CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
We retired early, conscious of the long journey north and Mr Bennet’s years. When we left London, I had sent ahead of us my second coach with Carsten and the ladies’ maid for my sister and her companion. This second carriage, now in train with my own, afforded us the comfort of occasionally separating—with the men in one coach and the ladies in the other—for the sake of space and the privacy to doze. Mr Bennet missed his reading, not being a man who could comfortably do so while in motion, and he slept a great deal. The hours marched slowly along as they do on an expedition that is not entirely comfortable and so thoroughly monotonous.
I did not read much myself, though I could do so without sickening. I thought of everything and of nothing, wondered vaguely what would become of MissBingley, whether she and her brother had managed to resolve their differences, and whether Bingley would return to Hertfordshire to settle comfortably or stay in London and continue to try to break into thehaut ton.
I thought of breakingoutof that confederacy of snobbery and of never again being sized up like a prize bull. I also pondered the problem of my cousin Anne de Bourgh, who I was regularly pushed to marry by my aunt Lady Catherine and even on occasion by my uncle, Lord Matlock. Concluding that no amount of verbal refusing could convince anyone to stop badgering me on the subject, I moved on to thinking of my cousin Richard.
I worried about his safety more than I would admit to anyone. But more than that, I missed him as a companion and conspirator. Having had my cousin so lately on my mind, I was shocked when, after we had been at Pemberley only two days, he came pelting up the drive in a caped greatcoat covered with mud. I nearly knocked him down in greeting and managed to muddy myself in the process.
“What the devil?” I asked after pounding him on the back. “Is all well?”
He grasped my shoulders and shook me angrily, even as he grinned like a fool to see me. “How dare you send me such a letter! I had to lie to get leave, you idiot.”
We could speak no more. The household came outto see what was amiss, and I was forced to relinquish my cousin to the greetings of my sister and all his well-wishers at Pemberley. He met Mr Bennet with a touch of cordial curiosity before being taken, almost by the hand, by old Mrs Reynolds who clucked and scolded him for being a “wild scamp, coming in all your mud.” At the landing, Richard flashed me a wink before disappearing up the stairs, no doubt tenderly scolded all the way to his rooms.
Dinner and several hours passed before my cousin and I were at leisure to speak in the privacy of my study.
“You had better tell me from the beginning what you did to Wickham,” he said. Richard sat back in his chair and put his feet on a footstool. At his elbow, he had a glass of wine, and on his face, a look of relief to be still for once.
“Would you not rather rest? You look very tired.”
“I am tired, but I would rather hear this sordid tale. I posted up here like an express rider just to hear it.”
“I was in Hertfordshire with Bingley. He leased an estate there, and I spent some weeks helping him understand the land. While there, the militia came.”
“Under whose command?”
“Colonel Forster.”
“Never heard of him. So, Wickham managed to get himself a lieutenancy with that bunch?”
“He did. I heard he was in Meryton but never sawhim myself. I enlisted Reese to verify this lieutenant was indeed Wickham, which he did. And then we made a plan.”
“The blacksmith and blacksmith’s daughter?”
“As a coachman, Reese knows the farriers anywhere he goes, and the farriers know the blacksmiths and so on. They found a fellow in Luton with a daughter. That he had grown sons did not hurt our cause. They brought a nondescript coach from Luton and waited for Wickham to come out of a bawdy house just beyond Meryton proper that he was known to frequent. Between the five of them, they made easy work of throwing a cloak over his head, pouring laudanum down his throat, whipping up the horses, and taking their burden north. Simple as that.”
“Huh! They did what every rake who abducts a woman does.”
“Precisely.”
“They kept him drugged the entire way?”
“Just as a seducer would drug his victim.”
“He must have had a vile headache when he woke.”
“I am told he was violently ill. But they managed to stand him up in front of the anvil and to force a marriage.”
“I wonder that Wickham agreed to sign the register.”
“You have only to recall how vain a man Wickham isto know what some small threat of disfigurement would achieve.”
“What did this escapade cost you?”
“Upwards of five hundred pounds all told.”
“Lord, so much, Darcy?”
