Why bother with my ‘Darcy’?

Why bother with my Darcy?

Why not just re-read – for surely everyone here will certainly have read it! – Pride and Prejudice, itself?

I was asked this question by a sceptical fellow tennis-mad friend. “After all,” she added, “You’ve admitted that the plot is mostly the same.”

FIRST ANSWER: 

Because Austen never married. In other words, she lacked sufficient courage to include scenes where only men were present. These she left her readers to imagine.

My flashback where Darcy confronts Wickham after losing all hope of eloping with his sister is omitted. (Of course it was. Austen didn’t do flashbacks!) However, the scene in real time when Darcy discovers Wickham living in London with Lydia is also omitted. As is the scene in London where Mr Gardiner suggests Mr Bennet return home and leave the search for Lydia up to him, the scene where Darcy requested Lizzy’s hand in marriage from her father, and lots of others. 

These scenes are all included in my Darcy which is – as I write – in the final seven novels in the UK Selfies Book Awards, winner to be announced at the London Book Fair, itself. (Let me know if you’re coming!!!)

In fact, my favourite reviewer wrote that she “rushed back to Pride and Prejudice to piece together the scenes McVeigh dared to take on, which Austen clearly hadn’t felt comfortable with.” She also said that the two books, taken together, “completed the whole.” 

Similarly, Austen’s only romantic experiences – and the second doesn’t sound very romantic – involved:

 (1) her minor crush on young Tom Lefroy, who clearly relished her company but who returned to Ireland, and 

(2) a one-day-long engagement with Harris Bigg-Wither, the slightly younger neighbour to whom she was engaged for exactly one, presumably sleepless, night. (As we know, she rejected him in the morning. Her niece, rightly or wrongly described him as “awkward and uncouth”.)

 In other words, Jane Austen had almost no personal experience of romance, so we’re really left to imagine quite a lot. (I’m sure this was the excuse of numerous screen adaptation writers, inserting wet T-shirts and illicit kisses.) Even Darcy’s second – wildly successful – proposal to Elizabeth is downplayed in the original. Here’s Austen’s version of the end of the scene:  

“Did you speak from your own observation,” said she, “when you told him that my sister loved him, or merely from my information last spring?”

“From the former. I had narrowly observed her during the two visits which I had lately made her here; and I was convinced of her affection.”

“And your assurance of it, I suppose, carried immediate conviction to him.”

“It did. Bingley is most unaffectedly modest. His diffidence had prevented his depending on his own judgment in so anxious a case, but his reliance on mine, made every thing easy. I was obliged to confess one thing, which for a time, and not unjustly, offended him. I could not allow myself to conceal that your sister had been in town three months last winter, that I had known it, and purposely kept it from him. He was angry. But his anger, I am persuaded, lasted no longer than he remained in any doubt of your sister’s sentiments. He has heartily forgiven me now.”

Elizabeth longed to observe that Mr. Bingley had been a most delightful friend; so easily guided that his worth was invaluable; but she checked herself. She remembered that he had yet to learn to be laughed at, and it was rather too early to begin. In anticipating the happiness of Bingley, which of course was to be inferior only to his own, he continued the conversation till they reached the house. In the hall they parted.

(And yet there are still some people who claim Austen wrote romances, lol!!!) 

Anyway, here’s my version from Darcy’s diaries in Darcy: A Pride and Prejudice Variation:

‘Had you persuaded yourself that I should?’ she asked.

‘I had. What will you think of my presumption? I believed you to be wishing, even expecting, my addresses!’

‘My manners must have been at fault – but, truly, had anyone offered to me at Hunsford, I would never have thought of you.’

‘You mean the Colonel, I suppose.’ But, with her leaning on my arm, how could I possibly be jealous? And, when I recollected all his generosity on my behalf, I added fervently, ‘He is the best of men! Might not we marry him to Mary or to Kitty?’

After she had finished laughing, she cried, ‘But whatever did you think, upon seeing me at Pemberley? My own mortification was extreme, and my shock as well, for we had been so confidently assured that you were not expected!’

‘I felt nothing but surprise.’

‘No more surprise than I, at meeting with such unlooked-for generosity. My conscience told me that I deserved no particular attention. Imagine my shock at receiving so much more than my due!’

‘At first, I only wished to prove that I had taken your rebuke as seriously as it deserved. But upon seeing you again – your skin just touched by the sun – oh, I will never forget how you looked, standing by the Gardiners, the sunlight brightening your hair! Like a hallucination, or a dream!’

I had lost all sense of time, or indeed of anything beyond the ecstasy of having her on my arm and so, I suppose, must she, for it was late indeed before we thought to consult our watches. Only then did she mention Jane. I instantly admitted that I had not only misjudged Jane’s feelings for Bingley but greatly mistaken the warmth of her feelings in general. Elizabeth instantly forgave me, but then questioned, ‘Did you ever feel that Bingley might have suited your sister, then?’

‘I do not know, but can imagine no more generous-hearted husband than Bingley. Your sister is fortunate indeed!’

We were by then almost at the edge of the forest. I recollected the path, the widening arc of trees, everything, from hours before… Had it been that same day when we had first set off? – it felt a lifetime! I pulled her closer, but she laughingly warned me not to tempt her. Reluctantly, I released her entirely, and we left the woods with a most respectable number of yards between us.

And now? Well, it is two o’clock, yet I still feel no desire to sleep – it may elude me for the whole of the night. But instead of worry, it is joy that keeps me sleepless, joy above all, that – despite all my self-doubts and weaknesses – she loves me. What man on earth, as violently in love as I, would not feel the same?

But for me there is a still deeper gratitude, a gratitude that, by humbling me, forgiving me and accepting me, she has freed me from being isolated, separate, alone. In society’s cold-blooded estimation, I might perhaps be lifting her – but Elizabeth Bennet has, most assuredly, saved me.

Finally, (still answering ‘Why bother with my book, when one can always re-read P&P?): 

Because Austen almost never gives us Darcy’s point of view, leaving the reader in the dark for most of the book. For example, despite Austen’s sharing with us his feeling ‘more bewitched than he had ever been by any other woman’ at Rosings and seems pretty smitten in Derbyshire, when he returns with Bingley to Longbourn, we share Elizabeth’s frustration in not being able to interpret his emotions. He’s clearly a very feeling fellow, but so hard to read! – He uses manners as a weapon, and courtesy as a shield.  

And because there are two, controversial, minor plots to my Darcy that Austen never used.

 The first is an episode in Rome where Darcy refuses to be seduced by a beautiful, brilliant but notably unstable Italian opera singer. 

The second is that, in common with many bookish types, I can’t bear for Mary to be neglected. In my novel she is herself a rather pedantic wannabe author – and is good-naturedly teased into less pretentiousness by the eldest son of the Lucases, Timothy. (The eldest Lucas male is never named in the original.)

Mary is often rehabilitated, of course! – because she’s bookish. Austen fans are necessarily bookish and we tend to relate to Mary. Despite her being presented rather ruthlessly by Austen as plain, foolish, pretentious etc., many authors have rushed to redeem her. Even the late great Hilary Mantel was apparently considering rehabilitating Mary, when she died. Being bookish ourselves, we see bookish as good!

However, I take the view that Mary was not irredeemable…  Instead, she was still terribly young, badly parented and stuck in the middle between two accomplished elder sisters and two, much sillier, younger ones. She was trying to find her way. I think, after P&P finished, she would have found it. In my Darcy, she does.

My episode in Rome, where Darcy refuses to be seduced by a charismatic but notably unstable Italian opera singer, has annoyed some readers, just as I predicted it would. The very idea that Darcy – aged 28 – might have been even briefly smitten by any other woman – before he even meets Elizabeth – offends purists. 

Which is frankly absurd. Darcy was too naturally affectionate not to have felt, say, what Jane Austen might well have felt for Tom Lefroy, long before he was practically thirty!  

As is widely known well-born young men were encouraged to travel the continent, sometimes for years, not only to check out the Trevi fountain and the Sistine Chapel but also – (cough) – in order to lose their virginity. Though one can’t imagine Darcy going that far – his sense of integrity seems too formidable – there’s strong evidence that around 90% of young gentlemen of his rank would have. 

In fact, regency society was pretty “out there” in terms of sexuality. Extramarital sex having been made legal, there was no shortage of prostitutes in London. Historian Amanda Vickery, author of the fascinating The Gentleman’s Daughter: Women’s Lives in Georgian England:

“Genteel girls were expected to be innocent virgins on their wedding day to men of the world who had already practiced on married women abroad, servant girls, the odd actress and prostitutes… Men’s diaries are also extraordinarily casual in reporting sex with servants.” 

PLEASE NOTE: I’m not condoning all this. I happen to be a churchgoer. But I also happen to be a realist. And all that I did, beyond daring to fill in Austen’s gaps, and permitting a character arc for Mary, was to imagine that Darcy, who was probably musical, once had a minor crush on a beautiful opera singer – whom he was too honourable to sleep with, even when she wished him to. Hardly revolutionary for the period, you must admit!

Anyway, you can get Darcy for free today, if interested. To celebrate making the UK Selfies shortlist. https://books2read.com/u/m2ErO6