Pamela Aidan: Duty and Desire

“I have seen Wickham.” Darcy’s quiet announcement broke the silence like the crack of a rifle shot.

“Wickham! He would not dare!” Fitzwilliam fairly exploded.

“No, we met quite by accident while I was accompanying Bingley in Hertfordshire. Apparently, he has joined a militia stationed in Meryton.”

“A militia! Wickham? He must be at the end of his resources, or hiding from pressing obligations, to do so. Wickham a soldier! I wish, by God, I had him under my command!” Fitzwilliam paced the length of the room, then turned and demanded, “Did you speak with his commanding officer? Tell him what a villain he’s acquired?”

“How could I?” Darcy remonstrated in response to Fitzwilliam’s glower. “I would be called upon to furnish proof that neither I — nor you — can ever give.” Darcy held Fitzwilliam’s blazing eyes with his own until the latter’s shoulders slumped in acknowledgment. Darcy indicated the armchairs by the hearth, and both sat down heavily, their faces turned away each from the other in private, frustrated thought. For several long minutes the only sound in the room was a wind blasting against the windowpanes.

“Richard, how do you account for Wickham?”

Fitzwilliam raised a blank face. “Account for him?”

“Explain him.” Darcy bit his lower lip, then let out the breath he was holding and expanded on a question that had plagued him for over a decade. “He received more than he could have dreamt of from my father and was put in the way of advancing well beyond his origins. Yet he squandered it all, even as it was given, and repaid all my father’s solicitude with the attempted seduction of his daughter.” He paused, took another swallow of the port, then continued in a lowered voice, “Would you call it a ‘natural frailty’?”

“Natural frailty! He’s a blackguard, and there is the beginning and end of it!” Fitzwilliam roared. He stopped then and mastered himself before continuing in a more subdued tone. “And so he was from the start, as you have cause to remember. I may be only a year older than you, but I saw him playing his hand against you even when we were children.”

“My father never saw it.” Darcy swirled the liquid in his glass.

“Humph,” Fitzwilliam snorted. “As to that, I am not entirely convinced. Your father was an unusually perceptive man. I cannot help but think he had Wickham’s measure, although why he did not act, I cannot say. But in one thing he was deceived. I do not believe he could ever have conceived of Wickham’s harming Georgiana. Nor could any of us! We knew him to be a sneak thief, liar, and profligate, but” — Fitzwilliam pounded the arm of his chair — “even we, who suffered his tricks, could not guess the depths of his viciousness!”

“Perhaps he only fell into it accidentally. The pressures of his debts…time against him…” Darcy recalled the morning’s sermon.

“Accidentally fell into it! Fitz, it was a cold-blooded, carefully planned campaign! Probably was about it for months!”

“But, Richard.” Darcy faced his cousin directly, his countenance awash with confliction. “Human frailty cannot be so summarily dismissed. I make no claims to be immune from its effects, and you, surely, do not, as you appeal to it regularly! We all hope that, given its consideration, the balance will weigh out in our favor for our attention to duty and to charity.”

Fitzwilliam cocked his head to one side and looked deeply into his cousin’s eyes. “That is true, Fitz,” he replied slowly, “and I am no theologian…or philosopher, for that matter. That is rather your line than mine. But if you are asking me whether we are to excuse Wickham’s behavior to Georgiana because he could not help himself or if, in the end, his scale will be tipped to the good, I beg leave to tell you, Cousin, you may go to the Devil! For, barring sudden and immediate sainthood, the creature’s a rogue of the deepest dye and will remain so. Even the Army can’t change that!”

A knock at the door prevented Darcy from addressing his cousin’s position. He called permission, and Witcher entered, carrying a silver tray on which lay a folded note.

“Sir, this just came, and the boy was told to wait for a reply.”

“Thank you, Witcher,” Darcy replied, plucking up the note. “If you would wait a moment, I shall pen a reply directly.” The seal broken, he unfolded the sheet and immediately recognized his friend Charles Bingley’s scrawling hand.

Darcy,

It is the strangest thing, but Caroline has removed to Town and shut up Netherfield saying she cannot be happy in Hertfordshire! Intends to stay in London for Christmas — Louisa and Hurst as well. Needless to say, I have removed myself from Grenier’s and am now comfortably at home. (As comfortably as may be, in all events.) Therefore, please present yourself in Aldford Street for dinner on Monday evening, as I will be quite absent from the hotel. That is, unless you would rather dine at the hotel. Please advise me!

Your servant,

Bingley

Darcy looked up at Fitzwilliam. “It is from Bingley. He desires my advice on whether we should dine at his home or elsewhere.” He rose from the chair and went to his desk.

“Thunder an’ turf, can’t the puppy decide even where he will eat without your help?”

“It would appear not.” Darcy chuckled mirthlessly. “But I cannot fault him at present as I have been the instrument of his mis-doubt.” He reached for his pen, inspected the point, and dipped it into the inkwell.

“You have been encouraging him to depend upon you far too much, Fitz,” Fitzwilliam warned him.

“That is the irony of it.” Darcy wrote his reply that Aldford Street was acceptable. Bingley’s sister Caroline would, he knew, be quite incensed with him if he avoided her at this juncture. “Until a few weeks ago, I was pushing him out from under my wings. But something arose in Hertfordshire that proved beyond his powers, and I am forced to play mother hen once more. Here, Witcher.” Darcy sanded and folded the note, then placed it on the tray. “Now, let us leave the subject!”

“I am yours to command, Cousin!” Fitzwilliam sketched him a bow. “What do you say to a few racks of billiards before I must report back to the Guards? And perhaps,” he added slyly, “we might agree to a little wager on the results?”

“Shot your bolt already this month, Cousin?”

“Blame it on the ladies, Fitz. What’s a poor man to do? Natural frailty, don’t you know!”

“A few racks of billiards” later, Darcy found his purse a bit lighter and his cousin’s smile correspondingly broader. Although, for Richard’s benefit, he made a show of chagrin at his losses, he was in nowise displeased to part with the guineas that would see Fitzwilliam comfortably through to the end of the quarter. Darcy knew his cousin to be generous to a fault with the men — boys, really — under his command, particularly those who were younger sons, as he was. The Colonel looked after them rather like a mother hen himself, making sure they wrote home, rescuing them from scrapes, and roughly cozening them into creditable specimens of His Majesty’s Guard. But such shifts required expenditures that his quarterly allowance could not always cover without curtailing Fitzwilliam’s own varied activities. Applying to His Lordship for additional funds was not a course his cousin desired to pursue on a regular basis. Therefore, Darcy unfailingly made his box available to his cousin for interests that they shared, such as the theater and opera, and for those they did not, the occasional wager on the roll of a ball or turn of a card provided what was lacking. This arrangement was never acknowledged by either, of course, but was understood, the funds needed being generously lost on the one hand and graciously received on the other.