I did not sit outside his door. Instead, I went downstairs so that I was in view of the staircase he must come down if he somehow managed to get out of the room. I did not think he would do such a thing, of course. I had to admit to myself, however, that I could not spend my entire life sitting outside Wickham’s room. Neither could I live a life wherein I imprisoned this man forever and ever, I supposed.
It might be kinder to kill him each morning.
I did not know.
I found it hard to feel compassion for him when he had been so awful to Lydia, when he had taunted me, when he was so very horrid.
Eventually, he began banging on the door.
I went up to him to speak to him. “I’m not letting you out,” I told him.
“I’m hungry,” he said.
“Well, I don’t think you’re going to starve,” I said. “You will reset at midnight just as you were.”
“You have to feed me, Elizabeth,” he said, incensed. “You’re the one going on about human decency and compassion and about causing others to suffer.”
“I suppose,” I said. “We shall find some way to feed you, Mr. Wickham. But right now, my husband is gone up to Rosings, and I am not opening the door on you. You might hurt me, I think.”
He scoffed.
“I’m sorry, but I shall not be moved in this,” I said and made to go back down the stairs, away from him.
“He’s not your husband,” he said.
This stopped me. It shouldn’t have. I shouldn’t have argued with him about it. “He is, though. We have a closer bond than I wager many couples have. We have been through quite a lot together.”
“Did you have a ceremony?”
“Well… not exactly, I suppose, but it would have been inconvenient, and anyway, I was only resisting marrying him out of this silly idea that it would limit me in some way. It would not, of course, and I suppose I kept thinking that this, this life, living Thursday over and over, that this was somehow freedom.” I sighed. “But it is only a prison, and I see that now.”
“So, what did you do, just declare yourselves married, then?”
“No,” I said, too quickly.
He laughed on the other side of the door, an ugly laugh. “Oh, I see. I see what you did to mark the occasion. You’re quite a hussy, in the end, aren’t you, Lizzy? Just like your sister.”
I slammed my palm into the door, wanting to swear at him. “Good afternoon, Mr. Wickham,” I said instead, in a furious voice.
I hurried down the stairs and away from him.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
fitzwilliam
I was endeavoring to find an opportunity to leave. Being here, whilst everyone was in a state of mourning and panic over my cousin, who was not, in fact, truly dead, was grating against my nerves.
I wished to be back with Elizabeth, not least because she’d been left alone with that fiend.
As I was checking the pocket watch—the damnable thing, which I always had with me—for the time, to see how long I had been gone from her, my aunt abruptly got to her feet across the room. “Fitzwilliam Darcy!” she cried in a warbling voice, very loud. “With me, this instant.”
I sighed. “Madam, may I appeal to you to wait until later for this?”
“No, it can’t wait.” She was severe. She was striding across the room, even as she spoke. When she noticed I was not moving from the spot, she cried, “This instant!” and kept walking.
I sighed again, and decided I might as well see what it was she wanted. I accompanied her into the hallway.
“You have the watch,” she said in a tight and tremulous voice. “When I found it, when I knew was no longer moulderingat the bottom of the lake, I should have realized it would happen sooner or later, that someone would find it. Oh, heaven help us both, Fitzwilliam!”
