Hey y'all!
So I'm publishing another chapter! I'm still working on The Paths Not Traveled, sorry but I'm reading and there's more to come! Stay tuned.
~Alex
The rest of the Netherfield visit passed without much event, except that Elizabeth's dislike of Bingley's sisters and her friendship with Bingley and his friend strengthened. The discussions initiated by Miss Bingley always, somehow or other, to devolve into banter between William and herself, with some unveiling of the changes in his character and hers along the way.
He had confessed his fault to be a resentful temper, but she rebuffed it with her own example – not stated explicitly, of course, but indirectly – in which he had forgiven with no reason. William had laughed and said nothing, obviously embarrassed by her saving a character he had evidently decided to be less than it was.
His fault was, she decided, that of a quick anger. Annoyance was common with him, irritation, peevishness, even quick flashes of petulance were to be found with the young man. Yet his self-control was absolute, and Elizabeth observed none of the angry moods of sulking that had marred his character in the old days. This temper of his had survived the years, and yet he had moulded it to suit him. What she did not know, however, was that he did sulk still, and it was only her presence that had kept Netherfield from becoming perfectly intolerable for him.
William was a curious man, a dreamer as well as an energetic, and he loved moving as much as he loved thinking. She knew that.
And yet when she was ready to leave, having engaged to borrow Mr. Bingley's carriage, he was curiously distracted. When she had gone downstairs to depart for church – the first of the ladies – she had found him in the entryway, an almost wistful look on his face as he twirled his hat on his arm. He was dressed in green, and she in gold, and he had smiled up at her, faraway.
What was he thinking of?
She wanted to know. She wanted to know what brought such a soft brightness to his eyes as though blue colour bled from a pencil and blurred into his irises. Elizabeth wanted to reach out for her sketchbook and copy the almost surreal look on his face. It would be the first time she drew him as he was and not as he used to be.
Yet as soon as their gazes met, his eyes lost their dreamy haze and they were once again serious, secretive. William seemed almost guarded, as though she had stumbled upon something he never wanted her to see.
Thank the good Lord she was going home today, at least some distance away from William and his enchanting smile.
"And what is this Mr. Collins like?"
Elizabeth laughed. "Just the perfect mix of servile and self-important to be utterly ridiculous. I wonder how his father raised him to be so. He keeps going on and on about his patroness Lady Catherine."
William stiffened. "Lady Catherine?"
"Lady Catherine, of Rosings Park. Why, William, I do believe you have gone quite pale!"
He nodded. "Do you not remember, Elizabeth? I told you all about her in a letter – and a letter about Anne, too!"
Now she remembered – how could she have forgotten so much? "She is your Aunt Catherine!" she gasped. "She – is she every bit as ridiculous as Mr. Collins describes?" Her tone implied that she found a foolish man's description of a silly woman much more ridiculous than if she had seen them herself.
"That and more," the described woman's nephew said with a wry smile. "Very condescending and – forgive me for my strong language – obsessed enough with rank and status for two people. Thank God that her husband, Sir Lewis, was nothing like that. I do think, though, that despite the fact she married him for his riches, she did actually love him in the end. She certainly grieved more than I thought she would."
"At least she gives advice," Elizabeth offered.
William laughed. "Oh, you do know how to be ironic, Lizzy! Her advice is more often than not useless, because she is too sheltered to know much of anything she advises others about. Still, I pity her. She keeps building herself a perfect world that will never come to pass."
"How delusional does this get? Excuse my language."
"Ah, it's no trouble, Elizabeth!" William, who had been leisurely leaning against the tree, checked his watch. "It looks as though we shall have to postpone this singular conversation until such times as we can talk indefinitely."
Elizabeth smiled and waved as he started for Netherfield, feeling a pang when she realised, as she had long ago, that soon enough this could not continue. Surely he could see that? She would have to talk to him about this sometime…
That morning was occupied by a walk to Meryton that Lydia had requested, and Jane and Elizabeth sighed in synchronisation when their sisters' eyes wandered everywhere in search of the officers, and nothing but the very best of bonnets and muslin could turn their eyes away.
Elizabeth saw a young gentleman walking beside another officer – one she recognised as the very Mr. Denny about whose return Lydia meant to inquire. Lydia and Kitty, and so by extension Mr. Collins, Jane, and Elizabeth, approached the pair by a roundabout way, whereupon Mr. Denny introduced his soon-to-be comrade Mr. Wickham.
Mr. Wickham bowed, and his address and manner were pleasing to all, even Mr. Collins to whom the outing had begun to be boring. His amber eyes gleamed as golden as dancing sunlight, and his dark hair was neatly but modestly styled. Kitty and Lydia were immediately enamoured of the dashing young man.
"Is that horses?" Jane asked suddenly, causing the group to quiet as the sound of hooves drew nearer.
There was no way Elizabeth could not have recognised the blue-clad figure that rode up on a spirited-looking black stallion, or the flaming red hair that poked out from under the hat of the rider following the first. "Mr. Bingley, Mr. Darcy."
"Good morning!" Mr. Bingley said brightly, and Elizabeth admired his ability to make it sound as though it was the best thing of his day to greet them. Although knowing him and Jane, it probably was.
When Bingley greeted with a good-natured grin, William nodded and acknowledged with a thin glimmer of a smile. "Darcy and I were just going to Longbourn to inquire after your health, Miss Bennet," Bingley explained, laughing. "Are you completely recovered?"
"Quite, thank you," Jane answered, just as Lydia let out a loud giggle and the two gentlemen's gazes flicked over to their side.
Elizabeth noted the exact moment when William and Wickham locked eyes: two angry spots of colour rose in William's cheeks, and Wickham's tanned skin paled, his ready smile fading.
They stared at each other, their expressions blank, until Wickham slowly touched his hat in salutation, a salutation that William just deigned to return, his face frozen in a haughty look that almost terrified Elizabeth.
William bowed to everyone with a deliberate slowness that made it known to Elizabeth that he was upset, then remounted his horse, apologised curtly to both his friend and the company (pointedly excluding Wickham), and cantered away. Mr. Bingley hurriedly made his excuses and rode off after his friend.
This incident clung to Elizabeth's thoughts like a London fog, and she wondered why William had been so angry. The only thing that could cause his cheeks to flush and his eyes to blaze was… what was it, exactly? The day was passed in a haze of confusion in which she was little more than a puppet, preoccupied by the incident which had so captured her attention.
She had noticed Mr. Collins's favour for Jane, and was more than a little dismayed to see it transferred to herself – most probably because her mother, desirous of reserving Jane for Mr. Bingley, had directed Collins to her, the next in line.
The house seemed to be enclosing her, and while a few days ago she had wanted nothing more than to put some distance between herself and William, now her desire was to run to him and tell him everything.
"What could have happened between them?" she wondered to Jane at bedtime.
"Perhaps one was wronged by the other, or more likely it was all a misunderstanding," Jane suggested, and her sister laughed. "Of course you would hold fast to the more agreeable explanation, dear, but with a man of Mr. Darcy's temper, I doubt it was a misunderstanding."
"I am inclined to think it was a particularly grave one; otherwise why would either of them dare to show themselves in the other's presence, if he had wronged the other?"
"Perhaps the wrongdoer was that insufferable."
"I cannot think so ill of either," Jane declared. "But Lizzy, I must beg for an explanation as to why this incident in particular has so seized your fancy."
How she wanted to tell Jane everything then! But that would leave Jane prejudiced against William, and rather uncharacteristically cautious against ever bringing her sister into company with him. Elizabeth schooled her features and said, "I was wondering why. I have no specific reason, actually."
Jane smiled. "Stop worrying, Lizzy, and let us go to bed."
The next morning, however, William was sitting in the branches, reading. His dark brows were drawn together in a look of almost painful control. "William?" she called.
He snapped his book shut. "I suppose you want to find out about the incident with Mr. Wickham yesterday?"
"Why, yes," she said, surprised.
He sighed. "Elizabeth… do you trust me?"
"Till the end of the world," she replied earnestly.
"Then you shall have to trust me here. It is not that I do not trust you with my life," he added, "it is just that my trust has been lately betrayed about my sister's reputation, so lately that I need time. Give me time, Elizabeth."
It would be false to say that she was not disappointed, but he clambered down and faced her. "It's no fault of yours," he hastened to assure her. "You are everything I need in a friend, but it is another friend's deficiencies that I must reconcile."
Something went unsaid, but neither could say what it was. Elizabeth wanted to tell him that she would trust him until the end of everything they knew and beyond, but the words would not come out. They stood there, William holding her hand, until he coughed and let go. "Must you return?" he asked, hoarsely.
"Not quite yet," she replied. "What do you need?"
All of a sudden he was embracing her, burying his face in her shoulder, and murmuring, "Forgive me." He wanted – needed, Elizabeth realised – human contact, human touch. Happy to oblige, she hugged him back, content with staying warm in his arms and let the world go hang.
While it stung to know she could not have this forever, she clung to this now with both hands, savouring each second until he pulled away. To her shock his lips brushed her cheek again. "Thank you."
"It's no trouble," she mumbled absently, still frozen. He laughed and kissed her forehead, electrifying her.
"Well, I must be off," said he. "Shall I see you tomorrow?"
"If I can manage it," Elizabeth replied, the queer buzzing feeling in the pit of her stomach making her feel warm and happy, like curling up under a blanket with Jane to read aloud while the room fire crackled in the hearth. He smiled, nodded, and turned away, the tip of his walking stick glinting in the early morning sunlight.
As agreed the night before, the sisters all went to the Phillipses' that afternoon, just after luncheon. When Mr. Wickham walked into the room, Elizabeth felt that Jane was right and there must have been a misunderstanding, for he was a truly amiable young man whose discourse was neither foolish nor finicky.
Elizabeth was rather surprised when he broached the subject of his acquaintance with William himself; he asked how long he had been staying at Netherfield. She gave a vague answer, wanting to appear curious but unknowledgeable. His response was a positive one, and Elizabeth dropped some hints that while he was polite, he was rather arrogant for everyone's taste.
He agreed! "The world is blinded by his fortune and consequence, or frightened by his high and imposing manners, and sees him only as he chooses to be seen."
"I should take him, even on my slight acquaintance, to be an ill-tempered man."
Wickham only shook his head. "I wonder," he mused, once the next opportunity came to speak, "whether he is likely to be in this country much longer."
"I do not at all know; but I heard nothing of his going away when I was at Netherfield. I hope your plans in favour of the —shire will not be affected by his being in the neighbourhood."
"Oh, no! It is not for me to be driven away by Mr. Darcy. If he wishes to avoid seeing me, he must go. We are on bad terms, and it always pains me to meet him, but I have no reason for avoiding him but a sense of very great ill-usage, and most painful regrets at his being what he is. His father, Miss Bennet, the late Mr. Darcy, was one of the best men that ever breathed, and the truest friend I ever had; and I can never be in company with this Mr. Darcy without being grieved to the soul by a thousand tender recollections. His behaviour to me has been scandalous; but I verily believe I could forgive him anything and everything, rather than his disappointing the hopes, and disgracing the memory, of his father."
Now this was interesting. At first she had had no memory of the name Wickham – perhaps he had been an acquaintance during the four years she was missing from William's life? But no, he had been a friend of the late Mr. George Darcy, and he could not have known him without knowing William at least a year before her own friendship with him was severed.
And William would have told her if he had met Wickham then, would he not? Would he not?
The first opportunity he got, Wickham said, "The church ought to have been my profession—I was brought up for the church, and I should at this time have been in possession of a most valuable living, had it pleased the gentleman we were speaking of just now."
"Indeed!" Elizabeth was intrigued; what could he have to do with William?
"Yes—the late Mr. Darcy bequeathed me the next presentation of the best living in his gift. He was my godfather, and excessively attached to me. I cannot do justice to his kindness. He meant to provide for me amply, and thought he had done it; but when the living fell, it was given elsewhere."
"Good heavens!" cried Elizabeth. "How could that be? How could his will be disregarded? Why did you not seek legal redress?"
"There was just such an informality in the terms of the bequest as to give me no hope from law. A man of honour could not have doubted the intention, but Mr. Darcy chose to treat it as a merely conditional recommendation, and to assert that I had forfeited all claim to it by extravagance, by imprudence, in short, anything or nothing. The living became vacant two years ago, exactly as I was of an age to hold it, but it was given to another man. I cannot accuse myself of having really done anything to deserve to lose it. I have a warm, unguarded temper, and I may have spoken my opinion of him, and to him, too freely; nothing worse. But the fact is that we are very different sort of men, and that he hates me."
A few words in Wickham's speech had caught Elizabeth's attention. The age he spoke of would have been twenty-four, and as that was two years ago, he would be six-and-twenty now. Why, he is only a year younger than William, Elizabeth mused.
"That is quite shocking!" she cried, playing along. "Why have you not exposed him?"
"Some time or other he will be—but it shall not be by me. Till I can forget his father, I can never defy or expose the son."
You just did! Elizabeth thought triumphantly. And there is the lie – although that is only number one.
Elizabeth would have been quite taken with this if she did not already know William as deeply as she did – he would never do defy the wishes of his father unless he had a good reason. Still, these were accusations that were grievous enough to prejudice the whole neighbourhood against shy, reserved Mr. Darcy if they were spread quickly enough. The townspeople tolerated William and a few even liked him, but such a grave charge would no doubt turn the tide.
Yet she wanted to probe further. "But what can have been his motive? What can have induced him to behave so cruelly?"
"A thorough, determined dislike of me—a dislike which I cannot but attribute in some measure to jealousy. Had the late Mr. Darcy liked me less, his son might have borne with me better; but his father's uncommon attachment to me irritated him, I believe, very early in life. He had not a temper to bear the sort of competition in which we stood—the sort of preference which was often given me."
"I had not thought Mr. Darcy so bad as this—though I have never liked him, I did not suspect him of descending to such malicious inhumanity as this."
They conversed at length about William, and Elizabeth explored Wickham's connection with him so as to cross-examine it later with either William's letters or the man himself. Inmates of the same house, objects of the same parental care. Wickham had told her he was George Darcy's godson; it rang a vague bell.
The conversation also turned to Miss Darcy, and Elizabeth remembered with an inward guilty start that William had a sister. Georgiana; the sweet young girl he would sometimes bring to the park with him because his father was too busy or her nurse too hassled to mind her. She had only been about four to seven years of age then, but a little girl as pretty as a girl can be, with bonny blue eyes and golden hair.
Proud? Elizabeth almost shook her head and denied his claims outright. Little Georgie could scarcely have grown up so proud. Her indiscriminate kindness was showered on superior and tenant alike. Even with a brother as arrogant as William sometimes was, she herself could not have been so.
But how would you know? Elizabeth's thoughts sneered. You have barely seen even her brother for the past seven years and nothing at all of him for four; how would you know how she grew up?
She continued to play along with him, gradually easing him in the subject until he felt quite reassured that she disliked Darcy almost as much as he might. So they ended the evening on amiable terms, and Elizabeth felt secure in the fact that she now had enough threads of his tale to check in William's letters if it was a lie or a truth – or a half-truth.
That night she dug out the large sheaf of letters and opened the very first one, the one at Christmas when she was seven. She read it as if for the first time, and her eyes widened as she read: '…the most urgent of Mr. Wickham's letters.
'Oh, Lizzy, I forgot to mention that Mr. Wickham is the father of George Wickham. Yes, my father's godson. If you find yourself wondering why a steward would ask his employer to be godfather to his son, well, you need only look into the deep rapport shared by the elder Wickham and my father in years gone by…'
The new militia officer could be none other than George Wickham, as these details fit perfectly with his story and his name. She scanned the other epistles for mention of him, and her eyes picked out certain phrases.
'…I swear, he gets on my nerves just for the fun of it. Am I really that fun to bother? George seems a bit malicious at times…'
'…George needs to rein himself in…'
'…my friend George is gone and an entirely new young man is in his place…'
'…another week of settling my god-brother's slowly growing debts…'
'…a girl in Kympton is discovered to be with child and I think I know who the culprit is… He went to Kympton continuously for a fortnight…I feel nothing but regret for him…'
'…and I cannot be expected to compensate for George Wickham's shortcomings!'
'Lizzy, I think he might be jealous of me… I am the heir and he is not, and he is used to being treated as my equal. Where is the boy I played with at home? I must say the girl has proved far superior, my dear Elizabeth…'
'Where is the childhood friend who was my brother in all but blood?'
All these signs pointed to something going wrong between William and George Wickham, but what exactly was the story of the living? Which living was it?
From the sound of it, the extravagance and imprudence William was said to have cited as his reasons for not giving Mr. Wickham the living were not, in fact, nothing. William had not been grasping at straws to keep Wickham from gaining the living out of jealousy, or so Elizabeth thought, having accounts from both men about the other. Perhaps William had been genuinely trying to save the parishioners from a bad parson.
Rereading William's letters as a grown woman made Elizabeth realise just how much responsibility and expectation had rested on William's shoulders even at the ages of sixteen through nineteen, during which time his correspondence was almost non-existent, but what did exist was mostly accounts of business. Accounts, she now realised, must have been slightly toned down so that her young mind could find entertainment in it.
Elizabeth appreciated that still he did not try to romanticise the grinding work he had found it at the time even to a little girl. He complained in despair, he ranted in anger, admitting that he was human, but he also told her his boyish, but no less earnest, wish of being able to serve these people as long as he lived.
She understood the feeling. Having been educated as a son, Elizabeth had soon figured out that her father was an extremely indolent master, and picked up the slack herself.
Retying the stack and putting it on top of her personal items before shutting the drawer, the second Bennet girl squared her shoulders. She would get to the bottom of this.
William was sitting near the tree when she found him, the faraway, dreaming look in his eyes again. "Is there a special someone?" she teased, sitting beside him.
His expression burst into one of surprise. "I apologise for daydreaming." William swept his hair out of his eyes. "But what do you mean by 'special someone', in any case?" Poor man, he looked almost frightened!
"I meant, have you fallen in love with anyone?"
His eyes sparked, but his mouth opened and he said, "No." It was such a straightforward and characteristic answer that his companion was forced to take it as honest. Yet there was a way his eyes avoided her gaze that told her he was hiding something. "William, you know you can tell me."
"I cannot!" he cried, burying his face in his hands. "That is the agony! I want to tell you with all my heart but I cannot – I cannot – I cannot bring myself to make the words come out! Oh, Elizabeth! I'm sorry!"
Elizabeth nearly recoiled in shock. This was not a reaction she had expected, but still her arms went comfortingly around him and she laid her head on his shoulder, thinking, I would be in so much trouble if my mother ever saw us like this. She might force him to marry me.
She found herself nestled in a hug, and he breathed deeply, his nose buried in her hair. "You still smell like lavender."
As he had expected, she laughed. "It still is my favourite scent. What did you expect?"
"A year ago I did not expect to meet you again at all," said he, letting her lean back against the tree as he lay prone on the grass as usual. Today his coat was green and he had no walking stick, his dark hair clearly brushed down in haste and still damp.
"I have something to discuss with you that is rather serious," she said. "You saw George Wickham two days ago, and you reacted badly. Why? He was imprudent in your youth, but why hold it against him?"
He started, his eyes flashing a brilliant blue. "How did you find out about that?"
"I reread your letters."
"Oh."
"He lodged a few complaints," she continued, smirking. "Would you like to address them, sir?"
William understood, and said, "It was the living tale again, was it not? Really, he should have more imagination than that; I feel as though I have heard talk of it enough times to know it all by now. It is the Kympton living, the parish of which sits more or less three miles from Pemberley, he talks of.
"Sometime after the reading of my father's will – which he did not attend – Wickham showed up and told me that he did not in fact wish to take orders. That was the condition my father had applied, but he refused to take orders and asked for the value of the living at once. I gave him the three thousand the living was worth, as well as the thousand pounds that was his bequest, and he cleared out."
"Four thousand pounds!" Elizabeth cried. "That would have been enough for more than five years, surely?"
"It should have been," he answered darkly. "But he spent it all in less than three in God only knows what manner, only contacting me when he had run out of funds. He told me he now wished to take orders and step into the living that had been his inheritance, but I refused him on the grounds that he himself had refused the living and had been compensated accordingly. He would never have made a good parson."
"I agree, based on your accounts of him in your letters. I do believe you complained about him every other paragraph!"
He smiled ruefully. "Yes, I suppose I did. I hope you forgave me my pettiness, but I too was a hot-blooded boy, and with such a temper you can believe that I was often resentful."
"I do forgive you, but pray go on."
"Well, that is about all there is to tell, except that about a year ago he came to me again for help in purchasing his commission, which I refused again. I became so angry at that meeting I might have actually struck him had I not remembered that a gentleman does not."
"You were more than a gentleman to him, William!" Elizabeth sat up board-rigid, her eyes blazing. "Why would he ever think otherwise?"
William shrugged helplessly. "I have no idea!" The pair lapsed into silence before William murmured, "Perhaps he was jealous the way he said I was. I would never have been jealous of him, but perhaps my father was crueller than he thought, indulging him like that. In an older man it would have done no harm, but in a young boy, it gave him unreasonable expectations about his station in life. He got too secure."
Elizabeth sighed. "Without that, how do you think he would have been?"
William played with the grass. "His father was a good man; I believe the George I knew could have been like that if he had not been taught to expect more. In fact, by now he might have been curate or rector of the Kympton living. I wish I could have done more… for at least the boy I once played with and loved as a brother…"
"It is not your fault!" Elizabeth insisted. "Fitzwilliam Darcy, it is not your place to correct others' mistakes. Not your father's, and certainly not Wickham's. It is his doing alone."
His shoulders slumped gloomily. "Dear Elizabeth… when you are the master of an estate miles round, with the responsibility for dozens, maybe a hundred or more, lives on your shoulders, when you fail your oldest friend by your own inaction, when you watch him crash and burn and want to save him though he thrashes and refuses to be saved… then you can tell me that it's not my fault."
What could she say to that? She decided to try, as well as ignore the endearment before her name.
"Well, I am the daughter of a lazy, inactive father, with four sisters I have loved almost since birth, whom I am responsible for. I see Lydia and Kitty prancing around and I want to tell them that it is not right to behave this way, yet they scorn my advice and continue. Do you think I don't know what you feel?"
William turned suddenly eloquent eyes to her, his lips opening and closing without leaving a sound on the air they breathed out. I never knew you felt that way, his eyes seemed to say. Do you really know?
"Feeling so helpless is not something I take very nicely to," she admitted, continuing to talk although he had not replied, thinking that perhaps this was best for now. "The fact that it is all their own choice makes it more frustrating because we love them – or, at least, the vision of them they were."
At last he spoke, in a voice so soft she could have sworn it was simply the ghost of it, "You are far wiser than your twenty years, Elizabeth."
"I daresay you are wiser than I am."
"Indeed I am not, for at heart I am still the naughty boy I was when we were little," he laughed. "How did you learn all this?"
"When you live where I do, you learn to be content with what you have, but only if you truly can do nothing to change it. Look upon the past only as it gives you pleasure… but take to heart the lessons it teaches." Learning that had taken her most of her life, but she had at least done that.
"Aye," her friend agreed. "The hard part about that is that I only learned it when I felt it. At least I know you will not make my mistake."
"How do you know I have not already made it?" Elizabeth wanted to know.
"I… I do. I just do."
Elizabeth would have to be satisfied with that answer, but how? She was tired of walking on eggshells around William, tired of trusting him so blindly and so much.
That thought pulled her up short. Now that was being slightly unfair to William. He was simply not ready, and she knew enough of him to guarantee that when he was, he would tell her all and everything. All she had to do was be patient with him, as he had been so many times with her years and years ago.
Still, the girl in her missed her best friend. And he seemed farther away than ever.
William cursed his cowardice.
He had walked the edge of that cliff, so close to losing his balance and saying it, but then he had clammed up like a moron! Stupid, useless, accursed shyness! How he wished he could blurt it out and have it over with, but his traitorous voice refused to let him open himself again. Not when the first time had so many grave consequences.
Even as he lay against the tree trunk, fingers toying with the fading wildflowers, the grass and loose rocks tickled his scars, a tingling sensation rising up in the tissue. They had been an immature, foolish boy's mistakes, and he had been crazy to make them in the first place. At least now they served as a reminder.
Look upon the past only as it gives you pleasure, but take to heart the lessons it teaches.
He had learned this one well. Too well. William knew that if he unbuttoned his cuff and pulled down his sleeve, showed her the terrible slashes against alabaster skin, this would end. The Elizabeth who laughed in the sunlight could not be friends with a man who sulked in the shadow, even if he was the shadow of her best friend.
William had changed too much. Why would she love him when he himself could not bear to look into the mirror, afraid of seeing in his own face the gaunt, haunted features of the ghost he was just a year ago?
He had been a half-wit ninny. It was a wonder people looked up to him at all. At that point in his life, he had been a failure. Well, no more. William would be a good friend for as long as his Lizzy needed… until of course she cut it short when she was married.
God help him, he couldn't even push her away, not even for her own good.
But the scars would do that, would they not?
He would show her sometime.
