“Lizzy, torture? Really?”
“Well… you yourself said she hates us.”
“But this is not something done out of hate,” said Jane. “She has accepted we are part of the family. Your babe will be her niece or nephew, and it is a good solution. Your babe does not leave the family.”
“But it does. They are not my family.”
“Well, they are to be mine. I think it is a good gesture. I think it brings us all together. As for Mr. Darcy, you did, in fact, refuse him.”
Elizabeth sighed. She did refuse him.
“And, anyway, perhaps he won’t even be in Derbyshire.”
“Perhaps not,” said Elizabeth, nodding. She shrugged. “Perhaps he will marry his sickly cousin Anne de Bourgh.”Perhaps he will be so dolorous at the lack of me, he will settle for that,she thought, and then she felt ashamed of herself. Was she better than Caroline? Was that not a cruel thing to think of poor Miss de Bourgh?
“Lizzy, I know this will not be easy for you, but, well, it is perhaps fitting that you have some suffering.”
“Of course,” said Elizabeth, dully sarcastic, “for I brought this on my own head.”
“I know you wish to stick to that laudanum story,” said Jane. “But you said it was Mr. Wickham, did you not? And you sought his company out last fall and winter. You were ever so hoping he would dance with you at the Netherfield Ball, were you not? You were devastated when he didn’t arrive? Everyone thought you and he were as good as engaged when word came that he was engaged to Miss King.”
“Yes, but after Mr. Darcy’s letter, I knew that Mr. Wickham was a blackguard, and you know that, too. I told you what he did to Miss Darcy, who was but fifteen, so I cannot see why you would think to blame me and not Mr. Wickham.”
“It is an entirely different thing, planning an elopement and drugging a woman’s drink in order to have your way with her.”
“I don’t know that it is,” said Elizabeth. “I think one leads to the other. One is the shadow of the next thing. One is the way one grows accustomed to becoming more and more bold. The thing about Mr. Wickham is that he thinks he is entitled to things he is not actually entitled to. Riches, a position as being a gentleman—he is the son of a servant, Jane—Miss Darcy’s dowry, my body. It is entirely in line with everything he does, in fact.”
“But, by your own admission, if you tell anyone that it was him, no one will believe you were not willing.”
“But no one else knows the extent of his villainy! And I cannot tell anyone about it. Mr. Darcy told me what he did of his sister in confidence. I must keep it to myself. Besides, if I were to offer that as an excuse, it would sound as if I were trying to make up things to bolster my claim against him.”
“Quite,” said Jane.
“You don’t think I made it up,” said Elizabeth.
“You never showed me the letter.”
No, because it had that whole section about how he’d separated Bingley from Jane, and how he had thought Jane was just shy, and Elizabeth had decided that it was cruel to tell Jane—
Well, when had she gotten in the habit of keeping things from her sister in order to spare her feelings?
Perhaps this close sisterhood between them had never been nearly as close as Elizabeth had thought it was. Perhaps Elizabeth had treated Jane like a porcelain doll, easily shattered, and Jane had been kind only because she had never been given anything difficult to deal with. Perhaps Jane had shattered when she felt the first hint of anything painful. Perhaps Jane had been protected all her life, by everyone, to preserve her goodness.
But perhaps she wasn’t that good at all if her goodness needed such care to preserve it.
“I have it,” said Elizabeth. “I shall show it to you now.” She got up and went to look for it amongst her things.
“It really doesn’t matter,” said Jane.
“Oh, it does,” said Elizabeth. “I will not be accused of making up such lies.” She found the letter, for she knew just where it was, for she looked at Mr. Darcy’s even handwriting too often, thinking of all that she had lost when she refused him, thinking of that more and more as every aspect of her existence worsened by the day.
That other life, the one where she was Mr. Darcy’s wife, it stood as a shiny contrast to the life she currently had now, and as the contrast deepened, so did the way she longed for it.
She thrust it at Jane.
Jane began to read. She looked up at Elizabeth.
“Well, you see why I did not show you,” said Elizabeth.
