Page 106 of Pride, Prejudice, & Pretense

Lizzy took the box from her mother and recognized the writing.Fitzwilliam.She tore the box open and handed it, empty, to her aunt. When she held up the contents, Mrs. Bennet said, "Oh, it's just a book."

It was the copy of Gaskell’sWives and Daughtersfrom Fanny's apartment. Lizzy opened the cover. The dedication was there…but changed.

For My Love, Elizabeth, hoping for a Wife—and Daughters (or Sons)

Fitzwilliam

“Fanny” had been marked out, and “Elizabeth” was written above it; “Ned” had been marked out, and “Fitzwilliam” appeared above it. Otherwise, the book was unchanged.

Lizzy hugged it to her chest, tears in her eyes.

"Is it valuable? Worth money?" Mrs. Bennet asked, curious, slightly puzzled. Hopeful.

"It's valuable," her aunt said, hugging Lizzy again as Lizzy continued hugging the book.

Chapter Twenty-Six: Backward and Forward

Days passed by as Lizzy ate, worked, and slept. Mostly, she slept, going to bed early and rising late, allowing herself to recompose and recoup. Her sleep was recreational; it re-created her. She felt stronger, more integral, more wholly herself. Agent Bennet began to fade—not just the internalized self-demand of missions, but also the battery of her habits.

In the mornings, after she finally left her bed, Lizzy seated herself by the large kitchen window and lounged. Cushioned there, she watched the brown, final leaves of autumn blow down, hot coffee cup in her hand, steam rising, thoughts wandering.

A squirrel outside kept her company, running back and forth along the top of the fence, atop Lizzy's morning horizon, in a frenzy of hoarding. Lizzy, however, was slowly divesting, letting go of all she had unknowingly been carrying. All the internal compromises of her Company life and all the guilt deserved and undeserved, she now refused to own.

Outside, the weather was cold and drizzly, the wind constant and biting, gusting off the Lake. It was a typical Rochester November: wet, windy, all-day permanentgray.It seemed like her hometown; it seemed equally strange and new to her. The sky was damp concrete, an endless cloudy expanse of shapeless brutalist architecture.

Eventually, her coffee done and the squirrel finished, Lizzy would stroll into her father's office wearing her pajamas and slippers, sit among his books at his desk in his chair, and work on the required essay for her application to graduate school. Her mother had left Mr. Bennet's office much as it had been the day he died. Working there now seemed like an act of acknowledgment, a late but necessary acceptance of the realityof his death. Her life with the Company had been her rejection of his death, her first falsity as an agent—it was a complicated knot she was still untying.

Lizzy had chosen to write about Le Carré, so she was slowly re-readingThe Little Drummer Girl,taking notes and sketching interpretive arguments as she went. Another reason she was reading the book was as purgation, Purgatory. The book was therapeutic. Although the story forced Casper Mountain and Wickham back into her mind, reading it helped Lizzy find distance and perspective on all that—on Agent Bennet and her many missions before Wickham.

She felt both akin to and alienated from Charlie Ross, the actress at the center of the novel, the little drummer girl of the title. Charlie had declared herself “dead” when her mission ended.I'm dead, I'm dead.Lizzy felt Charlie's words and understood the abyss of self-contempt that they expressed. Fortunately, she had avoided sleeping with her mark, narrowly avoiding the action that “killed” Charlie.

Maybe there are unpardonable sins against yourself?

With Fitzwilliam’s help, Lizzy had not had to answer that question. She was happy to leave the question to Charlie Ross, although the answer Charlie gave, if any, was lost in the metaphysical silence and emptiness beyond Le Carré's final period, the end of the novel.

Lizzy stared at it when she finished her slow re-reading. That final period looked hauntingly like a bullet hole in the page. She looked up at the books, the empty study.

Fitzwilliam, where are you? Come to me!

Despite her gnawing anxiety about him, despite how much she missed him, she was otherwise well, otherwise improving. For the first time in years, she felt rested. She managed to keep peace with her mother even while sharing the same house. Best of all, she had a chance to re-establish real intimacy with theGardiners, particularly Aunt Christine. Most afternoons, after writing, she drove her father's car and helped her aunt in the bridal shop.

It had not been necessary to say much to her mother about why she was home or about why she quit her job—Mrs. Bennet simply assumed that Lizzy had at last grown homesick for Rochester, the family home…and, of course, her mother. Although there was truth in the idea that Lizzy had been homesick, Aunt Christine believed there was far more to it than that.

Unlike Mrs. Bennet, who could never take a real sustained interest in anyone's life except her own, Mrs. Gardiner had noted Lizzy's travels over the years, noted what she said as well as what she didn’t say about her work. Most crucially, in the past she had observed Lizzy whenever they were together or talked on the phone, and she’d been especially observant since Lizzy had returned to her childhood home. She had graciously left her questions unasked, allowing her niece time to settle and adjust.

One slow afternoon in the shop, not long before Thanksgiving, she finally asked. "So, about your job…I've not protested about all the vagueness and evasion over the years, but you've said you're done with it. I will understand if you can't tell me much, but I have a guess. Have you been working for government intelligence, for the NSA or the CIA?"

Instead of answering, Lizzy just stared, and Aunt Christine chuckled. "If we were playing Battleship, I'd have just hit your carrier. That's how you used to look at me when we played." The two had enjoyed the game when Lizzy was a child. "Look, I apologize, but I opened that copy ofWives and Daughtersafter you put it down the day I brought it to you. I saw the inscription, the changes. Who's Fitzwilliam? Ned? Are you Fanny?"

Lizzy finally found her voice. "No! Well, yes…in a way. But I have to start at the beginning, I guess." She scanned the bridalshop. They were surrounded by white gowns but no customers now. She faced her aunt. "Yes. I worked for government intelligence, for the CIA. I joined—"

"Just after your father died," Aunt Christine said, completing the sentence.

Lizzy tilted her head. "How did you know that? I didn't say anything to anyone here until later, after the Farm."

"That's where you trained, right?"

"Yes, but I didn't say anything about a new job until I finished there. Did you already know?"

---