The problems started when George had become aware of the difference in their stations and wealth. George’s father, Peter Wickham, had been old Mr. Darcy’s steward and a more honourable man you could not find. Mrs. Wickham was a different story. She spent money faster than it was earned and was very envious of that she did not have. Unfortunately, George took after her and not his father.
George had been thirteen and Darcy fourteen and home from Harrow at the end of the school year. George had always like having fun, sometimes playing pranks, but now what Darcy saw was the so called pranks aimed to hurt others and get them into trouble for things George Wickham had done.
Darcy’s eyes were at last opened to the manipulator and liar that George had become. What saddened Darcy even more was his father was taken in by George’s lies. The one time he had tried to tell his father the truth, he had felt rebuked when his father had instead taken him to task.
“Gentlemen do not tattle tale, and it is but youthful exuberance...” Darcy never could understand why his father had had such a blind spot when it came to George Wickham.
Just before he entered Cambridge, he caught Wickham, no longer his friend George, trying to force himself on one of Pemberley’s maids. He knew that he made an error in judgement not reporting the incident to his father, but he believed his father would have found a way to excuse it as amisunderstanding, so he mistakenly paid the maid to not say anything and covered it up.
A year later Wickham was sent to Cambridge to get a gentleman’s education at the expense of his godfather. It was here that Darcy saw him sink into dissolution and depravity. George passed his classes by the skin of his teeth, and even at that Darcy suspected he had routinely cheated, the honour code they all signed was meaningless to the man who had no honour.
Darcy covered his debts with the merchants as well as any gambling debts, which were not insignificant. This is how Wickham had started his life of continual debauchery. In hindsight, Darcy knew covering up for him had led his erstwhile friend to the belief he could get away with things with little or no consequence. Darcy recognised he too had erred, but what was done was done.
Even though Darcy had ample and irrefutable proof, he had made the mistake of not telling his father. The rebuke he had received when he was a lad of fourteen still stung. He had allowed that memory to overrule his good sense.
As he snapped out of his reverie, Darcy admitted to himself it was part of the reason he had blamed himself for George Wickham’s actions. The days of his protecting Wickham from the consequences of his own misdeeds was passed. Wickham would finally pay for all of the misery and hardship he had caused others.
“Same old George, always looking for the easy way out. If you would have paid attention to your studies rather than filling your nights with debauchery and dissipation at Cambridge, you would know when someone calls in your debts as I am, there is no trial. Tell me, George, do you have almost four thousand pounds to pay me what you owe?” Darcy received his answer as the remaining fight drained out of Wickham’s countenance.
“Georgiana, anything else to say?” Darcy looked over at his sister to make sure Wickham’s threat had not had a negative effect as he feared.
“Me? Talk to him? He is not worth any words I might have.” Georgiana carelessly waved off Wickham’s last hope, and that made all the men around her yet even more proud.
“And with that, Wickham, you are about to get a holiday in Marshalsea for the rest of your days,” Darcy spat as he closed the distance between them, so he was now almost nose to nose with his long-time tormentor. “I hold all your debts from all the places that you have run from.
“After today, the merchants of Meryton will happily extend credit to the militia officers now that you will not be a problem anymore and unable to rob the honest people here. Or if you prefer, we could hand you over to the men looking for you in London and the brother of one of your victims, if you would prefer that then we will hold you until yourfriendsarrive. Up to you Wickham.” Seeing his former friend was deadly serious, Wickham shook his head with vigour, Marshalsea was better than what those men would do to him.
“That is onlyafterthe forty lashes you will receive for dishonourable conduct, conduct unbecoming an officer, deserting your post, and theft from your fellow officers,” spat out Colonel Forster, whose sported a look of pure anger.
“I know it is most unladylike, Colonel Forster, but that I would almost love to see.” Georgiana smiled up at him. “Would you add one for each of my sisters he intended to compromise today, one for myself, and one for my dear father whose hopes he failed with his every action?” she asked sweetly, and even Darcy could not hold in his chuckle.
“It will be my pleasure, Miss Darcy, and for your gracious considerations of his intended victims, I will add two for yourself as his intentions toward you were pure malice I cannot abide.” He bowed his head in her direction then looked at Wickham with such hard eyes as he had never seen before.
Wickham had intended to try to talk down his sentence, but he could read that anything he said would but increase his punishment more than Georgiana had. Georgiana! He had never before been proven so wrong in his assessment of a woman as he was now.
Wickham was trying to swallow his blubbering, but fear made it loud enough to be heard by all as he was stripped of his shirt and bound with his hands above his head and a leg to a tree each. Colonel Forster administered the six and forty lashes. Wickham passed out after five.
Georgiana Darcy, who had been given the option to leave before the punishment was meted out chose to stay and did not look away until after the first was administered when she buried her head into her brother’s chest as he held her tightly.
Although her tender heart did not like anyone suffering, she had no such compunction when it came to George Wickham. He deserved everything that was coming to him and far more, and now she knew the truth of this man and how many he had harmed.
After this first wave of punishment, his back a purpling red with thin streaks of blood and when he came to, openly begging and crying Wickham was clapped in irons, both hands and legs in case he decided to try to flee before he arrived at his new home. He was bundled into a wagon with no thought or care for his raw back. But before the cart left, Darcy walked up to it and looked at Wickham one last time.
“My dear, departed father gave you every chance in life but you decided to squander them and lead a life of real sin and debauchery. After my honoured father passed, I gave you four thousand pounds, and instead of studying the law as you claimed that you would, you wasted it on women and gaming.
“As much as you have always tried to blame everyone else, but most especially me, all of this, everything that has happened and will happen to you, is by your own hand. You let jealousy and envy of things you were never owed, which were never your due, rule your life. You became the worst form of man who not only enjoys taking a woman’s innocence, but that of a young girl’s which is abhorrent in and of itself, but you also were only concerned with what you could get out of honest people without working for it.
“If you had applied half of the effort you applied to lying and manipulation to hard work, you would have had a very, very good life. I am glad to finally say the time has come for you to feel the consequences of your actions,” Darcy stated evenly.
Darcy handed the wagon driver a copy of the warrant and a listing of Wickham’s debts, a full and complete copy was waiting for him at Marshalsea, but the originals were safely in Bennet’s safe.
With that, the wagon gave a lurch forward as the two cart horses strained against the yoke, gathering speed as they pulled. This was the start of the journey to Marshalsea and his new home for the rest of his life, unless there was some miracle. Flanked by four armed outriders and one guard in the wagon, George Wickham started what was expected to be the last journey he would take in his wasted life.
As Darcy watched the cart roll off, he was relieved the Earl had arranged for Wickham to be placed in the most secure part of the gaol so there would be no chance of his escape. He thought about his father, and he was certain he would have been disappointed, even disgusted by what his godson had become.
Although he should not have withheld the truth about Wickham, he was not unhappy he had spared his grieving father suffering such a disillusionment before he departed this mortal coil to join his beloved wife, Anne.
Chapter 15
