by Jayne Bamber
Even Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy were regarding them with no little curiosity, and Madeline was on the brink of suggesting they depart again, when Sir Edward spoke. “It is interesting you should call today, on such an eventful day here. I was just discussing you with George Wickham about an hour ago.”
Madeline stood to flee, and Mr. Darcy instantly put himself between her and the door. She cast a wild look back at her step-son. “Charles, it is time for us to go.”
“Darcy, Sir Edward, with all due respect, I do not understand,” Charles stammered.
“You shall be made to understand, and I shall have a few questions to put to you later, I think. I begin to wonder now about your interest in this family, and your sister’s, having discovered what your stepmother’s has been.”
“Charles,” Mr. Darcy said. “Three years ago I told my family that George Wickham died at sea. He did not. He attempted to extort money from me, and I put him on a ship bound for America. He returned to England, and since that time has begun to conspire with your stepmother against my family’s interest. Richard caught him this morning attempting to abduct Elizabeth, and when we captured him, he confessed that he and a woman named Mrs. Younge have conspired with your mother, to abscond with my fiancée. You are my friend, Charles, but Sir Edward has a right to wonder where your loyalty lies.”
Madeline closed her eyes at the sound of Charles and Caroline’s protests. “Mother! How could you?” Caroline screeched. “This is to be my family!”
“Is it true, Mother?” Charles grabbed her roughly by the shoulders. “Is it true?”
Madeline wrested herself away from him and turned to Sir Edward, letting her face show him the full force of her hatred. “You have deserved it,” she spat at him. “Your wretched sister cursed me from her deathbed. You came to me six month later, trying to make trouble with James, and a week later my father died, though he had been a picture of health. My husband died ten years to the day after Fanny. And you – you have just continued to rise!”
Sir Edward did not react, but turned to Mr. Darcy and said, “Wickham has already indicated that Mrs. Younge will cooperate with us to save herself. As for this one, I think you had better summon the magistrate.”
Thirty minutes later, Madeline was clapped in irons and escorted from Sir Edward’s house. The last thing she saw as she looked back over her shoulder was Sir Edward standing at the top of the stairs, his arm still wrapped around Lady Anne Darcy.
20
Elizabeth woke with a start, instantly relieved to be spared from the nefarious specters that had haunted her dreams. Instead, sunlight was streaming through the window, warming her face. She was at Matlock House, having slept once more in Charlotte’s bed, only it was Jane who lay sleeping beside her. Elizabeth gently laid her hand across Jane’s forehead – the fever had subsided, and Jane seemed to be resting peacefully.
Soon Jane began to stir, and Elizabeth waited, wishing her sister would be well, and yet impatiently hoping that Jane would confide in her.
Jane gave a little groan. “Lizzy?”
Elizabeth stroked Jane’s hair as her sister’s eyes flickered open and she slowly sat up, getting her bearings. “How do you feel, dearest?”
“A little better, I think, but I should like some water. We slept at Matlock House?”
“Do you not remember?”
“Oh – I swooned, on the stairs.”
Elizabeth and her mother had arrived yesterday to chaos at Matlock House; the uproar following Charlotte’s elopement had been too great for anyone in the house to offer Jane any succor after her quarrel with William, but in her anger, Jane had refused to return to Darcy House, until Elizabeth and their mother had arrived, and practically dragged her from the place. They had gotten as far as the front stairs of Matlock House when they encountered Richard returning home. Jane was already was so overcome by everything that had transpired that she was beginning to seem very ill indeed, and the sight of so much blood on Richard’s sleeves had been the final straw.
“Do you want to talk about yesterday?” Lizzy asked as she got up from the bed to pour a glass of water from the pitcher on Charlotte’s dressing table.
Jane sighed and took a long drink of water from the glass Elizabeth handed her. She leaned into her sister’s embrace. “I hardly know,” Jane finally said. “I wished to speak of it yesterday, to no avail, and now I feel as though everything I felt yesterday and could not give voice to has simply burned through me.”
“Perhaps it has. You were running a fever last night, after we brought you upstairs. It gave us all quite a fright, Jane. Dr. Purcell was here, and left you some of his elixir. Mamma was quite beside herself.”
“Oh dear. Poor Mamma.”
“Poor Jane,” Elizabeth replied.
Jane took her hand. “Poor Lizzy, too, I think.”
“Will you talk to William and Richard today?”
“I do not know,” Jane said blankly.
“Speaking to William made me feel better yesterday. I had quite a shock, and I know you must have done as well.”
“A shock? Oh, yes. I feel as though the last five years of my life have been turned upside down in one fell swoop. Oh, to be seventeen again! At least, I am sure that is how I ought to feel, is it not? George Wickham was ever a villain, and William thought me quite a fool for loving George as I did. And yet, he let me pass five years of my life in such foolishness. I might have married another, had many children, had a... much happier life. Instead, I have devoted myself to the memory of a blackguard, a monster who has come back and tried to steal my own sister from me. And yet I would weep to see his blood on Richard’s hands. Am I such a fool as to miss him still? How am I ever to face anyone who knows what my foolishness has been? What could William, or Richard, or anyone else, say to me that changes anything?”
Elizabeth knew not what to say to such a speech, but tightened her arms around Jane, who began to weep softly onto her shoulder.
“Oh, Lizzy, everything I have thought and felt and done has all been for naught, and now it is all utterly shattered.”
“That is not true, Jane. You have fallen in love with Richard. Even when you believed Wickham to be a good man, and forever lost to you, you found a way to move on and return to happiness. How can that be shaken?”
“Because now I must always wonder what might have been, if I had known the truth, if I had not been so blind, not been lied to. Would Richard and I have married sooner? Would I have... I hardly know – would I have had an entirely different life? Why was it not so? Was I not worthy of the truth? I have loved so deeply, so devotedly, and I have been utterly betrayed by those I have trusted. The worst of it is, Lizzy, I know it is expected of me to simply alter every happy memory, every tender sentiment I ever held for that man, and turn it to hate in the work of a moment, but I cannot do it.”
Elizabeth could do nothing but hold Jane close and stroke her hair, as the force of Jane’s sobs shook both of their bodies. Having no words of wisdom for her older sister, though she desperately wished it otherwise, Elizabeth was left to wish she could do more than whisper comforting platitudes in her sister’s ear.
At length, Jane collected herself and drew away. “Oh Lizzy, wretched as I am, I ought to ask how you are feeling. Mary and Mamma came to Matlock yesterday after I did, and they said that George tried to kidnap you. You must have been so frightened!”
“Everyone tells me it must be so, and I think perhaps I was, a little. I was very angry, above anything. I felt a rage I have never felt in all my life, and when I held that gun to his throat….”
Jane made a strangled sound and fell back against her pillows and covered her face in her hands.
“I am sorry Jane. I thought you knew.”
Jane slowly pulled back her fingers. “I did not know that part – I heard that Richard saved you.”
“Well, he saved me from having to pull the trigger.”
Jane groaned again, her face twisting in despair. “Could you rea
lly have done it, Lizzy?”
Elizabeth furrowed her brow as she thought about it. Oh yes, I would have done it. “It would have been hard to face you, once I learned who he really was. I suppose it would be hard to face anyone, after… doing such a thing.”
“And yet, he would have deserved it,” Jane sighed, pulling the blankets closer around herself. “He was a villain all along.”
“He did not act alone, you know.”
Jane tilted her head and looked askance at Elizabeth. “What do you mean?”
“Do you remember Mrs. Younge, who visited Darcy House? The so-called friend of our late mother’s? It was she who introduced me to Wickham – well, to Mr. Smythe, as he called himself. They knew I was not likely to recognize him after all these years, and they had their information from Madeline Bingley. She is the same woman that our mother cursed all those years ago as she lay dying, and in a way I suppose this has brought the curse full circle.”
“Lizzy,” Jane softly chided her, “I thought you had ceased to cling to this notion of a curse.”
“And so I have, Jane, even when there is more reason than ever to allow myself the comfort of wallowing in it, at last I reject the notion. As you said earlier, I have also wondered how I am to live with everything that has happened, and in truth, I have spent seven years avoiding it. I can well understand the sense of lost time, of wondering what if I had been just a little stronger, a little wiser, more of an adult… but, Jane, everything in the past, for better or worse, has led us here.”
“And what happens next?”
“You shall have to make that choice yourself – so must we all. For my part, I am going to marry William as soon as it can be arranged. I am going to come home, Jane, and I think I am going to fill Pemberley with children as soon as I can manage it. What happened yesterday will not change me; George Wickham will hold no place of triumph in the course of my life.”
Elizabeth had not noticed the door open, nor had she heard Lady Eleanor’s footfall on the carpet, but she looked up at the sound of her grandmother’s applause. “Well, my dear,” she chortled, “I had only come to be sure there was no talk of curses in here this morning, but do carry on.”
***
That morning brought the return of Inspector Renard to Upper Brook Street. He met with Darcy, Richard, and Sir Edward, having taken Evelyn Younge’s sworn testimony and obtained her cooperation in providing a list of Wickham’s creditors.
“What became of Madeline Bingley?” Sir Edward asked.
“Even with her sister’s sworn testimony, there was insubstantial evidence of any wrongdoing on her part – the carriage was hired under Wickham’s name, and the only documentation of their dealings was Mrs. Bingley’s renting a house for Mrs. Younge; a suspiciously generous thing, but not actually a crime. The magistrate might have let her go free, had it not been for her rancor over being brought in the first place. She had worked herself into such a state that Mr. Moore was obliged to have her installed in Bedlam, and her reaction to being transported there will likely ensure her stay is of some duration.”
“Would a sworn statement from Mr. Wickham sway the case against her?”
“It might, if we could locate the devil. My men have been looking, but after his attempt at removing Miss Bennet from this house, the trail on him goes quite cold.” The inspector raised his eyebrow provokingly at them.
“As it happens, he came back just this morning,” Richard said smoothly. “I cannot think why, but we apprehended him, and he is in the cellar.”
“Excellent,” Inspector Renard said. “What a stroke of luck for you, I am sure.”
Despite Richard’s levity, Darcy remained stoic. “He will be transported to Marshalsea directly upon his removal from this house?”
“Exactly so. We have your evidence against him, both in the attempted abduction, and his many debts. If he does not swing, he will rot in Marshalsea.”
Darcy nodded. Between the debts Wickham had accrued in London over the last two years, the great many outstanding bills he had acquired at the tailor since entering Madeline’s employ, as well as the markers Darcy already held, Wickham’s debt was well in excess of ten thousand pounds. And, of course, he had attempted to abduct the niece of an earl – the courts would never forgive him that. Richard had found it more satisfying to simply beat the scoundrel – so much so that he was very nearly ready to forgive Darcy the secrecy entirely – but Darcy was interested in true justice being served, at long last.
Shortly after the inspector carried Wickham away to meet his fate, Charles Bingley and his sister called, and were shown into the drawing room. They took their seats nervously, and Darcy offered Bingley a reassuring smile, thinking it an odd reversal that he should be seeking to put Bingley more at ease.
“I came to offer my apologies, again, for everything that transpired yesterday at my stepmother’s behest. I beg no forgiveness on her part, but mean to assure you that Caroline and I have broken with her entirely – she shall receive no support from our family – that is, you are our family now, as far as we are concerned. Jane and Elizabeth Darcy are to be my sisters, and anyone who would do them harm is my enemy.”
“And mine,” Miss Bingley said. “Mr. Fitzwilliam – Richard – you are to be my brother, and Jane and Eliza my cousins. I pray you would not hold our stepmother’s offenses against us. If Mary were to change her mind, or John....” A tear rolled down Miss Bingley’s cheek, and Sir Edward stepped forward to hand her a pocket square, but found he had none. Darcy offered his own, and shook hands warmly with Bingley.
“You have been my friend for many years, and I know you incapable of deceit. You are as welcome in this family as ever,” Darcy said with feeling.
Richard likewise extended his hand to Miss Bingley, after she had dabbed away her tears. “I cannot speak for my brother, but I look forward to welcoming you into the family. Jane shall be your sister as well as your cousin, and I know it shall not cease to delight her.”
Edward smiled indulgently at them all. “I had word from Lady Anne this morning – they all stayed the night at Matlock House, she and the girls. I cannot be the only person here who would rather be walking there….”
Sir Edward received no arguments against walking there directly.
***
The arrival of Sir Edward, William, Richard and the Bingley siblings at Matlock House was overshadowed by the return of the Viscount, who had caught up with Charlotte and Elliot the previous evening and ridden all through the night to bring them back. The earl was still in high dudgeon, but Richard would not see him while Jane was still within the house.
After Richard’s anger was spent on Wickham, he and Darcy had reached a tentative accord the night before over Sir Edward’s finest brandy, but it rested on Jane’s forgiveness, which Darcy was eager to seek when he arrived at his Uncle’s house. He found Elizabeth standing with Lady Eleanor in the corridor outside the earl’s study, and when they noticed him and Richard approaching, they began to act as though they had not been listening to the shouting coming from the other side of the door.
Darcy smiled as he took in the sight of his beloved. She was wearing an ill-fitting gown of Charlotte’s, and yet she looked resplendent as she tried to play off her mischief. “William, it is good to see you,” she said, her face lit with joy as she slipped into his embrace. Their grandmother paused to roll her eyes at them, before pressing her ear back to the door, her hand creeping ever closer to the doorknob.
Richard bid Elizabeth good morning and inquired after Jane. “I should like to see her before Father realizes I have returned.”
Elizabeth nodded. “I do not know if she will speak to you, but I will advise her to come down. First, I think I must clear the drawing room. I am sure Mr. and Miss Bingley must be wanting to walk out with John and Mary on such a fine day, and no doubt Mamma and Uncle Edward will be willing chaperones, though from the looks they have been exchanging, I daresay they are in as much need of chaperoning as anybody.”
Darcy watched, too enchanted by Elizabeth’s poise to feel much of the anger still radiating from Richard, as Elizabeth went into the drawing room and convinced their relations and visitors alike to go forth and enjoy the sunshine. Sir Edward led Lady Anne out of the room, the young people trailing behind, and his mother stopped to give Darcy’s hand a gentle squeeze.
“Will you speak to Jane?”
“If she will see me. I heard she was unwell last night?”
“She was overwhelmed from the day, as we all were, but poor Jane most of all. The doctor has been in to see her – she would heal best, I think, if she was reminded that her brother loves her, as I know you do.”
“She is certainly owed some explanation,” Richard growled at Darcy’s side. Lady Anne looked thoughtfully at him, and rested her hand on his cheek for a moment, but said nothing. Richard seemed to understand her, and gave a little nod.
After the others had gone, Darcy and Richard sat down in the drawing room, and soon after, Elizabeth led Jane into the room. Darcy’s heart tore at the sight of her. She was pale, her face puffy from weeping, and she could neither meet his eye nor their cousin’s. Richard was at her side in an instant, leading her to a sofa near the fire, and he sat protectively beside her, his face schooled into an expression that betrayed nothing beyond his concern for Jane.
Elizabeth came and sat beside Darcy, her hands slipping into his, and she rested her chin on his shoulder as she leaned into him, whispering, “You need only speak your heart, my love. Be open with her, as you have been with me, and I am sure you will be forgiven. There is much love in this family, but too much secrecy. What is the point of so much devotion if we cannot all share our burdens with one another?”
Darcy closed his eyes and let out a breath he had not realized he had been holding. She was too perfect for him, the way she could speak to his heart so eloquently, and he wanted nothing more than to be alone with her, to show her in every sense what she meant to him, but first, he meant to throw himself upon his sister’s mercy.