Longbourn (31 page)

And then they heard that Lydia was to go to Brighton with Mrs. Forster, the colonel’s new wife. This was good news for Lydia, but it had the elder sisters muttering, and it threw Sarah and Polly into a frenzy to get linen clean and dresses pressed and folded and packed in good time for departure, so that Polly, having at first been sad to think of Wickham going, now could not wait for him to be gone, since it would at least mean that all the laundering would be over for a while.

Sarah was imprisoned for much of this time in Kitty and Lydia’s shared room, engaged in a Sisyphean task. As soon as a trunk was packed, Kitty would re-open it, plunge elbow-deep in, in ferocious tears, and rummage for her own things that had been sequestered there at Lydia’s insistence. Kitty would fling out an evening-gown, her new gloves, snarl at the discovery of her best petticoat. While Kitty was convulsed with outrage, Lydia quite calmly gathered everything up and folded it again, preparatory to putting it back: Kitty must be reasonable, and see sense; if
she
was going to Brighton and not Lydia, Lydia would certainly let her have all her best things, and welcome, without putting up anything of a fight, without thinking twice about it, for what was the point of having pretty things at all, if no one was around to see you wearing them?

In her own room, Mary closed her eyes and rested her fingers on the piano keys, and took a breath and let it go, and, trying to ignore the shrieks and clattering and squabbles from next door, began again her Irish air. One day, she knew, her fingers would fly about the keyboard with the facility and delicacy of tiny birds. One day. But until then, there was just the lumbering work of practise, practise, practise, and the distraction of those silly sisters, whose immoderacy of behaviour was
now manifested by a series of high-pitched squeals that suggested that Kitty had lost her temper entirely, and was now pulling Lyddie’s hair. If they could but think of higher things, of music, religion, good works, instead of officers—her fingers plodded up and down the keyboard, now picking out the sweet opening notes of Haydn’s
Love Dialogue
—then they would, no doubt, be happier creatures for it. Her thoughts drifted unwittingly to that courteous, gentle Mr. Collins, whom, she was certain, she could have made quite happy. She had no such confidence in Charlotte Lucas, who might come one day to deserve him, but who certainly did not love him, not like Mary did; and who must never be allowed to suspect what turmoil she had, with her rank opportunism, engendered in Mary’s tender breast. Because Mary had allowed herself to daydream, and she should have never allowed herself that. She had let herself think of the possibility of reciprocated love, of marriage, of the new importance that it would bring to her; of how, on becoming Mr. Collins’s bride, she would have also become the means of her family’s salvation, and no longer just the plain, awkward, overlooked middle child.

On the very last day of the regiment’s remaining in Meryton, Mr. Wickham was to dine with others of the officers at Longbourn. Just this one evening to be safely navigated, and then they were out into clear water. The neighbourhood would be free of militia. And it would no longer matter what Wickham’s intentions might have been regarding Polly, or James, once he was seventy-odd miles away at Brighton.

James served silently at table, ghosting in between the officers and the ladies, keeping his eyes low, his shoulders rounded, treading the thin line between conspicuous efficiency and equally conspicuous lassitude.

I will be, he thought, what they think me, which is nothing much at all.

But, as he filled Wickham’s glass, the young officer turned his head and looked at him. A long steady look, which James was determined not to meet. Instead he watched the wine tumble into the glass, and the glint of the carafe as he turned it to catch the drips, and the purple stain on the napkin with which he touched the crystal lip. Then he stepped away, and went to fill Elizabeth’s glass. Elizabeth, comfortably, did not
acknowledge him at all. Whereas that look, from Wickham, a bright tiger’s eyes: it left him shaken.

Wickham now deliberately engrossed himself in Miss Elizabeth; his notice strayed only once to the young maid, clearing dishes, but then was swiftly dragged back to his silverware, his cuffs, his companion. He seemed particularly intent on being charming, as if, James thought, he knew that he was suspected of something, and was attempting to forestall criticism.

If only Wickham was in the regulars, James thought, as he descended the cellar steps with a candle to fetch up more wine, he could allow himself the pleasure of imagining the pretty young fellow sent off to fight in Spain. He could imagine him caught by the
guerrillas
and strung up from a tree, his cock cut off and stuffed in his own mouth, left bleeding and to the mercy of the wolves. That’d take the shine off him a bit.

Both guests and family drank too much that night. James and Mr. Hill had to run down to the cellar more than once for further bottles. The large party, gathered in the drawing room, was noisy with wine and the deep feeling it engendered, and kept at their conviviality for long and footsore hours; there is nothing like the imminence of parting to make people unduly fond of each other.

Mr. Hill, old and exhausted, sloped off to bed at eleven, with a wink to James.

“You’ll manage without me, eh? All these young fellows; it’s all a bit too much for me.”

Polly collected up the smeared and sticky glasses in the now empty dining room while the party rumbled on elsewhere. She turned with a tray of rummers, and found Wickham lounging silently in the doorway. She came towards him, tired but easy, attempting a smile; he swirled a glass of blood-dark port in his hand.

“Are you going to congratulate me on my escape, Little Miss?”

It was his way of coping with society: he had to have these little releases, time with people who were like him, who understood him.

“Well done, Mr. Wickham, sir.”

He meandered further into the empty dining room, coming closer,
still between her and the door. When he smiled, his teeth and lips were stained with drink.

“And how are you, Little Miss, tonight?”

Tired, footsore, wanting her bed. “Sorry that you’re going, sir.”

He nodded, woebegone. “It is very sad,” he said. “But I was thinking—”

“What, sir?”

“You know that we are off to Brighton?”

She shifted her weight, dropping a hip; her feet throbbed. If she was nice to him, one last time, chances were she’d get a penny off him before he went.

“Yes, sir.”

She glanced down at his waistcoat, the usual source of coin. He just swirled his port around, lips pursed. His hand still didn’t move towards his pocket.

“I’ll bet you don’t get as many sweet things as you’d like.”

She looked up at this, attention really caught now: she shook her head.

“D’you know, there’s a sweetshop in Brighton, where there are jars and jars of bonbons and comfits and rock, all the colours of the rainbow, any flavour you can think of.” He finished his drink.

“Is there pineapple?”

She had heard of pineapples; she had heard they had them in some grand houses, though she had never seen one herself. She imagined them to be a bit like russets, compact and very sweet, but with a skin covered with the sharp green needles of a Scots pine.

He nodded, smiled slightly, added his glass to her tray, and pocketed his hands. Britches pockets, though, not waistcoat.

“Really? Even
pineapple
?”

“And many more besides.”

She swallowed, dreamy and acquisitive. He leaned back a little, watching her, his eyes half closed.

“How old are you, Little Miss?”

“Don’t know quite. Twelve, thirteen, maybe. Why?”

“Shall I buy you some pineapple bonbons, then, and send them back to you?”

Polly stared up at his big face, which everybody said was handsome; the sprouting moustache, the open pores between his eyebrows, the
broken veins on his nose. Grown-ups could be so very unpleasant to look at, if you got too close.

“Oh, would you, though? Would you really?”

She wanted to ask what the other flavours were, before she committed herself to pineapple; whether there would be lemon drops and cough candy, coltsfoot rock and aniseed.

“I would. I will. If you’ll be sweet to me now.”

He moved towards her, a little unsteady on his feet. She stepped back as he came closer, thinking he meant to go past her. But he leaned in, and very carefully and deliberately, took the tray out of her hands, and set it down on the tabletop. The goblets chinked against each other in his clumsy grip.

“You will be, won’t you? Sweet.”

“Sir?”

“The way you look at me, like butter wouldn’t melt—”

The table edge pressed into the small of her back; he leaned closer; his breath thick with wine and tobacco. She turned her face away, nose wrinkling. Then his hand came up and touched her cheek, and then ran down her throat. It stopped at the collar of her dress. Her heart was beating like a bird, and she felt gooseflesh rise on her arms, and she did not know what she was supposed to do.

“Polly?”

It was James’s voice. Wickham went still and cold. Then he took a step back from her, and turned towards the newcomer. James had an empty decanter in his hand, and a deep line between his brows. Polly took a sidelong step away from Wickham, who adjusted his coat-front, tugging it down.

James did not so much as glance at Mr. Wickham. “Mrs. Hill wants you in the kitchen.”

“In a minute.”

For all that this was strange, and not particularly pleasant, Mr. Wickham had always been kind to her before.

“You do not seem to understand. You are wanted now.”

Polly raised up her eyes to heaven, but complied. Lifting her tray, she walked out of the room with the bearing of a queen. Though she scowled, in passing, at James. He turned to follow, but then Wickham called out after him.

“A moment, Smith.”

He paused, looked back. Wickham leaned across the sideboard, lifted the decanters one after the other, and examined them, plucking out the stoppers, sniffing.

“You’ll excuse me, sir, I—”

“No, I won’t excuse you. Damn you.” He held a decanter up to the light. “D’you know, I was just going to leave it—”

He found a glass, slopped in an inch of whisky. Despite everything, James winced for him: he would feel like death itself tomorrow.

When Wickham spoke again, over his shoulder, the words were nonchalant, a little blurred. “Because I thought, what’s the point, really? We’re leaving, and I thought, why bother myself with that? Why not just let a man go about his business, live and let live? Why not? Too much trouble to do otherwise.”

James felt a prickle of unease.

Wickham turned back to face him, rather unsteadily, reaching out a hand to lean on the sideboard. He missed, but he recovered and steadied himself, though he listed now a little to the left.

“See, a man like me,” he said carefully, “ ’s not so easy for me to get along. Neither fish nor fowl, me. Frog, really; or a toad. No place in the world for me but in the mud. You, you’ve got yourself nicely set up here. Cosy little billet. Well supplied with comforts. But you’re a dog-in-the-manger, and you begrudge me mine.”

James went to speak, but found that words escaped him.

“Can’t see how you get away with it, truth be told. Anyone can see that little doxy’s getting a good going-over; she’s just oozing with it—”

Afterwards, the only way that James could think of it was that he had taken, somehow, a step away from himself. He knew what he was doing, and knew what would come of it, and yet he did it anyway. He watched his hand set the decanter down on the dining table, and it all looked perfectly steady and cool. He took two brisk steps up to the sloping officer. The loss of his temper was an active thing; like shedding a heavy coat on a hot day, it was a relief to shrug it off.

His fist landed on Wickham’s temple. A nice sharp crack that the officer did not attempt to deflect, or even flinch away from, because he simply didn’t see it coming. Wickham staggered back against the sideboard. He fumbled at it for support, making the decanters shake and jingle.

And there, James thought, as he shook the sting out of his knuckles,
shifting his balance and then bringing both hands up to ward off any retaliatory blow, that was the line that I must not cross, and I have just gone and vaulted right over it.

“You can’t touch me.” Wickham sounded more puzzled than angry. He struggled upright, touched his fingertips to his temple, then looked at them. The skin was not broken. There was no blood. “There are rules, dammit. Don’t you know the blasted rules?”

He touched his temple again, and then, to James’s astonishment, he began to laugh. He patted down his pockets, and drew out a case of cigarillos, and lit one from a candle.

“See, thing is,” he said, “I had my suspicions, but it had just seemed like too much trouble before. But then you go and cross me, and now you go and hit me, and it just seems like no trouble at all.”

“You’re a green boy,” James said. “Your boots aren’t even broken in yet. I’m not afraid of you.”

Wickham tucked his chin in, raised his eyebrows: Really? He turned to the drinks tray, topped up his glass, and then poured another, and sloshed it towards James. James just looked at it.

“Go on. One soldier to another.”

James saw his hand reach out, felt his raw knuckles sting as his fingers wrapped around the tumbler, saw the glass brought to his lips. He sipped. The whisky burnt. He set the drink down on the table, beside the decanter. This time, his hand was unsteady, and the glass rattled on the tabletop. There was no going back from this.

“It is just your word,” he tried. “You have no proof.”

Wickham shrugged. “I could find your attestation; I could hunt down the Justice of the Peace who witnessed it. Though I’ll bet there’s no legal discharge to be found, is there? If I could take the trouble to go looking for it. But I am by nature one of life’s lilies, I’m not keen on either toiling or spinning, so all I can really think I’ll bother with is this: I’ll just mention it, to Mr. Bennet, and then to my colonel. This little exchange of ours. My suspicions, and then what transpired here. That’s the jam on this, you see: I wouldn’t even have to do a hand’s turn.”