Pride Prejudice and Perjury

The Will

Chapter 9 ~ The Will

Elizabeth was able to take consolation from Jane's report of the ball. What had promised to be the foremost social event of the season in the neighbourhood had transpired to be a wholly unmemorable and unremarkable event. “The evening, I think, was somewhat of a trial for Mr. Darcy. His mood was sombre and reserved, quite the opposite of what one would expect, considering the occasion it was designed to celebrate. Miss Bingley seemed better pleased than he. Indeed, at times she seemed to forget that she was not yet mistress of Pemberley, and intruded upon Georgiana's obligations and prerogative as hostess.”

“And did Georgiana dance the first two with Lord Netherby?” inquired Elizabeth.

“Indeed she did, and he engaged her again for the first set after supper. I must say that she looked very beautiful, and I think she made quite an effort at engaging Lord Netherby's attention.”

“And with what success?”

“I believe he paid Georgiana more attention than any other young lady – amongst those that were present at the ball,” said Jane meaningfully. “When he danced with me, he commented ruefully upon your absence, and what a great loss it was to the whole company. And he asked me to be sure to give you his best regards – as did Colonel Fitzwilliam. They both sympathised with how you must suffer from your exclusion from society. Although last night, I believe that it was they who suffered the most on that account.”

Elizabeth smiled at the compliment.

“I have invited Lord Netherby and his sister to dine with us today,” said Jane, “for tomorrow they return to Nottinghamshire. Colonel Fitzwilliam, also, is invited, so you shall not be entirely starved of society.”

When their visitors arrived, Elizabeth found herself the object of gallantries from both gentlemen, who swore that Willowbank, and its amiable occupants, gave them far greater pleasure than the previous evening's ball. Elizabeth felt flattered and light-hearted; Mr. Darcy was, for some hours, entirely forgotten. Before they departed, Miss Netherby invited Elizabeth to visit her soon at Fendalton Park.

“We may even be able to arrange a ball in your honour; and I promise you, it shall be a far merrier affair than the one you were unable to attend yesterday,” said Victoria, smiling playfully.

Elizabeth wondered whether Miss Netherby's invitation was, perhaps, given in the hope of forwarding a greater intimacy between herself and Lord Netherby, whom Elizabeth suspected might, in fact, be the author of the scheme. And was the allusion to the previous evening's ball at Pemberley, the purpose of which was to celebrate a betrothal, a hint that the proposed ball at Fendalton Park might serve a similar purpose – or at least serve in forwarding one?

***

“How are you getting on with Lady Catherine's will, Fitzwilliam?” asked Darcy. They were seated in the library on a rainy autumn afternoon. Colonel Fitzwilliam and Darcy were executors of their aunt's will, copies of which had arrived from her solicitor in the morning post. “I have not yet looked at my copy, but I would not expect it to contain anything of an exceptional nature; our dear aunt was such a paragon of punctiliousness and predictability.”

Fitzwilliam laughed. “Indeed she was. And, as I recall, very fond of speaking about what would become of her grand estate when she passed away.”

“Yes,” said Darcy, smiling, “proclaiming how she intended to continue her rule from beyond the grave was one of Lady Catherine's favourite foibles. From what I can remember, pretty much the entire estate passes to Anne. No doubt there must be some small legacies and other gratuities bequeathed to her intimates.”

“Yes, I am just coming to that part now,” said the colonel, returning to the will. Darcy resumed his book.

“I was not aware that Miss Bingley was acquainted with our aunt,” said the colonel, a few minutes later.

“Nor I,” said Darcy, looking up. “Whatever gives you the notion that an acquaintance existed?”

“She leaves a legacy of six hundred pounds per annum to Miss Caroline Bingley of Fairfield Gardens in London.”

“Indeed! I cannot think how she could have even made our aunt's acquaintance. To the best of my knowledge, Caroline has never visited Rosings Park; in fact, I recall her once troubling me with all manner of questions pertaining to the decorations of the principal rooms.”

“Perhaps Miss Bingley and Lady Catherine met in London?” suggested Fitzwilliam. “Our aunt used to go up occasionally.”

“I think not,” replied Darcy. “But if they had met, it could not have been more than a passing acquaintance of the most casual sort. They can hardly have been on such terms as to occasion a legacy. And had such an acquaintance existed, one or other of them would have mentioned it – and neither did.”

“This is rather odd,” said the colonel, who had returned to reading the will. “The six hundred pounds is to be paid to Miss Bingley in quarterly instalments of one hundred and fifty pounds.”

“Yes, that is somewhat unusual, for such an amount,” reflected Darcy. “Anything less than one thousand pounds is customarily paid annually, except where the recipient is a minor.”

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Fitzwilliam. “This becomes entirely bizarre!”

“What now?” asked Darcy.

“Read it for yourself!” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, handing the will to his cousin.

“p*****t of the legacy to Miss Bingley is to cease upon the marriage of Lady Catherine de Bourgh's nephew, Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley,” read Darcy, astonished. “I cannot begin to comprehend the meaning of this! Our aunt was of sound mind, right to the end, was she not?”

“I saw her not three months ago,” replied the colonel, “and although she was, by then, very ill, she had lost none of her mental faculties. Perhaps subsequently she suffered some confusion? When was the will made?”

Turning to the final page, Darcy read, “The fifteenth day of October, eighteen hundred and twelve. As I recall, it must be around the time that Lady Catherine asked me if I would agree to serve as one of the executors of her estate, for I was not named an executor in her previous will. In any case, the will was made fully ten months ago, so our aunt was unquestionably in possession of her faculties at the time. It is a pity that Caroline departed only a few days ago for London; I should dearly like to know what light she can shed on this extraordinary legacy. I shall write to her immediately,” he said, opening his desk and taking out a sheet of paper.

Colonel Fitzwilliam picked up the will and completed reading it, but encountered nothing else the least bit untoward. He poured himself a port and sat in a comfortable winged armchair, sipping his drink, watching his cousin writing, and searching for an explanation. When Darcy had finally sealed his letter, the colonel asked him, “Tell me, Darcy, was it mere coincidence that you and Miss Bingley announced your engagement barely a week or two after Lady Catherine's death?”

Darcy shook his head. “No. In fact, we have had an understanding for some months. You know, of course, that our aunt wished me to marry Anne. Though I scrupulously avoided giving Lady Catherine the least reason to believe that I desired to marry her daughter, or was ever likely to do so, she clung tenaciously to the ambition. As her health was failing and it seemed that she had not much longer to live, Caroline and I decided to postpone the formal announcement of our betrothal until Lady Catherine was gone, to save causing her unnecessary grief.”

“Whose idea was that? Yours or Miss Bingley's?”

“Mine,” replied Darcy immediately. Then after a moment's reflection, he corrected himself, “No; now that I cast my mind back, it was Caroline who first suggested it – and of course I readily assented. I remember thinking that it showed a degree of kindness and consideration that I had not previously suspected her to possess – for I understood her to have been eager to marry for some considerable period of time, and would have expected her to wish for the betrothal, if not the marriage, to take place as soon as possible.”

“Yet she was happy to postpone the announcement until our aunt had passed away, and in fact suggested it herself,” mused the colonel. Then after some moments of silent contemplation, he exclaimed, “By Jove, Darcy, I have it! Lady Catherine's unexpected legacy to Miss Bingley is intended to ensure that she does not marry you! There must have been a secret agreement between them! Our aunt continued to hope that you would marry Anne. But once you were married – to Anne, or to any other woman, for that matter – there would no longer be any purpose in paying Miss Bingley; so the payments were to cease.”

“No, Fitzwilliam, that makes no sense at all! Caroline can not be in such desperate need of funds that one hundred and fifty pounds a quarter would be sufficient to persuade her to relinquish her matrimonial ambitions. In any case, once we are married, her financial circumstances will be far superior to what they must presently be – even with the addition of the legacy. Caroline is well aware of my financial situation, and can be in no doubt of my ability to pay for everything she might wish for. Furthermore, if your fanciful explanation were correct, Lady Catherine would have paid Caroline during her lifetime.”

“Perhaps she did?” conjectured Fitzwilliam. “The records from our aunt's banker should be here,” he said, rising from his chair to peruse the documents from the solicitor that were spread over the table where he had been earlier examining them. “Yes, here are the banker's accounts; let me see if there were any payments to Miss Bingley.” After a moment's examination, he found what he was looking for. “Here its is: payments of one hundred and fifty pounds were made to Miss Bingley in October last year, and then again in January, April, and July this year. And there is a note to the effect that one hundred and fifty pounds should be paid from our aunt's account to Miss Bingley, every three months.”

Darcy tore open the letter he had sealed only minutes earlier. “I shall demand an explanation from Caroline,” said he, quickly adding another half dozen lines before resealing it. “I am most anxious to know what explanation she is able to provide for this most extraordinary arrangement; and why she has never made mention of it. Perhaps her brother, Charles, knows something of the matter – I am impatient to get to the bottom of this, Fitzwilliam, but it would be most awkward for me to go to Willowbank, to raise it with him.”

“I am more than happy to undertake the task,” said his cousin, who was glad of the opportunity of visiting Willowbank – and its agreeable residents. “I shall ride over first thing tomorrow morning.”

***

When he was shown into the morning room, Colonel Fitzwilliam was pleased to find Charles Bingley seated with the ladies. He was happy to have all three occupants of the house present, as any one of them might have information pertaining to the perplexing enquiry he brought with him from Pemberley.

After exchanging pleasantries and seating himself, the colonel got directly to the matter at hand. “Bingley, are you aware of an acquaintance of any kind between your sister, Caroline, and my aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh?”

Charles thought for a moment before shaking his head. “No, there was none that I know of. What reason can you have for suspecting that such an acquaintance existed?”

“Together with Darcy, I am an executor of Lady Catherine's will, copies of which arrived yesterday from her solicitor. In it, she leaves a legacy to your sister of six hundred pounds per annum to be paid in quarterly amounts, until…”

“How utterly bizarre!” exclaimed Bingley, shaking his head. “Why on earth should Lady Catherine de Bourgh leave a legacy to Caroline – I cannot imagine what the reason might be; I am totally mystified.”

“You are about to become more mystified, yet. There is a most peculiar condition attached to this legacy; it shall cease upon the marriage of Fitzwilliam Darcy.”

The three listeners gasped in amazement.

“And furthermore,” continued Fitzwilliam, “during her lifetime, Lady Catherine paid an amount of one hundred and fifty pounds to Miss Bingley every three months.”

Charles and Jane Bingley were stunned into to silence, but not Elizabeth. “When did these payments begin?” she asked.

“The first was made in October last year,” replied the colonel. “Why do you ask? Do you know something of the matter, Miss Bennet?”

Elizabeth proceeded to recount to the colonel and Charles Bingley, who was likewise ignorant of the matter, all that Lydia had revealed to her in Longbourn regarding the conversations she had overheard between Miss Bingley and her husband, George Wickham. She concealed only the source of her information and the manner in which it was obtained.

Charles was stunned to hear that his sister was involved in unsavoury and underhanded dealings with a rogue like Wickham.

“I guessed that Caroline Bingley was providing money to Wickham to prevent him revealing information concerning the mysterious letter,” said Elizabeth. “The recipient of the letter was, I surmised, Mr. Darcy, and its purpose was to deceive him concerning my character. Miss Bingley was involved in the deception, and Wickham, having learned of it, threatened to reveal its spurious nature to Darcy, unless she provided money to keep him silent. The only part of the intrigue that I could not fathom was how Miss Bingley was able to provide Wickham with so substantial an amount, for she is known to be generally stretched for funds.”

“Are you suggesting that Lady Catherine was supplying the money to Miss Bingley?” asked the colonel, flabbergasted. “I simply cannot believe that my aunt would involve herself in so disgraceful an intrigue! Whatever other faults she may have had, Lady Catherine prided herself on being a paragon of Christian virtue. It is unthinkable that she could have associated herself with anything the least bit questionable – let alone so base and deceitful a scheme – and involving the likes of George Wickham!”

“Yet I am almost certain that the money Wickham was receiving from Caroline Bingley came from your aunt,” said Elizabeth decidedly. “How else can you explain Lady Catherine's payments to Miss Bingley, and the legacy she left her?”

“I cannot. But, why on earth would my aunt allow herself to get caught up in so odious a stratagem?”

“For the very same reason as Caroline Bingley. They had a common interest in defaming my character. I have no idea of what lies were contained in that letter; but of its purpose I am almost certain – it was to turn Mr. Darcy against me. They both perceived me as an obstacle to their matrimonial ambitions. In Miss Bingley's case, her own; in Lady Catherine's, for her daughter, Anne.”

***

Darcy paced distractedly back and forth along one wall of his library. His cousin, who had just recounted what he had heard at Willowbank, was waiting for him to make a coherent response. But he made none; he just kept pacing back and forth, angrily shaking his head.

“Here, drink this,” said Fitzwilliam, handing him a generous glass of brandy. “Your face is as red as a beetroot, Darcy. Please sit down, and try to calm yourself.”

Darcy accepted the brandy and the advice, and after draining his glass, he sighed and hung his head in despair.

“Is it true, Darcy, that you received a slanderous letter concerning Miss Bennet?”

“My God, yes, there is such a letter! I received it in October last year. At first I refused to believe it; but there were further letters, from those whose veracity I could not doubt. But now I see how comprehensively I have been duped and deceived – and now it is all too late – how she must utterly loathe me.”

Then jumping to his feet, Darcy unlocked his writing desk and removed a bundle of letters, tied together with a black ribbon, and thrust them at his cousin. “Read them!” he exclaimed, fiercely.