Run Mad As Often As You Choose
“It’s Jane Austen again,” says the cell phone. “I thought we’d hit a low point with that whole David Bowie thing, but this is arguably worse.”
Tom does his best not to trip in a fox hole. Or is it a rabbit hole? Fox holes are those things that soldiers hide in, aren’t they. “Don’t worry about it, Amanda. I’ve got it.”
He has it. Jane’s out in the field, and she’s carrying a bonnet. It isn’t a particularly good replica, but Jane has never much of a stickler for details. It’s a wonder she isn’t wearing a top hat. Jane loves top hats.
“Your mom’s worried that you’re getting weird,” he says as he approaches.
Jane quirks an eyebrow at him. “Weird?”
He shrugs. “Getting weirder.”
“Getting?” He says nothing, only smiles a little. She smiles back, and her eyes are hard. “So you came here to save me from myself?”
He doesn’t ask about the accent, because he knows better. As far as he can tell, it’s Received Pronunciation with an unhealthy side helping of Cockney, though there might be a touch of the Mancurian in there, too. She’s enthusiastic about it, though.
“As per usual,” he says.
“Don’t you ever get tired of that?”
“Everyone needs a hobby.”
She steps up close to him. “Play with me,” she says.
“No.”
“Come on. You know what they say. If you can’t beat them, join them.”
“I’ve tried beating you,” says Tom. “It didn’t help.”
Jane clasps her hands together in a gesture that is uncharacteristically meek. “Please,” she wheedles. “I’m lonely. You used to play with me. You used to love it.”
“That was different.”
“Different how? Because we were kids? Young people are just old people waiting to happen, Tom.”
He sighs, puts his hands in his pockets. Stares out at the waving grass around them for a moment, a moment which lasts twenty seconds or so.
“For how long?”
“An hour,” she says promptly, as though she had this reply all ready and has figured this activity out down to the exact second.
He does up the top two buttons on his shirt, which is as much of a concession to costume as he is willing to make. “I’m not doing the accent.”
“Just pretend that you’re not a stick in the mud,” she says, “just for a little while. I realize it’s difficult. But it will be fun. You used to love it. You loved the romanticism of it. And you loved playing dress up, don’t even try to deny it.”
“What are we doing?”
“Pride and Prejudice.” Her face relaxes, breaks into a genuine smile. Her eyes are still hard. “You know, lately, Tom, I’ve been wondering if love has just plain passed me by.”
“Is this part of the story?”
“It’s part of my story.”
“You have an hour, and you want to waste it on reality?”
“Oh, fine,” she says, peevishly. “Begin at the beginning, go on to the end. Picture us. We’re at a ball- I won’t make you dance, don’t worry, it would be out of character anyway- and dressed in all our finery. Elizabeth over here.” She steps away from him, tying the bonnet on.
“Our Lizzie,” says Tom agreeably.
“Yes, our Lizzie. Lizzie, sadly, was born with an unfortunate face.”
He makes a sound of protest that is halfway between a laugh and a scoff. “Her face was not unfortunate! She was cute!”
“Mm, no, sorry. This was the 1800s, cute hadn’t been invented as a viable category yet. Look, at least give it a try with the accent, will you?” Hers has straightened out somewhat. She must be concentrating. “Lizzie didn’t want to go to this party, but she agreed to on behalf of her younger sisters, who were obnoxious, and her older sister, who was perfect, which would have been obnoxious otherwise but her sister was too lovely a person to be obnoxious.”
“Why do you always get to tell the story? You’re not very good at it.” He makes a gallant attempt at the accent. “I don’t think I can do that anymore.”
“Rudeness. How appropriate. Very good, Darcy,” Jane says approvingly. “But there’s another reason why Lizzie decided to indulge her rampant sisters and attend the ball. A selfish reason. She was getting older, and she was starting to wonder if love was ever going to come along. Women do wonder these things, you know, regardless how modern and enlightened they are.”
“Women aren’t the only ones who wonder about the nature of love,” says Tom.
Jane flutters her eyelashes at him. “Why, Mr. Darcy, how sensitive you are. Are you in tune with the inner workings of the human heart? Do you sound like a bell when struck?”
He looks at his watch. Jane straightens up, and begins to unravel the edge of the ribbon tying her bonnet. She steps closer to him, like a dreamer, like a dancer, like a woman caught in an unconscious waltz. He lets her, which is his own fault.
“Time is precious,” she says, quietly. “Lizzie. She was lonely. She wasn’t alone, but she was lonely nonetheless. You know, there’s always more going on that you don’t know about. People are just people. The heart wants what it wants.”
“I don’t know if I have time for this,” says Tom. He doesn’t do the accent. “The buildup is exhausting.”
“Alright, you want to cut to the chase? What the story doesn’t tell is that Lizzie and Darcy had actually known each other. Years before. When they were children. They were childhood sweethearts. They pined after each other for years, all the time that they were separated, and Lizzie wrote her college dissertation on the ephemeral nature of love, for which she was disqualified from all forms of higher education, and that was why her mother made her go to the ball, because her only chance at making a living was to marry someone rich.”
“You’re beating the story all to hell,” he says. “It kind of makes me sick to my stomach.”
“You’re so damn delicate,” she says.
“Language, Miss Bennet,” he says.
“You’re so sodding delicate,” she says, sweetly. “When did that happen? You never used to be like that.”
“They may have known each other,” says Tom, slowly, “but that doesn’t mean they were childhood sweethearts. Friends, certainly. But no more than that.”
Jane paces, deliberately. “It’s difficult to say. The parameters may match for one, but not for another. Who puts rules to love? All I know is, Darcy used to let Lizzie kiss him, when they were twelve. And now, when she looks at him? There’s just this empty space. What did they have, and where did it go? She can’t put a name to it. She can’t even find the edges of it, but she knows it’s there. If she could fill it up again. It’s so frustrating, sometimes she wants to scream and hit things.”
“Stop,” says Tom. His hands are curled around her upper arm, and she looks up at him, and her eyes are hard.
“Stop what?”
He swallows, and lets her go. “Quoting your entrance paper,” he says. “There’s a reason you had to go with your safety college.”
“She can’t make any man love her,” says Jane, wistfully.
“You’re being melodramatic.”
“She can’t make the man she wants love her, and that’s the only thing that matters. Darcy is off looking for a pair of fine eyes in another woman. Or something. Why, Darcy?” She’s close to him, again, and she’s searching him with that diamond-edged gaze. Could cut right through the occipital ridge. Bone marrow transplant. “Where is your faith?”
“I’m not-” he says, and he takes several steps away. He takes several steps away, and then he takes a moment, wherein he looks out on the peacefully waving field of flowers. It could belong to any century, really. It doesn’t place him anywhere, anywhen; it has no tells. “I have to go.”
“You said you’d stay for an hour.”
“I promised away time I didn’t have. I need to get back to the house.”
Her arms swing at her sides. “Why the all-fired hurry?”
“Sam’s coming down for the weekend. I promised I’d make dinner.”
“Sam.” She walks after him and waits till he turns further away. “So what? What’s the big deal?”
“Sam’s important,” he says, and swallows.
“More important than me?”
If she’s hoping to make him feel ashamed, she must be disappointed. He turns and meets her eyes directly.
“Yes,” he says.
“Oh,” says Jane. And, “Oh,” again. “Well then. I’ll just pack up my bonnet and go home, then.” But she doesn’t, at least, not immediately. She stares at him for a moment with hard eyes, and she says, “In some universe, you and I have made each other very happy. But this? Isn’t it. Is it.” Nothing is a question. “What do you see in Sam, anyway?”
“Fine eyes,” he says, and she turns away.
He lets her get a step or two away before he says, “Jane.”
She pauses.
“What are you going to do?”
“Self-medicate,” she says. “What else?”
“Jane, don’t- don’t do anything-”
“Stupid?” she says, bright eyed. “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t do? Finish that sentence, Tom. I’d love to hear it.”
“Just be good,” he says. “Be good.” In some other universe, he has planted a fierce kiss on her forehead, protective, dutiful. In some other universe, he holds her close.
“Self-medication is an art, for those who care to learn its ways,” she says. “Sometimes all a girl needs is Ziggy Stardust and a dark room.”
She wanders off across the timeless fields, homeward bound, and leaves him behind. He turns away from her, away from the house, and peers off across the grasses. He holds one hand out, imagines it gloved, imagines another in it, holding tightly, palm to palm.
“You and I are men of the world, Darcy,” he recites quietly to the open air. “Good graces and manners are fine in their place, but when it comes to saying what needs to be said, well.” He shrugs a little into the evening air, the wakening night. “There is no hiding behind false voices.”
Jane has always narrated his stories, and he has never minded. He’s always been the one living them. Tonight, as ever, he walks with a figment, and his hands are full. He imagines swallow-tail jackets, and riding boots up to the thigh. He imagines the rush of air as the horse leaps, flightless in pursuit; he imagines the call of the hunt, and the fist, held aloft, at the end.
Tom does his best not to trip in a fox hole. Or is it a rabbit hole? Fox holes are those things that soldiers hide in, aren’t they. “Don’t worry about it, Amanda. I’ve got it.”
He has it. Jane’s out in the field, and she’s carrying a bonnet. It isn’t a particularly good replica, but Jane has never much of a stickler for details. It’s a wonder she isn’t wearing a top hat. Jane loves top hats.
“Your mom’s worried that you’re getting weird,” he says as he approaches.
Jane quirks an eyebrow at him. “Weird?”
He shrugs. “Getting weirder.”
“Getting?” He says nothing, only smiles a little. She smiles back, and her eyes are hard. “So you came here to save me from myself?”
He doesn’t ask about the accent, because he knows better. As far as he can tell, it’s Received Pronunciation with an unhealthy side helping of Cockney, though there might be a touch of the Mancurian in there, too. She’s enthusiastic about it, though.
“As per usual,” he says.
“Don’t you ever get tired of that?”
“Everyone needs a hobby.”
She steps up close to him. “Play with me,” she says.
“No.”
“Come on. You know what they say. If you can’t beat them, join them.”
“I’ve tried beating you,” says Tom. “It didn’t help.”
Jane clasps her hands together in a gesture that is uncharacteristically meek. “Please,” she wheedles. “I’m lonely. You used to play with me. You used to love it.”
“That was different.”
“Different how? Because we were kids? Young people are just old people waiting to happen, Tom.”
He sighs, puts his hands in his pockets. Stares out at the waving grass around them for a moment, a moment which lasts twenty seconds or so.
“For how long?”
“An hour,” she says promptly, as though she had this reply all ready and has figured this activity out down to the exact second.
He does up the top two buttons on his shirt, which is as much of a concession to costume as he is willing to make. “I’m not doing the accent.”
“Just pretend that you’re not a stick in the mud,” she says, “just for a little while. I realize it’s difficult. But it will be fun. You used to love it. You loved the romanticism of it. And you loved playing dress up, don’t even try to deny it.”
“What are we doing?”
“Pride and Prejudice.” Her face relaxes, breaks into a genuine smile. Her eyes are still hard. “You know, lately, Tom, I’ve been wondering if love has just plain passed me by.”
“Is this part of the story?”
“It’s part of my story.”
“You have an hour, and you want to waste it on reality?”
“Oh, fine,” she says, peevishly. “Begin at the beginning, go on to the end. Picture us. We’re at a ball- I won’t make you dance, don’t worry, it would be out of character anyway- and dressed in all our finery. Elizabeth over here.” She steps away from him, tying the bonnet on.
“Our Lizzie,” says Tom agreeably.
“Yes, our Lizzie. Lizzie, sadly, was born with an unfortunate face.”
He makes a sound of protest that is halfway between a laugh and a scoff. “Her face was not unfortunate! She was cute!”
“Mm, no, sorry. This was the 1800s, cute hadn’t been invented as a viable category yet. Look, at least give it a try with the accent, will you?” Hers has straightened out somewhat. She must be concentrating. “Lizzie didn’t want to go to this party, but she agreed to on behalf of her younger sisters, who were obnoxious, and her older sister, who was perfect, which would have been obnoxious otherwise but her sister was too lovely a person to be obnoxious.”
“Why do you always get to tell the story? You’re not very good at it.” He makes a gallant attempt at the accent. “I don’t think I can do that anymore.”
“Rudeness. How appropriate. Very good, Darcy,” Jane says approvingly. “But there’s another reason why Lizzie decided to indulge her rampant sisters and attend the ball. A selfish reason. She was getting older, and she was starting to wonder if love was ever going to come along. Women do wonder these things, you know, regardless how modern and enlightened they are.”
“Women aren’t the only ones who wonder about the nature of love,” says Tom.
Jane flutters her eyelashes at him. “Why, Mr. Darcy, how sensitive you are. Are you in tune with the inner workings of the human heart? Do you sound like a bell when struck?”
He looks at his watch. Jane straightens up, and begins to unravel the edge of the ribbon tying her bonnet. She steps closer to him, like a dreamer, like a dancer, like a woman caught in an unconscious waltz. He lets her, which is his own fault.
“Time is precious,” she says, quietly. “Lizzie. She was lonely. She wasn’t alone, but she was lonely nonetheless. You know, there’s always more going on that you don’t know about. People are just people. The heart wants what it wants.”
“I don’t know if I have time for this,” says Tom. He doesn’t do the accent. “The buildup is exhausting.”
“Alright, you want to cut to the chase? What the story doesn’t tell is that Lizzie and Darcy had actually known each other. Years before. When they were children. They were childhood sweethearts. They pined after each other for years, all the time that they were separated, and Lizzie wrote her college dissertation on the ephemeral nature of love, for which she was disqualified from all forms of higher education, and that was why her mother made her go to the ball, because her only chance at making a living was to marry someone rich.”
“You’re beating the story all to hell,” he says. “It kind of makes me sick to my stomach.”
“You’re so damn delicate,” she says.
“Language, Miss Bennet,” he says.
“You’re so sodding delicate,” she says, sweetly. “When did that happen? You never used to be like that.”
“They may have known each other,” says Tom, slowly, “but that doesn’t mean they were childhood sweethearts. Friends, certainly. But no more than that.”
Jane paces, deliberately. “It’s difficult to say. The parameters may match for one, but not for another. Who puts rules to love? All I know is, Darcy used to let Lizzie kiss him, when they were twelve. And now, when she looks at him? There’s just this empty space. What did they have, and where did it go? She can’t put a name to it. She can’t even find the edges of it, but she knows it’s there. If she could fill it up again. It’s so frustrating, sometimes she wants to scream and hit things.”
“Stop,” says Tom. His hands are curled around her upper arm, and she looks up at him, and her eyes are hard.
“Stop what?”
He swallows, and lets her go. “Quoting your entrance paper,” he says. “There’s a reason you had to go with your safety college.”
“She can’t make any man love her,” says Jane, wistfully.
“You’re being melodramatic.”
“She can’t make the man she wants love her, and that’s the only thing that matters. Darcy is off looking for a pair of fine eyes in another woman. Or something. Why, Darcy?” She’s close to him, again, and she’s searching him with that diamond-edged gaze. Could cut right through the occipital ridge. Bone marrow transplant. “Where is your faith?”
“I’m not-” he says, and he takes several steps away. He takes several steps away, and then he takes a moment, wherein he looks out on the peacefully waving field of flowers. It could belong to any century, really. It doesn’t place him anywhere, anywhen; it has no tells. “I have to go.”
“You said you’d stay for an hour.”
“I promised away time I didn’t have. I need to get back to the house.”
Her arms swing at her sides. “Why the all-fired hurry?”
“Sam’s coming down for the weekend. I promised I’d make dinner.”
“Sam.” She walks after him and waits till he turns further away. “So what? What’s the big deal?”
“Sam’s important,” he says, and swallows.
“More important than me?”
If she’s hoping to make him feel ashamed, she must be disappointed. He turns and meets her eyes directly.
“Yes,” he says.
“Oh,” says Jane. And, “Oh,” again. “Well then. I’ll just pack up my bonnet and go home, then.” But she doesn’t, at least, not immediately. She stares at him for a moment with hard eyes, and she says, “In some universe, you and I have made each other very happy. But this? Isn’t it. Is it.” Nothing is a question. “What do you see in Sam, anyway?”
“Fine eyes,” he says, and she turns away.
He lets her get a step or two away before he says, “Jane.”
She pauses.
“What are you going to do?”
“Self-medicate,” she says. “What else?”
“Jane, don’t- don’t do anything-”
“Stupid?” she says, bright eyed. “Don’t do anything you wouldn’t do? Finish that sentence, Tom. I’d love to hear it.”
“Just be good,” he says. “Be good.” In some other universe, he has planted a fierce kiss on her forehead, protective, dutiful. In some other universe, he holds her close.
“Self-medication is an art, for those who care to learn its ways,” she says. “Sometimes all a girl needs is Ziggy Stardust and a dark room.”
She wanders off across the timeless fields, homeward bound, and leaves him behind. He turns away from her, away from the house, and peers off across the grasses. He holds one hand out, imagines it gloved, imagines another in it, holding tightly, palm to palm.
“You and I are men of the world, Darcy,” he recites quietly to the open air. “Good graces and manners are fine in their place, but when it comes to saying what needs to be said, well.” He shrugs a little into the evening air, the wakening night. “There is no hiding behind false voices.”
Jane has always narrated his stories, and he has never minded. He’s always been the one living them. Tonight, as ever, he walks with a figment, and his hands are full. He imagines swallow-tail jackets, and riding boots up to the thigh. He imagines the rush of air as the horse leaps, flightless in pursuit; he imagines the call of the hunt, and the fist, held aloft, at the end.