Chapter Six
Elizabeth had walked half a block in silence with Miss Darcy when the younger woman exclaimed suddenly, “But you ought to hate me.”
“You and your brother seem to share a general expectation of arousing great disdain in others,” Elizabeth said with a little amusement. “Do you know where this tendency came from?”
That was rather like how Darcy had declared that henceforth he would only attend to his own conscience and not care for respectability. She rather suspected that he had always behaved in such a way. She respected this.
The sun glared at them and sweat started to trail down Elizabeth’s back before they’d gone two blocks.
As Miss Darcy made no reply to her, Elizabeth took the younger woman’s arm.
“If you think that I, as the offended wife, ought to be profoundly bothered by Mr. Wickham having paid court and made love to you, I must inform you that his previous misdeeds towards me—assisted by the substantial passage of time—make it so that I feel no jealousy.”
“It is my fault that he is dead,” Miss Darcy said in reply.
“You do sound like your brother.”
“If I had known. If I had not let him touch me. If I had not been such a fool. If I had not believed his lie that he had reconciled with Fitzwilliam. If I had not believed him when he said that we would marry. If I had not believed him when he said that we would be happy.”
“I am afraid that as much as you might wish to be despised due to your susceptibility to Mr. Wickham’s charms, I like myself despite having acted on that same susceptibility.”
Miss Darcy wrapped her arms around herself.
“He took my maidenhead! He must have known that you were alive. He lied to me. He…made me briefly feel as though I did not need to be a different, more confident person. And then, he shot my brother. He tried to kill Fitzwilliam. He wanted my brother to be dead, just because…why? Fitzwilliam never harmed him. I hate, hate, hate him.”
Elizabeth put an arm around the other woman, and Miss Darcy embraced her and sobbed.
Elizabeth rubbed the girl’s back. “There, there, there.”
Several persons passing by on cobblestoned streets looked at them sidelong, but fortunately none of them offered assistance.
“We should be almost to Scotland. I thought...I cannot even understand how I had been so stupid. And he shot Fitzwilliam. He shot first. He tried to kill my brother! And why—I can scarcely believe what he said to me and to Fitzwilliam when my brother found us in bed. I thought that he loved me. But he did not care anything about me.”
“No, he did not,” Elizabeth softly said. “Your brother told me what he said. It was most unkind of him, but he was very unhappy, I think.”
“He loved you. D-d-d-d...he loved you. Why could he not have also loved me?”
“Miss Darcy, I am so, so, so sad for you.”
“Just three days ago, I was happy. I never will be happy again. I should never be happy again.”
“Might I, as someone whose heart has been broken, and by the same man, say that it is quite likely that things will appear to you very differently in a few months.”
“And if Fitzwilliam dies? He is fevered. I know that fevers always kill people after they are injured.”
“An early fever is in fact a good sign.” Elizabeth took Miss Darcy’s arm and said, “We ought to reach the church quite soon. Mr. Darcy is not likely to die. His wound is already forming a laudable pus. But even if he does, it was Mr. Wickham who shot him.”
“If I hadn’t let him enjoy such intimacies, my brother never would have challenged him.”
Elizabeth did not contradict Miss Darcy upon this point, as it was one that could not be argued with.
“At least,” Miss Darcy said, with what Elizabeth rather suspected was a little satisfaction, “I can never be part of respectable society again. I am a wholly ruined woman. It is like what my brother said, I can only be guided by my conscience in the future, for no one will ever think well of me.”
When they entered the church, they found the vicar waiting. Mrs. Younge was also there, dressed all in black.
When Mrs. Younge turned to look at them, Miss Darcy gasped. “You!”
Mrs. Younge was clearly quite surprised to see Miss Darcy, and she said, “Is your brother dead?”
“No.”
“I wish he were.” Mrs. Younge asked Elizabeth, “Do you not know it is her fault that he is dead?”
“No,” Elizabeth replied, “it is you who killed him. Had you acted as you ought to have, had you ignored Mr. Wickham’s suggestion that you betray your charge, he would never have been shot.
If you must blame someone, I advise thinking ill of yourself.
It is the fashion, you know, to blame one’s own self. ”
Mrs. Younge appeared not amused.
They said no further words.
As the vicar, Mr. Harvey, said the words of the funeral service in the church, Miss Darcy’s gaze switched between the still handsome dead face in the casket, and Mrs. Younge’s weeping face.
Mrs. Younge moaned piteously when the lid of the coffin was shut.
Afterwards the body was carried out to a plot in the churchyard that had already been dug up. Georgiana came out with Elizabeth, as apparently Darcy’s statement that they should not worry about respectability in the future was sufficient justification for her to do so.
They all watched as the workmen lowered the coffin into Mr. Wickham’s final resting place. The sun beamed hotly. Seagulls circled in the sky. A soft breeze blew through Elizabeth’s dress. The sky was clear blue. Her husband had chosen a pretty day for his burial.
Elizabeth had no temptation to cry.
She left behind her sadness yesterday. Or perhaps she had chiefly grieved for her husband when he abandoned her.
As they walked back to the house on the Nelson Crescent, Miss Darcy said to Elizabeth, “She was in love with him too.”
“Mrs. Younge? Yes. She grieves Mr. Wickham the most out of all of us.”
Miss Darcy wrapped her arms around her chest. “I have been such a fool. I believed she loved me and had my interests at heart. How can I trust anyone?”
“It is a difficult problem,” Elizabeth agreed.
“I wish to be more like you,” Georgiana said. “You insist on being cheerful and useful, no matter what happens. That is what I ought to be like, not this useless, sodden wreck.”
“While I am flattered by this notion, I seek to be useful not out of virtue, but simply because sometimes…sometimes matters hurt, and I do not wish to think upon them.” Elizabeth pressed her lips together.
“I spoke truly when I said that I wished to change your brother’s bandage to distract myself. ”
“No, no. It is a virtue. And you do listen to your conscience, like Fitzwilliam said that I ought to do. If only I had listened to it before—but I know what you shall say, and you are right. I must think to the future, not the past.”
Neither of them said anything further until they reached the house. Then Miss Darcy turned to Elizabeth and said, “Thank you. You have been kind to me.”