Elizabeth carefully folded the sheet filled with her bile in half. And then in half again. And then she folded it once more.
She went to the fire, and deliberately tossed the sheet in, waited for it to catch flame, and then she stirred the ashes around with the poker until it was completely consumed.
“Wrote a note to dear Caroline did you?”
Elizabeth looked at Papa in surprise. “How do you know?”
He smiled. “I do not think you have any other correspondent that could make you mistreat paper and your desk withsuchthoroughness.”
Flopping onto the divan nearest Papa, she sighed and looked at him.
He looked back with his usual sardonic expression, setting his book aside. “Well?”
Elizabeth pulled at her hair.
Mr. Bennet added, “If you mean to complain about ‘why must matters be so involved and tangled’ or ‘why cannot all things be the way I wish they were’ or some similar nonsense, I will make you read a very good collection of sermons selected by Mary for possessing the peak, the very greatest promise of being improving.”
With a startled laugh, Elizabeth replied, “What if I ask, why can I not be a child again, or maybe fifteen? Would that be sufficient for such a fate?”
Mr. Bennet laughed. “That would condemn you to reading a work of natural philosophy on the nature of time. Maybe Aristotle’s physics. You will learn that time can only go forward.”
“Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time,” replied Elizabeth.
“Dour sentiment,” was Papa’s smiling reply to the quote.
“If you dislike the days going so fast let’s try this: Yon light is not daylight, I know it, I. It is some meteor that the sun exhales. To be to thee this night a torchbearer, And light thee on thy way to Mantua.”
Papa laughed. “Let me rather try: Busy old fool, unruly sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers' seasons run? Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide Late school boys and sour prentices.”
With a flushed and half startled laugh Elizabeth replied, “Donne? Hardly a proper reading material for a schoolgirl.”
“Andthatis my actual response to why you cannot be a child, or fifteen once more: You would not like to be so young again, not near as much as you think you would.”
“I would like it if matters between Caroline and I were so simple as they were when we were both fifteen.”
“A warning, dear Lizzy.” Papa wagged his finger in her face. “Perilously close to begging for the world to become easier. Another such speech, and it shall be the Reverend Fordyce’s sermons for you!”
Elizabeth stuck her tongue out in reply. “See how much like a fifteen year old I am?”
“Like a five year old — at fifteen you had long since ceased such displays.”
“Ha, I do so like being a child.”
“While I, however, prefer you at your present age.”
“You do? — you often talk of how happy those days were when we were all children, and you’d have us sitting in the library to play while you read, drew your sketches, and wrote.”
Papa replied, “It’s a pityyounever learned to draw better.”
“I’d learned it was a low practical craft.”
“As forthat— it is useful. Hmmmmm. Those were happy days… not happier, since I am very happy now, but more… perfect in some way. I was stretching my abilities to their fullest extent. Success was not certain. I was surrounded by those who I loved. I worked daily with my dearest friend. Your mother was happy… she thrived under those circumstances of effort and privation, never complaining after she understood that our business schememightwork and gain security for all of us forever. And I was surrounded by my children. Young, in need of protection and play, smiling and dear… There is some… important deficiency in a child. What I mean is that now you are my equal. I still am the superior in experience, but that is not a difference of fundamental type. You are a rational creature, a creature capable of determining her own mind, making her own choices, and choosing her own companions — when you make mistakes, they shall beyourmistakes. And you shall grow from them. Yes, I prefer you to beyou, even though I do miss the sweet little child who loved to sit on my lap while I read to her.”
Elizabeth felt her throat choke with some emotion, and she took her father’s hand. “My dear Papa.”
“Did you note it? — I shed a few tears this morn in Longbourn chapel. I could never have been happier, nor more proud, to see Jane make such a match with a boy who I’ve loved since he was three.”
“I saw,” Elizabeth replied. “She never looked more beautiful than when she smiled at Bingley as he walked up the aisle to join her at the front of the room.”
