Mrs. Darcy's Dilemma: A Sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice by Diana Birchall

Author:Diana Birchall [Birchall, Diana]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2008-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER X

There are times when familiar pleasures become wearisome, though it is always a surprise to good-natured people, to find that Tit can ever be so. It was with a heavy heart that Mrs. Darcy began her annual preparations for the winter migration to London, the opening of the beautiful house in Portland Square, and the commencement of another social season. The spectacle of her fellow beings in the drawing-rooms, salons and ballrooms of the fashionable world was ordinarily meat and drink to her; she delighted in the political conversation of the day, the raillery, the quizzing, the nonsense, the gossip and the follies; but this winter she almost dreaded the peregrination, and especially leaving the peacefulness of Pemberley.

"My father used to say," she told her husband, "that we live to make sport for our neighbours, and to laugh at them in our turn; but I confess that this year, at least, I feel that we would be the laughed-at ones, and I have no taste for it."

Mr. Darcy was writing in his account book, but he looked up and met his wife's half-laughing, half-troubled eyes.

"Dearest Elizabeth," he said affectionately, "we need not go to town you know. Only say the word, and we will not. Because we have been delighting the fashionable world with the appearance of their country visitors every winter for a quarter of a century, it does not follow that we must do it forever.

I have always made but a poor figure in a drawing-room myself. However, many things may go on in London, without us. The great hostesses will be forced to find other people to invite them; the poor old King may sicken and perhaps die, and we will miss the spectacle of a new young Queen; and then Jane in her eighteenth year will not come out as she ought. But it will not matter to the world; or, what is much more to the purpose, to me. I shall be perfectly happy in the country. There are improvements to the house that can very well be done in this quiet season; and there is another consideration. You may perhaps not like to leave Henry alone in Derbyshire in his first winter's curacy. ut it is for you to decide."

"Oh," cried Elizabeth, "you are no help at all, leaving it to me, as the excellent husband I have taught you to be. A good wife, you know, makes a good husband. But I am torn a thousand ways. I confess that even with all the delights of London to which you so feelingly allude, I could take no pleasure in them while we are where reports of Fitzwilliam's behavior will reach us daily, and there are innumerable kind friends to be very sure that they do, and to cunningly savor our reaction. I know how it will be. The young couple will have been seen at the opera - or Lady So-and-So will receive them - or we will have only just missed them riding in Hyde Park.

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