Page 58 of Inventing Mr Darcy

“I’ve got to go,” he says and lifts our joined fingers to his lips, which are curved in a weary but relieved smile. He brushes a kiss across my knuckles, then releases me.

After he’s gone, tears well, blurring my vision. I don’t dare wipe them away. Someone could be watching and mistake their meaning. It’s not that I regret our lost evening out, or the chance to wear one of those gorgeous gowns. Mr. Davis’s health is what matters. But tomorrow, I’m going back to Grantham, and who knows when—if—Fisher will be able to follow?

Eventually, when I’m sure my knees won’t buckle, I gather up my things and return to my room. I call guest services, explain about the dresses, and ask for them to be stored until Gaby can arrange to retrieve them. I don’t really have any interest in a night on the town alone, so I change into comfortable clothes (yes, of course I brought Fisher’s sweatshirt) and flop onto the bed. And when I’m still restless even after I check my messages, scroll social media, and virtually window-shop for stupid shit I can’t afford, I grab my laptop and open the recovered documents folder. There’s still maybe twenty files I haven’t sorted through, and that task is at least as mindless as everything else I’ve tried to distract myself, so I click on the file at the top of the list, with its gibberish name.

It’s an undergraduate essay on the work of Kate Chopin.

Of course she still exists, I think. No happy endings there.

The second is a to-do list I wrote God knows when, one of a hundred previous (failed) attempts to organize my life. Straight into the trash can with that one.

The third opens slowly, another large file. I tap my fingers impatiently on the keys, ready to delete it too. I mean, really, was anything on my old laptop worth saving? Not my dissertation proposal, because even if I manage to finish the damn thing, Pedersen may not recommend me for a job. Not even the draft of my stupid novel, because only a fool would believe a book could change the world.

Finally, text begins to appear.

Chapter I

IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

“My dear Mr. Bennet,” said his lady to him one day, “have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?”

Clearly, I’m hallucinating, seeing something that doesn’t—can’t—exist. But down at the bottom of the screen, the page and word counts keep growing. With trembling fingers, I navigate through the document, using the slider bar on the side of the window; snatches of a familiar story flash temporarily into view as I scroll past: botched declarations and sisterly love and charming scoundrels.

Oh my God. It’s there. It’s all there. But how?

Vaguely, I recall something Fisher told me that night at his house, about how it might not have been the solar flare that destroyed my old laptop, that it might’ve just crashed all on its own. And maybe, if that happened even half a moment before the surge took down everything, then it’s possible this one copy of Pride and Prejudice, something I downloaded so long ago I don’t even remember doing it, was somehow preserved?

It doesn’t quite make sense—but when has any of this ever made sense?

Immediately, I back up the file in every different place I can think of. Then I spend the next few hours getting reacquainted with my old friend, trying to commit every detail to memory, in case the unthinkable happens twice. Even after all that, I still can’t bring myself to close the file, to say nothing of closing my laptop. When there’s a knock on the door—someone’s finally come to retrieve the dresses, I assume—I carry it with me, my eyes glued to the screen so I can make sure it doesn’t disappear again.

“Hey.” It’s Geoff, his forearm propped against the doorframe, one of those crooked smiles on his lips. “Julian decided to turn our celebratory debriefing luncheon into a three-martini affair, and then, when we got back to our suite, he rang up his ex-wife, and I—well, I was wondering if maybe I could hang out with you for a while?”

Fisher’s warnings pop immediately into my head. But surely this isn’t the scenario he was so worried about. I mean, I have no idea whether Professor Pedersen and his ex-wife are arguing or, well … not, but it doesn’t make much difference. With a commiserating grimace, I wave Geoff in. “Of course.”

He saunters past and perches on the edge of my bed, since there’s nowhere else to sit. “Did I interrupt your work?” he asks, nodding toward the laptop cradled in my arms.

“Oh, um—yes and no. I, uh, I found this document, and I—”

I want so badly to share this discovery with someone. And, since I’ve never figured out how to broach the subject with Cassie, Geoff’s really the perfect person, one of the few capable of understanding the importance of what I’ve found—I think even Fisher would grudgingly acknowledge that much. I close the distance between me and Geoff and hand my laptop to him.

He starts reading and is, of course, immediately captivated. “What is this?” he asks after a few moments, looking up at me with those blue eyes, which are now wide and fathomless.

“A novel. Pride and Prejudice, according to the title page. Late eighteenth or very early nineteenth century, I’d guesstimate.” (Not a guess; Austen drafted it in the 1790s and published in 1813, but I have no way to prove that to him.) “Based on the style and a few plot details.”

When he turns back to it, I sit down beside him, sometimes reading over his shoulder and relishing the story’s familiar pleasures, sometimes watching his obvious delight at encountering this masterpiece for the first time.

“Do you have any idea who wrote this?” he asks after maybe an hour of silent concentration. He reads fast; we’re already at Mr. Collins’s awful proposal in chapter nineteen.

I can only shake my head. I mean, of course I do, but in this universe Jane Austen is nobody, the never-married daughter of an obscure English clergyman. Even knowing exactly what I’m looking for, I can’t trace her through the historical record. There’s no way to connect that woman to this work.

“It’s extraordinary.” His voice has dropped to a reverent whisper.

A sharp rap at the door startles both of us. “Just guest services,” I tell him as I get up. But I squint through the peephole just in case.

Fisher is standing in the corridor cradling a bottle of champagne. “I realized you can’t raincheck New Year’s Eve,” he tells me with a warm smile as I open the door. As he holds out the bottle and moves to step past me into the room, he eyes me appreciatively, no doubt remembering how things played out the first time he saw me wearing his sweatshirt—as do I, every time I put it on. “What are you up to—? Oh.”