Darcy’s Story

by Janet Aylmer

  The manner of her reply left him in no doubt.

  “Oh yes, Sir! And I am sure that my father would be very happy to be away from Longbourn, and all my mother’s preparations—although no doubt she will have some commissions for both of us to execute whilst we are in town.”

  As Elizabeth had anticipated, her father greeted the suggestion with what in him amounted to alacrity, and the course of a few days brought happy confirmation of the welcome awaiting Elizabeth and her father in Gracechurch Street.

  Darcy at the same time sent word to Derbyshire, and Georgiana confirmed that she and Mrs. Annesley could be in town within the week.

  39

  It was a happy reunion for Darcy and Elizabeth with her uncle and his family when the coach called at the Gardiners’ home to deliver Mr. Bennet and his daughter for their stay in town.

  Georgiana was expected in London the same day. It was arranged that Mr. Bennet and Darcy should meet with the attorneys on the morrow, and that Georgiana should then go with them to the Gardiners’ home for luncheon.

  His sister’s meeting with Elizabeth was all that Darcy had hoped. It was clear that they would become more than the best of friends, and the two young ladies were soon in earnest conversation about the commissions which Mrs. Bennet had given on Jane’s behalf, for various furnishings were needed at Netherfield.

  Mrs. Gardiner undertook to direct her brother and her niece to the nearest warehouses to choose samples for despatch to Hertfordshire, and it was agreed that Mr. Bennet and Elizabeth should then go to Darcy’s house for the rest of the day.

  Mrs. Bennet’s requests having been dealt with, Darcy and his sister welcomed Elizabeth and her father on their arrival. Mr. Bennet was quick to accept Georgiana’s invitation to view the library.

  “It is much less, Sir, than I have at Pemberley, but you may find something of interest,” Darcy observed, as Mr. Bennet and Georgiana left the drawing-room.

  “Where would you like to go first?” he asked, turning to Elizabeth.

  “There is something I would like to ask you, before we go round the house,” she replied, “if I may. It concerns Charlotte. It may be difficult, at least for a while, for us to visit Rosings, and you would not want me to stay at the parsonage at Hunsford. Neither of us would seek out Mr. Collins’ company, I know, but she was—indeed still is—a dear friend of mine. Would you object if, from time to time, she called in to see me here on her way to her family in Hertfordshire? She told me that she carried a message to you from Lady Catherine earlier this year.”

  “Yes, indeed. She warned me of the reason for Lady Catherine planning a visit to town, and I was most grateful to be able to escape to Essex, to see my cousin, as a result!” said Darcy with feeling. “You are welcome to invite her to stay overnight here at any time, just so long as we can always be certain that Mr. Collins will be detained in Kent and unable to come with her!”

  She thanked him warmly.

  He turned as though to show her the room, but then stopped, and said, rather urgently, “Tell me, my dear, there is something that your sister Kitty mentioned to me last week at Longbourn that puzzled me, concerning Mr. Collins... about my being your second proposal.”

  “Kitty ought not to have mentioned that. Although it was absurd as far as I was concerned, Mr. Collins did make an offer for my hand shortly after the ball at Netherfield. He had good intentions, at least in part, so that the entail giving Longbourn to him after my father’s death should not wholly disadvantage the rest of my family.”

  Then she added, in a more lively tone,

  “So, you see, I might have been subject to a daily sermon, not to mention a regular discourse on the state of Mr. Collins’ cabbages, such as my dear friend Charlotte has to bear. That would have been a heavy burden indeed, would it not?”

  And she turned back with a quick smile to look at Darcy, until she saw his expression.

  “Why, Sir, what is the matter?”

  Darcy’s emotion at hearing her reply was so strong that he had to struggle to compose himself before he answered. Then he spoke vehemently, and with much less delicacy than perhaps was appropriate.

  “It is the thought of Mr. Collins and you...of him having the right to...No, it does not bear thinking about!”

  Elizabeth’s response to this was first to blush deeply, as she understood the meaning of his words. Then, after a short pause, she came forward and took his hands in hers.

  It was several minutes before Darcy said, “Where can your father be? Georgiana must be a very eloquent guide to the library, for they have been gone at least a half hour!”

  “I had not noticed...,” she paused, and coloured again as she said, “shall we go to them now?”

  “In a moment,” Darcy said, “but first there is something you should see upstairs,” and he led the way to a sitting-room on the first floor overlooking the square. The furnishings were pleasant, if faded.

  “This was my mother’s, and is as she left it.”

  Elizabeth looked around her. “It must have many memories for you,” she said, looking at him keenly.

  “Yes. But happy ones. I would like you to use it, if you will, and change the furnishings to your taste.”

  “You were very fond of your mother?”

  “Yes. She was,” he smiled, “a strong character, but a less dominating person than her elder sister, Lady Catherine. I wish that she had known you.”

  “And I her. I will be very happy to have her room.”

  40

  The legal agreements having been settled, the marriages between Bingley and Miss Jane Bennet, and between Darcy and his dearest Elizabeth, took place as planned and, within a few days, Mr. and Mrs. Darcy were in Derbyshire.

  The weather was fine for the time of year, and Darcy took great pleasure in showing Elizabeth the house, and the many walks and drives round the estate. The path alongside the stream that they had taken with her uncle and aunt a few months earlier had special memories for both. Darcy was also able to take his bride on the drive together in the curricle around the park that they had been denied by Lydia Bennet’s elopement.

  He could not remember a happier time for him at Pemberley, and told Elizabeth so.

  Shortly before Christmas, they were joined by Georgiana, and by Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner together with their children, and the festive season was celebrated with a pleasant informality and much laughter. Darcy caused Elizabeth to blush in front of the family by teasing her that, soon, the childish voices in the house might not be only those of welcome guests. She replied quietly but with a lively smile that she admitted that could be a possibility, should that be his preference.

  Darcy took pleasure in seeing the ease with which his bride began to settle to the ways of running Pemberley. The preparations were already under way for the ball to be held on the eve of the New Year, and Georgiana delighted in showing her new sister all the corners of the house. Together, she and Elizabeth oversaw the details of the repast to be prepared. The day before the ball, Bingley and Jane arrived from Hertfordshire and, with Darcy’s cousin Fitzwilliam, joined the family already assembled.

  It was with great pleasure on the eve of the New Year that Darcy welcomed his neighbours and introduced them to Elizabeth. When the time came, they took to the floor together to open the dancing.

  As the music began, she turned to him in surprise, and said, “Is this not the same tune as was played at the ball at Netherfield last year? And, the same dance as we took together?”

  “But of course!” said Darcy, smiling at her. “There was nothing the matter with either, all that was needed was for us to come to a proper understanding.”

  And thus it was that, surrounded by their friends from Derbyshire and the relatives most dear to them, Mr. and Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy began their life together, in the comfort and elegance of their family party at Pemberley.

  The History Behind the Story

  The Author, Janet Aylmer, Talks About Writing Darcy’s Story

&
nbsp; Since Pride and Prejudice was first published nearly 200 years ago, it has become one of the best-loved novels in the English Language. Like many other people, I first read the book whilst I was at school, as did my children, and have enjoyed reading the novel again many times since then.

  Modern media—radio, the cinema and television—have introduced Pride and Prejudice to many new audiences all around the world in recent years. It was after watching the BBC television serial in 1995, and discussing it with one of my daughters, that my curiosity was re-awakened about Mr. Darcy, and I decided to write this book for her. That led to the idea that other people might also enjoy reading Darcy’s Story.

  I have been surprised and delighted to discover that my need to know more about Jane Austen’s hero is shared by people all over the world. At the time of writing, the book has been sold to readers not only in Great Britain, but in 37 other countries around the world via the Internet. Over 20,000 copies of the book have now been sold. The publishers have received many letters and emails expressing the enjoyment that so many people have found in reading Darcy’s Story. It seems that complementing Pride and Prejudice by writing this book has satisfied a long-felt need for many readers.

  Everyone who has ever read Jane Austen’s novel will have their own idea of Mr. Darcy’s side of the story, and this book could be described as looking through the mirror of Pride and Prejudice (1940) from the other side. I am delighted that a story written nearly 200 years ago can still give pleasure in a very different era. I have also been glad to learn that people much more knowledgeable than I am about Jane Austen and her work have also liked the book.

  I saw the cinema film of “Pride and Prejudice” some years ago and can remember being very disappointed that the story was changed at the end. That seemed to me to distort the story as told by Jane Austen. So I started by making a conscious that the book must be totally faithful to Pride and Prejudice and not change that story at all. Jane Austen wrote her novel very much from the point of view of the heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, and her family, and tells us very little about his side of the story. We learn a great deal about Elizabeth Bennet, her four sisters, and their family life.

  I looked very carefully at what the chronological sequence of events was in Pride and Prejudice and, almost as important, what Darcy would not have known about the story as told by Jane Austen. Her novel covers a period lasting from the autumn of the first year to the winter of the second.

  Wickham’s attempt to elope with Darcy’s sister, Georgiana, had taken place before he met Elizabeth Bennet, although in Pride and Prejudice Darcy tells her about it in the letter after his proposal at the following Easter. So, in Darcy’s Story, Wickham’s visit to Ramsgate to persuade Georgiana to elope with him comes near the beginning of the book.

  Mr. Darcy is only “present” in Pride and Prejudice for a few weeks at Netherfield (his friend Bingley’s house) in the first autumn; for two to three weeks at his aunt Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s house in Kent the following Easter; for a few days in Derbyshire in the summer; and then at the end of the story when he meets Elizabeth Bennet again in Hertfordshire. So Darcy’s Story has to explain what happened before he went to Netherfield, whether it was just chance that he met Elizabeth Bennet again in Kent, and at last in Hertfordshire, and what happened in between.

  He did not visit Longbourn, the Bennets’ home, until close to the end of Pride and Prejudice. He knew nothing of the proposal of marriage made by the curate Mr. Collins to his cousin Elizabeth shortly after the Netherfield ball, which she had rejected with her father’s support, but against her mother’s wishes.

  Although he had a poor opinion of some other members of her family, Darcy respected Jane Bennet, and was aware of the close bond between Elizabeth and her elder sister.

  His actions in Pride and Prejudice confirmed that he was a very fond and protective brother to his own sister Georgiana. Darcy seemed to me to be someone who was still brooding over the early death of his mother, of whom he had been very fond. Having suffered the early deaths of both his own parents, it may be that he envied Elizabeth having the close family that he himself had lost.

  A major decision was how much of Jane Austen’s conversation between Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet to use. She wrote much of Pride and Prejudice in a lively and ironic style, which suited Elizabeth’s character and was appropriate, as that story is told from the heroine’s point of view.

  Either Jane Austen’s dialogue had to be changed into description only, or there needed to be some form of commentary to show that Darcy had a very different view of the situations and their conversations when he and Elizabeth were both present. I decided that the story would be more enjoyable if I used the second approach, even though that meant repeating some lengthy sections of dialogue which Jane wrote. What I could not do was use different words between them for the conversations which Jane Austen herself had “reported!”

  Jane Austen made it clear that Elizabeth’s parents were not well matched, and Mr. Bennet confirms this when he seeks to dissuade her from marrying Darcy if she cannot respect her “partner in life.”

  Darcy was a very different character from Elizabeth, more sombre and reserved, perhaps because he had become used to keeping his own counsel, and not sharing his emotions. It therefore seemed wrong to use the much lighter style writing employed to such brilliant effect in Pride and Prejudice.

  I am sure that everyone who has read and enjoyed Jane Austen’s novel has their own particular favourite passages in the book, and I used many of mine in Darcy’s Story. As her novel was first published in several “parts,” I also used quotations from Pride and Prejudice to introduce each of the seven parts in my book.

  Having Darcy recall past conversations was one way to show the more serious and reflective aspects of his character, and emphasise passages from Jane Austen’s novel which are especially relevant to Darcy’s Story.

  Jane Austen described her hero at the beginning of Pride and Prejudice as being a wealthy but proud young man who moved only in the most elevated circles. Wealth and an emphasis on social class had been paramount in his upbringing.

  As he said in Pride and Prejudice, “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....I was spoilt by my parents, who . . . allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing, to care for none beyond my own family circle, to think meanly of all the rest of the world, to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own.”

  Although Darcy came from a grander and wealthier background than Elizabeth Bennet, she was more able to cope with, and was more confident in, new social situations than he was. I saw Darcy as someone who could only enjoy life with someone very different from the superior and overconfident females, such as Caroline Bingley, whom he finds intimidating and superficial.

  The Bingley sisters were fixed in their views, with a critical and derogatory approach to anyone who did not move in their own “circle.” Only Darcy’s friend, their brother Charles, took people as he found them, perhaps remembering how his family’s fortune had been made in trade.

  I felt that Darcy seemed to be one person at the beginning of Pride and Prejudice, and quite another at the end. People do not really change that much, so it was more likely that he had been acting a part to some extent, concealing some inhibition or aspect of his real character.

  Jane Austen had Darcy say in her novel that “. ...I cannot forget the follies and vices of others so soon as I ought, nor their offences against myself...My temper would perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost is lost for ever.” His wariness of Mr. Wickham, son of his late father’s steward, was confirmed by Wickham’s attempts to get more than he was due from Darcy’s father’s estate. That wariness had developed into dislike and distrust before Wickham tried to elope with Darcy’s younger sister, Georgiana, to get control of her fortune.

  Darcy�
�s disdain for the Court at St. James and his dislike of mixing with people strange to him seemed to be due to the fact that he was not at ease in unfamiliar company, and envied other young men’s ability to converse with and charm the opposite sex, rather than that he was naturally unpleasant to other people.

  I took this as my cue, that he was envious of the easy manners of many of the people he knew, especially the men of about his own age such as Wickham, his cousin Fitzwilliam, and his friend Bingley.

  Darcy seemed to me to be a strong person. He could take swift action when he chose, as when he resolved the elopement of Elizabeth’s sister Lydia with Wickham.

  Jane Austen herself describes Darcy as being a good brother to Georgiana, as being at ease with people he knows well, and as being generous to the poor in Derbyshire. If you like, his unattractive manners in the earlier part of the story concealed a very pleasant character waiting to emerge, if the right person came along to help him escape his haughty relations and gain confidence that he could find the happiness he sought in marriage.

  I decided that Darcy was unlikely to have reacted favourably to the news that Elizabeth might have married Mr. Collins, since Jane Austen made it clear that they had very little in common except for Darcy’s formidable aunt, Lady Catherine De Bourgh.

  But he was likely to learn about that proposal, sooner or later, from someone in the Bennet family who was aware of it. But Mr. Collins did do Darcy an unintentional favour, by telling his aunt about the impending marriage between Jane Bennet and Mr. Bingley. His concern that a union between her nephew and Elizabeth might follow led her to her famous interview with Elizabeth at Longbourn, and her subsequent visit to London to try and dissuade Darcy from the idea.