“Then I am surprised,” Elizabeth returned, “that you torment yourself with such guilt, for you acted as the executor of the law which you think ought to be.”
“No—I…I am so unsettled. So, torn. Truly, at present, and on consideration, I do not think I would hang any man, for any cause. Let them be imprisoned or transported, but it is God’s duty to end life, not man’s." His face became pained. He looked at his sister. “Georgiana, you must not forgive me. I failed you. I did not protect you. I did not teach you right. No, I barely taught you at all. It was those who I hired to teach you. And they failed, which is my failure. I do not know—even though you thought you were to marry, you should have known to not do such a thing with him. Not until it was solemnized.”
“I know,” his sister said quietly. “I sinned, and the result is that you are gunshot, and Wickham is dead. The Lord has punished me.”
“Let us not lay the blame upon the Good Lord, in this matter,” Elizabeth said standing, as Emily was hungry and begging to be fed from the breast. “He lets us shift about on earth mostly as we will. Things happened, and what matters is that we find a way to be useful now.”
Elizabeth returned at about the same point that Sally arrived with bread rolls, ham, a basket full of boiled eggs, and various pastries.
The food was handed round, and Emily was delighted as she began to munch at her pastry, and George ran around the table six times while waving his own about before Elizabeth thought he might be ready to listen when she ordered him to sit down and calmly eat his food like a gentleman rather than a savage.
When he did sit down he asked if he could go to the funeral too.
“Why do you wish to come?” Elizabeth asked, having a strong suspicion about the answer.
“I wanna see how the hole on the back is bigger than the front again. I wanna stick my fingers in it. He wasmypapa, so I really should get to. Pleeeease, Mama.”
“The body will be already dressed, so you would not be able to see the wound.” Elizabeth replied, “And soon after they will close the coffin. There will be a long ceremony, where the vicar will speak over the coffin, and—”
“You mean like on Sunday morning!” George said with some horror. This was what Elizabeth had both hoped and expected. “No. Don’t wanna go. Not then.” And suddenly remembering his manners, George turned, bowed like a tiny gentleman, and said, “Mr. Darcy, you would not mind if I stayed.”
Mr. Darcy replied, “I shall even read you another story fromMother Goose.”
“Hurrah!”
With a sigh, Mr. Darcy then turned to Georgiana. “Do you truly wish to see him buried?”
“I do not wish to make you unhappy,” the girl replied in her sad voice, not looking up at all. “More unhappy.”
Darcy stared at her. “Why do you wish to attend this burial?”
Miss Darcy stared at her hands. “I loved him. I thought I loved him...he lied to me. I don’t know. I don’t. But I wish to see his face. I’ll always wonder...remember how you told me about when Mama died, and how because you were at school and the weather was hot they buried her before you were home, so you never were able to see the body, so you could not really believe that she was dead. If I see it, perhaps…perhaps it will feel as though he is really dead.”
Miss Darcy looked down again. Mr. Darcy studied her for a while. “I do not know what is best but shall respect your wishes in this case.”
“Oh, thank you!” Miss Darcy said. “I promise that I will only go to the church and not watch them bury him.”
“Why would that matter in any way?” Mr. Darcy asked in a tone of confusion.
“Is it not wholly shocking and the sort of thing that the lower orders do, to accompany the coffin to see it buried? Where all the workmen and gravediggers are? I thought you would not wish me to do such a thing.”
“We cannot be ordinary persons anymore.” Mr. Darcy said, “We ought not try to be. It would be wrong. Such a thing as we have done—from henceforth, I think we can only act as our consciences demand. Asking howit shall appear, what our connections will think, whether it is respectable or not—had we cared so much for that, neither of us would have acted as we did.”
Elizabeth did not mention that, at least amongst many circles, Darcy’s actions were wholly respectable.Wickhamhimself would have thought the better of his childhood companion for having shot a man in a duel.
It appeared to Elizabeth that Miss Darcy had been most struck by something in this speech of Darcy’s, and she maintained a quiet and thoughtful expression until they left.
When Sally came back into the room with poorly cooked coffee to refill their cups, Elizabeth asked her with concern, “Have you any experience managing children?”
The young maid’s eyes lit up. “Oh, yes ma’am. My parents have five of ‘em younger than me. I loved to watch the babies.”
That sounded promising enough, and when Emily finished eating, Elizabeth asked Sally to look after her while she was staying in the room. Quickly enough the young woman proved that her deficiencies as a servant did not extend to an inability to entertain young children.
Darcy stared longingly at the food as they all ate, but Elizabeth kept him to just dried bread. “The problem,” she explained to Darcy, “as I understand it, is that having less blood in your body is beneficial for the healing process, because it prevents you from becoming overexcited. You lost some blood when the bullet struck, and I imagine the doctor may have bled you also.”
“The actual problem,” Darcy replied, “as I understand it, is that doctors know very little.”
Elizabeth laughed, and Mr. Darcy smiled as she did. “You would not wish to risk the possibility that this was one of the few cases where they do know what they are about.”
