The day after the attempt on James’s life, Lieutenant Denny returned from his recruiting trip to London. Among others, he had recruited one George Wickham. Denny had met him briefly in Lambton some years back and remembered him to be a charming man but did not know much else about him. He was blissfully unaware of the true character of the viper he had recruited.
Wickham had used almost all of his available funds to purchase the commission. Being recruited was very timely for him, he needed to hide away from the dangerous men looking for him to collect debts he owed and others who wanted to revenge themselves on him for despoiling sisters and daughters.
He was an equal opportunity taker of young ladies’ virtues; Wickham cared not whether they were servants, tradesman’s daughters, or gentlewomen. For the first number of days after joining the Derbyshire Militia quartered in Meryton for the summer, Wickham was kept very busy training, so he had no time for his normal dissolute pursuits.
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Collins’s letter had arrived at Rosings Park in Kent the day he was being transported to Newgate in order for him to stand trial at the Old Bailey in London. It was dropped and slipped under a sideboard, and only found three days later by Miss Anne de Bourgh. The day it was found happened to be the fateful day her mother’s idiot parson had his date with the hangman’s noose. After Anne found it under the sideboard, she handed it to her controlling and imperious mother.
It was eventually read later that morning by Lady Catherine de Bourgh, though she had almost consigned it to the flames thinking Collins was beseeching her for help again; help that would, of course, never be given.
Curiosity got the best of her, so she condescended to read the missive from her former parson. On reading the letter, she was most seriously displeased, and the level of her displeasure resulted in an eruption of temper that was a near apoplexy.
She yelled for Smythe, her long-suffering butler, to have her barouche box readied for immediate travel. She would travel to Matlock House in Town and make sure her brother put an end to that farce of an engagement of Darcy’s, since Collins did not seem to be able to handle this himself.
No one, especially some country hussy with no connections or fortune, was going to come between her and Pemberley’s coffers. It would not be borne. She would end this pretence of an abomination of an engagement, and she was delusional enough to be sure that the Earl would support her as head of the family.
Once Lady Catherine was micromanaging the packing of her trunks, Anne picked up the letter her mother had discarded and read it:
Longbourn Estate
7th of July 1811
My dear beneficent, honourable patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
As directed by you, I arrived at my cousin’s estate, the one you with your all-encompassing knowledge opined should be mine, at exactly four o’clock in the afternoon as you suggested. I know how your ladyship demands punctuality.
Imagine my surprise when rather than accept the olive branch that in your infinite wisdom you told me to bestow, I was met with derision and laughter. Worse still, the people present had the temerity to question your wisdom and to mock you. Mock you, the great lady that you are!
It was notonly the Bennets, but some members of your family partook in the disrespect for one such as you who is due all deference possible. They dared opine your beneficent ladyship is not right all the time, and in fact made it a point to say you were often not right, if ever!
I had the honour of meeting your nephew, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley in Derbyshire, your daughter’s esteemed betrothed. I was then told a scandalous falsehood, as he was introduced as the fiancé of my cousin Elizabeth.
I am positive she has trapped your nephew with her arts and allurements despite his proclamation otherwise. I can account for no other possibility that would make him forsake you, honour, and duty to align himself with such a woman.
When I pointed out it could not be true, as I had heard from yourself, my Ladyship, on many occasions that he was engaged to your daughter since they were in their cradles, I attempted to set my cousin to rights.
Rather than listen to me, I was rudely sent to my chamber like an errant schoolboy, not an honoured member of the clergy. My cousin told me I would be turned out of my future home on the morrow and was not to return.
I resolved this affront to you would not stand, so to that end, I will compromise my cousin Elizabeth and make sure your nephew will be released from the trap he has unwittingly fallen into.
I will also rid my future home of the two interlopers my cousin claims are his sons, and to speed up my inheritance I will dispatch my irreverent cousin. As you so generously advised me it would not be a crime to dispatch foundlings of no rank or consequence, I am also willing to permanently remove the temptation from your nephew by marrying the hussy myself.
For your honour, my beneficent and honourable patroness I will not fail.
Your most humble servant,
William Collins, Parson of the Parish at Hunsford
Miss de Bourgh now understood why her mother was to go to Town, the bumbling parson had not mentioned her Fitzwilliam family was the family visiting the Bennets. Disgusted with the sentiments the idiotic parson expressed in the missive she had just read, and with the machinations of her mother, she was very happy for her cousin William. However, she could only hope that the parson had not been successful.
What was written made her mother complicit in the murders the parson was planning to carry out. Anne could see her mother was far worse than she had imagined!
Then and there she decided it was time to assert her rights and knowing Uncle Reggie and Aunt Elaine were in Hertfordshire, news she had not shared with her mother, she wrote an express and had her personal and faithful courier make all haste to carry it directly to her uncle at the Longbourn Estate. She would learn whether Collins had succeeded or failed in his dastardly plan; hoping desperately that he had failed.
As soon as that was done, she prepared to travel just after her maniacal mother left in her barouche for Town.
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