Chapter Sixteen
A nighttime desire for a glass of water, one which Elizabeth did not acquire, was the source of her knowledge.
When she passed the door to the drawing room, Elizabeth heard Wickham’s impassioned groans, and Elizabeth smirked to herself and started to hurry past, thinking that it was quite ridiculous that they were doing that out of the bedroom.
She was astonished that Jane permitted this, whatever Wickham’s desires.
The moaning woman’s voice cried out, “Oh, Wicky.”
Not Jane’s voice.
A white-hot rage towards Wickham suddenly lit in her chest. It was like what she had experienced years before when she imagined that all the world wished her dead.
She wished to murder him.
Wickham moaned in completion while Wickham’s housekeeper let out muffled screams.
Jane was sleeping upstairs!
This was not the ordinary way of gentlemanly behavior.
Elizabeth clenched her jaw tight. She wished to throw the door open and scream at them. Instead, she retreated to her bedroom, past the door through which she could hear Jane’s soft little snores if she concentrated.
Wickham deserved to be stabbed, clawed, butchered.
This was her fault.
Why, why, why had she not told Jane?
And there was nothing to be done.
Jane was married to Wickham.
That had been an irrevocable decision.
The marriage vows declared it: So long as you both shall live.
Divorce was nearly impossible to obtain, and, so far as Elizabeth understood it, could only be based upon the infidelity of the woman, and never that of the man.
She’d done this to Jane.
Elizabeth felt a real horror at herself.
Was it due to jealousy about Fitzwilliam? Had she never forgiven Jane for how other people thought it would have been a good thing for her sister if Elizabeth had died?
She had let her sister marry a man who was not fit to clean the mud off her shoes. A man not fit to empty her chamber pot.
That morning when Sarah came up to dress Elizabeth, she sent her away declaring that she was ill with a headache and could not bear to see anyone.
As Jane and Wickham walked across to have their ordinary breakfast with Mr. Darcy, Elizabeth remained in the bedroom full of misery.
She thought about every kindness and consideration that Jane had ever shown her, and every time that she had proven unworthy of it.
By the time the clock struck eleven, Elizabeth had even decided that Jane’s constant insistence that she did not mind that Elizabeth would be a great burden had been a mark of wholly undeserved affection and love, rather than an obnoxious undervaluing of Elizabeth’s abilities.
The other half of her mind recounted every act of Wickham’s that suggested duplicity, ill nature, dishonesty, an excess of libidinous feelings, and hypocrisy. There were ample such cases.
After a while Elizabeth heard the front door open below, and she called for Sarah to dress her, and she was informed that Mr. Wickham had returned to the house, and that he was presently in the drawing room.
The drawing room.
The place he had defiled with his mistress.
Elizabeth impatiently let the servant clothe her, and then she hurried down to the drawing room with a full helping of anger in her soul.
As soon as she entered the room, Wickham’s smooth voice said to her, “Dear sister, I am glad to see you are better.”
He hurried over to her and took Elizabeth’s arm in that overly familiar and squeezing manner that he had.
Elizabeth wrenched her arm away and tried to slap him.
The hand went astray and Elizabeth thought it hit his chest rather than his face. “You vicious villain. You disgusting blackguard. You useless wastrel. You immoral, vile rake.”
Elizabeth hurled her hand in his general direction once more, hoping to strike the face.
Wickham grabbed her hand and squeezed it tightly enough that it hurt.
He said in an urbane tone, as though this was not the first time he had been treated to such a tirade by a woman, “And what has prompted this display of affection?”
Her chest was tight. White rage filled Elizabeth.
“In the drawing room! Have you no respect for my sister? Have you no honor? Have you no sense of what you owe your wife?”
Wickham saw no reason to not kiss Elizabeth’s hand as he held it—they were alone, and she could not become more angry at him. He laid wet lips on her knuckles and said, “My dear, I have no notion of what you mean.”
There was no fear yet, just anger. Elizabeth tried to jerk her hands out of Wickham’s grasp. His hold was too firm for her to do so.
“Submit Jones!” Elizabeth said. “Your mistress. The mistress you’ve kept these four years, and who you defiled your wife’s house with.
Dismiss her. I swear, I will tell everyone.
I will make certain that Mr. Darcy knows what sort of creature you are.
I—swear that you will not do anything of this sort again. Or—Lord!”
“Oh, I shall just tell Mr. Darcy that you have invented stories because you are in love with me,” Wickham said.
He enjoyed the way that her face was red with rage, and the way that the blind girl vibrated with anger. She was truly enraged.
He decided that now was the best chance, and that in any case there was nothing to be lost by adding this to the tale that she would give to others. He pulled her close as she tried to jerk away from him and forced her lips up so that he could kiss her and hold her body against his.
It was only when she found that she could not jerk her way out of his grasp as he did this that Elizabeth felt any fear. But she suppressed fear with anger. And when she’d jerked her head aside, she told him in a spitting voice, “Let me go, Wicky, or by God, I’ll have my revenge on you.”
“No, no, no. You must wish to know what it is like. That is why you came to me, talking about scandalous things. You want to experience it. Here in the drawing room, do you not? We will now.”
He forced another kiss on her.
There was a pit in Elizabeth’s stomach. She struggled to shove him aside, but he was too strong, too large. He pulled her deeper into the room.
Elizabeth decided that she would scream the next time she had a chance to take a full breath.
The door to the drawing room suddenly opened. With a shove Wickham pushed her away from him.
Elizabeth stumbled to the ground and fell heavily.
“Miss Elizabeth threw herself upon me,” Wickham said in cheerful sounding tones, “but you must not judge her so harshly.”
A familiar hand pulled Elizabeth to her feet, and in an intent voice, Fitzwilliam asked, “Lizzy, are you well?”
Suddenly she felt wholly safe. She was in fact safe. Elizabeth’s hands started to shake. She could barely stand. “F-f-fitzwilliam.”
“I am here. You are safe.” He put his arm around her. “Do not worry.”
“She came here,” Wickham said, “as soon as she knew that I was alone in the drawing room, and as soon as she had the chance, she tried to kiss me. Poor girl. But I would not let her. And—"
“Silence.” Fitzwilliam’s voice was sharp and commanding, much like Mr. Darcy’s on those rare occasions when he became angry.
Fitzwilliam started to lead Elizabeth out of the room.
Wickham said, “I cannot imagine what sort of man would ever be willing to marry such a woman if they knew about how she has behaved. I certainly would not. I do hope no one has heard anything of what she said or saw how she kissed me. It would be quite a scandal, would it not?”
“Wickham, speak whatever lies you feel a need to,” Fitzwilliam said. “They will not be believed.”
“I never lie. But what I say is likely to be believed. And if not, I—”
Fitzwilliam slammed the door to the drawing room behind Wickham.
He then pulled her along to the lower floor at a quick pace, and when she tripped on the stairs, he simply picked her up and carried her the rest of the way down and through the hallway, only setting her on her feet when they reached the vestibule with her coats.
He grabbed one of her coats from the stand and helped her push her arms through it. “Lizzy, you are trembling. Were you hurt? How far did—”
She threw her arms around Fitzwilliam and squeezed him as hard as she could. She sobbed. Elizabeth concentrated on his smell and the texture of his coat to rid herself of the memory of Wickham’s taste on her lips.
He put his arms around her softly and held her in place. He kissed the top of her head several times. “Lizzy. My dear Lizzy. You are safe.”
“He was so much stronger than me. I couldn’t wrench myself away.”
“You are safe. You are safe.”
He helped her sit down and fit her boots on. Even though Wickham was still in the house, Elizabeth now felt completely safe. After all, she was with Fitzwilliam.
They stepped out, and Fitzwilliam guided her across the freezing path. When they exited the trees, she had to step over the soft snow that had fallen the previous day.
“The world seems bright, is it?” Elizabeth asked.
Fitzwilliam said in reply. “Is that a question of philosophy, or about the sun?”
His tone said that he was shaken as well.
Elizabeth laughed and leaned against his shoulder. “I asked about the day.”
“The light glinting off the snow makes it painfully bright.”
“Don’t look directly at it,” Elizabeth said in a sententious voice. “You would not wish to go blind.”
He giggled and then kissed the top of her head again.
The tension in Elizabeth’s form let go in a shuddering gasp. “I don’t think he would have continued. I don’t believe that. Not if I continued to resist. And Sarah was downstairs. She would have heard. We were not alone in the house. I was about to scream. I would have been heard.”
“I hope so,” Fitzwilliam said softly.
“You do not believe any of what he said, about me throwing myself at him.”
“I know how you think of Wickham. The only thing you would throw at him is a punch.”
“I tried to slap him. Twice, but it did not work as I wished.”