Liberties

At the end of Pride and Prejudice, Georgiana learns that “a woman may take liberties with her husband, which a brother will not always allow in a sister”. This season tests both halves.

February 1814. The Darcys have come to Curzon Street for Georgiana’s first season, and on the first morning Mr Wickham’s card is waiting. He will call to give her “an article she will remember”: her mother’s comb. Georgiana will not be given it in a room he chooses.

The story of her summer at Ramsgate is loose in London, and Lydia Wickham tells it best. Her aunt means her to be settled by the end of June. And Elizabeth, who promised Darcy at Christmas never to keep the secret of keeping a secret, is keeping two: one of Georgiana’s, and one that is nobody’s but her own.

As London lights its windows for the peace and the season climbs towards the Queen’s Drawing-Room, Elizabeth and Darcy find that honesty does not end quarrels; it begins them. The hardest question is whose judgement should rule a sister’s choice.

Liberties is the second volume of The Longbourn Years, a continuation of Pride and Prejudice in four volumes.