Page 48 of Pride, Prejudice, & Pretense

The bathroom felt different to Lizzy when she entered than at any time before.Steamier.The steam had evaporated fromthe mirror, which showed a clear reflection of her still-flushed cheeks.

When she finished dressing, she found Darcy had stayed long enough to share the coffee he had made with her. They didn't talk much except a little about how Ned and Fanny would approach the dinner party.

In the space of the evening, they would have to bridge from announcing their engagement to Fanny flirting with Wickham while Ned moved from lighthouse pride and joy to subtly resentful suspicion and sourness. The hardest part to play, unquestionably, would be Fanny's. They talked about that for a while in a general way, neither seeming willing to envisage particulars, the topic making their interaction a plod uphill, lugubrious.

A seemingly downcast Darcy left shortly afterward to coordinate the infiltration of Rosings with Charlie. He had decided that Lizzy would have too much on her mind to be worried about any of the details of that, and she agreed.

She was already depressed, anxious, and emotional. This mission had started bad and gotten worse.How did I let my pride maneuver me into this mission?A part of her wanted to be where she was and was willing to face the predicament the mission had become and was still becoming. She did not explain that willingness to herself.

It was better to leave that alone, unexamined.

The afternoon clouded over, and wind whipped in from the Lake, picking up intensity between the skyscrapers. Lizzy dressed early and poured the last of the morning coffee over ice. She stood sipping it as she watched the graying, moody sky and the miniature motion of the distant street below her. She wanted a stronger drink, but that was a bad idea. Averybad idea. Wickham and Lady Catherine might ply Ned and Fanny with alcohol later. Providing them with a head start was dangerous.Lizzy would have to walk a line all night long, no wavering, no missteps.

If the sky had been sunny and blue, it might have given her strength, been something to lean on. As it was, it seemed to lean on her, to drain the last of the fortitude she needed to face the evening.

Her phone rang, and she walked to the counter to look at the screen.

Mom

Damn.

Attachments.

Lizzy’s first impulse was to let the call roll over to voicemail and deal with a message. Later. It was likely more fallout from the window display fiasco.

Sighing, she answered.Duties and conflicts of duties.She walked to the couch and plopped down in an unladylike slouch. "Hey, Mom, I was supposed to call you, not you call me."

Her mother had launched on a word but hitched. A moment of silence followed. "—Sorry, Lizzy. I know, but I needed to talk to you. It's about your father."

Now it was Lizzy who hitched. Her hand tightened on the phone. "Dad? What about Dad?"

It felt like a ghostly visitation. Her mother never mentioned her father except to blame him for something. Dead, he was unable to defend himself. But this sounded different.

"I went to his grave today," her mother volunteered softly, then stopped.

Uncharacteristic.Lizzy did not know that her mother had ever visited the graveside since the service there the day her father was buried. She’d always refused to accompany Lizzy there. "You did? Why?"

"I felt guilty, I guess, about just leaving him lying there alone. With no one to visit."

"But he's been there…for a while, Mom.Ivisit when I’m there in Rochester."

"I know, Lizzy. But I was talking to some people at church, and they mentioned visiting the graves of their loved ones. And then my priest gave a homily. He quoted Shakespeare, something about 'to rot, to lie in cold obstruction'..."

Lizzy knew the lines. Her mother had reversed them. They continued, “This sensible warm motion to become a kneaded clod.”Measure for Measure. Claudio. It was a play her father loved, and they had read it together when she was in—what?—junior high. She had never thought of the lines in application to her father.

Her chest ached. She put her hand to her forehead. "Yes, I know the lines. So, what's wrong? How can I help?" Had her mother really visited the gravesite due to parish peer pressure? "What's going on?"

"One of my new friends at church, a woman named Clay—she's a dear, despite still having freckles at my age and despite a strange, protruding tooth as well as this strange thing she does with her wrist… Anyway, she asked about your father, and we discovered our dear departed are both in the same graveyard. She asked me to go with her when she visited her husband. And I did. Her husband's headstone not only had his dates and a comment about beloved husband and father, but there was a quotation on it, something fitting…although I don't just now quite remember it.

“When we came round to Thomas’s headstone, there were only the dates. No quotation. However, there's lots of blank space for one. Mrs. Clay seemed to think it a pity that Mr. Bennet faces the afterlife without a trailing motto, and now so do I. The whole visit upset me and…well, shamed me. I should have done better by your father."

You mean you should have done better by his headstone."So, how can I help?"

"Can you think of something? You and he used to spend hours reading to each other in the study, chatting, laughing, and turning the pages of dull, musty books that always hide good mottos." Her mother's voice contained an old resentment, an old envy.

"So you called me so I can come up with an epitaph for Dad, a motto for his life or afterlife?"

"That sounds…cold. But yes."

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