I found this sequel to Pride and Prejudice in my mom’s collection after she died a few years ago. It’s described as a “lightly Gothic tale of Mr. and Mrs. Darcy,” and with this being the spooky season, I figured this was as good a time as any for me to read it.
It is very light on the Gothic. Honestly I’m not sure what elements of this story can be considered Gothic.
The plot is very predictable and conservative, and the writing is not great. It was originally published in the 1940s and there are several lines of dialogue that sound like they come from the 1940s rather than the early 1800s.
What the author, Dorothea A. Bonivia Hunt, did get right was the characters, and I loved hanging out with them again.
The book takes place about 3-4 years after the conclusion of Pride and Prejudice. The Darcys have a two-year-old boy named Richard, and the Bingleys have two kids.
Darcy is in the market for a new parson and for some reason Mr. Collins thinks he has a shot. He does not.
Instead, Darcy ends up hiring the younger son of a earl since his older brother is an old friend of Darcy’s from school.
If classism is a trigger warning, consider yourself warned.
It quickly becomes obvious that the new Mr. Acworth is not who he claims to be. No one can quite put their finger on it, but there seems to be something just generally lacking in his manners that make him seem not quite the gentleman. He also appears to be acting much of the time he’s at Pemberley, and we can’t have that.
As if that weren’t bad enough, there’s a scene early on in the book in which Lizzy and Georgiana are discussing how uncouth professional performers are, regardless of how talented or how much they enjoy watching them perform.
So, of course it was all too easy to figure out that Acworth is a professional performer. Darcy figures it out too pretty early on, but promises his friend he won’t reveal Acworth’s true identity to anyone just yet.
You’d think Darcy would have learned his lesson after the last time he let someone mingle in his society without revealing his true character, but nope. Apparently he learned nothing, so he has to run off to Scotland to try to prevent another bad marriage and instead ends up acting as witness to the ceremony.
There are a couple subplots that would have fit right in an episode of Downton Abbey, including meddling spinsters acting above their station, scandals with a servant, and Georgiana being found in an attic alone with the fake Acworth, which is so upsetting it causes Lizzy to faint.
The funny thing is I don’t think any of Jane Austen’s heroines ever faint. They’re too busy rolling their eyes at the women in their lives who complain about their nerves.
Other than that, I thought the author had a good grasp of the characters. Although I mostly enjoyed this book, and it made for a nice, light read, I won’t be reading it again.