Page 4 of Wickham Likes 'Em Young
“Thank you,” Mr Milton said. He bowed again but stood next to her as if rooted in place. He seemed to want to say something further, and Elizabeth politely refrained from moving away, expectantly facing him. She had almost decided to help him out by saying something herself when he blurted, “The roads were very dry, tonight. Very dry, and easy to traverse.”
“I am very glad to hear that, Mr Milton.” Elizabeth smiled again and said, “Do you remember my friend Miss Lucas?”She led him to the periphery of the group of women and said, “Charlotte, look who came from so far for our little assembly.”
“Mr Milton, good evening to you.”
“Miss Lucas.” He nodded and then, shooting a tentative glance towards Elizabeth and seeing her confident nod, he asked Charlotte to dance the next. Charlotte happily agreed.
At that moment, as the second set ended, Mr Darcy suddenly appeared at Elizabeth’s elbow. She startled, surprised that she had not heard the approach of such a tall, powerful figure. “Miss Elizabeth,” Mr Darcy said. “I believe our set is forming.”
He confidently led Elizabeth to the position next to Mr Bingley and Jane, who both smiled in acknowledgment but then turned their eyes back to one another. As the music began, Elizabeth realised with pleasure that Mr Darcy was not only a very competent dancer but also smooth and graceful. She smiled as she acknowledged her continuing surprise that his obvious prowess did not translate to more ponderous movement rather than elegance. He was, she supposed, the very definition of a Corinthian.
Mr Darcy, although apparently not much inclined to smile, responded to her smile with curiosity. “You seem to be enjoying the dance, Miss Elizabeth,” he said. His voice was carefully neutral, but the severity of his brow might have indicated that he disapproved of her.
She bit her lip but could not quite contain a low laugh. “Well, Mr Darcy,” she said, “the night is still young. The dance may yet meet our expectation of being quite tedious or even positively dreadful.”
His eyebrows shot up, and the corners of his lips quirked up for a second. “Indeed,” he said. “One can only hope.” His deadpan delivery caused Elizabeth to laugh even more.
But when he managed to un-quirk his lips, he said, “I asked you to dance because I wished to speak to you about the incidentof nine years ago. I know that it is considered truly terrible manners to speak directly to a young woman one has only just met about a reprobate. And it sounds like the worst kind of gossip to attack a man’s reputation behind his back. But my cousin and I made a pact that we would warn people everywhere, whenever we can.”
Elizabeth studied his eyes as they approached one another for a two-hand turn. This time those eyes expressed some pain, but also determination. She nodded her head silently, knowing that the necessity of maintaining the dance patterns would be interruption enough.
He said, “I cannot say that I remember the incident. What was a very memorable one-time occurrence for you was, I am sorry to say, a common occurrence for my cousin Richard and me.” Their steps away from one another made him pause, but when they came back together he said, “You seemed to have assumed that we were three friends, drinking together, but I assure you that, although my cousin and I were and are the best of friends, the drunken man you saw us with is not now, and was not then, a friend. He was the son of my father’s steward and my father’s godson. We played together as boys, but we did not socialise with him as adults, and therefore we were not enjoying an afternoon at the Coach and Horses with him; but, at the time, Richard and I were regularly called upon to remove him from establishments, sober him up, pay his debts, and clean up his scandals.”
The pattern separated them as they flanked the next couple down, but when they came together again, they remained so long enough for him to say at a very low volume, “Byscandals, I refer to the kind that can occur when a man of dissipation preys upon young women. Very, veryyoungwomen, for the most part. Often, mere girls.”
Elizabeth breathed out a sudden memory: “Wickham likes ‘em young. That’s what your cousin said, or something like.”
Mr Darcy barked out a sudden, unwilling laugh. He immediately quieted and asked her, “And didIsay anything?”
“You said, ‘Please cease speaking, cousin.’”
“Such a memory you have!” Mr Darcy said. “And you immediately recognised me, after a not-quite encounter almost a decade ago.”
Elizabeth felt a blush rise up. She knew what Mr Darcy would never be allowed to know: over the intervening years, she had quite often thought about his face, and especially his eyes, mostly because she considered him then, and even now, the most handsome man she had ever seen.
She saw that Mr Darcy’s eyes remained on her flushed face even through the next separation, and she decided that she needed to distract him from her embarrassment with a question. As soon as they were near enough for quiet words, she said, “And you are fulfilling your agreement with your cousin, all these years later, by telling me of Mr Wickham’s poor character?”
Mr Darcy sighed. She felt sorry that she continued to cause him pain. But when he spoke again, his voice held a sort of vigorous conviction. “Richard and I finally realised that our attempts to protect the family name and reputation, and to mitigate damage that Wickham caused innocent people in a particular locale, merely enabled him to go on to other locales and inflict more damage to reputations and merchants, and girls and women, in those places. We knew that we needed to begin warning everyone, everywhere, so that Wickham could not take advantage of his God-given charms to borrow and cheat, gamble and escape unpaid debts, seduce and deflower.”
If Elizabeth thought she blushed earlier, it was nothing to her response to the worddeflower. She felt a tremor of horror that Jane had ever been in the pathway of such a terrible man.
“Apologies for my plain speaking, madam,” Mr Darcy whispered.
“I appreciate honest words, Mr Darcy. What might embarrass me still helps me, warns me, whereas polite and proper silence would leave me and my entire community vulnerable to harm.”
“I know that you are unlikely ever to see Mr Wickham again,” Mr Darcy said. “Richard and I vowed to spread the word far and wide, but perhaps I should not….”
The dance pattern had dictated that, at this moment, Elizabeth’s gloved hand lay on Mr Darcy’s thickly-sleeved arm, and she gave his arm a little squeeze as she interrupted with the words, “It was also unlikely that I would ever see you again, sir.”
They nodded to one another. The dance was ending, and their nods segued to a bow and curtsy. Mr Darcy began to follow Jane and Mr Bingley, who were heading towards Elizabeth’s mother, but she nodded in another direction and said, “Actually, let us go to Charlotte Lucas, because my next partner is standing next to her.”
Mr Darcy delivered Elizabeth to Charlotte, bowed one more time and said, “Excuse me,” before she could offer to introduce Mr Milton to him. It was not quite rude, but neither was it friendly behaviour. She watched him as he moved to the card room.
It was not long before she was dancing with Mr Milton, and then Mr Goulding, Mr Bingley, and little Peter Lucas. She did not see Mr Darcy again that evening, but she was very sorry to admit to herself that she thought of him more often than she wished to.
CHAPTER 2
16 October 1811
