“Mr Hurst, may I tell my father the truth about his late brother-in-law?” Fitzwilliam requested.
“Not at this juncture. Perhaps at a later date the disclosure may be made. I look forward to hearing from you. I know that Harold would be happy to have you with us. There are very few he can talk to about his double life.” Hurst stoodand shook the younger man’s hand. He was impressed that Fitzwilliam’s shake was firm and strong.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Five days later Fitzwilliam sent a note to Mr Hurst that simply read ‘Yes.’
A few days before their graduation, Fitzwilliam was with his slightly younger cousin in their shared sitting room. The Hurst heir was with them as well, as he had come to visit and would remain to witness his friend’s and Darcy’s graduation.
In addition to wanting to witness his friend end his studies and see Hilldale, who would arrive with the brothers’ parents on the morrow, Harold had come to express his pleasure at his friend accepting the offer to work for the organisation run by his father. He would find time alone with Fitzwilliam later; now he needed to concentrate on the conversation.
“William, you must tell Uncle Robert the truth about the parasite,” Fitzwilliam insisted. “Your father never did him any favours by giving him expectations which will never be met, and please explain who you help by cleaning up after him? I do not know why you do not allow me to teach him a lesson.”
“I would prefer you do not discuss family business with Hurst here,” William Darcy responded haughtily. He hated his faults being pointed out to him.
“Since when can you not discuss Wickham unless out of my hearing? Did you forget we used to speak of the wastrel when we were all at Eton together, and again during my final year here?” Harold drawled. His devil-may-care attitude was on display. “Think about it, Darcy, what of those he hurts when you are not there to try and clean up after him?”
“Let us both speak to Uncle Robert,” Fitzwilliam suggested. “Has he confirmed that he and Gigi will be here for the graduation? Or is he feeling poorly?”
“Father wrote that he will arrive in time to witness me graduate from hisalma mater. He is determined to attend even if the doctors advised against a longer journey.” William paused. “His health is one of the reasons I have not said anything to him about Wicky.”
“He is your father, and you know him and I do not. However, I can tell you that my pater would be rather disappointed in me if I withheld such pertinent information from him by thinking him toofrailto hear it,” Harold opined.
“Harry here, has the right of it. Uncle Robert would not be pleased if he discovered you were coddling him,” Fitzwilliam agreed.
“Darcy, I remember, more than once, you stated in my hearing that your father would be very upset if the Darcy name was blackened. Is that not correct?” Harold queried.
“Indeed, what has that to do with the parasite?” William returned.
“Whose name do you think will be associated with George Wickham’s bad deeds? What do you think those who he steals from or the young maidens he meddles with would prefer?” Harold asked. “Let us face it, that is what he does when he runs up debts he has no intention of paying, yet you did nothing but pay them on his behalf, thus enabling him to keep doing what he does.”
William Darcy was silent for some minutes, and thankfully, the other two men allowed him time to cogitate without bothering him. He hated being proved wrong, but hecould not ignore Hurst’s words because he was correct. In cleaning up Wicky’s messes and not saying anything to Father, was he not as culpable as the dissipated, profligate libertine? As much as William wanted it to be otherwise, there was only one answer: yes, he was.
“I will speak to Father, and I will tell him to apply to Richard to verify my words if he needs to. Thankfully, I have been keeping the markers that the bastard signed for and never intends to pay. I can take Father to see two young ladies, barely out of childhood, with whom the seducer meddled,” William said resignedly.
Before the three men could canvass the subject any longer, there was a knock on the door which led to the hallway.
“Come,” Fitzwilliam boomed.
The door opened and a first-year that the cousins had befriended, Charles Bingley of Scarborough, entered the sitting room.
Bingley was just under six feet tall, two inches shorter than Fitzwilliam and three less than Darcy. He had strawberry-blond hair and was very keen to please. He was not as muscular as either of the cousins, but they had discovered he was a very good pugilist and was passable with the foil. Where the cousins both enjoyed chess—the younger a more proficient player than the older—Bingley hardly played. He had related that he was the middle of three. His older sister was three years his senior, while his younger sister was a little more than two years his junior.
From what Bingley had said in unguarded moments, the cousins were pleased they had not met the younger sister. She was only fifteen currently and seemed to be an inveterate social climber and fortune hunter who had frequent tantrumswhen she did not get that which she wanted. The older sister sounded like a perfectly nice woman, but meeting her would mean meeting the younger one as well. After hearing about her, neither cousin repined they had never had thepleasureof meeting the younger sister to date.
At the time, they had met the affable and ebullient son of a tradesman, Fitzwilliam had been sure that his cousin would not want to be connected to a man whose father was active in trade—William had become rather high in the instep. He had been happy to be proved wrong, as William had quickly warmed to Bingley and not shown any disgust towards him because of the manner in which his father earned his money.
“Harry, may I introduce our friend to you? He is the one I mentioned in one or two of my letters,” Fitzwilliam requested.
Although Harold remembered Fitzwilliam describing him as a puppy, he would wait to take the measure of the man. “Aye, please do,” he responded.
Richard Fitzwilliam made the introductions. “Bingley, to what do we owe this pleasure?” He enquired. Fitzwilliam did not miss that their friend looked somewhat uncomfortable and would not look at them directly.
“Ehrm, I wrote to my parents informing them that my friends are graduating. My mother, with Caroline’s urging, convinced my father that they should come to see the graduation ceremony.” Bingley looked at his shoes. “I tried to tell them that the ceremony is by invitation only, but my mother and younger sister brushed away my concerns. I do not suppose one of you will invite them as your guests?”
“No, we will not! Bingley, how can you expect we would do so when we have never met them before and only family and some close friends have been invited?” Fitzwilliam demanded.
“Then, how is it that this man is invited? I assume he is?” Bingley whinged. If this did not change, Caroline would unleash a tantrum. Both their mother and his younger sister had been demanding to meet the highborn—as they called them—men he was friends with since he first mentioned Fitzwilliam and Darcy in a letter shortly after meeting them in February of this year. Whenever he had done as his mother and sister demanded and invited his friends to visit them in Scarborough, they had always politely refused.
