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“Our poor mother is really ill, and keeps to her room,” Jack concluded. “And as to our father, I never in my life saw him so affected. I am truly glad, dearest Elliot, that you have been spared something of these distressing scenes, but now, as the first shock is over, we need you back here with us, and we also need the assistance of our uncles. Our father is going to London with Colonel Forster instantly, to try to discover where Wickham and Louis might be, and to arrange as soon as possible a mating ceremony there in the capital. That is all there is for it now, Elliot, to salvage not just Louis’ reputation but that of our entire family. He needs our uncles support and their steady minds during this crisis.”
Elliot looked up, trying desperately to catch the eye of his uncles, either of them, but it was Darcy instead whose concerned gaze he met. Darcy was at his side in an instant.
“Good God! what is the matter?” he demanded, for Elliot was paler than he should have been, and it was clear he had received a very great shock. “Are you quite alright, Elliot?”
“I need to see my uncles. Immediately,” Elliot said. “And in private.”
It was taken care of in moments. The innkeepers showed them to a side room, and the door was quickly closed behind them all. Little was said by anyone at first, and Elliot was obliged to take a deep drink of the wine that the innkeepers had deposited on the table before they left.
How could he explain this?
To his uncles it would be an easy thing, though of course shameful indeed, but to Darcy…Elliot was mortified beyond belief. It did not occur to Elliot however to ask Darcy to leave.
How could it?
Not now.
Not after everything that had happened.
“What is wrong, Elliot?” the older Gardiner asked the moment Elliot had emptied his glass. His younger uncle followed suit, preparing himself for what was clearly going to be a shock, as rarely did Elliot behave thus.
“There is nothing the matter with me,” Elliot said. “But we have just received some quite dreadful news from Longbourn. Prepare yourselves, uncles, for we are facing a scandal…” he said, eyes now fixed on Darcy. “And it may ruin us all.”
Forty-Nine
“Your father?” Mr. Robert Gardiner said quickly, because of course their first thoughts would be that Mr. Bennet had sadly passed and the family were soon to find themselves summarily evicted from Longbourn, and surely that would be scandalous in on itself! But Darcy knew, even before Elliot spoke, that it was not going to be anything of the kind.
“No, it is…it is Louis,” Elliot eventually said.
The headstrong, impetuous younger brother who had neither sense nor sensibility. Darcy well remembered him disappearing into Netherfield’s shadowed walk. That action had contributed to the position both he and Bingley had found themselves in—deciding whether their feelings were strong enough to overcome the exploits of the family they would be forever linked to.
Darcy’s had indeed been enough.
He dearly hoped that what Elliot was about to tell him would not change that.
“What has happened, Elliot?” Mr. Robert Gardiner eventually asked.
Elliot dashed what looked like an angry tear from his eye and shook his head. Darcy, in wretched suspense, could only wait for Elliot to tell them, which he eventually did, though he did so with his fists clenched and his voice holding a hardness that Darcy had rarely heard.
“I have just had a letter from Jack, and the news within is dreadful indeed.” He paused. “No, not dreadful, thoughtless, inconsiderate, selfish beyond words! I can barely believe in fact that he has done it.”
Mr. Gardiner narrowed his eyes. “What has he done?”
“Exactly what you are all imagining,” Elliot said. “And it cannot be concealed from anyone.” Elliot gestured to Darcy. “Our youngest brother was down in Brighton with the militia, guest of Colonel Forster and his wife. I…that is…I strongly suggested that Louis should not be allowed to go given his…behaviour…but was overruled.” Elliot shook his head again.
“He has?—”
“He has eloped,” Elliot said quickly. “Or at least that is what we hope for but intelligence has since reached us that a wedding may not actually be imminent, which means that Louis has thrown himself entirely on the power of another and is on the brink of complete ruin.”
“Do we know who the gentleman is, assuming he is any kind of gentleman at all?” Mr. Robert Gardiner asked.
Elliot looked at Darcy, and Darcy knew what he was going to say before he even said it.
“It is Mr. Wickham.”
“Wickham!” Mr. Gardiner said, snapping the word out. “Of all the?—”
“Wickham?” Mr. Robert Gardiner said, interrupting his husband, shocked beyond all expectation. “The fortune hunter?”
