Chapter Seventeen
ELIZABETH THOUGHT WICKHAM would come back.
Hadn’t Mr. Darcy said something like that at one point, that Wickham ran off often, but that he always came back?
But perhaps it was only that he always brought some other woman to Mr. Darcy’s attention, and there was no need to do that now.
Well.
Horrifyingly, she realized that someday, he could, in fact, do that, could bring her husband some strumpet, and the two of them might enjoy that woman together and leave her entirely out of it.
She questioned Mr. Darcy about such a thing, and he said he had no interest in touching another woman besides her for the rest of his life, though she could not say the same about him, could she?
Which deflated her entirely, and she did not even force him to promise that he would at least tell her if he and Wickham were back to their old tricks together, even if she was not involved. She, at the very least, wished to know.
But time passed, and Wickham did not return.
Every time she spoke of him to her husband, he seemed to take that same wounded stance with her, that she was not satisfied enough with him, with only him, and she stopped asking about the other man.
They returned to Meryton for the marriage of Jane and Mr. Bingley. Later, Elizabeth would find out that Wickham had gone back to the regiment, that he had been there, so close, and yet they had not seen him. But during that day, she was not aware of his whereabouts. They did not speak of him.
Jane seemed happy, and that was all that mattered to Elizabeth.
It was a letter from her sister Lydia that let her know that Wickham had returned to the regiment, and that he was in Brighton, for that was where the regiment had gone. Lydia had gone there as well, the guests of Colonel and Mrs. Forster.
Elizabeth thought that if she had been home, she would have counseled against sending Lydia off to a seaside town with a pack of officers and no chaperone to speak of, for Elizabeth had met Mrs. Forster, and she and Lydia were quite the pair.
Neither were particularly sensible, but put the two of them together and they were lacking any sense at all.
He is different, though, Lydia wrote. Not the charming Wickham you would remember. He will not say what has happened, but I think he has had his heart broken.
Soon enough, summer was breathing down their necks, and her husband did not think that they should stay in London for the summer and wished to retire to the country.
There was only one wrinkle to this, and that was that he wished also to bring his sister, but that Elizabeth had not yet met the girl.
Her husband had claimed it was only because of Wickham, but he still made no attempt to introduce them.
One day, having ascertained that Georgiana was a guest of the Hursts, Elizabeth took matters into her own hands and called on Mrs. Hurst. It was proper enough.
She was a married woman and she and Louisa had been introduced, after all.
The ensuing visit was rather strange, Elizabeth thought. Everyone was a bit stilted, and Georgiana herself seemed sort of miffed that her own brother had not come after her himself.
Elizabeth wished she could help the girl out, but her own relationship with her husband had grown rather strained.
When Wickham had been with them, they had been together, in Darcy’s bed, every night and often in the midst of the afternoon. But now, she only visited her husband there when he summoned her, which he would do with a note.
When she arrived, he would undress and pleasure her, bringing her to a crest with his fingers or even sometimes his mouth, for he had asked her to teach him how to please her there after Wickham had left, and then he would press into her, either face to face or sometimes from behind.
Sometimes she fell asleep in his bed, but often he would send her off to her own chamber, saying they’d sleep better separately, which was perhaps true, but it was lonely and cold in her bed.
Her bleeding came again just before they all went off to Pemberley together, Georgiana in tow.
If he’d been angry about her introducing herself to his sister, he had not let on, but neither had he apologized for being remiss in introducing them either.
The trip to Derbyshire took several days, and they were cooped up in a carriage all together, but her husband said little, and she would have gone quite out of her skull with madness if it were not for Georgiana, who was willing to converse with her a bit on the long journey.
Her sister-in-law was tall but graceful, with an unassuming air to her, often ducking her head down, often blushing, often trailing off as if she was not certain of her own statements or feelings.
She seemed a sweet girl. Conversing with her, she had a better understanding of Darcy’s ire in what Wickham had done.
Georgiana seemed easily led, Elizabeth had to admit.
They arrived at Pemberley and it was grand.
It was much larger than she had quite imagined, she supposed.
Yes, she knew her husband’s income, but she had not really realized what she had married into, what she was to be mistress of.
The grounds were vast, and there were ever so many paths for rambles in the mornings or afternoons, and she had dearly missed her long walks in the country.
The housekeeper, a woman named Mrs. Reynolds, was a dear old soul and she and Elizabeth took to each other immediately.
They spent their afternoons scheming together over dinners and decorations and other things that make a household run smoothly, and Mrs. Reynolds would often say that Elizabeth was just exactly what the master had needed, that he had chosen ever so wisely.
It was idyllic, truly.
She was not with child.
Her husband still sent for her, likely thrice a week, and he was diligent with trying to get one on her.
Once, even, her bleeding was late, though she said nothing of that, and she knew it had been the right way of it when it came only four days later. She wondered what it might have been like if Wickham had been there through it all, if he had been waiting his turn with her for all this time.
June passed away.
July was all bright sun and heady warm days under green leaves. She and Mrs. Reynolds complained together about the heat whilst drinking cold drinks with the windows open, but Elizabeth secretly loved it. There was nothing like summer, she thought, nothing so wondrous as the freedom of it.
She was not lonely. She had Georgiana for company and her husband was often off on his own, but he came down for dinner and spoke amiably to everyone.
She could not complain about their activity in the bedchamber, and truly, if she had not had instruction—if they had not both had instruction—from Mr. Wickham, she might have.
She lived in a massive estate in the country.
And furthermore, she was not one to dwell on things that pained her.
She dearly loved to laugh, and she was used to seeking out the things that pleased her in life and dwelling upon those.
So, she could not say that she mourned or pined, not truly.
This was not a bad life she had for herself here, not at all.
In early August, she had a letter from Mr. Wickham and she opened it with trembling hands, wondering what he might say to her.
But it was all about Lydia.
Wickham had discovered Lydia about to run off with an officer named Denny, he wrote, and he knew this Denny person, knew the man had every intention of using Lydia and likely abandoning her somewhere, ruined and alone.
So, Wickham had taken care of this issue by beating Denny senseless and sending Lydia off sulking.
Wickham wrote that he was now being punished within the regiment for whatever beating he’d given Denny. It must have been quite severe, Elizabeth supposed.
The purpose of the letter was not for her to worry about that, however, he said, it was for her to write to her family and tell them to send for Lydia and bring her home, that Brighton was no place for a girl like that.
Elizabeth had thought this when she had heard of it happening, of course. She would write to her father and mother, much good she assumed it would do, for both of them should have had the good sense not to send Lydia off in the first place.
She would have written back to Wickham, but his letter indicated that he had no idea where he would be next and not to put down anything in a letter that might endanger her, by which she knew he meant any declarations of love or anything of that nature.
She read the letter too often.
She kept it in a drawer in her bedside table and took it out at night.
The words began to disappear where it creased due to her reading it so often.
It wasn’t the words themselves, she supposed, it was just him.
She missed him, missed the way he changed the dynamic between her and her husband, missed his eagerness and his risk-taking, missed even the way he was always feeling so very sorry for himself.
“My George,” she often whispered, tracing the outline of the words he had written with his pen.
She told Mr. Darcy of the letter, of Lydia, and she did send a letter to her parents, who wrote back that Lydia was fine in Brighton, just fine.
Mr. Darcy said he would ride down there himself, collect her sister and deliver her back to the doorstep of Longbourn.
“Well, no,” said Elizabeth. “But perhaps we could invite her to stay with us for a time.”
“Of course,” said Mr. Darcy, though she could see he was not entirely pleased.
“Just a few weeks,” said Elizabeth. “She and Georgiana are the same age, you know.”
“You have my full agreement in the matter. I am quite amenable,” he said.
And it would always be this way, would it not? She must have her husband’s permission to invite her sister to her own house.
Well, no, she was overstating it. It must be worked out between them, she supposed, and he must have a say in it, for they both lived here.