“Miss Elizabeth,” Mr Wickham said warmly, bowing yet again. “How delightful to see you again. I believe we have not met since before you left for Kent.”
“You are quite right,” Elizabeth said. “It has been some time.”
Mr Wickham gave her a soulful look. “Likely you know that we are soon to leave. I am sorry, dreadfully sorry, that we should have so little time to renew our acquaintance before we are to be parted, perhaps forever.”
With a surge of disgust, Elizabeth realised that Mr Wickham’s public disgrace had not changed him. He was trying to charm her with all his old, deliberate manipulation.
Still, nothing could be gained from losing her temper. “You are very kind,” Elizabeth said mildly, choosing not to imply that she shared his regret. “But I hope you will find Brighton very pleasant, and that you shall meet with people every bit as engaging as those you have met in Meryton.”
“I am sure that cannot be,” Mr Wickham said, giving her another soulful look that then wandered downward, lingering uncomfortably near her bosom. Elizabeth felt her disgust sharpen. He was everything shameless.
“We have always been good friends,” Mr Wickham said. Elizabeth wished savagely that he knew how much that was not true. “Tell me, did you meet with trouble in Kent? I should not wish to pry, but neither do I wish to deny my sympathies when they may be warranted. Did you not return very late, and in Lady Catherine’s carriage?”
“I did,” Elizabeth said briefly. “It was more convenient than travelling post, and considerably more comfortable. I must commend Lady Catherine on the excellence of her coachman.”
Mr Wickham looked under his eyelashes at her. “I am glad you were well accommodated. But how did it come about that you returned so late? Surely that cannot have been convenient.”
“Lady Catherine wished me to return,” Elizabeth said flatly, then regretted saying even so much.
“I am dreadfully sorry to hear it,” Mr Wickham said, his voice as smooth and sweet as honey. “How selfish some people are! I cannot bear to hear of it. But perhaps it is not entirely surprising in that family. Lady Catherine is Mr Darcy’s aunt, after all.”
At such shamelessness, Elizabeth could nolonger hold back. If she had to listen to one more word of slimy, insincere sympathy, of poisoned lies about Mr Darcy, she feared she might vomit.
“Let us have no more lies between us, Mr Wickham,” Elizabeth said flatly. “I know who you really are. I know what you tried to do to the Darcy family.”
Mr Wickham reared back in astonishment and alarm. “I do not know what you mean —”
“You do,” Elizabeth told him flatly. “I know perfectly well that you do, for I know everything. It was I who revealed the truth about your behaviour, Mr Wickham. I believed everything Mr Darcy told me about you, and I thank the heavens that he told me. And when I could do no more, Mr Wickham, and was dreadfully afraid of what you might do to my sisters, my neighbours, my town, I asked Mr Darcy for help. It is due to him and to me, Mr Wickham, that your senior officers will never trust you again.”
For a long moment, Mr Wickham only stared at her, his mouth gaping open. Then rage came over her face, and Elizabeth almost feared he might strike her.
But it lasted only for a moment. “I beg you to excuse me,” he said stiffly, and hurried away.
Elizabeth watched him go, feeling a strange mixture of relief, exhaustion, and exhilaration. She had been reckless. The wiser course of action wouldhave been to say nothing, but she could not regret it. The truth was out, and despite her wounded heart and aching ankle, Elizabeth had not been so happy in days.
Chapter 24
Wickham’s day began ill and showed little inclination to improve.
Once among the most pleasant and least suspicious towns he had ever encountered, Meryton had become little short of a prison to him. What had once been overlooked was now observed. What had been forgiven was now remembered. Once welcome in every drawing room and sought after for every dance, the best regarded of the officers, he now found himself less respected than the meanest enlisted man.
Colonel Forster had once been the most amiable of commanding officers; now he watched Wickham’s every move as though he might commit a crime at any moment. Actions that might formerly have been dismissed as carelessness were now noted down with disapproval. Though the initial punishment had been nothing more than a brief restriction to quarters, Wickham knew he stood on uncertain ground, and that any further deviation might not beso easily overlooked.
In the town, the change was still more mortifying.
Tradesmen who had once extended him credit without hesitation now declined it. True, they declined it civilly, but decline it they did. Those who could not refuse him outright set limits where before there had been none, or agreed with such delay and such humiliating reluctance that Wickham could not ask where any of his fellow officers might hear. He was received with less openness than before, and where he had once been welcomed without question, he was now regarded with a caution that was not the less offensive for being restrained.
Even the attentions that had once taken him so far in society were no longer reliable. The shopkeepers, who had formerly been flattered by his notice, now kept a more watchful eye upon their daughters, and the young women themselves, not wholly insensible to his manners, were less disposed to trust them. His ease of address, which had once secured him a ready reception in almost every circle, now failed to produce its former effect, and he found himself excluded from those engagements which had formerly supplied both his amusement and his advantage.
His fellow officers had all grown less accommodating. Gaming, which had once afforded him both diversion and profit, was now conducted withouthim, or with such caution on their part that he could derive little benefit from it. Those who had formerly engaged with him readily were now less inclined to do so, and he could not avoid observing that even those who had once admired him were now careful in their conduct, as if eager to prove that they had not been deceived. Their altered manner carried with it an unspoken reproach, felt almost as sorely as the punishments of his superiors.
On its own, each of these inconveniences might have been bearable. United, they were little short of torment. As the day advanced, each hour bringing a new insult with it, Wickham felt his annoyance harden into rage.
Weeks ago, when he had first been called into Colonel Forster’s office and informed of his disgrace, Wickham thought he had merely been unlucky. No one could roll a winning die forever. Someone had spoken inconveniently, or some knowledge had got abroad when he had rather it had not. Such things could happen.
After a day of such frustrations, Wickham returned to his tent with a sense of indignation and injured dignity. Some relief, at least, ought to await him there. Imprudently, a brother officer had left a bottle of strong spirits visible in his tent. Prudently, Wickham had secured the bottle — in his own tent, where it could be properly appreciated.
At first, the effect was as he had expected. Thesense of injury that had accompanied him throughout the day felt less oppressive, and the inconveniences he had endured lost something of their force when viewed through the bottom of a glass. Wickham was clever, twice as clever as those who opposed him. Perhaps his situation was not so irretrievable as it appeared.
