Of Mice and Uncles
It was the first morning of the new year, and a crisp sunny day, unusual for London at this time of year. For all the good it did William Darcy's mood, though, it might as well have been pitch black with subzero temperatures. And he was alone, of course, because it was easier to brood with nobody else around. He'd given Mrs. Reynolds, the housekeeper who had practically raised him and his sister since his parents died, the day off, and encouraged Georgiana to spend the day with her new friends, the Cunninghams, a very kind family with three children close to her age.
He needed to be alone on this day. After all, that was the only future he could expect, so he might as well get used to it. And he didn't even have the excuse of his work to keep him busy. He wasn't in the mood for work anyway. Computer engineering was his field, but he wanted to spend a day without computers. Actually, he wasn't in the mood for anything at all, not even for studying Italian as he'd been doing for the last five to six months. Ever since - well, it was no use thinking about it now. Whatever. He might as well make some coffee.
He had bought that espresso machine with her in mind. How did it happen that they'd come to the subject of coffee, of all things, during those days back in the summer when he was working on the renovations at Pemberley House, his family's ancestral home that he and his cousins had made into a museum? And he was really working, helping the building contractor's crew with laying bricks, mixing mortar, caulking windowpanes, fixing up parts of the render, and painting. In fact, at the very moment when they'd caught sight of each other, half his forearm was freshly smeared with white paint.
"William!" She'd said breathlessly, with an older couple just behind her. "I had no idea you'd be here."
He wanted to scream that this was unfair. She had no right to look so wonderful with her luxuriant curly black hair falling past her shoulders, in a dark purple sundress that highlighted her slender but well-formed figure. And he was a complete stubble-bearded mess in a dirty singlet and accidentally torn jeans, sweating like he'd run through a desert. Well, at least he didn't look like the arrogant, barbaric, controlling, prejudiced snob that she'd called him in April. Not even a whole convention of authors could have come up with all the scathing terms she'd bestowed on him, rejecting him completely for daring to presume that she wanted him in her life.
And then he noticed that Elisabetta Benedetti was actually smiling at him. A nervous one, but a sincere and warm smile. She was even more beautiful than he remembered.
Don't be afraid, her eyes said to him, I'm not angry at you any more.
That allowed him to recover the ability to speak.
"Elisabetta," he said, "I wouldn't have expected you to come here, but I'm happy that you did. Would you please introduce me to your friends?"
They were Pasquale and Milena Giardinieri, her uncle and aunt who lived in Palermo. In fact, they were both professors at the university there. He'd explained to them the work that was going on, what this house meant to him, and something of his family's history. The Darcy family had been living here for four centuries, and he showed them the grounds, the portrait gallery, all the family objects and furnishings that had been kept, like his great-great-grandfather's writing desk, the ring worn by Fitzwilliam Darcy in the Regency Period, the uniform worn by Colonel, later General Fitzwilliam at the Battle of Waterloo, a Victorian tea set, the first phonograph owned by Henry Darcy, sheet music from the music lessons of the Darcy daughters, and all sorts of other things.
In the next days, they'd become an inseparable group: Elisabetta, Professore and Professoressa Giardinieri, Georgiana, and William. He showed them every sight he could think of, took them to his favorite places for lunch and dinner, walked all the way through Regent's Park to Camden, and listened to Elisabetta and her relatives talk about Sicily. That was when coffee had entered the conversation, when they were talking about how even small sensations like differences in the color of lemons or the smell of a particular kind of coffee could make you feel nostalgic about a place or an experience left behind.
Of course, that was before the bad news that brought it all crashing down. The phone calls at the Benedetti home in Leyton and the threatening e-mails that had appeared. The demands for an amount of money that Tonino and Francesca Benedetti and their five daughters didn't have between them, or the assurance that their youngest daughter Lidia, who was barely sixteen years old, would become the latest Internet porn star, from the pictures and videos made by her boyfriend without her knowledge.
There could have been only one man behind that: the same photographer who'd convinced Georgiana Darcy one year earlier that she had a bright future as a model ahead of her, if she would only let herself go, let herself be seen as the lively and beautiful young woman she'd grown to be and no longer as a girl, use the name Jana because it was more exotic, release her hidden sensuality - yes, the rat had actually said those words - and would she mind just trying a few kind of different poses? Georgiana had been enthusiastic in the beginning, but after these suggestions, some little bit of worry had gotten through to her and she called her brother all of a sudden.
"Georgie, what's up?" He'd run out of a company meeting to talk to her. She almost never called him at work, and if she did, never insisted on talking right away. That meant it was something serious.
"William," she'd barely been able to speak, "This guy I've been seeing. He's a photographer, he said he could help me become a model, and ..." Her voice faltered and she choked back a few sobs.
After half a minute of gentle encouragement, she blurted out "He wants me to take my clothes off for him. To photograph me, I mean."
William started at that. He still remembered his sister as the little girl who liked to have him read stories to her and her stuffed animals and then made every single one clap its paws for him at the end. And a guy wanted to take nude photos of her?
"What's his name?"
"G-g-ary W-wickham." William Darcy's worst nightmare. The guy he'd had fired for trying to sell confidential company reports on the progress of the new products they were developing. The guy who at the time had three different sexual harassment investigations pending against him. All because his father was George Darcy's best friend and Gary had lost his own father at a young age, so Mr. Darcy had paid for his education and urged William to help him find his way in life. Wickham had preferred to find his own way - right into the gutter.
The doorbell rang, bringing William out of his memories. At this hour on New Year's Day who could it possibly be? Well, there was only one way to find out. "Just a moment" he shouted and made his way to the door. A stout man with gray hair slightly longer than was usual for his age and a gray beard, wearing a thick overcoat, stood in front of him.
"Happy New Year, Villiam." Even after more than thirty years in England, he had never been able to completely eradicate his accent.
"Happy New Year, Uncle Svetomir." Uncle and nephew shared a strong hug.
"Vell, could I come in?"
"Of course, Uncle. I was just about to make some coffee. I suppose you'd like some too, right?"
"Yes, but don't make it too strong. The cardiologist says I need to take better care of myself. So I decided to valk here instead of taking the tube and the bus."
"How is everyone? Aunt Myriam, Stan and Dragana, Jelena and Danny?" Before William was born, his mother's sister had married a young man from Serbia named Svetomir Bojanin who was being trained at the same hospital. He intended to be a psychiatrist, and her goal was to become a pediatrician. Jelena had followed in her mother's footsteps, while Stanley had become a historian. They had both married two years ago, and now Jelena was expecting a child.
"Oh, they are all fine. They miss you. You are not visiting us like you used to."
"And is that why you came here today?" William asked as he prepared the coffee for both of them. Oh no, here come the questions. And there is no way on Earth to fool a distinguished psychiatrist.
"No, actually, Georgiana asked me to come. She is vorried about you." Was the shoe on the other foot now? William took a deep breath. Of course Georgiana was worried about him. She was too smart not to be. She'd probably noticed him waking up looking like something the cat dragged in, or staring into space at breakfast, or not even commenting on the latest drawings or designs she showed him. Well, it wasn't completely his fault that he was nowhere near as interested in interior design and decoration as she was, but he used to be more attentive. He was aware that she hadn't painted anything in a while. Or did she tell Uncle Svetomir about the time last week that he had dipped a fried squid in his beer by mistake without even noticing? Elisabetta, I told myself I couldn't live without you and now I'm proving it. Because what I'm doing now is just surviving, and barely that.
"I haven't been too good company for the last few weeks," he admitted grudgingly, "I'm a bit worn out, working too hard, and maybe I needed a little time to myself. It wouldn't have been fun for anyone to hear me grousing all the time. Georgiana needs some space, too, she doesn't need me hovering over her every second."
"I know," Svetomir said, "That is true. But I think this is more about the beautiful Italian girl."
"No, I am not heartbroken because Carla Bruni decided to marry Nicolas Sarkozy." William commented in a weary tone.
"Villiam, Villiam, please." His uncle had grasped his hands. "Save the games for stupid people. I am a psychiatrist. That means people try to lie to me every single bloody day. And many times they are lying to themselves too. Just - plain - stop it."
"All right." William said, feeling like a seven-year-old boy scolded by his father. "You know everything anyway. Charles - you know, my old friend Charles Bingley - and I went to this International Historic Dance Festival the summer before last, with dances and costumes from a couple of centuries ago and everywhere in the world, and Elisabetta and her family were there too because there was a group from their hometown in Sicily. I liked watching the performances, all right, but then Charles insisted that we stay around after the performances because there was going to be more informal dancing, and you know how Charles is, give him a party with enough friendly people and he thinks he's in Heaven."
"And he found his angel. The older sister of the girl you are thinking about."
"Right. That's Giovanna, the nurse. They met that evening, and just got along magically with each other. Charles just started insisting that I had to dance, and suggested that I ask Elisabetta to dance with me. Well, I was in a bad mood-"
"That was right after the trouble with that guy and Georgiana, right?" Svetomir interrupted him.
"Exactly. So Charles thought he had to cheer me up, and he just kept insisting, and I suppose I was bloody rude about the whole thing and before I even knew what I was saying Elisabetta and I had gotten into a huge argument. I said that people who spent all their time dancing were superficial and it couldn't be compared to a real cultural activity, and she..."
"Tore you up one side and down the other because she is a dance teacher and therapist. I know that, she told me."
And the rest is history, William thought as he told his uncle the story. How the next day Charles told him he'd been a disgraceful arse and ought to have apologized, and took him to the restaurant the Benedetti family ran to make sure that he did. How Giovanna and Charles fell in love and William had gotten himself in trouble again by claiming that nobody could get to know another person well enough to love them for real that fast, and Elisabetta accused him of being prejudiced against Italians, which just caused an even greater argument about the Mafia. As Charles and Giovanna came closer to each other, William and Elisabetta ended up meeting with them often as well, and discussing all sorts of topics, and seemed to start to get along well, almost to become friends. And then Wickham came into the picture, and managed to charm her with his lies, so much that when William finally got his feelings straight and decided that he wanted more than just friendship from those captivating dark eyes and that sweet teasing voice, everything blew up in his face. Most of it was his own fault, though, since he'd mentioned the awful behavior of her two youngest sisters, Caterina and Lidia, and her boisterous and embarrassingly uninhibited mother, and the difference in their backgrounds - he mentioned them as things that were all overcome in his mind in his regard for her, but she was offended and let loose with a tirade that would have caused a world war if words were bullets. And it didn't help that two days earlier Charles and Giovanna had had an argument and William's words to his friend to take a couple of days to calm down seemed to Elisabetta to mean that he would encourage Charles to break up with her sister. At the end of it, William felt like he'd been drained of every form of energy he'd ever possessed, and all he could say was "Elisabetta, I don't want to argue any more. Just let me tell you that whatever you think of me, I only hope you'll be happy." And once he went home, he proceeded to drink himself into immobility.
The next day, once he recovered from his headache, he wrote her a long e-mail, explaining himself as best he could, and even trusting her with Georgiana's story. He even wrote that if she doubted him, she could contact Christopher Brandon from a major child welfare advocacy organization; Brandon was widely known for his diligent crusades against child pornography and child abuse and William had consulted with him about the possibility of having Wickham prosecuted without subjecting his sister to publicity. As for his own earlier dealings with Wickham, Charles knew all about them and could vouch for William's honesty on that score.
"That was a good idea," Svetomir said, "to write to her. This is a long story; could I have another cup of coffee?" William prepared another one for his uncle, and one for himself as well.
"I didn't expect to see her again." William continued. He hadn't told Charles about the whole episode for a long time; all he did was tell him to take care not to lose Giovanna, because she clearly loved him. However, Giovanna figured it out on her own from a few cryptic remarks by her sister, and even visited him with Charles a couple of times.
Meanwhile, William tried to avoid dwelling on Elisabetta. She wasn't going to be a part of his life. So he tried to make sure he didn't have the time and energy to even think about her. He threw himself into everything: his work, exercise, Pemberley House with its exhibits and renovations, and most of all, trying to be a good brother to Georgiana, listening to her concerns and trying to help her recover from the shock of Wickham. When the construction work began in early June, William felt like an opportunity for something - improvement? Redemption? Relief through exhaustion? - had arrived. He felt his father's words from so many years ago. "Whatever work you end up doing, William, don't ever be too proud or afraid to muck in. You have to know what it's like to work at all levels. If you stay at the top all the time, you only get half the picture." So he took a couple of weeks of unpaid leave from the company to be a construction worker. He tried to listen, to understand what he could about the lives and backgrounds of the workers, people that earlier he would have taken for granted. And into that picture walked the lovely Elisabetta.
Seeing her again had made him happy. It had given him a sort of hope for the first time, made him think that maybe she could recognize something positive about him. Meeting the Giardinieri family had also made him aware of how much he had lost by not being open to other people, especially ones with different cultures and origins. Seeing Elisabetta and Georgiana become friends was an additional delight; it was as though a voice were telling him "this could be your life; enjoy it." Unfortunately, he soon found out that there were three more words tacked onto that: "while it lasts." And it didn't.
"How is your back now? I hope it's not hurting you any more." Svetomir said.
William's eyebrows went up two inches. "You know about THAT?"
"Christopher has been my friend for ten years," Svetomir said. "He refers clients to me and to my colleagues. We trust each other."
Once Wickham had made his threats, William pursued him with a vengeance. A couple of security experts who owed him a favor (and one of them was his cousin) traced Wickham to a flat in Tottenham; William confronted Wickham there - among other things, throwing an entire computer monitor at him. Wickham managed to keep it from hitting his head, but not his foot. Which didn't matter much because William proceeded to knock him out with the tower. Then he called Christopher Brandon.
"This bloke would never call in the bobbies," Brandon said with a wink. "But we don't have anything we can prove against him in a court of law. So let's just steal everything remotely photographic or digital in here and hack his hardware at our leisure. His victims will be safe from him at least."
"Anything you find related to Lidia Benedetti," William said and provided a brief description of Elisabetta's youngest sister, who he had only met two or three times anyway, "just delete it."
"From what you've told me, Darcy, I'll probably have enough other material to go on anyway. Just do be a pal and take a decko into his e-mail, will you? Let's take all this junk over to my office, and between the two of us and my colleague Amber we can sort it all out."
It took all night, but by the end of it Christopher and Amber had enough evidence to bring charges against an entire ring of pornographers, eventually. Brandon kept his promise and Lidia was never involved with the investigation. However, it took his wife a week, five dozen roses, two romantic dinners and a movie to forgive him for not having called home to say he'd be late.
"And then what happened, Villiam? Elisabetta should have been happy to see you after that." That was Svetomir's way of saying that he'd better tell the whole story without leaving anything out.
"Uncle, I'm not into hero worship. Besides, it was my fault that I hadn't had Wickham prosecuted earlier." Instead, he had slipped an anonymous note in an envelope under the door of the Vecchia Siracusa, the Benedetti family's restaurant, at an hour when he knew it would be closed. He explained that Lidia was safe and Wickham would no longer have any kind of hold on her, as long as she never saw him again. He also left Brandon's card. What he hadn't counted on was being seen by a young Indian man coming out of Arjuna Fine Indian Cuisine on the other side of the street, who immediately approached and asked him "What's your business with the Benedettis, mister?"
"There was a guy putting the screws on them. I put him out of commission and just wanted to let them know that they're safe."
"You better be right about that. On this block we all watch out for each other. I saw your car."
"Hey, I'm with you on this. My best friend is in love with Mr. Benedetti's oldest daughter. If you really want to help them, keep an eye out for Lidia, the youngest one, make sure nobody bothers her."
"I always keep an eye out for her. Getting her to pay attention is the hard part." William recognized enough of his own emotions in this young man's eyes to trust him, at least enough to exchange names and handshakes.
And then there was one time that he and Charles had gone to the Benedettis' house; Charles was taking Giovanna to the theatre, and William went with them, hoping to get a chance to speak with Elisabetta. It didn't exactly go well. Mrs. Benedetti fawned over Charles, complimenting him on the fact that he was learning Italian (which had actually been William's idea, but never mind), suggesting all sorts of places where he could take Giovanna, and when Elisabetta had come down with her sister and seen William sitting there, she gasped and headed back to her room so quickly that he wasn't sure he had really seen her or just imagined it.
"And you didn't go there again? You didn't call? You just decided, from that one moment, not to try to see her again? Villiam, that is stupid."
"If she had wanted to see me," William said, "at least she would have said hello."
"All that had just happened," Svetomir said, "maybe she vas embarrassed or shocked. It is not so strange. And now you deprive yourself of her company - maybe even deprive her of yours, did you think that she might vant you to come again? And you are making yourself depressed just by assuming that she doesn't."
"If she wanted me to come again, there are so many different ways that she could have let me know. She could have had Giovanna tell Charles. Or she could have called me. Do I have to do everything?"
"Yes, you do. You know vat you remind me of, vith vat you are doing? It is an old experiment, putting the mouse in the maze to find the cheese. If the maze is too difficult, if the mouse tries several times and gets lost, it gives up. It forgets there is any cheese and it thinks there is nothing more than being lost in the maze. So the mouse dies of hunger."
"Elisabetta is not a piece of cheese," William said indignantly.
"And you are not a mouse. There is no maze and the goal is not so far avay. So do something about it."
Mice. That took William back to a Christmas a long time ago, his and Georgiana's first Christmas as orphans. Their parents had both been killed in a car accident on the motorway. All their other relatives tried to cheer them up, to take care of them, but it could never fully work. William was just eighteen years old and Georgiana seven. All the cookies and presents in the world couldn't substitute for a missing father and mother. Georgiana was crying silently in a corner of the sitting room when Uncle Svetomir found her. He took the little brown-haired girl in his arms, gave her a kiss on the forehead, took her to the sofa, and then brought a rubber mouse out of his pocket.
"Sveet Georgiana, don't cry, I have a little present for you," he had said in a soft voice. "Ven I first came to England as a student, I brought this mouse vith me to remind me of my home. Your uncle vas also a little boy playing vith animals once. If I felt lonely, or homesick, I talked to the mouse, and it is a magic mouse, alvays listening to you - and after that, I found that I felt better. And then I met your aunt and I started to feel much better. I have used this mouse; I don't need it now. It vill be your friend. Any time that you are sad, or angry, or alone, or anything - just talk to it, and it vill be listening to you, to everything you say. Its name is Mish. Mish the magical mouse." He placed it in her small hands.
"Oh, thank you, Uncle Svetomir," Georgiana had said and kissed him on the cheek. "Can I take it to my room and talk to it now?"
"Of course, Georgiana. At any time, it is listening to you." And with that he had taken Georgiana in his arms one more time, brought her to her bedroom, and let her stay there. When William went to check up on her half an hour later, his little sister had fallen asleep with the mouse on her pillow.
"You know, Uncle Svetomir, Georgiana still keeps Mish on her desk."
"Maybe she still needs to say things to it sometimes. Sometimes a mouse vorks just as vell as a psychiatrist."
Impulsively - a word that rarely entered William Darcy's vocabulary - the young man stood up and clasped his uncle's shoulders. "You've really been great to us for all these years, you and Aunt Myriam."
"I try." If he looked closely, he could see that his nephew was blinking a little.
"Tell me one thing, uncle. How did you manage with Aunt Cathy? She's so narrow-minded and overbearing, I can't imagine how she ever accepted the idea of her sister marrying a Serb."
"Oh, in the beginning she vas very rude. You can't imagine how much. And then one day I did some research and proved to her that her husband, Sir Lewis de Bourgh, vas actually the great-grandson of a Bulgarian named Luben Burdjev. You know, like vith Joseph Conrad, an immigrant changed his name. And then she bothered me no longer."
"That was brilliant!" William had actually started laughing. "She won't be happy at all about me being with Elisabetta, though - she's been after me for years to marry Anne Jenkinson, the girl she's training to take over her chain of flower shops after she dies or retires."
"Ha!" Svetomir snorted. "Lady Catherine's idea of training is to run someone over vith a train. Don't vorry, if she becomes too much trouble tell me to have her certified. I can do it."
"I think I'd better remember that."
"Yes, remember it," Svetomir said. "But I think now you have someplace to go and your old uncle should continue his valk, right? Just bring Elisabetta to our house sometime soon for dinner."
"I'll have to ask her about it." William said as his uncle stood up to go. "This mouse is not going to die of hunger."
The house in Leyton was in a state of partial anarchy when a short and plump middle-aged woman with curly black hair opened the door to William. A Laura Pausini song was playing at a very high volume and Elisabetta, Caterina, and Lidia were singing along with it and moving around like they were on stage, when the latter two weren't hitting each other with cushions. Giovanna and Charles were dancing slowly and very close together, Maria was actually reading a book - evidently, she was also wearing earplugs - and Mr. Benedetti was having a glass of wine while playing chess with Dinesh. The realization hit William like a sledgehammer: everyone looked remarkably happy.
"Buongiorno, Signora Benedetti," he said, "e buon anno. Sono William Darcy e vorrei parlare con la Sua figlia Elisabetta." (Good day, and Happy New year. I'm William Darcy and I'd like to speak to your daughter)
"I know who you are, You are the one that got our Lidia out of trouble."
"No, io non c'entro per niente." (I don't have anything to do with it)
"Right." she said with a certain tone in her voice. "And you also had nothing to do with your friend learning our language and proposing marriage to my bellissima Giovanna one week ago. And you do not know Christopher Brandon and the counselor that he suggested. And is it a coincidence that the boy from India is bringing Lidia home every time that we can't do it and taking her everywhere on his motorino?"
William couldn't say anything to that.
"Tell me, young man. What do you feel for Elisabetta?"
"I love her. Non posso più stare senza lei nella mia vita. Elisabetta è una donna eccezionale." (I can't be without her in my life any more. Elisabetta is a remarkable woman.)
"Vuoi farla felice?" (Do you want to make her happy?) She looked around William and noticed the bouquet of flowers he was holding behind his back.
"Più di tutt' altro nel mondo." (More than anything else in the world.)
Signora Benedetti practically pulled him through the doorway. "Then get your culo in here and do it! Bettina, look who's here to see you!"
The three girls stopped singing. Lidia and Caterina actually dropped their cushions. Dinesh waved. Charles and Giovanna looked up at the sound but didn't let go of each other; they just smiled. And Elisabetta - she stood still for a second and then her eyes just lit up as she ran past her sisters and launched herself straight at William while the music kept playing, the chorus of "Incancellabile"
"... incancellabile tu sei (You can't be erased
nei sogni e pensieri miei (in my dreams and thoughts
tu non lasciarmi mai (don't you ever leave me
tu non lasciarmi..." (don't you leave me - Laura Pausini, "Incancellabile"
And he just squeezed her in his arms, with the flowers now behind her back, and said "Non ti lascio, amore, non ti lascio." (I'm not leaving you, love, I'm not leaving you) And then they kissed each other so intensely that they could have fallen through the floor without noticing.
"I knew that was going to happen," Mr. Benedetti said to his chess partner.
Caterina Benedetti gave her sister a wry look and said "You win the bet, Lidia. I'll buy you a new dress tomorrrow."