Julia Barrett - Presumption: An Entertainment: A Sequel to Pride and Prejudice

A word about Presumption. Yes, its an entertainment, duly presumptuous in recalling one of the most glowing novels in English literature, but charmingly free of bravado in inviting that relation. It is not Julia Barretts motive to challenge Jane Austen to a duel of wit, but to pay pleasant tribute to her art by engaging uncompetitively with it. Presumption is a work of wit in its own duly earned right, continuously vivid and urbane. Regulated hatred was once ascribed to Jane Austen as the animating force of her fiction. It is too late for that now. But not too late for intelligence, grace, and style; as now in Presumption.

Denis Donoghue

Presumption is an act of homage, agreeably stylish and amusing. An elegant blend of invention and imitation... Presumption made me laugh.

Valerie Grosvenor Myer, author of Jane Austen

Elizabeths intense embarrassment for her family, Darcys latent heroism and the miscellaneous barbarisms of the Bennet and Darcy clans... are energetically and often quite delightfully handled, evoking the spirit of Pride and Prejudice.

Purists should be reminded... that imitation, which they so condemn, is one of the most venerable and efficacious of literary pursuits.... Jane Austen, who herself imitated Dr. Johnson, had a distinct fondness for the upstart. In all likelihood, she would have welcomed her own imitators, not only for their reverence but for their presumption.

Robert Grudin, The New York Times Book Review

An elegant emulation and continuation of Pride and Prejudice.... At its most entertaining and acute, Presumption shows how sequel-writing can, like parody, be a sharp exercise in literary appreciation.

Peter Kemp, Times Literary Supplement

About the Author

Julia Braun Kessler and Gabrielle Donnelly are Julia Barrett.

Julia Braun Kessler, writer, editor, and journalist, is author of Getting Even with Getting Old.

Gabrielle Donnelly is the author of the novels Faulty Ground, Holy Mother, and All Done with Mirrors.

Presumption

An Entertainment

A Sequel to Pride and Prejudice

JULIA BARRETT

The University of Chicago Press

Published by arrangement with M. Evans and Company, Inc.

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
Copyright 1993 by Julia Braun Kessler and Gabrielle Donnelly
All rights reserved. Originally published 1993
University of Chicago Press edition 1995
Printed in the United States of America
16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 9 8 7 6

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-03813-1 (paper)
ISBN-10: 0-226-03813-0 (paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-226-04081-3 (e-book)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Barrett, Julia.
Presumption: an entertainment / Julia Barrett.
p. cm.
Sequel to: Pride and prejudice / Jane Austen.
1. Young womenEnglandFiction. 2. EnglandSocial life and customs18th centuryFiction. I. Austen, Jane, 17751817. Pride and prejudice. II. Title.
[PS3552.A73463P74 1995]
813.54dc20

95-4686
CIP

Cover: The watercolor, Chatsworth in 1828 by William Cowen, is from the Devonshire Collection, Chatsworth; it is reproduced by permission of the Chatsworth Settlement Trustees.

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

Pemberley was now Georgianas home; and the attachment of the sisters was exactly what Darcy had hoped to see. They were able to love each other, even as well as they intended. Georgiana had the highest opinion in the world of Elizabeth; though at first she often listened with an astonishment bordering on alarm, at her lively, sportive, manner of talking to her brother. He, who had always inspired in herself a respect which almost overcame her affection, she now saw the object of open pleasantry. Her mind received knowledge which had never before fallen in her way. By Elizabeths instructions she began to comprehend that a woman may take liberties with her husband, which a brother will not always allow in a sister more than ten years younger than himself.

JANE AUSTEN
Pride and Prejudice

Part 1

Chapter 1

If, as the prevailing wisdom has had it these many years, a young man in possession of a good fortune is always in want of a wife, then surely the reverse must prove true as well: any well-favoured lady of means must incline, indeed yearn, to improve her situation by seeking a husband.

Yet our own heroine found herself in the singular position of contesting this complacent assurance. Miss Georgiana Darcy, of Pemberley in Derbyshire, although beautiful, accomplished, and, moreover, an heiress to a considerable fortune, remained nevertheless, at the age of seventeen years, markedly disinclined to secure her future happiness by bestowing that fortune upon any one. Georgiana had reason.

It was not that she had never sought to fall in love, far from it. Once, she had dreamt of nothing other. But her first amorous venture had served only to dishearten her. Orphaned by the time she had completed her ninth year, and growing up an uncommonly pretty and winning child, she had been much accommodated by her only brother and loving guardian, Fitzwilliam Darcy. A series of governesses had taught her, and while they had invariably found her tractable, even compliant, this circumstance was maintained largely by none of their ever presuming to make so inconvenient a suggestion as that she do one single thing genuinely against her own wishes.

Alas, indulgence served her ill. At the age of fifteen, her head quite turned by the attentions of a dashing young officer named Lieutenant George Wickham, the son of her fathers steward, our impetuous heiress eloped with him. Had not the affair most fortunately been discovered by her devoted brother, there is no telling the consequence.

The two, happily, were recovered in good time. Georgiana was returned to her beloved Pemberley, and her brother was able to console himself with the knowledge both that his sister was unharmed and that not one in the neighbourhood had any inkling of the disaster which had so nearly overtaken her.

Yet the incident served to check the high spirits of the young heiress. She had come to see the dangers hovering over too precipitous a flight into unrestrained passion. In truth, Georgiana now found herself much subdued. She feared her own romantic heart.

Now that she approached the full bloom of young womanhood, her appearance amply fulfilled every childhood promise. She was tall, her figure was formed, and her every aspect graceful. These attractions, augmented by her expectations, made Miss Darcy much solicited. But while enjoying ardent attentions from an enviable number of unexceptionable suitors, she refused to fix a serious gaze upon any. On all of them she smiled, to most was amiable, but to none held out serious promise.

Still, on this, the evening of her coming out into society, her anticipations were high; indeed, she had much pleasure to look forward to. Besides the never-failing joys of the dance, there was the agreeable company of her sister-in-law, Elizabeth; the arrival in the neighbourhood of the new relations Elizabeth had brought to the family; and, the certain admiration of young gentlemen from all over the county that was none the less welcome for her determination not to reciprocate it.