Page 67 of Resilience

“A letter from Mr Bermondsy, sir.”

Elizabeth noticed her husband’s expression turn grim as he thanked the servant and waited for the door to be closed before he broke the seal. His mouth tightened as he read the short note inside.

“Shall I speculate with abandon, or wait with propriety?” she asked impishly.

“I must write to Priscilla immediately.” He returned her gaze, his familiar steadiness always present. “Mrs Younge has died of consumption.”

It had been a week before the wedding that Priscilla pulled Elizabeth and Georgiana into her bedroom at Pemberley for a private conversation. Elizabeth had just approved the fabrics for her own future suite, which would be re-papered and refreshed while she was away on her wedding trip.

“Lizzy, I am confiding my most private secrets to you because you are to be married to my cousin in a few days, and I cannot ask him to keep secrets from his wife.” Priscilla began as they sat in the private parlour she shared with Georgiana when she was at Pemberley. “Georgie, I am telling you as well because I promised that I would some day, and I cannot bear to do it twice.”

“Priscilla, I have no desire for you to confess anything that makes you uncomfortable,” Elizabeth reassured her friend. “I will gladly give Darcy permission to keep it from me if it brings you peace of mind.”

“I could never allow it. My cousin deserves a wife he can share all of his worries with,” Priscilla insisted. “Besides, it concerns your family now, at least indirectly.”

“Very well. Of course, you must know that whatever it is, I am certain you cannot be to blame.” Elizabeth waited.

“I agree. Whatever it is cannot have been your fault.” Georgiana looked between her cousin and Elizabeth worriedly.

“But it was.” Priscilla sighed and looked down. “I suppose it was not only my fault, but I share the blame for what happened, certainly, for I allowed it to happen.”

She paused for a moment to consider her next words. “I ought to begin by mentioning that there was a young man who grew up here at Pemberley who acquired my Uncle Darcy’s approbation with his charm and false manners. When his father, the steward, died, my uncle invited his son, to whom he stood godfather, to live at Pemberley and provided him with a gentleman’s education. George Wickham was sent to Eton and later Cambridge with Darcy, and it was there that their friendship dissolved when Wickham found new and more influential friends at school.”

“Oh dear.” Georgiana shook her head. “It is never good when it concerns George.”

“You are correct, Cousin.” Priscilla smiled sadly. “George learned profligate ways at school, and Darcy hid his misdeeds so his father would not be grieved. He ought to have let Uncle Darcy deal with the scoundrel while George was still young, before he became dangerous. While at Cambridge, Darcy covered up many of his debts and two of his illegitimate children. None of us knew, except Richard.”

She picked at her nails as she spoke. “My uncle died, and I am told that George was displeased with his inheritance, but he came to some agreement and left the area. Then some time later, he came back and demanded the inheritance he had signed away in exchange for a sum of money. In truth, he was not educated enough to claim a living. He had never even taken orders. When he was refused, he remained in Lambton and Kympton for some weeks, creating debts that nearly crippled the tradesmen, and a number of young girls were trifled with. Both in the village and among the tenant families. He absconded, and Darcy cleaned up the messes again.”

“You are correct that Fitz should never have hidden it all from my father,” Georgiana said. “My father might have put an end to it early and saved so much trouble. Mr Wickham would have been sent into the army years and years ago.”

“When George moved on from Lambton, he visited Matlock some months later. Darcy was none the wiser, for he was off with Mr Bingley. I was just past my majority, feeling excessively and foolishly mature, and I began to meet George on my daily walks. I never allowed my companion to go with me and insisted to my father that it was well and good for her to protect me in the ballrooms, but that I was old enough to walk in our own park to be alone with my thoughts when I was at home. How wrong I was.

“It never seemed odd when he met me in the woods. He always seemed to be nearby, and I was stupid enough to believe him when he said that he had business in the village and was filled with nostalgia for having visited Matlock with the Darcys in his youth. Visiting youthful memories, my foot. I allowed him to pay court to me, and I permitted the most appalling liberties. In my defense, ladies are kept far too sheltered in that regard. I did not know what I was defending against. My virtue was gone before I even quite knew what it meant.”

Elizabeth pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and began to wipe her eyes with it. “I beg your pardon, but he is married to my sister. It is difficult to hear how she must have been fooled.”

“I am sorry, Lizzy.” Priscilla looked wretched. “We spoke endlessly of marriage, me dreaming of a wedding in the chapel at Matlock, George romanticising elopement. He insisted that my father would never allow me to marry a steward’s son, but when faced with the inevitability of such a fate, he would help us in society to save his own reputation.”

Priscilla took a breath. “He made a mistake in asking for Mrs Younge’s help. He had been intimate with her in the past, had even helped her obtain the position as my companion apparently, and she was in love with him. She was jealous of me, which saved my life. She viciously told me that he only wanted me for my dowry. Thank God, she made me doubt him. In a petulant attempt to prove her wrong, I tested him. I told him that Ashley was a terrible gambler, that most of my dowry had been lost to his debts, and that the last bit, which was much smaller than George expected, was not mine until the death of my mother. I told him there was no way but to go to my father and pray that he was kind.”

She let out a bark of hysterical laughter. “George lost his temper and began to shout at me. He said that I had tricked him into believing that he could afford to marry me, when my pitiful dowry would only cover a portion of his debts. Then he departed from the area, abandoning me. My misery was complete when Mrs Younge confronted me the following morning as I lay sick in my bed with his child. She called me all manner of vile names for having seduced that sweet boy, and told me that if anyone from my family attempted revenge of any kind, if George suffered so much as a splinter in his thumb, that she would ensure that all of London knew how I had seduced him in an effort to force him into marriage to hide a babe fathered by another man. Then she left Matlock the same day. There was no other man, but society would love such a tale. My reputation, my family name, would never have survived the scandal.

“I visited Darcy, and begged for him and Anne to travel away with me and take the babe as their own. Anne was keen on the idea. She never thought that motherhood would be part of the experience she would have in her marriage to our cousin. The idea of mothering a sweet babe, no matter who his father was, appealed to her, and she convinced Darcy to agree. It is a testament to how little he cared for her fortune, when he proved willing to allow her to leave it to George Wickham’s bastard if it made her happy.”

“Oh, Prissy,” Georgiana reached for her cousin’s hand in sympathy.

“We began to make arrangements, I am sure you recall that time, Georgie. But my family was too sharp to be fooled. I do not know why I never expected my mother to see through an attempt to take me away to a secluded location for months, but she did, and so did my brothers, Lady Catherine, all of them.”

“I am not in the habit of telling falsehoods, but I shall never tell one to a Fitzwilliam.” Elizabeth’s eyes were wide.

“Indeed, they are all appallingly observant,” Priscilla agreed. “Darcy had been sworn to secrecy. Darcy is like his father. Before he does a thing, before he does anything, he considers carefully. My father and brothers, they are men of quick and bold action. Foolish and headstrong to a fault. All three would become murderers if the author of my situation was ever identified. I can trust Darcy not to do anything stupid. I cannot trust my father or brothers not to get shot in a duel, or hung for being in one, or banished to the continent because they killed someone, and then must spend their lives in hiding.”

Priscilla sighed. “I ruined Darcy’s relationship with Richard, and I will never forgive myself for that. Richard could not believe that Darcy would keep such a thing from him. He denied Darcy his company, and later left for the continent, where he remained for three years. He wrote to Georgiana, and to my mother only occasionally. Darcy, of course, would have wreaked vengeance upon George in other ways, but I still receive letters from Mrs Younge occasionally, warning me what will happen to my reputation if Mr Wickham’s luck turns ill in any way. So instead of acting, Darcy has spent the last years having Wickham watched from a distance. He fired the last investigator when your sister was able to run away with Wickham without Darcy even knowing he had moved to Meryton. Darcy has been collecting debts and information about Wickham for years, waiting for something to change, for Mrs Younge to cease to be a threat.”

“And now Mr Wickham is married to my sister,” Elizabeth murmured. “What a complication. Mr Darcy cannot seek vengeance for what Mr Wickham did without harming Lydia now.”

“That is the dilemma,” Priscilla agreed. “But know this, Lizzy. While I would be glad to see him rendered harmless, I have no desire to see any young woman destroyed with him. I have become used to being unavenged, and I can live with it.”