What looked to have been a bustling quayside was deserted, the ships rotting at their moorings. The streets were filled with a listless, desperate-looking populace, their faces gaunt. The air was thick with the stench of decay and a despair so painful it was almost a physical entity. And then there was the sickness – a wasting, slow draining of life that left its victims hollow-eyed and weak, their essence dimming.
Wickham met them at an inn near the city gates. He looked more careworn than when he had arrived at Pemberley, though a flicker of relief crossed his features upon seeing them. Hisgreeting to Darcy was curt, but his gaze on Georgiana held nothing but concern and a deep tenderness.
“Welcome to Newcastle, Darcy. Mrs Darcy. Colonel,” Wickham said, “Or what remains of it.” He helped Georgiana from the carriage, his touch surprisingly gentle. “There is light in your eyes again,” he said softly, just barely audible, “I had begun to fear I might never see it again.”
The inn Wickham led inside was a study in slow decay, its sign creaking on rusted hinges, its painted name long since weathered into illegibility. A man with blank eyes took their coin, leading them into a common room where the air smelt of damp rot, stale ale, and the metallic tang of the Blight. The fire in the hearth was a smoky thing that offered a meagre glow but no discernible warmth, doing nothing to combat the chill that had seeped into the building.
“This is nothing,” Wickham said, gesturing to the room, his voice bleak. “Merely the antechamber. Come. See the city you have travelled all this way to save. He paused, turning to Elizabeth. “I would spare you the sight if I could, Mrs Darcy. It is not fit for a lady’s sensibilities.”
“I did not travel all this way only to be shielded from the truth,” she replied.
Wickham hesitated, looking to Darcy as if for a final verdict.
“Mrs Darcy has expressed her will on the matter,” Darcy said curtly.
With that decided, Georgiana was left to rest at the inn while the others followed Wickham out into the desolate streets. His tour proved to be a descent into a creeping hell.
They saw the ancient cathedral, its once magnificent stained-glass windows, now dark and shattered, like the vacant eyes of a skull. “The Archbishop offered prayers,” Wickham commented darkly, “But the Blight was not overly impressed with them.”
They saw the Merchants’ Guildhall, its proud facade crumbling. “The Arcane Office poured half the city’s remaining magical reserves into reinforcing those wards,” Wickham said with a shrug. “They held for three days and then collapsed entirely.”
The true horror, however, lay in the city’s heart. The carriage could not navigate the narrow, refuse-strewn alleys that served as the city’s tenements, so they proceeded on foot. The air grew heavy with the stench of sickness and unwashed bodies. The people huddled in doorways, their skin holding a greyish pallor as if the dust of the decaying city had settled into their flesh. A cough echoed from the shadows. The children were the most heartbreaking sight. They did not run or play; they sat listlessly or lay wrapped in threadbare rags.
They saw the areas where the Arcane Office had attempted interventions, only for the Blight to return with renewed ferocity. Scorched earth marked the spots where cleansing fires had been attempted, but now, a virulent, grey-black moss grew there, a defiant mockery of the mages’ efforts. The Blight here was not just present; it was triumphant.
“They tried, Darcy,” Wickham said, as they stood before what had once been a public garden, now a barren mudflat. “The Arcane Office men. They came with their books, their rituals. But it never lasts. The Blight always comes back. Stronger. Hungrier.”
Darcy’s jaw tightened, but he said nothing, his gaze fixed on the blighted ground.
Later that night, the thin walls of the inn offered little rest. A distant, hacking cough echoed from the street, a sound that seemed to cling to the dampness of the room. Sleep was an impossibility.
Darcy stood at the grimy window, his shoulders rigid with a tension that radiated into the small space. Unable to bear his silent torment a moment longer, Elizabeth went to him, slipping her hand into his.
He turned from the window. Without a word, he pulled her into a fierce embrace. He held her as if she were the only real thing in a world of ghosts, his face buried in her hair.
The desolation of Newcastle had cast a heavy pall over Elizabeth’s spirit. Sleep had been a fitful thing, haunted by images. She awoke to the cold light of a northern dawn, and made her way to the parlour downstairs. There she saw Darcy, staring out at the street. He turned as she entered.
“Wickham’s knowledge of this city is extensive,” he said, with a thoughtful air, almost as if continuing a conversation that had been playing only in his own mind.
“You find that surprising?” she asked, coming to stand beside him.
He gave a humourless laugh. “I find it predictable. He knows the wealthy to swindle, the merchants to defraud, and the criminals as professional associates. Every acquaintance is merely a mark.”
“You see only the old motives. I see a man who has used his intimate knowledge of this city’s despair not to flee it, but to guide us to the heart of its suffering.”
He turned to face her. “Do not mistake his intimate knowledge of this city for any true sense of duty. His familiarity with the city’s alleys comes from evading creditors, not from guiding visitors. He understands the plight of struggling families only so far as he can find a weakness to exploit. Every connection he has ever forged was for his own advantage.” The full weight of his long disillusionment with Wickham was in his eyes. “Pray, enlighten me, Elizabeth. How does one cast these particular vices in the light of virtue?”
“I confess I cannot,” she said, meeting his gaze without acrimony, “But perhaps even Captain Wickham is capable of change when faced, day after relentless day, with such all-encompassing suffering.”
Darcy’s expression hardened with cynicism. “Change? For a man like George Wickham? The notion is remarkably optimistic, even for you.” He shook his head. “A man’s character is like bedrock. Wickham’s is a foundation of self-interest and deceit.”
“You speak of character as bedrock, fixed and immutable,” she pressed, “But perhaps it is more like a river. Its course may be set by habit and history, but a flood or a drought can alter its path entirely.”
Darcy stared at her for a long moment, the challenge in her words hanging in the air between them. Eventually he looked away, his gaze returning to the bleak street outside.
His quiet hurt did what no argument could have: it silenced her with a sudden, uncomfortable realisation. She was arguing for Wickham’s redemption with a generosity of spirit she had not applied to understanding Darcy. She had sketched Wickham’s character with all the soft watercolours of redemption, while her portrait of Darcy had been drawn from the harsh light of a single, ill-mannered night. And yet despite the mortifying realisation, her conviction held. It was a truth shefelt somehow. Wickham was not entirely the man Darcy believed him to be. He had changed. Ithadto be so.
Did it not?
