I feel there is a disconnect with readers not understanding where Jane and Elizabeth are at. Part of this is because we are in Bill Darcy's head and his information is limited, part of this is because Elizabeth has made some erroneous suppositions with the limited info she has and part of this is that Jane's actions may not seem logical but come from a place of shame. While Jane did nothing wrong and certainly wasn't responsible for what Charlie did to her, feelings aren't always logical. I hope this chapter will clear up some of the confusion.

23.

I arrived at the apartment complex and saw no sign of Chuck's car. I then got out of the car and called Jane. This time she picked up before the phone could ring twice. I told her "I'm in the parking lot."

"I know," she replied and I saw a curtain get moved aside on the correct floor to reveal Jane who waved at me. She was far away, but her posture seemed stiff. "Do you want to come up? I think I'd feel better having you up here."

Although that was not my original plan, I went up. I was more than happy to defend Jane, to be her protector in a way I couldn't be for G.G.

Charlotte opened the door and hurried me inside, bolting the door behind me. Jane stood up from the couch, holding an elderly wiener dog cradled in her arms like he was a baby. She told me "Thanks for coming, Bill. I'm sorry to be such a bother."

"It's no bother," I replied. Imagine at a time like this to be so considerate of another person's feelings! I hastened to add "I'm happy to help in any way I can."

Charlotte invited me to sit down and then sat on the ground next to the curtained window, peering out the side. "Oh, Eliza's here." Jane and I hurried over to the window and confirmed her presence.

A moment later, a phone rang and Charlotte answered. After a quick exchange she told me, "It's for you" and handed the phone to me.

Elizabeth's voice said, "Bill, I'm glad I've reached you. It scared me how you rushed out of there. I'm worried about Jane. What's going on?"

"Hold on a minute." I muted the phone and told Jane "I think we need to tell Elizabeth something. She is blundering out of ignorance, in trying to help you."

Jane nodded. "I never wanted her to know any of this . . . it is just . . . " She trailed off as she sat down and let the dog sit on her lap. She leaned forward, head lowered toward the dog, whose muzzle was almost completely white from age. He stretched his neck and craned his head up to lick at Jane's chin with his long tongue as she pet him.

I sat down on the other end of the couch from Jane and waited. It soon became clear that Jane didn't plan to finish her thought, but I expected I knew what she perhaps could not put into words: The fear of not being believed, the shame, the feeling of being responsible, the endless thoughts about how it all could have been avoided if she were a better person, had done something different earlier.

I remembered how difficult it had been to speak to Rick, but how he had been quite gentle in his attempts to get me to open up when he sensed something was wrong. I then thought about how I had avoided Chuck once we left Netherfield. I also recalled how difficult it had been to gather my courage to discuss the matter with him when I still had believed him to be my good friend.

I could not truly understand, even if I had an inkling of it, how mixed up everything must be for Jane, having been in love and prepared to marry the man her family all likely adored, when he viciously assaulted her in the middle of the most intimate of all physical connections. In her fear, Jane had chosen flight and avoidance. She needed time to reconcile everything, to begin to sort it out, time that her family, especially her sister Elizabeth would not have understood she needed, not without an explanation.

"You don't need to justify your actions to me," I told Jane. "I think I now begin to understand why you wanted to talk to me in the first place. I might understand those various things you didn't want to discuss with her."

"Yes, but now I think my discomfort isn't a good enough reason not to tell Lizzy." Although Jane was speaking most rationally, her voice trembled as she added "She should know."

I unmuted the phone and tried to hand the phone to Jane but her stop motion made it evident she wouldn't take it. "Please, Bill, you go down and talk to her. You can share all you know."

I nodded, but hesitated to go. "I thought you wanted me here."

Jane touched my arm delicately with two fingers I couldn't even feel through my suit coat. "I did, but you're needed out there."

I nodded, got up, handed Charlotte back her phone and left, hearing the door get bolted just after I closed it. I trotted down the stairs and met Elizabeth outside our parked cars. It felt strange to be there once again. I scanned around for any approaching cars, appreciating the bright illumination from the angled overhead lights which were trained on the complex roads and parking lots. There was no sign of Chuck, at least not yet.

"So, are you going to tell me or not?" While Elizabeth's voice sounded confident, her body language bespoke scared.

"Yeah, since Jane said I should." I didn't have time to figure out just how to say it best because Chuck might arrive at any time. "You see, it seems Chuck isn't quite the nice guy he always seemed to be. I would have never thought him to have a violent streak but he does. He showed it to me and then your sister. Those marks on her neck . . ." I hesitated and then plowed on ahead, "he strangled her in the middle of sex and got off on it, having her helpless and unable to get away." I watched Elizabeth's eyes get wide as saucers as what I was telling her started to sink in

"But . . . but . . ." Whatever denial she meant to issue died on her lips.

I kept going, determined to lay it all out as fast as I could. There was no time to worry about Elizabeth's feelings.

"Afterwards Jane ran off, scared, and ended up at Charlotte's, rightfully thinking that she'd know what to do. Charlotte helped her to go report it and get a temporary restraining order against him. He's supposed to stay away from her, but I think she felt safer with him not knowing where she was."

"It can't be!" Elizabeth slumped against the side of her car. "There's got to be some kind of misunderstanding. Chuck would never hurt Jane." Even as she denied, the look in her eye belied her words.

"You don't accidentally strangle someone. It was very bad. She had trouble talking afterwards for a while."

Elizabeth gulped hard and said softly to herself, "He always seemed so gentle and kind."

"I know," I commiserated, "I thought the same, too. Jane saw earlier controlling and possessive streaks in him. He wanted her to make Caroline her maid of honor, even after knowing the truth about her . . ." I wondered to myself if Chuck always knew the truth about Caroline, what if anything he knew about what she planned for me. But as this wasn't the time to sort that out, I continued, "He was insisting that Jane move in, demanding about sex. From what Jane disclosed, I believe she excused these warning signs and so he got bolder in what he chose to do and wrapped it all up in love and her obligation to please him."

While I spoke, I could see how shocked and affected Elizabeth was, but I was determined not to gloss over anything. Elizabeth needed to understand.

Under the illumination of the artificial lighting, I believe I saw a change in Elizabeth's complexion. Still, I was shocked when she slid down the side of the car, boneless, and was barely able to save her from falling to the ground.

I shifted my grasp and carried her to a fortunately closely located bench I had noticed earlier. I sat her down and sat down next to her, my arm around her shoulder as I feared she still might faint.

"And I told that . . . that monster, who hurt Jane, that wolf in sheep's clothing, where to find her! I'm a horrible sister."

"No you aren't," I denied. "Elizabeth, Jane's not mad at you. She understands, I am certain of it."

At this reassurance, Elizabeth burst into tears, angry, overwhelmed and guilty tears, ugly crying, as far removed from staged movie crying as could be. As I was comforting her, marveling that she was half tucked against me, I both saw and heard a patrol car with all its lights off idle up to us. The car stopped and an officer got out and came around to us.

"Miss, are you alright?"

Elizabeth replied "No." It was clear to me she was thinking about her state of mind and not my presence, but the Meryton police officer didn't seem to know that.

"Step away from her, sir."

I slid over, stood up and walked to the side, raising my arms when ordered to do that.

A second officer, came over to Elizabeth and asked "Are you Jane Bennet?"

"No, I'm her sister Elizabeth. Jane's up in Charlotte's apartment." It was only then that Elizabeth seemed to grasp the situation. "I'm fine, just upset because I didn't know about what Chuck did to Jane. Bill was just explaining. He's fine."

The officer who had given me the orders told me to turn around and then patted me down. It was upsetting to be suspected like that, but I did my best not to be offended, understanding that they were just doing their jobs.

The officer asked for my name and ID, both of which I supplied. I heard the officer use his radio to request a check on me. I stood and waited with my hands up. The report came back fine and then the officer said "You're free to go. Go on home now."

I didn't want to argue with the officer, but there were two big problems with that. "I'm sorry, officer, but your patrol car is blocking me in. Also Jane Bennet asked me to stay."

"Well, you can't be out here, not now. We have work to do and don't need any lookie-loos."

Elizabeth came up to me then and asked "Do you think Jane would let us go wait with her?"

I was just about to reply when I noticed an approaching familiar car. The car stopped abruptly and then began backing out.

"That's Charles Bingley," I told the officer, pointing.

The officer glanced over and jotted down something. "Looks like the show's over then once my partner's through."

"The other officer went to talk to Jane I think." Elizabeth answered my unspoken question.

I nodded.

"I need to find out if I can tell Mary, my parents, and I need to apologize to Jane."

The officer said to Elizabeth. "Your sister is too busy right now, miss, but may want to talk to you after." Taking pity on us I suppose, the officer said "You can go wait in your car or cars."

We nodded and headed past the patrol car. I started heading to my car when Elizabeth asked "Wanna sit with me?"

I nodded again and made my way over to her passenger side. I opened the passenger door to find two styrofoam containers sitting on the seat. Elizabeth picked them up so I could sit down. It was a tight fit with my long legs and I could feel my hair brush the ceiling before I slumped a bit.

"Go ahead and adjust the seat. We should be comfortable while we eat."

I moved the seat far back with relief. Then Elizabeth handed me the top container. I opened it and found my omelette, hash browns and crepes along with packaged plastic silverware. All the whipped cream had melted down off the crepes and with the strawberry sauce was pooling onto the edges of the omelette and hash browns, but nothing had ever looked better. My hunger which had been temporarily sated with the bacon and then forgotten in the ensuing stress, roared back to life.

After the first bite of berry crepe, which was room temperature but still tasted great, I heard myself softly moan with delight. It occurred to me that Jane was safe, I was eating, and Elizabeth was being nice. Maybe I wasn't stuck in a tragedy!

We ate our respective meals (she had the brioche cinnamon french toast) with some warm bottled water she had in the car. It was a companionable silence. In my hunger I ate too fast, and ended up burping.

In a cheeky response, Elizabeth gulped some air and then burped back. I was glad to see her being playful. It reassured me that she must have been feeling better.

I am not ashamed to say that I ate the entire contents of the container in probably five minutes or less, before Elizabeth had even finished a third of her much smaller meal. After I closed my empty container and placed it on the floor, Elizabeth half turned to me, her own meal seemingly forgotten.

"I've been a real piece of work, haven't I?" Elizabeth asked rhetorically. "I actually believed Chuck when he said they'd had a stupid disagreement. He sounded so sincere and so worried. I just wanted to help. I made stupid assumptions and acted on those, thinking I knew better than anyone else, even knowing I was missing vital information."

Elizabeth swiveled her body closer to me until her knees were as far to the right as they could go and then twisted her torso closer to me still. Laying a hand on my arm and gripping it through my suit coat she looked up at me with her dark eyes, as illuminated by the dome light, and asked with a serious sincerity "Can you forgive me my idiocy?"

I said in reply, "I have not been offended. But it is your sister who shall need your apology."

Elizabeth nodded, her eyes downcast. "Still, to you I was pompous, cruel, demanding, continuing in my implacable dislike, even after reading your letter. You owed my family nothing and yet, you have been quite kind in trying to help my sister, though you barely know her." She reached into her purse and produced three twenties and offered them to me. I did not take them.

"Do not worry," here Elizabeth twisted the left side of her lip up in a sardonic smirk I recognized as being akin to her father's the one time I saw him, when he learned who I was, "I didn't dine and dash, but I didn't leave quite as generous a tip as you."

"I don't want it back," I replied. I observed rolling past us the now illuminated patrol car. Gesturing toward it I said, "They must be done. Perhaps you may talk with your sister now."

"Perhaps I ought to leave her alone as she desired," Elizabeth responded, "although I do not know what if anything I should share. I do not like the idea of that man continuing to play upon Mamma's and Mary's sympathies, making them feel sorry for him as he did me."

"Perhaps text Jane to ask her what you should do," I suggested. Elizabeth took up her phone and did so.

A few moments after that, Elizabeth's phone rang.