Chapter 28 Ptolemy’s Model #2
She sighed resignedly. “There are 262,800 minutes in a half-year. I will not say they were all terrible, nor could I with any credibility since I was the pampered inhabitant of the nicest gilded cage in England, but it was hard—very hard. For twenty years, I had been exactly who and what I was. I had the freedom to just be Elizabeth Bennet. For that year, I felt like I was gradually being stuffed in a box, forced into the mask of Mrs Darcy. I had no idea who Mrs Darcy was, but I was certain I did not want to meet such a formidable creature.”
She sniffled, and Darcy handed her his handkerchief, which she used in the usual way.
“The hardest part, the worst part, was that somewhere, deep inside, I suspect I knew I was putting myself in the box. I knew that you would probably not be as bad as I thought. I knew I could somehow muddle through and make some kind of life with you if I just grew up and, as Jane and Mary suggested, put away my childish things. I knew that if I just thought about it more, made more effort, acted as nice as I could, made the best of it, suppressed my natural impertinence, relied entirely on politeness and propriety, spent as little time as possible in your company, focused on my future children, and so forth—I could make a reasonably contented life, no worse and better in many ways than most women; but I just could not stand it. That was hard, because I had left all my enemies either in Hertfordshire or in France, so I had to invent my own to justify my self-inflicted misery.”
Darcy snapped, “That was not self-inflicted. It was solely my responsibility—mine and your mother’s.”
She shook her head, then shrugged her shoulders, not willing to argue, and continued.
“When I left, I became truly independent, but doubly in jeopardy. If caught, I could go to gaol or worse—I suppose I still could. Even worse, I could be committed and there would be nothing I could do about it save run again, presuming I could even escape, which is not a given. Worst of all though, if caught, I would let down people who took real risks to be with me. By now, you must have worked out that Miriam’s parents are the servants that left with me.
I have been careful to make sure you never heard their given names.
Molly hides every time you appear, and of course, they have never done anything unlawful.
And—well, I will say no more. You gave your word there will be no reprisals, and I trust you. ”
Darcy spoke, trying to be both gentle and forceful at the same time. “Let me be doubly clear! I could care less that Baker lied to my face and committed perjury, though I doubt very much that he faces any legal risk, as you will have worked out a clever scheme to shield him.”
“Of course I have. He may have his revenge though, since he sent that catalyst here,” she said, pointing to the box of books.
“He is your mysterious buyer then.”
“Yes, he and his wife. They also own a sizeable portion of the store, purchased with part of her dowry,” she chuckled. “Her father was a tradesman, you know. It is in her blood—her Bingley blood, that is.”
Darcy did not know what to say, but it did not matter as Amanda was not yet finished.
“As I said, it gets harder, but the absolute hardest part was saved for last.”
“I meant what I said, Amanda. I will allow no harm to come to you or yours, most especially at my hand.”
She shrugged. “Sometimes you cannot help it, Fitzwilliam. You see—” she said resignedly, then slumped and stared at the floor for another minute.
“When you appeared in my shop, that was the second hardest moment of my entire life. It was at least ten times harder than our wedding day, fifty times harder than the compromise. That was the day everything I built and strove for, risked all and sweated for, ran and hid for—all came tumbling down. That was the day when all my choices, good and bad, wise and foolish, came home to roost. It was the day of reckoning—Judgment Day.”
She looked back at him with a frown. “The only way I could think to save myself was to brazen it out, and I had to decide the fate of myself and everyone who depends on me in a matter of seconds. People change in five years, and I daresay you barely knew me before, even if your mind had not been ravaged by your illness. In that moment, when I had to decide, for myself and all my companions, I bet everything on the assertion I was Amanda Thorne, and would remain her through sheer force of will. I only had to get rid of you once and for all, and that seemed easy enough.”
Darcy chuckled. “You did manage that. I have wondered more than once if you were actually Elizabeth, but I always came back to believe nobody could pull off such a brazen lie,” then with a careless shrug of his shoulder, he added, “I was wrong.”
“Sometimes a big lie is easier than a small one. The sheer flagrancy of the untruth lends it credibility. People have trouble believing someone could lie so blatantly.”
Amanda paused a moment and nodded absently, then tears started from her eyes again, and she whispered, “The absolute hardest part was saved for last.”
He replied in a whisper, “Tell me.”
“The hardest part of all,” then, shuddering and sniffling, she continued, “the hardest part was not, as one would expect: the weight of lying to you for six months instead of the six hours or days I planned. It was not the difficulty of pretending to be someone I was not, never breaking character for even a moment. It was not the guilt of spending time with you and building expectations, as I thought I was entirely clear on any number of occasions.”
“You were more than fair,” he added quietly. “I do not begrudge you the lies. It was your only choice, and any reasonable person would say I deserved what I got.”
She shook her head in negation but did not argue the point.
She finally looked down, her head bowed, her eyes crying once more, and continued, “It was not the regret of learning you were not the ogre I remembered, but you were in fact sweet, kind, and generous. It was not the fear you might one day discover my secret and expose me—or worse.”
She dabbed one of her eyes. “It was not any of those, even though any one of them might have broken my spirit if I let them.”
She took another deep breath, glanced up seriously.
“The very hardest part was learning—very much to my surprise—that against my will, against my reason and even against my character, I had grown to love you more than I could have imagined possible; but I could never have you. I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.”
She glanced at him but then stared back at the floor.
“It was all impossible! How could such a muddled mess be fixed? How could someone so duplicitous as to lie about her very identity for half a year to the husband she swore her vows to ever be trusted? How could I even tell you without risking my very own life, or that of my new family? How could I risk others’ fortunes with honesty?
That was the hardest part—knowing I would have to forcefully cut you out of my life.
” She sniffled and stared at him hard. “Which I planned to do after today, before I let the excitement of that crate force me to drop my guard.”
She looked at him with tears running down her face, and Darcy’s heart broke at what had been endured by both through their own combined obstinacy.
Carefully, so carefully he barely moved, he thought of what he wanted to say.
He was still wearing his gloves and wisely thought that a wrong word or gesture could easily throw them off yet another cliff.
Slowly, carefully, he leaned forward until he could put his hands on the floor, knuckles down, then unbent his entirely too long legs so he could roll up on all fours.
He slowly covered the distance between them, and much to his surprise, he let out a short laugh that seemed to come from nowhere.
Elizabeth looked at him sharply, and he thought he needed to act at once.
“I am not laughing at you, Elizabeth. I thought of something to—to make you laugh—if I may be allowed the privilege.”
She smiled sadly. “You may try.”
“When I returned to Pemberley, and found you gone—”
She gasped, but he just leaned forward, put his fingers together to his lips in a shushing motion, and then leaned over to wipe the tears from her face with his gloved thumbs and continued.
“I met with Bartlet and Longman in the bookstore. I suggested that, if I could just find you, I would crawl on hands and knees to make things right. Well, here I am, as predicted!”
He let out a little bit more robust laugh, but she continued to frown in frustration, though her tears had subsided (mostly).
“You gave me three names who you are not. Will you allow me to suggest who you are—a name that perfectly suits you and this situation in all its glory and complexity?”
She stared at him, thinking there could be any number of names for a woman who had done what she had, most of them not nice at all, but Fitzwilliam would never use them, so she nodded her permission.
Darcy leaned into his hands, leaned forward until his face was less than a foot in front of hers, and whispered, “Amanda Darcy.”
“What!” she snapped, in complete shock.
Still speaking softly, he continued, “I have thought about this a great deal. I have even consulted solicitors, enough to best your seventeen law books by at least half.”
She laughed at the incongruity of the reference and assumed he got it from Mr Bartlet.
“Amanda—Elizabeth—you have told me the three women that you are not, but they are all a part of you, and I would be loath to give up the tiniest piece of any one of them. Perhaps I did not always love them so well as I do now, but I assure you, I want all of them—I want all of you, all three incarnations, with all your complexity, just as you are.”