“I know. But I no longer care.”
“Not at all?”
“Not in the slightest.” With a conscious smirk, Darcy added, “It was suggested to me earlier this year that I re-evaluate my priorities.”
Bingley found this considerably funnier than Darcy expected him to and laughed heartily at it. “Is that why you were in such a bad mood all summer?”
Darcy did not deign to reply, but Bingley only smiled more broadly. “I take it you are going to make Miss Elizabeth an offer?”
“I am going to Hertfordshire to try to judge whether an offer would be welcomed.”
“She is hardly likely to refuse you!”
Darcy took a long draught of port to drown the tide of memories that assailed him of Elizabeth doing just that, and his own string of internal curses for still not being sure of her regard. Gardiner had been infuriatingly circumspect, scarcely mentioning her name other than to say they were all sorry not to have been at liberty to explain their precipitous departure from Derbyshire. Darcy had assured him he understood and apologised for not being there to receive them when they called at Pemberley, hoping it might induce further revelations, but it had not.
In fairness, he had been equally guarded, but his situation in life had accustomed him to a level of independence and self-sufficiency that made the prospect of divulging his personal affairs to anyone abhorrent to him. Which made the next, necessary turn in the conversation all the more disagreeable.
“There has been a complication.”
Bingley huffed a sardonic laugh. “Is not there always?”
“Her youngest sister has recently married.”
“Miss Lydia? I did not think she was old enough to marry.”
“She is fifteen, and she was entangled with someone who ought to have known better.”
“Who?”
“Wickham.”
Bingley started. “YourWickham?”
“That is a ghastly epithet, but yes, I suppose so.”
“Ah. Well, that does make things rather awkward.”
“More than you know, but they will be gone farther away soon. I have that much comfort.” As concisely as he could, Darcy summarised Lydia’s elopement, the gaps in his own knowledge of the affair having been filled by Gardiner.
Bingley was appropriately dismayed. “What will become of them?”
“The money Mr Bennet has agreed to give them will scarcely cover Wickham’s gambling. He has resigned his commission and has no other profession, since he refused to take orders or study the law when he had the chance. And you ought to know, the nature of their marriage has caused talk in Meryton. I hope my return will help assuage much of that, but there is always talk.”
“This must have been beastly for Miss Bennet and her sisters.”
“That has been my concern,” Darcy agreed. “But I hope the actions I have taken today will alleviate some of their misery. I have bought Wickham another commission—well, I have said I shall pay for it at any rate. Gardiner has agreed to arrange the purchase, which we both agree will need to be somewhere as remote as possible. And I have given him an extra thousand pounds to settle on his niece in addition to what she will have from her mother, to make sure she is more comfortable, wherever she and her husband end up.”
Bingley half frowned and half laughed. “That was a tad high-handed of you. You are not her brother yet.”
“But I am, regrettably, the closest thing to Wickham’s. And besides,” he added with a deep sigh, “none of it would have happened had I beenlesshigh-handed in the first place.”
Thus, with the greatest reluctance and a queasy feeling in his gut throughout, he explained to Bingley how Lydia’s fate had almost been Georgiana’s, and how he had thought it beneath him to warn the world about Wickham. His friend listened with observable disquiet, unusually grave for a man whose response to most things was to find some good in them. By the time Darcy finished, he began to worry he had erred in telling him. “You will not think ill of my sister, I hope.”
“What? Good grief, no! And never could I. Miss Darcy is quite the sweetest creature I know—an angel compared tomysisters.”
“And I may count on your discretion?”
“Goes without saying. I wonder at you, though, Darcy. To think you have been carrying this, all these months, and said not a word to anybody.”
