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Chapter 15: We're All in this Together
Pulling into the driveway at Uncle Williams house, there was a strange car in the driveway, but the girls were so focused on their mission they barely noticed it.
William Lucas was surprised, and a bit taken aback to see the Bennet sisters on his doorstep, but he could hardly turn them away, that would be rude.
"William!" Elizabeth exclaimed as walked into the living room, she turned to look at Uncle William.
"Good evening, Elizabeth" William said standing up.
Kitty and Mary looked at Uncle William, Elizabeth and then the two handsome strangers in Uncle Williams living room.
Kitty and Mary were introduced to William and Richard with a short explanation as to how they all knew each other, including the Bingley story and the trip to Uncle Williams company.
There was a lull in the conversation, and Elizabeth was staring expectantly at William.
He felt very uneasy, her direct gaze those violet eyes, he sub-consciously noted that the two sisters with her were also quite pretty but she did stand out.
"Lydia is safe now, so you can tell them, they need to know, this involves them." He said with an unhappy look on his face.
"Wait, I think Kitty should start, her story probably predates the rest" Elizabeth said.
William highly doubted that but without dragging Georgiana into it, he nodded in agreement.
Kitty cleared her throat nervously and looked around.
"Marion and the girls have gone to book club; Charlotte is home as well" Uncle William said reading Kitty's mind and letting Elizabeth know her friend was around as well.
"Okay, a week after Mary brought Charles…George, to meet us all, remember the barbeque? A week later Lydia said that she had bumped into…I am going to call him Charles, she bumped into him when she was leaving the school, he was surprised to see her and said he was thinking of sending his sister Georgiana there."
There was a sharp intake of breath from William. Elizabeth remembered Caroline saying William's sister was Georgiana, William's face was white, and his fists were balled. Richard reached out and touched him on his arm.
"Steady old boy. Carry on Kitty."
'Lydia started sneaking out and missing school, but she said she was busy with a project. One night I heard her sneak out and I followed her. She went to Wilton's, the pub on the village square?" All the locals nodded, and Richard made a mental note to investigate the place.
"She was meeting George; I saw them together and he was giving her alcohol. When he went to the toilet, I went and dragged her out, got us an uber and brought her home. But she was very drunk, literally legless. Mother almost caught us as I was sneaking her into the house but by some miracle Lydia stayed quiet and mother did not notice a thing.
The next morning, I made her tell me everything. George told her that from the first moment he met her he knew that he could only love Mary as a sister, and he was trying to find a way to break it off, so that he and Lydia could be together. He was pressurizing her to sleep with him, but because he was with Mary she would not. Lydia said she was a bit confused because she only had two glasses of wine and she should not have gotten so drunk. But then she said she had not eaten the whole day because George really likes thin girls.
It was a few days later when George ended the relationship with Mary, I had ballet rehearsal until quite late, Dad had forgotten to pick me up, so I was trying to get an Uber when George pulled up in a new car, he had that blue car while he was dating Mary, this was a red sports car. He offered me a lift; I was so happy not to spend money on the Uber I accepted.
At first the conversation was general, the weather, school. Then he said he was so sorry about Mary, saying what a wonderful person she was, but he had realised that he just saw her as a sister.
Then he said that he thought Lydia and I were close. I said we were close. He said that he had been hanging around with Lydia in the hopes of seeing me, but she always came to see him alone. He said Lydia was a cute girl, but she was too young. He said that from the very first time he saw me he knew I was the one. It was nice to have someone so handsome show interest in me, I totally forgot that Lydia said he had said exactly the same thing to her.
He dropped me off at home and asked if I would meet him the following Friday night at Wilton's, I said I would try but rehearsals are quite hectic. He begged me to please try.
My rehearsals ran late, and I was too tired afterwards to go out, and I had started to get such a strange feeling about the whole thing. So, I did not go, at 1am he phoned me to say he was waiting, I told him I was tired and couldn't we just do breakfast the next day. I heard him speak to someone and then he said he really need to see me, he had to tell me something. I said I would meet him at the park across the road from the house, but I was not going out to pub or anything.
When he arrived, he was in the blue car again, he said something about it being a work thing. We sat in the car, and he took my hands, and stared straight into my face. He said he had to tell me the truth, but I had to swear not to tell a soul, otherwise bad people would come after my family, especially my sisters. He mentioned each one of you by name. I swore it would be our secret.
He told me that he worked for a security agency, and they were investigating a group of men who were stealing girls, he went by the name of Charles Bingley because he was a know human trafficker, he was hoping some of Charles contacts would get hold of him. Because they worked out of the shadows, they did not know what Charles Bingley looked like so they would not know he was not Charles Bingley. He told me his real name was George Wickham. He told me he was watching over Lydia because she was one of their targets and he had to protect her, and me. He was so genuine, I really believed him, I think I still did until Lydia came home. I thought if I did not say anything she would be safe, and he would protect her."
At this point there were tears rolling down Kitty's face as she realised the enormity of what she had done, or not done; all because she wanted to believe the handsome man. "But he did not keep her safe, did he? He did that to her? How she looks now? "
Mary and Elizabeth were each side of their sister, taking turns to comfort her, wondering how this had happened to their family – one man, one man did all this damage.
"My story does somewhat predate yours but quite substantially." William knew it was his turn.
"George Wickham's father ran the printing press for my father, they were best friends, and when George's mother ran off with her latest lover, they moved into our pool house. For a while it worked well, I had a friend roughly my own age, living literally next door. George and his father were included in all our family events, my mother went out of her way to just nurture both of them.
When she passed away my father and I had to focus on Georgiana and George seem to resent that we were not as available as before; but in front of my father, he made a big show of adoring Georgiana, but the moment his hack was turned, George was referring to the brat girl.
To get back the family feeling his father and my own planned a big family picnic down at the stream. Uncles, Aunts, cousins, the lot were all invited; and most of them came. George was not a blood relative, but he was considered family by my father and myself. But my cousins did not like George and there were several scuffles between him and some of the boy cousins, Richard included. George was swaggering around as if he owned the property and saying how he would improve things when he inherited from my father. Eventually they started to ignore him and just walk away from him. After the adults had gone back up to the house to have coffee, liqueurs and cigars, the children stayed down at the stream under the eye of the staff.
George had had enough of being ignored and yelled out "You will all do as I say, or the brat girl gets baptised." He was holding 10-month-old Georgiana over the stream, at the deepest part.
Without thinking each and every cousin, and I reacted immediately, George was swarmed, Georgiana rescued, and he got the hiding of a lifetime. As we all walked away back up to the house to tell the adults what had happened, he shouted after us that he would get us all back, even if it took him 50 years… and he would start with the brat girl.
The uncles and aunts were up in arms, insisting that my father remove him and his father from the premises. Mr Wickham Snr was quite ready to go, he was horrified at his sons' actions. My father however, said it was just boyish foolery and he was sure it would not happen again.
Mr Wickham Snr died 6 months later from a rather aggressive cancer, and my father took George under his wing, and George played him like a fiddle. He used his 'orphaned' state to get my father to buy him things, and my father turned a blind eye to the darker side of George Wickham.
Shortly after my eighteenth birthday my father passed away from a heart attack; when it came time for the reading of the will George Wickham invited himself, he sat in prime position almost as if he was expecting to inherit. He did, a fully paid for scholarship to any university or college, including a stipend to be paid every month for his living expenses. What George did not realise was how much my father valued education, believing that a man can go far in life with the right education; he wanted to give George something of real value rather than money or property.
George had a fit, he tried to challenge the will saying I had forged it, because he knew that old man Darcy loved him like a son, had wanted him to inherit. When the lawyers were having none of it, having been my fathers' lawyers for the last 40 years, he stormed off, again swearing revenge on me for stealing his inheritance.
But he was still staying in the pool house at the property, I had blocked off his access to the main house but felt I could not put him out on the streets. A month later when the grief of losing my father was still fresh, he approached me and asked if I would give him the monetary value of the education wanted him to have. He felt he could better use it travelling the world and getting practical work experience. I seriously doubted he had any plans to work at all but in honour of my father I did the calculations and gave him the lump sum he requested. At which point he moved out of the pool house and disappeared.
It was a relief to get rid of him, my sister was growing up, I needed to focus on her and not worry about what George Wickham was going to do next. "William drew in a breath, slowly releasing it "I need to explain that although my father sent him to the best of schools, George attracted trouble like bees to pollen. He got caught stealing from his classmates, money, jewelry, cell phones, anything he could get his hands on. My father smoothed things over saying he had lost his father and was playing out.
Then George got caught selling alcohol and drugs at the school, supplying staff and students alike. This got him expelled but my father suppressed the rumours and got him into another good school, this was a bit further away and George became a weekly boarder, only coming home on weekends. Georgiana and I started to live for Sunday nights when he went back to school. He never referred to her by name, always Brat Girl, unless my father was around. He would prank her mercilessly and not in a funny way, he was cruel and vile. He left a dead kitten in her bed, but he did it on a weekend my father was away and threatened to put more there if she moved it or told me or our father. It was two days before I found the kitten, it had begun to smell by then. I decided not to tell my father but to take matters into my own hands. The next weekend I invited my cousin Richard and his older brother Harris to stay the weekend, my father would be home, but he would leave us boys to our own devices. George was hog tied on a plank, naked and suspended over the same self-stream where he threatened Georgiana when she was a baby. Not a single member of our staff raised a finger to help him, he treated them so badly and was constantly harassing the maids, eventually the housekeeper only hired house boys. My father asked about George's whereabouts, and we claimed innocence.
Only once he swore, he would leave Georgiana alone did we take him down. This time he did not threaten us, he just walked away calmly and coldly, not saying a word. I know what we did was wrong, but we were boys, trying to sort out a problem.
A few years after George has left, I become friends with Charles Bingley and his family, I engaged Charles to revamp the garden at home, we decided it was best for him to stay in the pool house rather than commute every day. So, for the better part of a year, Charles was part of our family.
George returned and asked to live in the pool house again because he was flat broke. I said no, Charles was staying there, and George was not welcome. He started to stalk Charles, he would park outside the gate closest to the pool house and sit on the roof of his car with binoculars, he would phone in a noise complaint to the police, he gave Charles's number and address to religious organisations who would phone him all times of the day or night. Because Charles is such a laid back guy he did not let this get to him he would order takeout, with an extra portion, which he had delivered to Georges car. Charles has a kill 'em with kindness thing going.
Eventually Charles's contract ended, the grounds were spectacular, and he moved out, back to his own home. He had barely turned out of the driveway when George appeared demanding to be let into the pool house. I did not let him and told him he would never live on my property again.
I thought that was the end of it, until Elizabeth and Jane appeared accusing Charles of not being Charles. There has been some bad repercussion to this, it would have been easier to track him down if he was using own name, he was still using Charles Bingley when he assaulted William Lucas's secretary when she would not give him access to information at the office. He specifically set out to charm her so that she would pass him information about how much was known about his human traffic operation, not that he told her that, he told her he was a CIA agent, in deep cover, so he needed her to help him. Luckily Mary adores Mr. Lucas, seeing him as a father figure; and she would not betray him in that way.
Once he had gotten the information he needed, he was going to add her to his collection of girls. He had in fact already sold Lydia, Mary King and Emma Woodhouse, the girl we found with Lydia, they were waiting for the buyers to collect their purchases when we found them.
Emma had been taken a week before Lydia, but not by Wickham, she was lured to a remote location in the belief that her father was in trouble. A older woman had called her. We thought it was Mrs Young, one of Wickham's known acquaintances but Mrs Young was at the cabin at the time, without cell phone communication. Emma was hit on the back of the head and woke up in the cabin. "
"You said this affects all of us?" Mary asked, "What do you mean?"
"At the cabin where we found Lydia and Emma, there was a ledger with photographs of all of you, all five Bennet sisters, and other girls, your names were in the ledger. You were being targeted, except maybe you Mary, it seems he was using you to get to know your sisters, but we do not know why. So far, we have 10 people in custody, but they are all small fry, George is a level up, a lieutenant if you like but we are wanting to catch the ringleader." Richard felt the women should know, awareness was the best way to keep people safe.
William's phone rang, he checked the phone "Excuse me I need to take this"
"Aunt Catherine, how unexpected, I thought you were up North?"
He held the phone away from his ear as Aunt Catherine seemed to let lose, for whatever sin William had committed.
Elizabeth was impatient, without waiting for William to return, she asked Uncle William and Richard "Are we still in danger? Is Lydia still at risk? What do we do?"
"I doubt you will be targeted now, especially as we have the ledger," Richard answered, "Whoever they are will have to lie low as they have customers who did not get their girls, and if Wickham was handling the money, it is long gone by now!"
They stayed another hour discussing what had happened, speculating what was going to happen going forward.
Suddenly Elizabeth remembered "Uncle William, do you have a William Collins working for you?"
"William Collins? No, I don't think so, why?"
"William Collins from Accounting?" Elizabeth asked again.
"No, I am pretty sure I know everyone in accounting, they are all ladies, even my CA." William Lucas seemed very certain "Why are you asking?"
"When Charlotte and I left your office, we got chased down by a William Collins, he claimed to work in Accounting, head accountant, I think he said; he also claimed to be our second cousin, I was going to check on that with my father but forgot" Elizabeth was playing the event over in her head, looking for some clue that would magically reveal this man's identity.
"Funny little frog like man." She muttered.
"Sorry, what was that?" William Lucas asked
'That was my first through when I saw him, thin arms and legs, round body, like a frog man." Elisabeth felt very uncharitable saying that, but it was true, in her opinion.
"That sounds like my investor's head accountant, he does not work for me, he was just getting some paperwork for his boss, so unremarkable I did not get his name." William Lucas seemed relieved that he had figured out who she was talking about.
"Oh, he definitely spun it as if he worked at Operation Head Quarters, but I could have heard wrong." Elizabeth felt less creeped out, but not much.
"I am sorry, that was my aunt." William walked back in the room. "We need to go, apparently her daughter has redecorated her apartment in town without her mother's permission. I have no idea how she found out about it, being up north but anyway, we will need to go and talk to our cousin."
At that Richard started humming the wedding march, earning himself a very hard glare from his cousin.
"Good night, ladies, it was a pleasure to meet you all, despite the circumstances. "Richard greeted them gallantly. "I will see you at the office in two days" he said to William Lucas.
"Good evening" William greeted, he shook hands with Lucas William, thanking him for all his efforts. With one last glance at Elizabeth he left, followed by Richard. Richard had tried lingering, and was cursing his aunt, he had wanted to wait until Charlotte got home.
"You girls can stay; I am sure Charlotte and Maria should be home any minute now and would be delighted to see you. And you could catch them up in the privacy of Charlottes bedroom." William Lucas invited the girl.
As if on cue, they heard a car pull up in the driveway. Minutes later Charlotte and Maria were arguing their way into the room, each one defending their literary character with passion.
"Oh, HELLO!" Maria was definitely delighted to see them, the squeal that followed her greeting was probably hear three towns over.
"Mary! Kitty! Elizabeth! how lovely to see you, are your parents here? Where are Jane and Lydia? How are you all?" Marion Lucas was a bit of a force of nature, she had a good if not competitive heart. "Why don't you girls go on up to Charlottes apartment, and I will bring up so hot chocolate for everyone."
"Bedroom, mother, bedroom" Charlotte muttered, ever since her father enlarged her bedroom and added an en-suite her mother had taken to calling it an apartment, probably just to irritate Mrs Bennet!
With that they trooped upstairs to Charlottes room, made themselves comfortable and waited for their hot chocolate. Mrs Lucas was legendary for her hot chocolate, and Mrs Bennet was legendary for her hysterics.