Chapter Twenty #2
Old Wickham spoke up from the doorway. “Just appalling, truly, that such a thing could occur. You’d expect it in the fighting abroad, I think, but not here, in England.”
“You said,” George said to his father, “that you thought I must have made an enemy of someone. Stole his girl or something.”
“Sounds like you, Georgie,” said his father.
“Perhaps,” said Wickham, looking at Darcy. He swallowed. “Papa?”
“Yes, my son,” said old Wickham.
“Could you give Fitzwilliam and I the room?” said Wickham.
“Certainly,” said the old steward, chuckling. “Talk of whatever you need to talk of without me, then.” He left, shutting the door behind him.
Then, the old man gone, it was quiet.
Wickham surveyed him, still looking stricken.
Eventually, he grimaced, hand to his chest again.
It was a grimace of pain, Darcy realized.
Carefully, Wickham lowered himself back down onto the bed.
He let out several pained breaths as he gazed at the ceiling.
“I told not a soul about Georgiana, you know? And I had chances. All sorts of chances. But I kept it to myself. Why now, then, Fitz, hmm? Why did you do this now?”
“Do what?” said Darcy, who was not here to give Wickham information, but rather to get it, and he had obviously done a poor job with that thus far. Wickham had not known who shot him until Darcy arrived.
“You meant to kill me, clearly.” Wickham’s voice was thick. “I suppose I understand it.”
Darcy did not know what to say to that.
“Before her, before Georgiana, no one was ever the wiser,” he said. “I would just do it and leave them, and they would wake and have no notion why—”
“Wait a moment, what are you saying? How many women have you ravaged in this way, Wickham?”
“Ravaged?” Wickham coughed. “That’s hardly fair. They don’t mind it. It doesn’t hurt them. They aren’t aware.”
“You blackguard,” whispered Darcy.
“I suppose I haven’t admitted that I put the laudanum in her drink,” said Wickham. “I don’t think before I do it, you see. It’s as if it comes on me. Do you know how things seem like a very good idea sometimes, like a wildly pleasurable idea when you have a cockstand?”
“Good God,” muttered Darcy. “This is your excuse?”
“You must have experienced it,” said Wickham.
“Even if it’s only something you’re imagining while you’re stroking yourself.
How you don’t mind pushing it, how—when you are so close to the apex of your pleasure—you will reach for all manner of degradation, and then…
once it’s done… you feel ashamed of yourself? ”
Darcy shut his eyes, and he did not answer.
The frank fact of the matter was that yes, yes, he indeed did know what it was that Wickham spoke of.
He supposed everyone did, everyone found things arousing that were horrifying in some way.
Elizabeth rewarding him for killing Wickham, for instance, by lifting her skirts to him? That?
Appalling.
“That’s not an excuse,” he found himself saying, and his voice was not strong.
“It’s an explanation,” said Wickham quietly. “I really haven’t done it that often. Less than six times. Less than six women.”
“And you spend inside them and you think they don’t notice that they’ve been assailed, Wickham, truly? And you went on and on with me about how you could have gotten Georgiana with child. So, you’re quite aware of that aspect of it, I suppose.”
Wickham was quiet.
Darcy let out a breath. “All right, well, you’re not dead, are you? If you live, George, if you walk out of this, and if I find you have done this again—”
“You’ll kill me?”
Darcy ran a hand through his hair.
“Oh, heaven preserve me, it was her,” said Wickham with a little laugh.
“Elizabeth Bennet. God, she said, ‘Mr. Darcy improves upon acquaintance.’” His voice went high-pitched, imitating a female voice.
“You were with her at Rosings, and I knew you’d told her about what happened with Georgiana, I knew it, so I thought she’d be a bit more discerning when I said I would get her a drink, but she wasn’t. Maybe you didn’t tell her that part?”
Darcy let out a shaking breath. Well, good job, Fitz, you’ve given him all the information, and he truly knew nothing, so it’s such a very good thing that you came here, really.
Wickham’s laugh was a rasp. “But if you came to kill me because of her, that must mean you had a very strong attachment to her. You didn’t try to kill me with your own sister, after all.”
Darcy advanced on him. “Shall I say to your father that you were overcome, that you gasped and gasped, and I shook you and swore, and yelled—wonder why he didn’t hear? Shall I say all that after I cover your mouth and your nose with my hand right now?”
Wickham looked up at him, his lips bloodless, his countenance so very pale.
“I’m sorry, Fitzwilliam. Truly, the other women, they weren’t this sort.
A girl like Miss Bennet, it’s dangerous.
She woke up, you know. I thought her father would come after me.
I thought she’d tell Colonel Forster. I thought…
but she didn’t say anything. Maybe she woke and found herself enjoying it. ”
Darcy sprang forward, hand to the other man’s throat. He pinned Wickham to the bed, bringing up his other hand, encircling Wickham’s neck with both of his hands.
Wickham gurgled. “Stop, stop, I beg you. I am sorry. I really am sorry, I repent of it all now.”
Darcy tightened his hands until Wickham could no longer speak.
Wickham’s face was red. He was trying to fight, pushing at Darcy’s face, at his shoulders, struggling and straining.
Abruptly, Darcy let go of him. He backed all the way away.
Wickham coughed. He gasped for breath. He put both hands to his own neck, letting out a series of sobs. “Oh, God, oh, God, you stopped.”
Darcy did not know why he had stopped.
“Please, please, Fitzwilliam, please,” said Wickham, tears streaming down his face. “Please, I beg of you. I’m not saying I deserve it, I’m not saying I can defend it, I’m not saying any of that. If I’d known you cared that much about her, I would never have done it. I’m not so foolish.”
“That’s not true,” said Darcy, shaking his head at him. “Because you did it to Georgiana.”
Wickham’s face crumpled. Tears came more freely. He lay there, shoulders shaking as sobs racked him. “I wish I could take it back now. I wish like anything I could take it back. I don’t know why I thought to make you my enemy, Fitzwilliam. We used to be like brothers.”
“No,” said Darcy, shaking his head. “No, we did not.”
“You loved me, Fitz,” said Wickham. “And I loved you. Please, you must remember that you loved me once.”
“Not anymore,” said Darcy, and he left him there.
He made his way back to Pemberley, wondering how it was that with everything he did these days, the entire situation worsened.