A/N: Hey Gang, glad you liked that little interaction. I wrote it as one 7k monster of a chapter and then broke it up into 3.
This last conversation was a significant deviation from my original long-story plan. I had intended the later meeting to be entirely by chance, but the chance to give them an opportunity to talk somewhat honestly was too good to pass up.
As several of you noted in the reviews, Elizabeth is what we would now call 'On the Spectrum', or Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Her particular flavor would probably be diagnosed as ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) or one of the other variants. I was certain that some of you would either have such a condition or be closely related to someone with some of the signs, and that theory has been proven. A couple of you have mentioned your life was and/or is a lot like hers. Reading, Music and Math have all been mentioned as the things to soothe the savage hordes (always loved that phrase), so it's realistic enough. I have taken some of the behaviors from the basket of people closely related to me and others from general reading and the web.
The Spectrum is more common than you would think, and the term is a good one since just about everyone has some of the signs. A diagnosis is more a matter of degree than kind. I can tell you that at least some of the traits for ASD are quite common in the software world, as coding naturally attracts people with some of those characteristics. In fact, many of the 'bad' aspects of ASD behavior are generally considered features instead of bugs in my industry.
In today's world, there is still significant stigma attached to these characteristics, and they do make people's lives harder, but things are not as bad as they used to be. There are much better ways to treat them today than Charlotte's BFSA approach (Brute Force Stumbling Around). Of course, when I was a kid they would have been diagnosed with 'Bratty Child Syndrome', and the treatment would have mostly involved willow switches or similar 'treatments', so things have improved considerably. Imagine that basket of behaviors in a Regency girl, and I would assume it was extremely difficult.
In the US, about 1 in 69 children are diagnosed with some form of ASD, with boys being 4 times as likely as girls. There are of course lots of undiagnosed cases, and then there is always the question of where you draw the line. There is lots of good content on the subject these days. I highly recommend the movie Temple Grandin, which is a great story of a woman who overcame these problems.
Enough about that. I must admit that I only thought of that idea last Wednesday, let it percolate for a couple days, and wrote it on the weekend, but I was quite happy with the way it came out. I like for things to make sense, and I it fills in the backstory quite nicely.
At this point, I have the last 2-3 chapters in my head, and let us call it 'X' between Point A and Point B. I have a few maybe minor plot points to explore, so we'll have 2-10 chapters between now and later. Several people have asked for reckonings with the coachman and/or the Bingleys, and I will just advise patience. It's all under control.
This chapter is about double my usual, and a bit off the main storyline, so you can decide if it's an interesting side story, filler or step 1 of… well, I guess we'll all know in another 3,748 words. There is a purpose for ODC in the side stories.
Wade
"Miss Bennet, may I ask you an awfully impertinent question?"
"Of course! I am at your disposal."
"What in the world have you done with my cousins?"
Elizabeth looked at her companion, sitting beside her on the seat of her phaeton, sighed, and said, "Well, Miss de Bourgh, basic logic would suggest that the use of the plural for of the word 'cousin' in your question means you have a hypothesis that I have 'done' something to 'more than one' of your cousins. Since I only know two, the set of possible targets for the question must include Mr. Darcy, and Colonel Fitzwilliam. Is my parsing of the question correct?"
Anne de Bourgh smiled at the ridiculousness of the answer and wondered if her friend was having it on with her, or simply clarifying. It was often difficult with Miss Bennet to tell if she was teasing, explaining or qualifying.
Elizabeth spent the same time looking at her companion, wondering just how much prying the lady intended to do, and how much actual information she was willing to divulge. She honestly found Anne de Bourgh to be fascinating, and was more than willing to indulge her where it was possible.
It was mid‑afternoon three days after Jane's betrothal announcement – and her second failed proposal – and her subsequent long and somewhat healing conversation with said vexing-vexing cousin. As per plan, Mr. Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam had called at the parsonage the day after she had scheduled a rendezvous in six months' time, and Elizabeth found the experience somewhat fantastical.
The Colonel looked and acted as he usually did, but she thought it might be a bit of a façade, because he seemed to feel some underlying tension that was not there previously. She thought she might offer him an apology but had no idea how to even begin the discussion, or what she would say, or what result she would hope to achieve. She eventually decided he was a full‑grown man and he could fend for himself. He should at least be cured of the worst of his gossipy tendencies.
On the other hand, Mr. Darcy was substantially more open and amiable than previously, with her, with Mary and even with William. Elizabeth was still trying to sketch his character and could not decide how to interpret it. Was he being more amiable because he was trying to improve her opinion of him (courting behavior, perhaps), or because he was no longer so worried and he was just reverting to his normal demeanor, or the fact that he was no longer 'fighting' his attraction for her? The Colonel had opined earlier that he was 'lively enough' in other situations. Was the more amiable version the 'real' Mr. Darcy or was it the more taciturn – or was it something else entirely. Perhaps he was like a Chameleon and changed his color according to his circumstances. Whatever the explanation, the 'new' Mr. Darcy was much more palatable than the disagreeable 'old' one, but she still did not want to marry him.
With a start and a small shake of her head, Elizabeth recognized the telltale sign of what Charlotte called 'mind chatter' – that endless loop of thoughts that could cascade into a waterfall of thinking. Learning to control the chatter had been one of the hardest lessons learned during Charlotte's self‑imposed training regimen, though in the end, it was not Charlotte who came up with the solution, but Jennifer Long. One day, Elizabeth had described the problem, and Jennifer said, 'It sounds like you need to trim your sails'. That meant that the thoughts were circling like a ship in a storm, and Elizabeth had her sails fully open, riding the storm to her destruction, just like a badly managed ship. Jennifer asserted she must learn to trim her sails enough to calm her inner core down in the frightening seas, before she could open them and go back to riding her thoughts as was proper. Jennifer did not profess to any particular cleverness. She had received the wisdom from an uncle who was a sea-captain, who used the same technique to quiet his thoughts before a battle.
Elizabeth applied the technique to calm herself, so she could drag her attention back to her companion before she became even ruder. A quick daydream of a ship in a violent storm, with sailors running up the ropes to trim the sails whilst the Captain stood calmly on deck reciting the Fibonacci Sequence from 34 to 987 did the trick.
She smiled at her companion, and said, "I am sorry for the delay, Miss de Bourgh. My mind sometimes wanders, through no fault of my companions. I would be pleased if you called me Elizabeth."
Her companion sat up straighter and gave the biggest smile Elizabeth had ever seen from her. Elizabeth had to admit that Miss de Bourgh was quite pretty when she quit slouching, frowning, letting her companion coddle her and tolerating her mother's browbeating.
The young lady replied, "And I would be pleased if you called me Anne… or at least I would be if you were not avoiding my question."
The last was spoken with a shy, somewhat timid smile, as if the idea of teasing frightened the young lady – not an unlikely theory when you came right down to it.
Elizabeth returned the smile, and said, "I would be happy to call you by your given name; or at least to do so when I am not around your mother. As to the latter, I fear I must answer your question with another question."
Anne chuckled, and said, "Very well, although I will not absolutely promise not to reply to your question with yet another question."
Elizabeth returned her mirth, and said, "Ah, the infamous double‑negative… like multiplying two negative numbers to get to a positive, but you will not fool me. I wonder how we could ever get to the bottom of some issue if we keep answering questions with questions for some time. I imagine at some point we would have to eventually answer some of the questions. Perhaps we could write each question on a piece of parchment and put them in a stack. When we eventually answered one of the questions, you would remove it from the stack, and keep going, either adding or removing questions until the stack was empty."
"If you went along far enough though, the stack would either fall over or overflow the space you allocated for it."
"That seems ill advised. I suppose we should work out where we were before this diversion. I think I was going to ask you on what basis you think I 'did something' to your cousins."
Anne said, "Fitzwilliam Darcy was nice to me… and Richard Fitzwilliam followed suit."
Elizabeth just raised one eyebrow in confusion and waited. Perhaps she was afraid of overloading the question stack prematurely.
Anne continued, "Well, you see… Fitzwilliam and I were somewhat close as children. Around the time he went to Eaton and then to Cambridge, I became extremely ill and never quite recovered. In the process, we lost our childhood connection. As soon as he came of age, my mother started telling this ridiculous story of planning our marriage in our cradles and has been hounding him ever since."
Curiously, Elizabeth said, "Well, such a plan is obviously not ideal for the sacrificial lambs, but that sort of thing is frequently done in high circles. Come to think of it, and even in my circles. I must sheepishly admit that my mother tried relentlessly to push me into an unwanted marriage. Can you tell me why you think it to be ridiculous?"
Anne said, "Come now, Miss Bennet. You are a master of logic and mathematics. Think!"
It only took a second for Elizabeth to laugh, which eased Anne's countenance, "Aha!... Unless your cousin was a particularly sickly child, I doubt he would be in his cradle at three years of age."
Anne nodded in satisfaction, and continued, "Yes, discussing our supposed union in our cradles was temporally impossible, and even if not, you would think Aunt Anne would have mentioned it to Fitzwilliam if there really was an agreement. That does not seem like the sort of agreement a mother would just forget to tell her child about."
"That would make sense."
"We discussed the possibility of actually following through with the mad plan, and we mutually decided that we would not suit. However, my mother is like a dog with a bone. She just will not let go of the idea. After a year or two, Fitzwilliam became genuinely concerned about the possibility of a compromise. He also noticed, much to his credit mind you, that my mother treated me worse when he vehemently denied the possibility on more than one occasion. Eventually, I asked him to just treat me with some distance and let her have her say so long as it did not affect him. He reluctantly agreed, and then his father died, and he took up care of his estate and his sister. He was barely keeping his head above water for several years, and over that time, we just fell into the habit."
Elizabeth sighed, took hold of her friend's arm, and said, "It seems like you chose the least‑bad solution you could come up with, though the whole idea fills me with sadness. It is not as if you are overloaded with family and friends at Rosings."
Realizing her tongue had once again ran ahead of both her good sense and her manners, Elizabeth amended, "I am sorry, that was unkind."
Anne looked at her and said, "No apology necessary. In fact, it is a good segue. May I ask something of you that may be difficult to deliver, but I shall ask nonetheless – on the advice of my cousin Darcy, by the way."
Looking perplexed, Elizabeth said, "You may ask, and I will render an opinion about my willingness."
With a look of intense concentration, and what Elizabeth thought might be a touch of fear, her friend replied, "I ask that you, if at all possible – even if it is difficult, please do not lie to me, or even shade the truth. Whether your last remark was unkind of not, it was true. I am going to beg another favor of you soon, but it will require more than the usual level of honesty between people who have known each other such a short time. I know it is a lot to ask, but between us, I would like to suspend propriety and politeness."
Elizabeth looked carefully at her friend for quite some time, trying to judge if the offer was sincere, and possibly estimating the size and weight of the spring on the bear trap she suspected she was sticking her leg into – but at least her mind was concentrated on the here and now, which was more of an accomplishment than it might be for some.
At last, she said, "Very well, I shall agree when we are in private. I will be polite and noncommittal when in the presence of your family."
Anne let out a big sigh, and said, "Thank you. I truly appreciate it. Nobody talks honestly to me."
Elizabeth said, "Is that their fault?"
"No, not really. They do not offer it, I do not ask for it, and my environment does not encourage it."
Elizabeth nodded, and said, "Well, I have quite lost track of where we were on our question stack."
"You were going to tell me what you did to my cousins."
Elizabeth sighed, and said, "You ask a lot, Anne."
"Too much?"
Elizabeth thought about it for some time. Anne was driving the phaeton, and they had a groom riding in back who was deaf as a post, so they had no concerns for privacy. The pony was the most docile creature Elizabeth had ever laid eyes on. Without active encouragement he was walking at a pace Elizabeth could easily best by jumping to the ground and walking, so she had time to think.
"No, not too much, but to truly answer your question, I would have to extend you a level of trust currently reserved for Mary, my eldest sister, Jane, and my best friend Charlotte Lucas. I will think on it for a moment."
Elizabeth noticed that Anne seemed perfectly willing to wait all day for her answer, and rather than thinking about whether to trust her or not, she got diverted to wondering at the source of the patience. The answer became obvious with only a tiny amount of directed reflection. Rosings was not a spirited environment, so patience must be not only a virtue, but a survival skill.
Anne said, "If it helps you, Elizabeth, I will withdraw the question… but before I do, I should mention that I plan to trust you with something I trust to nobody. Not a single person has seen what I wish to show you."
Eventually, curiosity got the better of her, and Elizabeth said, "All right, I will answer, Anne."
She took a deep breath, and said, "Well, both of your cousins have advanced the theory that I am a mirror. This means that I say and do things that force people to look at themselves in ways they are not accustomed to. In the Colonel's case, he relayed some rather nasty gossip to me, and I quite subtly made it known that he was in the wrong."
Anne laughed, and said, "Well, that part is not all that surprising. I always suspected his big mouth would get him into trouble sooner or later."
"Well, he is not in trouble per se. I did not especially think much of him, good or bad before, and I am left still not thinking much of him. I believe whatever angst he is feeling is over his own self‑image, which I suspect is not as bright and shiny as he would like it to be, or that he thought it was before our conversation."
Anne just chuckled, and said with a big smile, "Well, I am happy that someone finally took him down a peg or two. It was long overdue."
"Long overdue perhaps, but not my task. I could be vexed, but I am not particularly put out by it."
Anne sighed, and stopped the horse entirely, which by that point had virtually no effect on their forward progress. The aging groom jumped off the back and went up to hold the bridle. Elizabeth could not tell if he was being diligent, worried about the horse's mental state, or if he was just tired of riding on the back of the phaeton at a snail's pace.
Anne looked at Elizabeth carefully, and said, "I am fascinated with this concept of the mirror, Elizabeth, and I am hoping it to be true; which brings me to my other cousin. On Thursday, Darcy came back from a long absence looking like his favorite dog went crazy, snatched his second favorite by the neck and jumped off a cliff, dragging his favorite horse along."
Elizabeth giggled at the expression. It had to be the most awkward analogy of all time, but she appreciated that Anne was trying to learn to tease and was at least making some progress.
Anne continued, "However, on Friday, afternoon, he disappeared once again for some time, and came back a changed man. He was not happy per se, or even content, but something was significantly different. He seemed more reflective, more concerned with the world around him… more…"
She paused a few moments, and said, "… more concerned with me specifically. I do not mean he has generated some new feelings of affection, but it was as if the cobwebs had been cleared from in front of his eyes, and he very belatedly realized that between the two of us, we had let my mother destroy what should be a close friendship."
Elizabeth looked at her thoughtfully, and Anne continued, "So, what did the mirror tell him?"
Feeling precariously situated, Elizabeth said, "Well, the mirror told him that he is basically a good man that spends an awful lot of his energy pretending to be a bad man, to the point where the goodness is well hidden – nay, invisible."
Anne scrunched her face in confusion for a moment, then her brow cleared, and said, "Ahhh…. You have been subjected to the famous Darcy Scowl, and his reticence in company… or possibly his vastly overly inflated pride… or maybe his reliance on his more amiable friends to help him get by in society when he is too lazy to learn to fend for himself?"
Elizabeth sighed, and said, "Well, some flavor of all of them."
"That explains his scowls on Thursday. How do you account for his vastly improved demeanor on Friday?"
Elizabeth sighed, and said, "Well, that I cannot vouch for with precision, but I suppose I can shine some light on it. I did on Friday very slightly improve his chances of getting something he desired, but only by the slimmest of margins."
Anne asked, "Well, he told me you were an aficionado of mathematics, and in fact, he suggested I ask of you the favor I will get to presently. For the moment, let us examine it numerically. Just how slim was this 'improvement' in his chances of success."
"It improved from no chance at all to a very slim chance, perhaps 1 in 100."
Anne laughed, and said, "And you consider that a small change."
"Yes… if you take that number metaphorically, the delta is but 1%."
Anne smiled, and said, "Well, since I will be asking for your expertise soon, let me give you mine on a subject of which I have some expertise. You make a common error in underestimating the change. Hope is not linear. It is sort of like division by zero, which produces either infinity or an error, depending on who you ask. You see, Elizabeth, there is as much change from 'no hope at all' to '1 in 100' as there would be from '1 in a million' to '1 in 2'. There is a vast difference between 'no hope at all' and 'some hope'. If he has some hope, then everything else changes. I am now unsurprised by the change, and I need not even know what it is he is hoping for."
Elizabeth thought about the lady's assertion, wondering if she would find out exactly why Anne thought she was such an expert on hope.
Finally, she nodded, and said, "Well, I will assert that you understand it more than I do; and whilst I do not have the experience to comment on it, your thesis makes perfect sense. It would also adequately explain some other things I observed after that time in our two test subjects, so I will provisionally accept your thesis."
Anne smiled once again at the praise, but then it turned into a frown.
"Well then, Elizabeth, Fitzwilliam suggested a course of action. I would like to ask of you a big favor, which he suggested."
Curious, Elizabeth asked, "What would that be? I can neither agree nor deny until I know what is being asked."
Anne reached behind the seat, hefted a small valise up, and handed it to Elizabeth.
"Darcy suggested that I ask you to analyze those mathematically. He thinks it will yield significant insights."
Elizabeth asked curiously, "What are they?"
"My diaries."
With a ferocious frown, Elizabeth said, "I would not…"
Not to be outdone, Anne spoke over her, "Do not be concerned with privacy. I have been sick enough for long enough I long ago abandoned any such silly ideas, although as I said before, these are my most private thoughts, never before shared with anyone. I would like you to examine them and tell me what you learn."
Elizabeth stared at the valise, and said, "You know there is a better than even chance you already know perfectly well what they contain and are just afraid to face it."
Anne blushed, and said, "Perhaps I know, but I fear I lack the… confidence to believe it. I need… well… Darcy said I need someone looking from outside the box."
Elizabeth snorted, and said, "Well, his chances just went back to nil. I will…"
Anne looked panicked, and said, "No, please, Elizabeth! I beg you, do not take it out on him. He suggested this for my benefit."
Elizabeth stared at her, with her mind chatter starting to take hold with thoughts of strangling the vexing‑vexing man. She finally trimmed her sails, and said, "It sounds like Mr. Darcy is just being lazy."
Anne, who had been feeling a bit panicky, said, "I asserted the same thing, quite vehemently. After that, I advocated for the alternate theories that he was afraid, timid, shy, ungentlemanly or just a lunkhead."
Elizabeth smiled, and said, "And how did the lunkhead respond?"
Most annoyingly. He said, "Anne, this is important! Why would you trust an apprentice when the master is readily available?"
Elizabeth stared at her and said, "He thinks I am the master."
Anne said, "He thought you might say that. He suggested I ask you to complete the phrase 'Mistress of …'"
Elizabeth snorted, but finally relented and said, "Awkward Conversations. That seems to be my fate in life. I seem to spend most of my time dealing with awkward situations."
"Will you look at my diaries… please?"
Elizabeth sighed, and said, "All right. I am here two more days before returning home. If you can get this nag back to the parsonage, I will do as you ask, but do not be surprised if you do not like what you see in the mirror, or if you find it to be exactly what you expected and you have put me through a spot of bother for nothing."
Anne's face lit up like a sunrise, which confused Elizabeth since she seriously doubted that she was going to make any real change to the lady's life. However, she had agreed, and did not actually have anything to do for the next two days anyway.
Anne got the groom's attention, he rejoined the phaeton, and a quarter hour later, Elizabeth was sitting in her room looking at the first diary, wondering just what in the world she had gotten herself into.
