Page 41 of Such Persuasions as These (Pride and Prejudice Variation)
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“ L ieutenant Wickham, thank you for being so punctual.” Colonel Forster stood and shook the junior officer’s hand.
“Not at all, sir. I am at your service,” Wickham replied, oozing charm even at this early hour. If he wondered at being invited by his commanding officer to meet him at an empty public house before eight on a Monday morning, his cool demeanour betrayed none of it.
“May I introduce my new friend, Captain Frederick Wentworth of His Majesty’s Navy?” Wentworth sketched him a quick bow, which was returned with a smile.
After asking the men to have a seat with him, Colonel Forster opened a folio containing a dozen or so papers, some filled front and back with names and numbers. Wickham gave a curious glance towards the stack of lists and shifted in his chair.
“Mr Wickham, I have here in front of me documents detailing the extent of the credit you have drawn with the local shops, taverns, and inn, all of which have been paid in full,” Colonel Forster began. Wickham blinked, but otherwise betrayed none of the shock he must have felt.
“I also have written attestations as to debts of honour among your fellow officers. These, too, have been paid in full.”
“I try to be a good sport, never leave my fellow man in the lurch,” he said, his voice a touch higher than it had been. Wentworth took note as the lieutenant uncrossed and crossed his legs.
“There have also appeared before me receipts for debts paid from London, Kent, and as far off as Derbyshire.” At this, the colonel’s brows lifted as he finally looked Wickham in the eye.
“What can I say, sir?” His crossed knee was bouncing a bit now and a sheen of sweat appeared at his temples. It was clear that he was all at sea as to the direction of this conversation, which, ironically, was exactly where Captain Wentworth wanted him to be.
“I do not require you to say anything. I do, however, wish to advise you,” the colonel began gravely, “that it would be in everyone’s best interest for you to give up your lieutenancy and join this fine gentleman when he leaves Hertfordshire Wednesday morning.”
“Now, why would I wish to do that? I am quite enjoying Hertfordshire, and as you say, my debts are paid.” His legs uncrossed and crossed again. “I see no reason to vacate my position.”
“I am sorry; did I say your debts were paid? I suppose it would be better to say that your debtors have been paid. The debts themselves were bought . You, sir, are still fully answerable for every shilling that has been credited to you, which I was shocked to discover amounts to a number in the thousands.”
“What is this? What are you about?” Wickham shouted, his chair flying out from under him as he shot to his feet. The semblance of the repose he had been working to manifest vanished. Before them now stood a frenzied beast, a feral cat cornered into a cage and ready to claw his way past his captors.
“Simply this, Mr Wickham,” Wentworth answered him, “if you wish to remain a free man, you will sell your commission and join me on Wednesday. We set sail on the first of December, and I intend for you to be on my ship when we heave off. You will find me a fair captain, and my men are as fine as any you will meet in the army.”
“What if I have no wish to join the Navy?” he asked, his eyes darting from the colonel to the captain and back.
“That is your choice. However,” Wentworth paused, revelling in the delicious tension he was creating, then gradually finished, “if you refuse my generous offer, your debts shall be called in en totale , and you will be sent forthwith to debtor’s prison, there to languish possibly for decades.
Say, Colonel, are they still using skullcaps at Marshalsea? ”
“Undoubtedly, but they favour thumbscrews and simple starvation, I believe,” answered Colonel Forster with the slightest of grins.
“Why would you do this, go to all this trouble and expense, just to have me on your crew?” he finally thought to ask Wentworth.
“I wish to protect the respectability of the ladies of our fine country, and I know your reputation. So, to sea you shall go, and the only ladies you will meet will be those whose virtue is already so sullied that you will be loath to touch them. However, I must inform you, you are labouring under a false assumption; I did not go to any expense. I simply offer an alternative to imprisonment.”
“If you did not buy my debts, then who did?”
A quarter of an hour put paid to the business, and Wickham was anxious to make his exit. He had only been so furious one other time in his life—when Darcy had appeared in Ramsgate the day before he was to make his hard-earned fortune.
But today —today was so much worse.
To be muscled onto a sailing vessel, bedevilled by a spiteful sea captain, and carried off in the course of forty-eight hours?—
This is too much to be borne.
And just when he was about to convince that pretty little Bennet girl to?—
Darcy. Again!
This was all his doing. The vindictive swine had hunted down every debtor he had ever had and bought his liabilities just so he could hang them over his head, like the crossbar holding the strings of a marionette, making Wickham his begrudging puppet.
Just as the humiliation of the truth of this analogy began to sink in, Wickham caught sight of a horse in the early morning avenue. There, sitting atop his steed, not ten yards away, was the man himself, Fitzwilliam Darcy.
He watched in angry silence as Darcy lifted his hand to tip his shining black beaver, a satisfied smirk suffusing his features. Unable to do aught but sneer, Wickham stood in front of the inn, hands balled into fists, as his eyes watched the man who now all but owned him saunter smugly out of town.