Читать книгу Loves Me, Loves Me Not - Romantic Association Novelist's - Страница 29

The night was wild. The wind howled and the hail battered the windows of the inn. The parlour was empty, save for a gentleman who sat quietly in the corner of the room with a glass of port, the single candle on the table in front of him casting a flickering light but leaving his face in shadow.

The door opened and a second gentleman entered. Young and handsome, he was dressed in a red coat, but when he approached the fire it could be seen that his cuffs were frayed.

The landlord followed him in and took his order for wine, as the sound of a shrill voice floated through the door.

‘I will not have you looking at other women, John. You must learn to behave yourself in public, even if you cannot behave in private. I will be stopping your allowance until you have learnt your lesson.’

‘Damn you, Sophia! You knew what kind of marriage we had when we made it; it is too late to regret your bargain now.’

‘Nevertheless, I will not have you embarrassing me in public.’

‘I will not dance to your tune! I am a man, not a puppet. Keep your damned allowance. You seem to have forgotten that I have money of my own.’

‘I am forgetting nothing. Your fortune will not keep you in coats and hunters. It will certainly not allow you to gamble and keep the more expensive kind of mistress. You look surprised. Did you think I did not know? But no matter. As long as you are discreet, you may keep as many mistresses as you choose, but when we are in public you will pay attention to me and make every woman in the room jealous.’

‘I wonder at you wanting that kind of attention,’ came the sneering reply.

‘I cannot live without any compensation for my disappointments and if my tastes run to jealousy instead of affairs, then what is it to you? I am going to bed. I suggest you do the same, with a clear head, so that in the morning you will have come to your senses.’

The stairs creaked and a light woman’s footstep could be heard going upstairs. Immediately afterwards, the landlord left the parlour and an ill-humoured gentleman in a many-caped greatcoat entered. He removed his coat and threw it over a chair, droplets of water flying everywhere. He threw himself down beside the fire. ‘Women are the very devil.’

‘There is nothing wrong with women,’ said the man in the red coat sourly. ‘It is wives that are the curse.’

‘Ah, there speaks a married man,’ said the newcomer with a wry smile.

‘George Wickham,’ said the man in the red coat.

‘John Willoughby,’ returned the other.

‘At least your wife is rich,’ said Wickham.

‘An heiress,’ said Willoughby, putting one leg over the arm of the chair. ‘Miss Grey, as she was. A great catch. Everyone told me at the time that I was the luckiest of men.’

‘And so you were!’ said Wickham, impressed. ‘I saw her myself, and I would have been glad to marry her. She had fifty thousand pounds, had she not?’

‘Aye, and she has it still, for she will not part with a penny.’

‘No?’ asked Wickham, looking at Willoughby’s expertly tailored new coat and his shining boots.

‘Maybe a little, then,’ admitted Willoughby grudgingly. ‘But only so that I will look well in public and make her friends jealous. When I think of the woman I could have married…’ He sighed. ‘Her name was Marianne. She was a beautiful young girl, good-humoured, passionate, romantic…you should have seen her, Wickham, as I saw her, on that first day, running down the hill with the wind in her hair, as free as a bird, until, by some lucky chance she fell and sprained her ankle and I had the good fortune to be able to carry her home. The feel of her in my arms! And the sight of her, blushing profusely, whilst her heart beat a tattoo against my chest. I tell you, Wickham, if I had married her instead of this shrew I would be a happy man.’

‘Then why did you not do so? Let me guess. She had no money.’

‘No. She was poor. But it did not signify, for I was due to inherit a fortune.’

‘Ah. Then your tale is like mine, for I should have inherited a fortune, too, or at least a living, and a rich one; and if I had, then I would have been able to marry a woman of my choice.’

Willoughby looked at him and laughed. ‘You do not have the look of a clergyman. Do not tell me you meant to take holy orders, for I will not believe you!’

The landlord entered with a bottle of wine and a glass.

‘Another bottle, and another glass, landlord,’ said Willoughby. ‘The best you have in your cellar.’

The landlord bowed and left the room, whilst Wickham poured his wine and drank, then pulled a face.

‘Sour?’ asked Willoughby.

‘Abominable,’ Wickham admitted.

‘Never mind, you will join me tonight. We will drown our sorrows together—unless you still have plans to join the clergy?’ he asked.

Wickham laughed. ‘Not I. But I would have taken the living anyway. And then I would have sold it, and a good price I would have got for it as well, for it was one of the best in England.’

‘What happened?’ asked Willoughby.

‘The old man who left it to me had a son. The son decided I was not fit to hold the living and bribed me not to take it, giving me a paltry sum in exchange. I should have held out for more, but my debts were heavy,’ he said with a sigh.

The landlord entered. Willoughby poured himself a glass of wine and savoured it, then poured a glass for Wickham.

‘Another bottle,’ he said to the overjoyed landlord, then changed his mind and said, ‘Another two.’

As the landlord left, Willoughby turned again to Wickham.

‘We have both suffered through the interference of relatives,’ he said. ‘In my case, it was not a son but a great-aunt, a wealthy woman with no children. She was not expected to live for more than a few months. I was her heir, until certain rumours reached her of a girl I had taken up with. She told me that unless I married the girl she would disinherit me. I ask you, Wickham, what man would marry a sixteen-year-old girl he had taken to London for a few weeks, a girl with neither money nor useful connections, just because he had got her with child?’

‘Only a fool,’ said Wickham.

‘Though in one way at least it was my own fault,’ said Willoughby, ‘for I should have made sure she had no one to come after her. I thought I had done so. I knew her to be an orphan, but I neglected to ask her if she had a guardian.’

‘And had she?’

‘She had. The worst kind, for he was a colonel, no less, by the name of Brandon.’ He drank deeply. ‘He had the effrontery to tell me to marry her and, when I refused, he called me out.’ He blanched and drained his glass. ‘I thought I was done for. But the fool deloped.’ He poured himself another glass of wine and added bitterly, ‘Not that it did me any good, for once my aunt had disinherited me I had to marry money and so I could not marry Marianne anyway.’

‘A sad tale,’ said Wickham. He was full of sympathy, for he was drinking Willoughby’s excellent wine. ‘You have suffered at the hands of an aunt and a guardian, though you, at least, escaped marriage to the girl who threw herself at your head. I have suffered at the hands of a son and a guardian and, worse still, they were one and the same man: Fitzwilliam Darcy.’

‘Darcy?’ exclaimed Willoughby. ‘I know the name. Indeed, I know the estate, one of the finest in the country. He is a powerful man to have against you.’

‘Indeed. He not only deprived me of my living but he robbed me of an heiress: having spent the paltry sum he gave me for the living, I soon found myself short of funds again and I looked about me for a means of alleviating my difficulties, to find salvation in the form of Georgiana Darcy. She was fond of me, and a little effort on my part secured her affections. I must admit that the idea of being revenged on Darcy added to her appeal. He had deprived me of one living, it was only right that he should provide me with another.’

‘And marrying an heiress was a living you knew you would find congenial, I suppose?’

‘Far more congenial than making sermons! So once I had wooed her I persuaded her into an elopement.’

‘And Darcy found out?’

‘It was the merest chance. He paid her a surprise visit and she, foolish girl, told him everything, so the elopement came to naught. I left the neighbourhood and went into Hertfordshire, only to find that Darcy was staying there. Damn the man! I am sure he came between me and an heiress I was pursuing there, a Miss King; in any case, she was sent away to Liverpool and so that, too, came to nothing. I left the neighbourhood and went down to Brighton, where I came across Lydia Bennet, a girl I had known in Hertfordshire.’

‘Let me guess. She was sixteen, eager for a trip to London…a few weeks of fun, and then…’

‘And then Darcy came after me. He was, by the unluckiest chance, enamoured of Lydia’s sister and, not wanting a scandal in the family, he told me I must marry her. Marry Lydia Bennet! A girl with no money and no sense.’

‘But with connections.’

‘Connections to Darcy, who has never done anything for me but the meanest things and who has used me ill from beginning to end. But once again my debts were pressing and I had no choice but to settle for a paltry sum. I was a fool. I should have held out for more money, or run. I could have married an heiress. I know how to make myself agreeable to women. If only I had done so, I could be as you are now,’ he said bitterly.

‘Married to a shrew,’ Willoughby told him.

‘But a shrew with money.’

Willoughby acknowledged the point.

‘But there is one advantage to having a poor wife,’ Willoughby said. ‘At least you can do as you please. She has no hold over you, and you do not have to listen to her nagging.’

‘Indeed, no,’ said Wickham with a wry smile. ‘I never listen to a word she says. But I walk around in an old coat, I have nothing to ride, save an old nag, and I drink—when I am not fortunate enough to fall in with a friend—’ he said, raising his glass and draining it ‘—the most damnable wine.’

Willoughby shook his head and sighed. ‘Marriage is the very devil.’

‘Amen,’ said Wickham, pouring himself another glass.

There was a slight stirring in the corner and the gentleman sitting there stood up.

‘And what of you, friend?’ asked Willoughby. ‘What is your tale? Come, pull up a chair and join us.’

‘I am sorry, gentlemen—’ said he, coming into the light.

‘Darcy!’ said Wickham.

Darcy made him a bow. ‘—but I am fortunate enough to love my wife.’

He went upstairs, where he found Elizabeth sitting in front of her dressing table in her nightgown, brushing her hair. As the candlelight fell on her dearly loved features he thought how lucky he had been to meet her, to come to know her, and then to love her—and even luckier that she had loved him in return.

‘What are you thinking?’ she said, looking at him in the mirror.

He walked over to her and took the brush out of her hands, then began to brush her hair, smoothing her hair after each brush stroke with his other hand. Every touch of her hair and her scalp sent powerful surges of emotion through him.

‘I was just thinking how lucky I was to find you, and to win you. If not for you, I would never have known what it was like to love and be loved, and nothing can compare with that feeling.’ His hands stilled and he met her eyes in the looking glass. ‘When I think of how many people are forced to go through their lives with those they dislike or despise, through vanity or avarice or bad luck, I realise how fortunate I have been to find you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth,’ he said softly.

‘And I you,’ she said, putting her hand up to touch his. ‘I always knew that I could never marry unless I met a man I loved and esteemed, a man I could not live without, and I often thought that I would end up an old maid. I pitied Charlotte when she took Mr Collins. I would have pitied her even if he had not been so ridiculous, for she did not love him. But, having met you, I even pity Jane, for although I know she loves Bingley dearly, I am sure she cannot love him half as much as I love you,’ she said with a smile.

‘Do you think our difficulties made us love each other more?’ He rested his hands on her shoulders.

‘Perhaps, yes, I do, for without them we would not have changed. You would have remained proud and resentful and I would have remained blindly prejudiced, caring more about exercising my wit than discovering what lay beneath the coldest, proudest exterior, and finding something wonderful beneath.’

‘You are right, we have both changed. If not for you, I would have been deeply angry with Wickham when I saw him downstairs just now—’

‘You saw Wickham? He is here?’

‘Yes, he is drinking with John Willoughby and they are bemoaning their fates. We met the Willoughbys in London, if you recall.’

‘Yes, I remember. He was a handsome young man, but he seemed very unhappy; he had been paying attention to Marianne Dashwood, if the gossips were to be believed, but then he abandoned her and married an heiress. I recall his wife. She was very cold.’

‘Very cold and very rich.’

Elizabeth shivered. ‘I think I will get into bed,’ she said.

Darcy smiled, and she smiled back at him, and then he lifted her up in his arms and carried her over to the bed.

As he did so, his eyes never left hers, and their deep connection reminded him of all the pleasures that love had brought them and all the pleasures they had to come.

And before he lost all rational thought he knew himself to be the happiest of men.