The Case Is Closed - Patricia Wentworth

I've just read the beautifully written chapter where Hilary goes, with a mixture of reluctance and excitement, to talk over the case with Henry. It's a perfect RomCom chapter with that shows the fire and sparkle and strength and vulnerability that sets the best of those scenes apart from their not-quite-getting-it canned-laughter wannabe brethren.

 

I've seen from the post here that the consensus is that we don't like Henry or at least that we'll only like him after Hilary has knocked some of the sharp edges off.

 

I'd expected him to be a bore. I found him to be a young man who is trying to live up to someone else's view of what being a man means. He seemed quite human to me. A mansplainer, socially inept, emotionally distant on the outside and trying hard not to listen to his own emotions because he suspects they'll make him weaker rather than stronger - but those are all things he can get over with the right training.

 

As Hilary told me that she would refuse to be trampled by Henry's high horse and raised her chin to tell him that any wife would leave him or be broken by him, a light went on in my mind and I thought, "I recognise this: Henry is Darcy is a lounge suit and Hilary is Elizabeth Bennet with a little of the entitlement rubbed off".

 

What do you think?