Page 68 of Pride, Prejudice, & Pretense

Wickham leaned slightly toward her, causing the ice to clink in his glass. "What impression?"

"That you workedalone, were, you know, self-employed…or something like that. That day, on the architectural tour, you said…"

"I know." He waved his hand and then pointed at her with his index finger. "And you are right. I am my own boss—at least, as much as anyone can be." He put his hand down near her leg. "But it's impossible to do much of anything, much of anything thatmatters, all by yourself. Even if other people aren't ordering you about, one way or another, you’re still dependent on them, or they're…obstacles to what you're doing."

Lizzy nodded, suppressing a chill created by imagining the executed agents on a South Dakota road.

"Yes, I suppose. I didn't know you were interested in…existentialists?" It seemed like a Fanny question to ask, but Lizzy was curious, too, both professionally and personally. And she shouldn’t seem too insistently curious about Wickham's long day or about what he had been doing.

He looked at her blankly for a moment before he recalled his own remark. "Interested? That would be far too strong. I dabbled." He shifted focus, recollecting. "Years ago, I read some philosophy. Undergraduate rebellion. Marx, primarily…alotof Marx.I tried some Hegel, too, as background to Marx. The Hegel was too much. Way too much." He shook his head. “I read some of the existentialists. Sartre because of his tie to Marx.Critique of Dialectical Reason.I read other things of his, too, a few novels and plays.”

He came back to the present. "I eventually canned the theory. Practice is all that matters. This is a practical world." His voice remained quiet but became dogmatic and edgy. "Another line of Sartre's stuck with me, the paradox of capitalist living, that people freely become commodities…that we sell ourselves. That's the truth of 'wage slaves.’" He spoke the term like a curse. "Anyway, yes, I’ve read some philosophers. But I put them away. Childish things." He said the last with self-directed exasperation and took another swallow from his glass.

Lizzy pretended to take another sip from hers, too. Since Darcy had studied philosophy at Cambridge, she wondered what he thought of Wickham's foray into philosophy. The two men were a study in similarities and contrasts. Both brilliant and capable, but on different sides of the law, civil and moral. Radically different kinds of men who, despite the similarities, were separated from each other by a fixed gulf.

Wickham stood up suddenly in an excess of nerves and stalked to the small shelf where Lizzy kept the books Darcy bought for Fanny. He sipped his drink again as he considered the titles. "I’m guessing that learned, bookish talk is hard to avoid with a librarian."

Fanny laughed softly. "Yes, it's hard to stop being a librarian, even outside the stacks. Avocation, not just a vocation."

He snickered and kept looking at the books, examining the spines. He read some of the titles aloud, pausing significantly for a moment after he mentionedMoby Dick,and kept his eyes on the spines. Then he picked up the copy ofWives and Daughterswith one hand. He looked at Fanny as he held it. "You're the rare librarian a man would want to go into the stackswith, not just into the stacksfrom."

Lizzy looked down as if Fanny were embarrassed.

Wickham's quiet chuckle accompanied his next comment: "You couldshushme any time. Fanny Prince." He did not make clear exactly what he meant by “shush,” but Lizzy could guess.

"George…" she stage-whispered, half pleased, half protesting as an attempt to walk the line Fanny needed to walk between outright invitation and downright refusal.

Returning to the couch, he put his drink down and opened the Gaskell book he had carried with him. He made a huffing sound of contempt. "Nice inscription."

Lizzy made herself swallow the questionInscription?She didn't ask—but she could read the fly page of the book when Wickham tilted it toward her.

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

Ned

She had not seen the inscription before this. Darcy had not mentioned it, and when she read from the book before bed one night, she must have turned right to the title page without noticing the inscription.

No, wait! He must have added it later?last night. It had to have been after the proposal.

Luckily, Wickham was staring at the page and missed Lizzy's effort to look as though she were familiar with the inscription rather than surprised by it.

"Yes, that's just like Ned.Sweet." She smiled at the inscription and not at Wickham as he turned to look at her.Itwassweet.Despite the surprise of it, it warmed her to her core, the inscription bringing back the memory of how she had felt in The Made Man when Darcy…whenNedproposed.

The inscription brought back more than the memory; it brought back the feeling itself. And more. Her mind leaped forward, toward the future, toward possibilities mentioned in the inscription.

It was the first time her imagination had unlocked in that direction?forward, toward the future.Children. With Jim Haden, her imagination had remained tightly locked despite her real feelings for him even though he had tried to unlock it…or tried to help her do so. No one since then had as much as tested the lock.

Now the lock opened as if it were animate, acting of its own accord, and her imagination flew forward in time. She had a wondrous sense of great doors flung open suddenly, unguessed vistas.

"Are you okay?" Wickham asked, leaning toward her.

She suddenly realized that she was sitting, staring hard at nothing, mouth open, color high. He closed the book.

Lizzy nodded. "I'm…ashamed," she said to cover her reaction, to explain it as Fanny's. "I shouldn't be here with you, like this. With Ned out of town…"

Wickham put the book on the coffee table and picked up his drink. "But you are. Here with me. Of your own free will, you know.” His eyes speared hers. “Shame is an excuse for minimizing yourself."

Fanny nodded, head down, her face obscured from Wickham by her hair. He put his hand on her leg. When she turned to face him, she noticed his drink was nearly empty, so she stood up. By doing so, she removed his hand. "Let me get you another and freshen mine."

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