Page 5 of Searching for Elizabeth
“Me?”
“You need to stop interrupting me by repeating my words every time I finish a sentence!” Marycomplained.
Lizzy grinnedbeforerepeating, “Interrupting?”
Mary stuck her tongue out and went on, “Mr. Darcy said he needed to talk to you about something the two of you had spoken of the night before, at the ball. And when Mama said you were not home just then—apparently Mama did not bother to explain that she had banished you—Jane said that our mother told Mr. Darcy that you andIare her most troublesome daughters, and that he should call on Jane, instead—”
“Oh, lord, that is so embarrassing.Is it not just like Mama that she switched to pushing another match so soon after the Bingley letter?”
“Anyway, Jane said that Mr. Darcy asked to speak to Papa, since you were not available, and that he was in the book roomfor some time. Everyone was still wondering what they had talked about when I got home from my walk, but before I had time to even tidy up, Papa came into the parlor and said that he had an important announcement.”
“Ah, the third momentous thing that happened after I left,” Lizzy said.
“Yes,” Mary agreed. “Papa told us what he had learned about Mr. Wickham.”
Then, Mary told Lizzy what Papasaidabout Mr. Darcy and Mr. Wickham growing up close to one another, one the son of the master and the other the son of the steward. She mentioned the dying request of the elder Mr. Wickham and enumerated the ways in which Mr. Darcy’s father had tried to fulfill the request. When she got to the part about Wickham choosing totakethree thousand pounds as compensation for the living, but then coming back a couple of years later, asking for more, Elizabeth gasped.
“He went throughthree thousand pounds in just two years! Heavens!”
“Actually, it was four thousand pounds, because Mr. Darcy’s father also left him one thousand pounds outright in addition to the living. By the way,” Mary said, looking very serious, “I wanted to say to you that what Mr. Darcy told Papa makes much more sense to me than what Mr. Wickham told you. After all, something left in a will would have to be given or compensated for, or there would be legal action.” Mary shook her head and said, “I never thought that Mr. Wickham’s story made much sense.”
“Well, I wish Iwereas wise as you, little sister,” Lizzy said. She had finished eating and was putting the rest of the food away; she took a moment to stop tidying in order to give Mary a fond hug.
“I think you wanted to believe bad things about Mr. Darcy because he said you did not tempt him, and you wanted tobelieve that Mr. Wickham would not lie about the living because he made it clear that youdidtempthim.”
“Out of the mouths of babes,” Lizzy said softly.
Mary scoffed. “I am only one year and two months younger than you, Lizzy!”
“I know. I am just trying to laugh at myself, because the alternative is to cry and scream and rail, and I want you to still like me and come visit me.”
“Oh, Lizzy. I am so sorry about everything,” Mary cried, momentarily off track. She cleared her throat as she continued.“Anyway, the main thing that Papa said as a warning is that Mr. Wickham gambles—and apparently loses great sums of money quite quickly—he has more than once skipped town without paying his debts, he regularly seduces women and has abandoned several with child, and he even tried to elope with an heiress for her dowry. Papa said Mr. Darcy gave enough details that he is certain that Mr. Wickham is the most dissolute wretch.”
Closingher eyes, Lizzy plopped her head down into her hands. “Oh, I am so very sorry that I ever listened to Mr. Wickham. What must Mr. Darcy think of me, now?”
“Anyway,” Mary continued, “I am getting close to the end of my news, because the fourth thing that happened was that Mr. Collins came back from his dinner at Lucas Lodge, and he just smirked and sniggered at us while he crowed about how he was now betrothed—to Charlotte Lucas!”
Lizzy’s mouth dropped open in utter astonishment. She was completely unequal to that bit of news piled on top of all of the other bits, and she burst into tears.
She cried for herself, for Jane, for poor Mr. Darcy, who she had unjustly criticized just two nights ago, and for Charlotte, even. Who could abide marrying such a man as Mr. Collins?
Chapter 6: Darcy
—morning—
Fitzwilliam Darcy took several hours to rideto allthe places Miss Elizabeth commonly walked: the fields, the forest, and of course Oakham Mount. Hedid not seeany sign of her.
As he searched, Darcy thought back to the conversations he had had in Meryton the afternoon before. He hadclaimedto have a message for Miss Elizabeth Bennet from her mother, requesting that she add an order for the butcher to her customary errands, and he had casually asked owners and clerks of various establishments if they had seen Miss Elizabeth that afternoon.After askingat the bookstore, the haberdasher, the milliner, the greengrocer, the butcher, and the dairy shop,he had stillnot learned where Elizabeth was. However, he had heard so many wonderful things about her, he was even more enamored—if that was possible—than when he set out to find her.
Every person who took the time to talk to him told at least one charming story about her. One young man referred to her as the“Angel of Longbourn,”and he thought of his friend Bingley, who always called the objects of his infatuation “angel.”He made sure to deliberately smooth the frown that had creased his brow before asking the young man, Bernie Millcroft, what he meant.
Bernie had blushed a bit and said, “Well, that is what my family often calls Miss Lizzy. Actually, lots of the tenants do, and some folks in town do, too. She is always helping people, even if it means hard work. My family lives on Longbourn land, anda year ago, our house flooded. After we thought everything wasclean and fixed, we found out that there was a mold growing, and my pa had to learn about limewash. Well, Miss Lizzy came one day to help with the first go-round of cleaning, but she then spent several days helping with the limewash. For a daughter of the master’s family to help like that…it is unusual, is it not? But almost every tenant family I know has a story like that, and that is why we call her the Angel.”
Several people told Darcy that they could talk all day about her, and he had been of a mind that he could listen all day, if he were not so frantic about her whereabouts.
Darcy had returned to Netherfield after more than a dozen conversations. He ate his dinner on a tray in the libraryand thenretired early.
But he had not slept. He had tried, reading until his eyes got blurry and he pinched the bedside candle out. But then the torture had started: he rolled and turned and resettled himselfbeforeturningagain. He had punched up his pillows and thrown back the covers and then scrambled to snatch them up again, because the night was cold. Of course, at that point, Darcy started worrying about how cold Elizabeth might be, wherever she was. He got up and poked the fire, as if him doing so while he was snug in Netherfield would somehow help Elizabeth.
