Page 26 of Aunt Felicity

G eorge Wickham had just completed his duty, which thankfully did not consist of any strenuous work, on the day of the regiment’s arrival in the town. It was still light out, so he decided to make for the taproom of the inn he had seen when they had marched into the town.

“A tankard of your best ale,” he ordered.

The barkeep poured the drink and brought it over. “Two pennies,” he demanded.

Wickham affected his most charming smile without opening his mouth and displaying the holes where his missing teeth used to be. “Surely your landlord will open an account for one of the town’s protectors in the King’s army,” he tried.

“Landlord’s orders. ‘E says no money, no grog,” the barkeep spat back and began to withdraw the tankard.

This was not a good start. Thanks to no credit in the town they had been previously, he was down to his last few pennies. He was really thirsty for the drink, so Wickham dug into his pocket and retrieved the requested sum.

A relatively pretty wench sidled up to Wickham. Since his nose was broken and he had lost his teeth, it was not something which happened to him very often. “‘Ello luv,” she slurred. Wickham could smell cheap whiskey and gin on her breath. “You looks like a man ‘o wants to earn some coins.”

“I may be such a man,” Wickham replied. “What is your name, pretty”

She gave him a kiss on his cheek. “Me name is Belinda; ‘ow nice of you to calls me pretty. ‘Ow about the additional coin?”

“And how would I earn these coins, Belinda?” Wickham enquired. If this town was like the last one and would not allow credit, he would have to find ways to bring in additional blunt as the measly two pounds a month from the militia was spent almost before he earned it.

“In a back room, some men playin’ cards, and they not good. They refuse to allow a woman to play. I give you a shilling to start with and then once I get my coin back, we split anything you win. It be easy. Them men are deep in their cups,” Belinda whispered conspiratorially.

The woman, who herself was obviously well on her way to being in her cups, was willing to stake him in the game; George Wickham would not look a gift horse in the mouth. He was confident she would be too impaired to notice if his split was far more than half of the winnings. As he was an experienced gambler, Wickham was sure it would be like taking sweets from a tender-aged child. “I am in; hand me the shilling and then lead on, Belinda,” Wickham agreed. He downed the rest of his ale after she handed over the coin and followed the woman as she walked in a none too straight line towards a door on the opposite side of the tap room.

She pushed the door open. “You louts wound’na allow me to play, so this ‘ere Captain will play in me place,” Belinda stated shrilly.

Wickham was flattered the wench thought him a captain, so he did not correct her. He could see five men around the table and one chair open next to a huge man. The enormous man gave him a disinterested look, grumbled something indistinguishable, and nodded to the empty chair. There was a fair amount of coin on the table. Any doubts Wickham had were banished when he saw how much money was his for the taking. “Thank you, gentleman; I will begin with a shilling.” Wickham held up the coin presented to him by Belinda. He stepped into the room, and he heard the door pushed closed behind him.

Next, Wickham began to panic when a man as large as the one who was seated at the table grabbed him from behind. Before he could yell, another man had roughly pushed a cloth into his mouth. Soon his hands were bound and he was being pushed out a door leading into the alleyway behind the inn. He was hefted into the bed of a cart; his legs were bound, and a piece of canvas thrown over him before he felt movement and the sound of an animal pulling the cart.

There was no possibility to resist. Whoever tied the ropes had tied one piece from the rope holding his arms behind his back to the one which bound his ankles. With the cloth lodged in his mouth, making a noise was not an option. Was he being press ganged? That could not be it; they were nowhere near the coast.

He listened, but none of his captors were speaking.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

After a while, Wickham felt the cart halt, and the canvas was pulled off him. Next, the two enormous men reached in and lifted him free of the cart as if he weighed nothing, and he was carried into a barn. He was shoved onto a wooden chair, and he could feel one of his captors untie the rope connecting his arms to his legs. While one end remained between his arms, the other was secured to the chair.

He was facing the door, which opened, but thanks to the bright light behind it, he could not see who, if anyone, entered the barn. One of the men he had seen at the table in the inn approached him. The man pulled the cloth from his mouth.

“If you allow me to go now, I will not report that you kidnapped an officer in His Majesty’s army,” Wickham blustered.

“Really Wicky, is that all you can come up with?” Richard turned to William, “Did you not say he has a silver tongue?”

As soon as he identified the voice, Wickham began to panic. It was Richard Fitzwilliam! How on earth had they discovered him in this nowhere market town? This could not be happening to him.

“A and B, did you not discover he lied to gain his commission, that he told the regiment he had a gentleman’s education?” Reggie drawled.

“Aye, your Lordship,” B replied.

It was Belinda’s voice, but she sounded anything but in her cups. Your Lordship! Was that the Earl of Matlock?

“That being the case, the Colonel will thank us for throwing out the rubbish. Then again, should we allow the militia to administer lashes for prevaricating in order to attain a commission?” Richard barked.

“I was willing to give you every advantage in life; like a fool, I defended you against my own son, and how do you repay me? You tried to seduce and induce my daughter to elope! If it were up to me, I would run you through right here and now,” Darcy growled. “I am thankful your honoured father did not live to see what his son has become.”

Thanks to the light behind them, Wickham could not make out which men were standing before him, but now he knew it was at least the Earl, Fitzwilliam, and Mr Darcy. “I have information you want,” Wickham squeaked out.

“You mean that it was my insane aunt who sent you and Mrs Younge to ruin Anna?” William derided. “Unless you have incontrovertible proof, you have nothing.”

“I do have proof,” Wickham claimed.

“If you think we are wet behind the ears puppies who will allow you to go and collect your so-called proof so you can run, you do not know us very well,” Reggie boomed. “If you have proof, one of our men will retrieve it. If it, in fact, exists, I will sign an order of transportation rather than a writ of execution.”

There would be no escape, and it seemed this time he was to pay the piper. He could not help but be grateful he had kept all of the letters from Lady Catherine. They would save his neck from being stretched.

“I have a room at the Widow Henderson’s house. There is a pouch under the mattress containing the proof you need in the chamber I was to use.” Wickham paused as a thought struck him. He knew what he would have done had the roles been reversed. “How do I know you will not just have me killed as soon as you have the letters?”

“Because unlike you, who knows not the meaning of honour, my father, like all of us here, has it. His word is his bond,” Andrew declared. “If we were not men of honour, you would be in hell already.”

“As soon as the men bring the pouch to us, we will be back,” Richard stated as he followed the other men out of the barn.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

Biggs handed the pouch to the Earl. “It was obviously where he said it was,” Reggie remarked, and the large man nodded his head. “Thank you to you and your men. We will join you in the barn as soon as we examine what is contained within.”

The big man bowed and exited the study. Bennet had put the study at his brother-in-law’s disposal.

Reggie broke the seal on the waterproof pouch and opened it. There were several letters within. He identified his sisters hand right away. “What is in there?” Darcy enquired.

“Exactly what we need to have Catherine committed or locked up for the rest of her days. Only one as insane as our sister would commit these orders to writing. She really must think herself above the law.” Reggie shook his head as he handed the five letters to Darcy.

The three younger men looked over the Darcy patriarch’s shoulder as he read the missives containing the despicable commands Catherine had issued. “Younge and Wickham were to bring Anna to that termagant where she would have attempted to leverage my daughter to have William marry Anne,” Darcy spat out angrily. “An asylum is too good for Catherine!”

“If only she was a man, I could call her out,” Richard lamented.

“At least in this, George Wickham was honest. Transportation it will be. He will save his neck for now. I wonder what happened to Mrs Younge?” Reggie mused.

“Thanks to this,” William pointed at the pile of pages, “we do not need her to deal with my aunt. Uncle Reggie, will you continue having your men search for her? She should pay for stealing from Anna at the very least, but is that worth funding a search?”

“I will confer with your Aunt Felicity and canvass her opinion. Personally, I do not believe we need to keep searching for her,” Reggie replied.

“Should we go and deal with the miscreant in the barn?” Andrew suggested. “If it is all the same to you and Mother, now that this is resolved, Marie and I will return to Hilldale and our children.”

“No one will begrudge you making for your estate to be with your children,” Reggie assured his son.

They made their way out through the kitchen to the barn on the other side of the kitchen garden. One of the two guards standing near the door opened it to allow the men entry.

Wickham looked up hopefully. “Did your men find the pouch?” he enquired.

“They did, and there is more than enough proof there for our purposes. As such, I will sign an order of transportation, and you will sail to Van Diemen’s Land. Once you have completed seven years of hard labour, you will be free. However, if you ever darken the shores of this island again, you will be tried and end up swinging at the end of the hangman’s rope.”

As much as he hated the prospect of seven years’ hard labour, it was better than the alternative. “I understand,” Wickham responded sullenly.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

“As far as Andrew and Marie are concerned, of course I understand their desire to be with Kathy and Anthony,” Felicity articulated. She and Reggie were sitting in the west parlour discussing the events of the day and other things of interest.

“That is no less than I expected. What about Mrs Younge?” Reggie reminded his wife.

“I agree that there is no need to search for Mrs Younge any longer,” Felicity stated when Reggie spoke to her a little after they had seen Wickham. “And even though we suspected she had her hand in the Ramsgate affair, to see Catherine write her orders out so dispassionately, as if she were telling her coachman how to go from one town to another; she is devoid of any proper feelings.”

“It has always been this way with Catherine. If she tells herself it is right, then it is.” Reggie paused as he cogitated. “When should we go into Kent and deal with my sister?”

“Catherine’s sycophant will arrive here in three days; we should be here to put paid to his pretensions. In my opinion, we should keep him here while we go to Rosings Park. It will be one less complication,” Felicity suggested.

“If he is half as bad as his letter to Bennet indicates, I will be contacting the Bishop of Kent to have him removed from the living, and if he is so very bad, I will suggest he be defrocked,” Reggie related. “There are too many men of the cloth who do not deserve to serve Him in His house.”

“As soon as we have dealt with Catherine, I would like Jane, Lizzy, and Mary to accompany us to London for the rest of the Little season and the season following, so they will be prepared to make their curtsies before Her Majesty,” Felicity proposed.

“As long as Fanny and Thomas do not object, I most certainly will not. I have a feeling Bethie and Anna will be well pleased that their cousins will be present,” Reggie opined. “Have you heard back from anyone regarding schools for Kitty and Lydia yet?”

“It is too soon for that, although I am confident I will hear soon. Lydia will need a school that is miles from civilisation. Look how many times she has tried to escape the confines of the schoolroom. Although since John and Brian have been the ones opening the door for her meals to be delivered, she has been too intimidated to attempt anything with them.”

“If Wellington had an army of men like those two, the war would have been won long ago,” Reggie jested. “I have not asked you this yet, but how do you feel about the reconciliation with your brother?”

“It was long overdue. I am only sorry that Mama is not alive to see that the family is whole once again. I hope Mr Bennet is turning in his grave. Regardless of what he tried to force on me, it is our son who will make sure this estate never devolves to a Collins. Did you speak to Mr Phillips about the other thing?”

“I did. As soon as all parties agree and it is finalised, we will announce it,” Reggie related.

“Fanny deferred the dinner with Mr Bingley and the Hursts as we are all invited to Lucas Lodge for dinner on the morrow. Thomas told me his friend, who is normally a garrulous man, is awed by people of rank. I am very interested to meet Miss Lucas. She sounds like a lady of good sense and has been a close friend to Jane and Lizzy for many years.” Felicity paused as an idea struck her. “Lizzy told me that she believes that the only reason Miss Lucas is single is due to the dearth of men of discernment in the area. I think I will seek out our two eldest nieces to see if they would be sanguine with my inviting Miss Lucas to join us in Town.”

“One further note as a result of our work today: that miscreant will be on his way to Portsmouth on the morrow. Richard has gone to meet with this Colonel Forster to inform him that he is one lieutenant short,” Reggie informed his wife.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

Colonel Jackson Forster had always thought himself a good judge of men’s characters, so when the former colonel and Mr Darcy informed him that not only had Wickham lied about his education, but he was a criminal on top of that, he had been flabbergasted. “You say the Earl has signed an order of transportation?” Forster verified.

“Yes, he will be on his way to his port of departure on the morrow,” Richard confirmed.

“He should receive forty lashes for his fraud,” Forster complained.

“That would be your right, Colonel,” William stated. “My uncle asks that you allow him to be transported. If he is punished by you, it will be closer to a month before he is ready to be moved, and who knows when the next ship will depart.”

“If a Peer of the Realm is asking, I cannot very well go and gainsay him. Carter,” Forster called for his adjutant. The captain entered and saluted. “Who recruited Wickham?”

“It was Lieutenant Denny and Ensign Caldecott, Sir. They were in a tavern in London when he approached them, he was unknown to them beforehand,” Carter reported.

“In that case I need not see them.” Forster informed his adjutant of Wickham’s ejection from the regiment and his pending transportation. As much as he wanted to ask questions, Carter saluted when dismissed and pulled the office door closed after him.

“Is there anything else?” Forster enquired.

“Nothing. Thank you, Colonel. I know my father will appreciate your cooperation in this matter.” Richard bowed, as did William, and the two men left the office.