have tried to persuade him out of it, knowing full well how ill-suited you would have been to such a virtuous lifestyle.”

  Wickham snorted with open disbelief; it was obvious that he did not believe Darcy’s protestations, though Darcy did not care a fig for Wickham’s opinions. Instead, his concern was wholly for Lydia, who was quietly watching the two of them with a look of complete bewilderment.

  “So, this is why you swore revenge on me,” Darcy accused. “This is why you have constantly plotted against me and tried over and over again to blackmail me for money! You felt you were owed an inheritance of your own, and you could not reconcile yourself to living without it!”

  “Why should I?” challenged Wickham. “Your father loved me, encouraged me, and had me educated alongside all the other young heirs of the land. It seemed obvious that he intended me for greatness; that he was raising me to have higher expectations than my birth had provided me with. But you were always in the way! If not for you, I could have had it all! I could have had an inheritance, a proper place in the world!”

  “You are forgetting that I was his legitimate son,” Darcy retorted in a sarcastic tone; “I wasn’t simply ‘in the way,’ as you put it. My father was a kind man; he was forever doing charitable things for those people whom he considered to be within the realm of his responsibility. I assure you, he thought of you in just the same way, and he only encouraged your friendship with me because I had no brothers or close friends to play with. But for all his kindness, it does not mean – it never meant – that he intended to do more for you than he did. It was your own delusion that made you believe that you were going to inherit more.”

  Wickham said nothing in response, for it was entirely clear that he was too angry to do so. Instead, he abruptly marched away from the two of them and kicked out in a frustrated manner at a nearby tree.

  “But now I see,” continued Darcy to Wickham’s turned back; “it is all so clear now. This is why you have always hated me so much; this is why you tried to elope with my sister. You wanted to get your hands on what you considered to be your share of the Darcy inheritance, in whatever way you could. It did not matter to you that my sister was a naive girl of only fifteen years old; it did not matter to you that she was vulnerable and had no mother or father to give her guidance. You did not care how may lies you told her in order to persuade her to fall in love with you – or that you left her broken hearted when you abandoned her after I discovered the plot.”

  The sound of Lydia gasping softly behind him made Darcy turn around to look at her. He knew he was taking a great risk in telling her of such a damaging family secret, but he could think of no other way to convince her of Wickham’s true deviousness. And indeed, Lydia’s eyes were round with shock at the revelations that Darcy had just exposed about his sister and Wickham – and knowing full well that she was about to be heartbroken herself, he determinedly focussed his attention on her instead. Wickham could go hang for all he cared.

  “Yes,” Darcy said to her in a gentle tone, “this is the family secret that I spoke of – and that Wickham has just threatened to expose unless I bribe him for his silence. Last summer, when Georgiana was the same age as you, Wickham persuaded her to elope with him – and it was only by sheer chance that I happened to discover the plot before it was too late. My poor sister was convinced that he loved her, but he quickly abandoned her when he realised that he would gain nothing from me. His affection for her was entirely dependent on her fortune, and it was very hard on my sister when she finally came to understand that. She had been completely taken in by him, and it took her a long time to recover from her ordeal.”

  Wickham turned back to them then with an impatient wave of his hand. “You exaggerate, Darcy!” he exclaimed irritably. “It was only a little flirtation! If your sister believed there was any more to it than that, then that was her down to her own fanciful imagination! I cannot help it if she let her emotions run wild!”

  Wickham’s flippant dismissal of Georgiana’s suffering took Darcy to the very edge of his control, and consequently his voice was more of a growl as he responded. “How dare you!” he snapped – and despite his resolution to keep his temper in check, he took several rapid steps forward in order to glare straight into Wickham’s face. “How can you stand there and deny what you did? How can you pretend ignorance of how your lies and deceit hurt my sister? Even for you, Wickham, this is low!”

  However, if Darcy had been hoping for an answer, he was to be disappointed, for Wickham instead attempted to evade the subject. “I am sick of your accusations!” he burst out. “I will hear no more of this!” And with this, he turned with an impatient expression to address Lydia. “Will you come, Miss Bennet?” he demanded. “For I will not stand to hear any more of this slander from Darcy.”

  But clearly, something of what Darcy had been alleging had finally got through to Lydia, for she looked very troubled by what she had heard, and she refused to budge when Wickham attempted to take her with him. “Wickham, is this true?” she asked him. “Did you ask Mr Darcy’s sister to elope with you? Did you break her heart?”

  “No! Of course it is not true!” Wickham snarled. “It is simply an exaggeration made up by Darcy to blacken my name! I already told you of his deceitful nature!”

  “But he would hardly benefit from inventing such a damaging story about his sister,” replied Lydia in a doubtful tone. “It is simply not something that he would make up – and especially since, as you said, he cares so much about his family reputation.”

  With obvious frustration and a huff of impatience, Wickham turned and marched a few steps away from them, though it was clear that he was unwilling to leave Lydia in Darcy’s company, for fear of what else Darcy might say to her. Darcy was simply relieved that good sense and reason was evidently returning to Lydia’s judgement, and thus he determined to take full opportunity of her sudden insight. His voice grew hard as he glanced across the clearing at Wickham’s turned back, and knowing that this was his chance to finally convince Lydia of Wickham’s false nature, he decided to hold nothing back, no matter how shocking his revelations might be for her.

  “I am afraid to tell you,” he said to her gravely, “that Wickham has seduced more women than I care to tell you about. In truth, he has lied about himself so often that it has become the routine of his life. He has tricked many, many people into believing that he is a good and genuine man, but after what happened with my sister, I grew sick of clearing up after him – of paying off his debts to frantic tradesmen and of finding honest work for the young servant-women whom he had seduced – and so, from that day, I stopped all my efforts to sort o
ut his mess. As a result, I imagine that he has been pursued more vigorously than ever before for his many debts, and so I shouldn’t wonder that he has grown more desperate for funds – and thus he has devised yet another scheme to try to extort money from me.”

  “As Elizabeth’s sister, you are part of my future family,” continued Darcy, “and Wickham knows how seriously I take my responsibilities. I’m sorry to be the bearer of such harsh news, Lydia, but this is why he has spent time in your company; this is why he has asked you to run away with him. He is simply using you as a pawn in his latest scheme; he doesn’t love you, just as he didn’t love my sister, or any of the other women whom he deceived in the past. You were right in supposing that I would never dream of making up such a story about my sister, simply to blacken Wickham’s name. It is not a situation that I like to think about, let alone to repeat, since the memory of that incident and the upset that followed it still causes me a great deal of pain and regret. And you should know, just in case you are still wondering whether you can trust my word, that I actually paid Wickham the value of the living which he asserts far and wide that I denied to give him.”

  “And so, now you know all, Lydia, I ask you in all seriousness; is this really the sort of man whom you would wish to pledge your life to? Is this a man whom you can trust? Can you truly believe that he would marry you if you were to run away with him? Or do you see now that he would in fact desert you as soon as you no longer proved to be a diversion to him?”

  With each question he posed to her, Darcy’s voice became steadily more gentle. He sensed from Lydia’s troubled glances towards Wickham and from the general unhappiness of her expression that she had finally given up her blind, infatuated trust in Wickham and that she now believed him instead. But still it seemed that she wished to give Wickham one last chance to explain himself.