“Well, though you were onlyhalfdead, you were scarcely well enough to have slept in there, even after you began to improve. You would only have felt guilty had you known.”
When were you planning on telling me?
“Never, if I could help it.”
Never. The word cut Darcy to the quick. She never intended to see him again once they were away from this place.
“I have been humiliated enough,” she said sharply. “Quite apart from the obvious indignities we have endured this week, you also think my relations are inferior, my sisters and mother are ridiculous, and that I am some sort of impertinent, headstrong creature who walks alone about the countryside for the simple pleasure of troubling as many people as may be, against every reasonable objection. It is plain from the way you have glowered at my unwashed hair and ill-fitting dress all week what your real opinion of me is. So yes, I was very happy for you to believe I was being at least alittleladylike beyond that door.”
“No, no, no, no, no!”Darcy eschewed the insipid gesture of an extended a finger and firmly shook his head, determined that she should know how wrong she was regardless of what it cost him, but she began speaking again.
“What a waste of time! After all your warnings against impropriety and credulity, I wandered with wilful ignorance directly into Mr Latimer’s path and proved your every reproof of me true. Had I been blind, I could not have been more wretchedly imperceptive. You were right—this is a truly unkind world.”
To Darcy’s utter mortification, she burst into tears. He observed her in wretched suspense, wanting nothing more than to take her into his arms, yet painfully aware he could not. Eventually, when he could watch her distress no longer, he went so far as to reach and very gently squeeze her hand to gain her attention.
“I wish I were not right. I wish it were not that sort of world.” His lips were too heavy to form words clearly; Elizabethfrowned at his mouth. He picked up the pen and concluded,
But it is. I know, because of what my own childhood friend did to my sister.
Her face fell. “Mr Wickham?”
He made the gesture for yes. She closed her eyes and looked pained, cementing his opinion of what her feelings for Wickham must be. Seeing it hurt even more than he expected. Hurt so much, it took his breath away. The pain spread like fire around his neck. The room abruptly shrank to a pinpoint before his eyes, and he dropped the pen to grip the edge of the table.
“What is the matter? Are you—oh no! You are bleeding again!”
“Oh,” he thought indistinctly.“Not Wickham’s fault then.”That made a change.
“What have you done?” Elizabeth said urgently, closer by than she had been a moment ago and fussing at his bandages. “Does it pain you?”
Darcy hardly knew. His neck had not hurt as much for a while now. Or, perhaps it was only that everything else had begun to hurt more. He blinked his vision clear, fumbled for the pen, and wrote,
I must tell you?—
“No!” she interrupted. “You can tell me whatever it is when you are better.”
I comprehend that you do not wish to hear ill of him, but?—
“It is not that! Look at you—you can barely sit in that chair! You must rest.”
That would not do. He had no confidence whatsoever that if he closed his eyes now, he would ever wake again, and then who would warn her? He fixed his eyes on her. “Please.”
She let out a long, silent breath and sat back in her chair, regarding him warily. “Very well.”
Good. Now he had only to find the words—and write them, with a hand that could scarcely hold a pen.
My father was Wickham's godfather. Supported him at school and Cambridge. Highest opinion of him. Favourite.
He tried to dip the pen in the ink but hit it on the side of the well and knocked it out of his grasp. It rolled across the table and fell onto the floor. He watched it, too absorbed with the effort of composing a coherent report to be able to think what to do about a lost pen. He continued to look as Elizabeth bent to retrieve it, dipped it in the ink, and placed it back in his hand, curling his fingers around it.
“Go on,” she said softly. “I am listening.”
Dear God, he loved her. If leaving this place meant never seeing her again, he wished the damned snow would never melt. Let it be winter forever.
“Sir?”
With an effort, he refocused his gaze. With an even greater effort, he recalled himself to his task.
My father hoped Wickham would go into the church. Recommended to me in his will that I provide for him in it, plus legacy of £1,000. Wickham resolved against taking orders. Took £3,000 in lieu ofpreferment & resigned all claim to assistance in the church.
