Chapter 57
The next few days were filled with writing, sleeping, and editing.
Aurelia didn’t leave the building, moving only between her flat and her desk as she drafted Vronsky’s love story.
And she avoided the shop between midnight and dawn, since she wanted to focus on the book—and because she was afraid Vronsky would suspect she was up to something.
By Wednesday afternoon, she’d finished revising the existing chapters and had written a few new ones.
Using what she’d learned about Vronsky from their many nights discussing what his life had been and what he wanted it to be, Aurelia had written him a love interest. That evening, she waited at her desk with the revised manuscript clasped in her arms. With all her talk about letting Vronsky choose his own future and no longer being powerless to an author’s whim, she was nervous about his reaction.
When the characters appeared, Aurelia greeted them all, but soon asked Vronsky to join her at her desk, where she placed the manuscript between them.
“Has Oliver given you more changes?” he asked. “I thought we had completed his revisions.”
“We did. But this is a new draft. I’ve added something—a few things. I’d like you to read it all the way through before I give it to him.”
“I have no doubt I will be satisfied with whatever little changes you have made.”
“These are… significant, not little. I realized your story wasn’t really done and I decided to try to help you—us—to finish it properly.”
Vronsky quirked an eyebrow, intrigued.
“I thought the ending was sufficient, but I am willing to consider your additions.”
He looked down at the manuscript, then back at Aurelia.
“Right,” she said, realizing the problem. “I’ll set it here, and you can nod when you want me to turn a page.”
“This will take some time,” he said, looking hopefully toward the conversations taking place around them.
“It’s important.”
Seeing her determination, Vronsky nodded, saying, “I understand. Let me begin.”
It took him several hours, but eventually he finished reading the new draft.
At times he’d frowned, wrinkled his brow, or scoffed; at others, he’d smiled or nodded.
But he didn’t stomp away or refuse to keep reading, which Aurelia took as a positive—or at least neutral—sign.
Once she’d turned the last page, they were quiet, neither looking directly at the other.
“You have written me into a romance with a bluestocking,” he said softly.
Their eyes met, and the corner of his mouth twitched into a smile. Aurelia smiled back in relief.
“Well, I thought you’d need a woman who would challenge you.”
“Challenge or harangue?”
“Both, I suppose,” she said, arching an eyebrow.
They laughed and Aurelia felt the tension she’d been carrying fall away.
“You saw I didn’t introduce her right away. I thought you’d want time—after Anna.”
“Thank you for that.”
“You’ll have to work your way toward her. It wouldn’t be much of a story if you met right away and lived happily ever after.”
“Yes, how very boring that would be,” Vronsky said, smiling.
“I may have put some of my own modern thinking into her, and there are sparks of Marianne, Elinor, Rachel, and Marmee in her too—all intelligent, independent women from a time that’s closer to your own.”
Aurelia tried to read his expression but couldn’t tell what he was thinking, so she asked, “I hope you think she’s someone you could love?”
“I believe she is. If I could have, I would have written her for myself.”
“Really? I can make a change if there’s something you don’t like—I can take all of it out if you don’t like it, or her. I know I promised you—”
“You did promise me, but it was wrong of me to ask. This is right—it is a better story. It is truer to whom I ought to be and whom I wish to be.”
The other characters began asking what had kept them quiet for so long, and as Vronsky told them about her changes, Aurelia felt a sense of ease—like she’d set something right that had been slightly askew.
She caught Elinor’s eye, then Rachel’s, pleased to see them both smiling smugly back at her.
Meanwhile, Marianne was busy asking Vronsky all sorts of questions about his new love interest, including exactly how and when they were going to fall in love.
Watching Vronsky as he answered Marianne’s questions, Aurelia noticed that he seemed to grow more relaxed as he described the character Aurelia had created, as though this new twist in his future had brought him some measure of peace.
She hoped she would feel the same, just as soon as she figured out how to make things right with Oliver.