An Alternate Perspective

by Wynne Mabry

  In the Heat of the Moment

  Elizabeth had not slept well. It was pleasing to see that Jane was much better, but she was thinking a great deal about her own Jane. She was also concerned about her other self, who must be missing Mr. Darcy so dreadfully. It was strange to imagine, but she could understand the affection between them. In this reality, he was a worthy man.

  She was also wondering if she would still be welcome here once the others knew that she was not the person they thought her to be. The truth would have to be told in the morning. Mr. Darcy especially had a right to know that the woman he loved had been transported elsewhere. This information would be extremely distressing for him. While dressing in the morning, she was thinking about the best way to break this to him.

  When she went downstairs, he called her into the library. Mr. Bingley was also there, and the two of them were again looking at Mr. Hurst’s notes.

  “This is all beyond me,” Mr. Bingley said. “Darcy is the only one likely to make any sense of it. I am mostly just keeping him company. But we both believe, as you suggested, that Hurst has really travelled to another plane of existence. It is strange and incomprehensible, yet I have to conclude that it is possible. Hurst was certain of it, which is enough to convince me. I have had servants searching since daylight, just in case it was something else which caused his disappearance, but nobody has found any trace of him.”

  “Have you told Mrs. Hurst?” she asked, thinking of that poor lady with compassion.

  “I told her last night. After we had finished going over these notes, I explained what we thought had happened. She was just as astonished, but she also believes that his theory must be correct and he is in another reality.”

  “How is she managing?”

  “Remarkably well. I can tell that she is excessively worried, but she puts a brave face on it.”

  “She is resilient,” Mr. Darcy said. “I have a great admiration for the strength of her character. She has always been aware that there is a risk of danger to some of Hurst’s experiments, but she understands what his work means to him. Indeed, she is the ideal wife for such a brilliant man.”

  Elizabeth had no doubt of this. She felt some regret now for not having thought of comforting Mrs. Hurst on the previous evening, but there was no history that would have made it feel natural for her to do so.

  “We are hoping that he might be able to use another machine to return,” Mr. Bingley said. “It seems likely that the Mr. Hurst in the other reality built one as well.”

  “But I was expecting him to have returned by now,” Mr. Darcy added, before Elizabeth could explain that there was no machine in her reality, nor a useful Mr. Hurst. “It is possible that he is still trying to access this reality. Or perhaps the other machine has not been completed. All the realities are different.”

  “In that case, the two of them could be working together to finish it,” Mr. Bingley said. “Imagine that, Darcy. Two Mr. Hursts in the same room.”

  “The combined intellect would be an impressive thing.”

  Elizabeth felt that they had not fully considered how different things could be, but then Mr. Darcy showed that he had some idea of it.

  “Of course, there might not be a machine at all,” he said. “The other Mr. Hurst might not have taken up this line of research.”

  “But once our Mr. Hurst explains everything to him, they could still build a machine together,” Mr. Bingley said.

  That could not happen, but Elizabeth hoped that he would be able to build one on his own. That was her best chance of getting home as well. At least she could draw some comfort from his friends’ confidence in his abilities. There was no reason for him to need any assistance from his other self or anybody.

  She was about to launch upon her explanation, but then Mr. Darcy startled her by saying, “That would take some time though, which is why I intend to try working this machine myself.”

  She dubiously eyed the machine with all its knobs. “It looks very complex. Do you really think you can?”

  “Actually, I do. I need to go over these notes some more, but I already have a fairly good idea how it works.”

  “I did not mean to doubt you,” she said, thinking that he had taken offense from her question. “It just seems like a daunting task.”

  “I know I could not do it,” Mr. Bingley said. “That is why I am going to have breakfast now. I shall leave you to your reading, Darcy. Are you coming, Elizabeth?”

  “Yes,” she said, thinking that the explanation might be given over breakfast. It would be better if everybody was sitting down. “But you should really come and eat as well, Mr. Darcy. It will not do you any good to go without food.”

  “I shall have something in here,” he said.

  Mr. Bingley was already at the door. He looked back to Elizabeth, who was about to join him, but then Mr. Darcy said, “You go ahead. I just want to have a word with Elizabeth first.”

  Mr. Bingley went on, and Mr. Darcy went over to shut the library door. He turned and faced Elizabeth with a severe expression.

  “Mr. Darcy?” he queried. “Worrying about offending me? And I believe you said Mrs. Hurst instead of Louisa, which is what her real friend calls her.” All the pleasantness was gone from his voice. “Where is my Elizabeth?” he demanded to know.

  “I presume she is with Mr. Hurst,” Elizabeth replied, keeping her tone calm. “In another reality. My reality.”

  “And where is your Mr. Hurst?”

  “He is still there. I came through the vortex on my own.”

  “And then you pretended to belong here. Were you wanting to take her place? I see that you are not wearing an engagement ring. Did your Mr. Darcy not offer for you?”

  “No. There was no reason why he would.”

  “And you were disappointed, so you decided to take advantage of me instead.”

  “It was nothing of the sort,” she cried hotly. “He did not offer for me because we dislike each other.”

  This did not help. “He must have good reason for not liking you,” Mr. Darcy said.

  “Not really. I think it was more of a whim. Nor do I care what he thinks. I never wanted him to offer for me. But that is beside the point.”

  “It is. The important matter is that you are here, and you must have come for a reason.”

  “I did not choose to come at all. I happened to be in the library when the vortex appeared, and I was pulled into it by an overpowering force.”

  “But you did not choose to tell anybody that you did not belong here. My Elizabeth would not have been so deceitful.”

  “I did not intentionally deceive you. At first, I had no idea that I was somewhere different. I knew nothing about alternate realities. I spent the evening wondering why things were so strange, which was a very disturbing experience. It was only after I read Mr. Hurst’s notes that I realized what must have happened to me.”

  “But you did not say anything last night.”

  “I went away still trying to understand all the implications. You must comprehend that it was quite a shock for me to realize I did not belong here. I was planning to tell you this morning. I meant to do so straight away, but you and Mr. Bingley started talking about the machine.”

  “I have only your word for that. You might have been thinking of taking her place and making the best of it. After all, you must know that I am very wealthy.”

  “I do not care about wealth. You should know that.”

  “I know nothing about you. I do not trust you.”

  “Oh, this is excellent,” she said crossly. “Now you are just like the Mr. Darcy that I know. For your information, I wanted to break this to you gently. I was concerned about how distressing it would be for you. And I thought that I could trust you.”

  With that, Elizabeth stormed out of the library and ran upstairs. She had no desire to take breakfast with those who would not welcome her. In fact, she felt that it was necessary to leave Netherfield as soon as possible. She could easil
y walk home, and hopefully Mr. Bingley would not mind having her clothes sent on.

  Except that she did not have a home here. That occurred to her the moment she was back in her room. The clothes that she had been about to pack were not really hers. Longbourn was the other Elizabeth’s home, not her home.

  She could go there and be accepted for a time, but after Jane learned that she was an imposter, then she would not be wanted there either. Unless nobody believed Mr. Darcy, which was quite possible. Indeed, they were more likely to think that he had gone mad rather than to believe that she was a different Elizabeth from another reality.

  But the fact was that she did not belong at Longbourn. Or anywhere in this reality. There was nowhere for her to go. What was she to do?

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door.

  The Danger Posed by an Intruder

  After rising at an early hour, Mr. Darcy had gone out to the stables to speak with his groom. He had returned by the side stairs, which was how he heard the voices coming from within one of the bedchambers which should not have been occupied. That surprised him, but even more astonishing was his recognition of the speakers. Mr. Hurst had not spoken more than a few words to Miss Bennet in the whole of his acquaintance with her, and none of those words had been friendly. Why would the two of them be secreted in a bedchamber?

  Shocked by this evidence of indiscretion, Mr. Darcy froze on the spot, wondering what he should do about it. Then he heard that somebody was stranded on the wrong plane. Those words, which would have been incomprehensible to most people, cast his mind back to his Cambridge days and a conversation with a brilliant, but eccentric fellow. It had been about alternate planes of existence.

  Then he shook his head. Miss Bennet could not possibly be talking about planes of existence. Some other sort of plane must have been meant. She was intelligent, but it was unlikely that she had come across that theory. Nor was it conceivable that Mr. Hurst would have anything to say on such a subject. He was not inclined toward any kind of thought.

  But then he began talking about notes and calculations. Mr. Darcy heard his own name mentioned. Few people knew that he had been a notable scholar, and Mr. Hurst was not among them. At least not the one whom he knew. Was he mistaken about the voice, or could this really be a different Mr. Hurst who had the brains to understand such complex ideas? A Mr. Hurst who came from a different plane and had somehow managed to get himself here. Along with an Elizabeth Bennet who used the name Fitzwilliam.

  The mention of portals and a machine settled the question. Once he heard this, Mr. Darcy was convinced that these two people really had come from another plane. A plane where Mr. Hurst was a man of the most astonishing intellectual abilities. He would be a fascinating person to know.

  Mr. Darcy contemplated walking into the room and confronting them, but he was also mindful of the fact that these people did not properly belong here. Feeling no qualms about eavesdropping, he listened to find out what their plans were. It was a relief to hear that they only wanted to be rescued and to help somebody else get home.

  Then he realized that the somebody else was his own Elizabeth Bennet. How long had she been gone from this plane? How long had an imposter been assuming her place? And what were the intentions of that imposter. She seemed to be far too concerned about the impression that she was making upon him.

  It must have been her in the drawing room last night. It was she who had danced with him, and not the Elizabeth who belonged on this plane. He had thought her especially pleasant, and now the reason for that was obvious. She had wanted to encourage his interest in the Elizabeth whom he admired against all his instincts. The one with whom he had been trying not to fall in love.

  This Elizabeth obviously wanted for the other one the same things that she had achieved for herself. It was evident that she was engaged to another version of himself. He wondered how this could be possible. Did the fault lie with his other self? Was the Mr. Darcy of this other reality foolishly indifferent to the inferiority of her connections? Had he been too weak to resist the temptation of a lady who bewitched him?

  Had she trapped him into it? Or perhaps her mother, who was so eager for her daughters to marry wealthy men. This was assuming that both Mrs. Bennets were the same, but he found it hard to imagine her being any other way. Nor could he believe that his other self was so very different.

  After Elizabeth had left the room and gone down the hall, he was still pondering this matter. The more he thought about it, the more he believed that the other Mr. Darcy had been ensnared by a desperate mother or daughter, or both in collusion with each other. That added to his growing feeling that this Miss Bennet was not a person to be trusted. The friendliness which she had shown him on the previous evening was clearly part of a plan to ensnare him for her other self.

  After she had gone, he came out again and went to his chamber to ready himself for breakfast. On leaving his room only a couple of minutes later, he saw Mr. Hurst leave his own, which confirmed that he could not have been in the other chamber. Not that Mr. Darcy really thought he had. This man could not know anything of alternate realities. There were times when he barely comprehended his own reality.

  They went downstairs together. Conversation with Mr. Hurst was never a rewarding experience, and Mr. Darcy could not help wishing that he was the one who had the good fortune to be acquainted with an intelligent Mr. Hurst.

  At the bottom of the stairs, he saw Elizabeth come out of the library. She was looking disappointed, as though she had been hoping that just a few minutes wait would be sufficient for a portal to appear.

  In his opinion, it could not come too soon. The sooner she was gone from this plane, the better. He did not trust her. However much he regretted that his other self had been put upon, he could not prevent her from wreaking havoc in her own world, but he was not going to let her get away with trying to do the same damage here. That sort of meddling was not to be tolerated.

  “Have you been to choose a book?” he asked, even though her hands were empty.

  “No,” she replied. “I was putting one back. I shall choose another later.”

  “I thought you were not a great reader,” Mr. Hurst said rather rudely.

  “I believe the variety of Miss Bennet’s interests might surprise you,” Mr. Darcy said.

  At breakfast, he made an attempt at provoking her. The calm politeness of her responses and her lack of interest in disagreeing with him confirmed his opinion that she wanted him to like her. If he did not know that she was an interloper in his reality, there might have actually been some danger. She had already made him decide to dance with Miss Elizabeth at the ball. With her bewitching ways, which were so like her other self except for being more devious, she might have brought him close to losing his head and admitting his feelings for the lady who belonged in this reality.

  After breakfast, he was waylaid by Miss Bingley, who wanted him to walk in the garden with her. Although there were other things that he wanted to be doing, she made it impossible to evade her. They went outside together, and she was soon teasing him about Elizabeth again, this time even more strongly than she had done before, probably because of that dance.

  Miss Bingley was in the middle some sarcastic comments about Elizabeth and her relatives when her sister and the object of her malice came upon them from another walk.

  Mr. Darcy wondered if Elizabeth could have overheard her name or anything else which had been said. Miss Bingley was obviously confused by their appearance. Mrs. Hurst complained about having been left behind and then took Mr. Darcy’s free arm.

  He felt the rudeness of this and recommended that they walk in the avenue instead, but Elizabeth rejected his suggestion with eagerness. He saw her hurry back to the house and guessed that she was going to the library again. Indeed, it was astonishing that she was even in the garden at all. Presumably Mrs. Hurst had been as insistent to her as Miss Bingley had been to him.

  The library was where he went after he
was able to disentangle himself from his two companions. Elizabeth was there. She was sitting in a chair, with a book open on the table in front of her, but it was clear that she was not reading. Her eyes were fixed hopefully upon the centre of the room.

  Mr. Darcy came straight to the point. “Waiting for a portal to open?” he asked.

  A Quarrel Resolved

  Elizabeth walked over to the door of her bedchamber wondering if the knock meant that somebody had come to turn her out. Or perhaps it was Jane, and she would be compelled to explain the situation to the one person whom she most wanted to spare from any distress.

  She opened the door to see Mr. Darcy standing in the hall.

  “I have come to apologize, he said. “Everything that I just said to you was unfounded. I was angry and let my temper get the better of me. But I do not want us to quarrel. It is my hope to be able to help you get home.”

  “I would like that very much. And I accept your apology,” she said, deciding to put their rocky start behind them. “I can understand that you were excessively upset. It was a distressing thing for you to find out.”

  “It was, but I took it out on you, which was unconscionable of me. I do not really believe that you had any ulterior motives. As soon as you left, I realized it was stupid to think that you had done anything intentionally. You could not have been expecting the portal. I assume that you were caught up by accident.”

  “I was, although it was partly foolish curiosity. I was in the library, putting away a book, when the portal opened. It was a little bit of light at first, and I wondered where it was coming from. When it grew bigger and began to spin around, I was nervous, but also fascinated.”

  “I imagine it would be fascinating. My Elizabeth probably thought the same thing.”

  “I saw her. Just before being pulled in, I mean.” She paused and then said, “Perhaps we should talk elsewhere. I do not want Jane to hear anything. It would distress her to know what has happened to her sister. If you are able to make the machine work, then she need not know anything of this.”