1811-1812 How It All Began: Part 1

By Deborah E Pearson

Fully revised and updated for the five year anniversary that this was first published. This is a sweet retelling of Pride and Prejudice.

Thirty-two years after marrying Elizabeth Bennet, Mr Darcy has decided to write his side of the famous love story. This first of three parts exploring their courtship and marriage explores what was going on Darcy's mind as we follow him evolving from a lonely man through Georgiana's near elopement, to his meeting with Elizabeth and struggling to accept her lower status to himself. We all know the reasons Darcy lists as to why he doesn't ask Elizabeth but what really is driving those reasons? Are they really what holds him back? How It All Began is the first story in The Darcy Legacy Series, which will follow the Darcy's as each new generation faces new trials and hardships in an ever changing world. Will the family name endure? And what will happen to Pemberley throughout the years? These and many more questions will be asked and answered in the series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9781446764862

Book preview

1811-1812 How It All Began

1811-1812 How It All Began

PART 1

THE DARCY LEGACY

BOOK ONE

DEBORAH E PEARSON

Copyright © 2021 Deborah E Pearson. All rights reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review. 

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. 

ISBN: 978-1-4467-6486-2

Imprint: Lulu.com

Contents

VOLUME ONE

I Am My Be Loved’s And My Beloved Is Mine

It Is A Truth Universally Acknowledged That A Young Man In Possession Of A Good Fortune Must Be In Want Of A Wife

Alone, Alone, All, All, Alone, Alone On A Wide, Wide Sea

No Man Is An Island, Entire Of Itself, Every Man Is A Piece Of The Continent, A Part Of The Main

O, What A Goodly Outside Falsehood Hath!

What We Need Is Not The Will To Believe, But The Wish To Find Out

I Do Not Want People To Be Very Agreeable, As It Saves Me The Trouble Of Liking Them A Great Deal

No Spring, Or Summer Beauty Hath Such Grace, As I Have Seen In One Autumnal Face

In Politics, What Begins In Fear Usually Ends In Failure

A Perfect Woman, Nobly Plann’d, To Warn, To Comfort, And Command; And Yet A Spirit Still, And Bright With Something Of An Angel Light

Do What You Will, This World's A Fiction And Is Made Up Of Contradiction

The Common Curse Of Mankind - Folly And Ignorance

Now Is The Winter Of Our Discontent

Humiliation Is The Beginning Of Sanctification

When A Thing Is Said To Be Not Worth Refuting You May Be Sure That Either It Is Flagrantly Stupid – In Which Case All Comment Is Superfluous – Or It Is Something Formidable, The Very Crux Of The Problem

More Than Kisses, Letters Mingle Souls

Do You Not See How Necessary A World Of Pains And Troubles Is To School An Intelligence And Make It A Soul.

Thank You For Reading

Notes

About the Author

Also By Deborah E Pearson

VOLUME ONE

I must be cruel only to be kind; thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.

Hamlet – act iv, scene iii – william shakespeare

I Am My Be Loved’s And My Beloved Is Mine

SONG OF SONG’S, THE BIBLE.

1 APRIL 1844

Fitzwilliam Darcy stood in his library at Pemberley. He watched his wife and her Aunt Gardiner touring the estate grounds as they did every year. He marvelled that the ladies never seemed to tire of the woods. Every year they set out with the same gay abandon that they had thirty-two years ago, when Elizabeth had first visited Pemberley.

The last thirty-two years had been both blessings and curses to the Darcys. With the birth of each of their children, Darcy had felt as if his heart would burst with happiness and joy. However, having known the heartache of loss and the devastation of the unrequited love that marked the beginning of his relationship with Elizabeth, Darcy always felt a pang of jealousy when he was not in his wife’s company. He knew it was not reasonable, and it was not fair, but he still felt the same possessiveness of a young bridegroom who wanted nothing more than to spend every minute of the day with his beautiful wife – excluding the outside world as much as he could. Elizabeth Darcy still had the same love of life about her that had attracted him so much as a young man, but now there was sadness that had crept into her eyes with the death of their youngest son. The days after their youngest son’s death had been bleak for the whole family as they mourned a life that had been cut short. Yet, together they had come through the years and their love was stronger than ever.

Darcy shook his head, there were so many memories. Today, he intended to write his story in response to popular demand. A few years ago, his wife's side of their love story had been published by a close friend – it was one of the bestsellers at the time. Now it was time for his tale. For the most part, it would be a pleasant task. The unpleasantness of some events of 1811 and 1812 would intrude. The joy of loving and winning his wife meant that the unpleasant had somehow lost its sting and he could look back at the years with a soft fondness. Age had brought wisdom and memories were no longer painful – the guilt and the blame had gone away years ago.

The task for today would not change and so he sat at the desk in his library and started to write….

It Is A Truth Universally Acknowledged That A Young Man In Possession Of A Good Fortune Must Be In Want Of A Wife

JANE AUSTEN

31 MAY 1811

At seven and twenty, Darcy felt he knew everything. He had practically raised his sister since their mother died. However, their father’s death four years ago had made him and his cousin, Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam, joint guardians of his sister. He felt he knew good breeding and recognised good manners. He was self-assured and convinced that he did not need any help in his life. Indeed he had been so eager to prove himself independent and capable after his father died, that he had not asked anyone to help him nor had he relied on anyone for advice as he managed his estate and made the decisions that affected the lives of so many.

Darcy guarded his emotions carefully, sometimes allowing only his sister to see beyond the mask of indifference that he would wear. Within his circle of relatives and close friends, he could be lively and carefree. To the world at large, he was grave and indifferent at best – humourless and judgmental at worst. This mask of indifference was nearly uniformly viewed by those outside his circle as pride and superiority to those in his company. This suited Darcy well. He was by nature a shy man, who would struggle to converse with those he did not know. By maintaining an aloof air, he kept to himself and therefore his struggles and deficiencies would not be aired. Darcy was, for the moment, happy with his lot in life or so he would daily tell himself. In truth many courted his good opinion only because of his wealth. Pemberley, his Derbyshire estate, was worth at least ten thousand pounds a year. This was the generally known part of his fortune. He did, however, have other investments which augmented Pemberley’s income and the real figure of his worth was closer to thirty thousand pounds a year.

The close of May brought an end to the social season in London, the endless stream of morning visitors was dying down. One after another, the fashionable families left for their country estates. The endless balls and dinner parties of the season were a chore that Darcy abominated, as he always found social situations awkward. He was either constantly bored with the shallowness of parlour conversations or struggling to catch the drift of the conversation of those around him. On a conscious level, he hated being rude and would not have hurt anyone. However, his shy nature often led to his saying and doing things that caused offence. Often his comments came out of place or sometimes came across as hurtful, although he was never deliberately cruel or mean. To close the season off, before Darcy left for Pemberley, he had arranged to give a dinner party in his friend, Mr Bingley's, honour.

The Bingleys were an anomaly. Charles Bingley, the son of a tradesman, was everything right and gregarious. In fact, Bingley had often smoothed over the ruffled feathers of those who were offended by Darcy. Viewed on a superficial level, Darcy and Bingley were like chalk and cheese. Darcy was grave and inscrutable, while Bingley was happy and everything pleasing. On a deeper level, their characters were much more alike. They were both loving, gentle, and caring men who would go to the ends of the earth to please their loved ones. Both men were morally virtuous. However if Bingley had one fatal flaw, it was that even when he knew he was in the right, he was too easily persuaded to follow Darcy’s opinion. Darcy hoped that he had never misused his power over his friend. However, when his friend was so easily convinced it was difficult to see when the boundaries were overstepped.

Bingley had five sisters. Darcy had only met the eldest and the youngest of the Bingley sisters. The eldest sister was married to a Mr Hurst and the youngest was unmarried. His eldest sister, Mrs Louisa Hurst, was an insipid woman, who if Darcy had not met her himself would think her to be almost a hat stand. She had little to no character of her own. Darcy had seen her do little more than to play with the bangles she had on her wrist or play cards. Any character or backbone that she showed was almost entirely a carbon copy of her strong-willed, shrew, youngest sister, Miss Caroline Bingley. Miss Bingley had been born with the fangs of a viper. You could forget about having a sensible conversation with that woman.

Both the Bingley women had dowries of twenty thousand pounds, the sum total of their charms. Miss Bingley was accomplished in the usual order of things, but she did not fulfil Darcy’s idea of an accomplished woman. Her manners were unkind and rude. Anybody who either was below her in status or who had a smaller fortune than her, was there to be ridiculed and taken for granted. Darcy was never sure what was genuine and what was a pure fiction in Miss Bingley’s mind. One particularly unendearing fiction was that Miss Bingley expected that Darcy would marry her and make her the socially vaunted mistress of Pemberley. Darcy could not understand how it was that three children could come from the same family and yet be so different from one another as the Bingleys.

Darcy’s mind now turned to the last ball he had attended. ‘It is a truth universally acknowledged that a young man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.’ What bloody presumption from the mothers! I still struggle to believe that is what I really overheard the mothers saying the other day! He thought. Anything bordering on vulgarity was one of Darcy's aggravations, it showed a meanness and lack of personal and social respect which Darcy found insupportable. He had heard it at the last ball of the season. He avoided dancing and would usually sit on the sidelines talking with his friends and watching how the girls flirted and courted the other men. Generally, because of his quiet ways, he found out more than his friends as to how people were thinking. He had been shocked to hear this, but it explained why whenever it was the season he had an endless stream of morning visitors and girls who were trying to get him to