“What things?”
Miss Darcy looked down at her hands.
“Oh, forgive me,” said Elizabeth. “I suppose it is truly none of my affair. I did not come here to ask intrusive questions and bring back unpleasant memories for you.”
“He said that if I had been carrying Mr. Wickham’s child… I think he used the word ‘issue,’ actually,” said Miss Darcy tightly, “that I should have no future whatsoever. He said everything would have been destroyed.” A pause. “There were times, while I waited for my bleeding, that I thought that if it did not come, that I would simply go and drown myself in the sea.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “Oh, Miss Darcy.”
“It’s all right,” she said. “I don’t know if anything even happened, you know. Mr. Wickham said things. He said all manner of things, but…”
“You were asleep?” said Elizabeth softly.
Miss Darcy made a curt nod.
“So, this is a habit for him, then.”
“Is that what he did to you?” said Miss Darcy, and there was something in her voice, now, something that was thin and growing thinner. “While you were asleep?”
“He put something in my drink, I think,” said Elizabeth.
“Yes, I felt very sleepy,” said Miss Darcy. “He told me that I got very drunk and danced all over and begged him to help me to bed, but I don’t remember any of that, and no one else couldconfirm it either. Then, in the morning, he was there. He said that we would have to get married now.”
“And you wrote to your brother.”
“Straightaway,” said Miss Darcy, picking up her tea cup again. “But I did bleed, and I did not have any memory of it, and we have all convinced ourselves that he made it up, that he did not even touch me, that I did get so drunk as to lose my memory, and that he simply took advantage of that fact. But if you… if he got you with child, then I think he likely…” She set the tea cup back down again.
“I am very sorry,” said Elizabeth. “I know what you must be feeling right now, the horror of it.”
Miss Darcy said nothing.
“It is the way it takes away your personhood, I think,” said Elizabeth. “How it makes you into a thing to have been used. How he has taken that away from you, treated you as if he has a right to you. It is horrid.”
“Just so.” Miss Darcy’s voice was not strong.
“Perhaps I should take my leave of you,” said Elizabeth.
“I would appreciate some time alone to gather myself, I think,” said Miss Darcy, raising her face to give Elizabeth a very serious, almost imperious expression, but it only served to emphasize how young she was, Lydia’s age, only sixteen.
If Elizabeth had not interfered in Brighton, it would have been Lydia, Elizabeth supposed. Well, with Lydia, Mr. Wickham would likely not even needed to have drugged her. She probably would have gone with him willingly.
But Elizabeth could not help but wonder if that wasn’t part of it for Mr. Wickham, if the element of removing agency from the woman didn’t gratify him in some dark way. She would be bringing this man’s babe into the world, and she must hope that the child would not inherit that from Mr. Wickham. She must hope so, indeed.
She did not hear from Miss Darcy again, not that day, and dinner at Pemberley was canceled, in favor of having supper brought to them in the dower house, because Miss Darcy was not feeling well.
The Bingley sisters were beginning to speak of leaving.
Mrs. Hurst seemed well pleased to tell her husband that the child was Mr. Darcy’s and therefore she could not claim it, though Elizabeth still was not sure what Mr. Darcy’s plan was.
Could he think to marry her?
That was preposterous.
But if he did…
No, she must not dare think such a thing, must not allow herself to hope for it.
Elizabeth was not overly desirous of the Bingley sisters company, but she also did not feel as if she could give them her blessing to simply abscond from here and leave, washing their hands of this entire matter. She said that Mr. Darcy had seemed very severe and that he did not seem to wish them to go, and this made Caroline seem to get quite nervous.
