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I sat opposite Bingley as my coach made for London.

My mood was sombre, as is common when one is forced to consequences they would rather not suffer.

The legs of my pride had been cut off at the knees, I suppose, for I went as a cripple to Longbourn, the home of my conqueror.

Elizabeth Bennet looked young to me when I saw her on the sofa with her foot on a stool.

She wore her hair in a simple style which made her face more beautiful somehow, and I wished—well, I could not allow myself to think of wishes, and I went to Mr Bennet instead.

He greeted me with surprise, and I spoke without embellishment.

George Wickham, I told him, was a known seducer, a gambler, and a cheat.

Sketching an outline of my deep knowledge of the man I had known since childhood, I skirted around the incident of Ramsgate and said only that he had nearly ruined a young lady known to me.

With cold precision I detailed the matter of the living at Kympton, the three thousand pounds George had since squandered, and the dates and amounts I settled with his creditors on four different occasions.

Mr Bennet digested this news with reluctance. He did not strike me as a man who liked to be given something to do, and I had just tasked him with information to which he must necessarily attend.

“And why do you bring this to me, Mr Darcy?” he asked in sour complaint, removing his spectacles and rubbing his eyes.

“Because your second daughter mentioned to me that Mr Wickham claims to be the injured party, and he is believed in this society. He is a dangerous man, sir. There is little he will not do for money.”

“What harm can he do here? None of us have fathered heiresses to tempt him.”

“But if one of your daughters were abducted, you would pay a ransom, would you not?” This shocked Mr Bennet and he sat up.

“George Wickham,” I said plainly, “is a desperate man. I have rescued him for the last time. He has heavy debts in town, and his creditors will catch up to him. He is casting his net in this society, sir, to find a way out of difficulty.”

“Why have you just now brought this forward?”

“I have been hesitant to speak because I wished to protect the good name of the young lady of my acquaintance. Wickham would not scruple to spread scandal if he were cornered. But I have begun to see that I must take the risk or else more harm will be done. You may do what you will with this information, sir,” I said coldly.

“I cannot stay and see things righted. I am needed at my estate, and I shall take my sister out of London for the winter.”

What a dreadful task that had been! I had felt forced to confession, and it came out in a resentful burst, bitter and disgusted.

But, having done the hard duty, relief came.

Even if Wickham were to besmirch my sister’s name in Hertfordshire, his career would come to an end now.

I would put information with his creditors as to his whereabouts and take Georgiana to the country, and we would survive the consequences no matter.

“You are never jolly, Darcy,” Bingley said, startling me out of my sober recollections, “but you are positively grave this morning.”

I looked across the carriage at my friend.

He had an expression of passive amiability on his face, which was his particular gift, and I wondered whether I should tell him what I had overheard.

Yet when I imagined telling him that Jane Bennet would refuse him should he offer, that his sisters’ venom was principally to blame, I baulked.

Disclosures of this kind were an anathema to me, and I had just been through the worst one of my life.

For now, I decided I would stay out of Bingley’s business.

But that same business would intrude. Two days later, he came to my townhouse.

“You will never guess, Darcy! Hurst has brought Louisa and Caroline back from Netherfield. They shut up the house and made it dashed difficult for me to return as I planned.” He sighed loudly, which was the extent of his ability to express ire.

“I wish they had not come. I would like to go back. There are—well, I enjoyed the country.”

“Your sisters are able to decide for you, then?” I asked in a sleepy, disinterested voice.

“Well, you know Caroline. She is impossible when she does not get her way.”

And so, I offered one observation. “I pity the girl you marry, Bingley, if your sister is to be mistress of you in perpetuity.”

He looked startled. “But she will not always be with me. Caroline will marry.”

“She has yet to do so, my friend, though she is elegant and rich. Does that not tell you something?”

He looked puzzled because he was not an analytical fellow. At last his brow cleared and he laughed. “But she is waiting for you to make her an offer, Darcy.”

“She will never have me. You must tell her to move on from that ambition.”

He sighed once again and so I asked him about his business.

Bingley has a hundred thousand pounds in trust as his fortune, but he has a few remaining factories that he has been slowly selling off to distance himself altogether from the taint of trade.

His sojourn to town was for the purpose of disposing of a china factory.

Once we had dispensed with that topic, I told him I was taking Georgiana to Pemberley, and we parted ways with cordiality.

I wondered what would happen to my good-natured friend.

He was faced with two paths: he would either be his own man or live a life dominated by his older sisters.

Having troubles of my own to face, I turned my attention away from Bingley and towards my sister, for I had filial shortcomings of my own to address in the months to come.