The Longbourn Years

The four volumes

1. Volume IWithin Thirty Miles

   A fortnight married, Elizabeth Darcy is mistress of Pemberley, and Lydia writes from Newcastle to say that she asks for nothing (twice) and to mention the price of coals. Someone is paying the Wickhams’ bills, and nobody is saying who; husband and wife each have a reason for keeping quiet. At Christmas 1813, with the Bennets under Pemberley’s roof, the silences begin to come to light.

2. Volume IILiberties

   London, 1814. The Darcys open their town house for Georgiana’s first season, and Mr Wickham means to call with her mother’s comb. Lydia is telling the story of Ramsgate all over town, and Elizabeth is keeping two secrets: one of Georgiana’s, and one of her own. As the season climbs towards the Queen’s Drawing-Room, Georgiana is determined to choose for herself, and Elizabeth and Darcy must find out what it costs to let her.

3. Volume IIIHalf-Pay

   Derbyshire, 1815. Lieutenant Hayward is home on half-pay, and asks for nothing: he has nothing, and Georgiana has thirty thousand pounds. The rector of Kympton comes on Tuesdays to speak of the weather, chiefly to Kitty, and her mother writes that four hundred a year will not do. When Bonaparte leaves Elba, Darcy must judge a young man without fortune by what he does. Elizabeth sees more than she can tell, and Kitty must find an answer of her own.

4. Volume IVLongbourn

   Longbourn is still entailed on Mr Collins. In 1816 Mr Bennet hands Mary the estate books, because she adds better than he does; it rains from Lady Day to harvest; and he will not be visited, even by Elizabeth. At Pemberley, Darcy is called a fool and a Jacobin for abating his rents. In the October dusk, Mary walks Mr Fenn, her uncle Philips’s clerk, down to the gate with a question of her own.