Consequences (44 page)

To our modern sensibilities, that statement is just accepted: “Of course, no one would blame you,” we tell ourselves, with our modern worldview, but in Regency England, most everyone would have the opposite point of view since marriage was almost universally considered from the point of improving one’s fortune and/or position in society. A young lady who turned down such an offer of marriage from Darcy, an offer that would provide for her and her children’s future as well as rescue her family from the clutches of poverty, would be judged as a very foolish young lady indeed. And if her family did suffer impoverishment as a result of an opportunity lost, society would have little sympathy for her.

So these are the reasons (most of which are implicit in the realities of Regency times) for my contention that it was truly shocking for Elizabeth to reject what would be considered a brilliant match (for her, if not for Darcy) by the rest of her society. But Austen was writing a novel, not a history, and was thus able to craft a heroine with the strength to defy society’s rules and remain true to her own wishes and hopes. And remember, Elizabeth had previously rejected a different but similar form of security for her family in the person of the foolish (and odious) Mr. Collins!

We should also be aware that the idea of marrying for love was changing during Regency times and becoming more acceptable in the upper classes, which had previously married exclusively for fortune and social standing. In fact, love was considered a dangerous emotion in what was considered a critical social contract. The best most marriages could hope for was the milder emotion of “affection,” which was considered felicitous and entirely appropriate. Undoubtedly, the changing times were another reason for the popularity of
Pride and Prejudice
.

Q
Was the financial situation of Elizabeth’s family really as extreme as postulated in “Book 1,” or was that a case of an author taking liberties to justify his plotline?

A
The situation faced by Mrs. Bennet and her daughters after the death of her husband was really quite severe—not just less than optimum but really serious. When her husband dies, she and her daughters will be in dismal financial straits. And her husband might die sooner rather than later, given he is likely in his early or mid-fifties. (Thirty was a typical age for a young gentleman to marry, and his bride would be, on average, ten years younger.) At that time, there would be no income other than that from her fortune of five thousand pounds invested in the Funds (about £250 per year). While that would be something, it would be completely insufficient to support her and her daughters in anything similar to the style to which they were accustomed. Certainly, it would be insufficient to provide for servants, carriages, horses, or fashionable gowns for events such as the Netherfield ball. How far such a sum could go to provide for her and her daughters is problematical, but my guess is not long, especially if Mrs. Bennet and at least several of her daughters were as poor custodians of money as would be supposed.

In any event, the mother and the five girls will have to leave Longbourn when Mr. Collins takes possession, and where would they go? They would have no choice except to live with their relatives, and neither the Philips nor the Gardiners appear to be of sufficient means to support another family in addition to their own, though Mrs. Bennet’s income would help. So it is likely some of the girls would go to live with the Philips and some with the Gardiners, with Mrs. Bennet left in limbo. They would thus essentially become dependent on charity from their relatives, and even visiting between the sisters would be rare and irregular, given the lack of money.

Therefore, one of the girls needs to marry well, and for Elizabeth to blithely turn down an offer of marriage that would provide for her family is really quite rash. Jane may not blame her, as I mention above, but her mother and possibly some of her other sisters might well do so. But it is only a novel, after all. I just happened to take on the task of showing the dark side of what might have happened.

Q
Was “Book 1” all just a dream by Elizabeth? It seems far too complex to be a dream. But if it wasn’t a dream, why would she have premonitions of disaster after talking with Charlotte?

A
That one is hard to answer, because I wanted to deliberately leave it up in the air. I originally set out to write two less-than-novel-length stories to show how dramatically events could be altered by a simple mischance such as a horse going lame, but I decided to join the two novellas into one. I think I lean more toward there being two parallel, alternate realities stemming from that divergent path, with the impetus for Elizabeth’s acceptance of Darcy’s suit in “Book 2” being driven by the overwhelming pathos radiating down the timeline from the “Book 1” alternative. There—is that enough metaphysical mumbo-jumbo to obfuscate the fact that I don’t have a definitive answer?

Q
I have always wondered why the military didn’t take a more active role in locating Wickham in Austen’s original? Wouldn’t he have been guilty of desertion?

A
We know from Pride and Prejudice that the only real part the militia regiment played in searching for Wickham was in the efforts by Colonel Forster to search along the road and then journey to Longbourn and return to London with Mr. Bennet. It’s unclear whether Colonel Forster’s efforts were of an official nature as an officer of the regiment or whether they were inspired by personal embarrassment since Lydia had been staying with his family. In any event, the regiment seemed to have no other part in the affair afterwards.

It’s clear that Wickham would indeed have been guilty of desertion, and the penalty for that crime in the British Army during the Napoleonic Wars was draconian. A soldier accused of desertion would have been tried by military Court Martial and, upon being convicted, would have been executed either by firing squad or by hanging. That said, however, I could not help but notice, when researching this point, all instances of desertion being punished by execution were of ordinary soldiers, as the British called their enlisted men. None of the examples were officers. Whether this was because officers didn’t desert (most were volunteers, after all, having purchased their commissions, except for a few officers who were promoted from the ranks for exemplary acts of heroism or leadership) or the punishment of an officer would be handled differently is a question for which I couldn’t find a definitive answer.

Adding to the confusion is the fact the regular army and the militia were very different indeed. The discipline of the regulars, most of whom were impressed (forcibly drafted), was very strict. Great Britain didn’t maintain a standing militia in peacetime. The militia was formed in wartime or in times of national emergency to guard against invasion or rebellion and to take over various policing duties normally performed by the regular army, such as suppressing riots or breaking up seditious gatherings.

Unfortunately, the militia was a rather dubious force to perform any of these duties. In the case of suppressing riots, the militia often sympathized with the rioters, with the result that militia units were stationed outside their own counties. Militia members were supposed to have weapons and to be skilled in their use, but their lack of training made them look like amateurs compared to the regulars. Militia officers were supposed to come from the gentry, and their commissions were not purchased as they were in the regulars. Instead, an officer’s rank was related to the amount and value of property the officer or his family held. In addition, officers were expected to have income from their properties and were not paid anything beyond expense money, which was completely insufficient to live on. It makes one wonder how Wickham could obtain a commission and what he would have lived on without an income of his own. Since Austen’s brother Henry was a Captain in the Oxfordshire Militia, it is puzzling that this was not explained in
Pride and Prejudice
, but perhaps Henry did not inform his sister of some of the less favorable aspects of his service.

All this is very interesting (at least to me!) but does not directly answer the question. My own supposition, given what I’ve just related, is that Colonel Forster had an interest in pursuing Wickham because of the personal insult he suffered from Wickham’s eloping with his wife’s friend, but the militia regiment, as an organization, would rather ignore the whole situation. After all, it would not look good to the local gentry in Brighton to be putting up posters and sending out parties to search for the deserter. And they certainly couldn’t enlist the aid of anything like Scotland Yard since law enforcement in Great Britain was a purely local affair until the middle of the 1800s.

Q
It might seem far-fetched that a gently born girl from the country would choose a bordello, even after Darcy has offered his assistance. Why do you think she stayed?

A
To answer the last question first, I think Lydia stayed for two reasons. Firstly, she had lost her grip on reality, which led her to reject Darcy’s offer of rescue. Secondly, and even more critically, even if she had her full faculties in control, what else could she do? Once she succumbed to whatever lures or pressures enticed her into the bordello, how could she get herself out of the fix she was in? She would know she had crossed the bounds of civil behavior and could never retrieve what was lost. Even if she ignored the manner in which she had disgraced herself and was somehow allowed to leave the house (which is unlikely), how would she ever make her way to the only safety she could know, her uncle’s house? London was an incredible warren at that time, and navigating the streets would probably be beyond the capabilities of the foolish, sixteen-year-old Lydia Bennet. That assumes she wasn’t simply pulled into a convenient alley and ravished by any of the sordid denizens of the neighborhood.

As to how she might have wound up in the brothel, once Wickham abandoned her, where would she go? She would have little or no money by that time, and imagine what an attractive prize she would have appeared as she wandered the streets in her genteel dress. Austen could jest about the subject, as she did in a letter to her sister, Cassandra, when planning a visit to London and learning none of her relations would be there to meet her, when she wrote, “I should inevitably fall a Sacrifice to the arts of some fat Woman who would make me drunk with small beer.” But she had a loving family to protect her, with sufficient money to maintain her in modest comfort. Many other women in her society were not so fortunate.

Austen could not avoid being acquainted with the existence of prostitution in her society. She often visited her brother Henry in his home in Covent Garden, and she could hardly have avoided seeing the many “women of the town” whenever she left his house. In fact, prostitution was so prevalent that it was second only to domestic service as an employer of females in Great Britain, and it was estimated that there were 50,000 prostitutes in London in 1797, which was 10% of the female population of the town.

Austen was also well aware that being the daughter of a gentleman was no insurance against such a fate. Though she was careful never to actually use any of the various names of prostitutes in her writings, either her letters or her novels, she did portray several gently born characters other than Lydia who had close brushes with this vice. For example, in
Sense and Sensibility
, Colonel Brandon’s Eliza is seduced away from her husband and then abandoned, sinking into a life of prostitution and dying in a debtor’s house. Other examples were Mrs. Clay in
Persuasion
and Maria Rushworth in
Mansfield Park
.

For my own part, I felt a chill when Austen described Lydia after she returned to Longbourn and her Darcy-arranged marriage to Wickham as “untamed, unabashed, wild, noisy, and fearless.” I realized the author was explicitly portraying a young girl who, even after being rescued from disaster, still had no idea of just how much danger she had been in. I am convinced that Austen would not have been surprised, absent the intervention by Darcy, to find her character in a situation similar to that I portrayed.

Q
Why wouldn’t both elder daughters remain under the protection of the uncle as the little Gardiner children’s governesses rather than take employment with another family?

A
They might well have done so, but that would have been another story. I believed the many shocks to their previously settled lifestyle might well have left both Jane and Elizabeth with the desire to do something for themselves rather than remain dependent on relatives who were moderately well off but who had their own children to raise. And if they remained in the Gardiner household, I think a future meeting between Darcy and Elizabeth would not have occurred.

Q
Had Darcy proceeded to Longbourn before Mr. Collins took possession and proposed marriage a second time, do you think Lizzy still would have refused Mr. Darcy?

A
I think she would definitely think on it, as I mentioned in my story, but I believe she would resolve to bluntly make the point that her family was disgraced and Darcy might not want to connect himself to a family such as the Bennets. That said, as long as Darcy assured her he was cognizant of the downsides of such a match, I believe she would accept his proposal. By this time, she has the assurances of his housekeeper, which shook her certainty of her previous estimation of his character.