Chapter Twenty-one #2
Louisa shrugged at them both. “I shall try to talk some sense into her. But you must realize, Elizabeth, that the only thing I can say to my husband to convince him not to be very angry with me is that the baby is Mr. Darcy’s.
Then, if Caroline speaks up, she’ll have him seeing it cannot be Mr. Darcy’s in only moments.
I shall be forced to agree that Mr. Darcy insists on marrying you, anyway, and there is simply no way to keep it quiet unless you appease my sister.
” She walked out, too, not waiting for a response.
Miss Darcy massaged her temples.
Elizabeth took a bite of food and chewed. She swallowed. “I am sorry to be such a bother and a problem, Miss Darcy.”
“Oh, call me Georgiana.”
“I know it’s not proper to dine with me, Georgiana,” said Elizabeth. “But I am very hungry.” She continued to eat.
“I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings,” said Georgiana. “It’s not your fault, you see. But Fitz has treated you like some wounded princess now that it’s you who have been sullied by George, and when it was me, he treated me as if I were tainted and untouchable.”
“You call him George?” said Elizabeth.
“I have known him since I was very small,” said Georgiana. “He was George to everyone then.” She picked up a glass and took a drink. “I don’t suppose you have any interest in seeing him again?”
Elizabeth set down her fork. “I don’t think so, no.”
“That’s a pity,” said Georgiana. “I should like to see him myself, but I don’t wish to go alone, and I certainly can’t have Fitz there.”
“What do you want to see him for?” said Elizabeth.
“I know not, exactly, only that I feel I would like it,” said Georgiana. “Fitz says he is bound to his bed. I daresay I should have nothing to fear.”
Elizabeth eyed the other woman. Did she wish to see him? Oddly, perhaps she did, and she could not say why either. Perhaps she wished to rage at him. Or to sob at him, to make him watch her sob. Or perhaps to hurt him. She picked up her fork. “All right. I shall accompany you.”
“Truly?” said Georgiana, surprised but pleased. “Well, that’s marvelous, then. How about this evening, after dinner?”
“So soon?” said Elizabeth.
“Well, I think my brother intends to take you off to Scotland to marry you tomorrow,” said Georgiana. “If we intend to go, we must make haste.”
Elizabeth supposed this was true.
ELIZABETH AND GEORGIANA were shown into Mr. Wickham’s bedchamber in the cottage by his father himself, who spoke fondly to Georgiana, as if she were his own daughter.
Wickham was sleeping.
He snored softly, lying on his pillow, his face pasty. His shirt was open and the wound on his chest was bandaged, but Elizabeth could see that it was very red and swollen, little tendrils of redness going out from it, reaching out into his skin.
He might die yet, she realized. That wound did not look good.
Georgiana and the elder Wickham spoke in gentle tones at the foot of the bed until the young Wickham awoke suddenly. When he saw the both of them, his eyes widened and he cowered under the covers, shivering. “Go away, Papa,” he gasped out.
“Well, he is fond of dismissing me,” said the elder Mr. Wickham, amused. “I am not going anywhere, George, you know. I am going to be here with you.”
Wickham’s eyes sought out his father. “No, Papa, I don’t wish you to hear this.”
And so they were all alone soon enough. Elizabeth and Georgiana stood at the foot of the bed, looking down on the man, who was shivering a little, his hair pasty with sweat against his brow.
“You are angry with me,” he said, looking back and forth between them.
“You would be, of course. I am sorry for it.” A long pause.
“It’s pointless, I suppose, to bother with an apology.
What does it matter? As if you really could forgive me.
As if it’s a thing that can be repented of. As if there’s a way to make amends.”
Elizabeth could not say she was surprised by this little speech. Mr. Wickham had always had a silver tongue. He had been quite good at spinning her a tale that made Mr. Darcy out as a very bad man. “Sorry, are you? Now that you are possibly on your deathbed, that wound in your chest infected?”
Wickham looked away. “Yes, I see why you would say that as well. It does seem awfully convenient.” He turned to Georgiana.
“It is only that I believe nothing other than being on death’s door would have wrought this change in me.
I don’t suppose I really thought of it from your perspectives before, as odd as that may sound. ”
Elizabeth didn’t want him to have changed. She didn’t think he had, really.
“I have wrought suffering on others,” said Mr. Wickham. “And now, suffering has been wrought upon me. I am quite, quite pitiful now, you see.”
Elizabeth glowered at him. She did see, in fact.
“Yes,” said Georgiana, giving him a small smile. “You are pitiful. Very pitiful.”
Wickham looked her over. “Well, I think this was all in God’s plan for me. If this had not happened to me, I might never have understood suffering.”
Elizabeth scoffed.
Georgiana scoffed.
Wickham licked his lips. “Does he know you’re here? Darcy, I mean. I can’t think he would know. I can’t think he would permit it. But you must not tell him, for he will blame me for it, and he has tried to kill me twice now.”
“Twice?” spoke up Georgiana. “Has he been back to see you here?”
“He did not tell you he had?” said Wickham. “For he was quite terrible, quite angry, and he wrapped his hands round my neck and he told me that if I survived, he would not be so merciful with me next time.”
“So, he wasn’t truly going to kill you, then,” said Georgiana, looking him over.
“He was!” said Wickham. “Well, he would, anyway.” He looked at Elizabeth. “You might have mentioned that you and he were so close, I must say. If I had known, I would not have trifled with you.”
“We were not close, not then,” said Elizabeth.
“I see,” said Wickham. “At any rate, I am ever so sorry, sorry to you both. Would you believe that it was not really truly even about you? I did it because I thought I could, and because it seemed exciting and transgressive and… and arousing, but I did not think about how it must make you feel, how you would feel as if I had simply made use of you, how you had no chance to say yea or nay to the enterprise. I see it now, though, which is something, is it not? So, you see, I repent to you both. I regret it. I am sorry.”
Elizabeth didn’t want his apologies. She wished he was being horrible, not throwing himself upon their mercy, not looking as if he might succumb to that gunshot wound yet, not behaving as if he were ever so pathetic.
Because, she realized, she hated him, and she did not want to think of him as anything other than hateable.
He was, after all. He was loathsome.
“I did not come here for apologies,” said Georgiana, and perhaps she wanted to hate him, too. “It doesn’t matter how sorry you are, anyway. It does not change what happened, how I have been altered, what you have taken from me.”
“Perhaps not,” said Wickham. “But I cannot take it back now. I cannot do anything about the past.”