Pemberley by Emma Tennant Read Free Book Online Page B

Wickham was the son of the old Mr Darcy’s estate manager; and had been promised a living, when the time came; but his debts and evil ways (all helped with kindness and patience by young Darcy after his father’s death) had made it impossible for this living to be granted. Only after Elizabeth’s wounding words to Mr Darcy on the occasion of his first – and unwelcome – proposal of marriage had drawn the truth, in a letter from the misjudged suitor, had she understood fully how nefarious the young protégé had been. Wickham had received from Darcy three thousand pounds! And this he had squandered, too. The fact of Elizabeth’s having been partial to the young man at the time was also of considerable embarrassment to her.
    Georgiana Darcy stepped from the door of the lodge to welcome the Gardiners and Elizabeth; and as she did so Elizabeth could not help but reflect on another good reason for her pleasure in Wickham’s being at five miles’ distance at the time of their festive celebrations. Wickham – as Darcy had told Elizabeth in the greatest confidence – had lured Georgiana to Ramsgate when she was a mere fifteen years old. With the connivance of her chaperone, he had taken the innocent girl, who quickly thought herself in love with him, with the intention of forcing an elopement, to a seaside hotel from which she had only escaped by appealing to Darcy for a seal of approval which he absolutely refused to give. Her fortune was thirty thousand pounds; and it was for this that Wickham hunted her. But Elizabeth was concerned, for Georgiana, that there had been no suitor since and that the young woman might still entertain bitter regrets over the whole affair. It would have been intolerable indeed, if this were the case, to entertain Lydia, Elizabeth’s own sister, as a rival to her new sister, Georgiana.
    As they alighted from the carriage, Elizabeth found the first opportunity to thank her aunt Gardiner for the tact demonstratedin renting rather than permitting Lydia and Mr Wickham to come to Pemberley.
    â€˜There was no stopping her coming north,’ said Mrs Gardiner in her usual pleasant tone. ‘She says, to be reunited with her Mama, but I think to enjoy the New Year’s Ball at Pemberley!’
    Elizabeth had here to bite her lip and keep silent. She did not wish to admit that the first she had heard of the New Year’s Ball had been from her sister Jane, only a few days before; and that her enquiries of Mr Darcy had resulted only in a yawn and a cocked eyebrow and the assertion that it was a boring custom previously run by his aunt Catherine and he was surprised Mrs Reynolds had not been rattling on about it to poor Eliza for weeks now.
    â€˜The ball is for Miss Georgiana Darcy,’ said Elizabeth – for so she had concluded: that if the occasion were already fixed, then she would make the best of it in hoping a young man might come forward for Georgiana. ‘It is not for Lydia’s pleasure solely, I am sure!’
    They were by this time approaching the door of the lodge. Mr Darcy stepped forward to greet his wife and her aunt and uncle; and Mr Gardiner was able to pursue his interest in the salmon lurking in the waters that flowed all round the lodge, making an island that was picturesque in the extreme.
    â€˜I shall not be deflected,’ said Mr Darcy as they went through into the hall and divested themselves of their wraps. ‘You may fish whenever you please, uncle Gardiner; but there is a greater challenge to be met on the moor tomorrow.’ And he proceeded, in the most civil of terms, to expound on the variety of game to be met on the Darcy Yorkshire estates.

Chapter 11
    The following day Elizabeth spent walking the moors; and as she went she reflected that the contrast with Pemberley, the range of mountains and the silence broken only by the becks that wound between hills almost devoid of trees, could give her a new