Elizabeth could not say she was surprised by this little speech. Mr. Wickham had always had a silver tongue. He had been quite good at spinning her a tale that made Mr. Darcy out as a very bad man. “Sorry, are you? Now that you are possibly on your deathbed, that wound in your chest infected?”
Wickham looked away. “Yes, I see why you would say that as well. It does seem awfully convenient.” He turned to Georgiana. “It is only that I believe nothing other than being on death’s door would have wrought this change in me. I don’t suppose I really thought of it from your perspectives before, as odd as that may sound.”
Elizabeth didn’t want him to have changed. She didn’t think he had, really.
“I have wrought suffering on others,” said Mr. Wickham. “And now, suffering has been wrought upon me. I am quite, quite pitiful now, you see.”
Elizabeth glowered at him. She did see, in fact.
“Yes,” said Georgiana, giving him a small smile. “Youarepitiful. Very pitiful.”
Wickham looked her over. “Well, I think this was all in God’s plan for me. If this had not happened to me, I might never have understood suffering.”
Elizabeth scoffed.
Georgiana scoffed.
Wickham licked his lips. “Does he know you’re here? Darcy, I mean. I can’t think he would know. I can’t think he would permit it. But you must not tell him, for he will blame me for it, and he has tried to kill me twice now.”
“Twice?” spoke up Georgiana. “Has he been back to see you here?”
“He did not tell you he had?” said Wickham. “For he was quite terrible, quite angry, and he wrapped his hands round my neck and he told me that if I survived, he would not be so merciful with me next time.”
“So, he wasn’t truly going to kill you, then,” said Georgiana, looking him over.
“He was!” said Wickham. “Well, he would, anyway.” He looked at Elizabeth. “You might have mentioned that you and he were so close, I must say. If I had known, I would not have trifled with you.”
“We were not close, not then,” said Elizabeth.
“I see,” said Wickham. “At any rate, I am ever so sorry, sorry to you both. Would you believe that it was not really truly even about you? I did it because I thought I could, and because it seemed exciting and transgressive and… and arousing, but I did not think about how it must make you feel, how you would feel as if I had simply made use of you, how you had no chance to say yea or nay to the enterprise. I see it now, though, which is something, is it not? So, you see, I repent to you both. I regret it. I am sorry.”
Elizabeth didn’t want his apologies. She wished he was being horrible, not throwing himself upon their mercy, not looking as if he might succumb to that gunshot wound yet, not behaving as if he were ever so pathetic.
Because, she realized, she hated him, and she did not want to think of him as anything other than hateable.
He was, after all. He was loathsome.
“I did not come here for apologies,” said Georgiana, and perhaps she wanted to hate him, too. “It doesn’t matter how sorry you are, anyway. It does not change what happened, how I have been altered, what you have taken from me.”
“Perhaps not,” said Wickham. “But I cannot take it back now. I cannot do anything about the past.”
“And it was not even about me?” said Georgiana.
“Obviously, it was not,” said Elizabeth, understanding that full well. “It was always about his own selfishness. He thought he was entitled to pleasure. He thought he would take it wherever he wished. He did not think that trespassing against us was wrong enough to stop him from doing that.”
“But it was,” said Wickham. “But I should have.”
“Shut up,” said Georgiana, sighing. She looked up at Elizabeth. “On second thought, I do not know why I wished to see him.”
“I should be happy to never see him again,” said Elizabeth.
“Let us go,” said Georgiana, and Elizabeth nodded. She turned sideways, and perhaps her profile gave him a view of her silhouette that gave it away, she could not be sure, but he let out a noise, a sort of wounded noise, and he sat up in the bed, reaching for her. “Miss Bennet,” he cried, “you are with child.”
Elizabeth looked at him, horrified that he had guessed it. She hesitated too long, before she said, “Of course not. Don’t you know it’s a wretchedly rude thing to say to a woman? I have simply eaten too many raspberry tarts, that is all.”
“I shall marry you,” said Mr. Wickham, who was struggling to get out of the bed. “That’s the least I could do, is it not? And I shall likely die two days hence, but at least the babe won’t be a bastard, and you’ll be a widow, and I think I must, really I must, after everything—”
“Never,” said Elizabeth in a lethal voice. “Never.” She put her hand to her belly. “This is not your babe.” She met his gaze.
