“Lydia apologised to me. She said her greatest regret about running away with Mr Wickham was that it caused Mr Bingley to…” Jane struggled to speak for a moment. “I was honoured that she regrets my pain most of all.”
“Lydia has many things she ought to regret. Perhaps this is a start.”
ChapterTwenty-Two
Horse Guards, Whitehall, London
Friday, July 17
Darcy,
I have received your last. I am dismayed to hear further proof of Mr Wickham’s treachery. I am at liberty to call on you Monday. In the intervening time, might I suggest you search the gambling hells near Covent Garden? His two preferred vices would be in proximity.
Yours,
Fitzwilliam
On Sunday night, Darcy stared again at his cousin’s characteristically pithy letter. For a loquacious and unreserved man, Colonel Fitzwilliam’s letters were always brief and to the point. Unfortunately, he did not suggest a possibility that Darcy had not already considered. After visiting a few of the respectable clubs in town to which Wickham might have gained access, Darcy had spent Thursday and Friday enduring the unpleasant task of visiting those more sordid gambling dens that he felt safe entering alone. He encountered every variety of law-breaker and degenerate gamester but not the particular one he needed to find.
How shall I locate this irredeemable man?
Darcy prowled his library with nothing to do and too much to think about. His mind wandered, as it often did, back to Elizabeth. The clock struck nine o’clock and interrupted his self-indulgent reverie. After rubbing his hand across his tired eyes, he saw yesterday’s unreadTimeson his desk and decided to spend what remained of his prolonged Sunday evening in a more productive manner. He examined an article that relayed news of the battles of the Peninsular War. Darcy knew it was only a matter of time until his cousin’s London-based Royal Regiment of Horse Guards would be called to serve.
Darcy skimmed over the gossip and announcements, then tossed the paper aside. The Bennets’ scandal would never make the gossip pages, but that did not mean his sister-in-law’s sad affair with Wickham would not eventually be talked about in London. Between Miss Bingley and Mrs Hurst, there was no way to hope the scandal would remain in Hertfordshire. Darcy could also imagine the gossip of the Bennet family’s misfortune spreading like a plague from Lucas Lodge to the Hunsford parsonage and then on to Rosings Park.
After he put theTimesaside, Darcy realised that he might have seen a familiar name after all. He snatched the paper and held it close to the Argand lamp on the table so he could read the marriage announcements more clearly. There it was; he had not been mistaken after all. Darcy felt light-headed. There was no denying the words printed in front of him in cold, black, undeniable ink.
On the 10th inst., George Wickham, Esq. to the Honourable Miss Catherine Hareton, niece of Lord Hindley, of Gimmerton, Yorkshire.
* * *
The lossof her youngest daughter made Mrs Bennet dull for several days. Now that Jane was a jilt and Lydia hidden from public view, their mother was miserable. Only one daughter, her least favourite, was to be married, and she could not even gloat of that success. The enjoyment of gossiping with her neighbours was now curtailed due to the shame and discredit brought upon them by the daughter whose absence she now lamented.
“I often think there is nothing so bad as parting with one’s friends.”
Elizabeth sighed. “You must acknowledge that Lydia’s departure was necessary.”
“Well, I can focus my hopes on Darcy finding Wickham and making him marry Lydia so she can return home.” Elizabeth then had to listen to her mother ask repeatedly when she expected her “tall and handsome man” to write with news.
Her intended had not been gone a week, yet it felt like she had been alone for months. Several families stopped calling and refused to admit the Bennet girls into their homes. Dining engagements were cancelled, and ladies’ voices quickly silenced and heads turned away when Kitty and Elizabeth ventured into Meryton. Later, when Elizabeth had railed against the fickle hearts of their neighbours, Jane attempted to pacify her.
“Lady Lucas has been kind, Lizzy. She walked here on Thursday morning to condole with us.”
“She had better have stayed at home! We both know Lady Lucas to be a self-satisfied woman. Let her triumph over us at a distance.”
Jane still cherished a tender affection for Mr Bingley and cried herself to sleep for several nights in a row. Such violence of affliction could not be supported forever; it sunk within a few days into a calmer melancholy. Elizabeth wanted to tell her that Mr Bingley was not worth her tears and she would find a worthy man to love her. But Jane was not ready to hear such things. However much Jane might now regret it, the relationshiphadexisted, and she could not comprehend a rapid recovery from the awful idea of its being permanently dissolved.
“I do not know how she could have released him,” Mrs Bennet wailed to Mrs Philips. “What a silly notion for a little thing like Lydia and her child to get in the way of Bingley marrying Jane. The man had four thousand a year!”
Elizabeth threw down her work and prevailed upon Jane to go out of doors for the first time in days. Jane did not share Elizabeth’s great enjoyment in being outside but agreed if they could walk in silence. She and Jane went to the gravel path along the shrubbery, and Elizabeth’s mind wandered as she walked arm in arm with her unhappy sister.
The tenant cottage was as dusty as it previously had been, but she was happily seated across Fitzwilliam’s lap and could not care. He absently stroked her legs carelessly thrown across the couch, her skirt pushed back to her knees. Elizabeth leant to the floor to pick up a small box from her reticule and handed it to Fitzwilliam with a shy smile.
“My aunt and uncle Gardiner undertook a commission in town on my behalf since I could find nothing in Meryton that would suit. I had not planned to give these to you so soon, but I want you to have them before you must leave me again.”
He gave her a bemused look before opening the box to see the four bright-green oval sleeve buttons set in silver. He picked up one linked pair and held the delicate stones between his finger and thumb.
“I insisted my aunt not leave the jeweller without something green, and when he told her that moss agate represented good luck and a long life, she thought it an appropriate present for one’s betrothed.” Fitzwilliam’s eyes adhered to the sleeve buttons. His countenance showed he felt some emotion, but Elizabeth struggled to name it. “My uncle teased he could remember reading that, in ancient times, moss agates were thought to protect warriors from harm, but I said that all you needed protection from was the cuff of your shirtsleeve opening by accident.”
