“Ah, yes.” He picked the thick piece of paper up again and studied it. “Caroline Bingley, eh? — that right, Miss?”
“Yes.”
“All right, all right.” He picked up the book of common prayer again, and started reading out the service in a drone, pausing every so often to hiccup.
Every word made Caroline’s heart race faster. She hoped she would faint away and wake when the nightmare was over. Words, rolling words.
One after another.
The men in the room stared and snickered, Mrs. Younge sprawled on a red divan, one foot crossed over the other. Stale scent of spilled wine.
Always, Mr. Wickham’s hand near the gun.
“Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her—”
“Fuck’s sake. At last. Yes,” Wickham interrupted him.
The parson snickered and waved his finger in Wickham’s face. “No, no, no — you have to say, ‘I will’.”
“Damn you, man. I will.”
“I have to finish the question first. Otherwise it isn’t valid — don’t you already know all this? Hic.”
Caroline got a strong sense that Wickham wanted to kill his friend. But if he did so too quickly, then the marriage would not be valid.
The parson started from “Wilt thou” again.
This time at the proper point Wickham said, “I will.”
The clergyman looked at her, and he said, “Wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband—” Caroline could briefly not hear anything over the rushing in her ears. “Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honor, and keep him—”
She couldn’t. She couldn’t. She couldn’t.
But there was the gun, sitting there, next to Wickham’s hand. He’d shoot her.
He’d shoot her if she didn’t say “I will.”
The parson finished the question, and he looked at her expectantly.
Wickham glared at her.
Caroline felt as though every nerve was tense. Trembling.
“You need to say — hic — ‘I will’,” the parson prompted her.
“I—”
“What is that noise?”
The dingy man who sat by the door that led to the corridor outside looked around, interrupting them. He stood and frowned at the door reaching towards the handle to open it.
Crack!
The door was kicked open, splintering the wood around the latch.
It slammed into the man, knocking him backwards.
Time seemed to stop for Caroline.
