“Yes, his property is a clear ten thousand a year,” Wickham said as he expertly shuffled a deck of cards, playing little tricks with the deck in the way he combined it together again and again. “And though I am partial to it, I honestly believe there is no finer house, nor park, nor estate in all of England than Pemberley. This may surprise you given the very cold manner of our greeting, but I have been particularly connected with his estate since infancy.”
“You have!”
Mr. Wickham seemed pleased at having elicited such astonishment in his fair interlocutor. But rather than immediately satisfying Elizabeth’s curiosity on the head, he asked, “Are you particularly acquainted with Mr. Darcy?”
“Oh I hardly know!” she replied. “We spent a week in the same house, and I danced with him twice, and I have conversed with him many times. But am I particularly acquainted with him?” She blushed remembering that conversation in the library about his tendency towards resentment. “I hardly know.”
Elizabeth saw again in her mind Darcy’s dark eyes, as he passionately spoke about how someone close to him had been hurt by a person he once trusted, and… and she felt a cold pit open up in the center of her stomach.
Suddenly, despite having no proof, nor any reason to think so beyond an odd intuition, Elizabeth felt completely certain that the particular man who had taught Mr. Darcy to never forgive was this Mr. Wickham.
Suddenly she felt all the hardness of the wooden chair beneath her, and a tension in her muscles. It was as though an odious stench had begun to waft from Wickham, but she was sure it was her imagination.
She repeated to him more quietly, “I hardly know how well I know him.”
“Ah.” Mr. Wickham did not seem wholly satisfied by that answer. But he then asked again, “And tell me, is he generally liked in the neighborhood?”
AndnowElizabeth began to think she was accumulating specific evidence in Wickham’s probing to understand how Meryton thought about Darcy before he said anything that Mr. Wickham was the man who Darcy had a pointed reason to dislike.
She said in reply, truthfully, “I do not think he is well liked. His manners are quite too high, reserved and maybe…”shy. Elizabeth suddenly realized that Mr. Darcy was, despite everything, shy. And somehow that made her like him a great deal more. But she would not say that to a man who was his enemy. “He makes an effort to appear to be the high gentleman, and those who fancy themselves as not quite so high are not endeared by that.”
“Ah!” Mr. Wickham said, seemingly relieved by what she had said. “It is unusual to see him not be liked everywhere he goes. Mr. Darcy has the ability to please when he chooses. And all the world is generally blinded by his wealth and consequence and unable to see his faults.”
“He admits quite openly to his faults,” Elizabeth replied.
Mr. Wickham blinked at that statement several times. As they started another round of their card game, there was a low sound each time he slapped another card on the table. “I can hardly be expected to pronounce an opinion on him. Or upon his flaws. I conceive of myself as having been treated poorly by him, but others might see the matter differently. In any case, I have known him since my earliest childhood. My father was the steward of his estate, and his father, old Mr. Darcy, was my godfather, and the kindest friend I have ever known. I can never say anything against Mr. Darcy, due to my memory of his father.”
“The godson of his father!” Elizabeth exclaimed. She carefully sipped from the wine that Mrs. Phillips had passed around to everyone. “Were you two close?”
“Exceedingly so. But alas, as Mr. Darcy grew older and prouder, he no longer could stand to have as a close companion someone with such low origins as myself. And when his father sent me to university with him, so that I might study to enter the church, our relations became strained and Mr. Darcy came to hate me — at the time I was only grieved to have lost a friend who was dear to me, later in his spite he did me great harm.”
“Oh?” Elizabeth said. “From what he has said, it would not surprise me at all to hear that he refused to forgive you once he had determined you had offended him sufficiently.”
“Precisely that! His father had wished for me to enter the church, and Mr. Darcy’s father had meant to give me a fine living under his control — the parish in which Pemberley lies in fact. But Mr. Darcy could not stand to see me living in such close proximity to him, so he refused to give me the living when it fell vacant. And thus when I ought to be well provided for as accorded my education, I am left to shift for myself — but I do not complain! This regiment is the finest body of men I have ever known, and I am determined to be tolerably happy, no matter what causes for complaint that I might have.”
“Shocking!” Elizabeth exclaimed. She frowned. “He truly did not — but if your father had specified in the will that you were to have the living, there would be little that he could have done.”
“While Mr. Darcy’s wishes were clearly stated, and well understood by his son, there was enough ambiguity in the language of the will as to give him sufficientlegalexcuse for denying me the position.”
“I am surprised that he could do such a thing, yet…” If this Mr. Wickham was the man who Darcy had angrily spoken about when they talked in the library, she could in such a case imagine him being willing to disregard his father’s wishes to avoid being forced to live in close proximity to him. “Yet, I can believe it of him.”
She shuffled through her cards and laid two down on the table. The room suddenly was cold, and Elizabeth was not surewhatshe felt about these revelations — especially since, as she reminded herself, she ought in no way trust Wickham’s word.
Darcy’s dark eyes.
Wickham said, “I assure you that it is a wholly true tale. Seldom has there been a son less worthy of his father.”
“What a surprising story,” Elizabeth replied. “Might I inquire, if it is not a delicate matter, what precipitated this break in your relations?”
“I can hardly say. He did not like my habits, and I did not like his. But I truly believe that it was chiefly because he preferred companions with more wealth and influence than I could boast. But further… he was jealous. Yes, hewasjealous. I was his father’s favorite. I could entertain and amuse his father in ways that he could not. And he could not stand to be second in any way.”
Elizabeth pressed her tongue hard against her teeth in thought. “And Darcy’s other childhood companions. You must then have known his cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam.”
Wickham paled. “C-colonel Fitzwilliam? Is he also at Netherfield?”
Nowthiswas interesting.
“Oh yes, but just for the past week. He is present to do some task that involves training the regiment.”
