A/N: Guess what, gang! HUGE NEWS! Last week, my wife Amalia and I sold the company we built up over the last six years to Elekta, the company I worked for the 25 years before that. If you're curious, you can read about it by clicking the link in my profile, or navigating to wademan DOT com SLASH news. We are super-excited, so I couldn't wait to share the news.
Wade
"Lizzy, surely you cannot blame coincidence or perverse chance after three meetings on three different paths inside of a week."
Elizabeth laughed at Mary, and said, "Of course not, Mary. I am not a simpleton. Even if I did want to believe it, which frankly would be the easiest thing to do, I have evidence to the contrary."
The ladies were sitting in Mary's parlor while William worked on his sermon in his bookroom. The front parlor gave a good view of the lane, so Mary and her husband spent a good deal of time there, and they obviously did all their entertaining in the room.
Elizabeth liked the parlor quite a lot, just like everything else about the parsonage. It was a home. She wondered if it would have worked out so well if she had accepted William's proposal. Mary saw something in the man long before anybody else did, and it took her acceptance to bring it out. Would Elizabeth have been able to do the same? In pensive moments, she thought probably not. She would have started in acrimony, which would have exacerbated his worst traits, while Mary started from a position of love, promoting his best. It was quite a conundrum, but since all had worked out as it should, Elizabeth only used it for idle speculation.
Mary was quite accustomed to her sister occasionally staring off into space with the busyness of her internal thoughts, and just took another sip of tea. She had been feeling a touch ill in the mornings, and she found the tea soothing.
Eventually, she asked, "Evidence?"
Elizabeth brought her attention back to the conversation.
"Yes, it is rudimentary cartography and deductive reasoning, nothing to boast about. Miss de Bourgh showed me a map of Rosings when I visited a week ago. The three paths I usually take are clearly marked, and they all converge at one junction, so I used a line of sight to find a point where it could be observed. I found only one, up by the folly so I went there the next morning and timed how long it took to get to the divergence point. Then I kept track of the time it took between me crossing the junction and Mr. Darcy's appearance, and it was entirely consistent with him waiting there until he saw me pass and hurrying to overtake me. Elementary, really."
Mary just laughed, and asked, "Would it not be simpler to just ask?"
"I am astonished you would ask that, Mary. It would be improper for him to meet me alone in the woods by design, so if he acknowledged his subterfuge, or I did, then he would be obliged to cease. He would be unable to speak to me alone without some more formal arrangement, which amounts to foregoing my company altogether."
"You persist in your belief that he is indifferent to you."
Wanting to give Mary a true answer, Elizabeth thought hard about it for a minute, but since she had spent many hours contemplating the confusing man, she already knew what she thought.
With a sigh, she said, "Not indifferent, no… I think he might be interested in me, but I do not see any signs of particular regard. He talks to me like he might a sibling. I believe he has worked out that I have no expectations, and I suspect he is just enjoying talking to an intelligent woman who is not trying to gain his affections."
Mary giggled a bit, and said, "Well, Lizzy, do we have time to get the gardener's spade? I think there is a lovely spot in the orchard where we can bury our poor departed Mr. Occam. I shall ask William to make an appropriate eulogy to our long‑lost master of simple explanations."
Elizabeth laughed a bit along with her sister, but it was more of a confused sound than true mirth.
"Truly, Mary… the man is confusing, but I believe understandable. You know our relative situations as well as I do. It was only the purest of good luck that William decided to offer for one of us, and double-triple good luck that he turned out to be a good and well‑suited husband. He could have used his future inheritance to get a much better dowered or connected bride, and yet he did not."
Mary smiled, as she did any time something complementary was said about her husband, and just said, "Yes, I can agree there. We have been blessed."
Elizabeth pensively continued, "Well, I will admit to you, and you alone, that sometimes I think that there might be some scant affection for me in Mr. Darcy, but when I think rationally, well, I wonder if we should expect lightning to strike our family thrice."
"What do you mean, Lizzy."
With a sigh, Elizabeth laid out her thinking.
"Remember, our dowries, such as they are, still remain secret and depend on the financial solvency of whichever rich collector made the arrangement to buy Father's books. Mr. Darcy, if he suspects anything at all, believes I have nothing but my meager charms to recommend me, and the lack of propriety of our relations is legendary. It is one thing to be a gentleman's daughter, which we can lay claim to, but to be a poor gentleman's daughter, with several shrill relatives, and a bluestocking on top. Could we expect him to rejoice in the inferiority of our connections? – to congratulate himself on the hope of relations, whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath his own?"
Mary took her hand, and said, "That sounds like you just made up words the man in Netherfield would have said to support your theory. Do you really believe this Mr. Darcy, the Rosings Darcy, whom you have been meeting would say that?"
"No, of course not, unless he was provoked to anger. I have never seen him angry, but I suspect a row between the two of us might end civilization as we know it. Given the right provocation he would say all that and more; but that is not the point."
"What is the point, Lizzy?"
"He will not say such an ungentlemanly thing, but he will and does think it. Let us try a thought experiment."
Mary sat up like they had done when little girls, and said, "Oh, goody! I like those!"
Elizabeth laughed at the silliness of the expression, and noticed Mary's tea had gone cold, so prepared more for both of them.
Finally, she said, "When a woodsman chops firewood, what is the most important point."
"Make sure your axe is sharp. Swing hard enough, but not too hard. Hit the wood in the right place."
"Very good. So, we need to swing hard enough, but not too hard. Let us start with something analogous to a hard piece of oak. No splintering of kindling with a hatchet for us. Let us speculate on an explanation that Mr. Occam would pounce on like a wolf on a rabbit, whilst us poor befuddled females scratch our heads in confusion."
Mary was laughing by then, not an uncommon occurrence in her parlor, and said, "Well, that one is easy. Let us assume Mr. Darcy was just shy and uncomfortable at that first assembly, sensible enough to be afraid of our mother, and with good enough hearing to understand all she said."
Elizabeth laughed, and said, "Well, you are not off in the land of the crazies yet. I could hear Mama had I stayed home, so asserting he could hear her words is not difficult. I have lately begun to test the uncomfortable in crowds theory, and it would be consistent with his behavior. I will assert you are on a good starting point, Mary. Your axe is sharp, so let us see what you can hit."
Warming to the task, Mary said, "Now, put yourself in his position, and assume a small, yapping mutt took hold of your trousers."
Elizabeth laughed, and said, "He was not wearing trousers that evening, but I will go along with your thinking. I believe you would try to dislodge him without damaging the dog, annoying as he is, but with enough force to get him to latch onto someone else's trousers, at least for the remainder of the evening."
"Aha!", Mary said with glee, and said, "So, may we assert that telling the dog that his proposed partner was not handsome enough to tempt him might dislodge it for the remainder of the evening?... Hmmm!"
Elizabeth was taken aback for a moment, but finally said, "Well, Mary… You are a genius, and Mr. Occam is satisfied. That is actually quite a reasonable explanation."
Warming to the task, Mary said, "Now let us suppose that he, over the next six weeks, decided that you were handsome enough to tempt him? Charlotte and Jane both said that he stared at you quite a lot, and your assertion that he was looking to find fault would wound poor Mr. Occam to the quick. Let us try something."
"Of course."
"Suppose we take all the reasons a man might stare at a woman, assign a relative probability of each, and make one of those new pie charts you have been expounding on. I suspect the 'he admires you' slice would be the size Lydia actually receives from a pie, while 'looking to find fault' would be as small as the one she deserves."
With a good laugh, Elizabeth said, "All right, Mary… I shall grudgingly concede your point. He may have had some small infatuation for me back in Hertfordshire. I am certain our friend Occam would happily agree that was the most likely reason he danced with me and then left the county without a word less than twelve hours later."
Mary said, "Mr. Occam might not be as displeased with that hypothesis as you might think, Lizzy. Let us go back to our poor forgotten woodsman."
Feeling her head spinning, Elizabeth said, "By all means. Who could not love a woodsman?"
"Believe it or not, Lizzy… I am not only planning to use our woodsman, but I shall introduce some intelligence I received from Lady Catherine, if you do not object."
"Mary, I can hardly think of Lady Catherine without the vision of axes immediately coming to mind, so I shall show no objection."
"Well, let us say our woodsman wants his fire to last all night without having to get up and restock it. What would he use?"
Elizabeth smiled, and said, "Oak is best, the older and harder, the better. I believe burn time is directly related to density, although I have no idea if it is linear or not. I suppose we could find out, but the experiments would take some time."
"Exactly. Now, if he gets the hardest, most recalcitrant piece of oak he can find, he is well situated?"
"Provided he can split it."
"Aha! Now I come to my point. What would he have to do to split it?"
"In a case such as that, he would forego the axe. He would have to get a wedge and maul, then just pound away at it, hoping it will split before the poor wedge gets stuck in the wood. If that happens, he should try to have a second wedge. If that was insufficient, he might have to get someone else, stronger or less weary to pitch in."
"Exactly!"
Elizabeth looked perplexed, and said, "Well, Mary, it appears the enlightenment coach has left the stage stop, but I remain standing in the yard."
"Patience, Sister. Now, let us move on to families. What do you think makes a family like the Darcys or the de Bourghs prosper for centuries? Both have held their land for well over 600 years. That is a long time!"
Elizabeth said, "I never thought about it."
Mary said, "Well, Lady Catherine has, and she enlightened me. What they think about is keeping wealth and power in the family. The relentless focus on family explains everything from first sons inheriting to entails. It is all about keeping the family intact and with increasing wealth and power, even if you have the occasional bad apple, which any family will."
"And?"
"Well, one way to keep the family strong is through alliances. The de Bourgh family and the Darcy family are both aligned with the Fitzwilliams through marriage. That makes all three families stronger. That is the way of the world, and a relentless focus on family dynasties, when added to the usual greed and similar emotions can explain almost all of English history."
Elizabeth sat staring out the front window for some minutes trying to work out all the ramifications of what Mary said. She looked for any holes in the theory, but sadly, could not find a single one.
"Lady Catherine is smarter than she pretends to be."
"So are we, Lizzy."
Elizabeth smiled, and said, "All right, I can see you pining away for your woodsman. Have you been making William chop your firewood?"
Mary laughed, and said, "Well no… but now that you mention it…"
Both sisters giggled far more than the jest was called for, but finally Elizabeth said, "Well, finish your analogy, Mary."
"Well, let us say that the families that have survived for centuries have not done so by being weak. They are our analogue of the hard oak. Now, suppose you are the patriarch of such a family, and you have the heir. What do you do with him?"
Elizabeth thought about it for quite some time, and then she at first laughed when she saw the answer, but then frowned as all the implications became clear.
Finally, in a whisper, she said, "You teach him about family duty by relentlessly pounding it into his head like your woodsman."
Mary took her hand, and said, "Exactly. Now make that young man responsible for centuries of family legacy, separate him from his parents by the curtain of death, and have him start admiring a woman his parents would have disapproved of, and his current relatives still would."
Lizzy said, "Can you imagine Mr. Darcy bringing me to Lady Catherine as a potential niece before you softened her up… or the Colonel's father, the Earl?"
Mary sat back, sighed, and said, "Exactly!"
Elizabeth sat back in her chair and thought deeply about that. It was as uncomfortable as listening to one of her mother's tirades, but she forced herself to go through everything that happened in Hertfordshire, from the assembly to the Netherfield ball. What had she done the entire time?
She gasped, sat forward in her chair, and said, "Mary! I teased and taunted him the entire time. Now, let us… let us…"
She sat thinking, "Let us just suppose that you, Charlotte, Jane and your friend Occam are correct. He stared at me because he admired me… not that I am admitting to it, but I will entertain the possibility."
Mary laughed, and said, "Baby steps, Lizzy."
"Now, suppose that he, like me, also took the intellectually lazy route."
"How so, Lizzy?"
"Suppose he thought that I was flirting with him."
Mary sat back up straight, stared at her sister, and tried to recall all she had observed in Hertfordshire. As usual, it was more than anybody else would have expected – one of the benefits of being effectively invisible. She nodded through all of it, and finally sighed.
"It would make some sense. Remember Mama was boasting of 'capturing' Mr. Bingley. Suppose he did admire you and concluded that you were flirting with him. What would he do?"
Elizabeth sighed, and said, "Miss Bingley flirted with him day in and day out, and he swatted her away like an annoying fly… though I would bet a year's allowance he kept his chambers locked."
"Yes."
"But, if he thought I was flirting with him, and he felt himself vulnerable…"
She thought a few more minutes, and said, "He would remove himself from the danger. After all, he is the stout oak that is responsible for the Darcy name two hundred years from now. Regardless of his feelings, he would most likely leave, and find a more suitable wife elsewhere."
Elizabeth wondered why she felt so sad at the revelation. It all made perfect sense. She had quite detested the man a fortnight ago, and had only recently, and quite begrudgingly decided he might not be as bad as she thought. She had even entertained the thought of a friendship with the man, though such things between unmarried people were practically unheard of.
With a sigh, she said, "Well, Mary. I believe we have solved the mystery. It is entirely possible that he admired me a bit, and mistakenly thought I returned the sentiment at one time. Now… now… well, he does not have to run. He leaves in two days' time, and I believe he is just storing up a few conversations."
Mary sighed, and said, "And are you… bothered… Lizzy?"
Elizabeth sighed, and said, "Well, it is one thing for me to reject him. Him rejecting me is not quite so agreeable, but other than that, I am just content to understand it. Not happy, mind you, but content."
Mary just sighed, and said, "I suppose. Either way, he will be gone the morning after tomorrow, so I imagine it does not matter all that much."
"No, Mary… it does not matter at all."
