Peter’s family have finally grown tired of his dissipated way of living and they have sent him out to the Indies, where one of his uncles is trying to make something of him. Not only have I lost his company, but my creditors are becoming a nuisance. Peter’s friendship kept them complacent, but now that I do not have his backing they are sending in their accounts. I cannot believe I have spent so much money, for the bills come to almost two thousand pounds. Matthew and I were bemoaning the sad state of affairs, for he has run up debts that are almost as large as mine, when he said, ‘I wonder you don’t ask Darcy. Weren’t the two of you friends?’
‘We were but I will not ask him for money again. I did it once before and he gave me such a look that I have not asked again.’
‘I don’t see why he should refuse you. He has plenty of the stuff. A thousand pounds, to a man like Darcy, is nothing.’
It awakened all my resentful feelings.
‘Darcy has always been that way. Even as a boy he treated me like a servant, not like an equal. He thought I would grow up to manage his estate. Can you imagine it? Me, to spend my life worrying about which trees to cut down and which trees to plant and which fields to put out to pasture? To think about incomings and outgoings?’
Matthew roared with laughter.
‘If it was anything like the incomings and outgoings of your own pocket, the estate would be ruined in half a year! But won’t he give you something? Surely, George, you must have some pressure you can bring to bear?’
‘His father did promise me a living,’ I said thoughtfully.
Matthew laughed even louder than before.
‘What! He wanted you to be a clergyman? A fine job you would make of that!’
‘I know,’ I said, laughing too. ‘It would never do. But it is a pity. The living would have meant a lot to me, or rather to my pockets.’
‘Then ask him to give you the money instead.’
I looked at him in surprise.
‘I didn’t know you had a brain, Matthew.’
‘Needs must, old fellow,’ he said, taking a drink and savouring it. ‘Needs must.’
‘He would not give me anything just for the asking, that much I know, but perhaps there is a way.’
I thought about it, and then I went over to my desk and, dipping my quill in the ink and pulling a piece of paper towards me, I began to write.
After some preamble, hoping that both he and Georgiana were well and that the estate was prospering, I continued:
I have been giving some thought to my future and I have decided not to go into the church, and so I have decided to relinquish all claims to the living your father so generously promised me. I hope you will now be able to bestow it elsewhere.
I hope you will not think it unreasonable of me to ask for some kind of pecuniary advantage, instead of the living. I mean to go into the law, and as you are aware, the interest on one thousand pounds—the sum your father generously left me—does not go very far.
I went on to speak of generalities and then ended the letter, sanding it and folding it and sending it out at once to the mail.
‘And now, let us go out and celebrate,’ said Matthew. ‘I have had some luck on the horses, and I mean to spend the evening in style.’
That is the good thing about Matthew. He might not be in the funds very often, but when he is, he is willing to share what he has.
We went first to an inn and then to a brothel, where we enjoyed ourselves immensely, and did not stumble home again ’til first light.