The Ladies of Rosings Park – Chapter 16

The Ladies of Rosings Park has been out for a month now, and it’s doing well!  For those of you who don’t have your own copy yet, I continued posting chapters here every Monday. But now we’ve reached the end of the time period covered in Pride and Prejudice (Part One of the book). So this is your last chapter here at Austen Variations.

Last week in chapters 14 and 15, we had a final word from Mrs. Jenkinson and also from Charlotte, who were caught up in Lady Catherine’s anger over Darcy’s engagement to Elizabeth. Now it’s Anne’s turn to close out this section. How will she deal with her mother’s edict forbidding contact with her cousins? And more important, what lies ahead for her personally?

To catch up first, see these previous posts: Prologue, Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four, Chapter Five, Chapter Six, Chapter Seven, Chapter Eight, Book Launch and Chapter Nine, Chapter Ten, Chapter Eleven, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapters 14 and 15

– 16 –

 Anne

 On Considering the Episode Closed

“We are to consider this reprehensible episode closed,” Mama told me, “and I can foresee no need of us ever mentioning it again. Darcy and everything associated with him are as dead to us now. No, it is more than that. It will be as if they never existed.”

“Mama!” I objected. “What of Georgiana? She is my friend, and she has done nothing at all. Must we give her up as well?”

“I regret that for now it is necessary. Perhaps we may admit her to our society again in time, when she is no longer under her brother’s control. Then it will be for her to decide who her true friends are and where her loyalties lie.”

I was very cast down by these developments. Although I had anticipated some unpleasantness, this was more than I had allowed for. I felt the loss of my cousins exceedingly – that and my lack of any say in the matter. I had few enough friends as it was, and the thought of never being permitted to see either William or Georgiana again hit me hard. I did not know how to support myself under the weight of this affliction.

In an attempt to relieve my feelings, I surreptitiously wrote this letter.

Dear Georgiana,

Although Mama has forbidden any contact with you or your brother, I could not in good conscience abide by this separation without at least saying goodbye. Your brother and I parted on good terms, I believe, and I am truly pleased for the happiness he has found. Although you and I have not seen much of each other in the last year or two, I continue to value your friendship. I shall sincerely miss our correspondence, and the thought of never visiting you at Pemberley again fills my heart with sorrow.

Please know that I hold no ill will against you or your brother. I hope you likewise will harbor no resentment against me for the actions of my mother. Her sentiments, as I trust you now understand, do not reflect my own.

I shall hope for an earlier reconciliation between our households than there currently seems any reason to expect. In the meantime, should either of you wish to contact me, send your letters through Mrs. Collins at Hunsford parsonage. She will be posting this letter for me and has promised to watch for anything that might come in return. I believe Colonel Fitzwilliam would also be willing to carry a message whenever he comes to Rosings. I pray he will still be prepared to visit us, for losing his company would be the final blow.

Your faithful friend,

Anne

I could not hide my ongoing melancholy. Mama, who I am sure believed I was grieving the loss of my engagement instead, left me in peace for a time, for which I was grateful. We sat very quietly together at home the day the wedding at Longbourn church took place, neither of us mentioning one word about it but unquestionably thinking of little else.

Once the event had come and gone, however, Mama apparently determined I had been sad long enough. Her idea of encouragement was to scold me into a better humor. “Do pull yourself together, Anne,” she told me firmly the following day. “This attitude of despair is most unbecoming, and it is your duty to struggle against and overcome it, just as I have.”

I did not find this advice helpful.

These things are all well in the past now, however. Mama’s dire predictions came to nothing. Neither the order of the world as we knew it nor the security of our nation crumbled due to this so-called calamity. Even the Pemberley estate survived and prospered. The Darcys, from everything I have since learnt about their period of estrangement from us, suffered no punishment or ruin. They were not shunned by their neighbors and former friends. They did not soon regret their decision to marry. In fact, I believe they were very happy together, right from the beginning.

I ask no sympathy for myself; I truly wished them well. And I would live to enjoy much better days, although I had no assurance of that fact then.

You see, I did not yet know I would soon meet a gentleman who would utterly transform my prospects. I did not know that I could learn to consider another, one whom I had been acquainted with all my life, in a very different role. I still had no notion that I might find greater courage within myself and, alongside it, a new independence. And I could never have imagined that compelling echoes from long ago would shortly arrive to rewrite the past as well as the future of my family.

Mama battled on. However, I am not sure she ever completely recovered from the shock of her plans being so thoroughly frustrated – in this instance and in a second similarly disagreeable (that is, to her way of thinking) circumstance still to come. It must have been a bitter revelation and a severe assault on her pride to find there was, after all, a limit to the power she was able to exert, and that occasionally other forces might overrule her wishes.

Looking back, I marvel at how, with no design to do so, Elizabeth Bennet diverted every one of us from our previous courses, changing the direction of our lives forever. Considering what it ultimately meant for me, I thank her. We are all the better for it, I am sure… with the possible exception of Mama.

Although this is the final episode that I’ll be sharing here, this is not the end of Anne’s story! A full 75% of the book remains, leading to the “better days” Anne alludes to above.  Next week, I’ll  give you some clues for what follows. Then I hope you’ll decide to read the rest of Anne’s story on your own.

The Ladies of Rosings Park is currently available in paperback and Kindle, with audio coming soon. Learn more about Shannon Winslow and her books at www.shannonwinslow.com

At first glance, Anne de Bourgh doesn’t seem a promising heroine. But beneath that quiet exterior, there’s a lively mind at work, imagining how one day she will escape her poor health and her mother’s domination to find love and a life worth living.

Now Anne finally gets the chance to speak her mind. But Lady Catherine demands equal time. Even Charlotte Collins and Mrs. Jenkinson get into the act. Chapter by chapter, these ladies of Rosings Park take turns telling the tale from the moment Elizabeth Bennet sets foot in Hunsford, changing everything. Is Anne heartbroken or relieved to discover Mr. Darcy will never marry her? As an heiress, even a sickly one, she must have other suitors. Does Lady Catherine gracefully accept the defeat of her original plan or keep conniving? Will Anne’s health ever improve? And what really happened to her father?

Complete in itself, this work expands The Darcys of Pemberley series laterally, beginning during the timeline of Pride and Prejudice and carrying beyond to reveal the rest of Anne’s story. When a young lady is to be a heroine… something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way. (Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey)