“I hate to have such an unreserved discussion with you?—”
“You should have said it sooner!” she cried, dropping her hands to glare at him. “Instead of vague hints to keep Lydia from him, you should have told me why. I could have coped with the truth.”
“I did not avoid it from a principle of false delicacy.” Darcy tried to tamp down his frustration. “Would you have believed me, or called me a slanderer?” He saw the answer on her face. “I come into your circle and outright accuse your friend of being a spendthrift with syphilis? That he would seduce gentlewoman, maid, or prostitute without concern over whom he infects or whose heart he breaks? You would have thought I was blackening his character for no good reason.”
“We will never know now, will we? And you might have explained this to my mother after they were gone, so she did not hope for their marriage.”
He barked a laugh. Mrs Bennet would never have believed him. “Who wants to tell a mother that her daughter ran off with a man who engaged in the act with strangers in public places and had got himself the pox in the process?” he snapped. “And if your parents had anyinfluence over your sister’s behaviour, she would not have run off in the first place.”
She flushed and looked out the window, but he saw tears run down her cheeks. She was angry and afraid, but likely embarrassed, too. Darcy regretted her pain and lost innocence.
He leant across the coach and touched her arm to gain her attention. Elizabeth flinched but did not pull away. In a gentler voice he said, “I could never convince my own father that Wickham was an immoral man. His drinking, his spending, his careless use of women—my father refused to see it. So I never assumed I could convince you, your mother, or anyone else.”
To his surprise, when he drew back his hand, she took it and pressed it. “I am not angry with you,” she said, still not looking at him.
“I know.”
“Can we really recover Lydia in time to preserve her reputation?”
“I will make sure Lydia does not have a life tied to such an unprincipled man.”
At the next posting inn,Elizabeth invited her maid inside the carriage, but was incapable of further speech. She was still in utter amazement at everything Darcy had told her. Her outlook on the world and of her own judgment was now nothing as it once was. Darcy seemed proud and easily dissatisfied, and Wickham charming and agreeable. One was a decent man and the other more reprehensible than she could have imagined. Before today, she might have been happy for Lydia if Wickham had money to marry on.
She might have even been jealous that such an engaging man had preferred her younger sister to her.
But he wasted three thousand pounds in three years, had no profession, was a gamester, and ran after women so wildly that he caught syphilis. It was sickening how he had no regrets over whom he might infect. She had put great effort into keeping her features calm and her voice steady when Darcy described Wickham’s misdeeds. It was too awful to be believed, but, as Darcy had said, he had no reason to lie—and he took on a great deal of trouble to aid her family.
Elizabeth looked at him across the carriage as they approached the coaching inn in Angel Street. He fought for a victim even at the cost of his own privacy, and he fought for Lydia even though he had not an ounce of respect for her. Elizabeth owed him much, but something about his manner told her he did not want to be thanked for doing what he felt was right.
“Take a private room with your maid, order something to eat, and I will return in half an hour,” Darcy told her when they alighted. “This is where they changed horses if they left from Margate. I am going to talk to the postilions, and see if anything can be made out from them. I doubt your sister and Wickham went on to Scotland, but it would be wise to confirm that before we do anything else.”
Elizabeth was glad for his guidance and took the room, and soon dinner arrived. It had been a wearying day. As she sat with her plate, she wondered why Wickham encouraged Lydia at all? He could never afford to marry a woman without some money. And Lydia had no claims other than youth and liveliness. It made no sense at all for him to pursue her when wealthier and more accomplished women were in Ramsgate. It must have been as Darcy said, that he used Lydia and her pocket money to escape his debts at the seaside and he would soon abandon her.
There was a knock and a servant entered. “Is Mr Darcy here? A rider delivered two letters.”
“They must have been sent from Ramsgate behind us,” she said to Sarah. Since Darcy had stopped to speak with postilions and toll keepers, an express rider had caught up to them. She paid the servant and promised to deliver them to Mr Darcy when he returned. When the servant left, she saw that one letter was addressed to her. It was from her mother and dated a few hours after she left Ramsgate.
My dear Lizzy,
All is well with my poor dear Lydia, although how she will recover from being tricked by that villain, I am sure I do not know! Wickham has indeed fled Ramsgate, but he never met Lydia to elope with her.She walked back from Margate alone this morning. She says he told her to meet him there so they could be married, but he never claimed her.
What a villainous man! Why would he arrange it all but then not meet her? We thought he had met some accident, but he is certainly gone and was never seen in Margate. We learnt he hired a post-chaise in Ramsgate early this morning. Lydia returned to Sion Hill in a rage not two hours after you left. Thank goodness she did not wait as long as he told her to.
Your sister is vexed, of course. She so dearly wanted to be the first of her sisters to marry, but she is safe and none but Kitty and me know where she had been. I tried to persuade her to tell everyone what Wickham had done to force him to marry her, but Lydia is angry at her misuse. She says she would not have him now! I blame your father for putting me in this state. Lydia is not the kind of girl to do such a thing if her father had been with us. I have had such tremblings, such flutterings, all over me! At least my dear girl is back, and no one is the wiser for where she was.
You may go on to Longbourn, only send Sarah back to us. And thank Mr Darcy for his efforts, for I am sure he would have fought Wickham and made him marry Lydia had it been necessary. Tell him the note I sent to his sister was returned unopened. Apparently, your friend Miss Darcy has also left Ramsgate. There was no answer at her lodgings and the neighbours said Mrs Younge told them they would not be back.
Yours &etc.
Elizabeth fell into her chair as realisations of disgust and despair struck her. Wickham’s goal was not Lydia, but Georgiana Darcy.
With desperate wishes she was wrong, Elizabeth tore open Darcy’s letter. It was a breach of privacy, but she would suffer the consequence if she was wrong. A quick perusal of the letter from Darcy’s valet confirmed it all. Miss Darcy’s maid came home from an errand to find the apartments empty, the other servants let go, and Georgiana suddenly gone from Ramsgate.
Wickham set up Lydia in Margate as a distraction.
He convinced Lydia he would marry her, so anyone giving chase would think he was eloping with Lydia—and no one would think to look for Georgiana. Had not Darcy said that Georgiana claimed to be occupied for the day? Darcy would not even know his sister was missing until tonight. And when it was known Wickham had run off with Lydia Bennet, no one would look for Georgiana Darcy at all today nor assume they were together. Anyone in pursuit would assume Wickham was in a stage coach from nearby Margate rather than a post-chaise from Ramsgate.
The door opened, and Darcy strode in. “There was no man and a young woman on the coach from Margate,” he said by way of greeting.
