Bennet issued orders to one of his coachmen to make the older conveyance ready. The two big men went with the driver to assist him with anything he needed.
“Now, we may leave this alone,” Elizabeth said with disdain as she inclined her head towards where the criminal was still secured. “It is time to summon Sir William, is it not?” Sir William was the magistrate in the area.
“Lizzy has the right of it,” Bennet agreed. “I do not want him polluting my estate, he can wait in the town gaol until the next assizes meet in Hertford.”
Other than two guards, Wickham was alone again. Only now as the end of his life was nigh, did he finally begin to think about all of the chances at a good life he had squandered. It would have been very easy to blame anyone but himself, but for the first time in his life, George Wickham was honest with himself. He and he alone was the architect of his downfall.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
It was quick work for Sir William to be apprised of the facts and provided with affidavits from those who heard Wickham’s admissions. The blackguard was arrested and unceremoniously thrown into a gaol cell.
At first, Colonel Forster was rather indignant that one of his officers had been arrested and gaoled. His bluster was short-lived. Once the proof of his lieutenant’s crimes was laid out before him, Forster stripped the man of his rank and discharged him from the militia for dishonourable conduct. If Forster had had his way, he would have administered forty lashes to Wickham. He agreed, however, that seeing that the man would swing, flogging was superfluous.
News of Wickham’s crimes became known throughout the area within one day of his arrest. Knowing that word would reach London in a matter of days, an invitation was sent to the editor ofThe Times of Londonto dispatch a reporter to Meryton to receive the true story. That way, society would read facts and not innuendo.
The reporter arrived the next day and was made familiar with all of the facts. He returned to London the same day, butnot before he estimated that his report would be in the paper within two days.
The reporter’s estimate of two days had been accurate. The article was published the second day after the man had been in Meryton. It took up the whole of the first page of the paper and laid out one George Wickham’s crimes in detail which included information about his attempt to finish that which he had started more than seventeen years past.
On the same day, the news about the apprehension of the attempted murderer and thief was reported, the three Biggs siblings arrived at Longbourn from Dadlington.
Bennet had done as he had planned and spoken to Jimmy Peterson. The man had been very grateful the master had thought to lighten his situation and was keen to meet the young lady. Her circumstances were not hidden from him. He agreed that if they rubbed along well together, even if she bore the seducer’s child, he would raise it as his own. He already had a son, who was two, to carry on his name and was of his blood.
Jenny Biggs had been rather nervous until she had met Mr Peterson. They had spoken in depth, and she was satisfied he knew the truth of her situation and did not hold it against her. He was a good and kind man from what she could see, so when he asked if she would agree to marry him, she replied in the affirmative.
Thanks to the common license purchased for them, the wedding took place three days after Jenny accepted the proposal. As a wedding gift from the combined families, Jenny was dowered with five thousand pounds, which was invested with Gardiner. The couple would take fifty pounds per quarter and the rest of the dividends would be added to the principal for their current child and any future children with whom they were to be blessed.
Jenny was sad about only one thing. Her family was in Leicestershire, so she would not see them very often. Hence,when the Biggs brothers were told of a lease coming open when a tenant farmer was to retire at the end of the month, and that the farm was adjacent to the Peterson farm, they jumped at it. With the use of the Bennet carriage and a cart, they returned to Dadlington to pack up their father’s rented house and bring him back with them. Mr Biggs had farmed a small patch and sold his vegetables and other items for many years. It was, in all three siblings’ minds, time for Da to retire. They were sure he would be in his element with a more than one-hundred-acre farm on which to live.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
The day that the three ladies who would marry in January, their fiancés, family members, and Miss Weasley departed for London, the newspaper containing both the engagement notice of Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy to Miss Elizabeth Elaine Wendell and the article about the apprehension of the criminal who attempted to murder Miss Wendell and robbed her father reached Scarborough.
For Caroline Bingley, the papers and gossip rags from Town were as close as she would ever again be to the society she craved. As such, she read every page of each publication in a voracious attempt to satisfy her curiosity about those living the life she had desired, but would never have, for herself.
When the engagement of Miss Jane Bennet to Mr David Wendell had been announced, she had not cared too much as she had never desired him. Then about a sennight past there was the engagement announcement of Lady Melody Ranger née Smythe to the Honourable Mr Richard Fitzwilliam, one of the men she had wanted as her husband.
She had not been pleased, but at least the woman was a viscountess, so she could live with being bested by one who was titled.
When she read the front page of the newest edition ofThe Times of Londonwhich had arrived that morning, she, likeany others in the country who read about the criminal and what he had attempted, was outraged. The difference was that her anger was because the man had failed to dispatch the hoyden, not once, but twice! There was nothing to be done about that.
Eventually, Caroline Bingley reached the social pages and arrived at the engagement announcements, and she saw it. Miss Elizabeth Elaine Wendell engaged to Mr Fitzwilliam Alexander Darcy.
She screamed, stamped her feet and threw anything she could get her hands on against the walls, including one large crystal vase. She threw it with such force against the wall closest to her that shards flew in every direction. One large sliver bounced off the wall and hit her in the side of the neck. Before she could react, blood was pouring out of her.
Because the master had instructed them to leave his sister be when she had one of her tantrums, no one from the household went up to Miss Bingley’s private sitting room.
When Bingley returned from his long day at the offices belonging to his business, he was told about the massive tantrum earlier and that it had been silent afterward, and his sister had not been seen or heard from since. When she did not come down for dinner, something Bingley demanded she do every day, he went up to her chambers. She was not in her bedchamber, so he proceeded to the attached sitting room.
He found his sister, lying on her back in a huge pool of her blood, eyes wide open in shock and a large piece of crystal embedded in her neck.
Later that night, the doctor and magistrate concurred she had caused her own death when she threw a piece of glassware against the wall and one of the shards ended up in her neck cutting the main artery.
Three days later, Caroline Bingley was laid to rest next to her parents, surrounded by many former tradesmen andtheir families. After she had been interred, Bingley wrote to the Hursts at Winsdale to inform them of Caroline’s demise. Since the interment had already taken place, this precluded the Hursts having to leave their son at home without them and to travel all the way across the country.
When Bingley received a clean copy of the paper, he understood what had set Caroline off causing her to kill herself.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
