Monica Fairview
P&P200: Lizzy and Darcy on Twelfth Night
Would Lizzy and Darcy have celebrated the New Year?
The answer is yes and no. Little do we know it, but our New Year’s Eve celebration with its fireworks and revelling is descended from another tradition, that of Twelfth Night, the last and twelfth day of Christmas, celebrated traditionally in England on the 5th or 6th of January, though in some areas it coincided with the turning of the new year. The celebration was traditionally deliberately boisterous. This was because the intention was drive away evil spirits from the land so the trees could grow. Bonfires, shooting, loud banging and hitting the trees with sticks were all part and parcel of the event.
In Jane Austen’s day in Kent, Twelfth Night would have been very much alive, particularly since Kent was known for its apple orchards, and the focus of the wassailing was the apple tree and the agricultural community’s hopes for a new year of fertility and plenty. Jane Austen would certainly have been wassailed by the local population and asked for a cup of wassail ale or mulled hard cider, though perhaps given that her father was a clergyman, it was unlikely JA would have participated in what were clearly pagan rituals.
For P&P200 I thought it might be fun to have an excerpt in which Lizzy and Darcy take part in a Wassail/Twelfth Night celebration. Continue reading
Monica Fairview
Author of THE OTHER MR DARCY, featuring flying sparks between Caroline Bingley and Darcy's charming American cousin and THE DARCY COUSINS, featuring defiance and misunderstandings as Darcy's sister Georgiana takes a few lessons from her fiesty American cousin about love and romance. My traditional Regency Romance, An Improper Suitor, has just been released on Kindle.
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P&P200: Lizzie at Pemberley
“Farewell, my dear Mrs. Darcy.”
A shiver of pleasure passed through Lizzie at the sound of her new name. She kissed the tips of her fingers and waved the kiss in his direction. Darcy responded with a half-smile but he didn’t send her a kiss back. It was probably an improper thing to do.
She sighed. It was probably not quite proper to be leaning out of her bedroom window either, even if she was fully dressed. She was only too aware of the two liveried footmen standing at the carriage door, staring fixedly ahead as if blind and deaf. Then Darcy stepped into the carriage and one of the footmen, a youngster with blue eyes and an eager attitude, closed the door behind him. As the carriage drew away, she thought the footman glanced towards her window, but she couldn’t be sure. It was probably her imagination. Being the mistress of a house like Pemberley was all so new, it wasn’t surprising she didn’t quite feel comfortable about it.
Though if she’d learned anything from her stay at Netherfield when Jane was ill, it was that the servants watched every move she made and reported everything downstairs. She’d discovered this to her chagrin when she’d gone down to the kitchen to get some warm milk for Jane, only to discover to her embarrassment that they were talking about her.
“I had to clean her shoes, I should know,” said a man’s voice. ”They were caked with at least two inches of mud. Shocking behavior. Walking across the field like a vagabond, I ask you. That’s no lady fit to associate with the likes of Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy.” Continue reading
Monica Fairview
Author of THE OTHER MR DARCY, featuring flying sparks between Caroline Bingley and Darcy's charming American cousin and THE DARCY COUSINS, featuring defiance and misunderstandings as Darcy's sister Georgiana takes a few lessons from her fiesty American cousin about love and romance. My traditional Regency Romance, An Improper Suitor, has just been released on Kindle.
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P&P200: Marriage Settlements
Imagine a world in which marriage meant, quite literally, transfer of property from a woman to her husband. Now imagine that Lizzie, through clever management of her money, had managed to put together a small sum of money she intended to use to buy herself a small cottage. Then she married Mr. Collins.
The moment she pronounced the words “I will,” and signed that Church register, the money would no longer be hers. If Mr. Collins chose to use up every penny of it to buy gifts to give to his patroness Lady Catherine, he could do so. The money, from that moment, was his, as was every little thing Lizzie owned, except for some personal effects, or what was called “paraphernalia.”
Of course, we know that Lizzie didn’t save up any money. The only money that she “owned” was her share of Mrs. Bennet’s own marriage settlement — the £5000 settled on her and her children. And luckily, Lizzie didn’t marry Mr. Collins. By marrying Darcy, she was assured of a very comfortable lifestyle. Mr. Darcy would shower her with money. He would buy her jewelry. He would make sure she lacked nothing.
But supposing Mr. Darcy was out on the hunt, and his horse fell into a ditch, and very tragically Dary fell and broke his neck :Cry: – not an uncommon thing in those days – all before Lizzie had conceived a son. Or if Lizzie, like Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, produced five girls and no son. What then?
Then Pemberley and everything in it, including all the jewelry Mr. Darcy bought her, would go to Mr. Darcy’s heir. In The Other Mr. Darcy, the heir is Robert Darcy, an American cousin. If Robert had taken over the estate, Lizzie would have to move back to Longbour
n, of course. Like the in the case of the Dashwoods, where Mrs. Dashwood, Elinor, Marianne and Margaret were at the mercy of a verbal promise made by John Dashwood on his father’s deathbed, very quickly forgotten. Robert Darcy and his wife (if you’ve read the novel you’d know who that is, but no spoilers here) would move in and Lizzie would need Robert’s permission if she wanted anything at all from the household. Even the China set that Lady Catherine gave them as a wedding gift would belong to Robert.
Unless she had a Marriage Settlement.
Now don’t get me wrong. Lizzie would never, under any circumstances, be entitled to inherit Pemberley, any more than Mrs. Bennet or any of her daughters were entitled to inherit Longbourn. The heir to an estate like that had to be male. Being a gentleman by definition meant being part of the landed gentry. You couldn’t split up the land into portions because that would remove your basic source of income.
The bottom line was, as long as a woman was married and her husband was alive, any money she had received before or after the marriage was his by law. A marriage settlement was her only guarantee of owning anything at all in the event of her husband’s death.
A marriage settlement would most likely assign her the following:
1. Pin money. Mr. Darcy would sign an agreement that he would give her a certain amount of money a year as “pin money,” money that would be hers – separate from money to be spent on housekeeping – her pocket money, so to speak.
2. Her dowry could be held “in trust” which meant it would be kept intact and revert to her upon her husband’s death. So Lizzie’s dowry – her share of Mrs. Bennet’s money – would be hers if Mr. Darcy died.
3. Any money held in trust could be passed down to her children, particularly if they were girls, though of course Mr. Darcy’s daughters would be entitled to inherit anything unentailed from their father.
4. She may be entitled to “dower” money, a certain amount of money from the estate after Mr. Darcy’s death. The marriage settlement would specify how much.
5. The settlement would specify what she would receive in the event of remarriage.
This is why the first thing Mr. Gardner when Lydia and Wickham are to marry is arrange a marriage settlement. He writes to Mr. Bennet:
I am happy to say there will be some little money, even when all his debts are discharged, to settle on my niece, in addition to her own fortune.
Of course, we know there wouldn’t have been any money to settle on her, if it were not for dear Mr. Darcy. As we find out from Mrs. Gardner’s letter to Lizzie, it was Darcy who arranged for Wickham’s debts are to be paid “amounting, I believe, to considerably more than a thousand pounds, another thousand in addition to her own settled upon her, and his commission purchased.”
Lydia is more than fortunate to have Darcy given her some legal protection. This is something to bear in mind because if poor Georgiana had eloped with Wickham, she would have had no legal recourse at all. Wickham would have taken everything she owned, and she would have been left stranded if something happened to him. From being a rich heiress she would have become a pauper, because we can be almost certain he would have gone through her fortune in the blink of an eye. What a terrible mistake for a fifteen-year-old to make!
But to come back to Lizzie — there could be no doubt that Mr. Darcy would be very generous in any settlement on Lizzie. After all, as we know, he was madly in love. I’m just the tiniest bit curious, though, aren’t you?
Monica Fairview
Author of THE OTHER MR DARCY, featuring flying sparks between Caroline Bingley and Darcy's charming American cousin and THE DARCY COUSINS, featuring defiance and misunderstandings as Darcy's sister Georgiana takes a few lessons from her fiesty American cousin about love and romance. My traditional Regency Romance, An Improper Suitor, has just been released on Kindle.
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P&P200: Georgiana arrives in Hertfordshire for the Wedding
They changed horses at the Hart and Hounds Inn, their last stop before arriving at Netherfield.
“Almost there, now, Miss Darcy. It won’t be long,” said Mrs. Annesley, smiling as the carriage began its familiar sway and buck over the cobblestones leading out of the inn.
Everything suddenly became all too real. The thought of reaching her destination now filled Georgiana with apprehension. She shivered and drew her tippet closer around her.
Until this moment, it had all seemed like a fairy tale. She was so happy for her brother. Fitzwilliam was in love. There was a glow to him she’d never seen before, and that careworn look on his face that had been stamped there ever since their father had died was gone. His every footstep had a spring to it. There was such an eagerness to his face, such a sense of purpose and energy that it made her want to laugh and sing and play the piano as loudly as possible, which was really shocking because she’d always prided herself on the evenness of her playing.
Yes, she was very happy, not just for her brother, but for herself as well.
Her brother was to marry, and she was to have a sister. She’d dreamed of having a sister for so long, someone to keep her company during the long days at Pemberley when Darcy was busy doing accounts or attending to the estate. Someone with whom she could sit and embroider. Someone who would look over fashion plates with her and discuss menus. Someone who would share with her all the female occupations which escaped her brother’s interest. Then perhaps, too, if Darcy was married, he would spend more time at Pemberley, and she wouldn’t have to deal with long weeks of isolation in which she saw hardly anyone except for the five young ladies from neighboring families who occasionally came to call on her. Continue reading
Monica Fairview
Author of THE OTHER MR DARCY, featuring flying sparks between Caroline Bingley and Darcy's charming American cousin and THE DARCY COUSINS, featuring defiance and misunderstandings as Darcy's sister Georgiana takes a few lessons from her fiesty American cousin about love and romance. My traditional Regency Romance, An Improper Suitor, has just been released on Kindle.
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Making Sport for Our Neighbors? Gossip and Jane Austen
I was re-reading P&P the other day (for the nth time) and reached the passage in which Mr. Bennet famously tells Lizzie after reading her Mr. Collins’ letter concerning Darcy:
But, Lizzy, you look as if you did not enjoy it. You are not going to be Missish, I hope, and pretend to be affronted at an idle report. For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?”
Now that passage has always seemed to me to hold a ring of truth that extends beyond the novel. A quick read of Jane Austen’s letters reveals a person who delights in passing on the latest on-dits (as gossip was fashionably called during the Regency period). Part of it, of course, is living in the country, with no television, no internet, and nothing else to amuse you beyond news of the people around you. This was particularly true when she wrote to Cassandra, who of course knew the people Jane Austen wrote about.
Mr. Heathcote met with a genteel little accident the other day in hunting; he got off to lead his horse over a hedge or a house or a something, & his horse in his haste trod upon his leg, or rather ankle, & it is not at certain whether the small bone is not broke.
A house or a something? Such a sense of the ridiculous is invested in that little remark, we can’t help but laugh at Mr. Heathcote’s genteel misfortune. Fortunately, we know that Mr. Heathcote recovers fully in a later letter. Continue reading
Monica Fairview
Author of THE OTHER MR DARCY, featuring flying sparks between Caroline Bingley and Darcy's charming American cousin and THE DARCY COUSINS, featuring defiance and misunderstandings as Darcy's sister Georgiana takes a few lessons from her fiesty American cousin about love and romance. My traditional Regency Romance, An Improper Suitor, has just been released on Kindle.
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Monica’s Blog: Jane Austen’s Brother and the Paralympic Dream
Olympic stadium with tower and aquatics center
Yesterday I attended one of the Athletics sessions of the Paralympics. It was mind-boggling, emotional and certainly very inspirational. The athletes themselves were amazing. My eleven year old daughter won’t stop talking about it, especially about the tremendous determination and strength of these Olympic athletes who never allowed a physical or mental challenge to come in their way. Just the thought of how each and every one had to fight all odds to get to that stadium brought tears to my eyes.
I was awestruck, too, at all the work that went into adapting different games and setting up rules to take into account different physical capabilities. What impressed me most, though, was the fact that the athletes were given no slack. This was particularly striking with the long jump. True, the athletes were blind and had to depend for guidance on their coach’s clapping to know when to take the jump, but to see that red flag raised indicating a foul when an athlete went over the white line was a constant reminder of how hard they’d had to train to get to this stage. But it went way beyond that, because the distances they were jumping were worthy of the absolute best. Continue reading
Monica Fairview
Author of THE OTHER MR DARCY, featuring flying sparks between Caroline Bingley and Darcy's charming American cousin and THE DARCY COUSINS, featuring defiance and misunderstandings as Darcy's sister Georgiana takes a few lessons from her fiesty American cousin about love and romance. My traditional Regency Romance, An Improper Suitor, has just been released on Kindle.
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Jane Austen’s Snarky Side
I’m always asking myself about the secret of Jane Austen’s appeal. Of course this is intriguing for me as a writer because I want so badly to work out how how she does it. Still, no matter how closely I look at her writing, it always seems as if something is slipping away at the edge of my mind refusing to be captured. I’ve sensed her lurking , waiting to pounce, a cat watching the mice that are her characters. It’s one of the reasons I don’t buy into the idea of “dear aunt Jane” and the saintly spinster ideal that was presented later by her Victorian nephew. You’ll probably get mad at me, but I think “dear Jane” could be pretty snarky. In one letter she’s described as “a poker of whom everybody is afraid”. I don’t know if the pun was intended or not, but it describes what I mean very well – both in the sense of poking around to reveal the truth, as well as poking fun at people.”
Simply being snarky doesn’t generally earn you any gold medals in the Top World Writer category, though.
I think her particular brand of snarkiness works because JA could put her finger on the soul of things and expose it, without sentimentality, but also without partiality. She makes you sit up and think: “That’s so true!” She writes about a kind of elevated society — a merciless one in which you either conform to certain standards of correctness or are immediately exposed to the glaring limelight of embarrassment. Mrs. Bennet’s obvious matchmaking, Mary’s attention-grabbing, Lydia’s flirting, Caroline Bingley’s hopelessly desperate man-catching techniques are all contrasted to Mr. Darcy’s careful reserve. For a moment there at the ball in Meryton, you would almost think that Darcy is the only perfect character around. But then Darcy ’s behavior – meticulously correct as it is — is brought to its knees as Lizzy discovers the arrogance and snobbery behind it. But it goes beyond that. The well-known passage in which Darcy is first described is also a delicious indictment of society and the superficial way in which collective opinions are swayed from one extreme to another. You can almost hear Mrs. Bennet’s voice in there, along with many of the hopeful matrons at the ball. Darcy’s swing away from favor is as much a result of his snobbery as it is due to the indifferent way he dashes everyone’s hopes. Continue reading
Monica Fairview
Author of THE OTHER MR DARCY, featuring flying sparks between Caroline Bingley and Darcy's charming American cousin and THE DARCY COUSINS, featuring defiance and misunderstandings as Darcy's sister Georgiana takes a few lessons from her fiesty American cousin about love and romance. My traditional Regency Romance, An Improper Suitor, has just been released on Kindle.
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Walking with Austen: Sevenoaks and the Red House
Sevenoaks, a lovely well-preserved old town in Kent close to Westerham, is associated with several of Jane Austen’s relatives, most particularly Jane’s Uncle Francis Austen (Frank). We know that Jane visited her uncle on at least one occasion, namely in 1788, when she was 12, where she met other (more priviledged) members of the Austen family. Rumors abound that a village close to Westerham was the model for Mr. Collins’ Parish village Hunsford and that Rosings was based on an estate in the area, Chevening, where Jane’s cousin John became rector in 1813.
Young Jane might have come across these deer if she followed the public footpath through the Knole grounds.
I visit Sevenoaks several times a year since I love to picnic in the Knole, a property partly owned and inhabited by Lord Sackville and partly by the National Trust. The grounds hold a deer park with an ancient herd of deer roaming around, which, along with the green rolling hills, makes for a wonderful backdrop (if you can find a spot that doesn’t have deer droppings, that is).
The Knole has its own literary connections to boast of, since it hosted both Rudyard Kipling and Virginia Woolf, but this time the Knole wasn’t the center of my interest. I actually took a proper walk through the old section of Sevenoaks, trying to trace the footsteps Jane might have taken. Since many of the buildings have remained unchanged since her time, I thought it might be fun to do a fanciful recreation of some of the things she might have seen.
The Red House, belonging to Francis Austen
The walk begins with the Jane Austen plaque in the ground indicating a spot she would have very likely stepped on herself, just outside her uncle Francis’ house — The Red House, which we know she was invited to visit when she was around 12 years old.
When she arrived by carriage with her father and sister Cassandra, this is where they would have gone in. Would a footman have opened the gates for them to enter? Continue reading
Monica Fairview
Author of THE OTHER MR DARCY, featuring flying sparks between Caroline Bingley and Darcy's charming American cousin and THE DARCY COUSINS, featuring defiance and misunderstandings as Darcy's sister Georgiana takes a few lessons from her fiesty American cousin about love and romance. My traditional Regency Romance, An Improper Suitor, has just been released on Kindle.
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How sensible is sensible? Sensibility and Jane Austen
by Monica Fairview
Funny how some terms become so slippery you can’t really grab hold of them. For us, sensibility immediately brings to mind the word “sensible,” which in fact doesn’t make any sense in the context of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, where the two obviously mean different things.
Have I got everybody sufficiently muddled? Just wait and see.
Here’s an explanation of what the word sensibility actually meant in Austen’s time taken from Wikipedia (what would we do without it?):
Sensibility refers to an acute perception of or responsiveness toward something, such as the emotions of another. This concept emerged in eighteenth-century Britain, and was closely associated with studies of sense perception as the means through which knowledge is gathered. It also became associated with sentimental moral philosophy… George Cheyne and other medical writers wrote of “The English Malady,” also called “hysteria” in women or “hypochondria” in men, a condition with symptoms that closely resemble the modern diagnosis of clinical depression. Cheyne considered this malady to be the result of over-taxed nerves. At the same time, theorists asserted that individuals who had ultra-sensitive nerves would have keener senses, and thus be more aware of beauty and moral truth. Thus, while it was considered a physical and/or emotional fragility, sensibility was also widely perceived as a virtue. Continue reading
Monica Fairview
Author of THE OTHER MR DARCY, featuring flying sparks between Caroline Bingley and Darcy's charming American cousin and THE DARCY COUSINS, featuring defiance and misunderstandings as Darcy's sister Georgiana takes a few lessons from her fiesty American cousin about love and romance. My traditional Regency Romance, An Improper Suitor, has just been released on Kindle.
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Things that almost don’t happen in Pride and Prejudice
by Monica Fairview
Jane Austen was a remarkably clever writer. Now I know you don’t need me to tell you that, but every now and then I stop and think about how well she put together P&P, and I marvel that she was able to do so many things in the space of relatively few pages.
Take, for example, the many things in the novel that could have happened but don’t – all of them for very good reasons.
Darcy could have agreed to honor the promise of his mother to Lady Catherine. He could have married Anne. As a gentleman, he was obliged to do so, and there would have been no romance.
Now if we consider the norms of those days, in which these kinds of engagements were often binding between aristocratic families, and an audienct of the time might have thought badly of Darcy for not fulfilling the agreement. After all, a gentleman who broke an engagement was considered a cad.
However, Jane Austen didn’t want to tarnish her hero with that kind of brush, so she gave us enough information to make sure no one would condemn him.
1. We know Lady Catherine tends to be rather inventive about her daughter. Remember the absurd statement about the piano?
There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient. And so would Anne, if her health had allowed her to apply. I am confident that she would have performed delightfully.
Since Lady Catherine tends to make those kind of statement, we’re not quite willing to accept her word for it that Darcy’s mother really planned to have the Darcy and Anne marry. Though of course financially and socially it’s a good match. Continue reading
Monica Fairview
Author of THE OTHER MR DARCY, featuring flying sparks between Caroline Bingley and Darcy's charming American cousin and THE DARCY COUSINS, featuring defiance and misunderstandings as Darcy's sister Georgiana takes a few lessons from her fiesty American cousin about love and romance. My traditional Regency Romance, An Improper Suitor, has just been released on Kindle.
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