“I have no idea. I feared you would be bored, seeing as you still cannot ride or do anything interesting outdoors.”
His arm was no longer in the sling all the time, but he still had a limited range of motion on that side.
“I can do interesting things indoors, and that’s enough for a man as modest as me,” he said with a rakish grin, and she shook her head.
“Emma is right here, Uncle Colin, best behave yourself.”
He feigned affront. “I meant whist, darling. What had you thought of?” He asked with a confused frown and earned himself a pinch on his uninjured side.
“I’m certain I’m Emma’s favourite uncle and you’re her favourite aunt,” he said. “Should we ask her? Imagine what Isabella would do at dinner if she found out Emma preferred you?”
Colin laughed.
“I’m surprised she let me name Charles. Sophie and Nicholas must have had their hands full convincing her,” Lizzie said with a fond smile. “How does Charlotte seem to you?” She asked him, suddenly serious.
“Sad, mostly. Sometimes hopeful.”
“Do you think her marriage can be repaired?”
“If they both want it enough,” Colin said with a shrug.
“See, that’s odd to me. Lady Burnham told me something similar before Charlotte’s house party. She said since both Charlotte and Nicholas were trying to make amends, and that I needed todecideif I wanted to give them another chance, and then observe them as if I’ve just met them.”
Colin considered her words for a moment. “That sounds like good advice. Why would you find it odd?”
“I don’t know. She was the first person who called forgiveness a decision, and not something that either occurs in your heart ordoesn’t. I’ve always put it in the same box as being a good person – you either are or you aren’t.”
“Ah, I see,” her husband said. “I’m by no means an authority on the matters of the heart, but aren’t many important things in life the result of decisions, and effort, and doing?”
“Such as?”
“Let’s take your example of being a good person. What makes a person good? You and Socrates both claim it’s an innate quality. But I support Aristotle’s view that habits, practice, and actions are the behaviours that make someone good.”
“Let’s say that you’re right,” Lizzie proposed magnanimously. “How does that work?”
“Every good deed is preceded by a decision, isn’t it? Youdecideto do voluntary work, youdecideto show up every Wednesday even when tired or ill or in a bad mood, or when the room is more noisome than you can bear, youdecideto overcome your aversion to touching someone, youdecideto open your heart and listen. I’m not negating the fact that some people are innately moreinclinedto be good, although there is a German fellow who claims that an action has less moral worth in that case, unlike when people do good out of a sense of moral duty, but my point is, with the right amount of effort, I think everyone can be good. If not good, thenbetter.”
They watched Emma gather some wet branches in silence for a while.
“Do you think the same can be said for being a good parent?” She asked after a while.
“Definitely,” Talbot replied confidently. “I’m not saying that someone as… complicated as myself will not have a certain setof issues while trying to raise a healthy, happy, and confident human being. But if Idecideto be better than my parents and dedicate all my efforts to it, it has to make a difference. It has to. Ihave tobelieve that,” he said almost feverishly.
“That also sounds like something Lady Burnham always says,” Lizzie remarked.
“We’ve had some conversations, her and I,” Talbot admitted with a smile. “She is a very wise woman. A true Stoic.”
“So, to go back to my original question, you believe that my sister’s marriage can be salvaged?”
“I do.”
“I hope so. Now that I’ve been trying to view Charlotte as some new woman I’ve just met and not the little girl from the Park, I’ve come to the conclusion that some of her cold and, as you like to say, vapid, behaviour is just who she is, and was never meant as an attack on me. The same can be said for the months following her marriage; she was most likely struggling with her unfulfilling marital life, and I felt slighted because she never showed me any support when I came out into society.”
“I understand you only too well, you know that I’ve gone through the same thing with your brother. Do you think this is it? That we’ve both learned our lessons and that in the future we shall talk to each other instead of assuming what the other person is thinking?”
“Let’s not fool ourselves,” Lizzie said with a smile, and Colin laughed.
“Can I...?” He said uncertainly after a while.
