Mr. Darcy’s Time Machine

With a bit of help from Bingley, Mr. Darcy built a time machine and returned to the moment of his greatest humiliation: Elizabeth’s rejection of him. He thought that by going back in time, he could alter the outcome of that ill-fated interview, that he could convince Elizabeth to accept him, that he could behave in a more gentleman-like manner. But he was mistaken, for the laws of physics were against him, and by attempting to change those events which had already taken place, he succeeded only in ensuring that they happened again, in a manner of speaking.
He ripped holes in the fabric of time and space, traveling to alternate realities in search of one in which Elizabeth had never spurned him because he had behaved in a gentleman-like manner in the first place. He found no such reality; apparently he was proud and arrogant across all realities in equal measure. In one reality, he was all astonishment to find Elizabeth happily married to his own cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam; in another, he was exceedingly distressed to learn that Elizabeth had eloped with Wickham and was living in shame and squalor in some undetected location. Though quite put out by the very existence of such sordid scenes, he could not help being excessively diverted by the sight of Elizabeth shackled to self-important Mr. Collins in a third reality, for Darcy knew that such a marriage would have rankled her, his own Elizabeth, to no end.
After witnessing such horrors, he could scarce bear the thought of traveling to the future in his own reality and observing his own miserable outcome. Seeing Elizabeth married to someone else, whether or not the marriage was a happy one, would only cause him pain. So he traveled again and again to that initial moment of rejection.
He employed a variety of methods in his attempts to change the future. In one instance, he secreted himself behind an overstuffed chair in the corner of the room while the alternate-reality-Darcy proposed, and he whispered flattering phrases for his counterpart to use in a better effort to win his suit. Unfortunately, the alternate-reality-Darcy began to think he was hallucinating, and started acting quite mad, causing Elizabeth to spurn him anew.
In another instance, he intercepted alternate-reality-Darcy on his way to declare himself to Elizabeth, and after a brief tussle, in which their favorite green waistcoat became begrimed with mud, Darcy abandoned his alternate-self in the garden, trussed like a Christmas goose, and strolled into the house himself, determined to offer his hand in a way that would tempt Elizabeth to accept it. But as he opened his mouth to speak the words he had rehearsed and perfected, the alternate-reality-Darcy suddenly regained consciousness and began shouting for help. Darcy quickly grew flustered and in his haste to leave—for it would not do at all to be seen in two places at once—abruptly interrupted Elizabeth’s response to his suit by saying, rather sharply: “You have said quite enough, madam.”
As he rushed towards his time machine, Elizabeth cried: “You are the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry!”
He returned to the present, to his own reality, overwhelmed afresh with mortification.
Mr. Darcy spent the next several days brooding over this latest loss of Elizabeth Bennet’s fine eyes, avoiding the company of his friends, even Mr. Bingley, and plotting another return to his past. In an effort to think more clearly, he plunged fully clothed into the cool waters of his pond. A plan emerged as he surfaced sopping wet, his now-transparent shirt clinging to his chest like a second skin.
Rather than strolling across the lawn towards Pemberley, Darcy darted into the copse of trees where he had concealed his time machine. Climbing inside, he adjusted the dials to return to that one specific moment yet again. But something went horribly wrong, and the time machine began to malfunction, the dial spinning rapidly in the opposite direction. Against his will, Darcy found himself catapulted into the future.
He was once again all astonishment, for he overheard himself—his future-self—asking Elizabeth to consider his offer one final time before he went silent on the issue forever. He searched her face eagerly, nearly exclaiming for joy when she confessed that her feelings had undergone a complete and utter change. He could scarce believe she had forgiven him for what had happened in the past.
“Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure,” Elizabeth said, and Darcy knew he needed to return to the past immediately, that he needed to experience the pain of that past to achieve the pleasure of this future.
He would be exceedingly pleased if his time machine would but work just one more time…