It´s a truth universally acknowledged, as well as feared, that fate has its twisted ways to dispose of our lives and well, when it comes to Darcy’s life and mine, fate has been working on its Sistine chapel. Really a masterpiece. Three years ago, casually surfing the net while preparing to start my PhD abroad, I found my longtime, long lost and much missed pen friend Fitzwilliam Darcy... moreIt´s a truth universally acknowledged, as well as feared, that fate has its twisted ways to dispose of our lives and well, when it comes to Darcy’s life and mine, fate has been working on its Sistine chapel. Really a masterpiece. Three years ago, casually surfing the net while preparing to start my PhD abroad, I found my longtime, long lost and much missed pen friend Fitzwilliam Darcy. It had been over fifteen years since we had last spoken (through pen on paper, stamps, post – the old stuff) and life had made adults of the passionate and self-important teenagers we had been. When we first exchanged letters, I was a regular thirteen-years-old Brazilian girl and he a seventeen-years-old British rich heir, snob and arrogant as if he had blue blood in his veins. We hated each other, we bickered and we became the best of (distant) friends. Then fate intruded changing our planets’ alignment and we lost contact for 17 years. Meeting Darcy again as a forty-years-old adult woman, wife, mother and professional didn’t prepare me for the violent attack of the past, the bittersweet pleasure of finding a kindred soul, the giddiness of flirting and loving someone who I had once loved before. Do I make sense? Probably not. Our lives are completely changed now, and if all is fair in love and war, we are well into one. I have to care for small children and my PhD while my ugly divorce moves sluggishly. He has his young ladies, a profitable company and a difficult divorce facing not only his ex-wife but her mother as well. It seems that with the struggle to move each step forward, we are dragged two steps back. There’s still a lot to fight for, a lot to love, a lot to share. Sometimes we refuse to let our difficulties blind us and we are just the teenagers who met by old-fashioned post. Young giddy lovers and giggling fools letting our excitement guide us. Giddiness was exactly what started this revolution in my life three years ago with this silly note: “Sorry to bother but, when a young girl, I used to correspond with the most presumptuous person I had ever met, so much so that he could only have blue blood in his veins. The heir of the richest estate-country in the whole England, His Royal Highness the Prince of Pemberley, had your name exactly and was a close friend who I miss dearly. At the time, I was a passionate human rights enthusiast and HRH shared my views for a better world, as long as they didn’t disturb his kingdom’s peaceful life. If, by an ingenious twist of fate it is you, please reply. Cordially, Your always loyal subject Elizabeth Wickham, Bart. (Née Bennett)” less
#3
