Wickham caught his arm to hold him back. “‘Good day’? You cannot mean that you only came to see me in this miserable place?”
“Indeed I did.” This time he could not contain his smile.
“I cannot pay the chamber rent! There is a gaol fever in the common side, and not an apothecary or surgeon to see to anyone in the Fleet. I shall be dead in a fortnight.”
Darcy bowed.
Wickham brought a hand to his mouth, shaking his head. “Darcy, you have bought my every debt, you are my only creditor.” A panicked look came over his countenance. “You must let me settle my affairs to get out of here.”
“You believe that this is about a few thousand pounds?” Darcy stepped forward, and something in his expression made Wickham retreat until he nearly hit the fireplace. “You are here because Iwantyou to be. I cannot see you hang for seducing my sister, so I will see you die here for your debts, and because every single lady in England is safer with you within these walls.”
“There was no seduction. I only intended to elope with Georgiana.”Wickham’s visage showed no reaction, his voice no change, as he told this lie, and Darcy hated him even more.
“We both know that is not true. You corrupted my sister. Do not insult me further by looking me in the eye and lying about it.”
Something in his low, cold tone must have convinced Wickham to drop the pretence. “Reserved, proud Georgiana confessed what we had done, and to her brother, no less? Does she know you are here to triumph over me? She was a forward wench after the first time was behind?—”
Darcy grabbed Wickham by his coat lapels and drove him into the wall. “My sister is dead!” The satisfying crack of Wickham’s skull against the brick made Darcy stop before he hurt him again. He need not strike Wickham; he would die in the Fleet and that was enough. He let him go with a slight shove.
When he regained his composure, he looked back at Wickham, who had fallen into a chair and was giving him a sympathetic look. “Darcy ... I am sorry for your loss, Darcy.” He looked it, damn him. He looked sadder and more condoling than Mr and Mrs Collins had looked at Georgiana’s funeral.
“I do not need your false condolences. You cannot tell me that you loved her! You loved her fortune, and a chance to revenge yourself uponme.”
Wickham shrugged. “That hardly means I am happy she is dead. You doted on her, and she was your nearest relation. What manner of a man would I be to feel satisfaction that she is gone?”
Darcy had his heart set on Wickham saying that had he eloped with Georgiana, he would have had her thirty thousand pounds and could be happy she was dead. He would have had her money, wasted it on the bottle and the dice and prostitutes and, without observing any appearance of mourning, increased his fortune by marrying another wealthy woman.
Instead, after a stretch of silence, Wickham quietly asked, “Was it the consumption?”
He wanted to shout, “No, you killed her.” It was close enough to the truth as far as he was concerned. But Wickham did not know why Georgiana confessed how far their dalliance went. He did not deserveto know about that little boy. And if he told him, and Wickham did not show the devastating grief he ought to feel, Darcy was afraid throwing Wickham into a wall was the least of what he would do. Darcy only nodded.
“So, I am in gaol not for forsaking your father’s generosity or for accumulating debts in the thousands, but for seducing your willing sister. And you thinkmevengeful.”
Wickham might not be satisfied by Georgiana’s death, but he was still detestable. “You misused my sister and made her final year miserable, and, what is worse, you have no remorse for what you did to her, or that you betrayed your own godfather and benefactor in the process!” He took a calming breath and steadied his temper. “It is a maxim of honour that requires me to defend my sister.” Darcy could convince himself that it was honour that required him to take revenge, that it was his sister’s due, and due his reputation as a gentleman.
“You mean that you will never allow me to make up my affairs with you?” Wickham’s voice raised in incredulity.
“Capias ad satisfaciendum. Do you remember any Latin? ‘You may seize to satisfy.’ You are here because I got a writ to put a debtor under arrest until my claim is satisfied.” Darcy put his hands on the table and leant down to look into Wickham’s eyes. “And I assure you, I am nowhere near to satisfied.”
He turned to leave, and Wickham taunted, “I pity you. I may be in here, but I will soon befriend the men and bed the ladies. You never could drink, game, or swear with the gentlemen, or talk small and flirt with the ladies. You are alone in the world now.”
“I am married.”
The words came proudly, impulsively, and were, perhaps, not the wisest thing to admit when he wanted not to appear vulnerable. But rather than an insulting rejoinder against him or his wife, Wickham was struck dumb.
Elizabeth wanted him to come here to see Wickham. She worried that some sort of wrathfulness, a harshness, would settle in his character if he allowed Wickham to die. Darcy looked at him, and thought of the suffering in the Fleet, even in the master’s side. He shook his head and went to the door without taking leave. Elizabethwas mistaken about his character; it would do him no lasting harm to know that Wickham would die and he had done nothing to stop it.
Wickham stood and cried, “Do not leave! I cannot pay now, and I shall not make enough in any card or dice game to pay the fees on this side before I must go to the common side.”
“If you survive the typhus, I shall give you a box so you can beg by the grille and earn a few coins from passers-by.”
“Darcy, please!” Wickham clutched his sleeve, and his voice rose. “Common-side prisoners are often confined to their own apartment and cannot associate with master’s-side prisoners. They are allowed no visitors, no liberty of the Fleet. I shall make no money to repay you by gaming with the beggars in the other building as I could here.”
“You have less than five pounds to your name, and you owe me over two thousand.” Darcy pried Wickham’s fingers from his coat. “And two thousand pounds will never restore Georgiana to me.”
“So you will never allow me to make up my affairs with you?” Wickham’s eyes were wide with terror. “There are no medicines furnished, no medical attendance in the Fleet at all. You are sentencing me to die from typhus! Is that the manner of man Mrs Darcy married, the manner of man your father raised? Are you truly so hateful?”
Am I a vindictive, vengeful man?Where was the line between justice and revenge? Wickham was confined to the Fleet, and would likely die for want of a few coins. By the end of September, the fever, rash, haemorrhage, gangrene, prostration, and delirium would come to its natural conclusion: a wretched death.And Georgiana is still dead.His little sister was gone, united in heaven with her child and no longer in constant pain.
