Page 9 of An Offer of Marriage (Engaged to Mr Darcy #7)

THE SIMPLE TRUTH

M r Darcy was frowning at his pocket watch as they re-entered the carriage, his horses now restive and eager to move. “Forgive me, that took far longer than I intended, but we will be in London well before nightfall, I assure you.”

“No matter,” she said. “Sir, if I may, I have been thinking?—”

“Darcy,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said, “you really ought to tell her about…” He gave his cousin a significant look, then looked at Maria. “Perhaps Miss Lucas ought to hear as well.”

Mr Darcy nodded. “I agree, though it is a subject that might…perhaps, though I hope it will not, um, pain you…Elizabeth. It concerns George Wickham.”

Elizabeth straightened, looking at Mr Darcy curiously.

His discomfort was plain; he had not replaced his watch in his pocket, and he ran his thumb over the edges of it distractedly.

Looking at Maria, she saw she was unabashedly curious and so she said, “I cannot think of anything you might say about Mr Wickham that would pain me . I know there are things between you that are unpleasant, but I am sure it is none of my concern.”

“I am afraid it is.” He leant back again and for a moment turned his head, looking absently out the window, seemingly to gather his thoughts.

Elizabeth braced herself; in her opinion, his reasons for having treated Mr Wickham as he had could not signify.

No matter the causes or complaints between them, he had been cruel to a man who had been raised up next to him like a brother.

There could be no justification for that.

But you must hear him out , she counselled herself. There is no use in arguing about it.

“I imagine he may have told you, you and others in Hertfordshire, about being raised at Pemberley?” He turned his head towards her in time to see her nod.

“George and I were as intimate as two boys could be,” Mr Darcy said. “I should imagine it was much the same with you and Mrs Collins?”

“Charlotte? Oh…yes. Of course,” Elizabeth replied neutrally.

“Charlotte was twelve when our father gave up his shop.” This was from Maria, speaking tremulously and yet clearly pleased to be able to add to the conversation. “Lizzy was only four or five years old, and I was yet a babe.”

“I had not realised there were so many years between all of you ladies,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said, speaking warmly.

“Charlotte had been to school in London,” Maria said. “She enjoyed making lessons for all the girls in the neighbourhood, though of everyone only Lizzy and Jane truly enjoyed them. ”

“So Mrs Collins is now…Darcy’s age?” Colonel Fitzwilliam enquired.

“Charlotte just turned eight-and-twenty. It was why…” Embarrassed by her near-disclosure, Elizabeth paused and glanced down at her gloved hands resting on her lap.

“Why she accepted Mr Collins,” Maria asserted matter-of-factly.

Why she snatched up Mr Collins like a dog grabs at meat that falls from the table is more like it.

More charitably, Elizabeth said, “I believe Charlotte had rather given up hope of marrying, so Mr Collins’s proposal was very welcome.

But you were speaking of Mr Wickham. Mr Darcy, you and he are close in age, I think? ”

“Not even a year between us,” said Mr Darcy. “George was born at Pemberley and was most certainly my first friend. For many years, my only friend. We were inseparable.”

For a short time, Mr Darcy told her some amusing little tales of his boyhood exploits with Mr Wickham, tales of snake hunting and rock throwing, falling into rivers while fishing and into horse manure while riding.

Colonel Fitzwilliam was quick to join in where he could too, adding his own perspective to the remembrances.

It might have been charming had it not been underscoring the hatefulness with which Mr Darcy had acted to this once-dear friend.

“Things changed when I went to school,” Mr Darcy continued. “My father had thought it a fine thing to send George as well, to give him a gentleman’s education.”

“How good of him,” Elizabeth murmured.

“Good, yes, and of course with all the best of intentions, but…” Mr Darcy gave a brief frown.

“It can be a hard thing to be a charity chap, to have to admit he was merely the son of Pemberley’s steward.

In our boyhood, there were no di fferences between us save for where we laid our heads down to sleep at night.

But at school, the differences were more evident, and I daresay George felt them keenly. ”

Mr Darcy continued on telling her about Mr Wickham’s difficulties at school, difficulties which he addressed by being the wild boy, rebellious; the one who would dare to steal the headmaster’s keys and find an answer key for examinations, or who would somehow procure a bottle of something no fourteen-year-old boy should be drinking and get them all soused on the rooftop of the dormitory.

“And of course, there were fights as well. Many, many fights.”

Mr Darcy smiled ruefully while the colonel took up the tale. “Darcy did what he could to conceal these troubles from his father. Lady Anne, by this time, was ill.”

“More so than anything, I wished George and I both to be a credit to them, and to the Darcy name—that there be no cause for alarm,” added Mr Darcy.

“Alas, my anxiety could only serve to widen the divide between us. It was a divide that could only grow as we were graduated. First my mother and then my father died, and such was George’s dissipation that he came to me seeking alternate compensation for the living which my father had promised him. ”

“Do you mean to say Mr Wickham denied your father’s legacy?” Elizabeth asked dubiously.

Both men nodded gravely. “He requested and was given a sum in lieu of the promised living,” Mr Darcy informed her. “Since then, I know not how he has lived, but seeing that he has thrown his lot in with the militia suggests that he has not exercised prudence.”

“How a man burns through four thousand pounds in a few years beggars belief,” said the colonel with a shake of his head. “Gambling, I should guess, with people who play higher than he ought to.”

Elizabeth sat back, amazed. This account far differed from Mr Wickham’s version, and Mr Darcy had the decided advantage of his cousin’s unwavering support on his side.

She sat considering it for some time, her head turned as if looking out the window, but in truth, seeing nothing more than Mr Wickham’s countenance as he fed her his lies.

She had always credited him with having truth in his looks but then again, so did Mr Darcy and the colonel. Whom might she trust?

The sound of a throat being cleared drew her attention. It was Mr Darcy, the other two occupants of the carriage having once more drifted into slumber.

He offered her a smile that looked pained. “There is more,” he murmured. “But I did not feel easy sharing it with…” He gave Maria an expressive look.

Elizabeth nodded to show she understood. Mr Darcy leant across the space between them and she followed, bending close enough that he was able to speak into her ear. His voice, a low rumble, did strange things within her that were almost pleasurable until she comprehended his words.

Mr Wickham, it seemed, had attempted to seduce and elope with Mr Darcy’s younger sister, and only through pure luck had Mr Darcy arrived at Ramsgate in time to stop it.

Miss Darcy was but fifteen when it happened.

Tears filled Elizabeth’s eyes as she promised him earnestly that of course she would not think ill of Miss Darcy in the matter, hoping the veracity of her words was adequately attested by her whisper.

“Thank you,” he murmured in reply. “She is so very anxious to make your acquaintance, I could not bear to think my past with Wickham should cloud your meeting. ”

“Anxious to meet me ?”

“I daresay the notion of her…admittedly staid elder brother being run away with his feelings has quite intrigued her,” he explained with a self-deprecating grin. “She thinks you must be some magical creature, and for myself?—”

He took her hand again and placed a kiss on the back of it. “I surely cannot disabuse her of the notion. After all, you have definitely enchanted me.”

Elizabeth answered that with only an awkward half-laugh.