Page 52

Elizabeth Bennet wrapped her blanket closer to her and stared out into the evening sky. After a chilly but fine day, a multitude of clouds had cluttered up the heavens leaving only grim gray.

“Elizabeth?”

She turned toward her favorite sister, who had entered her room without her noticing.

“Jane. Are you well?”

“Yes, but I worry about you. You seemed distressed at dinner.”

Elizabeth sighed and gestured toward the end of the window seat. Jane sat down in response to her invitation and waited.

“Lydia and Kitty went to Meryton this morning to visit our aunt Phillips,” Elizabeth explained. “They met Mr. Wickham and several other officers. This afternoon, Kitty was complaining about Mr. Darcy. It seems that Mr. Wickham told her and Lydia further details about Mr. Wickham’s dealings with both the elder and younger Mr. Darcys. He also spoke of Miss Darcy and her proud and lofty nature. It was imprudent of the lieutenant to share such details with our youngest sisters, who are far from careful with their speech.”

Jane sighed, “That was unwise, certainly, and unkind. While you can be trusted to hold your tongue, Lydia and Kitty cannot.”

“Even if I can be circumspect, and in fact I have not been wise with my words regarding Mr. Darcy, how would Mr. Wickham know my true character based on a short acquaintance?” Elizabeth demanded. “We had only just met at Aunt Philips’s house when he poured his story of woe into my willing ears. I do not know, Jane. When I see his face, when I speak to him, Mr. Wickham seems all that is good and wise and charming! And yet ...”

“We are none of us perfect beings,” Jane mused thoughtfully. “Perhaps Mr. Wickham, because of his outgoing nature, is prone to share more than he ought. But then by the same account, Mr. Darcy may well be a very reserved man and insults without meaning to do so.”

“I suppose that is true,” her sister replied irritably, “though there is a big difference between being silent and openly insulting me. I confess that Mr. Darcy’s statement that I was ‘not handsome enough to dance with’ the first day we met still rankles.”

“You are a beautiful woman, Elizabeth. If Mr. Darcy cannot see that, then he is blind.”

“How kind you are, dearest Jane. Mr. Darcy himself is nothing; I do not care for his obvious disapprobation. However, while I do not envy your beauty, and truly I do not, it pains me when Mama compares me to you. I will never quite measure up to you with my bluestocking ways and penchant for walking the country paths alone. I know I am our mother’s least favorite daughter, and it pains me.”

“Oh Lizzy!”

***

Fitzwilliam Darcy rolled over in his bed and heaved a deep sigh.

It was very late and the room was almost entirely dark save for the glimmer from the crescent moon shining through the curtains. The day’s weather had been uneasy — first clear, then cloudy, then clear again. The changeable weather reflected his thoughts, which were in turmoil.

Her face flashed into his mind again, that winsome, piquant visage with its fine brown eyes and rosy lips. Elizabeth Bennet was not classically lovely, but the more he saw her, the more he thought of her, the stronger his attraction and the more beautiful she was to him. He had no doubt she felt it too — this magnetism, this spark, this pull.

And yet, she was not worthy of him or Pemberley. He was Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, master of a great estate, nephew to an earl, heir to an ancient, though untitled, family. Miss Elizabeth was a gentleman’s daughter, but her father’s estate was small, her younger sisters unruly and gauche and her mother both vulgar and a daughter of trade.

It would not do!

But even if Elizabeth was not worthy to be his wife, he … cared for her. And George Wickham was a danger to the Bennet women, as indeed he was a danger to all women who lay claim to youth and a modicum of beauty. He had seen Miss Lydia Bennet’s expression when she hung on Wickham’s arm today and recognized in it the besotted expression of his own young sister, who had believed herself in love with the rogue only months ago.

The terrifying reality was that Wickham had ruined many a woman, and while most had been of the lower classes, there was one example of a gentlewoman sent away to Scotland after her seduction by the steward’s son. Miss Anna Slade had met Wickham when her brother John brought Wickham home from Cambridge for the Christmas holidays. John Slade would have been better served to invite a viper into his house than the handsome, charming man who had ruined the girl without a hint of remorse.

Darcy had hoped that he would marry her, but regrettably Miss Anna’s dowry was only 2000 pounds, which Wickham found insufficient for his own greedy desires.

Darcy wanted to stop Wickham, wanted to prevent the man from harming other women. But how? If he moved against his old playmate, the man might slander his beloved sister, who had fallen under Wickham’s spell during a holiday to Ramsgate on the sea. It was not Georgiana’s fault, truly; her companion, Mrs. Younge, had been in league with Wickham and had encouraged the girl, a romantic fifteen year old, to consent to an elopement to Gretna Green for a scandalous marriage. By the grace of God, Darcy had arrived unexpectedly and Georgiana told him of the entire affair.

He loved Georgiana with a deep, abiding and protective love. It was his fault, as his younger sister’s protector, that she had been left with a traitorous companion at Ramsgate. How could he move against Wickham if harm might come to Georgiana? And yet, was it right to stay quiet and allow other women to suffer?

He rolled over again and then sat up with a grunt of frustration. He lit a candle and checked his watch; it was 2 a.m., and he was no closer to sleep than he had been three hours ago.

With a groan, he rose to his feet, wrapped himself in his dressing gown and crept out of his bedchamber and down the stairway toward the library. The volumes from the bookstore in Meryton had arrived a few hours ago, and he might as well sit and read if he was not able to sleep.

To his considerable surprise, a very sleepy footman was sitting on a chair outside the library. Darcy gazed at the man, first in bewilderment, then in understanding.

“Mr. Collins is within?” he inquired worriedly.

The man staggered to his feet with a slight wobble, “Yes, sir.”

“Go to bed,” he ordered. “I will ensure that Mr. Collins makes his way safely back to his room.”

“Thank you, sir,” the man replied with gratitude.

Inside the room, Mr. Collins was seated next to the fire with several candles on a nearby table. He was reading a book on estate management, but lifted a curious face as Darcy entered the room.

“This is a very interesting book,” he stated, his eyes vague.

“It is, Mr. Collins,” Darcy agreed. “But sir, it is very late. Should you not go to bed?”

The clergyman shook his head absently, “I can sleep some other time, sir. I will inherit Longbourn someday; I must learn how to best care for the land and people who will be under my direction.”

Darcy knew obsession when he saw it, so he merely sat down and stared into the fire. It was very quiet, with the silence only interrupted by the soft ticking of a grandfather clock and the gentle creaking of a tree branch outside the library window.

“Mr. Collins,” he said suddenly. This was injudicious, but it was a strange night and he felt a compulsion to seek the wisdom of this odd man.

“Yes, Mr. Darcy?”

“I wonder if I might ask your advice on a significant problem in my life.”

Collins closed his book with a snap and sat up straight. “I am most pleased to give you my advice, sir, though I do not promise it will be of use.”

“All I ask is your attention and insight,” Pemberley’s master said gravely. “I wish to discuss a man named George Wickham ...”

Darcy told Mr. Collins all of it, how Wickham was the son of Pemberley’s steward and the godson of the now deceased George Darcy. Of how Wickham had been a charming scamp of a child, but had grown dissolute and promiscuous as a young man. Of how he began running up debts and ruining women, and eventually had tried to elope with a young heiress from a good family. Even here, now, in the grip of Darcy’s strange impulse in the darkness of Netherfield at night, Darcy did not feel at peace with revealing his sister’s identity. His precious sister’s reputation might be destroyed if word escaped that Georgiana had agreed to elope with the scoundrel Wickham.

Collins listened without interruption, his face intent in the flickering light of the candles.

When Darcy had finished his story, Mr. Collins gazed down at his own hands for a full five minutes, thinking hard, before looking up.

“I presume that these women were not physically forced to engage in illicit relations with Mr. Wickham?” he asked slowly.

Darcy swallowed. “I am not aware of force being used, no.”

“Do you think he offered any of the young women marriage as part of his seduction?”

“I know that he did,” the gentleman said in disgust. “Several distressed fathers came to me when Wickham still resided at Pemberley. The man seduced more than one of their daughters by promising them marriage, only to leave them ruined, and in several cases, with child.”

“And you did nothing to deal with the situation?”

Collins’s tone was not accusing, but Darcy still stiffened, “I ensured that the women and their children were provided for financially but no, I did not move against Wickham.”

“Why not?” the man inquired reasonably.

Darcy groaned and wiped his brow with one vaguely sweaty hand, “My father was ill for many years before he passed on to his eternal reward. I tried three times to acquaint my father with Wickham’s vicious propensities, but he could not see it. To him, George Wickham remained the charming companion of his youth, and to the end my childhood playmate was able to make my father laugh, even when he was in great pain from the last throes of the sickness that took his life.”

“And since then?”

“Since then, I have paid the debts he has incurred in various towns, and I have continued to clean up his messes. I have not known what else to do, Mr. Collins. The young lady in question is a friend of the family. Her reputation could be destroyed if Wickham spoke of what truly happened between them.”

“I assume he did not take her virtue?” the clergyman asked gravely.

Darcy shuddered openly, “No! No. She will bring a large dowry into her marriage, and thus he wished for a legal contract instead of a mere seduction.”

Silence fell on the two men and a log collapsed, spitting up sparks and providing a brief flare of light.

“I am reminded of the tragic case of King David, his son Amnon and his daughter Tamar,” Collins said eventually. “Amnon lusted after his half-sister Tamar, and tricked King David into sending Tamar to make him dinner while Amnon pretended to be sick in his bed. Amnon then raped the poor girl, who was ruined. David was angry but did nothing.”

Darcy shivered. “I vaguely remember that horrifying incident, Mr. Collins.”

“Amnon was the crown prince of Israel, Mr. Darcy. That made David’s actions even more egregious; the man who cruelly destroyed his own sister would no doubt have been a licentious and wicked king. In the end, David’s refusal to act led to Amnon’s own death; Absalom, another son of David and Tamar’s full brother, took revenge and had his servants cut down Amnon in cold blood during a sheep-shearing feast.”

“A deserved fate for a rapist,” Darcy said coldly.

“I agree. May I say this, Mr. Darcy? You have never held this Mr. Wickham accountable for his actions, even as David overlooked the horrifying behavior of his eldest son. You have cleaned up after Wickham, probably out of some misplaced sense of guilt as the man was your father’s favorite. You need to do the hard thing and stop this evil man from destroying more lives. For that matter, Wickham may be living on borrowed time himself; if he continues to defile young women, an angry father might bring him to a permanent end.”

Darcy shifted restlessly. “How? I presume you would not recommend that I have my servants murder the man.”

Collins chuckled, “No, of course not. You spoke of debts. Marshalsea, perhaps? You are an intelligent man, and Wickham, for all his charm, sounds like a fool. His determination to torment you, a wealthy man with connections, is sheer stupidity.”

Darcy nodded his head slowly, “Thank you, Mr. Collins.”