354AUTHOR'S NOTE
This was never meant to be such a bleak piece. I've always preferred Austen to the Brontes, but as I wrote – and the characters and the circumstance they found themselves in became more complex – there was increasingly only one way the story could go. I applaud those who can write happy tales; I have found I do not have the talent for it. I've tried to sit down and 'do a HEA' since finishing Matlock, but nothing compelling comes. And that is okay. The great joy of stories is that they allow us to explore the full range of emotions.
Some reviewers have said the story is too sad for them, and I wholly understand that. I always knew this story would not please everyone; so I did not set out to please everyone.
I've read the phrase 'HEA' a lot in reviews. There are thousands of HEA stories out there: I've read and enjoyed many of time. But the JAFF that have always stood out for me did something different. Two stories I read well over a decade ago and yet they stayed with me. In the first, Lizzy becomes a governess to Darcy's stepchild and, despite an attempted seduction, she leaves the post in the end – and him with it. It was the first not-a-HEA JAFF I read and I thought it was a brave and right ending in that circumstance. The second was a one-shot that exposed Darcy's reformation as a cunning ploy to trick Elizabeth into believing he had changed – even down to helping a truly besotted Lydia and Wickham marry. As P&P is almost entirely from Elizabeth's perspective with little about Darcy's motivation it is plausible, if not what Austen intended, that this was the case. I do not go so far in this story, but I did want to explore how much can people really, truly change?
Those are my JAFF influences – I wish I could still find them to link to; I think both are on FanFic somewhere still. The final puzzle piece, which I hope helps to explain the darker tone of this story, is that I never, truly believed Elizabeth and Darcy got their HEA – not at a time when one in five women died of childbirth, or before vaccines and antibiotics. Austen was writing at a time when marriage was the only (socially acceptable) happy end for a young woman. I wanted to reflect on what that would be like, to be legal property of person you think is wonderful at 20 (not least because of all my friends – well over four-and-twenty – there is only one couple who are still together from that age). People change as they age; our sense of self alters – and that often means our relations with other change too. Couples can grow apart. And people who love each other deeply often end up hurting each other deeply. I always felt something would go wrong for them – more so than any of Austen's other couples – because literature, a bit like the natural world, thrives on opposites; so, a marriage made in comedy must end in tragedy. If Elizabeth died then I have no doubt Darcy would fall back into a very dark place. That is not this story, but I wanted to use that fear as a motivation for Elizabeth.
Charactertisation
Some readers will not share the readings of Elizabeth and Darcy I have utilised for this story; they are different characters for everyone, and that is perfectly fine. As I was writing I kept P&P open next to me, so I could cross reference their motives with what Austen wrote about them (and I stuck to Austen's text, with no reference to adaptions). Again, even if their actions are not likely, I wanted to make sure they could be plausible.
So, how did the Lizzy of P&P mature after seven years as the mistress of Pemberley? I've based her personality when angry or hurt less on her behaviour in Hunsford, and more from the longs silences in Netherfield. At Hunsford, she reproached Darcy because she did not like him, and so had little care about hurting his feelings (indeed, she thought she was too beneath his notice to be able to hurt his feelings). I assumed this would be quite different once she loved him. And she is her father's daughter; I never saw her as actively looking to pick a fight.
One line I kept in my head was their exchange of:
"You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure."
"I cannot give you credit for any philosophy of the kind. Your retrospections must be so totally void of reproach, that the contentment arising from them is not of philosophy, but, what is much better, of innocence ['ignorance' in earlier editions]."
I wanted to play with how an older Elizabeth, no longer innocent would act. I suspected the trials of life would make her more patient and reflective. She is very emotionally intelligent, so would be strange if life did not make her more reflective. We see the beginning of that after she receives Darcy's letter.
Could Lizzy have been a radical, in all senses of the word at the time? First, she is also no respecter of rank; we see that in her initial attitude to the Darcy and his aunt. If given the right framework, might this personal dislike turn into a political belief? There is also a consensus that Lizzy is not as moral or pious as Jane or Mary. While she does not have the 'wildness' of teenage Lydia – I have always thought of Lydia and Lizzy as being two sides of the same coin (Jane and Kitty likewise, both playing second to a more confident sister). Given the right push, could she be as reckless as her younger sister? I suspect so.
I found the beginning of that push in Chapter 49:
"And they are really to be married!" cried Elizabeth, as soon as they were by themselves. "How strange this is! And for this we are to be thankful. That they should marry, small as is their chance of happiness, and wretched as is his character, we are forced to rejoice. Oh, Lydia!"
She is obviously not happy with Lydia's lot here and I think we can read Austen's tacit disapproval that marriage was the only acceptable solution in a situation like Lydia's. (As a tangential point there is a lot of victim blaming of Lydia in the JAFF community, a girl only just sixteen, groomed by a 28 year old man. It was only in writing this story, that I realised the 'Madonna/whore' dynamic Austen establishes with Georgiana, who only did not run away because Darcy caught her by surprise.)
How then does this match with her 'compliance' in the final act? Elizabeth's whole vendetta against Darcy in Volume One of P&P is based on his slight – and she holds onto this, regardless of the fact that being polite to him may have made Jane's life easier (it's never helpful, when your sister/best friend does not like your beau's best friend), or advanced her own prospects. She is obviously very capable of cutting off her own nose to spite her face. I suspect she would continue to find small acts of resistance – even if they are really a folly.
We turn then to Darcy, Lord Matlock. A general point first: the story is entirely from Elizabeth's perspective. We do not get his side. In earlier drafts there was more balance, but as it went on, I found I wanted to keep to Jane's style and focus just on Elizabeth and her emotions, and what she would see and feel as a woman. I do have 50-odd pages of Darcy's side of this story, which I might do as an annex one day.
Is all this out of character then? From my reading of P&P, I do not think so – at least, not in the circumstances. By Darcy's own assessment of his temper is damning:
"I have faults enough, but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for. It is, I believe, too little yielding—certainly too little for the convenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of others so soon as I ought, nor their offenses against myself. My feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost, is lost forever."
I wondered what this would look like, if pushed to extreme by fear, hurt and betrayal? In a context were men held all the legal and social power? I've seen family courts; they are painful, and that is today when there is – nominally at least – a more equal footing between husbands and wives.
But, finally, it was the penultimate chapter gave me pause:
"Mrs. Phillips's vulgarity was another, and perhaps a greater, tax on his forbearance; and though Mrs. Phillips, as well as her sister [Mrs. Bennet], stood in too much awe of him to speak with the familiarity which Bingley's good humour encouraged, yet, whenever she did speak, she must be vulgar. Nor was her respect for him, though it made her more quiet, at all likely to make her more elegant. Elizabeth did all she could to shield him from the frequent notice of either, and was ever anxious to keep him to herself, and to those of her family with whom he might converse without mortification; and though the uncomfortable feelings arising from all this took from the season of courtship much of its pleasure, it added to the hope of the future; and she looked forward with delight to the time when they should be removed from society so little pleasing to either, to all the comfort and elegance of their family party at Pemberley."
Even after Hunsford (and after Darcy's own aunt has been so awful about Elizabeth he cuts all ties), Lizzy still feels embarrassed by her family in front of him. It struck me that this did not feel particularly kind – by either Elizabeth or Darcy at this stage, though she can be more forgiven for being only 20 – and who amongst us isn't a little embarrassed still by our parents at 20. But, for him as the older, apparently more mature partner, to still not have put her mind at ease that he had not bothered by her somewhat silly mother and aunt, felt quite telling.
All this may come across as reading to find only fault; although I think that is balanced by the many readings that look to find only virtues. Frankly, to modern sensibilities, I think there are red flags. The counter to that is we should consider his actions in the context of the time: that context being a wealthy landowner, at a time of massive social division, who likes to think himself above his company. So, he does not win any brownie points there either. I could not find anything that suggests Darcy would have opinions radically different to other 'liberal' gentleman of the time. Yes, he married Elizabeth – but as she likes to note, they are equal in social standing. Yes, he changed for her – but that was from being openly rude about her family to (based on the above paragraph) being only quietly embarrassed by her family. Yes, he 'saves' Lydia (in the social context of the time), but that was to correct his own failing in not having branded Wickham a villain before.
I do not think Austen wrote us a perfect hero; and that is his enduring appeal. We all know a Darcy, some of us are Darcys. He is flawed. For both him and Elizabeth, I have taken those worst selves and wondered what would happen?
History
My original characters are the Matlocks, Annette, Mr. Weir and John Harrison. Miss Lottie Butler is original, but I have name her for Eleanor Charlotte Butler, one of the Ladies of Llangollen. Everyone else was a real person. For that reason, I have tried, whenever possible, to either use their own words (for William Davidson through court transcripts and for Lords Liverpool, Wellington, Castlereagh and Sidmouth, and Mr. Brougham from Hansard, letters and news reports at the time), used other contemporary sources they were associated with, or looked to modern counterparts for inspiration.
The peerage is still very much a reality in the United Kingdom; we still have aristocratic class, we have a House of Lord that does still include heredity peers. Granted not as many as before the 1990s, but they are there. In my job I, without irony, write about Baroness X or Lord Y on a daily basis. This is a bugbear for me in some historical romances, where no effort is made to understand the peerage – and its relations to social class and power. These are still mechanisms of the British state, not plot points in a fairytale. Making them the latter reinforces their power by downplaying it.
Final word
Thank you to everyone who has read this far – especially those of you who have said you normally would not read a 'not-a-HEA'. I only ever wanted to offer something different with this story; some food for thought. I hope, even if you have not 'enjoyed' it, you have found it interesting. I do not know if I'll have the inspiration or time for another story of this length and complexity – and I really would like to try writing something more hopeful! If I do though I will stick to FanFiction – so drop me an author follow. In the meantime, I'll leave you with my favourite words of Jane's, that I had to borrow from Anne to give to Lizzy:
"I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures. None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives."