Jane Austen must have been very fond of the number two. Have you never noticed it? Two proposals by Darcy, two good sisters (and three foolish ones), two ill-mannered matriarchs, Mrs Bennet and Lady Catherine de Bourgh, two unsuitable suitors, Mr Collins and George Wickham. Two attempts to reside at Netherfield, two friends, Darcy and Bingley, two attempted elopements, Lydia and Georgiana Darcy. Oh, there are countless others. Jane Austen even admitted it was unlikely a man would propose a second time. Two brothers-in-law: Darcy and Wickham. Everything has a pair, a shadow in psychoanalytic terms. Miss de Bourgh (sickly) and Georgiana (sickly but saved). Even Elizabeth is caught between Jane (universal benevolence) and Charlotte Lucas (everyone has her price).

A variation of these thoughts and a new example of twoness, the marriages of the Gardiners (soundly based) and the Bennets (short-lived lust), occurred to Irene Fisher as she crossed the quad between Marketing and Zoology, where a trailer-load of dead, white chickens was parked. But could she work it into a suitable proposal, one that would impress her supervisor, crusty and conservative Professor Mordaunt, who practically regarded Jane Austen as his own child?