Page 71 of Twice Chosen

Across the street Mrs. Phillips saw everything.

By dinner, Meryton had decided Mr. Darcy was courting Elizabeth Bennet.

For once the gossip was accurate.

Wickham's reduced influence did not make him harmless. He began borrowing from officers who had not heard the Derbyshire reports and gambling in smaller houses where Colonel Forster's warnings carried less weight. Darcy learned of it through a Meryton tradesman whose account went unpaid.

Rather than settle the debt, as he had sometimes done in his youth to avoid scandal attaching itself to Pemberley, Darcy introduced the tradesman to a solicitor.

Bingley was astonished. "You could pay it in five minutes."

"Yes."

"Then why not?"

"Because Wickham would owe me instead of learning that debts have consequences."

Bingley considered. "That sounds severe."

"It is."

"And fair?"

Darcy paused. "I hope so."

The younger Darcy would have said yes without hesitation.

Bingley noticed the difference. "You aren't certain."

"No."

"Good."

Darcy frowned. "Why is everyone pleased when I am uncertain?"

Bingley grinned. "Because certainty makes you frightening."

The unpaid account became known quietly. Wickham's charm remained, but credit tightened. He blamed Darcy, naturally, yet there was no grand confrontation for the neighborhood to enjoy.

Elizabeth found the lack of drama satisfying.

"I thought you enjoyed drama," Darcy said when she told him.

"Only when it happens to other people."

"A noble distinction."

"Thank you."

Wickham's final months in Hertfordshire therefore became less a catastrophe than a gradual narrowing of options. Men who once lent freely asked for repayment. Young women heard enough conflicting stories to be cautious. Colonel Forster assigned duties that limited idle days in Meryton.

The world did not expose Wickham in one magnificent scene.

It simply stopped making his behavior easy.

Darcy thought that might be more effective.

Chapter Nineteen