“How is it done?”
Charlotte laughed softly. “Remember this isonly an analogy, but it is very much like when a couple marries. They do not know everything. In fact, they may know little of each other, and most of what they think they know is likely wrong. But a time comes when they mustdecide. They mustchooseto stand before their friends and family and declare themselves united for life…that is adecision.”
She studied him to ensure he did not misinterpret her. She could have devised analogies less… volatile, but would they have been as useful?
“Today, you mustdecide. I shall return to the house; you go to the stable. Saddle your horse and ride towards the peaks as hard as you can. Ride until the beast nearly founders, and you find both man and horse near your limits. After that, slow slightly and ride further. Ride to the very top of the highest cliff you can find.”
“And the object of this ride?”
“When you reach that point,it is time.Climb down from your horse but do not tie him up. Walk directly to the edge. Walk to the very limit, where your toes hang over. Lift your arms like a statue, feel the wind in your hair, feel the weight of the Earth under you, think about everything that has happened in your life, good or bad, anddecide—front or back!”
“Meaning?”
“Either go forward over the cliff and end this charade today—or walk back, get on your horse, return, and startliving. Those are your choices. If you decide on the former, ensure your horse does not suffer your fate. But make no mistake—if you return, I expect you to return aman… not the shadow of the man who first came here. Your time as a patient is over.It is time to decide.Are we understood, sir?”
The colonel stared at the lady for quite some time. He had no notion what he would decide when the moment of decision came, but by God, this was a woman. This was a woman worthy of backing away from the cliff for. She had given him instructions, so he would follow them to the letter.
~~~
Darcy sat in the comfortable breakfast parlour with Miss Lucas reading while she worked. She marvelled at how well her broken box had been restored, hoping her broken soldier might do the same. Mr Darcy offered to have a master craftsman make a new one exactly like the original if she preferred. She knew that if she wanted a different box, he would procure the best box in England, but he did not expect her to make that choice, and she did not expect to make it. Nothing would ever take the place of this particular box.
After six hours, the colonel returned with a glorious sunset at his back and a decision in his heart.
“Have you decided?” Darcy asked.
“I have!”
“Are you ready for a challenge?”
The colonel looked at his cousin sceptically. Up to that point, since the moment he tried to end his life, just surviving one more day, or even a few more hours, had seemed a great challenge. Darcy implied something larger. Perhaps he was to return to duty, or return to a duty where he only trained soldiers or occupied a post where he was unlikely to get a score of other men killed. Perhaps Darcy wanted him to manage some small estate. They had talked about it over time, and Darcy had offered it any number of times.
“I believe I am ready. What is the task?”
“We will discuss that when we arrive,” Darcy evaded.
“I will go along for the nonce, but where is‘there’?”
“We leave at first light tomorrow. You will know in a couple of days. I will not explain the plan more than once, so we need to get to the place where the rest of the participants are.”
Everybody looked surprised at this new-found plan of Darcy the Mad. Charlotte, feeling her task complete, started thinking of what came next.
“We need you as well, Miss Lucas,” Darcy forestalled her. “Now more than ever. Might you indulge me for a little longer?”
Perhaps there was some woman in England who would turn down an earnest request from Fitzwilliam Darcy, but Charlotte Lucas was certainly not she.
“It would be my pleasure.”
Confront No Evil(Mixed)
Happiness, for Jane Bennet, was the normal and natural state of being. All her life, no matter what fortune threw her way, she remained almost universally happy. Mrs Bennet demonstrated a perfect example of what a lifetime of unhappiness amounted to, and from an early age she had naturally gravitated towards a different idea. In nearly every conceivable circumstance, she simply asked herself,‘What would Mama do?’and chose the opposite. While perverse, the system had yet to fail her. Mrs Bennet was not as unhappy as one would think, since she had made an art and sport of her misery, but the conundrum of actively seeking unhappiness just so she could enjoy it was not a system that recommended itself to Jane.
Since childhood, Jane had been an exceptionally beautiful girl, which in her limited experience was more likely to cause vexation than happiness. She was never even certain if shewasbeautiful, or if her mother had simply declared it with all the éclat of a proverb so often and so loudly it was universally taken as true by the four and twenty families as a defence to avoid arguments.
Whether beautiful or not, Jane usually wished she were plainer, since beauty seemed to attract the entirely wrong type of suitors, and her mother’s habit of disparaging nearly everything about her other daughters would have been completely unbearable to someone with a flightier spirit. Through it all, however, Jane bore it with grace and harmony. Her mother’s constant lamentations, matchmaking, and self-induced crises had little effect on her.
All Jane’s life, theonlything that could truly make her unhappy, vexed, or angry wasanybodydoinganythingto hurt her sister Elizabeth. She was as fiercely protective of her sister as a badger, though Elizabeth could perfectly well take careof herself. While she was happy for the grand adventure Lizzy was on—though thoroughly disinclined to participate in such a scheme herself—she had missed her sister dreadfully for over a year. Butnowmatters had changed so much that she was brimming with happiness; she was amazed she had not burnt their little cabin to the ground with the force of it.
After the unpleasant altercation on the path at Rosings, she had a secure future with a husband she loved more than life itself, and who returned the affections with equal vigour. Equally important, she and her sister Mary had secured the future for her mother and all her sisters. Her entire family was completely protected, with many layers built up an inch at a time. Her sister Mary’s marriage alone would have been sufficient to save the family should the worst happen to her father. Now Jane was married to a wealthy man, good friends with an even wealthier one, under the protection of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and as secure as a woman had any right to be.
