Catherine’s face was white, her jaw set. But Elizabeth was watching her eyes, and what she saw there was not merely the rigidity of a woman under siege. It was the look of a woman whose ground had shifted. The bastard child she had been so certain of had dissolved, and in its place was Wickham, whose name she had been saying for years, whose character she had warned George about long before anyone else in this family had been willing to see it.
The ghosts arrived then. Elizabeth felt them: Nana first, crackling with vindicated fury; then George, drawn perhaps by the sound of his own name in his sister’s mouth.
“You are not surprised,” Elizabeth said. It came out before she could stop it. “You heard the name Wickham and you were not surprised.”
Catherine looked at her. For a moment the mask slipped, and what was underneath was older, rawer, more complicated than spite.
“I told George,” Catherine said. Her voice was different now. Quieter. “I told him that boy would be his ruin. He would not listen. He said I did not understand. He said I was jealous of a motherless child, as though I could not recognise a predator when I saw one.”
George, by the window, closed his eyes.
Catherine drew a breath. “Then George died. Hawkins told me Wickham was at Pemberley when it happened. I have thought about that for six years, Fitzwilliam. Six years.”
The room went absolutely silent. Lord Matlock straightened at the fireplace. Darcy’s hands, flat on the desk, did not move.
“What exactly are you saying, Catherine?” Lord Matlock asked finally.
“I am saying I warned George. He did not listen, and he died. I am saying that Wickham was there. That I have never been easy about it.”
“Do you have evidence?” Darcy said. “Anything beyond a feeling?”
“If I had evidence, do you think I would have kept it to myself for six years?” Catherine’s voice rose. “No, Hawkins knew no more than that Wickham was here. But I have a feeling. I have always had a feeling. I told George he would live to regret his blind spot when it came to Wickham, and he died instead. I cannot prove that Wickham is anything worse than a seducer, a fortune hunter, a man with no honour. But I know what I know.”
Elizabeth watched the frustration move through the room. Catherine had given them exactly what Anne had hinted at: a suspicion, a conviction, a lifetime of being right about Wickham’s character. None of it was evidence they did not already have; that Wickham had been at Pemberley the day George died. None of it could be acted on. It was LadyCatherine’s certainty, which was as boundless as it was useless, because Lady Catherine was certain about everything, and being right this once did not make her word proof.
“You should have come to me,” Darcy said. “Years ago. You should have told me what you suspected, instead of nursing it in silence and continuing to spy on my household.”
“I was protecting this family. I went about it badly, I will grant you that.” It was as close to an apology as Catherine was capable of, and it cost her visibly. She stood. “I will not apologise for the instinct. Only for the method.”
“The method,” Lord Matlock said, his voice heavy with weariness, “was to plant a spy in your nephew’s house and deliver a poisoned accusation to his wife. That is not instinct, Catherine. That is malice dressed up as duty.”
Catherine turned on her heel and swept toward the door.
“We were not finished, sister!” Lord Matlock said crossly, and followed her out. Lady Matlock sighed, looked at Elizabeth with an expression that managed to convey both sympathy and resignation, went after them.
The door closed.
The study was quiet. Darcy stood behind his desk, both hands flat on its surface, his head bowed slightly. Elizabeth sat in her chair by the window and did not speak, because she could see that he was not finished thinking.
George stood at the window still, his back to the room. He had not moved since Catherine spoke his name. Nana watched him from the corner with an expression Elizabeth had never seen on her face: something almost gentle.
“She should tell him,” Nana said. “About the murder. He is ready.”
“Not yet.” George’s voice was rough. “Let him come to it himself.”
“He is coming to it. Look at him. He is thinking about the timing. About Wickham being here the night you died. He is almost there.”
“Then let him arrive.”
Darcy spoke. His voice was quiet, the anger spent, what remained something more careful.
“Elizabeth.”
“Yes?”
“My father learned about Wickham and Sally Wilson. He summoned Wickham to Pemberley. They dined together. By morning my father was dead, and Wickham rode away.” He lifted his head and looked at her. “I am beginning to wonder whether my father’s death was what the physician said it was.”
The ghosts fell silent.
