Page 28 of Wickham Likes 'Em Young
“Exactly,” Darcy said. “I, of course, attempted to find Mr Wickham in the hopes that I would find your daughter or at least find out information that would help me locate her. But we did not ask the folks in the White Stag if they had seen Miss Bennet. She would almost certainly not have been there, in any circumstance, and such questions would be devastating to her reputation.”
“Of course.”
“I had set up a system of communication with the other men, with owl-like calls every quarter hour, as a code for no sightings, and a hawk sort of call if someone found Miss Bennet. I knewfrom the check-ins that no one had spotted her, and I tried to think,What would Wickham do?”
“What would Wickham do?” Elizabeth gazed at him, quite astonished that he had worked so hard, the night before, to find a young woman of whom he did not even think all that well.
“I tried to picture what would have driven Miss Bennet out of the house. I had explained the truth of my father’s will that evening. Elizabeth, I imagine that you would agree that, even though neither of us chastised her for believing Wickham, she was embarrassed. I imagined her wanting to press him for the truth, and writing a message demanding a meeting. If Wickham was already in a position to watch the hunting lodge where he was supposed to meet Lydia, he would have been able to spot the footman arriving from Longbourn and putting a note into the tree hollow.
“So I thought, what would Wickham do in regards to Miss Bennet’s note?”
“And…”
“I believed that he would have rented or stolen some sort of small coach or carriage, he would have arranged to meet Miss Bennet somewhere quite respectable, and then he would have used lies and charm to coax her into the vehicle. I will allow you to imagine what he would have wished to happen next, but if he was able to convince Miss Bennet, for example, that he would take her home, but then he tried to…take liberties…I thought it was possible that Miss Bennet might scream or jump out of a carriage or do some sort of manoeuvre to get free.”
“The searchers had been looking for Miss Bennet and Wickham, but I travelled the roads near Meryton looking for footprints or other evidence of something unusual. It took a while, but I finally found an area in which there was quite a deep wheel rut and, near the rut, several sets of footprints and some broken and trampled plant life.”
“Oh, dear, did poor Jane have to fight Mr Wickham?”
“She has not told me anything at all, Elizabeth,” Darcy explained. “But there, where I saw the footprints and trampled plants, I called out in a soft voice, ‘Miss Bennet…Miss Bennet…’ as I walked all over the region. And finally I heard a very quiet response, ‘Mr Darcy.’”
“She did not seem to be hurt when she arrived,” Elizabeth said.
“She claimed that she was not hurt, and I put her on my horse and led her back to Netherfield, and when we reached the lanterns at the manor house, I was truly shocked to see how very muddy she was. I believe that she ran and hid, rather than fought, but I do not know.”
“She was not muddy when she arrived here.”
“Mrs Nicholls, who strikes me as quite a wonderful person, promised to do everything she could to make Miss Bennet look respectable again before she put her in the carriage I ordered. I know not what Mrs Nicholls and Miss Bennet did, but I myself indulged in a very chilly clean-up and a change of clothes before I came here.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you for working so hard, and for finding her,” Elizabeth said.
Mr Bennet chimed in, “Yes, Mr Darcy, I give my heartfelt thanks to you as well.”
“Mr Bennet,” Darcy said, “I will be interested in anything you can share with me, once you speak with Miss Bennet. In the meantime, I will attempt to find Wickham and…remove him from society.”
“That sounds ominous,” Mr Bennet said with a frown.
“I have enough receipts of his debts to send Wickham to debtors’ prison for the rest of his life, sir.”
“Ahhh. Well, carry on. We will attempt to get word to you if Jane says anything that points to a possible location.”
Elizabeth had offered to help her father discuss the events with Lydia, but he declared it his own cross to bear. She stood in the hallway and listened as her father relieved Jones from her guard duty, and she heard Lydia ask about Jane. Mr Bennet’s whispered response was too soft to hear, but Lydia’s wails and apologies sounded as if there was going to be some sort of personal growth. Or so she hoped.
Kitty had elected to stay with Lydia through all of that, so Elizabeth checked on the only other Bennets above stairs. Hill had just been in with Mrs Bennet, and she reported that the mistress was extremely relieved that Jane was home, safe, but she had worked herself into a fit over the possibility that Jane had ruined the possibility of marrying Mr Bingley.
Elizabeth felt a bit grim on that score as well, but she shrugged away that concern, for the nonce, and she took a deep breath before entering her bedroom.
She was fairly certain that she would see Jane still asleep or possibly awake but cowering in the warmth of the bedding, not looking forward to the confrontation with her family. However, Jane was looking calm and even happy, standing at the mirror in a fresh outfit, silently brushing her smooth golden hair.
“You are awake!” Elizabeth said.
“How clever of you to notice.” Jane’s voice sounded as it ever had: affectionate and gently teasing.
“How are you feeling?”
Jane’s smile was sweet, and she claimed to feel well. “If you have already eaten, Lizzy, I hope you will still go down with me and keep me company as I eat,” she said.
“Yes, but, before we do that, since you say you are well rather than half starved, I want to know which way Mr Wickham went after you got free of him.”
