Temptation and Temperance
A Sequel to
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice
By Walter Oleksy Order this book in paperback or e-book from Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, Amazon.com books, Barnes & Noble, or personally autographed from the author
Walter Oleksy is a former Chicago Tribune reporter and editor, magazine editor, and author of more than 30 books.
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PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AFTER THE DARCY'S WEDDING
CLOUDS OVER PEMBERLEY, Temptation and Temperance, is a sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Reverend Mister Collins researches a new sermon which tests the marital fidelity of newlyweds Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy, Jane and Charles Bingley and others in the Bennet family. The sermon is at the urging of Darcy's dowager aunt Lady Catherine de Bourgh who believes Elizabeth and the other Bennet's are inferior in class to her and her nephew Darcy.
Collins's research is conducted with the help of a tantalizing handsome young couple from Ireland that Collins assigns to entrap the Darcy's, Bingley's, and Bennet's. What George Wickham and his wife Lydia are up to is very modern. Also off-kilter are Elizabeth's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Bennet. It's an 1812 Regency serio-comic romantic romp spiced with some of today's looser morality. Jane Austen might think it a bit naughty, but nice.
The author, Walter Oleksy, is a former Chicago Tribune reporter and editor, magazine editor, and freelance author of more than 30 books (see amazon.com books and www.walteroleksybooks.com).
Temptation and Temperance
Chapter One Many and even perhaps most husbands may have a roving eye and be tempted to stray, but come back home to their wives and are faithful, in their fashion. A man is, after all, a male animal.
Elizabeth Bennet, twenty, and her year-older sister Jane were discoursing in their bedchamber at home in Longbourn , England, about their future husbands. It was the 1812 late winter morning of the beautiful young women's marriages, Elizabeth to wealthy, handsome and proud Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, twenty-eight, and Jane to his best friend Mr. Charles Bingley, twenty-six, likeable, goodlooking and naturally pleasing.
The sisters spoke of their love for their husbands-to-be and their intended fidelity to their future marriage vows, despite any temptation to stray. They agreed that in any such instance, they would exercise strict temperance.
As Jane worked on her sister's long brown hair, she said, “You are the envy of every woman in Longbourn, single or married. Your Mister Darcy is quite a catch.”
Elizabeth agreed. “In our first real meeting, at the ball last spring in Meryton, Mr. Darcy drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien, and the report which was in general circulation of his having ten thousand a year.”
Said Jane, “I recall the gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man. Ladies declared he was much handsomer than my Mister Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration.”
Elizabeth said, “Your Mister Bingley is also quite handsome.”
“He also is most pleasing.” Elizabeth said, “You recall I told you, at his first proposal of marriage, Mister Darcy told me, 'My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.'
“As for myself,” she added, “about loving Mister Darcy, nonetheless I later rejected his proposal of marriage. He had expressed disdain about what he considered to be my lower station in society.”
Jane said, “You were right to reject him. If a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him. If she can hesitate as to 'Yes,' she ought to say 'No' directly. Marriage is not a state to be safely entered into with doubtful feeling and half a heart.”
Elizabeth said, chuckling, “The most incomprehensible thing in the world to a man, is a woman who rejects his offer of marriage.”
“You are right, dearest sister. But a man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her.”
Elizabeth recalled, “The more I knew of the world, the more I was convinced that I should never see a man whom I could truly love. I required so much.”
Said Jane while slightly curling Elizabeth's hair, “We are alike in that we are among those who having once begun, would be always in love.”
She asked, “Shall I add a flower or bow to your hair?”
“I think neither,” said Elizabeth. “I prefer no ornamentation.”
Jane agreed. “You are your own decoration.”
“You're much too kind. How shall I fix yours?” Elizabeth asked about Jane's long blonde hair.
“I should like your look, but with a few cascading curls.”
“They will suit you.”
Elizabeth recalled, “At the time I rejected Mister Darcy. I may have lost my heart, but not my self-control. We must be the best judge of our own happiness.”
Elizabeth further said, regarding Mr. Darcy, “I am going to take a hero whom no one but me may much like. He is such a reserved gentleman.”
Jane said, “There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.” Elizabeth agreed, but defended Mr. Darcy. “Not until the reserve ceases towards oneself; and then the attraction may be the greater. As it has happened with Mr. Darcy. It is very unfair to judge of anybody's conduct without an intimate knowledge of their situation.”
Jane smiled. “It is very difficult for the prosperous to be humble.”
Elizabeth smiled. “I wonder if I should love Mister Darcy if he were a humble man. He is a gentleman of great pride and, I wager, vanity.” Elizabeth tried to reassure her sister, and perhaps herself. “Regarding Mister Darcy's pride, vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity to what we would have others think of us.”
Jane asked, “Do you feel inferior in station to Mister Darcy, as his aunt Lady Catherine de Bourgh believes you to be?”
“Mister Darcy is a gentleman, and I am a gentleman's daughter. I believe, so far, we are equals in station.”
Jane asked, “You find his heart to be quite warm to you?” Elizabeth nodded yes. “Since Mister Darcy and I reconciled, thanks to my better understanding him, I have found that there is no equal to his tenderness of heart. There is nothing to be compared to it. His warmth and tenderness of heart, with an affectionate and open manner, will beat all the clearness of head in the world, for attraction. I am sure it will.”
“Sister, you have no reservation about that?” Elizabeth tempered her remark. “Mister Darcy's feelings are warm, but I can imagine them rather changeable. I am quite enough in love. I should be sorry to be any more.”
Said Jane, “Never, never could I expect to be so truly loved and important, so always first and always right in any man's eyes, as I am in Mister Bingley's.”
Jane said, “What strange creatures men are. I pray we both will find happiness in our marriage.”
Elizabeth said, “Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.” “And I also pray that both our husbands will exercise fidelity. If they both have defects of character in that regard, I believe it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom we are to pass our life.”
Elizabeth said, “There is, I believe sadly, in every gentleman's disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect. But I am trusting in Mister Darcy's fidelity, and my heart is and always will be his.”
“All's fair in love and war, including tra
nsparent tricks. Mister Bingley is much too good-natured to see through them, even if I do.” Elizabeth thought, What have I to wish for? Nothing, but to grow more worthy of whose intentions and judgment I believe are ever so superior to my own.
She was happy. She knew she was happy, and knew she ought to be happy.
Elizabeth told her sister, “If I loved Mister Darcy less, I could talk about him more.”
Elizabeth finished putting a few long curls on Jane's hair and the sisters hugged each other. Tears of joy and anticipation fell onto their cheeks. While Elizabeth and Jane discoursed about their future husbands, Fitzwilliam Darcy and Charles Bingley smoked cigars in Darcy's bed chamber at Pemberley and shared thoughts about their future wives.
Said Mr. Darcy, “It hurt deeply when Elizabeth first rejected my proposal of marriage. Afterward, it was gratitude, gratitude, not merely for having loved her, but for loving her still well enough to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting me. She gave me pause to reflect on myself.”
Mr. Darcy admitted, “I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child, I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. By dear, loveliest Elizabeth Bennet I was properly humbled.”
Mr. Bingley nodded in the affirmative. “As I feel Jane Bennett's love has been the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Despite her rejection, I loved her yet, as now I do most passionately.” “As I love Jane,” Mr. Bingley said. Mr. Darcy said, “ I am so fortunate, for it is not every man's fate to marry the woman who loves him best. I wish, like everybody else, to be perfectly happy. But, like everybody else, it must be in my own way.
“Elizabeth Bennet is loveliness in itself, the sweetest and best of all creatures, faultless in spite of all her faults. With all her little faults, where should I find a truer friend? She has qualities that may be trusted. Where Elizabeth errs once, she is in the right a hundred times. Perhaps it is our imperfections that make us so perfect for one another.”
Mr. Darcy thought he had caught in Elizabeth both the substance and shadow; both fortune and affection, and was just the happy man he ought to be.
Mr. Bingley asked, “Will you pledge to be faithful to your wife?” Mr. Darcy assured his great friend, and perhaps himself. “I will. But my future wife may be tempted. Yet, no man is offended by another man's admiration of the woman he loves. It is the woman only who can make it a torment, if she does not exercise temperance.”
Said Mr. Bingley, “My wife will pledge her fidelity, I am certain. And I will pledge mine, becoming as true to it as is humanly possible. I shall make every endeavor to exercise temperance. As you know, my greatest ambition in life is to please.”
Said Mr. Darcy, “Of course, there is the old saying: 'Boys will be boys.'”
Said Mr. Bingley, “What a strange thing love is.”
Mr. Darcy said, putting out his cigar, “We are all fools in love.” Chapter Two “You’ve got mail,” announced her personal maid as Elizabeth sat at the pianoforte in the sunny music room of her home at luxurious Pemberley six months after her wedding.
Elizabeth had despaired of Paula, pretty and dark-haired, ever speaking properly, as her husband Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy repeatedly said he expected her to. She had hired the girl because of her appealing countenance, firmly of the conviction that Mr. Darcy would not succumb to temptation by dallying with her servant. It was, in fact, not her first test of him in that regard after their marriage. He would not, she was certain, fall into temptation. He was a man of consummate temperance, and had proven that more than once on their honeymoon. But why take chances?
It did not really vex Elizabeth that Paula had not addressed her as “Ma’am,” nor had she said, more properly, “Mail has arrived for you, Ma’am.” She was used to a more casual association at home, before her marriage to the more formal Mr. Darcy, one of the wealthiest and most agreeable-looking young men in the district.
Elizabeth also was still getting used to having a special maid to attend to her person. She and her four sisters had never had that luxury at home in Longbourn with their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, and had shared the personal services of one domestic girl. Mr. Darcy had a valet to help him with his dressing and insisted she be cared for like the lady his wife now was. In truth, she was still getting used to being in society and the mistress of such a large and grand house.
“Bugger the mail,” Elizabeth said silently. It was a word she had picked up from Mr. Darcy, among some others of his words or habits since their marriage. He was still sometimes impatient with or put off by others. The word became part of her vocabulary which she tried to suppress but was not always very accomplished at it.
Most mail that came to Pemberley, she lamented, was just more bills from tradesmen or requests of payment for public services from the nearby market town of Lampton or from London.
Also, advertisements came in the post for products or services Mr. Darcy did not want, need, or was of the conviction that his wife did not need. How many shoes could a woman wear, or handbags could she carry? He disallowed that Elizabeth had a passion for both, and in every color offered. The ads said to get it because “You’re worth it!” Mr. Darcy knew that Elizabeth was worth it, but when was enough, enough? When was more too much? After all, even at Pemberley, there was just so much closet space.
Mr. Darcy had asked Elizabeth to assume responsibility for paying bills, having detested the chore himself. She took on the labor reluctantly, but did to please him. She was learning what a give-and-take thing marriage was. She detested his snoring in his sleep, and he disliked her wearing hair curlers to bed, but neither mentioned it to the other.
Before their marriage, Elizabeth had agreed to some rules Mr. Darcy requested in a prenuptial contract. They did not involve division of finances or property, but conduct.
Said Mr. Darcy to Elizabeth while they walked in Pemberley Park after he had proposed to her, “One rule involves the use of a veto, but not a double veto. If I want a window to be open, I may open it. If you then want the same window to be closed, you could exercise a veto and close it. But I then would not be allowed to exercise a double veto by opening the window again.”
Elizabeth thought on that a while, then agreed. Consequently, the Darcy’s seldom exercised a double-veto.
“The second rule is that both of us, at any time, will respect the other’s right to be irrational.”
Elizabeth also gave that some thought, then consented. Because of that agreement, neither exercised that right. Or at least, not to excess.
Darcy was not yet done with his requests.
“Mrs. Bennet is never to sleep-over at Pemberley.”
“Agreed.”
“No visits to or from Mrs. Bennet in two consecutive days.”
“Agreed.”
Darcy did not ask for more, but Elizabeth had one conduct clause of her own. “You may not watch more than one full football game each Sunday.” Darcy thought for a moment, then agreed. He could comply with that condition, although the situation was not mentioned, by watching the first half of one game, then the second half of another.
Elizabeth then thought of a more substantial prenuptial conduct issue, but decided not to confront Mr. Darcy with it. It had to do with temptation, but she was confident he would be faithful to her and be temperate, should the former situation arise. But, on second thought as they walked together at Pemberley, she could test his temperance, perhaps by hiring an uncommonly agreeable-looking personal maid.
It was not until after their marriage and Elizabeth came to live at Pemberley did she and Mr. Darcy have to reach a compromise on two other matters. Space had become an issue, even in a manor house as large as theirs.
Elizabeth told Darcy she would tolerate the noise from the indoor pistol and shotgun range he had installed in the basement for shooting practice on rainy or snowy days, space
she had wanted for a family room for their future children to play in. In exchange, he said he would tolerate the home beauty salon and fitness gymnasium she had set up in the attic, where his collection of medieval armor was stored and displayed. His knightly collection was moved to a room above the garage. The tit-for-tat worked for them.
Paula left the letter on the piano as Elizabeth nodded to her without interrupting her playing. She had been lost in the slow melancholy adagio from Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21. She had not yet quite mastered it and was not unhappy; to the contrary, she was almost deliriously happy. But she had learned early in her marriage to Mr. Darcy that he had a fondness for melancholy music. Although she was normally of a sunnier disposition, she had become drawn to it as well, mainly to please him.
Elizabeth looked up periodically from the sheet music to the bouquet of two dozen tall-stemmed red roses in a porcelain vase atop the piano. Mr. Darcy had given her the flowers just that morning, one of his gifts to her to celebrate the anniversary of their marriage six months before.
Before they were united as husband and wife, she had never expected him to be so thoughtful. He was definitely not the cold and aloof gentleman others thought him to be. She was finding him to be the warmest, kindest-hearted, even most open-hearted of beings.
Mr. Darcy was even far more than Elizabeth ever dreamed a husband could be. Besides being uncommonly agreeable in countenance, he was gentle, loving, and thoughtful. He was and always would be faithful to her. He might be tempted to stray, but would steadfastly exercise temperance.
Was his fidelity on her mind too much? He was, she decided, to be trusted. He was such a dear boy.
And yet, she recalled, on the eve of her wedding, Mrs. Bennet had cautioned her: “Mr. Darcy is a man, and a man is, after all, a male animal.” Elizabeth had noticed on their honeymoon that Mr. Darcy’s eyes seldom followed even the most beautiful women tourists or serving girls in restaurants or cafes. She more than loved, she adored him, and was confident that he returned the feeling.
She did not have to try to be as much to Mr. Darcy. It had become natural to love and please him. It had become a part of her, to know his likes and dislikes, and to accept them, as she found that he accepted hers. They were, of course, opposites of the human species and bound to have their differences. If he liked melancholy, she would, too.
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