He changed tack. “At her present level of resilience, do you honestly think she is a match for your mother’s wedding planning?”
“How do you know about that?”
Bennet chuckled and told her to take another small sip while he crossed to another cabinet on the wall and opened a door. Voices drifted from within—very faint, but clear enough if one kept quiet and listened closely.
Anne had just said something, to which Lydia replied, “La, Anne, you would not have believed what happened with Mr Wickham. What a stroke this will be for poor Jane, who would willingly have gone through the world without believing that so much wickedness existed in the whole race of mankind as was here collected in one individual.”
Bennet closed the door, put his finger to his lips, and whispered, “Woman grown, Elizabeth.”
“I wish you would stop saying that.”
“And I wish you had stopped growing about a year after I handed you that mathematics book. That was the best time of my life. You were quite a fireball. I was prodigiously proud of you, and frustrated that I could not say so, lest I invoke Miss Lucas’ ire.”
Elizabeth shook her head sharply and started to speak, but he forestalled her.
“No need to devise a witty reply. Things are as they should be, though I have another topic to discuss.”
“I do as well. It is high time we did something about Mr Wickham. I have learnt some things about him that make it imperative that someone act.”
“Popular fellow, this Wickham. Everybody wants a piece of him. Lydia wanted her pound of flesh. Your Mr Darcy wanted his chance to challenge him. Now you line up for your turn. I presume you have not been acquainted with the reason it is impossible for you to affect him, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“He is beyond correction, I fear. He is dead.”
Shock gripped Elizabeth, though not as much as it might have a few weeks earlier. “How?”
“It is quite a story. You see, he first tried his hand at flirting with Lydia, and she gave him a right good set-down…publicly. For a moment I thought I was seeing you on one of your more violent tirades. She went on for some time about debts, flirtations, and so forth. It was glorious, I must admit.”
Elizabeth stared, caught between shock, amusement, and consternation. The brandy was not helping her thinking, but she was not convinced it hurt either.
“I presume Lydia did not kill him?”
“No, but he gave her the ‘Et tu, Brute’look; that was the start of his downfall. After that, the merchants started checking his debts and calling them in. He could not pay, of course, so Colonel Forster garnished his wages and put him on double duty. The ladies all gave him a wide berth, so he started attemptingmore aggressivemethods, culminating in an attempt to steal a kiss from Prudence Brown.”
“Prudence Brown!Had he no sense of self-preservation at all?”
“Apparently not! With a farrier for a father and 2 brothers, she is not one to be trifled with. She dispatched him with a strategically placed knee, which is—”
He broke off, his embarrassment plain.
“Woman grown, remember. She kicked him in a vulnerable area between the legs, which I am informed hurts like the dickens.”
“This business of allowing children to grow up takes some getting used to. Mary and Jane were easy. They left almost as soon as it became difficult.”
Elizabeth tried to see the humour, rather than walking back to the parlour just to get her fan to smack him on the forehead with.
“The man had a death wish. He tried to extort money from Mr Brown, claiming he would hurt her reputation by spreading tales.”
Elizabeth’s annoyance vanished; she leaned forward.
“You know Old Man Mason’s grey stallion?”
“Of course. He is infamously the most ill-tempered horse in the world, or at least England. I have no idea why he has not been put down yet.”
“You do not know Old Man Mason. He was called Old Man Mason when I was a boy, and most think he will live forever. The horse matches his temperament.”
“So?”
