Chapter Twelve #2
She should tell Jane. She should warn Jane that he had already done such things, so that she could know before she married him.
“Lizzy, why not?”
“I don’t think he is an honorable gentleman,” Elizabeth said slowly. “Not like Fitzwilliam.”
“Well, of course no one is like Fitzwilliam,” Georgiana replied with all the confidence in her brother that could be imagined. “But he can be quite nice. And he always says such sweet things to Jane. He is so gallant.”
“You cannot believe he means most of the nonsense he says,” Elizabeth replied.
“Oh, if only you could see him, you would see how there is always goodness in his looks.”
“I do not trust him, and I know him to have done things he should not have.”
She should tell Jane.
But then Jane would likely marry Wickham anyways, but she would have damaged her sister’s happiness, and right before the wedding. That wouldn’t be right. That wouldn’t be the sort of thing a kind sister would do.
“What did Wickham do?”
It was not Elizabeth’s place to tell Georgiana about such things.
Well-bred girls were supposed to know nothing about carnal relations, what a man ‘knowing a woman’ in the bible meant, or what it meant when someone ‘went into their wife’.
The story of Onan certainly should not be understood by any daughter of a gentleman.
Papa had thought differently about these matters, but he had been dead for a long time. Elizabeth did not know if she should tell Georgiana about them.
Had anyone told Jane about them? What did her sister know about what would happen with Wickham when she was married? She could not imagine Mr. Darcy explaining the marital act to her. Perhaps he had made Mrs. Reynolds talk to her?
Lord, it was wrong to let Jane marry him without knowing that he had experience with women. That he was a man who had seduced a maid in his patron’s house.
What if she ended the engagement?
Mr. Darcy would be extremely upset. But Elizabeth did not care about that. What mattered was this: Jane would still be free. And when Mr. Darcy died, he would not be able to stop his son from marrying who he wanted to.
Then Fitzwilliam would marry Jane.
“Lizzy,” Georgiana interrupted Elizabeth’s whirling thoughts. “What did Wickham do?”
“I do not know if it is that important…no, it isn’t something that matters. It doesn’t.”
“What was it?” Then, suddenly angry, Georgiana asked, “Did he play a mean trick on you?”
“No, no. Not that…I need to speak with Jane.”
“Oh, yes. Poor Jane. She’ll be surprised you do not want to live with her.”
“Yes,” Elizabeth replied. “I need to tell her that also.”
Georgiana and Elizabeth went to the drawing room to find Jane. Upon arriving she heard Mr. Darcy speaking to them, and then Wickham replying.
They were talking about the plans for the honeymoon. A week in the Lake District before they returned to Pemberley. “You must take a far longer trip after I am dead,” Mr. Darcy was saying. “Maybe even to Ireland.”
“I would like that,” Wickham said. “Every plan you have made for me has always turned out well.”
“Jane, might I speak to you upon a private matter?” Elizabeth asked.
It was at times like this that Elizabeth wished that she could see. She wished she knew how Jane looked at Wickham. She was sure she could tell her sister’s real sentiments about him, about herself, about everything if she could only see them and how they acted with each other.
Guessing from voices only told her so much.
There was a rustle as Jane rose. “Yes, of course.”
Jane took Elizabeth’s arm and guided her to the far end of the drawing room, where the air was colder due to a draft from one of the windows.
Now that she was here, Elizabeth could not speak.
“Is it some matter about your room at the dower house?” Jane offered when Elizabeth did not begin.
Of course, Wickham had engaged in intimate relations with other women. If Jane did not assume that he had, she would be happier if she did not know. It could make no difference.
“Elizabeth, what is it? Do tell me. Wickham and I will be so happy to have you with us. He will be happy to have you as a sister, I know he will.”
“Did he say that much? Did he say that he was eager to have me live with you both?”
“Of course he did. You know that he is everything that is eagerness to please.” The floor creaked as Jane shifted from foot to foot. “Lizzy, what is the matter? Do tell me.”
“I do not mean to live with you,” Elizabeth found herself saying. “Mr. Gardiner has given me permission to live with him and his wife—without Georgiana, and with Miss Wilson leaving, and since Fitzwilliam—since he shall be busy. I have no reason to remain.”
“But—”
The silence that followed was awful to Elizabeth’s nerves. She wished again that she could see Jane’s face. And she also wondered at herself. Why was it so difficult to speak about what she had heard Wickham doing so many years before.
She could not. She did not know if it was a desire to see the wedding happen to ensure that Fitzwilliam could not marry Jane, or because she was too shamed to talk about it, or if it was something else. But her voice would not speak the words.
“I am not a reason to remain?” Jane’s voice was mournful.
“You shall have Wickham,” Elizabeth replied.
For her part, Jane was shocked. She had known that Elizabeth was unhappy to leave Pemberley, but the idea that her sister might positively wish to avoid living with her was a wholly new notion.
“Surely you must know,” Jane said at last, “that I wish for you to live with me. I wish to be able to care for you. I will be happy. And it will not be such a burden to have you near, when I share it with George. You must see that caring for you is not more than I can bear. You are my sister. We belong together.”
“I don’t want to be cared for. Lord, how many times must I tell you, I need no particular care. You see how I live. Jane, I do not believe that I can be useful to you. And I now know that I am not needed at Pemberley at all. It is—to stay so close—it would be exquisitely painful.”
“It would be painful to stay with me?”
“No, this does not relate to you. No, it does. But no—Lord, I will not speak of it. But it is about—”
“Oh. Oh, I had not realized that you would mourn Mr. Darcy so. I understand. But would you not find greater comfort in remaining near him until he has died?”
Jane’s supposition startled Elizabeth. She opened and closed her mouth. This conversation had not gone as she had intended.
“No, Jane, my desire to leave relates in no way to Mr. Darcy.”
She had meant to tell her sister about Wickham being a wholly ordinary gentleman who seduced kitchen maids.
But telling her would not help Jane. She had only wished to tell Jane for the sake of keeping her own hands clean, and not to improve her sister’s wellbeing.
The thought had crossed her mind that if she told Jane it might prevent the wedding, and that Fitzwilliam might marry Jane.
Therefore, she must tell Jane to prove that she was willing to see the man she loved, in a wholly childish, foolish, and helpless infatuation, marry her sister rather than fail to tell her sister important information about the man that she was to marry.
But Jane could not be ignorant of Wickham’s character. She was not so stupid. Was she?
If she was truly ignorant of Wickham’s character, and believed him to be everything that was good, she would not believe Elizabeth’s accusations.
It did not matter what she said. The story was three years old. It would only make Jane unhappy. It was better to say nothing.
“Lizzy, tell me, is there something amiss between us? Is this like…like after everyone died, and you thought that I wished that you had died also? Lizzy, I promise you. I only wish for you to be happy.”
Elizabeth felt a sudden dreadful tiredness. “Oh, Jane, my dear Jane. I love you. I wish you to have every happiness in the world. I do. I hope you will be very happy, very merry, and all that is good. You will always be all that is good, and fate cannot be unkind to you.”
“Lizzy, I want you to be with me.”
“I will write to you, often, three times a week. And you will write in turn to me. Dear Jane, you will be happier alone with your husband.”
And, thought Elizabeth, I will be happier far from here.
She feared that Fitzwilliam would tell her about how he loved Jane, and then cry on her shoulder for that reason, and she would start to hope that he would come to love her, but he never would.
She was a scarred, blind girl of no fortune and with no valuable connections.
She must find her own way in life, and she would do that better in London.
“I will not,” Jane replied. “I wish for you to stay with me. At least…at least until we are settled. Perhaps until Mr. Darcy dies. Do stay for a time.”
“I ought not. I—”
“Please. I shall need you. Fitzwilliam shall need you. His grief will be great; you know that it will be. Please say that you shall stay; only promise to stay with me until then, and if you still do not like how we live, if you still wish to leave to go with Uncle Gardiner, I shall understand. But please, Lizzy, I don’t—I want you to be with me when I am first married.
I shall be more comfortable in that way.
I know I seldom ask you for anything, but please, be with me for a few months. ”
There was something about the way that Jane spoke which told Elizabeth that her sister wanted her because she would make Jane’s life better, rather than worse.
Any girl would prefer to have her sister with her when she was first married and setting up house, that was only natural.
If Elizbeth had not been blind, she would have thought nothing of it.
“I will stay, but only until after the funeral—Lord, so grim, so morbid, to bury Mr. Darcy already. After the funeral I shall write to Mr. Gardiner to make new arrangements.”
Jane burst forward and embraced Elizabeth. “Thank you, Lizzy, thank you!”
It deeply relieved Jane to have her sister stay with her.
She was certain that Elizabeth would decide to remain with her, because she could not imagine why Elizabeth would not.
But even if her sister insisted on going away to London—which was her right, even though it would hurt Jane—for her own sake, Jane was very happy that there would be one friendly face of a person who she knew she could depend on to care for her interests at the dower house when she moved into it with her husband.
It says much about the state of Jane’s mind at this time, and the ways in which this marriage was unfortunate, that in no way did she consider her prospective husband to be such a person.
After this, Elizabeth went to Georgiana to tell her that she would live with Jane for some additional months.
Even though the young girl had begun to count upon the idea of Elizabeth going south in the carriage with her, and them having an additional two days together as a result, Georgiana was bravely happy for the change.
“Fitzwilliam shall need you more than I shall. He would miss you terribly if we both were gone when he returns from Matlock. I will be forced into the school under all circumstances, and I do not mind reading the whole way in the carriage. You know that I do not get sick. And then you will be here for Christmas.”
Elizabeth promised to certainly remain until after Christmas, though from the speed of Mr. Darcy’s decline over the past weeks, Elizabeth rather thought that would involve a delay relative to her plan of leaving shortly after the funeral.
That night Elizabeth started up in bed in the dead of night. Perhaps some sound had woken her, but she could not make it out. She suddenly felt that she should still tell Jane about Mr. Wickham’s long-ago dalliance with Submit Jones. She should wake up Jane right now to tell her.
And then, once again Elizabeth tried to convince herself, with tolerable success, that this was for the best. Jane could not possibly want to hear about the sins of her soon to be husband, and that in any case it was no fit reason to make a giant to-do. The conversation would be awkward.
Every gentleman, except probably Fitzwilliam and Mr. Darcy, did the same sort of thing that Wickham had.
From things Elizabeth could vaguely remember Papa having hinted at (and those had been vague hints, so this was not a point upon which Elizabeth was confident), she believed that he had engaged in such dalliances in the years before he married Mama.
She refused to think worse of the memory of her Papa for such a reason, so it would be hypocritical to think worse of the reality of a Wickham.
It is unfortunate that Elizabeth did not connect her memory of Wickham’s behavior with Fitzwilliam’s desire to prevent the marriage. Had she done so, or had Fitzwilliam begged her to use her influence to dissuade Jane from marrying Mr. Wickham, she would have told Jane the tale.
Whether that would have made any difference is uncertain.
It was also unfortunate this night that Elizabeth had long since abandoned her old habits of walking the halls after all were asleep. If she had done so, she would have heard—at the exact same location—the sounds of Mr. Wickham engaged in intimate relations once more with Submit Jones.
There was something in the habits and mind of that young man. A thing that required he risk all, and that he indulge his desires to prove that he was a man who did as he wished and let the rest of the world be damned.
Thus, despite her anger at him for marrying, he once more successfully seduced the young woman—only two years older than himself—on the night before he was to enter wedded bliss with Jane Bennet.