Page 126 of Regrets

“And our father believed him?” Georgiana asked. “Did you not tell him the truth?”

“I sent him a letter with an explanation, of course, but our father would not believe my account of things. Wickham was here and I was not, and our father was completely taken in.”

Mr. Darcy stopped speaking. Restless, he stood up, walked to the window, walked back and sat again. “When Wickham left Cambridge, he left behind a young woman with a baby. She was one of the bedders.”

“Bedders?” Lydia asked, in a small voice.

“Yes; they are women hired to take care of the students’ rooms. Change the linen, sweep the floors, tidy the desks. Some are old, some are young.”

Elizabeth said, in a colourless voice, “I take it that her baby was Wickham’s.”

“Yes. He boasted about bedding the bedder, you see. It was something of a joke to him. Then when she became pregnant, he boasted about that as well.”

Elizabeth had gone pale. “What happened to her?”

“She was let go for loose morals, of course.”

Mr. Darcy sat down, still holding the brandy glass. “When I got word that my father was ill, I went home at once. I sat with him and allowed only Georgiana and Mrs. Reynolds to be in the room with us. My father told me, his voice shaking with weakness, that he hoped I would forgive whatever grievances I had against my childhood friend, and gift Wickham with the Kympton living when it became available. I merely smiled at my father; I could not promise it, of course, as I knew that Wickham ought not to be in the church. But he died with George’s name on his lips. Not mine, not my sisters, but George’s.” Mr. Darcy’s voice was hoarse.

Georgiana buried her face in her hands.

He went on. “My father’s solicitor, Mr. Stanley, came to Pemberley when my father died; Mr. Stanley told Wickham that he was a beneficiary, and so he had to be present for the reading of the will. He sat there, smiling widely, expecting something …something enormous, I expect. But my father had left him only a thousand pounds.”

“He was furious, I imagine,” Elizabeth said.

“Furious does not begin to describe it. He stood up in the middle of that room, right there in my father’s study, and began to speak about my father and myself in terms so very foul that Mrs. Reynolds had him escorted from the room. There were a number of bequests to servants but, of course, Pemberley and all the smaller estates were left entirely to me.”

“As was proper,” Elizabeth murmured.

“Yes. As soon as the will had been read and everyone had left the room, I sat in my father’s chair for the first time. My head was reeling with the enormity of the responsibilities that had suddenly been thrust upon me. But the first thing I did was to have Wickham brought in. He swaggered in and sat down. I wrote him a cheque for a thousand pounds.”

“Then he told me that he knew about the living at Kympton; my father had evidently told him about it. I offered him three thousand pounds in exchange for giving up any claim to it, and he agreed at once, saying that he preferred to study law. I wrote out a paper for him to sign, formally relinquishing any rights to the living, and he signed it. I wrote him another cheque, this time for three thousand pounds, and told him I hoped never to see him again. He laughed and left the room. I rang the bell and had a footman follow him out to make certain that he was gone.”

“Four thousand pounds! That is a good amount of money,” Lydia exclaimed.

“Yes, and a prudent man would have made good use of it, but I have no doubt that he gambled it away quickly.” Mr. Darcy stopped to take a deep breath. “The next day, one of the merchants in Lambton came to see me. He was uneasy, turning his cap in his hands this way and that, and when he was finally calm enough to speak, he told me that George Wickham had seduced his daughter, and she was with child.”

Georgiana gasped.

“I did not want to believe it. Even now, after everything I knew about him, I still did not wish to believe it. I asked him to bring her to me, and he did, and she told me – she told me –“

“He forced her,” Elizabeth, said, flatly, seeing that her husband was unable to continue.

He looked at her with gratitude. “Yes, and she had his child. I give her money every month. Also, my solicitor found that bedder at Cambridge, and I send her money every month as well.”

“What a very good man you are, Mr. Darcy,” Lydia said, softly.

Georgiana whispered, “So you had not seen him from the day he got the cheques from you until the day of the Lucas’ card party, when I begged you to shake his hand.”

Mr. Darcy looked at her. “Not quite; when the parson who held the living at Kympton died, Wickham appeared on my doorstep once again. He had not found law to his liking, he said, and was now ready to take on the living that had been promised him.”

“Surely you did not give it to him!” Elizabeth exclaimed.

“Certainly not; I showed him the papers he had signed, and told him to leave at once. He did so, and I hoped then to have seen the last of him. And then, yes, there he was at the Lucas’ card party.” He turned to Georgiana. “He claimed that he had changed and, Elizabeth, you were right. I had always hoped that he would. We were blood brothers, after all. But that hope, that vain hope, is what kept me from speaking up, kept me from warning my sister as I should have. I have been a fool, and in so being, I have allowed my own sister to come to harm.” His voice broke and he had to look away.

Georgiana rose to her feet and ran into her brother’s arms. Elizabeth went to Lydia and hugged her close.

It had begun to rain outside. The wind picked up, and the trees murmured to one another, but inside Pemberley, all was safe and calm.