Page 18 of May I Have the Pleasure
“That could be a motive, but not sufficient to accomplish the task. What else would be required?”
She thought a minute, and finally suggested sheepishly, “Your father and his solicitor would both have to be incompetent or indolent.”
“EXACTLY!”
Getting to the heart of the matter, Darcy said gravely, “There are things I cannot tell you without your father’s being vexed with me, but pray allow me this one lesson. What do you think the rules of propriety are for? If you are planning to say they are to keep you from having fun, think again.”
It took some time before Kitty ventured, “To protect us?”
“That is it exactly,” he replied gently. “More specifically, they protect youfrom the George Wickhams of the world, who are unfortunately as common as rats.”
The three gasped, so Darcy continued. “He is the most gifted and prolific liar I ever met. He can convince anyone of anything. He even fooled my father for years, and I can assure you George Darcy was no green boy. Had I followed my usual pattern, I would have caused offense as I usually do. You probably would have believed him because he would have seemed more credible than me.”
The three stared in confusion, trying and failing to picture a world where Mr Darcy was unlikable or untrustworthy.
Miss Lydia finally asked, “What could he possibly want? We barely have a farthing to rub together between the three of us.”
Darcy sighed. “He will run up credit with shopkeepers he has no intention of paying, he is a poor gambler so will accrue debts of honour, and at the risk of inciting your fathers’ ire, I will simply hint that there are things that should be deferred until marriage, that a man like him would like to enjoy without the inconvenience or expense of a wife and children. He will promise anything to have his way, leaving his victims to suffer the consequences.”
The three gasped, and he supposed he had gone quite a bit past the propriety line, but he did not precisely regret doing so. It was not as if Mr Bennet or Sir William haddone their jobs any better or worse than he had with his sister. At least Georgiana’s troubles were being put to good use.
With an evil grin, he asked, “Could you sneak me into the room behind him with, oh, let us say, Mrs Philips, Bennet, or Lucas, sworn to silence—and then get him to repeat the story, or maybe even embellish it?”
“Of course,” Miss Lydia asserted, as if she could not conceive of failing at such a simple task.
Darcy actually kind of liked the three young ladies. They were nickninnies for certain, but they had good hearts if they could get past their present awkwardness without being importuned by the Wickhams of the world. Miss Lydia was obviously the worst of the lot, but given sufficient encouragement, he thought she might make something of herself… eventually.
The rest of the evening went much better than he expected or even hoped. Wickham related the story with relish, not realizing Darcy was not only in the neighbourhood, but standing a yard behind.
When Darcy challenged him on the three-thousand pounds he received at his own request, offered to show a receipt with his signature, and then asked how he managed to spend four-thousand pounds as a single man to end up poor as a rat, Mrs Bennet nearly fainted.
It took some time before Darcy realized she had staked out the officers as matrimonial targets, and he later had to explain their financial positions to the poor woman, who had no idea how poorly soldiers’ wives lived. Once she understood that an officer’s wife would be worse off than a footman or tenant farmer’s, she became much less enthusiastic about the men.
On that subject, Darcy also found the easiest way to tell the young ladies about Wickham’s seductions without breaking propriety was far easier than he thought. He just told Mrs Philips, and the deed was done.
Within the day, everyone in Meryton knew Wickham was a lying, cheating knave, his local debts had been bought byDarcy, and Wickham had accepted a position in a penal battalion in lieu of spending the rest of his (short) life rotting away in debtor’s prison.
He tried to smear Georgiana’s name on the way out, but nobody believed him, and Colonel Forster added five lashes to his before-deployment punishment for embarrassing him by making up such wild tales. The man was gone within the week and never heard from again.
That evening started a change for the three ladies. After a few stories from Darcy to Mr Bennet and Sir William, they had to admit that their younger daughters had lost the plot, and it was their responsibility to bring them into the fold.
The ladies slowly became, throughproper attention and management, less irritable, less ignorant, and less insipid.
By the time they married several years later, Darcy quite liked all of them.
The Ball
Fitzwilliam Darcy had no idea whether to be satisfied or frustrated.
On the one hand, he voluntarily stood in the receiving line at Bingley’s Netherfield ball, and for the first time in his life, he felt like he belonged. As if that were not amazing enough for ten men, he knew everybody. He bowed, shook hands (and occasionally kissed them), with everybody who came through. Even more astonishing, he knew some little thing to say to each, even though his comments might be the slightest bit more pedestrian for some than others.
On the other hand, he had been investigating like a manic Bow Street Runner for six weeks with nothing to show for it, except of course, the supreme benefit of having friends instead of people who thought him proud and above his company.
Bingley was within striking distance of an engagement with his angel, where Darcy had spent the previous fortnight familiarizing himself with the matrons of the area, just in case his angel was actually a mother who took pity on him. The theory with much to recommend it, at least for mothers not descended from the Fitzwilliam family.
He had just about decided it was time to give up his obviously misplaced pride and finally ask for help. Mr Bennet happened to be the next man in the line, so he was just about to ask him to confer privately, when his eye caught something to his left.
Darcy was struck dumb as a post by a vision of beauty who made him feel like he should jump for joy—for it became clear that there wereFIVEBennet daughters, not the four so meticulously documented in his notebook—and the one he did not know was stunning.
