“Elizabeth…”
“I shall meet you in the hall.” she said and darted away with a wicked laugh.
Chapter 35
As to angels…
There was the word again, heavy and cumbersome in Georgiana’s mind. The depths were warm and comforting, sucking her back and down andin,but that word danced on the caustic surface.
Her brother had put it there, but not for her own sake. He called the woman an angel: the woman with a blue eye sparkling around her throat.
The angels in the Bible looked a little like that. Georgiana knew that they had not their own forms but took on ones that were comforting. Comforting, yes, but terrifying. She saw them in her nightmares, swooping and screaming over wretched shepherds by the light of a burning midnight star.
Such images always tore into the depths, making her childish imaginings crackle and crumble. There was no goodness left to look for. Colour was gone, and so too was the light. Angels, Georgiana knew, could not survive in the darkness.
But she could. Oh yes, she could survive. Damnably, painfully, she survived.
Oblivion would have been a blessing.
Georgiana Darcy had never had much cause to beg favours from God. In her sheltered, pampered life she had made only two heartfelt prayers. The first was that her dear childhood friend, Wickham, would see that she was now a grown woman. The last was that the shell he had left behind might slip quietly away.
It would only hurt a little.
Her brother would be glad that it was so easy and quick. Yes, she would be gone, but it would be a peaceful and beautiful death. He would mourn, and move on, and perhaps even forget. That would be fine.
God, it seemed, did not concur.
Darcythoughtthat she was gone. Georgiana saw it in his eyes, when he stared without hope into her own. She could not look back. Her vision blurred and shimmered and swam like a fever-dream. By the time she struggled to surface and focus her eyes, he was always gone. The hours had passed. It had been noon when he visited her, and now it was nighttime. She focused on the moon instead. She let herself slip back into the dappled eddies of night.
But she was stillthere.The waves did not make time pass any faster, nor make her unaware of her body. She knew that it hurt. She knew that she must be fed, and dressed, and changed like an infant when she messed herself. Humiliation was a distant foe, but oh yes, she wasthere.
Therefor every slow second of her imprisonment.There, beneath the waves and utterly alone.
My name is Elizabeth. I am here to love you.
Georgiana swam again to the surface. It was another well-meaning voice, but she knew their eyes would be empty. Theynever had the nerve to see her. It was too horrible to think that she was conscious, and so they would all rather pretend. Georgiana knew it, and she knew that Elizabeth would give up, just like all the others.
But… every day…everyday…
The things that Elizabeth said! The things that shedidn’tsay! A careful silence about Darcy, save for the unlikely fact that she was his wife. Georgiana lingered by the surface, listening attentively to every word. He had gone away again, only for a few weeks, but he was gone. He had forbidden Elizabeth from setting foot in this room.
I cannot stay long, dearest. I am not supposed to be here.
It was almost funny. Georgiana might have replied:I am not supposed to be here, either.
Darcy had forbidden even hiswifefrom visiting her. Did he think his sister was beyond help? Was sheembarrassing?
How dare he pretend that she didn’t exist?
It was the first vivid emotion that Georgiana had felt for months. Where before there were only the sighing waves, she felt the rough currents of anger pushing her to shore.
No wonder she hadn’t seen anyone else! Where was her cousin? Where was her aunt? Where wasanyoneapart from the awful Miss Crocker?
It had taken Elizabeth - a stranger! - breaking into her room for Georgiana to find out about even a shred of her brother’s life. Of hisrules.
Well,shedid not have to obey!
Except… she did. The water still swirled around her. Just because Georgiana looked for an island, did not mean that she knew how to swim.
