“Indeed,” said Richard. “So, we shall wait to get him alone. You will wish to confront him, I suppose.”
Did I wish that? Would that be a triumph for me, or would it only be some way for him to further injure me? I could just imagine his sitting in front of me, jeering me, telling me things about the way Elizabeth sighed under his touch or something horrific.
Lord knew, I kept imagining it.
Maybe I wished to simply shoot him from far off, maybe I didn’t wish for him to see it coming, maybe I wished it to be over.
Was that cowardice on my part?
I eyed my cousin and wondered what he would say to it.
“Perhaps we can get the truth from him,” said Richard.
“Oh, how?” I said. “No, he’s likely to simply twist everything up and lie through his teeth, and I shall never know which way is up. Likely, she is correct, and he has never touched her, and I shall spend the rest of my life seeking Wickham’s features on my own child’s face.”
“Monstrous,” muttered Richard.
“Even after I kill him, he still triumphs.” I thought of what Elizabeth had said. It was a scheme worthy of Iago, in the end, wasn’t it? A Shakesperean sort of tragic knot, no way out of it.
How had Iago tricked Othello into thinking Desdemona had been with Cassio, anyway? Something about a handkerchief, had it not been?
I did not even have that sort of evidence to sway my thinking. Perhaps it was better for him, easier to convince me with nothing but his say-so. If there had been something tangible—
Hmm.
Well, that was an interesting thought, was it not? I was beginning to have an idea.
I turned to Richard. “Maybe there is a way to get the truth from him.”
“Is there?” he said.
“Let me tell you what I’m thinking,” I said, and I began to explain.
I thought we’d have trouble convincing Wickham to come off with us into the dark wood, but I was wrong about that as well. I began to think that perhaps everything that was wrong with Wickham began and ended in the fact that he had no ability to think things through.
He did not think that things could ever go wrong for him and every time they did, he was shocked and horrified and behaved as if he’d had no notion such a thing could happen.
Perhaps he truly did not.
Perhaps he was simply blind to the future.
What other man would do the things he had done, really? A man who could see consequences coming would know better.
This was not an excuse for him, of course, but I thought it made it seem more likely he was lying. It was much easier to tell a lie than coax a woman into bed, after all, and if he did not have any thought to consequences, it was a lie he would readily tell, simply to get under my skin.
At any rate, there we were, all standing amongst the trees. Wickham had come easily enough, even going to procure a lamp from his tent so that we could see each other while we spoke. He chattered the whole way into the woods about how it was good that we’d seen the way through to give him his money.
“After all, you would not wish me to go out and spread stories, I suppose,” he said.
Well, there went my theory. He seemed quite capable of thinking of the consequences for me. Could he really be so blind as to think that everything would simply work out for him and only him? He was incredibly arrogant, I supposed.
“So, let us haggle it out, gentlemen,” he said, smiling at us, in the scant light of the lamp, which sat on the grass between us.
“I actually wished to speak to you of something else,” I said.
He raised his eyebrows. “Oh?”
“This is, erm, well…” I looked to Richard. “I had been sort of shocked by it, and too apprehensive to say a word to anyone, really, but then after you said what you said, sir, I realized that you would be in the unique position to give me your thoughts. I spoke to Colonel Fitzwilliam here and he agreed that I must take advantage.”
