Page 43 of Near Pemberley

“But I could have done something.”

“What?”

“I knew him.” The words escaped her with bitterness.

She remembered Jane’s reluctance to condemn him even then. How readily her sister had hoped that Mr. Wickham had changed and wanted to do better. Elizabeth had not truly shared those hopes. Yet she had been grateful for them. Her sister’s advice made silence easier. Now they were paying for this generosity.

Her aunt watched her closely. “You knew Mr. Wickham’s character was not what it ought to be?”

“Yes.”

Mrs. Gardiner’s expression altered.

Elizabeth hesitated.

She could not expose Georgiana Darcy’s history – not even now. That secret was not hers to reveal.

“I learnt enough,” she said at last, “to understand that he was unprincipled, selfish, and wholly undeserving of trust. Had I spoken openly when first I knew it, my father would never have allowed Lydia to remain so much in his company… No, I cannot now feel certain even of that.”

Mr. Gardiner frowned thoughtfully. “Yes, your father enjoys his peace too much to have resisted, I am afraid. But why did you remain silent?”

She pretended interest in the letter.

Because the knowledge came from Darcy. Because she had been ashamed of how unjustly she herself had once defended Wickham. Because even after receiving Darcy’s letter, she had still shrunken from exposing publicly a man whom she had once praised.

“I believed,” she answered quietly, “that exposing him would involve others in unhappiness who had done nothing to deserve it. To be honest, a possible disaster never even occurred to me. I thought, if anything, Mr. Wickham would hope to court someone with money – as he did in Meryton.” Her expression changed. “What does he want with my sister?”

The explanation, though incomplete, satisfied them sufficiently to prevent further enquiry.

Yet Elizabeth derived no comfort from their silence.

For the more she reflected, the more intolerable her own negligence appeared. She had seen Lydia’s recklessness. She had known Wickham’s want of principle. And still she had allowed herself to hope that vanity and flirtation might end harmlessly merely because she wished it so.

How often had she laughed at Lydia’s absurdity when she ought to have feared it?

How often had she condemned her mother’s indulgence without exerting herself seriously to oppose it?

And now the consequence had fallen upon them all.

By the time they reached Longbourn, Mrs. Bennet’s distress had risen almost to hysteria.

She received them in her room amidst smelling salts, scattered handkerchiefs, and continual lamentation.

“Oh! Mr. Bennet will be murdered in London! Lydia will certainly be abandoned! We shall all be turned out of the house! Nobody will marry the other girls! Oh! Why did Colonel Forster ever take her to Brighton?”

The incoherence of the complaints might once have provoked Elizabeth’s impatience into amusement.

Now they only exhausted her.

Jane, pale with anxiety yet still striving to preserve calm for everyone else, embraced Elizabeth. “Oh, Lizzy, thank Heaven you are come.”

Elizabeth held her tightly. “Any news?”

Jane shook her head. “None. Not the slightest trace.”

Colonel Forster had made enquiries everywhere possible. Mr. Gardiner intended to proceed to London with haste to aid his brother-in-law. Wickham’s debts were discovered to be considerable. Several tradesmen in Meryton already spoke openly of him with disdain because of the debt he had left behind.

The prospect darkened hourly.