Q: I liked that you made Mrs Forster part of the scheme to get the couple away from Brighton with a simple fib to her husband, so Colonel Forster could not write the Bennets. Therefore, do you believe it was Wickham’s intent all along to get money from Darcy, or was she just a bit of muslin?
A: My reading of Wickham’s motives in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is that it is most likely (although by no means certain) that Lydia was just a bit of muslin whom he would ultimately have abandoned. Any variation story in which Elizabeth marries Darcy before Lydia runs away with Wickham drives a coach and horses through this because Wickham knows that Darcy will spend money to protect his wife from scandal. So, as to Wickham, I definitely think that he was trying his luck with Darcy’s generosity. His instinct was that Darcy would be willing to do what it took to protect Lydia’s reputation. My vision is that Wickham deliberately encouraged Lydia to visit her married sister in order to kick start the chain of events that then followed. I imagine Lydia suggesting the conspiracy with Mrs Forster to Wickham and him realising its possibilities. After all, he had already been foiled in his attempted elopement with Georgiana. He would have had no intention of being beaten again. If Mrs Forster could be held off writing to the Bennets, then that gave him extra time to make sure that there could be no doubt about their relations and to enable Lydia to drop the bombshell on her married sister herself.
Q: I enjoyed that Mary Bennet marries Mr Collins, securing Longbourn for her family but also making herself a good match—on so many levels. Most Pride & Prejudice alternatives follow canon and have Charlotte Lucas marry their odious cousin. What inspired you to make this welcome change?
A: I have always thought that Mary would have been an ideal choice for Mr Collins. The problem in the original (if you can call any part of the original a “problem”) is that prior to his proposal to Elizabeth, Mr Collins does not notice Mary in comparison to her more obviously attractive older sisters. Then after his proposal has been rejected, his pride will not allow him to consider trying another one of the Bennet girls. Charlotte Lucas falls into his lap and offers him an ideal way out of an embarrassing predicament. However if Elizabeth had never rejected him, if his pride had never been injured, he would have had neither the incentive nor the imagination to look beyond Longbourn.
Q: Why do you think Mr Darcy Sr never married Mrs Lovelace even after Mrs Darcy died?
A: In my mind, he would have wanted very much to marry Esther when his wife died. However, he would ultimately have been held back by propriety and the perceived need to protect his legitimate children from scandal. The division between the two sets of siblings is a cause of tension in this story, and it would have been even more so in the aftermath of the death of Lady Anne Darcy when Georgiana was very young and the whole matter more raw.
Q: Do you think that maybe Darcy suspects she might be with child as she is sleeping more during her first trimester and, of course, the eventual slight baby bump?
A: Although it may seem obvious to us, I do not think of Darcy as having any idea that Elizabeth is pregnant. When it comes to her being sleepy and feeling a bit poorly, he would not have had enough awareness to understand the significance of these things. I am sure that other members of the household, in particular the ladies, would have guessed immediately. Women generally have (in my experience) a much stronger instinct for these things. Darcy is a man who had had very little contact with gestating women in his life. Would he have noticed changes in her body? He is very interested in her body, and he may have seen slight alterations, but again, I do not see a line between that and him guessing that she is carrying a child. At four months, some women are barely noticeable, and I imagine Elizabeth falling into this camp. In addition to this, my idea of Darcy in this story is that he is so obsessed with Elizabeth that he fails to think things through. He does not think enough about what she may or may not be going through. His mind is, in some ways, too focussed on his love for her and not enough on the lady herself.
Acknowledgements
To Michele and all at Meryton Press for including me. I am still surprised and very honoured, so thank you. Christina, you have made this book immeasurably better and been a great source of humour and ideas. I may never write “that” with a clear conscience again. Ellen, thank you for your keen eyes and amazing knowledge; Sue’s “Regency Encyclopaedia” sounds like a website I need to visit. Zuki, thank you for producing a lovely cover with a real feeling for the story.
Thank you and “I love you” to my husband, and thank you also to my mum.
To the staff in my local coffee shop in London, who kept me supplied with lattes while I held my nursing son with one hand and typed my first novel with the other, I thank you too.
To anyone who reads this book, thank you for taking the time and I hope you enjoy it. I am now on twitter so please do follow me @JenettaJames or find me on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/jenettajameswriter.
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