“I have not paid them; I had acquired his debts, and George Wickham is now indebted to me,” Darcy spoke with such disdain that his words resonated in the tall room.
“Oh!” Bingley exclaimed, more astonished still.
“In other words, at the slightest misconduct I may have him imprisoned—and he knows it.”
“Excellent! Might I take half of them? After all, you owe nothing to the Bennet family.”
“True, my dear Bingley,” Darcy said. “I owe nothing to the Bennets. Yet this man deceived my parents’ trust, and afterwards that of the living.”
Bingley nodded; for, though ignorant of particulars, he had learnt the preceding summer of Wickham’s attempted seduction of Miss Darcy.
“I regret that I could not avert what has already occurred,” Darcy continued, “yet henceforth it is my duty of honour to see that he bring no further harm upon any person or family after Miss Lydia…including you.”
“But I might be his creditor as well,” Bingley insisted.
“You cannot,” the colonel said with kindness and good-humour. “You may assist the Bennet family in other ways. Leave Darcy to manage Wickham’s business. You would be inclined to forgive—Miss Lydia will be your sister-in-law—but Darcy will show no mercy, and that is precisely what such a scoundrel requires.”
Bingley consented cheerfully. He looked at Darcy with gratitude, remembering how often he had been saved by him from imprudent romantic entanglements. However, in the case of Miss Bennet, Darcy had been mistaken and admitted it, which made Bingley extremely happy and grateful.
At the light supper to which Darcy invited them, the subject of Wickham was not resumed.
“Where is Miss Darcy?” Bingley asked when they sat down to table.
“With my family,” the colonel replied. “There she enjoys a cheerful society of ladies, which is exactly what Georgiana needs at present.”
Bingley spoke at length of his approaching marriage, invited them to view his nearly finished house, and once more begged Darcy to stand as his witness. Darcy glanced briefly across the table at the colonel, yet accepted. Bingley, however,did not miss that glance, nor the few others that passed from time to time between the two cousins.
“When shall your own wedding take place?” he asked Darcy with curiosity. It was an event he looked forward to attending beside his wife, and the thought alone warmed his heart pleasantly.
Darcy hesitated a moment before replying, then said rather oddly, “We have not yet decided.”
Bingley, who regarded matrimony as the most significant event of his life, looked at him in surprise, yet refrained from comment, hoping perhaps for an explanation which did not come.
Fortunately, the cognac sustained a moderately cheerful atmosphere.
But when he mentioned that he had heard some confidential report of Miss Elizabeth being about to marry Mr Clinton, the gleam of amusement and satisfaction that had brightened Darcy’s countenance disappeared, and this also Bingley observed.
∞∞∞
“What is the matter with him?” he asked the colonel anxiously. It was a fine evening, and as they were bound the same way, they had resolved to walk. “Is it because of Wickham?”
“In great measure... Do you know anything of him and Miss Elizabeth?”
Bingley blushed in the darkness, yet the colonel required not to see his face, for Bingley’s boundless sincerity betrayed his feelings too clearly.
“Well,” he said, “a few whispered confessions between lovers—but of course I should never have mentioned it had you not asked.”
“You have done rightly; never let him know that you know,” the colonel said, evidently referring to Darcy.
“I understand... He was, I suppose, deeply affected by the refusal. That is why he has...”
Bingley dared not complete the sentence, though that strange tone in which Darcy had spoken of his own engagement had left him thoughtful.
The colonel made no reply, which was a sign that the subject was not within his inclination.
“Matters have grown more complicated of late,” he said at last, and then asked about the house and Netherfield—clear indication that this topic must remain unresolved.
Chapter 30
