Chapter 28 #2
“She is 7 years my senior, but thought of me as a project. She almost gave me up for lost that day, but she allowed me to calm myself for a while.”
“How long did that take?”
“2 days.”
He chuckled. “And?”
“She asked if I wanted to die alone and friendless, or learn to be a lady—or at least act like one on occasion.”
“And?”
“I thought for 2 more days and sheepishly asked for help.”
“What did she do?”
Elizabeth stared at the ground for a few moments and finally replied resignedly.
“She had no idea, so we just started trying different things. Mary took up the pianoforte, and we learned that music helped calm me, until even remembering it helped. Charlotte lectured me on deportment, and did what she called drills. She knew from bitter experience how to make me angry—not difficult at the time—so she would either wait until I reached the state naturally or goad me into it. Then she made me calm myself barely enough to recite the rules of decorum. She would ask random questions or make me recite them backwards. I did not have to act decorously, but I had to prove that I at least knew what the rules were, and still knew them under duress.”
Darcy frowned ferociously. “That sounds… mediaeval.”
“Harsh, but somewhat effective. For 2 years, Charlotte and Mary worked with me. Jane tried, but… it required a level of ruthlessness she lacks. She has backbone, but I saw little evidence of it until after Netherfield.”
Darcy winced.
“Be easy. We are beyond that. Jane is happy. Things are as they should be.”
Sadness crossed his face. “Some things are.”
“Would you like to know what finally did the trick? Turned me into your favourite social mirror?”
“I am dying to know.”
For the first time, true wonder lit her face, and for perhaps the hundredth time, he wondered what depths she might have that he might very well never see because of his own stupidity.
“Mathematics! My father caught me in one of my moods when Mary and Charlotte were away, and either as punishment or to shut me up, he made me sit in his library and read a mathematical textbook for young boys for 2 hours. He bade me sit beside his desk while he read his own book, ruler in hand, and said I would get a rap across the knuckles for every peep I made. I managed to keep it down to 7.”
Darcy chuckled. “My father did something similar, but he would never pick anything as interesting as mathematics.”
“My father had not the slightest idea I would find it fascinating. He was more interested in silence than any lasting effect, and the book of mathematics lay on the top of the pile. I might just as likely have become an expert on geography or Stoicism.”
Elizabeth frowned, as though the admission had escaped her.
“At any rate, at the time, I apparently had trouble with units of measure. He assigned 2 hours, and I spent 2 days… then 2 weeks… and… for the first time, I found something powerful enough to slow the churning in my mind. When the noise became too much and I could not spin on the swing, run through the woods, or climb a tree, I could always return to mathematics or music. Did you notice a pause yesterday before I spoke?”
“I did.”
“I was calculating Fibonacci and prime numbers. That allowed me to calm myself and think. I briefly reviewed a few rules of deportment and was at last ready to speak.”
“If you had not used mathematics?”
“I would have scorched the Earth worse than a Hun. I am clever enough to think of the meanest, vilest, nastiest things to say. I would have said all your cousin threw at you last night and more. I might have claimed you were the last man in the world I could be prevailed on to marry, or I might have ridiculed you, or even said some of those things your cousin said about selfish disdain. All those and more would have been at my disposal to hurl with abandon.”
“Thank God for mathematics.”
“Or not,” she chuckled. “Without it, I am certain I would have been shipped off to India or Bedlam long before you met me, and the whole thing might have been avoided.”
“That would have been a crime against the world.”
“I suppose so. Now you know just how narrow your escape was.”
Her tone was impertinent, but her telltale fidgeting betrayed her nerves. “Or perhaps it tells me how narrowly I missed my one-and-only chance to secure the best woman I have ever known.”
Elizabeth’s head snapped up. “That is not fair!”
“Do you want truth or fairness, Elizabeth? You cannot have both.”
“What is it you want?”
“The exact same thing I wanted yesterday… and something completely different.”
“Those are contradictory and mutually exclusive.”
“A habit I acquired from my Mirror Lady.”
For a moment, she smiled nervously. “I am afraid I… I… well—”
Her tongue failed her; some calculation seemed to run behind her eyes.
“I cannot… I… well, I just cannot.”
“I know you cannot, but may I ask you a mathematical question?”
“Of course!”
He took a deep breath. “If you imagine every possible future state between us—with every supposition, from your being so angry as to burn Pemberley to the ground in a fit of pique, to a deliriously happy marriage, and everything between—can you see any chance that someday we might achieve happiness together? Is the whole set of future possibilities in which we are happy together an empty set?”
To her credit, Elizabeth did not blurt out the 1st thought, or the 5th, or 10th. Instead, she closed her eyes, tried to picture all those possible states, and considered her feelings about each.
At last, she said, “It is not an empty set, sir, but I must admit it seems at this point to be sparse.”
“I will accept sparse.”
“But I cannot. It has all the disadvantages of binding us with none of the benefits of commitment.”
“You said we might be friends. Is that not a polite way to start?”
“Heavens, no! The expectation would bias the experiment.”
“How so?”
“Suppose you asked for a courtship, or even just permission to call. At this point, our emotions are on a jagged edge due to our shared history. We would spend all our time treading warily round each other, waiting for the first failure. One of us would show better or worse behaviour than our true natures warrant, and the other would spend all the time analysing the change for meaning. It would only vex us, and if we eventually made a success of it, I do not see how it could be a wise, rational decision.”
Subdued and frustrated, Darcy offered his arm and started them walking again. He was so close to something, yet could not quite get over the last hurdle.
At last, the answer struck him like a bolt of lightning.
It was so obvious in its simplicity he wondered he failed to see it before.
He had not grasped the answer because he was not yet ready.
He was in truth only slightly ahead of where he was the day before.
Yes, he had faced the mirror, but he was like a man who saw an ugly, scraggy beard there, matted with mud and grease.
Seeing the filth did not remove it. If he would not apply soap and a razor, he would never be clean.
He finally said, “I understand what you say. I am not prepared to be the man that you could fall in love with, and you are not ready to be a woman foolish enough to esteem an unreformed man.”
“I would not put it so harshly, but that is a reasonable approximation.”
“May I make a suggestion?”
“I am all ears.”
“When I was in trouble as a lad, like most boys, I would try to lie or talk my way out of it. From time to time, my father would say, ‘Fitzwilliam, when you have dug yourself a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging. Then you can worry about getting yourself out.’ Does that make sense?”
“Of course.”
“Here is what I propose. I will stop digging, then I will see if I can find a rope or stick to get myself out.”
“You seem overly enamoured with sticks.”
They giggled, the sound slightly less uncomfortable than before.
“Here is what I propose. I know I need to reform my character. I will never again be happy if I cannot stare at myself in the mirror with acceptance, even an ordinary mirror. That, I must do on my own, or at least with others who are not you. You cannot be responsible.”
“I agree, but I am curious as to your reasoning.”
“Let us suppose we courted or married. I would rely on your already well-developed social senses as a crutch. I would let you teach me or just shield me from difficulties. Eventually, you would come to resent teaching me, or I would turn out to be a poor student, or I would come to resent the need to be taught. I would not learn, or you would be frustrated by the need to do my father’s job. ”
She nodded, unable to improve the obviously correct explanation.
“Here is what I propose. Today is 15 April, exactly 6 months to the day from that fortunate or unfortunate night we first laid eyes on each other.”
“Yes.”
“When do they have assemblies in Meryton?”
“The 15th of every month.”
“Here is what I propose, Miss Mirror. Let us go our separate ways as friends, with a sparse set of possibilities of some unspecified more. You live your life, and I will live mine. If you find someone who makes your heart sing, marry him, and I will wish you all the joy in the world. If I happen to find the woman I can marry without apology, as you so aptly put it, I will wed her and hope for the same acceptance.”
“And you shall receive it; you have my word.”
“I shall continue to work on my character. I cannot promise 100x practise, but I shall do my best.”
“Nobody could ask more.”
He stopped, and once again turned to meet her eyes.
“Whether I am married or single, reformed or the same, better mannered or still a statue, I will appear at the Meryton Assembly in 6 months’ time, on 15 October, exactly 1 year after our first meeting.
Whether you are there or not, I will dance with ladies in want of partners.
If you are there, I will greet you. If you wish to extend our association, simply tell me a mathematical formula that I can understand.
I shall ask you to dance, and what happens after that will be for us to decide. ”
Elizabeth stared at him for quite some time, giving way to every variety of thought—reconsidering events, determining probabilities, and reconciling herself, as well as she could, to a change so sudden and so important.
After what seemed to her a very long time—and must have seemed to her statue an eternity—she gave him the brightest, and possibly first truly happy, smile.
“I accept your terms, Mr Statue, with one modification. Should we happen to meet each other any time after say, midsummer, we may be friends again and talk of anything we wish.”
Mr Darcy sealed the bargain with a kiss on Elizabeth’s knuckles, and she wondered just what she had got herself into.
On impulse, she rose on tiptoe and boldly kissed him on the cheek. “I will see you in 6 months, my friend.”
She blushed furiously, but unrepentantly, and skipped down the path to rejoin her sister at the parsonage.