Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife, by Linda Berdoll. Chapter 3. So what happened?
In chapter three we take our leave, briefly, of our hero and heroine to visit with the character from Pride and Prejudice everybody really wanted to see again: George Wickham. And let me tell you, George Wickham is not having the best time.
We find that George Wickham, dispatched with his new regiment to Newcastle following his marriage, is predictably bored and dissatisfied with his job, his wife and his new home. Newcastle was an industrial town – dirty and working class – with precious few rich idiots of whom Wickham can take advantage. His attraction to his wife has worn off, and there are few prospects for either social advancement or amusement.
Wickham’s boredom is momentarily relieved by the news that his nemesis, Mr. Darcy, is shortly going to be married to Wickham’s sister-in-law Elizabeth. Wickham, no genius, is baffled by the idea that Darcy would marry so far beneath himself, intrigued by the notion that this might have lent Darcy extra motivation when he strong-armed Wickham into marriage with Lydia, and hopeful at the prospect of future financial support from his wealthy in-laws.
We leave Wickham much as we found him at the start of the chapter: bitter, resentful, and confused.
Inaccuracies: what was obviously wrong here?
I’m going to do this section a little differently this time. Though this chapter is not plot-heavy and does not directly concern our heroes, there are a couple things wrong here that I want to spend some time talking about.
First of all: the portrayal of Newcastle. Was it really that sooty and poor and gross at the time? The answer is, I don’t know. There are a lot of things I know a little bit about; I don’t know much about 19th century English industrial towns. A lot would depend on how far advanced the process of industrialization was, which would depend on when exactly this novel takes place. Pride and Prejudice was published in 1813; many adaptations set it in 1812 and it seems Berdoll used that as a guide. However, Austen finished her first draft in the 1790s; it’s more than possible she meant to set it then (I personally prefer this. It would explain a few things, like Mr. Bennet’s powdering gown, but I digress.)
In any case, even by the 1790s Newcastle was already a center of shipping and coal. I suppose I could knock myself out doing research, but I’m ready to let this one go. We’ll spend so little time here that there isn’t the opportunity to butcher it, which was probably for the best.
The second element I want to talk about is an unambiguous error, and it’s one that readers and adapters of Pride and Prejudice frequently make, but it’s my least favorite. This error is assuming that Darcy wanted Lydia to marry Wickham at all costs, in order to preserve Elizabeth’s marriagability or to give her comfort.
Here is the text from Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife, as Wickham remembers meeting Darcy in London:
…as a man of considerable practice with confrontation, be it broker or cuckolded husband, Wickham had hastily deduced from the absence of sword and seconds that Darcy was not there to demand satisfaction for some injury. Indeed, Darcy did not intend Wickham mortal harm just then; for what Darcy wanted of him, he needed him very much alive. From an impetus unapparent to Wickham, Darcy had gone to great trouble to find their little Soho love-nest to (of all things!) demand that Wickham redeem Lydia’s virtue through marriage.
Compare to this passage from Pride and Prejudice:
He saw Wickham, and afterwards insisted on seeing Lydia. His first object with her, he acknowledged, had been to persuade her to quit her present disgraceful situation, and return to her friends as soon as they could be prevailed on to receive her, offering his assistance, as far as it would go. But he found Lydia absolutely resolved on remaining where she was. She cared for none of her friends; she wanted no help of his; she would not hear of leaving Wickham. She was sure they should be married some time or other, and it did not much signify when. Since such were her feelings, it only remained, he thought, to secure and expedite a marriage, which, in his very first conversation with Wickham, he easily learnt had never been his design.
What Real Darcy wanted, primarily, was to help Lydia, and by his reckoning that entailed getting her away from Wickham even if it meant her reputation was ruined. He believed that the worst thing for her, worse than gossip or ruination, was a life with this man, married or not. We know he made the effort partly for Elizabeth’s sake, and partly out of shame that he did not expose Wickham when he could have. We know that he still loved Elizabeth, but he had no firm plans to propose to her again and had no reason to think she would accept if he did.
Once he couldn’t persuade Lydia to accept his help and come home unmarried, he made the marriage happen, but it was a last resort. It was always this that made me really like Darcy; he could see, unlike every other character in the novel, that the realities of a bad marriage aren’t worth any amount of money or social status. We can discern that that this would have been his approach if Georgiana had eloped with Wickham: he would have gotten her out of it, and weathered the storm.
This is one of the changes that makes me the most angry; because it strips away the part of the character that is intelligent, and compassionate, and relatively forward-thinking. I’m interested in reading a book about that guy, who would tell a young woman that no marriage or reputation was worth a life with a bad man. Instead we get Pod-Darcy, who’s version of heroics is swooping in and telling everybody what to do so that he can have the woman he loves. Real Darcy's behavior in this situation might mean he loves Elizabeth a little less fervently than some would wish. It also makes him a better person, and better character, and that's been lost here.
The third element I want to highlight is a continuation of the timeline problem. Halfway through we get this line: “For not a month after landing in Newcastle, Lydia received the letter telling of her sister’s engagement to Darcy.” We know from Pride and Prejudice that Lydia and Wickham left for Newcastle immediately after visiting Longbourn after their marriage. As I laid out in our previous installment, Elizabeth and Darcy got engaged a little less than two months later; so this can work. But then where did the previous chapter’s reference to Lydia’s six months of marriage come from?
And if we forget the six-month line, and assume the Wickhams have only been married for one month or so, why is it so cold? Several references are made throughout chapter three to the cold winter weather in northern Newcastle. The Wickhams were married in late August. If it’s only been a month, we should be in September, hardly the depths of winter. If it were six months, you could say it was February but then where were they for the five months before they got there? There’s no way to make this make sense.
By the way, stick a pin in the references to winter. If it is winter, some of what follows in the next few chapters makes even less sense.
Purple Prose: what's the worst written line in the chapter?
I’m going to pay Linda Berdoll a compliment, when I say that this chapter is comparatively well-written. I don’t think she had any idea how to write Elizabeth or Darcy or most anyone else, but Wickham seems to be in her wheelhouse and you can tell she had quite a bit of fun with him. If the book had been nothing but him trying and failing to scheme his way into money and good times, I think it could have been decently entertaining.
That said, this, for my money, is the most cringe-worthy passage, though it may be my personal reflexive distaste for the word “bonbons:”
Looking at his wife, he then just as hastily looked away, not wanting to invite her conversation. She was licking the last residue of chocolate from her fingertips with no less noise than a cow sucking its foot from the mud. He prayed that her indecorous desire for bonbons was the source of her ever-increasing girth and she was not with-child, for a wailing infant would be the last straw upon his ill temper.
I think that might be the grossest comparison I’ve ever seen. I realize it’s supposed to be gross, it still is.
Asshole Award: who acts the most like a jerk or the least like themselves?
I’ll keep this brief, because as I said above I have no significant problems with Berdoll’s characterization of Wickham, who is a genuinely not very complex, not very bright asshole.
My characterization problem in this chapter comes from the fact that Wickham’s thoughts are perpetually occupied with Darcy and Elizabeth. Now, I can buy his obsession with Darcy. Darcy is mostly what Wickham talks about through all of Pride and Prejudice. What I can’t buy is his continued infatuation and preoccupation with Elizabeth. He was attracted to her, sure, enough to spend time with her and flirt with her. But he was attracted to any number of people.
This is the beginning of a trend in Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife, which is everyone falling at first sight for our hero or heroine. Now, they are both supposed to be attractive people, but hardly anybody acts like this around them in the original novel. Darcy is supposed to be especially handsome, but he offends or terrifies people so quickly that they forget it. Elizabeth is beautiful, but notably less beautiful than Jane, and Darcy’s first reaction to her is that she’s just alright.
Notice and remember Wickham’s continuing attraction, because it will be repeated by nearly every man who appears, not excluding the Prince Regent.
Hey Look, a Lower Class Person: how are class differences portrayed in this chapter?
We get a few of them, though not enough to make an impression. They mainly exist to make Newcastle unpleasant for Wickham; they are dirty, unfriendly, and completely interchangeable. This trend will also continue.
Hey, a Plot: does anything in this chapter move the story along?
Wickham will be our main villain going forward, so this chapter is somewhat plot-focused in that it establishes that he is still around and relevant. Also of note is his bitter jealousy of Darcy; this will be important.