Chapter Two
Elizabeth walked hand in hand with her son down the long street. The boy was uncharacteristically silent.
A hot sun beat down on them, though there were hints of a storm coming on the horizon. The smell of sea air, and the cawing of gulls. Despite the summer heat, all was fresher and cooler than the summer stench of London walks.
About halfway, when the steeple of the church was clearly visible in the distance, George suddenly exclaimed, “So Mr. Darcy killed my father?”
Elizabeth pressed her lips together. She took in a breath. “Yes. It was in a duel. There is nothing...nothing to avenge. It was—”
“Because my father did something mean to Miss Georgie?”
“Yes. That was why.”
“I like Georgie,” George immediately chirped. “She is nice. But we are now going to see my father.”
The mind of a child. “He is dead. It is just the body.”
George looked at Elizabeth scornfully. “I know what dead is. I’m not ababylike Emily.”
“You won’t ever—George, I so wanted for you have a papa. You have been asking about your papa, and how other boys you played with had papas. But he is gone.”
This did not bother her son at all. Instead, he took off at a run down the street until he reached the next crossing, and Elizabeth hurried after him.
When they reached the church the vicar was absent, but his curate met them. He was a balding, spare man who looked to be about thirty, with a hunch to his back, and a prominent Adam’s apple. He was flipping through an old chapbook with a collection of religious songs when she arrived.
The clergyman evinced some surprise when Elizabeth applied to him as Mrs. Wickham. “Two of you?”
Lines of brown wooden pews. The altar. Stained glass windows. The heavy stones of the church kept the room relatively cool, despite it being midsummer.
“Has another woman claimed to be the deceased’s widow?” Elizabeth asked with grim amusement. She picked George up, as she did not wish to have him wandering about the pews, tearing at the altar’s decorations, or trying to draw with his finger on the stained-glass windows.
The vicar tugged at his white collar. “She perhaps never introduced herself. But from her manner, I assumed her to be bereaved in such a way.”
Wicky, Wicky, Wickham.
Elizabeth had, of course, assumed that he was consorting with other women while absent from her.
So, there was a bereaved woman hanging about his body. Odd. That was a blow. She had known. Why did it hurt? It made no sense.
She saw him again in her mind’s eye. Brilliant smiling eyes. That way he would look at her:My heart will always be yours.
“I would like,” Elizabeth said to the clergyman, “to see him one last time, and George ought to see his father again. He was not old enough for the memory to make any impression the last time he saw Mr. Wickham.”
“It is not a pretty thing to see. The wound is uncovered at present—let me call someone to—”
“I want to see it!” George immediately exclaimed, and he squirmed out of Elizabeth’s arms. He was too heavy for her to carry him for more than a minute if he did not support his own weight.
“Young gentleman, of course as a man you can bear up under the sight,” the man said to George. “But the delicate sensibilities of your mother, or any lady, would revolt from such a thing.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “I do not cringe from blood or ghastly wounds. I have seen them aplenty. Though perhaps I shall react differently, as he was my husband.”
“Madam,” the curate replied. “You must allow me to be your superior in understanding the delicate feelings of gentlewomen.”
Elizabeth glared at him. “Take me to my husband.”
“Very well—though if you faint,Ishall not be to blame.” They were led through the chapel to a room on the side. He said, “We plan to bury him tomorrow. It is impossible to wait in this weather. But he’ll have a prominent plot in the churchyard. That gentleman who shot him paid for all the rites, and to have him buried in a fine manner. I suppose that is the gentlemanly way to deal with one whom you killed. It seems that Mr. Wickham had no money whatsoever to pay for his remains—oh, but I forget. You are his wife.”
“I only know what the deplorable state of his finances was when heleftus.”
