Page 24 of Wickham Likes 'Em Young
Mr Bennet, his eyes looking unfocused without his spectacles, shambled out of his bed chamber to frown at his daughters. Mary came out from her room and stared a stern judgement at her youngest sister, and Mrs Bennet, the last on the scene, looked to be so shocked, she neither spoke nor fluttered her handkerchief.
Speaking more harshly than Elizabeth had ever heard him, Mr Bennet said, “Noneof my daughters are going to marry Mr Wickham, and I declare that none of you shall even speak to him, if I can help it. Now, Lydia, have you been communicating with this reprobate? Notes passed secretly, something of that sort?”
Lydia looked as if she would not answer, but then she glanced around the little circle of her disapproving family, and she blushed in apparent shame. But, Lydia being Lydia, she still managed to lift her chin defiantly and insisted, “Yes, because that mean old Mr Darcy has made it impossible for poor Mr Wickham to call and court as a man should, so my dear Wicky has had to slip me some notes to express his enduring love for me.”
Their father simply stuck out his hand, clearly demanding the most recent note, or perhaps every secret note that Mr Wickham had penned. Apparently, his lack of words made the quiet insistence more compelling, and Lydia just stared at that hand and finally took a folded paper out of her reticule and placed it in Mr Bennet’s hand.
He looked at it only briefly and then crumpled the note into a ball. “And how did these notes come to you, and how did you respond to them?”
“Abby, the vicar’s daughter, would come and knock at the kitchen door, and ask for me. I—I told Hill that we were working together for the parish poor. Abby would hand me a bundle of fabric, with a note inside, and I would read it, write an answer, and then fold that answer into a garment I had finished. The little clothes I sewed really did go to children in need, Papa.”
Elizabeth watched her father’s surprise that fourteen-year-old Abigail Raymondson would be roped into a note-exchanging scheme with a rake. She reminded herself,Wickham likes ‘em young, and she shook her own head in despair over the possibility that Mr Wickham was toying with Abby’s happiness and reputation…hopefully not her ruination!
“Well, young lady, you have proved yourself too young to be out,” Mr Bennet said, “and you shall not even walk into Meryton nor attend calls with your mother for a month complete; of course functions such as assemblies are wholly out of the question for the foreseeable future. I want you to know that there will be a maid in your bedroom every night and a footman under your window; I will take from your future dowry the extra expense of having to employ servants to guard you. There is no possibility that you will sneak away, even if I have to install metal bars in your window and keep you in your room under lock and key.”
Elizabeth finally noticed that the only family member not attending to the little drama in the hallway was Jane. Intensely interested in her elder sister’s response to this further revelation of the depravity of Mr Wickham, she turned back to their shared room and cast her dark-acclimated eyes to their shared bed.
Her first thought was that Jane had not stirred from her sleep. But then she realised that the Jane-shaped lump in their bed was made up of—pillows!
She popped back into the hall, where her father was grasping Lydia’s elbow and walking her towards Lydia and Kitty’s room.Mary had disappeared, and Mrs Bennet was clutching her lace-edged handkerchief and mumbling fretfully.
“Jane is missing!” Elizabeth announced to her family.
CHAPTER 11
6 November 1811
Of course, there was no sleep to be had once Jane’s disappearance had been discovered. Elizabeth quickly ascertained that only a single outfit was missing—a dress, pelisse, shawl, and bonnet, and the half-boots Jane kept with the rest of the Bennets’ outdoor footwear, in a little nook by the door to the back garden. Jane had not run off with the intention to leave forever, they were certain.
Mr Bennet ordered Jones, who acted as lady’s maid to all six of the Bennet females, to keep watch over Lydia in her room, and then he quickly dressed and donned his spectacles. Elizabeth also dressed and asked Hill to build up a fire in the parlour and make some tea. Mary, Kitty, and Mrs Bennet, still in their night clothes and wrappers, were drawn to the comfort of huddling together and sipping tea, but Elizabeth whispered to her father, “Please send for Mr Darcy.”
He shook his head. “If ever there was a man who needed a full night of sleep….” he began to say.
“Yes, so true, Papa. But he has had to deal with Mr Wickham many times in his life,” Elizabeth said. “And he promised me that you would write to him at Netherfield Park at any time I needed him, for any reason.”
“My bookroom, Lizzy,” he whispered. “We cannot discuss sensitive topics…in front of everyone.”
Elizabeth nodded, wrapped herself in a shawl against the chill of the bookroom, and quietly followed her father into his sanctuary.
“Close the door, if you please,” he said. She was already doing so, and he continued in a low voice, “I can think of two excellent reasons not to alert Mr Darcy to Jane’s disappearance, other than my very valid concern for his exhaustion when he left here tonight…or, I supposed I should say ‘last night.’”
Jane’s reputation in general, and her reputation with Mr Bingley, Elizabeth thought.
He said, “First, I noticed that you immediately assumed that Jane had gone off to meet Mr Wickham, when we have just seen the proof that the man had arranged to meet Lydia during the night, not Jane. I think the more reasonable assumption is that your elder sister has an assignation with Mr Bingley, who after all is the young man who is actually courting her. And asking Mr Darcy to help with his own best friend’s dishonourable actions would put Mr Darcy into quite an odd position. Naturally, I would look to Mr Darcy for help if my own efforts have not located and restored Jane. But not just yet.”
Elizabeth nodded, thinking that it was a good point, but still certain that Jane had left the house to meet Mr Wickham.
“My second concern is for your reputation, Lizzy, and that of your sisters. If your Mr Darcy learns that two of my daughters have attempted to leave the safety of their home in order to meet with men, not only does it cast a terrible pall on my reputation as a father—quite rightfully, of course—but it will surely also lower your own reputation, and that of Kitty and Mary. And that seems entirely unfair to the three of you, and something that I must attempt to preclude.”
“I understand your concerns, Papa, I do. But I am of the mind that Mr Bingley would never have made arrangements to meet with Jane in the middle of the night, and I also feel certain that, even if Jane were to try to make such arrangements, he would not have gone along with it. I am positive that Jane has somehow gone off to meet with Mr Wickham, and although I agree that it would be devastating for all of us should Jane’s reputation be ruined… I also am of a mind that Mr Darcy would be the best person to make decisions that would eliminate the possibility of blasted reputations.”
“In other words,” Mr Bennet said, peering at Elizabeth through his slightly smeary spectacles, “you trust your soon-to-be suitor more than your poor old father.”
Elizabeth briefly closed her eyes, feeling the truth of her father’s suggestion, but also feeling sad on behalf of her father that she did not trust his wisdom as much as either of them might hope.
“Well, let me at least try to find Jane,” he said. Revealing that Lydia's note from Wickham had specified that Lydia meet at Longbourn’s hunting lodge, a rather ramshackle building on one edge of the forest that fringed Longbourn’s and Netherfield’s lands, he arranged for the Bennets’ driver and their burliest footman to check the building.
“If you spot Jane, either there or anywhere else, naturally you should bring her back to us,” he told Mr Smith. “If you spot a young man with blond, curly hair, I want him brought here for questioning. There is no reason to think this Wickham wretch is armed and dangerous, but do take care. My daughter’s well-being is of paramount importance, naturally.
