A Character Interview of Lieutenant George Percival Wickham: A Lost But Now Found Outtake from The Exile: The Countess Comes to Longbourn
by Don Jacobsen
(Darcyholic Diversions is happy to Welcome Don back to Darcyholic Diversions with this special additional scene! Be sure to comment and Follow the Rafflecopter Link for a chance at the Blog Tour GiveAways.)
This character interview of
Lieutenant George Percival Wickham has been composed in the form of a short
vignette which, if it had been included in The
Exile: The Countess Visits Longbourn, would have fallen within Chapter
XXXIV of the book. © 2018 by Don Jacobson. Publication or other use of this
work without the expressed written consent of the creator is prohibited.
Published in the United States of America.
March
24, 1815,
A
café in Hietzinger Hauptstraße opposite Schöbrunn
Palace, Vienna
The man stepped
from the street into the café. His black suit, if one looked closely, betrayed
considerable wear with fraying threads drooping from the cuffs of the jacket’s
sleeves and his pant legs. Shiny spots and knees and elbows likewise suggested
that his chosen trade paid little and irregularly at that. His deep-set eyes
scanned the tables distributed around the cheerily decorated room, candlelit now
even though the first day of spring had heralded longer days. Finding his
desired target, he doffed his hat, ran his fingers through unkempt brown hair,
and wove between guests and furniture toward a lone British officer seated by a
window looking out onto the boulevard.
While the city was
full of officers of all stripes given the Great Congress, this man, handsome to
be sure, was one of the lowliest but, in his own way, one of the most
important—at least to a reporter for The
Times. He was only a
lieutenant in a city where colonels were often used to fill gaps on the lower
end of countesses’ tables. However, his regimental facings were easily
identified as being of the 33rd Infantry, Wellington’s Own. That and
the silver cords of an aide de camp
looping down from his left epaulet made him the object of the journalist’s
desire.
Reaching his
destination, the fellow unceremoniously dropped into the vacant chair opposite
the lieutenant. Barely acknowledged by his quarry, the reporter dug into a
pocket under his left lapel. Successfully removing a well-folded and somewhat
grubby newspaper he dropped the publication next to the officer’s cup of
chocolate. Using an ink-stained finger, he stabbed at a column-length article
under a screaming header.
Without ceremony
he addressed the Lieutenant, “What you gave me a few weeks ago was pure gold,
Wickham. My editor is beside himself wondering what comes next. And if John
Stoddart[i]
is asking, that means that everybody from the Prince Regent to the charwoman at
Carlton House wants to know.
“And that means, I
need to know what the Duke plans to do now that the Emperor is back in Paris.”
George Wickham
grinned back at the earnest newshound. Brigadier Fitzwilliam, his master,
already had given him his remit: he was to feed Tomlinson exactly what
the Duke was planning to do.
As his old
playmate had put it, “Well, George, his
Grace wants that bloody man to come to him. Rather than leave him to wonder, we
will let him know exactly where to find us.
“So, tell the Times that the Coalition will
defend the path to Antwerp somewhere outside of Brussels. We will feed his
spies the same information, thus confirming one with the other. With luck,
Napoleon will have to prove his claim to the throne by showing his followers
that he can defeat our best and avenge Leipzig and Toulouse. That means he will
want to take on Wellington.
“But he still has to raise his force and arm
his men. So do we. That should take the better part of two months, time enough
for us to scarper from Vienna up to Brussels with stops along the way to get
our Allies committed to sending their troops to the Low Countries. Nothing
should happen until sometime in early June.”
In several curt
sentences delivered in low tones to convey the seriousness of the information,
Wickham passed on the general outlines of Wellington’s plans. Tomlinson had
fished out a pencil stub and took notes at a furious pace. In a few minutes,
all was as the Duke wished it to be. Wickham signaled a waiter who bowed over
the table before scuttling off with Tomlinson’s order.
While he had
fulfilled his commission, Wickham still had something else he wanted to cover
with the scribe. However, he did not know how to begin.
Tomlinson sensed
his hesitation and employed his own interrogator’s skill.
“How long have we
known one-another, Wickham? Four, five years? Certainly since before your
marriage. When was that? The year ’11? So, at least five years. You crossed my
path when you were still one of the ‘leading lights’ of the demimonde.
“But, since then,
I have heard just that little tidbit about you and some elderly French
Countess. After that, nothing,” Tomlinson quizzed.
Wickham sighed and
leaned back into his seat. He tipped his head to the side and regarded the
reporter much as a bull mastiff would consider a puppy intent upon disturbing
his afternoon nap in the sun; he wondered how much energy he would expend explaining
himself. Eventually he chose to offer some meat to cover the bones knowing that
Tomlinson would be more inclined to fulfill Wickham’s request if he understood
what rested behind it.
In the same low
tone he had used before, thus, he hoped, placing the information on par with
his earlier tip, Wickham related his thoughts, “I am not the man you first met.
On the contrary, that young lady who married me has become quite dear. That
tittle-tattle your gossipmonger printed back in December ’11 could have sorely
hurt Mrs. Wickham’s trusting heart.
“You know she is
nearly three-and-ten years my junior. I will own that my motives for marrying
her were less than honorable, but shortly after we were wed, I began to
reconsider the path down which the currents of life had been carrying me. I
began to find that I wanted to comport myself in a manner that would give
credit to my name and raise myself in her eyes.”
Tomlinson
interjected, “So, poor fool that you are, you fell in love with your wife?”
Wickham chuckled,
a relaxed smile easing his features, and replied, “There you have it. George
Wickham, dissolute rake and gambler, had his locks shorn by a Delilah from
Hertfordshire. Yes, I will own up to it; I have discovered that I love my wife.
She has made me a better man, although, the Good Lord knows that anyone could
have made me better given the state of my soul at the time.
“But, Mrs. Wickham
made me think. And, then she captured me lock, stock, and barrel one chilly
January eve early in ’12. After that, I really changed my ways.”
So saying, he
raised his cup of chocolate in silent salute to a woman who waited for his
return at her old family home, although she was in mourning for her father’s
recent passing. They had rarely been together since the Second Battalion had
posted to Portugal in the spring of 1812. Lieutenants were not colonels or
majors. Unlike in the past years, leave had not been granted often to any
officers as Wellesley pursued the French from Iberia across the Pyrrenes and
into the Midi. However, there was a
lively correspondence between himself and Lydia, augmented by another stream
between his color sergeant, Henry Wilson, and his wife, the former Laura
Jenkinson. Wickham read his letters from Lydia to an attentive Wilson while the
blonde giant related his from Laura. Between the two of them, they managed to
patch together a fairly clear picture of the goings-on in Meryton.
Then he continued,
“I have truly come to treasure my wife. But, I am worried about what the future
will bring. There are no guarantees in my business. The fight we are going into
will be desperate indeed…and the infantry will take the worst of it. A voltagieur could easily place a ball
between wind and water (his hand touched
first his shoulder and then dropped to his stomach) and put paid to old George. Rather not think about what a 32
pounder from the Beast’s le Brutal
would do to me.
“I have made sure
she will be provided for. I’ve invested in a closed trust set up by some of
those clever men from the City. But, money is not the sort of legacy I want to
leave. I wasted too many years chasing gold. I have something else much more
important to my posterity.
“No, t’is nothing
anyone else would care about. But, I think Lydie would find comfort that her
husband had grown to be more akin to her other brothers who are serious,
thoughtful, and upright men.”
He reached
underneath the table and pulled out a leather valise, its straps securely
buckled. The thump it made when he dropped it to the table was noticeable,
giving testament to the weight of what was contained inside.
Wickham added,
“This is my journal. I have been writing in it since December of ’11. I am
going to presume that you will read it, however, I beg of you to give me your
word of honor that you will not publish a word of it, and that you will deliver
it only to me if I survive or my wife if I do not. If the latter, make whatever
arrangements with Mrs. Wickham you will.
“I would, however,
remind you that those brothers I mentioned are Fitzwilliam Darcy and Charles
Bingley. Her uncle is Edward Gardiner. Between the three of them, they could
buy your great newspaper and use
every copy they print to wrap fish from Wapping to the mouth of the Estuary.”
Having said his
piece, he pushed the case across the table into
Tomlinson’s waiting hands, the Lieutenant stood and shock hands with his
messenger. He then shook the other’s hand, gave him a quick nod, and, wrapping
his cloak around him against the Austrian chill, swiftly strode out the door
into history.
&&&&&
The Bennet Wardrobe books are best
read in the following order:
The
Keeper: Mary Bennet’s Extraordinary Journey
Henry
Fitzwilliam’s War
The Exile: Kitty Bennet and the Belle Époque
Lizzy Bennet Meets the Countess
The Exile: The Countess Visits Longbourn
[i] Editor of The
Times of London from 1812 to 1816
The Exile: The
Countess Visits Longbourn
Blurb:
“I have been shaped
by the events of over forty years. The world is a nasty place full of awful
persons, Mr. Wickham, and does not get any lighter through complaining or
blaming.”
The Countess: An Enigma? A Mystery? Or
a young girl all-grown-up?
Kitty Bennet, the
fourth daughter of the Master and Mistress of Longbourn, had spent far too long
as the shadow of her youngest sister. The all-knowing Meryton chinwaggers
suggested that young Miss Bennet needed education—and quickly.
How right they
were…but the type of instruction Kitty Bennet received, and the where/when in which she matriculated was
far beyond their ken. For they knew nothing of that remarkable piece of
furniture which had been part of the lives of clan Bennet for over 120 years: The
Bennet Wardrobe.
Forty-six years from
when she left her Papa’s bookroom, the Dowager Countess of Matlock returned to that
exact same moment in 1811 to tend to many important pieces of Family business.
In the process, Kitty
Fitzwilliam helped her youngest sister find the love she craved with the hero
who, as the Duke said, “saved us all.”
Who can resist the magic of
time-travel? Pages of worldwide history rustle back and forth between Regency
grand salons, Napoleonic battlefields and more recent conflicts as, guided by
Don Jacobson’s masterful pen, the Bennet sisters grow as people and come into
their own. ‘The Countess Visits Longbourn’ is a wonderful new instalment, and
we cannot fail to revel in the excellent writing and the abundance of detail as
the mysteries of the Wardrobe continue to unfold. This captivating series, that
brings together real and much-loved fictional characters from all walks of
life, is one to savour, and I will revisit it again and again.
Joana
Starnes, author of Miss Darcy’s Companion
Author Bio:
Don
Jacobson has written professionally for forty years. His output has ranged from news and features to advertising,
television and radio. His work has
been nominated for Emmys and other awards. He has previously published five books, all non-fiction. In 2016, he published the first volume
of The Bennet Wardrobe Series—The Keeper: Mary Bennet’s Extraordinary
Journey, novel that grew from two earlier novellas. The Exile is the second volume of The Bennet Wardrobe Series.
Other JAFF P&P Variations include the paired books “Of Fortune’s Reversal” and “The Maid and The Footman.”
Jacobson holds an advanced degree in
History with a specialty in American Foreign Relations. As a college instructor, Don teaches
United States History, World History, the History of Western Civilization and
Research Writing.
He
is a member of JASNA-Puget Sound.
Likewise, Don is a member of the Austen
Authors collective (see the internet, Facebook and Twitter).
He
lives in the Seattle, WA area with his wife and co-author, Pam, a woman Ms.
Austen would have been hard-pressed to categorize, and their rather assertive
four-and-twenty pound cat, Bear.
Besides thoroughly immersing himself in the JAFF world, Don also enjoys
cooking; dining out, fine wine and well-aged scotch whiskey.
His
other passion is cycling. Most
days from April through October will find him “putting in the miles” around the
Seattle area (yes there are hills).
He has ridden several “centuries” (100 mile days). Don is especially proud that he
successfully completed the AIDS Ride—Midwest (500 miles from Minneapolis to
Chicago) and the Make-A-Wish Miracle Ride (300 miles from Traverse City, MI to
Brooklyn, MI).
Contact Info:
Buy Links:
Paperback & Kindle
Blog Tour Schedule:
Terms and Conditions:
Readers
may enter the drawing by tweeting once a day and daily commenting on a blog post or review that has a giveaway
attached for the tour. Entrants must provide the name of the blog where they
commented (which will be verified). If an entrant does not do so, that entry
will be disqualified. Remember: Tweet and comment once daily to earn extra
entries.
A
winner may win ONLY 1 (ONE) eBook or Paperback of The Exile: The Countess Visits Longbourn
by Don Jacobson. Each winner will be randomly selected by Rafflecopter and
the giveaway is international.
[i] Editor of The
Times of London from 1812 to 1816
The Exile: The
Countess Visits Longbourn
Blurb:
“I have been shaped
by the events of over forty years. The world is a nasty place full of awful
persons, Mr. Wickham, and does not get any lighter through complaining or
blaming.”
The Countess: An Enigma? A Mystery? Or
a young girl all-grown-up?
Kitty Bennet, the
fourth daughter of the Master and Mistress of Longbourn, had spent far too long
as the shadow of her youngest sister. The all-knowing Meryton chinwaggers
suggested that young Miss Bennet needed education—and quickly.
How right they
were…but the type of instruction Kitty Bennet received, and the where/when in which she matriculated was
far beyond their ken. For they knew nothing of that remarkable piece of
furniture which had been part of the lives of clan Bennet for over 120 years: The
Bennet Wardrobe.
Forty-six years from
when she left her Papa’s bookroom, the Dowager Countess of Matlock returned to that
exact same moment in 1811 to tend to many important pieces of Family business.
In the process, Kitty
Fitzwilliam helped her youngest sister find the love she craved with the hero
who, as the Duke said, “saved us all.”
Who can resist the magic of
time-travel? Pages of worldwide history rustle back and forth between Regency
grand salons, Napoleonic battlefields and more recent conflicts as, guided by
Don Jacobson’s masterful pen, the Bennet sisters grow as people and come into
their own. ‘The Countess Visits Longbourn’ is a wonderful new instalment, and
we cannot fail to revel in the excellent writing and the abundance of detail as
the mysteries of the Wardrobe continue to unfold. This captivating series, that
brings together real and much-loved fictional characters from all walks of
life, is one to savour, and I will revisit it again and again.
Joana
Starnes, author of Miss Darcy’s Companion
Author Bio:
Don
Jacobson has written professionally for forty years. His output has ranged from news and features to advertising,
television and radio. His work has
been nominated for Emmys and other awards. He has previously published five books, all non-fiction. In 2016, he published the first volume
of The Bennet Wardrobe Series—The Keeper: Mary Bennet’s Extraordinary
Journey, novel that grew from two earlier novellas. The Exile is the second volume of The Bennet Wardrobe Series.
Other JAFF P&P Variations include the paired books “Of Fortune’s Reversal” and “The Maid and The Footman.”
Jacobson holds an advanced degree in
History with a specialty in American Foreign Relations. As a college instructor, Don teaches
United States History, World History, the History of Western Civilization and
Research Writing.
He
is a member of JASNA-Puget Sound.
Likewise, Don is a member of the Austen
Authors collective (see the internet, Facebook and Twitter).
He
lives in the Seattle, WA area with his wife and co-author, Pam, a woman Ms.
Austen would have been hard-pressed to categorize, and their rather assertive
four-and-twenty pound cat, Bear.
Besides thoroughly immersing himself in the JAFF world, Don also enjoys
cooking; dining out, fine wine and well-aged scotch whiskey.
His
other passion is cycling. Most
days from April through October will find him “putting in the miles” around the
Seattle area (yes there are hills).
He has ridden several “centuries” (100 mile days). Don is especially proud that he
successfully completed the AIDS Ride—Midwest (500 miles from Minneapolis to
Chicago) and the Make-A-Wish Miracle Ride (300 miles from Traverse City, MI to
Brooklyn, MI).
Contact Info:
Buy Links:
Paperback & Kindle
Blog Tour Schedule:
Terms and Conditions:
Readers
may enter the drawing by tweeting once a day and daily commenting on a blog post or review that has a giveaway
attached for the tour. Entrants must provide the name of the blog where they
commented (which will be verified). If an entrant does not do so, that entry
will be disqualified. Remember: Tweet and comment once daily to earn extra
entries.
A
winner may win ONLY 1 (ONE) eBook or Paperback of The Exile: The Countess Visits Longbourn
by Don Jacobson. Each winner will be randomly selected by Rafflecopter and
the giveaway is international.