I don't feel like talking too much today, besides, there are 3.800 words here...
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BOOK 1
FRIENDS
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‘William!’ A familiar female voice shouted.
‘William, where are you?’ The voice shouted louder and tad
angrier.
‘Mom, why are you shouting like this?’
A younger familiar female voice asked disapprovingly.
‘Your father is missing! Have you seen
him?’ The older woman asked.
‘Not since breakfast. Isn’t he in the
library?’
‘No… Your grandma is there. She wants to
talk to him.’
‘Mmmm…’
‘William, are you hiding from my mother?
Your own aunt?’
‘Really, mother! Do you think my father
would do such a thing?’
‘William, where are you? Come to the
library!’
‘Really... Do you have to shout?’
‘Diana, your father is capable of making me
so angry…’
The voices trailed off as the women
probably went down the stairs and Darcy sighed. Where he was? He was safe.
Alone in the attic where his wife Anne had
exiled the Darcy family memorabilia, his old gun trunk opened on the floor at
his feet, his father’s old office chair feeling unsettlingly cozy to him. He
remembered seeing his father seat his heavy body in this chair and stay there
for hours at an end reading the newspaper or escaping his own mother-in-law.
Had he finally become his father?
He lowered his body, rested his elbows on
his knees and rummaged a little more in his gun trunk. He used to be so proud
of this old thing; his dear grandfather’s gift for his tenth birthday. He
remembered perfectly how ecstatic he was to get his own gun – an old thing that
needed a lot of maintenance – and how afraid to lose this treasure he was while
watching his parents argue with his grandfather. At the end it was agreed that
the gun was not be used – it was only decoration – and his grandfather bought buy
him a safer brand new air gun.
Darcy caressed the old gun, the old leather
padding where it was attached to and let his eyes yield to her handwriting. Lizzy’s letters were bound with twine in stacks of
ten or so envelopes. The first packs had small round handwriting, almost
childlike, sometimes in pink or green ink; and then it changed to inclined
lettering, clearly written in a fast hand.
‘To: HRH
Fitzwilliam Darcy, Prince of Pemberley’
‘To: My
dear friend, Fitz D.’
‘To: The
most presumptuous, insufferable guy in all England – Fitz Darcy’
She always surprised him when addressing
the envelopes and the way she did gave him a clue of what was inside. Usually
she teased him, but occasionally she accused him of being obnoxious, snob,
insufferable. Darcy smiled to himself remembering how much he anticipated each
letter, each answer to his previous one. And how he never minded her calling
him ‘Fitz’ even though he told her how much he hated his name. He continued signing
‘William’, but she insisted with ‘Fitz’.
When it started, he was in school and
inspired by a teacher had joined the school’s Youth Group two years before. His
seriousness had propelled him into a post at the International board and being
boring enough to take care of paperwork he gathered data to produce the international
achievements’ reports to be presented on tri-annual conventions. His pride was
stroked by this high post, how he was seen as a serious young man during that
single week when students from all over the world united to exchange
experiences of how they were changing their little corner of the world. He
looked forward to the next one.
Basically, it was a boring task that none
of the cool guys wanted. He was aloof enough to take it and put up with the
correspondence coming from the different countries his school – the Royal
British School - had branches. His grandfather helped him organize a form and
he mailed it worldwide receiving fairly good answers until he got the one from
Brazil. It was not in his format, it was handwritten and added several
information he hadn’t asked for. Same happened the next trimester. The third
time, he sent the report back with a personal note saying he would be forced to
disregard Brazil’s data if it wasn’t sent in his unified form.
Her answer was priceless and to this day
Darcy was sorry he had tossed away the note. In a few lines, an Elizabeth Bennett properly
humbled him saying his form was nearsighted since it didn’t cover half of what
was interesting and suggested him to rethink it. He was furious for days,
barely spoke a word to people around him, considered several angry comebacks
but before he sent her anything else, another letter arrived with a new form.
Based on his, her form was indeed much better and easier to fill; it made the
Youth Group’s efforts interesting to read.
The note that came attached to the improved form he kept. It was faded and
crumpled but he could read her childish handwriting perfectly.
‘Dear Mr. Darcy,
I know you consider us inferior to your standards since we are a Third
World country of uneducated people. I’m almost sorry to contradict you.
Although our country lacks many things, intelligence is not one of
those. Especially not in our Groups.
I’m sending you an improved version of your form perfected in a joint
effort of our five groups from the schools in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Santa
Catarina and Goiás. Actually, this is the form we’ll use from now on.
The way the Brazilian board sees our work, the Youth Groups are
composed of friends who help each other and I’m sorry to know that our data
won’t be considered in the International reports. On our next National
convention we’ll discuss the best way to present it ourselves during the next International
convention in Peru.
I shall not consider the inferiority of your form as degradation. In
vain I have tried to conquer the need to send you our form but ultimately such
a spiteful action goes against the nature of our youth group.
Certain of the reward of your understanding,
Lizzy Bennett.’
It stayed in his desk during all summer,
every other day he would read it trying to find some underlying message he might
have overseen but it was always there – the bordering derisiveness even if in
the same courteous addressing he had used.
Finally when it was time to return to
school, he gave in and adopted her form, but not without adding some changes. He
didn’t remember his actual words but he thanked her almost grudgingly and
communicated her the Brazilian form was now international.
Her answer was again, priceless.
‘Dear Mr. Darcy,
We are profoundly humbled by your acknowledging of our weak
contribution to the improvement of our institution’s data collecting.
Next time you consider it interesting to rule over your kingdom, allow
me to suggest consulting your subjects.
L Bennett.’
Unsure of the reason for such a passionate
response to his impersonal note, Darcy chose to keep these notes private. This Elizabeth
– Lizzy - must be really a fiery girl and that was irresistible. Also impudent,
almost impolite and she consistently hurt his pride.
Not once he considered he may have hurt
hers first.
He did write back and also very grudgingly,
Elizabeth answered in unmerciful teasing, relentlessly making fun of the ‘rich boy
who didn’t know anything outside his little corner of the world’. Not long
after they moved from adding notes to documents to exchanging letters purely
for the fun of it forming a pen-friendship.
Derisively she started calling him Little Prince referring Saint Exupery’s
book, only he was the heir of the magnificent country-estate of Pemberley and
not a planet. In spite of her intentions, it endeared her to Darcy. He started to
also refer to himself as Prince of Pemberley – at least when talking to her.
She was good humored and authentic. She
sent her photos and reciprocating, he sent her as many photos he could.
“Seeing
how overwhelmingly big Pemberley is made me realize how important you must be,
some kind of royalty for the people around you. Really a Prince. How many do
you employ? Do you provide health care and schools for this small nation you
rule?
You
have humbled me… In your world, I would be a gentlewoman at most. Not even a Fidalga.”
‘My Baroness!’ Darcy whispered to himself
and covered his smile with a hand, lost in his memories of how he used to call
her, an affectionate nickname. ‘Bart!...’
Her
letters were very different from anything he was used to. She always sent him
some token, a dried flower, an insect wing (that she said reminded him of how
grossly he behaved), newspaper clippings, a cassette tape with music and a
recorded message from her, chocolate coins.
And that first photo she sent him… he felt
his insides churn. It was faded now. Her sweet smile in parentheses, her eyes
sparkling under a thick bang of dark hair, the tanned skin. Gorgeous. Nothing
like the girls he knew. Authentic, original, pretty as hell. Lizzy.
Feeling dumb, Darcy kept his hand hiding
his mouth as he looked at that photo. He kept her photos together and not
inside the letter it came in because he always wanted to see her. He perused
them after wasting an awful amount of time on that first one. With anticipation
he arrived at his favorite: the smiling older Lizzy was half turned, the
setting sun and the sea behind her, wind playing with her hair – long and
straight, free of the heavy bangs. He turned it and read the inscription marveling
at how her words popped into his head a few nanoseconds before his eyes read
them.
‘Looking
forward to show you this sunset in person, friend. Can you believe I’ll get to
meet you and graduate in the same week? I’ll be free from college, free!’
It was all planned, his visit to Brazil in
order to attend her graduation.
She was ecstatic he had accepted her
invitation. She planned incessantly sending him almost daily letters detailing
what they would do in Rio de Janeiro, how they would spend their time. Since
she would start a new job soon, she would spend her last vacation before succumbing to capitalism with him.
He wanted to. He was excited to go, happy
to meet her in person after ten years exchanging letters. They had tried once
before. At the International convention in Peru he would be stepping down from
the Youth Group since he was already in college; Elizabeth was finishing school
and about to start college. They exchanged excited letters with expectations
for what the future held for them, the most thrilling one was to meet in person. He had wanted to try using the burgeoning
internet through his university’s computer lab but she couldn’t access it from
anywhere, their only chance to a close contact was in person in Peru.
Darcy arrived in Lima barely containing his
heart in his chest. How could a twenty one years old young man not look forward
to meet a seventeen years old enchanting girl? They had made plans in letters
for sightseeing, eating ceviche,
he bought tourist guides and studied the country to impress her with his
intelligence. When the convention started the next day, he was locked in a
meeting and didn’t see the Brazilian group arrive. He searched the crowd of
eager teenagers during lunch in the huge cafeteria until someone pointed the
‘Bennett girl’ and for a second his eyes fogged. Where was the dark haired
beauty with bangs?
With a heavy heart he heard his friend
Charles Bingley say that the only Bennett girl in Peru was Jane. He wanted to
punch Bingley’s chuckling face as he presented the lovely Jane and the girl
with Elizabeth’s nose and mouth extended him a thin envelope saying her sister
was really sorry.
‘I
mean, there’s not much I could do. If father lost his job we should save money
and… I don’t have to lie to you: I’m devastated. I wanted to die when mother
decided only Jane could go. I still want to die. I may be already dead when you
get this.’
Darcy left the convention as soon as his
duty with the next International secretary was accomplished. There was nothing
in Peru for him if his friend wouldn’t be there. The gifts he had brought for
Elizabeth were delivered to Jane with a curt nod. Bingley decided to follow
Darcy and it took Jane a few days to understand why the guy she had dated for
two days left all of a sudden.
‘You are lucky I wasn’t there, Fitz! Why would you let my sister date
such a jerk? This Charles left without saying goodbye to her! I loved the
t-shirt and the chocolate, by the way. But why would you befriend such a jerk?
Isn’t Jane adorable enough for him?’
Alone in the attic Darcy chuckled to
himself remembering he had actually been afraid of answering that letter.
Bitter and jealous, he had been the one who told Bingley to go home. After two
weeks gathering courage, he admitted to her he was wrong in his advising
although he didn’t force Bingley, who was never constant in his love interests,
to go. Elizabeth had given him all kinds of hell over Bingley and he laughed
alone rereading those angry letters. She only calmed down when he sent Jane a
personal apology note.
Only six years later another opportunity
reached them, she was always in a tight budget and he under his father’s thumb.
But when she graduated he had already finished his masters and had access to
his trust fund. He was starting his adult life, was engaged and his
cousin-fiancé was planning their wedding.
Anne de Bourgh twisted her white thin nose
at the idea of flying to Brazil but accepted after some cajoling. He would
never say anything but deep down Darcy hoped she would leave him in the lurch; Elizabeth
was his friend, not hers. What if
Lizzy was even more enchanting in person? There was a good chance of that.
He confirmed he would attend Elizabeth’s graduation;
he bought the flight tickets and planned to stay for a month. But then he had
to disappear for a while.
A week before his trip, his mother was very
badly injured after she fell from a horse. Pemberley grounds were vast and it
took them a few hours to find her in a deserted area, winter was severe that
year, the chilly weather worsened her condition. After almost a month in the
hospital, Anne Darcy died.
During this wretched period, Darcy started
to write a letter to Elizabeth a few times, even tried to call once but didn’t
manage to talk to her. When he told Anne about his idea of spending some time
in Brazil to grieve, she didn’t take it well and soon after announced she was
pregnant. Darcy was surprised, happy in a confused way, hurt, missing his
mother and worried about his father and his little sister who were very happy
with the possibility of having a baby in the house.
Devastated and dazed, Darcy accepted when his
father forced him to anticipate the marriage, feeling it was his duty to
emotionally support the family.
Now, decades later, the suspicion that Anne
planned to force their marriage poisoned him. He hadn’t needed that; he wanted
to go to Brazil, change sceneries and give fate a chance.
Soon before the wedding, Anne and his
father were involved in a car crash that buried Darcy alive: his father died and
Anne miscarried. That day burned all remembrance of anything lively or
sparkling.
Anne lost her wits and doted on Georgiana
who had sixteen at the time. Darcy was sad for a long time and missed Elizabeth,
their friendship, her letters and cheering up.
When he thought he could write anything
pleasant, he gathered his strength and sent her a long letter but never got an
answer. He missed her graduation, didn’t explain why he didn’t show up, she
probably was furious with him. What if she had gone to the airport to greet
him?
But he hadn’t had much of a chance at the
time. Even if he had been considering breaking up with Anne when she announced
the pregnancy, after the miscarriage he didn’t have the courage to do it. Then
came the girls, first Diana e soon after Sarah. Years later he still felt he
was sacrificing himself.
That’s why he was in the attic now, dreaming
of a ‘never been’. Never was.
Darcy sighed and leafed through Elizabeth’s
old letters.
‘It’s
easier to say 'I love you' to me than to your girlfriend because you're saying
it to a piece of paper and a piece of paper doesn't have fingers for you to
feel obliged to put a ring on! Besides, our ‘I love you’s are totally different.
Right?
Anyway,
I love you too, my piece of paper!
Lizzy,
Bt.
PS.: I'm sending you a paper doll with my face, but no ring friendly fingers!’
He laughed to himself remembering he had
actually played with that paper doll when he got it. A little ashamed, he had undressed
the doll and found little frilly knickers. Lizzy must have used an old paper
doll with her smiling face cut and glued with scotch tape, and two sets of
clothes.
He found it crumpled in a corner of the old
trunk, the neck already creased from the extra weight of the picture glued to
the head.
‘Your good opinion once lost is lost forever... This
is something very poetic to say but holding a grudge is toxic. Shouldn't you
offer the other cheek? And don’t accuse me of being ‘too catholic’. There isn’t
such a thing as ‘too catholic’.’
The boarding school fight!... What was it
all about?
Darcy had to concentrate to remember why he
had a fistfight when he was almost an adult. Someone said something about a
girl he wasn’t even dating… He faintly remembered an ex-boyfriend and sour
grapes.
‘I
heard you! Lamb Tone rocks! I loved it! Rick Astley is sooooo great! Thanks,
Prince! And Madonna… I appreciate your effort on giving me a few moments of pop
rock instead of Plant, Page & Jagger all the time. You rock! And… such a
sexy voice you have, your Highness!’
It had taken them three letters to arrange
dates and schedules to make sure he would hack into Manchester radio station
when she would be able to tune in using extra antennas or something and listen
to his occasional broadcast.
Darcy spent many minutes smiling to the
ceiling remembering how serious he and Graham took their pirate radio. They had
shows, a recorded vignette and special features… So much fun.
‘Broadcast signal intrusion is a felony here. I think Lamb Tone is
totally worth it but can hijacking Manchester radio put you in
trouble? Oh, and the polo photo? Wow!...’
It was illegal and it brought him a lot of
trouble. Manchester W540 radio only needed a few meager enquires to find out who
was responsible for hijacking their signal one or two times a month. The Darcys
were a traditional family in the area and the radio owner – a personal friend -
called his father.
Darcy and Graham were in big trouble for a
long time. Darcy winced remembering his father and uncle yelling at them to ‘stop
behaving like lads and start being men’.
And the polo photo… Darcy smiled to
himself. He had planned to impress Lizzy with all his male exuberance atop his
exquisite gelding and the polo team uniform. It worked!
‘So, I
guess I had it easy. I mean…
What if
this guy turned out to be one of those crazy abusive boyfriends???’
Darcy hated to read her talking about guys
who he couldn’t meet in person to see for himself if they were good enough for
her.
And guys complained about their pen friendship!
The gall!...
My mother is right; being a teacher in Brazil means almost starvation!
What was I thinking???
With a degree in Biomedicine I can get a job in health care but the
salary… it’s a shame. Don’t worry; I won’t start with the political speech here
– even though our health care politics ARE SHAMEFULL – but no one can live off the two dollars/hour
salary.
Of course I could change majors but that would mean I’d have to start
college all over again. I’ve been thinking about law school… Do you think I’d
be a good lawyer?
Are you still interested in my insecurities or are bored to death?
He remembered how confused she was after
the first year in college. He thought that if she changed majors, she would
just want to do it again in a year time. She had been so sure of biomedicine the
year before…
Reading her letter, Darcy remembered how
ardently he had wanted to take her to a pub and let her open her heart to him
over a pint until he could give her a wisdom dripping advice.
Instead, he had written her a long, long
letter.
‘Engaged?! My friend, congratulations!
Anne will make you really happy, she has known you since you were born,
and dealing with your mother-in-law will feel as easy as a dear aunt! Ha!
I don’t see myself getting married anytime soon, you guys are really
brave! Isn’t marriage supposed to be the beginning of the rest of one’s life?
I’m really, really happy for you.
Do you think Anne will let you keep writing me?’
At the time he had
felt a tiny sting of disappointment. Elizabeth was his friend, his confidant
but also a very pretty girl. And being Brazilian gave her an edge… she sounded
juicier. When she wrote saying she was happy for his impending marriage, did it
mean she didn’t have any romantic designs for him whatsoever?
Darcy fished his phone from his pocket and
speed dialed his Head of Security who didn’t answer the phone. Two seconds
later came a text.
‘Wait until Monday.’
Soon after came another.
‘Dad, Mom is seething. Have you left the house? Granny Catherine wants
to talk to you about one of her very important things…’
“…Someone
said: “If you’re not careful,
You’ll
have nothing left, nothing to care for”…”
Being boring – Pet Shop Boys
----------------------------------------
Chapter 3
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