Page 72 of Elizabeth and Caroline
If she had expected recriminations for her actions from her husband, she was relieved that he had none for her. He only blamed himself. He felt abundantly stupid not to have thought of the boarding house, and he kept saying that if he had only thought of it, he could have gone straight there in the morning, and everyone would have been saved so muchheartache and effort that day.
He was tired, though, smelling of horse and sweat and the road. She stroked his arm and his hair and soothed him, and he said that he was the luckiest man in the world to have a wife such as her.
She had done it again, she supposed, assumed that her husband would take her to task, but he did not do that, it seemed. It was because he trusted her. He knew her heart and her intentions, and he thought the best of her.
“Perhaps I put us needlessly in danger,” she finally allowed. “I am sorry for that.”
“Well, what else could you have done at that point?” he said. “You could not wait for my return, and it would not be like you to sit about waiting for someone else to take action when you could do it yourself. And, in the end, I think it was likely better. If I had burst in there and threatened him, it may have turned quite ugly. Your approach, talking to him, getting him to give the game up, it was likely the better way of it.”
“I didn’t have an approach,” she said. “And he is simply gone now, and we don’t know where he is. He has shown that he is quite willing to go after your sister, and he seems to have some fascination with me as well. I’d like to say that I made some impression on him, that he saw the error of his ways, but I am not sure he is quite capable of that. He seems twisted in some way, damaged inside.”
Mr. Darcy raised his head to look at her. “Ah, he told you, did he? About my father?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “We don’t have to speak of it.”
“I don’t know either,” Mr. Darcy muttered. There was a long pause. “He isn’t entirely wrong, I suppose. When we were quite young, I think Iwasjealous.”
“Quite young?” she said. “How young was he?”
“It probably started when he was seven years of age,” said Mr. Darcy. “And I don’t know what was done, but I know this. My father treated him like…” His lip curled. “Like a mistress, truly. They would go places and share a room and he gave him gifts and he would stroke Georgie’s cheek and go on about how George was his pretty boy. And what I like to think is that he didn’t actually touch him, though I can’t say, and no one can except George himself.”
“Whatdoeshe say?”
“That my father never touched him,” said Mr. Darcy with a shrug. “That it was all very proper.”
“That’s what he said to me,” she said quietly.
“But regardless, that kind of intensive attention given to a child, whether there is touching or not, it is not something a child is prepared for. Not to be adored singularly in that way by an adult, and not to feel as if one has the burden of being responsible for another grown person’s emotions. Being loved in that way, that kind of way, a child isn’t—can’t—be ready for it.”
Elizabeth nodded slowly.
“And when I was young, I was jealous of it, of the way my father doted on him and coveted him and… and then one day, I realized it wasn’t love, it was control. I began to see the way my father was, the way he controlled everything and everyone around him, and I was only glad that he had never done it to me.”
Elizabeth started. “You don’t think he…”
“It’s crossed my mind,” said Mr. Darcy with a nod. “It’s crossed my mind that George was a substitution, so that he didn’t have to hurt me. Yes.” He gazed across the room, his expression blank. “If that’s the case, perhaps my father had some shred of decency in him somewhere, or he did love me in some way, I don’t know. And I suppose sometimes when I think that, I’m grateful to him, to Wickham, for bearing the brunt of all of it so I didn’t have to, and this… this is why I don’t go after him and I don’t punish him and I give him money and I let him make off with my sister, and I…” He clenched his hands into fists.
She settled her hand on his shoulder. “This is not your fault, Fitzwilliam. This is not your responsibility.”
“It is, though,” said Mr. Darcy in a very soft voice. “He is my responsibility. The sins of the father shall be visited on the child and all of that.”
“Well, that’s not entirely fair.”
“Perhaps not, but it doesn’t matter.” He looked up at her. “He took your sister, too. He hurt your family. Richard thinks we must do something about him, something final. If you say you think we should, I shall carry it out.”
“You mean kill him.” She recalled he had said it that morning, in fact.
He nodded, turning again to stare blankly into space. “Yes.”
“No,” she said. “Not for me. Not on my account. Not on Lydia’s either. I don’t know what must be done about Mr. Wickham, in truth, but I don’t want his blood on my hands.”
“It would be my hands, Elizabeth.”
She considered. “Do you wish to do it, but wish to have someone else to help shoulder the blame? If you need that from me, then I am here for it. I can help bear it. Would you like me to tell you to kill him?”
He let out a long and shaky breath. “Thank you for that, but no. No, I want him to live. I want him to live somewhere where he is untouched and unharmed, actually. But I should also like him not to touch or harm anyone else.”
“Yes,” she said. “It seems he hasn’t.”
