Wickham is not the young man to refuse a companion…
August 1, 1812
“Look here, Lydia,” said Wickham, getting out of bed and standing by the window, watching red coated troops march by on their way to the Downs. “I have got to leave town.”
Lydia sat up, clutching a bed-sheet to her bare shoulders. Her hair was tousled, her face flushed, her eyes bright.
“Darling Wickham! But why? What about your duty to your regiment?”
“Pish.” He dismissed it with a contemptuous gesture. “It’s nothing but the militia. I have no formal ties, they won’t come after me.”
“But Colonel Forster will be so disappointed, and all your friends. And you look so handsome in your uniform. Brighton is so gay, why must we go?”
“We?” He came and sat down beside her. “You aren’t going anywhere. You go back to the Forsters’ lodgings and go home with them to your mama and papa. But I’ve made the town too hot to hold me.”
“What does that mean? And wherever you go, I’m coming with you, of course!”
“It means, my expensive little girl, that all this,” he waved round the room at Lydia’s brand new gowns and bandboxes strewn everywhere, “costs money. I’ve got into debt and the creditors won’t stand it anymore. They’ll come after me, and I’ve got to clear out before morning.”
“Oh! You mean you don’t have any money?”
“Curse it, that’s just what I mean. Only enough left to get up to town and see if I have any friends there—or go to the money-lenders.”
Lydia climbed out of bed and began scrabbling for the chemise and stays she had hurriedly thrown off the night before and flung to the floor. “I can be ready in ten minutes. Hand me those stockings, will you, my dearest Wickham?”
“But—you can’t go, Lydia! It would be folly. I can’t take care of you.”
“You don’t want to go alone, do you? All you have to do is get money from somewhere—perhaps my father would let you have some—and we can take a coach to Scotland and go to Gretna Green and be married!”
In spite of his haste to leave, Wickham stopped to laugh. “Oh, is that all? Go to Scotland, is it? As easy as go to breakfast. Well, well, I doubt we get that far. Do you still want to come?”
“I’m coming,” she nodded. “What? Leave you to traipse all over the country alone?”
“I don’t mind if you want to come, it’s as good having a girl as not,” he answered, “but you must know I can’t promise you any thing. I can’t afford to marry, and your family may raise the roof.”
“Oh never mind them,” she replied, busily stuffing her hats into their boxes. “I’m sure we shall be married some time. Come now, make haste. The coach leaves at seven, does not it? Just time to snatch a bun.”
“If you wish it,” said Wickham with a shrug. “Let’s go then.”
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As I thought, Wickham had no intention of taking Lydia with him, it was all her idea! What a lark! No worries of how her behaviour will affect her family! They were fortunate that Darcy loved Elizabeth enough to assist them.
Yes, Austen tells us that! In Mrs. Gardiner’s letter, she tells Lizzy, that Wickham “scrupled not to lay all the ill-consequences of Lydia’s flight, on her own folly alone.”
I love these different versions of how the elopement might have unfolded. Each makes me hate Wickham all the more! Thanks, Diana!
I know, that’s part of the fun, isn’t it! I was startled, when posting some of my stories, that I have written TWO about Lydia’s elopement covering the same events, but from different times and points of view. It even confuses myself!