“You are a horrible, horrible—”
“And then keep them close so that they come through midnight with me,” he said. “I have ever so many people to kill each morning, after all.”
“You really do not have to kill everyone,” I said.
“I’ve tried it other ways,” he said with a shrug. “Killing everyone turns out to be the least trouble.”
“Lizzy?” said Lydia.
I turned to my sister.
“Why does he keep saying things like that? That he is living the same day over and over? Why aren’t you reacting when he says that?”
“Never mind that, Lydia,” I said, shaking my head. “What’s important is that we keep you away from him.”
“Why?” he said. “What does it matter? She doesn’t remember it. I have taken her virtue at least twenty times, and it’s always the first time. She always bleeds.”
I got up from the table and stalked towards him. “How can you sit here and—”
“I’m only saying, Elizabeth, who is suffering here?” He gestured at Lydia. “Not her. She doesn’t even remember it.”
I turned back to look at Lydia, who was clutching her teacup, her eyes very wide. She looked as if she was frightened that someone was going to strike her.
I wanted to cry again.
“You, for instance,” he said. “You’re no better.”
I turned on him, aghast. “How could you possibly say that?”
“Well, one could say that when I shoot all these people, I am saving them from the misery of searching for you all day!”
“They are not miserable,” I said, glaring at him.
“Are they not? You are supposed to be here. You are not. They spend all day searching all over, speculating, worrying, and I can’t think—”
“It’s nothing the same,” I said, my voice breaking.
He shrugged. “Well, who shall weigh misery against other misery—”
“Don’t,” I said. “There is a reason that ravishment is a hanging offense and that… disappearing on people is not even considered a crime! It’snothingthe same.”
“So you say.” He picked up his toast and took a bite. He chewed, surveying me.
I put my hands on my hips. “You have turned this into a bloodbath, Mr. Wickham. You are a rapist and a murderer and a—”
“I’m just a madman, Lizzy,” he said, chewing, grinning at me. “Best do as I say or you’ll set me off.”
I stalked away from him and sat down next to Lydia, my heart racing. I was loath to admit that his words were unsettling me, because they had weight. True, Will and I had never harmed anyone, not physically, anyway. We had not gone about shooting people just to have peace and quiet. But we had done rather a great deal of theft, had we not? Much of it simply for our own amusement.
I recalled when I wished to stop tormenting the farmers, after all. I did not like the fact that in order for us to have merriment, we had to cause them strife.
Wickham was not entirely wrong, in truth.
For Will and I to leave Rosings was to doom every single person here to a day of terror and worry, looking for us, again and again. These people… were they real people?
If they were not, then Wickham was right. It was no crime to shoot them all.
But if they were, then… what sins did Will and I have to answer for?
