Mr. Bennet glowed with the secret knowledge of the comfortable wealth coming to his family all through dinner. It was the relief of many years' occasional worry and guilt over his daughters' states, and to be on the verge of announcing dowries for the three youngest and the resolution of the entail of the estate brought him into such a state as neither wife nor daughters had ever seen him.
Bingley was also in high spirits, admiring his fiancée to the exclusion of all else. Only Darcy seemed pensive, and Elizabeth thought he regarded her youngest sister with more than usual attention. Perhaps, she worried, he was considering what poor character possessed the sister of his wife. This thought nagged at her, but nothing could spoil the spirit and solicitude of the evening, not even Mary's sometimes pointed comments on the unnecessary frippery of modern nuptial rites.
Lively talk between Bingley, Mrs. Bennet and Jane on the subject of the wedding kept the family up late, and the evening was well progressed before the party broke up and Darcy and Bingley headed back toward Netherfield.
Jane joined Elizabeth as they prepared for bed, and Lizzie was glad to bask in her sister's incandescent joy. They had just agreed for the third time that it was time to be getting to sleep when they heard a loud cry from just outside the house.
On arriving at the road, Darcy had feigned trouble with his horse and sent Bingley ahead alone.
"Tis nothing, I'll catch up in a moment."
Once his friend was out of sight, Darcy quietly tethered his horse to a tree and circled around the back of the house and concealed himself. He had not long to wait. He could see Lydia staring intently out of her window, warmly clad and happily anxious. The spilled candlelight then revealed Wickham, who approached with a ladder in hand and in a moment was ascending the side of the house.
"Oh, my dear Mr. Wickham," Lydia cried, throwing open the window and preparing herself to descend.
"Stop!" cried Darcy, stepping into the light and seizing the foot of the ladder. Wickham looked down to see his old enemy, and sneered, "Darcy, what are you doing here, you old hypocrite?"
Darcy wrenched the ladder and Wickham fell to the ground. Lydia screamed.
Darcy strode over to the scoundrel and flipped him over onto his back. Winded, he moaned pathetically. Soft mud caked his clothes and face, and his hands flailed at his opponent. Darcy assured himself that the knave was not mortally harmed, and looked up to see James and Mr. Bennet, a stout stick in hand, approaching.
Mr. Bennet sized up the situation in a moment, then addressed himself to the muddy man.
"Well, Mr. Wickham, I don't recall having given permission to you to court my Lydia. What is this, then?"
Wickham, still unable to speak, moaned weakly. Mr. Bennet grinned and tapped Wickham's chest with the stick, then looked up at Darcy.
"I daresay he had high hopes of helping himself to daughter and dowry, both, eh, sir? But you foiled him. I thank you."
"It was my duty, sir. If not for my connection to your family, he would not have had the motivation to act so."
"I suppose so. But it was uncommon clever, winkling this out before it came to some desperate pass. You shall have to tell me how you did it, over a glass of wine sometime. But now I suppose we should dispose of Lydia's lover here."
At this he looked up at the window, where his youngest had disappeared but Mary was looking down with disapproval.
"Mary, dear, are Lydia and Kitty secure?"
"They are both here, father. But this is very troubling, and has disturbed my reflections for the evening." Mr. Bennet chuckled.
"I'm sure your sisters are yet more troubled, my dear. Ask Jane and Lizzie to keep an eye on them while we sort out this young jack-nape."
"Yes, father," she said pettishly, and closed the window.
Mr. Bennet sent James for a wheelbarrow, and he and Darcy stood for a moment, regarding Wickham while he recovered his breath.
"What nerve you have," he snarled at Darcy when he finally regained the power of speech. "After your infamous elopement, to object to anyone else doing the same. I always knew you for a foul hypocrite."
Darcy forbore speech, and held an angry silence until James returned with the barrow. The three none too gently flung Lydia's suitor onto it, and James trundled it out to the Meryton road.
Mr. Bennet clapped Darcy on the shoulder.
"That's a good night's work. I'll set a watch on the house in case he tries to come again, but I think the girls will serve as watchmen for some time to come. I'm afraid that I might have to put Lydia in irons until she's safely married or else risk a repetition of this night's events, and we can't always expect to have you on hand. Come, let's have a brandy."
Darcy politely refused.
"Bingley will be wondering where I am, I told him I would not be far behind."
And indeed, he found his friend waiting up for him, and found some pleasure in relating the adventure.