Longbourn's Songbird

by Beau North

  He stumbled back to his chair in front of the fire, just as the rain outside hit his windows with new strength. He smiled grimly to himself as he settled back in, his precious cargo unopened in his lap. He crushed his cigarette out in the heavy glass ashtray at his elbow, ashamed and, in a strange way, satisfied at how quickly it was filling up.

  He flipped open the box, sighing heavily at the sight of his treasures, his memories. There was James’s Purple Heart, a photograph of his parents before either he or James were born, his graduation ring from VMI, letters from Anne and Darcy, and even a letter from Georgiana, her handwriting a childish scrawl.

  All these things, he pushed aside until he found his object there at the bottom: a photograph, almost untouched as if it had just been taken days ago.

  It didn’t have to be in color for him to know that the sky was a perfect blue, that her hair wasn’t black as it appeared in the photo but a deep auburn, or that she wore a yellow dress. Elizabeth Darcy was a woman on her way to New Orleans for her honeymoon. Elizabeth Bennet was there, perfectly preserved on the very edge between a girl and a woman, smiling down at something in her hand: a strip of pictures from a boardwalk photo booth. He’d taken the picture without her knowing, his very own stolen moment.

  He knew that he was a man chained to his past—by his ghosts, by his love for Elizabeth. The future eluded him, bewildered him. He couldn’t know that the coming years would continue to be difficult or that he would see more bloodshed, more war. There would be staggering loss. But he also couldn’t know that there would be children in his future, and laughter, and love. He couldn’t know of the lives he would save in a frozen outpost in North Korea or the work he would do for his veteran brothers who had fallen on hard times. He couldn’t know that, one day many years from then, his grown son would discover the box Richard now held, and it would set him on his own journey. But that was the future, vague and perplexing. For now, he was a man living with ghosts.

  Richard gingerly set the box aside, keeping the photo. He spent several long minutes memorizing every detail, from the curve of her smile to the way the strap of her sandal had slipped from her ankle. At last he stood, still unsteady as he approached the fireplace. He leaned on the mantle, the heat from the fire and the booze in his belly making him feel ill. He looked down once more at the picture in his hand, wondering whether he could really consign her to the fire and it wouldn’t be him that burned instead.

  It wasn’t about the photo—or even Elizabeth herself. It was a symbol of his past and everything he’d lost—his family, his purpose. You’ve got to do something, he told himself. It can’t go on like this. You can’t go on like this.

  He stood there for a long time.

  ***

  December 1949

  Pemberley, North Carolina

  Elizabeth rolled over in the big bed, surprised to find herself alone. In her four weeks of marriage, she discovered that she was the early riser between them.

  She pulled the covers back and grabbed her robe from the chair beside the bed. Padding down the hall in her bare feet, she could make out the tinkle of the piano coming from the music room. She wondered whether maybe Georgie couldn’t sleep until she got to the door and heard the song.

  A smile lit her face as she slipped in the door. Darcy’s broad back was to her, his hands moving expertly over the keys in a song they knew so well. I love you truly, she thought as she came to stand behind him, twining her arms around his neck and kissing the top of his head. It seemed he had made her a fan of love songs after all.

  “Couldn’t sleep?” she asked. He paused playing to reach up and rub her arms.

  “Go look out the window,” he said and went back to playing. She walked around the piano, moving the heavy drapes out of the way and gasping in delight at what she saw.

  “William! It’s snowing!”

  He smiled at her without missing a key. “Merry Christmas, Elizabeth.”

  She rushed over, throwing her arms around him. He abandoned his song and pulled her into his lap, kissing her deeply. She rested her head on his shoulder, and they sat there, watching the fat white snowflakes falling outside the window. Elizabeth didn’t think she’d ever been so happy in her life. She made a contented little sound in the back of her throat.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, looking down at her.

  “Nothing,” she said truthfully. “Nothing at all.”

  The End.

  Author’s Question & Answer

  Q: Why did you choose to make Mr. Collins an abusive husband?

  A: Pride and Prejudice doesn’t directly address many of the darker aspects of the era in which it’s set. For example, in Austen’s novel, war and poverty were not mentioned, only alluded to. The disparity between social classes was limited to the differences between those in trade (the Gardiners, the origins of the Bingley’s fortunes), the landed gentry (the Bennets, Darcy), and the nobility (Lady Catherine de Bourgh). Austen does not give the reader an understanding of the poor or the working-class laborers of the time, the hardships they suffered, the injustices heaped on them, or the prejudices against them. I wanted to reach beyond the comfortable social circles in Austen’s story and bring into the light the demons that lurk in the shadows of history’s polished glow.

  The 1940s are largely known as the Golden Age of American culture, but it was an incredibly difficult time for many women, minorities, and those who were LGBT, particularly in the Deep South, where the Jim Crow Laws were in full swing. South Carolina remained segregated until well into the 1960s in many parts of the state. Women were still considered to be the property of their fathers until they married, at which point they became the property of their husbands. So while the forties will always make some think of the Greatest Generation and the glamour of the Hollywood regency, it will always remind others of injustice, intolerance, hatred, and fear. Mr. Collins is, simply put, an avatar for all of these things. He is the personification of the mistrust and fear of the times. Objectively, we as the audience know that his actions, his prejudices, and his treatment of his wife are reprehensible, but to him they are perfectly normal. And, quite frankly, I felt that, while I hated putting Charlotte through the ordeals she suffered at his hands, hers was a story that needed to be told. I wanted to include all aspects of small-town life at that time, including its seedy underbelly.

  The National Domestic Violence Hotline can help with advocacy and a personalized path to safety. If you or someone you know is in an abusive situation please call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), or 1-800-787-3224 (TTY) www.thehotline.org

  Q: How do your Charlotte’s choices compare with those of Austen’s Charlotte?

  A: I feel that fundamentally my Charlotte made the same choice as Austen’s, to embrace the security and certainty only afforded to married women. In Pride and Prejudice, Charlotte Lucas made a choice to marry a man she did not love or esteem based on what she believed were very limited options. My Charlotte did the same, though the reason behind their decisions was different—avoiding spinsterhood vs. avoiding social isolation and persecution. I believe at this point in Charlotte’s life she did not have any reasonable hope of loving and living as she wanted. Given the intense social stigma placed on homosexuals at the time, Charlotte probably had a difficult time facing the reality of her own sexuality; avoidance may have been easier than trying to forge for herself a life that was true to her nature. While there were some options for an unmarried woman in 1948, a woman in the rural south still would have had the expectations to marry and start a family of her own, and my Charlotte made the same decision to fit in as did Austen’s Charlotte.

  Q: Why did you choose to have Anne and Charlotte be lesbians?

  A: In Pride & Prejudice, Anne is a very tertiary character, “sickly and cross” and someone that Elizabeth’s imagination foists on Darcy as a sort of punishment. She is her mother’s rallying cry for Lady Catherine’s disapproval of Elizabeth. I wanted to take a step away from that and completely remove that aspe
ct from this story. We know so little about Anne that doesn’t relate to Darcy or Lady Catherine. Why is that? Who is she as a person? She has more family than just Darcy and her mother. What is her relationship like with them? I saw Anne as a woman with a rich inner life, a woman of deep intelligence and imagination. It was very easy for me to imagine a close bond between Anne and Richard. Almost immediately after that idea occurred to me, I just knew this aspect of Anne’s personality. She came to life for me then. Charlotte is a little different in that respect, playing more of a key role in Pride & Prejudice. She serves as both an example of reason and folly for Elizabeth, choosing an eligible offer of marriage out of practicality due to her age and “plainness.” Not wanting to adhere to Charlotte’s canonical plainness, I sought another reason for her willingness to accept what she herself knew would turn out to be a loveless marriage. I knew rather quickly that Charlotte and Anne were one and the same. In choosing to go this route, I wanted to gradually introduce this aspect of their characters because, while their sexuality is important, it does not define them.

  In exploring the concept of a friendship between Anne and the new Mrs. Collins, the possibilities of a deeper relationship made sense to me. Even adhering as strictly as they did to the expectations of women in that time in history, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that they would not have become intimate friends. Even in Austen’s time, there existed a dynamic known as the “romantic friendship.” There may not have been sexual activity in a romantic friendship, but in all other aspects would be indistinguishable from the relationship that Anne and Charlotte share here.

  And lastly, I wanted there to be a grand love story here. While Elizabeth Bennet and Will Darcy are off trying to better understand themselves in a way that ultimately brings them closer together, Anne and Charlotte have always had a better awareness of who they are, so their love story begins rather easily without much fanfare. Charlotte and Anne’s love is internally uncomplicated and externally complicated the way that Elizabeth and Darcy’s isn’t. I wanted their relationship to be a mirror of how Elizabeth and Darcy’s could have been had they been a little more self-aware.

  Q: Why do you think Richard never went back to Elizabeth?

  A: It’s something I’ve thought about quite a lot. First, Richard would have to go through a period of healing and his own self-discovery. While I don’t give much detail on what he was up to in the three years in between Charleston and Meryton, I can tell you they weren’t easy ones for Richard. He most likely avoided seeking her out again out of shame, fear of rejection, or the simple assumption that she would have moved on and married already. When he sees her again in the Netherfield garden, his first reaction is to back out and run as a man faced with his greatest failure might.

  Q: Why do you think Richard left her in the first place—so easily and without a note?

  A: While it might have seemed sudden and very easy, I tried to convey that his mind had been spending a lot of effort talking his heart out of this romance. Perhaps recognizing his own increasing co-dependency helped him see that his choices were clear—leave her and have her hate him for a while before moving on, or stay and marry her, only to have her end up hating him but unable to move on. I think a part of Richard was aware from the beginning that this love was doomed.

  If you look back at how he admires her, you will see that it is largely superficial. He constantly thinks of her as “beautiful” and “lovely,” while Darcy’s admiration comes from a deeper place, referring to her mind and her spirit, calling her “brilliant” and “brave.”

  As far as why he never left a note, his intention was to leave himself with no future chance of regaining her esteem. It was an act of self-destruction and self-sabotage and speaks to the psychological trauma he suffers. He doesn’t believe he deserves her respect or her love, so he guarantees that he will never have it.

  Q: How did the change in time affect the dynamic between the characters compared to the original?

  A: The reason I chose the Deep South during this particular time in American history was that the rules of etiquette were rigid and rather similar to Austen’s time, but the more modern setting allowed the characters, particularly the women, a greater share of liberation. The best example of this would be the freedom Elizabeth was allowed that summer in Charleston that fostered her relationship with Richard. This level of independence gives Jane the courage to put an end to Bingley’s courtship, it facilitates Anne’s boldness in beginning her affair with Charlotte, and it even lends itself to Caroline’s desire to secure her own future. The 1940s were a literary compromise. I wanted to modernize Austen’s work while still having those strict rules and expectations of society still in place.

  Q: Thinking about the cultural shifts happening during that time, how might world events have influenced Elizabeth’s choices?

  A: It was an interesting time for women. Elizabeth would have been too young to be a part of the workforce during the war effort but would have come of age during that time and seen that women had options beyond that of a homemaker. Once the war was over and the men returned to reclaim their jobs, the expectation for women shifted back to that of staying at home and raising a family. I think, while Elizabeth had no qualms about marriage and family, she might have wanted something more for herself than to be just a housewife.

  Elizabeth is more concerned with her hometown, her family, and the well-being of the people in her community than with anything else (national concerns, the war). What she saw of the war was young men leaving, sometimes coming back, and rations. She wouldn’t have seen firsthand women heading to the factories. Her father didn’t go to war, and her mother didn’t work. Elizabeth is not blind to what the nation was experiencing though. She was informed and educated, but the shifts occurring with the war were not what drove her to college. The uneasiness that accompanies wartime make her more focused on caring for those near to her, preserving the family farm. She saw in the cultural shift an affirmation of what she had always known—that women were just as capable as men. In a rural farming community, everyone has to do more. While the structure of the society still had a defined place for women that was quite separate from the man’s role, they had an important role in the functioning of the farm and the community.

  Acknowledgments

  A lot of work went into making this book a reality. First and foremost, my endless thanks to Michele Reed and the team at Meryton Press for giving this story a chance. Thank you Christina Boyd for your wisdom, tireless confidence, and enthusiasm. I could not have had a better partner in this process and am so grateful to you. Thanks to Ellen Pickels for your keen eye and unending patience with our many, many questions. Zory, thank you for lending your incredible vision and talent to this cover design. You somehow knew exactly what I wanted before I even knew. I still get emotional every time I see it.

  Many thanks to my invaluable beta readers, namely Jessica Riggleman, Chanda Owens, Glen Gibbs, Molly Auron, Ashley Hildebrandt, and Robin Duff. Thank you to Daniel Daughhetee for bearing my never-ending history questions with such aplomb; you are my research guru.

  To Linda Beutler and Suzan Lauder, thank you for your support and advice and for mentoring me through this process. I would also like to thank the incredible community at A Happy Assembly for their outpouring of support. Each and every one of you helped me become a better writer.

  Nobody gets there alone, and I certainly didn’t. Crystal, Jeremiah, Kip, and Skinner, thank you for putting up with my bouts of whining and self-doubt. You bolstered me and kept me going even at my most annoying. That is true friendship.

  And most importantly, thank you to my parents for always encouraging my love of reading and books from the very beginning and to my husband, Brian, for helping me realize this dream. You are my very favorite person.

  Author’s Bio

  Beau North is a native southerner who now calls Portland, Oregon home with her husband and two cats. She attended the University of South Carolina wher
e she began a lifelong obsession with English Literature. In her spare time, Beau is the brains behind Rhymes With Nerdy, an internet collective focused on pop culture. This is her first novel.