Elizabeth knocked at the door.
She thought about how she had knocked a few hours before on the door of the house the Darcys were staying at. Her mood and emotions had been very differentthen.
A woman of middle years, but who had excellent looks for her age came down. She dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Hello, what’s your business.”
“I am Mrs. George Wickham, and I’ve been informed that my husband had his lodgings here before he’d met his end.”
The woman looked at Elizabeth with stark amazement. “No, you are not.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. “I assure you, I am.” She picked up George again. “You may see the similarity in the face.”
The woman did study George, who studied her back, and then George smiled widely before he hid his face in Elizabeth’s chest.
“Just cuz he got a child on you, don’t mean you were married.”
“No,” Elizabeth replied tartly. “But just cuz we said our oaths in front of a blacksmith and two other witnesses in Gretna Green does mean we were married.”
The nasally voice of a woman from deeper in the building interrupted the conversation. “What is the matter, Sarah?”
A well-dressed woman whose face was red from half scrubbed tears came out to the hallway. She had a good face, and otherwise clear skin, and Elizabeth thought she had a thing about her coloring and general height that was similar to Elizabeth’s own, and that showed her as having that type of female beauty that Mr. Wickham had always evinced a particular fondness for.
The woman who had answered the door turned to her and said, “She says she’s Mrs. Wickham. Seems he wasn’t a widower after all.”
The other woman gasped and stared at first Elizabeth, and then George. “This is his son? This is George?”
Elizabeth shifted him to the other side. George hid his face in Elizabeth’s bosom.
“He has the exact same smile,” the woman said, perhaps with spite in the tone.
“I take it,” Elizabeth said, rather suspecting that this was particularly true, “that you were friends with my husband. Both of you. Did he leave anything behind that might be of interest to me? If it is a debt for the room, I’ve nothing at present to pay you with, and I will make no effort to pay for anything contracted after he abandoned me.”
The middle-aged woman who Elizabeth thought was a landlady cackled. “Oh, he paid me very well for the room. Mrs. Younge, here, might have her own sentiments on the matter. Not a widower at all.”
“So, the bitch wasn’t dead,” Mrs. Younge glared at Elizabeth. “But I know that you did not deserve him.”
This could only be replied to with a shrug. “Are you the one who was Miss Darcy’s companion?”
“Have you heard the story from that little girl?”
“In essentials. Butyourfeelings clearly were not tormented either by compunctions about arranging for your charge to be ruined by a gentleman. Nor did you cavil at permitting a gentleman who I suspect you had a particular interest in to cavort with another woman. But formypart I have already become quite used to the thought of Mr. Wickham’s unfaithfulness,so I shall merely ask again. Is there anything in your possession that was Mr. Wickham’s and which ought by right to go to his wife?”
“You drove him to this. I know that much from him. No wonder he lied about you having died. You should have been dead.”
“I confess,” Elizabeth said as she placed George on the pavement, “that I would be more angered than you ifIhad been lied to about such a matter.”
“That is because you did not understand him. You did not love him.” The woman stared with an ache like longing after George as he started to examine the leaves in the gutter.
Elizabeth shook out her sore arms. “Since you think the worst of me, I shall directly ask. Is there any money left of his?”
“You are the damned woman who despised him when he was not rich. He told me of how you loved to spend his money, but when he did not have any, you blamed him for it; you despised him. You could not love him if he was not rich, and you taught him that he only had worth if he could dump money upon you. But he was worth more. He had a beautiful soul.”
“I rather think,” Elizabeth said, “that a man who does not provide for his two children cannot be of much worth, no matter how beautiful his soul.”
Mrs. Younge snarled at Elizabeth.
The landlady laughed again. “I’d wager a guinea that every penny he’s spent in the last three months came from Mrs. Younge. It was not a good investment. He couldn’t have even married the chit.”
“Yes, well.” Elizabeth smiled. “I would have been shocked if therehadbeen money. But I felt obliged to ask. Mrs. Younge, I can hardly expect that you would lend tomeon such terms as you lent to my husband. But I hope that you will forgive me if I cannot make return to you for any arrears he may have accrued.” Elizabeth curtsied to them. “Come along, George. Come along.”
