It was all planned....
Posted by Bob S. on December 12, 1997 at 19:23:14:
In response to Why? (a little ahead of the schedule), written by Constanza on December 12, 1997 at 16:44:55
] I have always wonder why Wickham took Lydia with him. Ok, he was force to leave Brighton on account of his debts, but why take her along? She had no money, no important connections, he did not love her (he was more interested in Lizzy for that matter).
] Of course she would have gone with him, she wanted so much to catch a husband and liked him as much as she liked anybody.
] Who do you think first though of eloping together? Can you imagine Wickham suggesting that to Lydia? Or perhaps he told her he was going to leave Brighton (he was never one to keep secrets) and she suggested her going with him.
Ok, here is another one of my pet theories that generally nobody agrees with. :-)
I think that Wickham was using Lydia to keep Darcy away from Elizabeth. When Wickham last saw Elizabeth, she told him that when she was at Rosings she had seen Darcy almost every day for three weeks and that he "improves on acquaintance". She also implied to him that she might know more about his relationship to Darcy than he would want her to know. Of course he did not know about the proposal or the letter so he might think that Darcy and Elizabeth might be seeing more of each other in the future and Darcy might eventually tell her everything. I think that he trusted Darcy not to reveal the truth about him to the general population but I don't think that he was so sure that Elizabeth would not spill the beans, expecially after he ran out on her. Anyway, I think that when the opportunity arose
for him to leave Brighton with Lydia, he looked at it as a chance to shame Elizabeth through her sister and thereby prevent Darcy from wanting to see her again.
What I don't know is whether he though of this on his own and seduced Lydia or if Lydia threw herself at him and it then occured to him that he could make use of her.
Bob S. ....Waiting for the salvos.... :-)
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