Reader, They Do It

Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife, chapter 8. So what happened?

When last we left our virtuous heroes, they were on the cusp of losing that virtue forever and falling into bed together. We return to them the morning of their wedding, virtue intact (for one of them). Elizabeth and Darcy make it to the church without issue, go from there to a wedding breakfast at Netherfield (for some reason), and finally leave for London, where they spend their wedding night.

Elizabeth becomes convinced over the course of the journey to town and subsequent dinner that Darcy hates her now, as he hasn’t said a word to her the entire time. After a silent meal, during which Elizabeth is overcome by the luxury that now surrounds her, the newly married couple goes immediately to bed.

Sex happens, but not before Darcy scatters the bed with rose petals that would have been really hard to get in the middle of winter in Georgian England. Elizabeth has a painful deflowering with no foreplay or preamble or “hey, here’s what to expect, I’ll try to make it as nice for you as I can” from her partner because he’s an asshole. Overcome by desire, Darcy simply plunges ahead (as it were). They don’t talk about this, but they do end the chapter ready to Do It again (Elizabeth has still not had any orgasms of her own).

Inaccuracies: what was obviously wrong here?

Boy howdy. We’ve covered how little sense it makes for the Darcys to travel the relatively short distance from Hertfordshire to London, as a first step in the much longer journey to Derbyshire. It still makes no sense: Derbyshire was far away and in the opposite direction. I’m going to talk about something else this time.

I’ve said before in this space that Linda Berdoll had, at the time of her writing this continuation of Pride and Prejudice, apparently never read the actual Pride and Prejudice. Look, I don’t know for sure whether that’s true. I don’t know her life. But there are so many mistakes that can only come from a failure to read the novel with anything approaching care that I do wonder. The following mistake doesn’t exactly come from a failure to read P&P closely, but from a failure to do some pretty basic research.

If you want to talk about entailments, you should know what the hell they are and how they worked.

Here is how Mr. Collins and the Longbourn entailment are introduced, in chapter 13 of Pride and Prejudice:

“About a month ago I received this letter; and about a fortnight ago I answered it, for I thought it a case of some delicacy, and requiring early attention. It is from my cousin, Mr. Collins, who, when I am dead, may turn you all out of this house as soon as he pleases.”

“Oh! my dear,” cried his wife, “I cannot bear to hear that mentioned. Pray do not talk of that odious man. I do think it is the hardest thing in the world, that your estate should be entailed away from your own children; and I am sure, if I had been you, I should have tried long ago to do something or other about it.”
Jane and Elizabeth tried to explain to her the nature of an entail. They had often attempted to do it before, but it was a subject on which Mrs. Bennet was beyond the reach of reason, and she continued to rail bitterly against the cruelty of settling an estate away from a family of five daughters, in favour of a man whom nobody cared anything about.

“It certainly is a most iniquitous affair,” said Mr. Bennet, “and nothing can clear Mr. Collins from the guilt of inheriting Longbourn. But if you will listen to his letter, you may perhaps be a little softened by his manner of expressing himself.”

“No, that I am sure I shall not; and I think it is very impertinent of him to write to you at all, and very hypocritical. I hate such false friends. Why could he not keep on quarreling with you, as his father did before him?”

“Why, indeed; he does seem to have had some filial scruples on that head, as you will hear.”

Now. Here is how Mr. Collins is described in Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife:

As the most ridiculous of men, Mr. Collins should have incited considerable merriment. However, Mr. Collins had expectations. Upon Mr. Bennet’s death, by reason of the unforgivable sin of begetting five daughters, Longbourn was to be entailed to his sister’s son, the self-same vicar from Kent.

So, where do we even start. How about this - Mr. Bennet clearly refers to Mr. Collins as his own cousin; if Collins is his sister’s son, he would have said nephew. But the larger issue, and one that will crop up again, is that Berdoll seems to believe that the entailment of Longbourn is like, a consequence of the Bennets’ not having a son. Like the estate wouldn’t have been entailed if there was a young Mr. Bennet to inherit it, and “entailed” just means “left to,” or something. That’s not what “entailed” means.

Longbourne is not entailed to Mr. Collins; it is entailed on heirs male. This means that the estate passes, on the death of the current holder, to the next living male descendant of the original owner of the estate - and only one descended from a direct male line. Not all estates were entailed - we learn in P&P that Rosings is not, and has been left to Miss de Bourgh. Mr. Bennet is the current holder of Longbourn - any male heirs of his body will have precedence, but he has none, and Mr. Collins is apparently the next available. He is not Mr. Bennet’s sister’s son; if he had one, that sister’s son would have no claim, as he would not be descended from the male line. Any sons that Jane, Elizabeth or the other Bennet daughters have later will have no claim either (or if they did, it would only be after all male descendents had died. Possible, but highly unlikely).

The entail exists no matter what. Here’s what Austen says about it, in chapter 50 of P&P:

When first Mr. Bennet had married, economy was held to be perfectly useless, for, of course, they were to have a son. The son was to join in cutting off the entail, as soon as he should be of age, and the widow and younger children would by that means be provided for. Five daughters successively entered the world, but yet the son was to come; and Mrs. Bennet, for many years after Lydia’s birth, had been certain that he would. This event had at last been despaired of, but it was then too late to be saving. Mrs. Bennet had no turn for economy, and her husband’s love of independence had alone prevented their exceeding their income.

It was possible, when an estate was thus entailed, for the entail to be broken - the current holder and the heir apparent would have to agree, basically. This would allow the current holder to, for instance, sell off parts of the estate to provide dowries for his other children. The thing that makes this tricky is that it has to be the heir apparent making the agreement - Collins would be unlikely to agree in any case, and he is only the heir presumptive. There’s always the chance, while Mr. Bennet is alive, that he can have a son - Mrs. Bennet might have a miracle baby, or she might drop dead leaving a relatively young Mr. Bennet free to marry a twenty-year-old and have five sons. This is the possibility that Austen refers to above.

Long story short - there is no sister of Mr. Bennet that ensures Longbourn going to Mr. Collins. Mr. Collins is the heir to Longbourn through his own father. The lack of understanding of the entail doesn’t amount to much now, but it will come up again, and will make a logistical mess when it does.

Purple Prose: what’s the worst written line in the chapter?

I’m just going to provide a sampler, from this, the first of our many sex chapters:

Forasmuch as their simmering desire had seethed into a seething boil at Netherfield, one should anticipate that once the union had been blessed by God, there would have been at least a minimal exchange of affection. That occurrence would have been quite unobjectionable to Mrs. Darcy.

That amorous juncture did not occasion.

OR:

Only sheer will (admittedly fortified by a finely honed inclination to curiosity) induced her to take a second look. Propitious fortune allowed her to descry whom the crepuscular light yielded.

OR:

Because she had felt of his body in full cry, and therefore appreciated the ampleness of his...credentials, Elizabeth had harbored a certainty she would not be taken unawares when she saw them. Yet, she could not help but stare (by reason of its tumescence, his torch of love just so happened to be trained directly upon her and it was difficult to disregard.)

OR HOW ABOUT:

Gentle, guiding strokes influenced her to allow him betwixt her thighs (an objective she found quite tolerable) this demarche culminating in the discovery of her womanly portal. Due to his exceedingly admirable ministrations, her womanly portal was quite anxious to be traversed.

Look, “womanly portal” and “torch of love” are obviously very bad, but I think “Propitious fortune allowed her to descry whom the crepuscular light yielded” might be the worst sentence I’ve ever read in my life.

Asshole Award: who acts the most like a jerk, or the least like themselves?

Elizabeth and Darcy are just about the only people we see in this chapter, and they are...not good. Though I don’t particularly want to, we’re going to have to talk about the sex, and the culture of bodice-ripping romance novels that this book owes more to than it does to Pride & Prejudice.

Many of the problems in this chapter, and in Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife as a whole, come from the initial mischaracterization of Darcy. Austen’s deliberative, cerebral, dryly funny and exceptionally articulate creation is nowhere to be found: in his place is a brooding, impulsive and nearly monosyllabic hunk. Where did he come from? Parts of him certainly come from Colin Firth, who fenced and glowered his way through the most popular adaptation of P&P. But a great deal of him comes from a literary type that’s been a staple of romantic fiction almost since the very beginning of the genre.

Mr. Darcy, as written by Jane Austen is in dialogue with that type, but he isn’t that type. Much of Elizabeth’s development takes the form of learning to differentiate types from people: she realizes that as much as she wants to slot Darcy into the grumpy, villainous aristocrat box, he refuses to fit. Still, it’s been easy over the centuries to mistake him for another variant on Heathcliffe or Mr. Rochester, and many readers do make that mistake. That mistake is at the route of many of the things Pod-Darcy does in this chapter, which is why this chapter makes me so uncomfortable.

I’m not expecting Darcy to go all our-bodies-ourselves on Elizabeth and have a frank conversation about what she likes and how to make sex mutually enjoyable . Real Darcy and Elizabeth wouldn’t know how to have that conversation. I would expect their wedding night to involve a fair amount of discomfort, however good everyone’s intentions were. That was just the reality for sheltered people with no sex-ed.

But this Darcy is ostensibly some kind of sex god, who has pleased many women over the course of his still young life - apparently from some kind of savant-like ability, as he doesn’t seem to make much of an effort here:

Even for a man with no experience piercing a maidenhead, innate wisdom, one must suppose, would tell him to do it slowly, gently. Ultimate desire, however, often obliterates discretion.

Nor here:

Most anxious not to cry out in pain, she very nearly did.

And this is the result:

She felt as if she had just fallen off the roof of a barn and he had not extended his hand to help her to her feet. Lying there, desolate and resentful, she was uncertain whether to turn her back to him in a sulk, or simply smite him with a pillow.

Very romantic:

But forgiveness should not be an issue. Pain was the price to be paid of becoming a wife. She knew that. He must as well.

It’s not rape. It’s not meant to be and it isn’t accidentally, I don’t want to imply that. But there’s a trend here - one that will continue. Darcy acts, Elizabeth is acted upon. Darcy has desires, Elizabeth fulfills them. She becomes more sexually assertive as the novel progresses, but her sexual satisfaction remains what it is here: a sometimes happy byproduct of Darcy’s prowess, rather than an end in itself. A nice benefit, but not necessary. It’s pretty retro.

Hey Look, a Lower Class Person: how are class differences portrayed in this chapter?

An army of invisible servants is making Darcy’s London house run - more than it would be likely to employ when he wasn’t in residence. Darcy is supposed to be rich, but rich enough to pay a phalanx of maids to sit around doing nothing but be ready when he happens to turn up for a night? He’d be able to arrange service quickly, I’m sure - but would it be worth arranging if he’s just going to disappear the next night? Great houses, in London and the country, required a great deal of getting ready - rooms to be aired (they got stuffy); firewood and candles and food to be ordered; sheets to be washed and pressed. It’s a lot of effort for one day. If Darcy did make his servants do all that for one night, he’s (again) an asshole.

Hey Look, a Plot: does anything in this chapter move the story forward?

Elizabeth finally loses her v-card. She hasn’t had an orgasm yet, but it’s coming (::rimshot::).