Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife (39 page)

When Darcy turned and looked at her, her countenance reflected a level of sympathy that told him it would serve no purpose to speak further of the matter just then. He patted her hand with a reassuring calmness he did not feel. It was test enough upon her health that she insisted upon riding. Adding the apprehension that he might inflict a hiding upon her groom would not be advisable. He legged her back onto Boots and mounted his own horse.

They departed upon a leisurely ride that lent no more conversation of the errant John, nor reminders of “that day.” Elizabeth knew no purpose would be gained by applying to Darcy for compassion upon John’s behalf then. He was in festering anger yet over every aspect of her ordeal. Moreover, she was uncertain if she would even be able to find John, so relentlessly had he run. Thus, until that was addressed, she decided it best not to advance the matter.

Therefore, their ride passed with little more than innocuous conversation (and one more enquiry by Darcy, “Lizzy, will you not reconsider the name of that horse?”). It was a refrain she had begun to enjoy. Refusing to answer, she invariably patted Boots’ neck in her negligence. It was a reassuring liturgy. He would implore. She would ignore. Yes, it was a reassuring remembrance of an easier time.

* * *

The next day John was not to be found at Pemberley and Elizabeth decided to ride alone to Kympton (eluding Darcy for this covert excursion was no easy task), where she knew his mother to have worked. As it would be unseemly for her to ride into town and up to the inn alone, she stopped at a short distance and bid a young boy to find the innkeeper’s wife. The woman, Mrs. Turnpenny, upon hearing who bade application to see her, hastily rid her dirty apron from her ample bosom. When she came, Elizabeth stepped down from her horse so as not to converse from a position of officiousness.

The pursy woman had come with all amplitude and rush, her somewhat immense proportions placing an undue exertion upon her breath. But she had placed a welcoming expression of agreeability upon, what appeared to Elizabeth, a decidedly disagreeable face. Elizabeth told her she had come in search of the boy, John Christie, whose mother had once worked there. Had the woman seen him of late?

So nervous was Mrs. Turnpenny of speaking to Mrs. Darcy herself, this enquiry excited her into a conversational tailspin. She began a rapid monologue embracing every single tidbit of information of which she could think that might be of assistance to the grand lady. Eventually this discourse did actually cover what Elizabeth bid her, but only after she learnt of the good health and/or illness of every man, woman, child, or beast in the village.

Eventually, the woman volunteered, yes, John had come there the day before. Although she had not given him shelter, she knew that he had stayed in their stable the night past. She expected no better, the woman told Elizabeth, for his mother was known as a drunken whore (“Oh, mind your shoes ma’am of them trottles, the sheeps broke the hurdles!”) and was not good enough to die in their establishment. Russet-haired trollop. Had Mrs. Darcy known that the boy John’s mother had once worked at Pemberley? Or so she said, but who could trust such a fallen woman’s declarations, certainly not she…

Exasperated, Elizabeth interrupted the woman to thank her with all due kindness and inquired as to the direction of their stable. That Mrs. Darcy had abandoned the conversation, it did not necessarily follow that the loquacious Mrs. Turnpenny would. Elizabeth could hear the woman babbling yet as a stableboy legged her up and she rode away. In that the stable was but a turn from the inn, Elizabeth was still within earshot when Mrs. Turnpenny quit her singsong conversational cadence for a more strident screech at her help.

The horse barn was a small, ramshackle affair that held the inescapable odour of sodden hay and manure. The hostler’s room was easy to find, although nothing more than a lean-to upon the side. John was not there, but he was not far off. Not unexpectedly, Elizabeth found him sitting upon the wet ground in a stall, one arm wrapped morosely about his knees. The other petted the nose of a sway-backed, once-white horse. The screw quite obviously was only recently unhitched from a plough and was apparently very appreciative of a gentle hand.

John scrambled to his feet when he espied Mrs. Darcy. His obvious misery gave Elizabeth a twinge, but she knew instinctively that he sought no pity.

Without fanfare and with little ado, she announced, “You shall return to Pemberley if Mr. Darcy would but think so. Come this evening and we shall see what his decision will be.”

John stood looking at her warily.

“Come, John,” she added gently. “The worst that shall happen is that you will be let go…formally. Nothing else.”

John looked up. He had reckoned few things in his life except that he could trust in no one. As to why he put his trust in Mrs. Darcy at that time could only be attributed to the same keen judgement of character that honed his mistrust of mankind in general. Mrs. Darcy was as kind as was her husband fearsome.

If there was any hesitation, John lost it when she smiled over her shoulder as she turned to take leave, saying, “If you do not, Boots will miss her sugar.”

Reluctant she was to reveal to her husband what had transpired without his knowledge. But she did. Not unexpectedly, his ire toward poor John was intractable. Certain enough hurt had come from that sordid episode, Elizabeth persevered upon his behalf.

Eventually a bargain betwixt them was struck: John could stay, but no longer groom to Boots. Exile from the horses was a severe punishment, but it was better than a bastinadoing. Elizabeth was not of a mind to quibble with the decision. For she knew without the words being spoken that Darcy would be reminded of the hellish incident each time he looked upon the piteous boy.

In the aftermath, John was gradually readmitted to the stables, but kept his head down and made certain he stayed out of Mr. Darcy’s eye.

Having managed to elude Lydia at least temporarily, Wickham located one of London’s better grog houses. Trumbell’s Gentlemen’s Club was distinguished but not exclusive. It also boasted better gambling, faster wenches, and finer gins than any other and he expertly wended his way through the mass of patrons to locate which table emitted the unmistakable sound of dice.

After standing a few moments at the back of the crowd surrounding it, he moved on. Wickham favoured dice for pleasure, but this night he passed them by. The card tables were more lucrative and he was in need of some quick money.

In queer street yet again, Wickham was desperate. If funds could not be found to anoint the palms of the right people, Major Wickham was in fierce anxiety (if not outright panic) that he would find himself supporting the faltering British troops in the Peninsular War. True, there had been some heroics. However, unless Wellesley could re-supply his elite, but dwindling, troops, his great offensive against Napoleon’s vast army would fail.

Wickham might have favoured visiting Madrid, but he was quite certain any endeavour that included the military tactic called “scorched earth policy” was not something of which he wanted any part.

He wished the British commander well in his quest of laying waste to the Spanish countryside. Most decidedly did he wish the commander well in combat against the French. For if Wellesley could not stop Napoleon in Spain, there would not be enough money nor enough palms to grease to keep Wickham’s easily provoked sense of self-preservation becalmed.

Having no influence over Wellesley at that moment, Wickham reminded himself to address immediate needs first and he took quick assessment of the card players.

There were a number of well-dressed men. Wickham had learnt (from being left without a feather to fly with) that England could count amongst its citizens of rank and wealth at the gaming tables more than a few sons of smugglers and bootblacks. This second generation of new money had a veneer of refinement, but that gentility was often betrayed by an ever-so-slight coarseness in manner. If Wickham was to be successful at cards, he must cull those who gained position by sleuth rather than by birth. An advantage at cards would be found only amongst those who were in the happy circumstance of being wellborn and holding little sense.

Wickham expertly sized up the women as well. Practise told him that the two fetching chits eyeing him most zealously were likely to be much less interested in his countenance than the possibility of lifting his watch. He passed them by. Romance at that particular moment held little allure.

* * *

Having finally finagled his way into a company quartered in London and away from dreaded Newcastle, Major Wickham had looked forward to society again. Society did not quite reciprocate that happiness of acquaintance, for when he hied to London, his baggage included his wife.

Lydia, once merely a nettlesome flibbertigibbet, had somehow mutated into The Devil’s Sister. The single most reliable trait she had was inciting mayhem. At the previous night’s ball, he had dedicated his entire evening to the seduction of a rather comely young article only to have Lydia dash it all. Had he not been there to unfurl his wife’s fingers, the poor girl might have been snatched bald-headed instead of merely having her turban deplumed. (What with Lydia bellowing and the young woman shrieking, the orchestra actually stopped playing mid-note and looked on incredulously at this exceedingly vociferous contretemps.) Knowing it was quite futile to reason with a witless woman, the attempt Wickham made at quieting her as he drug her outside was solely for appearances. Telling Lydia not to make a spectacle was much the same as telling a rooster he must not crow.

He had fled the ball with Lydia redirecting her wrath from the amorous woman to her husband. It was his brief consideration that a battlefield in Spain might be somewhat more peaceful. That he could neither quiet nor outsmart his dim-witted wife was becoming less a nuisance and more a humiliation to him day by day.

Indeed, Lydia had him by the short hairs. Hence, when the diversion of Trumbell’s presented itself, he embraced it unequivocally.

* * *

Spying a slightly inebriated trio of red-faced, well-dressed men, Wickham bid to join them. He always wore his uniform in public houses, fancying it bought him a little unearned respect. Still able to charm those whom he pleased upon occasion, they immediately acquiesced and offered to buy him a drink as well.

“Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for tuppence, and straw for nothing!” Wickham recited with congeniality.

This nigh worn-out chestnut was met with semi-inebriated guffaws, which influenced Wickham that the group was full to the bung and ripe for a little fleecing.

Although a faro box sat upon the table, Wickham took the liberty of suggesting a game of commerce instead. The men were in fine, if not exuberant spirits, thus, they saw no reason not to accommodate someone they, if sober, would have considered a bit of a cock-a-hoop.

Wickham won steadily, losing just often enough and so amiably his fellow gamblers could feel no ill-will. As the drink took greater hold, they bantered heartily and one of the men, clear-headed enough to know him not from town, inquired after his home county.

“Pemberley in Derbyshire,” Wickham told him, never one to seek false modesty. “I went to school at Cambridge…”

One man made the aside, “A tuft-hunter, no doubt.”

Wickham wavered over whether to take active offence at the insult or let it pass. Cravenness more a learnt response than inborn trait, he deduced he was out-manned, out-moneyed, and possibly outwitted. He ignored the aspersion. And he considered that perchance the men were not as dim as he thought if they nailed him for the truckler of the well-born that he was. He did not have time to ponder the problem long, somewhat grateful that the third man interrupted his unhappy deliberation.

“Derbyshire? Pemberley, you say?”

“Yes, indeed,” answered Wickham.

“Then, no doubt, you know of it?”

Confused, Wickham shook his head he did not.

“It was quite a row, I heard. Quite a row.”

Wickham did not have to encourage the man for more information. The other two did for him.

“Why, yes. Surely, you have heard of it. That family at Pemberley? What is their name?”

“Darcy,” Wickham told him.

“Yes, that is it. Darcy. He dispatched them all, you know. Three men. Killed them all. Unaided.”

“Darcy killed three men?” Wickham repeated, incredulous.

“You know the man then? I say, I would stay in his good graces. Pray, see you there what befell those who did not!”

The man thereupon shook his head at such audacity.

Astonished, Wickham bid the particulars. The man said he heard it was a robbery. He heard it might have been more than merely a robbery, for there was no formal hearing.

“He killed one by blade, but it was not a duel. Shot the other two. I fancy the man was put to anger in some fashion.”

“Angered, indeed!” another pronounced and they all laughed.

Wickham, too. He laughed, but he was not amused. He felt uneasy and lost the next three hands. He knew his mind would not find further interest in the game. Hence, he took his sparse winnings and excused himself from the table. Pocketing the money, he kept out a coin, walked to the bar, and asked for another drink.

Nursing it, he stood there for a time thinking about his good friend Darcy. He simply could not imagine composed, collected Darcy killing three men. That gambler must have been mistaken. Talk is loose. Exaggerations occur. Surely that must be what bechanced. An exaggeration occurred. Perchance Darcy was merely present when three men were murdered. No. That seemed hardly more likely than Darcy doing the deed himself.

A slight, but unseemly, shudder fled down Wickham’s spine. For he recollected that Darcy had more than a little wrath against himself (that unfortunate Georgiana matter). If the punctilious Darcy could actually become incensed to murder, was anyone safe?

Yet, Wickham reconsidered the facts carefully. Darcy was ill-tempered. He was ill-tempered and unyielding. But murder? A proud man, Darcy prided keeping himself under good regulation beyond any other conceit. Even in his anger at Wickham over Georgiana, he had not been enraged. Not visibly enraged. He had not drawn his blade.

In his contemplation, Wickham idly flipped a bob, but he espied a familiar reflection in the ornate looking-glass over the bar.

Col. Geoffrey Fitzwilliam sat alone at a table upon the far side of the room. His back was to the wall, but he did not look about. Dishevelled and drawn, he stared, with great concentration, into the half-empty glass of clear liquid sitting before him. Accompanying that glass were a half-dozen others, identical except that they had already been drained.

From the bung-eyed look of him, his sheets had been flapping in the wind for some time. It was an odd sight to see Fitzwilliam unkempt, much less sozzled. The man was never known to bend his elbow immoderately.

Fitzwilliam was not yet blind-drunk, but near enough that Wickham was not afraid to turn about and look at him directly. He wondered just what could have precipitated Fitzwilliam embarking upon a gin binge. It occurred to him that the history about Darcy might be linked to Fitzwilliam so suddenly taking to drink. Perhaps it was Fitzwilliam who killed three men rather than Darcy. But that seemed little more likely than the first premise.

In spite of Wickham’s certainty that Fitzwilliam, as her co-guardian, knew of his attempted seduction of Georgiana, Wickham thought it safe to approach his table. Georgiana was not his sister and, most important, he appeared to be unarmed.

Wickham set his glass down and drew out a chair, taking a seat before Fitzwilliam’s unsteady gaze focused upon him. Under the circumstances, Wickham forsook pleasantries.

He leaned forward conspiratorially and said, “There is a great deal of hearsay about the doings of our friend Darcy…”

Enlisting a steely-eyed (if slightly unfocused) glare, Fitzwilliam stared at Wickham. Was it that it took that long to identify who sat before him or to process what he said, one can but conjecture. Nevertheless, he did blink several times. Quite abruptly, he stood, grasping the edge of the table, his knuckles white under the pressure.

Thereupon, with a single, violent motion, he upended it, sending all of the many glasses crashing to the floor.

At the ruckus, whoever was tinkling upon the piano stopped. The dice ceased to roll, the card players quit shuffling, and a barman stopped pouring mid-drink.

Trumbell’s was a respectable gaming house; brawls rarely occurred. To Wickham, it was an eerie repetition of the previous night’s mortification, but at that time, he had not feared mortal retribution.

However, Fitzwilliam did not make a move to call Wickham out. He stood there frozen, staring at Wickham (whose mouth had become suddenly quite dry). Then, with the same dispatch as his fury had erupted, it vanished. Fitzwilliam tossed some coins down and stomped from the establishment.

When Fitzwilliam hurled the table, Wickham had instinctively picked up his own glass, thus saving it from being dashed. With it yet in his hand, he gathered what tattered dignity he could muster and walked back to the bar. Music began to play and talk gradually resumed. Once out of scrutiny, Wickham tossed the remainder of his rescued drink down his throat and called for another.

“Perhaps,” he thought, “speaking to Fitzwilliam was a misjudgement. The colonel was obviously piqued yet about that Georgiana business.”

As to why he was so roundly ploughed, Wickham had little notion. So long as he had escaped injury, he had no particular interest in uncovering the reason. He -dismissed Fitzwilliam from his mind. When he thought again of the scuttlebutt about Darcy killing three men, he disregarded that matter as well. No, it simply was not possible. Darcy was far too disciplined, far too punctilious to dirty his hands by such a base act. If he wanted murder done, he would hire it. It was all an enormous exaggeration. It was simply not possible.

That was how Wickham had always found favour in a situation. He gave no consequence to that which did not conform to his own reasonableness.

He would learn to side-step Lydia more adeptly. He would manage to scrounge enough to bribe his way safe from battle. However, he would not see what he did not want to see.

Wickham was, and ever would be, true to himself alone.