Mr. Bingley
- Ingenious Pilot -
(because his suethor's in love with that hat)%\0\%
Posts: 151
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Post by Mr. Bingley on Jan 3, 2008 20:19:31 GMT -5
*Bingley sat reading the newspaper as Darcy wrote letters. It was a lazy afternoon and they were technically At Home for social calls, but nobody had been by. Something in the paper caught Bingley's eye...*
"Darcy, did you see this? Maxim de Winter's gone and gotten remarried. Didn't his Rebecca only drown 8 months ago? Terrible tragedy, it was..." *He frowned and wondered what on earth could have possessed de Winter to make him remarry at such a scandalous time. It hadn't even been a year!*
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Post by Mr. Darcy on Jan 3, 2008 21:28:12 GMT -5
*Darcy looked up from his letter to Georgiana.*
"Nine. Perhaps there is something we do not know about the situation."
*Darcy had not particularly liked Mrs. de Winter. Even so, it was grossly inappropriate for Maxim to marry so soon.*
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Mr. Bingley
- Ingenious Pilot -
(because his suethor's in love with that hat)%\0\%
Posts: 151
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Post by Mr. Bingley on Jan 4, 2008 15:05:13 GMT -5
*Bingley shrugged.*
"I suppose. The paper doesn't mention much else but for her name--Micaela Heekin, out of Kenmare, Ireland." *Knowing his sisters, they'd know more than he did. He'd have to write Caro and ask. In addition, he was pretty sure he'd bought a few hunting horses off of a man named Heekin a few years ago--good horses they'd turned out to be, too.*
((PM'd the Darcy account with an idear o' mine.))
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Post by Mr. Darcy on Jan 4, 2008 21:45:39 GMT -5
*Darcy's brows knit.*
"I don't know the name," *he said. The man must have been out of his mind with grief.*
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Mr. Bingley
- Ingenious Pilot -
(because his suethor's in love with that hat)%\0\%
Posts: 151
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Post by Mr. Bingley on Jan 4, 2008 22:10:04 GMT -5
"I'll write Caro and ask." *He decided finally, moving to sit down at his desk and scribble down a note.*
My Dearest Sister--
I hope my letter finds you well. Mr. Darcy and I are well enough here. On the subject of your last letter: no, I don't know who Marie-Laure D'Angoisie is. Nor have I heard the name mentioned.
I was reading the paper this morning and came across an announcement. It informed both Mr. Darcy and myself that Maximilian de Winter has recently been remarried. Neither Mr. Darcy nor I could figure out who the girl in question was. Have you heard of a Micaela Heekin, recently become Micaela de Winter?
Your affectionate brother, Charles Bingley
**TIME LAPSE OF GOSSIPY SISTER POSTAGE**
*The reply letter was thick and long--he had underestimated his sister. Not only did Caro know about the new Mrs. de Winter, she had made herself an expert on the subject.*
My dearest brother,
I have indeed heard quite a few things about the new mistress of Manderley. She's quite the topic of conversation here in London.
She was born Micaela Ruth MacConnell Heekin on a horse farm near Kenmare, a tiny and, in my opinion, rustic town on the ring of Kerry. The farm itself is quite successful--I think you own a hunter or two bred by her father. Still quite an unsuitable background for a chatelaine of her stature. She did have a Season in London a few years ago, but--you'll never guess it--she was schooled at Eton! Yes, Eton! She posed as a boy from the time she was eight until she was eighteen, when she finally came clean to the public. She had a Season in London (quite disastrous, as she hadn't been trained at all properly) but departed for Paris in the middle of it.
It gets even worse. In Paris, she spent a good many years training as an opera singer... can you believe? What kind of conduct she must have got up to! An opera singer... I couldn't imagine the scandal her family suffered. Eventually she left the Populaire and tried her luck with a seedy theater in Montmartre called the Phoenix. She there composed her own opera version of Les Miserables, which was quite successful. Mr. de Winter apparently met her in a cafe after she brazenly sat down at his table! They courted briefly and mistakenly met again in Monte Carlo (dreadful gaudy place if you ask me).
There they stayed for some weeks--the scandal!--and married in the town hall. No ceremony, nothing. It is my opinion that they were married out of convenience--she announced that she wsa several months pregnant at the Manderley New Year's ball. I so wished to go but felt it would be a disloyalty to dear Rebecca. They spent a month touring the Continent before returning to his Manderley, where she's created quite a hubbub amongst the late Rebecca de Winter's admirers.
Whatever could have possessed the man to marry so early, and so unsuitably? Poor, dear Rebecca--I was always so fond of her. So charming and elegant, and stylish! Her death... it was such a terrible, terrible tragedy. From what I can gather, this Micaela is quite the opposite--doesn't give a whit for tradition, and she's quite freckled and fat.
Do write back soon, as I am wild to hear news of yourself and Mr. Darcy.
Your affectionate sister, Caroline Bingley
*Bingley frowned at the letter--if Caro had a bad opinion of the girl, it didn't mean much. She didn't have a good opinion of anyone who she believed was undeserving of their place in society. She would to well to remember that their own great-grandfather was a farmer and their grandfather a very lucky merchant.*
"Caroline wrote back. I can't say how much of the information is true, but it's something more than a name. Evidently she's from a horse family--I bought an excellent pair of hunters from them several years ago." *He said to Darcy.*
*He set the letter down on one of the end-tables and stood.* "You can read it if you like. As usual, she's written me a novel on all the intrigues. I'm going to change for supper." *He said, moving off.*
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Post by Mr. Darcy on Jan 6, 2008 0:39:59 GMT -5
*Darcy glanced over the letter as Bingley left the room. Caroline was insufferable as always--what call was it of hers to call the girl fat, even in correspondence with her brother?--but there was certainly something in what she said. However crudely.
De Winter had married into Irish horse breeders. No matter how good the hunter was, that was no excuse to be taken in in that manner. Well, it was too late now. And he didn't suppose there was any way to avoid the introduction. Another dull night--fortnight, most likely--in society.*
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Post by Micaela on Jan 6, 2008 17:47:38 GMT -5
((Anything but dull, Darcy. Anything but dull.
Hmm. Maybe he and Bingley could show up for the Meggington wedding.
... is he expecting someone like Lydia/Kitty Bennet? Someone with 'High animal spirits' and meretricious charms? I laugh if he is.))
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Post by Mr. Darcy on Aug 25, 2008 15:51:40 GMT -5
**NEW DAY**
Darcy held the book in his hands, peering down at the cover as if from on high. Diana's Despair? He recalled the place marker Miss Shirley had dropped. The "bosom" friend--his lips curling lightly at the memory. Perhaps she had written about her home, the life she'd left, the friends she so vividly recalled and so truly loved.
Seated in his favorite armchair, his hopes were quickly dashed. Purple prose and ridiculous melodrama. Utterly reprehensible scoundrels and fainting maidens as characters he supposed one was meant to feel for, in situations he was truly incapable of imagining. He recognized nothing in here of the girl he had proposed to so recklessly; it had her life, perhaps, but not her wit. Not her passion--or at least, not the kind he had admired.
She seemed so young, suddenly.
He read it to the end, to the climax where the villain's pride is his undoing, where the handsome stranger rides off with the blushing maiden, and he sat there for some time with a perplexed look on his face until it hit him. Even without imagination, Darcy had detected something in the blackguard, a turn of phrase here and there that sounded familiar. Oh, he had no illusion that the man was meant to be himself entirely; but he could not help but recognize the stamp of his interactions with her on him.
Was that how she saw him? Truly? He thought over his meetings with her; his abruptness, his disregard of her feelings, and most especially his exposing of thoughts and regrets that should have remained not only unsaid, but unfelt.
Had he been unjust, to consider her family connections insufficient to his regard?
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