Elizabeth colored but she did not deflect the question. “I will own that I was not suspicious of his tale, Mr. Darcy.”
“No, I suppose you would not be,” agreed the gentleman. “You could have no reason to suspect him.”
Mr. Darcy turned to face her. “The story Wickham tells is true from a certain point of view, Miss Elizabeth, but it leaves out several facts that make me appear the villain and him the aggrieved party. My father recommended Wickham for the livingifhe took orders, but it was not a bequest. My father asked me to assist Wickham in obtaining a means of supporting himself, and if the church was his choice, I should offer the living to him.”
“Then he did not take orders,” said Elizabeth, not having considered this before.
“He did not.” Mr. Darcy shook his head. “Wickham scoffed at the very notion. To tell the truth, I am certain he expected much more than this from my father.”
“Then you discharged this duty in some other way?”
Though she could not say why, considering how she had suspected the worst of this man, Elizabeth knew that Mr. Darcywould never renege on fulfilling his duty. The request of his father, a man she knew he revered, must be a most sacred obligation.
“Yes, Miss Elizabeth,” said Mr. Darcy. “At Wickham’s suggestion, I negotiated a sum of money to be paid to him in exchange for resigning all claim to the living. This was in addition to the bequest my father’s will bestowed on him. Once that transaction was complete, Wickham departed Pemberley.”
Mr. Darcy’s expression changed, a wry smile settling on his features. “In truth, I informed him that I was dissolving all connection between us and warned him against returning. That did not prevent him from writing to me when the incumbent of the living passed away, asking me to prefer him to the position.”
“That is astonishing, Mr. Darcy,” said Elizabeth, not knowing what to say.
“Perhaps it is, but his audacity was no surprise,” said Mr. Darcy, shaking his head in disgust.
“I will assume he had not taken orders in the intervening years.”
This time Mr. Darcy’s snort of revulsion spoke of his feelings on the subject with eloquence. “No, Wickham has never, so far as I know, so much as opened a Bible, let alone studied the tenets of church doctrine. When he wrote to me, he spoke of his poor circumstances, his absolute resolution of taking orders.”
Mr. Darcy shrugged. “As you will no doubt apprehend, I refused any suggestion of it and all subsequent requests, each more desperate than the last. No doubt his denunciation of my character to anyone who would listen was exceeded only by his reproaches to me.”
Elizabeth had not thought she could be any more incredulous. “Poor circumstances? You need not offer me an exact amount, but can I assume the sum he received from you was substantial?”
“It was,” said Mr. Darcy without hesitation. “Far more than a man of his situation in life could have hoped to obtain. A prudent man would have lived a comfortable life off the interest, or he might have used it to lay the groundwork for future prosperity. Wickham did none of these things, but I was unsurprised. He has always lived a dissipative existence, even when he did not possess the means.”
“Then I apologize, Mr. Darcy,” said Elizabeth, feeling contrite. “I should never have listened to him.”
The gentleman nodded. “It is nothing, Miss Elizabeth. Please do not consider it for another moment.”
The gentleman drifted away after that, his thoughts turned inward. Elizabeth did not blame him, for the discussion had awoken past injuries he likely wished to forget. All Elizabeth understood was that her judgment had been too hasty and harsh. For the first time, she understood that Mr. Darcy was not the blackhearted villain that Mr. Wickham had described.
FOR THE REST OF THEevening, Darcy was silent and uncommunicative. He stood to the side of the room, often with a cup in his hand, a muddle of thoughts vying for supremacy.
Contrary to what Miss Elizabeth suspected, thoughts of Wickham and his past with the man, the money that had gone to feed Wickham’s dissipative habits, or even his attempt to seduce Georgiana, were not uppermost in Darcy’s mind. No, what Darcy considered was that Miss Elizabeth was not only taken in by Wickham, but that she was even now concerned with his welfare.
That she had listened, understood, and believed his account was apparent, but Darcy could not shake the notion that some part of her continued to esteem a man unworthy of her or any other woman of good morals. And that bothered Darcy—it concerned him far more than it should.
Chapter V
Society was plentiful that month. What was not so plentiful was Mr. Wickham’s attendance at local events.
That night was different, for Mr. Wickham had come with a cluster of his fellows, though the longer Elizabeth watched, the more she could see that he was not trulywiththem. Unless Elizabeth mistook her guess, the reason for Mr. Wickham’s presence was that of Miss Mary King.
Mary King was a pleasant girl, perhaps her sister Mary’s age, with fair skin, a nose dusted with freckles, and light brown hair. She was not what Elizabeth would call pretty, for her chin was a little too sharp, her nose a little too pointed, but she was not ill-favored either. She was also slender and graceful and though Elizabeth did not consider her a scintillating conversationalist, she was not at all disagreeable either.
For a time, Elizabeth watched her, wondering what Mr. Wickham saw in her, other than the obvious virtue of possessing a fortune of ten thousand pounds. Elizabeth was not so vain as to consider herself Mary King’s superior, nor was she jealous of Mr. Wickham’s devotion. Elizabeth had not known the man for long, after all, and he had not been so much in evidence of late that she might have formed an attachment to him.
There was, she supposed, no reason to suppose that he did not consider her the handsomest woman alive. But the longer she watched him, the more disquieted Elizabeth became. He paid her every appearance of civility, his manners playful, attentive, and interested in a way Elizabeth thought young men would conduct themselves when in the presence of a woman they admired. At the same time, however, he did not hesitate to speak to anyone, and his flirtations with every lady in the room were almost casual, as if he were well-practiced.
By contrast, Mr. Darcy, who was present with the rest of his company from Netherfield, stayed away from Mr. Wickham, a circumstance that seemed to suit the officer very well. Mr. Darcy’s attention was on Mr. Wickham far more than anyone else in the room. Mr. Darcy had told her of the living, but Elizabeth suspected there was more between the two men, for he seemed to consider the officer akin to a wild dog who might attack at any time.
“Mary King is so dowdy and dull,” said Lydia when she was near Elizabeth that evening. “Poor Wickham deserves something better than she. I shall do my best to make him forget about her tonight.”
