If the sight they beheld was distasteful, Wickham was even more affronted. Indistinguishable from the gloom of the room only by reason of the startling whites of their eyes, twenty-odd black smudged eyeballs stared at him. The two score of orbs had widened, then narrowed just menacingly enough to tell Wickham he best take his leave post-haste. That was most probably the only common ground he thought he might find in accordance with this plebeian pack of humanity. He very nearly fled.
Once at a safe distance he spat, “Bassimeçu,” over his shoulder, his arrogance reinstated with the assurance that no man in that odious excuse for a tavern would understand the insult.
He picked up his step all the same.
Although his scepticism had been on high alert, he had been assured by those who vehemently sought his egress from London that Newcastle was an ambitious but pretty coastal port surrounded by grouse moors.
Wickham, who loved nothing better than to insinuate himself into good society, had not thought much of such a bucolic milieu. He should have held out for better. Bath, perhaps. However, establishing distance betwixt himself and Darcy had been uppermost at that particular moment (hasty leave-taking and the resultant insulation of miles was the single constant in his life). Hence, the felicity of an assignment in the north-easternmost reach of England rendered itself ever more probable. Reality saw that Newcastle was, indeed, small, and had a port, but there was nothing pretty about the place. It appeared industrious, but hardly fashionable.
He and Lydia were not a ten-foot out of their hack coach before Wickham realised a dual insult upon his person. The high lustre of his boots was already besoiled with soot and there was not a bootblack in sight to polish them.
His boots’ hasty begriming bade him look about to see whence it came. There was no single culprit, for he saw nothing but cinereous stone buildings, slate streets, dingy windows, drab people, and a sky thick with smoke. It looked as if, quite literally, a film of coal grit filled every crevice and dusted every face in the town.
“Like shipping coal to Newcastle,”Wickham repeated miserably to himself as he spat upon his wife’s lace-trimmed, cambric hanky and dabbed at the toes of his jackboots.
This first impression of the town not at all promising, Wickham had looked to the moors. And again he had been disappointed. If there were any hunting retreats of the wealthy about, by the time the Wickhams had arrived in mid-December, they were long abandoned. Were they not, clearly from the seedy look of Newcastle, people of station hied directly to the hinterlands and fro, compleatly bypassing town. An altogether reprehensible situation.
Further injury awaited. For even more than hobnobbing with those elusive people of property, Wickham favoured gambling with them. Hidden behind his facade of well-mannered sociability stood a man who, after all respectable persons had gone to bed, liked to prowl the night for similarly-minded men flush with funds. Wickham liked his cards lucky, his whiskey smooth, and his women loose. There were a number of taverns, but as Wickham had soon determined, they were tended by grubby men with thick forearms instead of lusty barmaids (who might enjoy a little debauchery in a back room). And nary a den of iniquity amongst them.
Was the denial of winsome wenches not test enough, Wickham discovered the clientele of these establishments far worse than the proprietorship. It would be a struggle to name the most offensive to him amongst them: the filthy coal-haulers who did not bother to slap the dust from their clothes, the dock workers foetid with briny water, or the infernal sheep men, fresh with coin from marketing the aging lambs that weaning missed. Was a decision demanded, Wickham probably would have given the nod to those unholy shepherds, who stunk of the Cheviot flocks they brought down from the frost-browned hills and drove through the streets, thus demanding good people leap for a doorway lest they be engulfed in dust and trampled by hundreds of tiny little cloven hooves.
Wickham despised farm animals.
If he thought his ignoble introduction to the nightlife of Newcastle to be his ebb, sadly, he discovered more diversional setbacks were yet to be encountered. For the paucity of barmaids bade ill-chance of feminine company in general. If the shopkeepers had daughters, they kept them hidden, which probably proved them prudent men in a town overrun with nothing but shipbuilders and coal men. And the army. The caution of those fathers was ill-luck to Wickham, for in light of the meagre competition, a fine crimson officer’s uniform would be quite an enticement to seduction. The only remaining avenue of beguilement was within the spousal ranks of his few fellow officers. But as Wickham was one of the few (and the only one below colonel) to have a wife, even a little innocent adultery was unlikely.
Indeed, things looked very grim that winter for Wickham, reduced as he was to taking womanly company and a game of chance with his superior officer’s wife (who was of Methodist persuasion, despised music, played nothing but Whist, and, to Wickham’s perpetual misfortune, adored his company). Thus, his evenings of sociability were spent in pointless deliberation of whether to avoid Colonel Sutcliffe’s insufferable wife or his own.
No happy outcome there. Had it not been so finger-numbingly frigid, Wickham would have simply mutinied for the garden and a smoke. For Lydia’s only merit had been as a temporary romantic conquest. Not particularly pretty, as a maiden she did have a somewhat fetching forwardness that promised she did not hold much prudence of affection. Under the stern fortress of matrimony, however, her desirability to her husband had waned disastrously. She had become the proverbial millstone about his increasingly constricted neck.
It was ever so cold in Newcastle, even for northern England in the winter. The chill was exacerbated upon Wickham’s realisation that the single reason he had married Lydia Bennet was to solve his most immediate bother, that of an embarrassing shortfall of funds and an unruly mob of unhappy, impatient creditors. Because of Wickham’s tonsorial fetish and relentless wagering, that “bother” reinvented itself four times a year, hence it was creeping upon him again with a vengeance, even in Newcastle.
Indebtedness had never been much of a barrier to Wickham’s peace of mind so long as he could find one more shopkeeper to dupe into allowing him to purchase on account (although tailors, as a rule, were a mistrustful bunch). But such obligations had landed him in his present ignobly garrisoned regiment.
As it happened, by the time of his and Lydia’s extended tryst in London, he had left a trail of outstanding bills that was extensive even for him. Moneylenders had him teetering upon the threshold of a sponge house and more than one had a shilling laid down for his arrest, hence debtors’ prison was not a mere threat. Desperation had begun to make a nasty crease betwixt his usually unfurrowed brows.
Was that not vexation enough, to be confronted in London by an obviously indignant Darcy whilst in lascivious company with the unwed, underage Lydia would have been quite unnerving to any man who valued his bursa virilia. But as a man of considerable practise with confrontation, be it broker or cuckolded husband, Wickham had hastily deduced from the absence of sword and seconds that Darcy was not there to demand satisfaction for some injury. Indeed, Darcy did not intend Wickham mortal harm just then; for what Darcy wanted of him, he needed him very much alive. From an impetus unapparent to Wickham, Darcy had gone to great trouble to find their little Soho love-nest to (of all things!) demand that Wickham redeem Lydia’s virtue through marriage.
At the time, it had been an utter mystery as to why Darcy sought them out when in the past he had but turned up his nose at Wickham’s numerous amorous indiscretions (except for that unfortunate miscalculation with Georgiana). Then, however, Wickham had not taken time to question. Thrown into a position of negotiation, dickering over specifics took all his concentration. Wickham’s finely honed sense of personal aggrandisement immediately ascertained that, for whatever reason, Darcy would do whatever was necessary to see that the marriage took place.
Darcy pledged himself to Wickham’s creditors in exchange for a wedding and the promise of settling in a northern regimen
t with the Regulars. Wickham had jumped at the opportunity (incarceration being a nasty alternative). The puzzle surrounding such an intervention had not truly bedevilled Wickham, however, until he had settled with Lydia at the new post. From the ill-house of vanquishment, Wickham was certain some malevolence had been done to him by Darcy’s hand. But it was nothing at all so covert, the Wickhams soon learnt. For not a month after landing in Newcastle, Lydia received the letter telling of her sister Elizabeth’s engagement to Darcy. It was almost as much an astonishment to her as to her husband.
“I cannot believe her good fortune, Wickham, for he is easily the richest man in England and I know she despised him not six months ago. What could have changed her mind so decidedly?”
The question was asked more to herself than Wickham, so after barely an instance of reflection, she opined, “I can tell you why. A man of that rank need only offer his affection and Lizzy, for all her airs, cannot call herself above any other woman in wasting no time in accepting.”
She snorted a short laugh and looked to her husband, who had glanced at her when he heard her announcement, but upon seeing her look in his direction he hastily returned his attention to his papers. That his wife’s conversation only seldom required response was one of the few advantages her husband still found in her company. He watched out of the corner of his eye as she turned back to her letter and allowed himself a sigh of relief.
Wickham could always call upon himself to foster an outward mien of ingratiating, if somewhat smug, charm. But Lydia’s reminder of Darcy’s wealth tried even his countenance. That ominous, superciliary crevice deepened upon hearing that the very lovely Elizabeth Bennet was to marry his nemesis. Wickham’s invidious nature allowed jealousy to rear its ugly head, momentarily allowing the reason he had slighted her to slip his mind. But, in the vacuum that was his soul, the wherefore of not pursuing such a comely young woman soon wafted back to him.
It was the sparseness of her dowry. What a lark! Darcy had chosen a bride that he, Wickham, had found unworthy. Gleefully, Wickham played with that notion. That conceit, however, did not last much longer than it took to think it. Almost instantly, he was brought to wonder just what particular charm Darcy had discovered in Elizabeth Bennet that he himself had overlooked. Of course dowry meant but little to a man of Darcy’s wealth, but then conversely, position and rank meant all.
Why had Darcy, who could have his pick of any woman in England, chosen a wife with such questionable connexions? Wickham’s puzzlement over Darcy’s intervention with Lydia was displaced by his pondering of such an unusual match. It was only a temporary amusement to Wickham to think that the great Darcy’s wife held the same low connexions as his own. If he smiled, it was fleeting. As much as Wickham hated to admit it, he had married a wife with the same fifty pounds a year as her sister. And he certainly had not the resources to elevate their station as had Darcy. That was not a rewarding rumination. He strove to think of something else.
But he could not.
Perhaps Wickham was not the cleverest of men. However, when it came to plottings, his mind knew the region well. Rarely was he out-manoeuvred. It was only a few minutes before he bore the full brunt of just how thoroughly Darcy had outwitted him. Quite unbeknownst to Wickham, he had held in his hand the key to the Darcy fortune. Georgiana Darcy’s thirty thousand a year was paltry compared to the sum Wickham could have blackmailed Darcy for in exchange for saving the Bennet family name from ruin. As unlikely as it was for Darcy to marry beneath him, he most assuredly would not double the insult of position by connecting himself with a family disgraced. Realising he had held such a trump card over Darcy and not cashed in upon it was of significant vexation. In bargaining, knowledge is everything. If Wickham had held any notion of Darcy’s intentions for Elizabeth, he could have discovered, monetarily, just how very dearly Darcy wanted to marry her. In the acute vision of hindsight, no figure seemed too outrageous when it came to Darcy getting what he wanted.
Not only had he botched the bargaining opportunity of a lifetime, he was marooned in Newcastle. Moreover, he was married to a young woman whose attention, which he had once supposed lent itself in enquiry no more profound than the prettiness of her newest bonnet, had somehow birthed an uncanny knack for sniffing out his every infidelity. Lydia’s brittle temperament was accompanied by a compleat lack of trust in her husband’s faithfulness.
And dogged she was. Wickham could not fathom how any one woman could be so simultaneously obtuse yet clever.
Looking again to his wife, he then just as hastily looked away, not wanting to invite her conversation. She was licking the last residue of chocolate from her fingertips with no less noise than a cow sucking its foot from the mud. He prayed that her indecorous desire for bonbons was the source of her ever-increasing girth and she was not with child, for a wailing infant would be the last straw upon his ill-temper.
Narrowing his eyes in reinvigorated concentration, Wickham thought of his situation again. There was only one promising possibility upon his horizon.
Within the letter announcing the impending nuptials betwixt Darcy and Elizabeth was imbedded the merest beginnings of a scheme. Undoubtedly with the Darcy marriage, the true story of his banishment from Pemberley would be known, thus that avenue of misdirected sympathy had withered. But perhaps another benefit would take its place. For now that he and Darcy would be brothers-in-law, perhaps he would be readmitted to Pemberley, his unsuccessful and unfortunate (only by reason of its lack of success) seduction of Georgiana put in the past. For Pemberley was vast, reflecting the extent of the Darcy wealth. Might Darcy’s wife have sympathy for her sister and her sister’s husband? It was a notion worth pursuing.
As a man with no occupation of the heart, Wickham could uncover no answer to the perplexing question as to why Darcy chose to marry a simple country lass with poor connexions and no fortune. But then Wickham was often troubled by Darcy’s motives. They seemed not to have reason, at least not one familiar to Wickham, for he believed Darcy was no better than any other man, he merely had better means of obtaining what he wanted. And, for whatever reason, Darcy wanted to marry Elizabeth Bennet.
Exiled from London and all good society, an insipid cow for a wife, Wickham was in high dudgeon.
Damn that Darcy!
Money held all the nobility to be had, Wickham knew. And why it was all Darcy’s was a question that would dog him relentlessly.
Preceded by Lydia (who seemed particularly satisfied with herself), Elizabeth returned that night to her sisters and mother in the parlour. It took a little longer for Jane to appear. Moreover, she had no sooner settled herself into a chair than the gentlemen rejoined them, quite unwitting of the temper of the room.
For when Bingley took his usual seat next to Jane, she bore the exact expression one would have conjured a chicken to possess hearing a fox circling the hen-house.
Poor bewildered Bingley attempted conversation with her, but Jane was so spooked, she could hardly respond to her baffled fiancé. Had she thought she could whisper it without losing her countenance to mirth, Elizabeth would have liked to reassure Jane. For she was certain that, regardless of what Lydia told them, Bingley’s privates were unlikely (especially in company in the parlour) to burst from his inexpressibles as if an enraged squirrel.
Besides, Elizabeth was having her own difficulties of disconcertion.
She may have found some amusement in Jane’s unease, however, she did not at all in her own. Notwithstanding how roundly overwrought she knew Lydia’s description of sexual congress must be, the very explicit picture she had detailed seized Elizabeth’s mind quite unreasonably. And this was not to abate, for Darcy claimed a seat upon the sofa next to her, undoubtedly bringing his easily agitated male instrument with him.
Everyone else seemed quite unruffled.
Mary poured tea, offering some to Mr. Darcy. He rose and walked to the tea table.
Thereupon, with cup in hand, he took an interminable stroll the length of the roo
m back to his seat next to Elizabeth. Elizabeth studiously inspected her shoes until he sat down again, quite determined that her gaze would not alight upon that explicit bulge in the fork of his unhintables (of which one was not even to speak, let alone stare at). Until that moment, it had never occurred to her to decry the unforgiving, leg-hugging fashion of gentlemen’s breeches. It was now impossible for her to think of anything but Mr. Darcy’s tights and what they contained.
Once he was again seated, Elizabeth thought it safe enough to allow herself to lift her eyes from the floor and did manage conversation without once looking at his lap. Jane, however, still had not regained her powers of speech and the situation was not helped by Lydia, who found it necessary to traipse about the room offering sweet biscuits to Bingley and Darcy.
Elizabeth’s apprehension over Mrs. George Wickham’s visit was considerable. For Darcy became uneasy with the mere mention of Wickham’s name. Being forced into company with his wife would clearly be abhorrent. And Lydia’s nature did not cooperate in protecting Darcy’s sensibilities. For along with her display of the tray of sweet cakes was a generous presentation of her bosom, one she did not withdraw even after a firm refusal, coaxing each gentleman to reconsider a treat. This forwarding of Lydia’s appurtenances was exceedingly embarrassing to everyone who witnessed it, but did have the advantage of irritating Elizabeth’s mind away from Darcy’s manhood.
Hence, the evening passed with no less unease, but at least it was yielded from Lydia’s disorder, not her own. Upon his leave-taking, Darcy stole a moment in the vestibule to bestow a kiss upon Elizabeth. All her preparation for the moment was for naught. For this time when they kissed, he drew her tightly against him. Through the wool of his jacket, the satin of his waistcoat, and the gauze of his shirt, she could not truly feel his body, however the impression of it was enough to weaken her knees. And when she retired for the night, that impression did not waft away.
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