Chapter 8: 8. In which Mr. Wickham gets punched in the face
The horrible, muddy retreat to Portugal passed in increasing misery and disorganization but without further incident (at least for the second brigade of the 7th Division, and its shattered supply train). Elizabeth had never been so happy to see anything, even Colonel Fitzwilliam’s matching soulmark, as she was to see, in their billet at Lisbon, a copper tub full of hot water. When she was at last clean, and had passed nearly three days dozing on and off, Elizabeth awoke to a letter on her pillow, bearing the best possible news: Mr. Bingley had at last proposed.
Elizabeth called out from the bedroom, “Jane is to be married!” when Colonel Fitzwilliam came back into their quarters, whistling Mozart’s oboe concerto, a sure sign he was pleased with how the day’s practice maneuvers had gone.
“I am very glad to hear it,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said, unbuckling his sword and leaning it against his dressing table as he came through the door. “Mr. Bingley is a most gentleman-like man, and nearly as sweet-tempered as your sister. They are well matched. One thing I cannot understand— Darcy particularly asked Marjorie to invite Bingley to her ball this April. It is almost November. How could it have taken so long for them to fix it?”
She laughed. “Just because you met me in March and married me in April does not mean every couple must proceed so speedily to the altar.”
“That is true,” he acknowledged, sitting on the edge of the bed, to better kiss her and glance over her letter from Jane. “I forget not every man feels some pressure over his marching orders. When are they to be married?”
“As soon as you return to London, to observe your new recruits,” said Elizabeth. “Jane begs I will write at once to tell her when. I am to be her witness! And Darcy to be Bingley’s.”
With a laugh, Colonel Fitzwilliam said, “Poor Darcy! When he atones, he flagellates himself in the public square. To sign as a witness the two matches he most worked to prevent? I do not think I could do so. But I always winter in England; there is no point in wintering in Portugal, pressed as it is for supply. I cannot imagine the price of bread when the other regiments catch up with us and cross the Portuguese border. I need only a day or two more to ensure the junior officers know what they are about, then it is a week to Spithead— I must then report to London, but leave shall not be difficult to get thereafter. Can they wait so long to be married?”
“I daresay they can. That is, what, two weeks total? Banns require four, and when she wrote me, the banns had been posted. That makes three weeks total from the engagement to my appearance. Jane has patience enough for a week more.”
“Does Mr. Bingley?”
She playfully swatted his shoulder with her letter. “Richard!”
“I must speak as I find,” said he, catching her hand and kissing it. “Come now, ma belle au bois dormant , do you mean to be up and dressed today? Or do you mean to receive everyone in your bed, like Madame Recamier?”
“I have not the slightest intention of receiving anybody today except you,” said Elizabeth and, after making him very welcome indeed, got out of bed long enough to dash off a congratulatory note to Jane, informing her of their return. It was less easy to arrange everything for their return to England, and less easy still to get there. Elizabeth had recalled feeling faintly nauseous the first few days on the crossing from England to Portugal, but had not really remembered how unpleasant it was to be seasick, nor had she experienced a storm at sea. That was enough to make her feel so overwhelmed she would not believe Colonel Fitzwilliam when he reported that they were finally docked at Spithead. She doubted even the evidence of her eyes, when he coaxed her out of the cabin and onto the deck, in preparation to disembark.
“Colonel Fitzwilliam,” said she, hanging desperately onto a rope the captain’s wife had kindly led her to, “I think I must be delirious. Is that not your cousin Darcy waiting above the docks?”
“Hm?” He turned from his conversation with a lieutenant of marines and strode with enviable ease to the ship’s railing. “And so it is! Any letter should have anticipated our arrival by only two or three days, even with the storm. I cannot think how he managed to reach Spithead so quickly. He must have changed horses at every coaching inn.”
“Oh no,” Elizabeth nearly wailed. “Your cousin, the high stickler, has come to meet us when I have not changed my gown in nine days— nine days spent being sick over the rail of a boat!”
“Frigate.”
“Floating coffin .”
A bit guiltily Colonel Fitzwilliam said, “It looks as if Georgiana is come, as well.”
Elizabeth turned to her husband with a baleful glare and, gathering together what little dignity still remained to her, lurched back down to her cabin to hide her tangled locks under a delicate lace cap she had made out of part of a mantilla, and to clean the crust of sea spray from her gown with a clothes brush. Everything else had been packed away and was being carried off. She mourned the preemptive loss of what little credit she had with Mr. Darcy.
When she came up again the colonel had realized she was angry with him, but did not understand why. He did look worried and contrite as he said, “I am sorry, my dear. If it had not been for the storm, you would have had time enough to make yourself presentable— but really, you need very little. When you were all over dirt, with your hair wild, sitting on the crosstree of the powder wagon— that was when I realized I'd never see anything in the world to please me more.”
She was inclined to be mollified by this praise, and hated that she was. With a tartness only a little exaggerated, Elizabeth said, “Yes, and had I seen the Darcys just after I had successfully driven off enemy combatants, I should not mind their seeing me by surprise. But this is a planned arrival after a far more ignominious struggle, against nothing more than the contents of my stomach. I wish you had consulted me, before asking them to meet us. I would have told you I would not feel up to seeing anyone, let alone someone as critical of me as Mr. Darcy.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam’s expression cleared. “Ah! I see. I shall hear that in mind, in future. But, in this case, there is no need to glare daggers at me. I did not ask them.”
“How on earth did they come to be here then?”
Georgiana give the answer. Her eagerness overcame her shyness and she rushed to Elizabeth with gloved hands outstretched. “Mrs. Fitzwilliam! I packed as soon as I received your letter saying you would be sailing from Lisbon to Spithead but I was in such a quake we should miss you.”
Elizabeth took her hands and kissed the air above Georgiana’s cheeks, to best avoid pressing her own horrible gown against Georgiana’s very pretty pomona green velvet pelisse. “My dear! But I am sure I did not ask you to travel all this way when we would be shortly in London?”
“No,” said Georgiana, deflating a little. “But I thought— I thought it might be nice, after all that happened— with the retreat from Burgos and everything— to, to take the carriage with us rather than to ride on horseback again, for so long a journey. And Matlock House is all closed up for the summer, everyone is in Hampshire, so they have not yet received your letter— so I thought, well, they must stay with us! I had rooms prepared. And then I thought, since they are staying with us, we ought to go and bring them here. But I should have—”
“No, no,” protested Elizabeth, feeling guilty, though not enough to stop feeling annoyed. “I was merely surprised. I did not wish to inconvenience you or your brother.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam came up to Georgiana and put an arm around her shoulders to embrace her. “This is a delightful surprise, Georgiana. We are both very touched by your thoughtfulness and are very pleased to see you, and even better pleased to ride with you back to London and stay with you there. Thank you.” He reached over her with his free hand. “Darcy.”
Mr. Darcy had been hanging back, but now stepped forward and shook hands with them both. It was very clear from his reticence and his greeting, that this scheme had all been Georgiana’s, and despite his own discomfort in surprising them, he had not liked to crush Georgiana’s enthusiasm. Elizabeth, tired as she was, and as disgusting as she felt, pushed herself to be agreeable to both Darcys, ate far more than she should of the rich meal Georgiana had painstakingly ordered at the inn, and took care to be sick very quietly and in private.
“My poor Lizzy,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, handing her a cup of ginger tea. “I don't think you managed anything but ship’s biscuit and water for the past week at least; and that was after a month and a half of siege rations. The soup was difficult for even me to finish; I was in a fair way to being vanquished by the removes.”
Elizabeth, wanting nothing so much as to sink into the floorboards of the inn and never get up again, managed to weakly sip her tea. “It is that as much as my continuing sense of still being aboard a ship. Can there be reverse sea sickness?”
“I am sure,” said he, solicitously taking the cup again. “There is a bath ready for you, if you can bear the thought of water. Shall I call up Mrs. Pattinson to attend you?”
“I feel too disgusting an object to be seen by anyone.”
“Anyone but me?” said he, laughing. “That is one aspect of marriage they do not mention. But I have learnt to brush hair remarkably well now, and I daresay if I ever tire of soldiering, I should have a very successful career as a lady’s maid.” He affected an unconvincing air of subservience. “Shall I take your dress, madame?”
“Very good, Fitzwilliam,” said she, and they amused themselves with this until Elizabeth at last felt human enough to ask, “You need not answer, but is this the first time Georgiana has been really enthusiastic about any travel, since Ramsgate?”
“Yes. I was surprised by the strength of her attachment to you. She would hardly have come so far for me .” He paused and said, “No, never mind, I am not surprised. All my sisters are much older than her, and I can scarcely believe she could get on with Anne. Darcy does his best for her, and I think would probably set sail for Antarctica on her behalf had she expressed an inclination for a penguin, but he is ten years her senior, and is a man; she can hardly make him her confidante. Though, knowing Georgiana’s disposition, she is more likely to hope to be someone else's confidante than to hope for one of her own.”
“And I wrote her such long letters during the siege! Oh I feel a wretch for ever being annoyed. Make Darcy go drink port with you somewhere, I shall steal Georgiana away for a long cose.”
She and Colonel Fitzwilliam had guessed rightly; Georgiana hung off of Elizabeth’s every word, like holly off the banisters during Christmas, and was considerably startled when Elizabeth asked her about her interests and how she had passed her spring and summer. She grew only really eloquent about Pemberley, or about her brother’s doings, and the letters the eldest Miss Bennet had been so good as to send her in response to her own tentative thank you for dining with her once in April.
“It must be so pleasant to have so many sisters,” said Georgiana, wistfully.
“You say so because they are not yours! For my part, I have always longed for a brother.”
“Oh yes and my brother is truly the best and kindest of men, but I cannot— I cannot talk to him like his. As I do you. I should be afraid of boring him. He has so much business to attend to, and—”
Elizabeth was alarmed to see the tears start to Georgiana's eyes. “What is wrong, Georgiana?”
“I have disappointed him so already,” said she, tremulously. “I cannot bear to think of disappointing him again, even in little things.”
“Oh my dear!” Elizabeth cried, putting aside her work basket and taking Georgiana in her arms. “Do not think that! Your brother loves you unconditionally. You could murder someone and he would bury the body. And so would Colonel Fitzwilliam. And I have not the strength to wield a shovel but I would wash the bloodstains from your gown.”
Georgiana was startled into a laugh.
“My dear, there is nothing you can do to put yourself beyond the length and breadth of our loves. You must not continue thinking so!”
“But you know not what I have done!” And so poured forth the events of Ramsgate last summer: her loneliness, Mr. Wickham’s kindness, his compliments, his reassurances, his protestations of love, and then the revelation of his soulmark. Georgiana had wanted to believe him so very badly and she had no reason to doubt his protestations or to think ‘George’ did not refer to her; her only uneasiness had been in his insistence upon running away together, without her brother’s knowledge. Surely, she had argued, their soulmarks matching were proof enough that they should be together. But consider, Mr. Wickham had replied, that her own mark had not yet appeared. He knew what her mark would read, and she knew too—but Darcy was such a high stickler, and so overprotective, he would not let them marry until her soulmate appeared. He had kissed her— her first kiss, for she always been too shy for parlor games— and asked her if she could wait. Anything might befall either one of them. Would she truly throw away their only chance at happiness?
She could not bear to do so— and yet, she could not bear to leave her brother’s protection so suddenly, as if in shame. Darcy had surprised her at Ramsgate, a quick visit to escort her to a concert she had mentioned she would like to attend, and she had poured out the whole. He had gone pale with anger and, after telling her that true matches were never partial names and that Mr. Wickham had deceived her, strode out of the room.
Mr. Wickham she had seen only once again. He had come up to her on a promenade, demanding to know why she had not trusted him and now all was lost unless she did not flee, and flee immediately. Mr. Darcy approached with thunderous aspect, at which point that Mr. Wickham had cursed and fled.
This was better than Elizabeth had thought, but not by much.
“And I cannot help but think that there is something more I ought to have done,” hiccuped Georgiana. “I wish I could have told him how wrongly he had behaved! I wish sometimes I could shew him my mark, so he knows he was mistaken!”
“You need not show him your mark; I daresay he knew already you were not a match.”
“I wish I could do it all over; that I could behave in a manner that— that— oh, I do not know! I wish I could be as brave and clever as you were the powder wagons, I suppose. But I can never tell my brother how badly I still wish to speak to Mr. Wickham, for he will think that I am still in love with Mr. Wickham, but I am not, I just wish to tell him how badly he has hurt me and how upset I am at all he has done. I shall get no peace until I know he understands how wicked he was, and I know that he will not behave so towards any other young lady, but I have not the courage for it.”
Elizabeth let Georgiana put a new crust of salt on the shoulder of her gown, and patted her hair and fussed over her the way she did when Kitty was crying her heart out. (Mary generally did not cry at setbacks, but instead moralized unceasingly, and Lydia preferred to go to Jane, who had more sympathy for her than Elizabeth did).
Colonel Fitzwilliam and Mr. Darcy came to the parlor to see Georgiana had cried herself to sleep on Elizabeth’s shoulder. Elizabeth caught Colonel Fitzwilliam’s eye and nodded. He stole in and quietly picked up Georgiana to carry her to her room. Darcy looked stricken.
“She is well,” said Elizabeth, when Colonel Fitzwilliam had gone. “She told me about Ramsgate, that is all.”
“Ah.” Darcy was still holding his hat; he looked down at it in bewilderment, as if someone had planted it on him while he was not attending, before tossing it aside. “Her spirits are still very much affected. And it—” He paused and said, “I am sorry we have imposed on you and Richard, but I did not like to stay in London. Mr. Wickham incurred several debts of honor among the militia and was forced to resign his commission, and flee to London. We saw him there, just in passing on the street. Georgiana was very distressed. This scheme of hers, for meeting you at Spithead, was the first thing that has successfully distracted her.”
“Oh poor Georgiana,” cried Elizabeth.
Mr. Darcy said, almost helpless, “I do not know how to fix this for her.”
“There are some things you cannot fix,” said Elizabeth, impetuously going up to him and pressing his hand. “But you have done all you can to alleviate her present pain. You distracted her, you let me speak with her— Mr. Darcy, you cannot blame yourself because she needed to talk over the whole affair with another woman. Blame me for being absent, or Richard for causing me to go out of England, or Wellington for stationing our regiment in Spain, or Napoleon for invading Spain to begin with, but pray, do not blame yourself for something you cannot help.”
He put his hand over hers and looked at her with pained and anxious mein, as he struggled to express what did not come easily. “For so long it has been only Georgiana and myself. She has very few memories of our father and fewer still of our mother. I know I cannot supply the lack of two such excellent parents, but there are times when I see how short I fall of them, and... I do not enjoy that.”
Elizabeth laughed and squeezed his hand. “No one does. But you do not fall short of being an excellent brother. In fact, Georgiana fears falling short of being a good sister to you! And, you know, you are not alone in caring for and protecting Georgiana. You have your Uncle Matlock and Aunt Catherine, for what good they can do. You have your cousins. You have Richard. And you have me. I have no hesitation in committing us both to your and Georgiana’s service when we are in England. We are family now.”
In a rare show of feeling, Darcy kissed her hand before releasing it. He was immediately embarrassed, and mumbling a ‘God bless you’ and a vague excuse about checking on his sister, fled the parlor.
'Men,' thought Elizabeth, amused. 'Ask of them an impossible task and they accept with the greatest fortitude imaginable, but give them a hint of compassion and they run from the room.'
***
Elizabeth was later glad of Georgiana's interference and the Darcy carriage; she felt a faint but persistent nausea the entire ride back to London. She did not like to think how much worse the feeling would be riding the entire way (though she thought, in moments of supreme irritation, if she had been left alone to pick far simpler dishes for every meal, she might not feel quite so ill.)
The feeling persisted even after they were all ensconced in the Darcy townhouse and she had been a week reunited with her sisters and mother, who were all up in London to procure Jane’s wedding clothes. This shopping expedition was less of an ordeal than hers had been, for Elizabeth had no stake in it, and she welcomed the distraction from a suspicion that perhaps over-rich meals were not to blame for her nausea. She thought briefly of asking her mother for advice, before imagining how this might play out, and deciding heartily against it.
To her aunt she must appeal, and as quickly as she could, without exciting the notice of any of her other sisters. It was difficult to tear herself from Jane, for they had missed each other more than could be assuaged by letters, but Mrs. Bennet was at last of assistance there; she took Jane away to her dressing room for the same mortifying chat about the marriage bed that Elizabeth had sat through, and freed Elizabeth and Mrs. Gardiner to speak to each other.
“Well, Lizzy, I suppose we shall have to make sure our stories align,” suggested Mrs. Gardiner, as they left the house. “Let us walk to St. Paul’s; the park there is very pretty at this time of year, and I know your passion for dead leaves.”
“Bribing me to your side with a walk, are you, Aunt?”
Mrs. Gardiner smiled. “If I must! Jane, I think, will be very startled by your mother’s lecture, and I must have you confirm my account, and not hers.”
Elizabeth laughed. “Indeed I shall! For yours was the truer account. At least, in my own experience.”
“I am very glad to hear it. Colonel Fitzwilliam treats you well?”
“Oh, extraordinarily so— so well that I have trained him as a substitute lady’s maid when mine is unavailable.”
“Lizzy!”
She smiled cheekily. “I understand what you mean to ask. Yes, I am extremely satisfied. I have never felt pained, except for the first time, and that passed quickly enough. Any uncomfortable evenings we have spent together have been because we were in a tent in the middle of a downpour, or marching through the night. And even then there were consolations. But I find I must ask your advice on the... er, consequences of such consolation....”
Her aunt looked at first surprised, but then turned to her with the glad cry, “My dear, you are not...? That is, you have been married since April. It is entirely within reason you are expecting. Or could be. Do you know?”
“I do not know; I have merely a suspicion of it.”
Her aunt implored her to tell everything that had led her to such a conclusion, and they were so engrossed in this talk, Elizabeth did not notice the gentleman they nearly ran into.
“Why, it is Mr. Wickham!” exclaimed Mrs. Gardiner. “Mr. Wickham, how do you do sir? I am delighted to see you once again.”
With a start, Elizabeth realized she had never informed her aunt Gardiner of Mr. Wickham’s perfidy. And here was Mr. Wickham, smiling and charming, expressing with every look and gesture his delight in seeing them once again even though Elizabeth knew he must be wishing the both of them at Jericho. He and Mrs. Gardiner were long in exchanging their good wishes and observations about how a London autumn quite paled in comparison to a Derbyshire one.
“And Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” said Mr. Wickham, turning towards her. “I am sorry I did not see you before the regiment departed for Brighton. I heard from your sisters that you had extended your stay in London. With so charming an aunt, I am not surprised.”
Elizabeth did not know how to speak to Mr. Wickham, knowing all she now did about him, and was not quick enough to keep her aunt from saying, “Indeed, that is kind of you Mr. Wickham, but I was not the reason for my niece’s stay in London. She was married last April.”
“What glad tidings,” said he. “I suppose you met your husband in London, then, Mrs....?”
Unsure just how to attack this problem, Elizabeth settled on as little of the truth as she could. “No, sir, in Kent. But we were married in his parish, in London.”
Mr. Wickham had noticed her failure to give her last name and began looking uneasy. “In... indeed, Mrs...?”
“Mrs. Fitzwilliam,” said Elizabeth, with an insincere smile.
He seemed very struck by this. “Mrs. Fitzwilliam ?”
“I think you are a little acquainted with my husband, Colonel Fitzwilliam?”
Mr. Wickham recovered admirably. “I used to see him very often, in Derbyshire. He is a most gentlemanlike man. I would wish you joy, but I think you must already have it, in having a spouse with such agreeable manners.”
“Yes, they are perfectly matched,” said Mrs. Gardiner proudly.
“I had thought him in Spain. For the past two or three years he has been in Spain, has he not?”
Elizabeth replied, “Yes, but last year he was on medical leave. He took the opportunity to visit with all his family.”
“Indeed,” was all Mr. Wickham could manage.
“And, as a military man yourself, I am sure you know that half the regiment is always in London. My husband winters here in order to train his new recruits.” She could not resist saying, “Shall I tell Colonel Fitzwilliam you are in town? He has long been expressing the desire to see you again, though I fear with his obligations , it would be a very early morning call.”
Mr. Wickham understood that well enough, though Mrs. Gardiner was puzzled. He immediately took his leave of them and strode off, away from the lending houses from whence he had come.
Elizabeth was distracted enough after that meeting to agree to keep Lydia and Kitty with her for an extra day when Mrs. Bennet, Jane, Mary, and the Gardiners left that afternoon. She did not scruple to push the logistics of this off on her husband, and spent the rest of the day laying in her dressing room with a damp cloth over her aching head.
“Are you feeling well enough to come down to dinner?” Colonel Fitzwilliam asked, when Kitty and Lydia had been noisily installed in guest bedrooms, to Mr. Darcy’s unexpressed dismay, and Georgiana's mixed delight and anxiety. “I am happy to make your excuses. I always find my family most trying when I am newly home.”
“Do we even know why Kitty and Lydia are so wild to be in London one day more?” Elizabeth asked. “I was not paying attention when I agreed. I just wished them to stop complaining that they could not bear to leave this evening.”
“A mutual friend they had met that morning, or so said Lydia. Kitty, I think, would have preferred to return home, but Lydia would not allow it.”
“At least I may comfort myself in the knowledge that I have somewhat relieved Jane of her responsibilities. She has been so overwhelmed I scarcely had half-an-hour’s private conversation with her, and even then the subject was... somewhat uncomfortable for her.” She was suddenly glad of the washcloth, for it somewhat hid her blushes.
“Ah,” said her husband, laughing, “I had wondered why she could not look me in the eye when we took our leave of her.”
“I could not have her believing my mother!”
“No indeed. I daresay in two or three years time your sister may be able to ask me to pass the butter at table without blushing.” After a minute, Colonel Fitzwilliam said, “I cannot help but think your annoyance extends past your sisters. I have not been putting you too much in company this week? We really could not avoid dining with Brigadier St. John any more than we could avoid dining with Wellington at Lisbon.”
Elizabeth sat up and removed the washcloth from her face. She had two items she particularly wished to discuss and as satisfying as it would have been to say, “It is indeed something you have done; my aunt and I believe I am now a month with child,” she was in too foul a mood to endure high spirits from anybody, even her husband. The second it must be. “I ran into Mr. Wickham this morning.”
“The blackguard is still in London, is he? What did he say to you?”
This was speedily gone over before they had to dress for dinner, and Colonel Fitzwilliam promised to speak to Mr. Darcy over the port. It was not unsurprising that Mr. Darcy did not rejoin them for coffee after this unpleasant chat, particularly since Kitty and Lydia gave him no inducement to overcome his distress. The two youngest Bennets could not have been more irritating if they had made a bet to see which of them could irritate Elizabeth past the limits of human endurance.
Kitty and Lydia did not heed Elizabeth all when she tried to check them, at dinner, or afterwards. They were constantly quarreling, hissing invective at the other when they should have been attending, and trying to drag Georgiana into truly stupid arguments. Lydia kept shushing Kitty whenever she tried to privately air her grievances to Elizabeth, which of course meant Kitty burst in on Elizabeth as she was undressing for bed.
Elizabeth hastily set down the diamond earring in her hand and, with her sent away Mrs. Pattinson, so that Kitty could throw herself on Elizabeth’s lap and cry in privacy about how everything was monstrous unfair and Lydia was being absolutely horrible .
“Kitty, what exactly has Lydia done?” Elizabeth tried to maneuver necklace, earrings, and bracelet into her jewel case one handed, but had to give up in order to find a handkerchief. “Blow. That’s better. Now tell me just why you and Lydia were so dreadful today?”
“It wasn’t me ,” said Kitty. “Lydia has been in a frightful temper since she was not allowed to go to Brighton and now—”
Lydia burst in then saying, “Kitty, I said you weren’t to bother Lizzy, now she is so very high and mi—”
“I am about the same height as I have ever been,” said Elizabeth. “Lydia will you sit and let me tell you just what a summer encampment is like? Summer is campaign season and it involves a great deal more hardship than you have ever experienced.” She dwelt on siege rationing and the muddy, rainy marches with grim relish and scrupled not to lay out the very darkest interpretation of the powder wagon affair. Kitty was very upset by it, and in a fair way to swear off redcoats altogether, if there was even the possibility of having to face off against the French with only her wits at hand. Lydia thought Elizabeth was exaggerating and would not believe a word of it.
“It is not fair,” Lydia complained. “You and Jane go off and have all the fun for yourselves and you keep me from having even a part of it!”
“Indeed Lydia?” Elizabeth asked coldly, patting a still sniffling Kitty on the shoulder.
“After you would not let me go to Brighton, you did not even think of sending me to China!”
“I have not been idle, Lydia; I have written a number of letters on your behalf, and discovered it will cost nearly two thousand pounds to get you to Canton. We must first hire a Cupid’s Bow Street Runner to find out who or where your soulmate may reside, then outfit you for China, then pay your fare, then hire a companion for you, and—”
“And so? Mama says you have eight thousand a year!”
“When the Army pays its officers,” said Elizabeth, “which they have not done for six months. And we have depleted what ready money we did have paying off some of the soldiers in the regiment too ill or injured to continue in the service.”
“I do not need a Cupid’s Bow Street Runner,” cried Lydia. “I can manage it by myself, I am not as stupid as you and Papa always think I am. I could very well manage on my own!”
“You are sixteen,” said Elizabeth. “That is full young to be traveling halfway across the world. Then too, there is the question of how to get you there respectably—”
“I do not care half as much as you do for all these niceties ,” cried Lydia. “You are far too stuffy now Lizzy, stuffier even than Mary, and you will not make the slightest push to help me in anything I want, and Mama says you have so much pin money you could not possibly spend it in a year, and yet you balk at sending me to the only place where I can find my soulmate—”
“Do you speak Cantonese, or read Mandarin?” asked Elizabeth, beginning to lose her temper. “Have you secured a companion who can do either? Have you any notion of where to begin your search? There are so many things to consider before—”
“Did you consider all those thing when you were married?”
“Indeed I did!”
“You did not, Lizzy, you went to Kent and that was that! But if you will not even let me go to the seaside where the Chinese sailors congregate—”
“There is no port in Brighton.”
“There is!”
“Boats do not dock in Brighton, Lydia!”
“How do you know? You have never been there, and, thanks to you, neither have I!” Lydia grabbed her shawl off of Elizabeth’s dressing table and stormed off.
Kitty lingered and then, looking up at Lizzy said, timidly, “Lizzy, Lydia is going to do something very foolish if she is not allowed to start finding her soulmate.”
“Selfish girl,” muttered Elizabeth. “She cannot see two sisters married without demanding to be so as well! At sixteen I was not so eager to be married.”
“At eighteen I am not either,” said Kitty. “I told Lydia she should— she ought to talk to you and not to—”
Lydia stormed back in and grabbed Kitty by the arm. “Come now Kitty, I need an atlas to prove Lizzy wrong and I do not know where it is.”
Kitty was dragged off, looking hapless, just as Colonel Fitzwilliam walked in.
“My sisters are gone off to find an atlas,” Elizabeth informed him, automatically beginning to pack for the next day’s journey. “An ironic errand, for I really believe they will get lost in the library; they have never entered one before. Oh good Lord, I am exhausted. I tried to pack an empty jewel case when I distinctly remember throwing my earrings onto the mess on my dressing table.”
“Leave it for the evening. Come sit on the bed and I shall help you with your stays.” That accomplished, Colonel Fitzwilliam put his hands to her shoulders and with his thumbs smoothed out the tense muscles of her neck. Elizabeth sighed in pleasure.
“My poor Lizzy,” said he, stopping to press a kiss to the back of her neck. “And are you still feeling unwell?”
This was a calmer moment, and exhaustion had smothered out the worst sparks of her irritation. The idea of Colonel Fitzwilliam’s raptures was now so pleasing she could not resist. Elizabeth looked up at him and said, smiling, “Yes, and I am afraid it may continue a few months more.”
His hands stilled. “Lizzy, are you...?”
“My aunt says it is too early to be very certain; it is only after three months one can be relatively sure of carrying to term, but I think—”
“Oh Lizzy!” He swept her up into his arms and, showering her laughing face with kisses, said, “I thought you had already made me the happiest man alive, when you agreed to marry me, but a child!”
“Richard,” she protested, “it is barely a month, if so! Only one in every three or four cases makes it past the third month. Don’t rejoice just yet.” An unpleasant thought came to her. “Oh Lord, if this does go to term, will you be on campaign when I am in confinement?”
This sobered them both, and they were up very late discussing this. When they had married, Elizabeth had not been inclined to be parted from her husband, and insisted she would have any child abroad, if need be, but having been through some of the worst of the Spanish campaign, she was not so sure. She was not eager to go into labor possibly in a tent, or next to a soldier getting a limb amputated, or in the wagon of a baggage train. Having believed for so long that he would never have children, Colonel Fitzwilliam was not eager to miss the birth of his first, but with so much of Spain ceded to the French it seemed to him impossible to get leave during the summer campaign season. They were hours at tormenting themselves with logistics, and so found themselves still awake at two-o-clock, when several ill-conceived plans collided together in the foyer of the Darcy townhouse.
Colonel Fitzwilliam broke off their conversation at the sound of footsteps in the hall, then a very loud, “KITTY YOU WRETCH!”
“Perfect,” said Elizabeth, reaching for her dressing gown. “Will you come with me and look stern?”
“Aye, and I’ll hold a candle too.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam did an excellent job of looking stern, and even looked a little murderous, for when they had finished chasing Lydia down the stairs, they saw Kitty, in dressing gown and curl papers, holding back a very confused Mr. Wickham by his cloak. Georgiana, likewise attired, stood at the foot of the landing, with a fireplace poker upraised.
“What on earth is going on?” cried Elizabeth.
Mr. Wickham began to look really panicked. “Mrs. Fitzwilliam! Colonel Fitzwilliam! I... ah. Am... delighted to see you?”
“Here I was," said Colonel Fitzwilliam, "thinking the pleasure must all be ours. Miss Bennet, be so good as to drag the rat you have caught into the sitting room, before we wake every servant in the place. Hit him with the poker if he does not move fast enough, Miss Darcy.”
Mr. Wickham twisted in an attempt to break away, but Mr. Darcy then emerged scowling from his bookroom, where he had evidently been sleeping at his desk; Mr. Wickham came face-to-face with Mr. Darcy and froze.
A glare was enough; Mr. Wickham turned on his heel and marched into the sitting room. Elizabeth, seizing Lydia by the sleeve of her pelisse, said, “I think you have a great deal of explaining to do, Lydia. Come with me.”
A footman in a nightcap and dressing gown appeared at the servant’s staircase, looking confused; Elizabeth, shoving Lydia into the sitting room and pulling shut the door said, brightly, “I am sorry for waking you! My sisters are quarreling again. I shall resolve the argument; do not put yourself out. Pray tell everyone else to go to bed.”
The servants had evidently had enough of the youngest Miss Bennets, for the footman nodded and immediately retreated.
Elizabeth entered the room to see Colonel Fitzwilliam and Mr. Darcy standing before Mr. Wickham in identical attitudes, with arms crossed and scowls affixed. Kitty and Georgiana were sitting together on a small divan, shoulder to shoulder, trying to look brave and mostly looking terrified. Lydia flopped into a very expensive Louis XIV chair, looking mutinous. Elizabeth took the candle Colonel Fitzwilliam had set down and busied herself lighting the wax tapers in the wall sconces.
“Well?” asked Darcy, tersely.
“Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy,” said Mr. Wickham, drawing himself upright. There was an edge of cruelty to his smile. “You are still dressed. A late evening for you? I suppose it must be. It cannot be easy with so full a house. How can you sleep when your—”
“Enough,” snapped Darcy.
Colonel Fitzwilliam added, “I ought to tell you to name your second—”
“Richard!” protested Elizabeth, her free hand involuntarily going to her stomach. She had not thought, in all their talk of logistics, what she would do if her husband were to die before she gave birth, and now heartily regretted ever implying Colonel Fitzwilliam would challenge Mr. Wickham to a duel.
Colonel Fitzwilliam’s gaze flickered from her look of badly concealed fright to the hand on her stomach; he turned to Mr. Wickham and continued on, with his usual sarcasm, “But to do so would be tantamount to declaring you a gentleman. That title you have long abandoned.”
Darcy had observed this exchange with what seemed like absence of mind; he turned to Georgiana and Kitty and said, “Go back upstairs.”
Georgiana shrank into the divan but said, “No.”
“No?”
Kitty said, fretfully, “Miss Darcy and I did nothing wrong. Indeed, we stopped something very wrong! We were as brave as Lizzy with the powder wagons, really, for Mr. Wickham is as bad as the French, or perhaps worse, because the French do not lie about being greedy. And we are not quite as witty, and so have not as much ammunition at hand, so I really think you should take that into consideration before looking at us like we are so very stupid.”
Elizabeth positioned herself by Lydia’s chair and checked, with one furious glare, Lydia’s attempt to get up and slink away. “Lydia, I have a wild guess that you have something to do with Mr. Wickham’s appearance here this evening.”
Lydia said, crossly, “If you hadn’t been so awful—”
“Mrs. Fitzwilliam hasn’t been in the least bit awful!” exclaimed Georgiana, heatedly. “And it is not Lydia’s fault for being taken in by such an awful man as Mr. Wickham. But—” turning to her brother, with furious tears starting in her eyes “— but I shall not go, not until I am assured that Mr. Wickham understands how wicked he has been!”
Mr. Wickham looked sorrowfully at Georgiana and said, “My dearest George, I know you are my soulmate—”
“You are not mine !” she declared.
“Alas,” sighed he, convincing no one but Lydia. “Can this be? Can I be so star-crossed that my one, true match is the soulmate of another? What torments are mine! How can I ever resign myself to seeing my dear one married to another, happy with another, carrying the child of another? Never a hope of happiness in this mortal life—”
“Speak on that subject one more time and I will make it so you cannot speak again,” said Darcy.
There was enough quiet menace in his tone to make even Mr. Wickham pause and look uneasy.
Colonel Fitzwilliam asked, “Wickham, to what do we owe the pleasure of this visit? Given what my wife said to you this morning, I thought it very clear that we were not mourning your absence from our circles.”
“Love,” said Mr. Wickham, but he was frightened now of Darcy’s anger and not as convincing. “True love, in fact.”
“That is not it at all!” burst out Kitty.
“Yes it is!” Lydia insisted. Desire to overtalk Kitty won in its brief struggle against the desire to keep a dignified, if sulky silence. “Mr. Wickham came across Kitty and me this morning and was so sad that Lizzy had snubbed him because now she was married to an honorable. And I said yes, Lizzy was such a high stickler now that she had an Earl as her papa-in-law and stays with Mr. Darcy when in town, and she had more pin money than she could spend and yet only sent us back lace veils, and Papa bottles of port and rubbishy old books, and wouldn’t even pay for me to go to China. And Mr. Wickham was very sad because he thought maybe he would have an ally in Lizzy, since her husband was also Miss Darcy’s guardian, but given all I said, he thought not, and wasn’t it sad that money turned people’s heads like this? And I said yes it was and if I had a fortune I should not behave half so shabby to my relations, and go about wearing diamonds that were worth the cost of my passage to China and still say I did not have the money to make a sister happy. Kitty said I shouldn’t speak like that about Lizzy since she’d nearly been killed by the French, and I said that was all guff and probably Papa exaggerating because Lizzy is his favorite and he’s always more alarmed about things that happen to her than to any of us, and Kitty said that was not true, because Jane’s letter from Lizzy said—”
“Miss Lydia, there is no need for all this,” Wickham attempted to interject.
“Hush! I am taking, not you! After all I have done for you, this is the very least you can do for me.” Lydia had always preferred some attention to none, however she got it; to captivate the whole room, even with tales of her wrongdoing, was now her chief desire. “But I shall leave Kitty out of this because she is disobliging and a coward to boot.”
“I am not ,” protested Kitty.
Lydia ignored her. “So I said, well, I would not be cruel and keep Mr. Wickham from Miss Darcy even if I were married to a colonel, and if we were longer in London, I would work on Lizzy to let him see Miss Darcy. Mr. Wickham said that perhaps there was a way for me to help him even today, and he could then help me get to China. If I could put up a fuss about wanting to stay longer in London and contrive to unlock the door to Mr. Darcy’s house, he could come in the dead of night and surprise Miss Darcy. Isn’t that a fine joke?”
“A joke?” repeated Colonel Fitzwilliam, in tones of great incredulity.
“Yes, I could scarce agree for laughing. I could just imagine everyone’s faces when Miss Darcy managed to run off to the naval yard with Mr. Wickham. As soon as they were married, Mr. Wickham would help secure me a berth on a ship to China. He would fence Lizzy’s necklace for me.”
“Which you should not have taken!” burst out Kitty.
“Hold your breath to cool your porridge, Kitty, I did not take it, I merely borrowed it. Lizzy I daresay could have bought it from the pawn shop the next morning. Indeed, I would have sent a note to her letting it know where it was.”
Elizabeth had been too shocked to speak, but soon she passed from shock to disgust and could no longer remain silent. “Lydia, do you know how very wrongly you have behaved? Have you any notion of what harm you could have done— not just to Miss Darcy, but to yourself? If anyone had caught you— good God, Lydia, five shillings’ worth of stolen property is enough to be condemned to death! The theft of a necklace—”
“And earrings, and a bracelet,” piped up Kitty
“Lydia, all together, that is well over a hundred pounds! Had you actually made it out the door, there would be a very real possibility of your being arrested, and then branded or transported— and you still would not have enough to pay your passage to and from China!”
“You always exaggerate the danger,” said Lydia.
“She does not, and is not,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. “I have had men lashed until they could not stand for far less serious offenses.” Lydia opened her mouth to respond, but Colonel Fitzwilliam leveled on her a look that had made seasoned veterans quake in their lines. “We will come back to you, later.”
“Kitty,” said Elizabeth, “was this what you kept trying to tell me about today?”
“Yes, but Lydia would not let me! So I had to tell Miss Darcy, instead, and she was very upset because she was not a match with Mr. Wickham, as Lydia would have known if she had just asked , and then we hatched our plan, and it worked. Mostly.”
Georgiana, clearly forcing herself to speak said, “Yes, for I am sure Mr. Wickham would have taken the money and fled and not given it back to Miss Lydia at all. So— so—”
Kitty piped in, “So we waited in the foyer and I grabbed him when he came in, and Miss Darcy threatened him with a poker and told him he was a bad and wicked man. I had to stuff Lydia in the closet to make it down before her, but I made it, and I grabbed his cloak and did not let go, until Colonel Fitzwilliam bade me do so.”
Elizabeth felt an inappropriate urge to laugh at this recital, but feared she would lose what little influence she had over Lydia if she stopped looking stern. Mr. Darcy was still too angry to speak; Colonel Fitzwilliam looked very much like he had when seeing the disastrous retreat from Burgos; and Mr. Wickham was beginning to look panicked.
“I am proud of you both,” said Elizabeth, to Kitty and Georgiana. “I wish you had alerted me, or Colonel Fitzwilliam, or Mr. Darcy, but I can see why you felt you could not, and you did exceedingly well given the circumstances. I am proud of you both. Lydia, I have never been less proud, for you seem not to realize that you have done anything wrong.”
“I haven’t!”
“Mr. Wickham lied to her, it is not her fault,” piped up Georgiana, with less anxiety now that Elizabeth of the Powder Wagon Bluff had praised her bravery.
“Wickham! We were neglecting you,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam. “It is a great disappointment I cannot turn you over to your commanding officer for discipline, but I am sure I can adequately console myself by turning you over to the magistrate of the parish.”
“And implicate your wife’s sister in grand larceny?” asked Mr. Wickham. His voice slightly shook, but otherwise he was as easy and charming as ever. “Perhaps they might be lenient with so young a girl and merely exile her with the other thieves to Australia.”
Elizabeth glared at Lydia. As furious as she was, she could not bear such a fate for her youngest sister.
Mr. Darcy said, in a tone of icy disdain, “Perhaps you are unaware, sir, that I have bought up all your debts in Lambton. I do not know what debts you left in Meryton and Brighton, but I have no doubt I could purchase them as well— though I daresay calling in only your debts from Lambton would be enough to land you in debtor’s prison for a considerable length of time.”
The blood visibly drained from Mr. Wickham’s face.
“Your choice, sir,” said Mr. Darcy, implacable, “Newgate or Australia.”
“Neither,” said he, rising to his feet, with an attempt at nonchalance. “I was quite serious when I said I was here because of the star-crossed. Fitzwilliam, my dear man, we have more in common than you may think.”
“We have nothing in common,” said Mr. Darcy.
“Do we not?” asked Wickham. “Why, we were intimate friends once, dear, dear Fitzwilliam. Bared hearts and wrists, did we not? I understand you better than anyone else alive. I know how secretly you have been tormenting yourself. You were always nobler than I. If you will not make a push, I have a very great mind to do so for you-—unless there is significant inducement for my silence.”
Elizabeth had not thought she could be further shocked. Was Wickham actually...? The mind rebelled. He could not possibly be proposing to violate every social taboo and reveal another person’s soulmark, could he? She looked to Colonel Fitzwilliam in the hopes she had been mistaken, but his expression mixed incredulity with outrage and his clenched hand was by his hip, where the hilt of his sword would be, had he been in uniform.
“I told you,” said Mr. Darcy, dangerously quiet, “I would not endure more on this subject.”
Mr. Wickham was still looking around the room, to see the effects of his speech, and happened to meet Elizabeth’s eye. He met her look of shocked indignation with a mocking smile, and said, “This evening in fact, I could tell—”
Mr. Darcy punched him in the face.
Mr. Wickham fell sideways to the floor.
Colonel Fitzwilliam said, “That was long overdue; well done, Darcy,” to which Elizabeth heartily assented. She supposed she ought to have at least feigned missishness or offense, but she had seen too much on the campaign, and was still too outraged by Wickham's threat.
Mr. Darcy was pale with anger, the disturbance of his mind visible in every feature, his fists still clenched by his sides. And yet he asked, in the same formal tone in which he requested the servants to remove the first course at dinner, “Mrs. Fitzwilliam, would you be so kind as to escort the ladies of the house to their rooms?”
“Of course.”
“I ought to have asked you to do so before I hit Mr. Wickham,” said Mr. Darcy stiffly. “For that, I apologize.”
Mr. Wickham wincingly began to pick himself up off the floor. The three teenage girls had been quite stunned to see Mr. Darcy, of all people, hitting someone, but were rather keen on seeing it happen again. It was with some difficulty that Elizabeth shoved them all out of the room before her.
“Is Mr. Darcy going to kill Mr. Wickham?” asked Kitty.
“What? No, no he is not,” said Elizabeth.
“Mr. Darcy may not know how,” said Lydia.
“Is Colonel Fitzwilliam going to kill Mr. Wickham?” asked Kitty.
“Has Colonel Fitzwilliam ever killed anyone?” asked Georgiana, wide-eyed.
“No one is killing anyone right this moment! Now no more until we are out of the staircase.”
She ended up ushering them all into her own chamber where she held out a hand to Lydia. With ill grace Lydia removed Elizabeth’s jewelry from her reticule. Elizabeth put it in its case and locked it in her trunk. “I shall remove the temptation,” said she, dryly. “Lydia, I do not know how to impress upon you how badly you have acted.”
She did try however. By the time Colonel Fitzwilliam knocked on the door, Kitty and Georgiana looked on Lydia with horror. ‘At least,’ thought Elizabeth, ‘I have finally shaken Kitty free from Lydia’s influence. That is one triumph.’
“Do not think this is over, Lydia,” she said, rising to unlock the door.
Colonel Fitzwilliam checked the automatic impulse to tug a lock of her loose hair, and said, “Mrs. Fitzwilliam, ladies, I bear good news: Mr. Wickham has decided his dearest wish in the world is to hunt a kangaroo and Darcy, generous soul that he is, has agreed to get him started on this life immediately. They have gone to the docks.”
Elizabeth glanced at the clock. “Good God, has it gone four already?”
“Yes, and I mean to dress and meet them there.”
Georgiana and Kitty rose and took their awed leave of him, for Elizabeth had been forced to give account of Colonel Fitzwilliam in some of the actions she had witnessed before they would allow her to finish lecturing Lydia. Lydia was less gracious, and Elizabeth said, grimly, “Oh no, Lydia, you are not going to bed. You are going to keep me company until Colonel Fitzwilliam returns.”
Lydia’s wails were meant to be heart-rending, but they were merely very loud. Elizabeth installed herself in the guest bedroom in which Lydia had been staying and by at least insisting upon Lydia repeating all her thinking of that day, got Lydia to become a little uncertain as to the likely success of her scheme.
Elizabeth at last relented when Colonel Fitzwilliam returned, and, after being assured that Colonel Fitzwilliam and Mr. Darcy had seen Mr. Wickham’s ship depart the harbor, with Mr. Wickham safely upon it, collapsed into bed with a groan.
“This was a taxing night for everyone, let alone a pregnant woman,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, with concern.
“Women of lower stations than my own tend the fields while expecting,” Elizabeth said into her pillow. She raised herself up enough to say, “One thing puzzles me, however. Wickham’s plan seemed clear: he would ruin Georgiana, or her reputation—”
“You did not mention so to Georgiana?”
“It did not seem to have occurred to her; I did not like to inform her of the possibility.”
“Thank God!”
“But to return— marriage to Georgiana was his object, my jewels his back-up, but he seemed to have a third avenue of attack. Please tell me I misinterpreted, and that he was just speaking oddly to your cousin.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam emerged from behind the dressing screen and nudged her slightly. Elizabeth rolled over with a histrionic groan.
“Come now Lizzy, I am thinking of your comfort. I have lost count of the times you have said I make a better pillow than any other in the world.” This was true, and she was forced to admit she was much more comfortable curled up beside him, her head pillowed on his chest, and his arm curved around her lower back. Colonel Fitzwilliam continued, “Darcy was... understandably unwilling to discuss Wickham’s insinuations, but I do not think it can be anything other than what you think. Darcy and Wickham were intimate friends as children, and even at university, for a time. I think Wickham convinced Darcy to show his soulmark. If so, Wickham may be the only living person in the world who has seen it. Public exposure of Darcy’s mark was Wickham’s object.”
Elizabeth was hard put to imagine a greater outrage against another person, unless it involved physical attack. “Good God, I had not wished to believe it! As if the attempt on Georgiana was not enough! How dare Wickham!”
“All his talk about the star-crossed leads me to believe that Darcy might have the family trouble. I do not know for certain. He has never shewn much interest in anybody, male or female, and when I mentioned something about my own mark in the carriage, he said that now was not the time, and I did not wish to push him on the subject.”
“He is more often critical of women.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam’s tired chuckle rumbled through her, soothingly. “I thought you and Darcy liked each other now.”
“I can like a person without being blind to their flaws. I do not think he has had your trouble. It seems to me that...” She had been thinking too much of Lydia, and too little of what Wickham and Darcy had said. She recalled something else Darcy had said once, when he had been apologizing for interfering in her match. “I think Darcy has met his soulmate, or at least, thinks he has. Wickham said enough to make me think he has also met Darcy’s match, or at least the person Darcy thinks is his match, but Darcy did not, or could not say anything to this lady.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam swore under his breath. Elizabeth lazily and lightly hit him on the chest. “Sir! You speak so before the woman carrying your child?”
“I apologize my dear, but— Darcy has every advantage. If he has said nothing, then the woman must either be a member of a royal family, or married already.”
“I should think the latter, based on what Wickham said. All Wickham said— to think Wickham would have told all of us this evening what Darcy’s mark was, if Darcy had not hit him!” Elizabeth burrowed into Colonel Fitzwilliam’s side. “If I was not so tired, I would feel very sorry for both Darcys. Right now, I have not the energy for it, and must reserve all my pity for myself."
“Why?”
“I must tell my parents what Lydia has done.”
He groaned.
“Precisely."
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