Chapter Fifteen
THE SAME DAY that Mr. Darcy departed, Elizabeth went to dinner at Pemberley.
Elizabeth was stunned when she was introduced to Miss Darcy, and Miss Darcy said, “Oh, yes, my brother has told me you are carrying my little niece or nephew.”
“He has?” said Elizabeth, who was sitting at the table with both of the Bingley sisters.
“He told you that?” said Caroline.
“He was in quite a rush, and he said I might be shocked and that I might have many questions, but that he had no time for them,” said Miss Darcy, with a little shrug.
“I told him that I was rather aware of how all that worked.” She gave Elizabeth a smile.
“You will come to see me tomorrow, in the afternoon, just the two of us. We will have lemon cakes, if that pleases you.”
“Yes, certainly,” said Elizabeth.
Miss Darcy nodded and changed the subject to something innocuous.
After dinner, back at the dower house, the Bingley sisters were quite in a flutter over the fact that Mr. Darcy had claimed the child to his sister.
“He does not mean to allow me to have it, then,” said Louisa, pacing.
“Well, perhaps that’s better anyway,” said Caroline. “You have expressed to me on a number of occasions that you wished I had not interfered. Just tell Mr. Hurst it’s Mr. Darcy’s child. He will not wish to stand in the way of that.”
“Yes, perhaps,” said Louisa.
Elizabeth did not appreciate having Mr. Darcy say this. She supposed he thought it was gallant or something of that nature, but he was not respecting her wishes, and he should not have run off and gone wherever he had gone and left her here like this, not when everything was so very fraught.
The Bingley sisters talked to each other, mostly ignoring her, and Elizabeth felt that was an improvement over whatever else they had been doing to her before.
She had the large bedchamber now. She had as much food as she liked.
She had a maid to see to her. She no longer had to empty her own chamberpot.
She supposed she had very little to complain about anymore, except for the fact that Mr. Darcy had taken control of her future without even consulting her.
But things were better, and it was down to him.
She could not deny that.
She went to bed.
The next day, she visited Miss Darcy for lemon cakes.
“I am ever so glad not to have to listen to Miss Bingley,” said Miss Darcy wryly. “She means well, and I know it, but she does talk incessantly about very boring things.”
Elizabeth could not help but smirk.
“Oh, apologies,” said Miss Darcy. “I know I am not meant to say such things. You will get such ideas of me. It is only that I have heard quite a lot about you from Fitz, and he says you value people who are forthright. Is that true?”
“Certainly,” said Elizabeth. “I am given to saying things that are true but a bit impolite myself, it is true. He really spoke of me to you?”
“Rather constantly, yes,” said Miss Darcy. “I don’t know if it was worse before he went to Rosings or after. He would spend far too much time going over all of the detriments of his marriage proposal and why you were entirely correct to have refused him.”
“Oh, dear,” said Elizabeth.
“Yes, and then he and I must dissect everything,” said Miss Darcy. “All of his behavior. All of yours. And he wished to know if there was any chance that he could somehow win you back. And I don’t know at what point, then, he was supposed to have gotten this babe on you.”
Elizabeth sighed.
“So, I’m not an idiot,” said Miss Darcy. “I don’t think it’s his.”
Elizabeth sighed again.
“That is answer enough,” said Miss Darcy. “How wretched. I suppose we must hope it’s a girl.”
Elizabeth licked her lips. “What are you saying? What does that matter, really?”
“Well, if the heir to Pemberley has no Darcy blood—
“He’s not going to marry me, Miss Darcy.”
“He has spoken of little else besides marrying you for some months, Miss Bennet. I assure you, he is.”
“He has already told me I am to be his mistress.”
“And if that were the case, he would not be introducing you to me.”
Elizabeth supposed that made sense. But it was madness.
She shook her head, trying to make anything make sense.
“Well, why would he do that? You must forgive me, Miss Darcy, but he told me a bit about you and Mr. Wickham, and so I shall tell you that the reason I am with child is down to that man. He would never let Mr. Wickham’s child be his heir. ”
Miss Darcy went entirely still. She was holding a tea cup and it began to quiver in the air.
“I am sorry,” said Elizabeth. “Perhaps I should not have mentioned him at all in front of you. I have to admit I have only a vague idea of what happened with you and that man.”
Miss Darcy managed to set down her tea cup. It clattered a bit against the saucer when she did. Then she folded her hands and placed them in her lap. “That does seem madness to me, Miss Bennet, considering things he said to me in the wake of my ordeal with Mr. Wickham.”
“What things?”
Miss Darcy looked down at her hands.
“Oh, forgive me,” said Elizabeth. “I suppose it is truly none of my affair. I did not come here to ask intrusive questions and bring back unpleasant memories for you.”
“He said that if I had been carrying Mr. Wickham’s child…
I think he used the word ‘issue,’ actually,” said Miss Darcy tightly, “that I should have no future whatsoever. He said everything would have been destroyed.” A pause.
“There were times, while I waited for my bleeding, that I thought that if it did not come, that I would simply go and drown myself in the sea.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “Oh, Miss Darcy.”
“It’s all right,” she said. “I don’t know if anything even happened, you know. Mr. Wickham said things. He said all manner of things, but…”
“You were asleep?” said Elizabeth softly.
Miss Darcy made a curt nod.
“So, this is a habit for him, then.”
“Is that what he did to you?” said Miss Darcy, and there was something in her voice, now, something that was thin and growing thinner. “While you were asleep?”
“He put something in my drink, I think,” said Elizabeth.
“Yes, I felt very sleepy,” said Miss Darcy. “He told me that I got very drunk and danced all over and begged him to help me to bed, but I don’t remember any of that, and no one else could confirm it either. Then, in the morning, he was there. He said that we would have to get married now.”
“And you wrote to your brother.”
“Straightaway,” said Miss Darcy, picking up her tea cup again.
“But I did bleed, and I did not have any memory of it, and we have all convinced ourselves that he made it up, that he did not even touch me, that I did get so drunk as to lose my memory, and that he simply took advantage of that fact. But if you… if he got you with child, then I think he likely…” She set the tea cup back down again.
“I am very sorry,” said Elizabeth. “I know what you must be feeling right now, the horror of it.”
Miss Darcy said nothing.
“It is the way it takes away your personhood, I think,” said Elizabeth. “How it makes you into a thing to have been used. How he has taken that away from you, treated you as if he has a right to you. It is horrid.”
“Just so.” Miss Darcy’s voice was not strong.
“Perhaps I should take my leave of you,” said Elizabeth.
“I would appreciate some time alone to gather myself, I think,” said Miss Darcy, raising her face to give Elizabeth a very serious, almost imperious expression, but it only served to emphasize how young she was, Lydia’s age, only sixteen.
If Elizabeth had not interfered in Brighton, it would have been Lydia, Elizabeth supposed. Well, with Lydia, Mr. Wickham would likely not even needed to have drugged her. She probably would have gone with him willingly.
But Elizabeth could not help but wonder if that wasn’t part of it for Mr. Wickham, if the element of removing agency from the woman didn’t gratify him in some dark way.
She would be bringing this man’s babe into the world, and she must hope that the child would not inherit that from Mr. Wickham. She must hope so, indeed.
She did not hear from Miss Darcy again, not that day, and dinner at Pemberley was canceled, in favor of having supper brought to them in the dower house, because Miss Darcy was not feeling well.
The Bingley sisters were beginning to speak of leaving.
Mrs. Hurst seemed well pleased to tell her husband that the child was Mr. Darcy’s and therefore she could not claim it, though Elizabeth still was not sure what Mr. Darcy’s plan was.
Could he think to marry her?
That was preposterous.
But if he did…
No, she must not dare think such a thing, must not allow herself to hope for it.
Elizabeth was not overly desirous of the Bingley sisters company, but she also did not feel as if she could give them her blessing to simply abscond from here and leave, washing their hands of this entire matter.
She said that Mr. Darcy had seemed very severe and that he did not seem to wish them to go, and this made Caroline seem to get quite nervous.
“Yes, we must stay until he comes back, I think. We do not wish to get on his bad side. Charles would not be pleased.”
And six days after he had left, Mr. Darcy returned.
Elizabeth heard word from her maid that he had come back, and she waited for him to summon her or for him to come to find her, but hours and hours passed and he did not.
Where had he been?
What had he done?
And what did he have planned for her?