4. Darcy is overjoyed at Georgiana’s recovery and delights in feeling like her brother again, but when faced with the results of her turnaround — her weekly visits to tenants, her charity work, and her religious studies — he becomes very upset. Once again, he finds himself not her brother but her guardian-father figure. Why this strong reaction?
5. Though it takes great liberties, there are carefully designed moments of intersection between Duty and Desire and Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, such as the correspondence between Caroline Bingley and Darcy regarding Miss Bennet’s visit to London. How do these connections contribute or detract from your reading experience?
6. Because we are never privy to his personal thoughts or feelings, Jane Austen’s Darcy seems a bit austere — this in contrast to Aidan’s longing, almost pining Darcy. Discuss the differences and similarities between the two authors’ presentation of this popular character.
7. Darcy takes great pride in his family’s long history of attending church services weekly, yet Georgiana’s “religious enthusiasm” is so distasteful as to be a fact worth hiding from “Polite Society.” What is the difference?
8. Only two women have ever truly captivated Darcy — first Elizabeth Bennet, and now Lady Sylvanie. Compare and contrast these two grey-eyed women and the circumstances under which Darcy met them.
9. What first turns Darcy’s sympathy from Lady Sylvanie? Do you agree with his opinion of her? Scam or not, does she not still deserve to be pitied for the way she has been mistreated?
10. When did you first begin to suspect that Lady Sylvanie and her companion, Doyle, were connected to the strange goings-on at Norwycke Castle? Did you have any clue that Doyle was in fact the not-so-late Lady Sayre?
11. When all is finally revealed, do you sympathize at all with Lady Sayre or Lady Sylvanie, or are they simply villains? What about Lord Sayre, his wife, and Trenholme?
12. Besides continuing stories first begun in An Assembly Such As This, Aidan seems to be planting seeds for new plot lines to bloom in her third and final book of the Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman trilogy. What do you expect will happen in the next book? What would you like to see happen?
Enhance Your Book Club Experience
1. The ladies in Aidan’s novel good-naturedly coerce the gentlemen into playing an evening game of charades while at Norwycke Castle. Divide your book club into two teams and try a game yourself! For an interesting challenge, try “charading” as different characters from Duty and Desire.
2. Throughout the novel, there are references to important political and social events that occurred during the Regency, a rich time in British history. Do some research on any historical figure or event from 1811 to 1820 to share with your book club. You can also visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Regency to learn more about the era.
3. To get a Hollywood feel for the Regency era, during which Jane Austen lived and wrote, get your group together to watch a movie set in that time period such as Gretna Green or the British television series, Haggard. For a laugh, try Blackadder the Third, a comedy told from the perspective of the Prince Regent’s fictional butler, Edmund Blackadder.
Q&A with Pamela Aidan
Second novels in trilogies are notoriously difficult, as the writer must continue the plots from the first novel while also introducing new elements to keep readers interested. Can you tell us a little about your process for writing Duty and Desire?
There were several goals I had for Book 2 from the outset. First and foremost was the need to put Darcy into situations that would reveal more of his character to the reader. Glimpses were given in the first book, but the restrictions of “traipsing after Jane” did not allow for an indepth look at Darcy’s inner man. We needed to see him among “his own” — his family, his social equals, his friends, and his extended family of servants, employees, and other dependents. The other goal was to bring Darcy to an epiphany about the nature of his own class, thereby providing him something to choose against in contrast to what, in Elizabeth Bennet, he would be choosing for.
This novel covers the “silent time” in Pride and Prejudice. What inspired you to imagine Darcy’s personal life in this way?
From the beginning of writing the trilogy I was inspiried by the observation of Mrs. Reynolds to Elizabeth during her tour of Pemberley that “If I was to go through the world, I could not meet with a better (master). But I have always observed, that they who are good-natured when children, are good-natured when they grow up; and he was always the sweetest-tempered, most generous-hearted boy in the world…. He is the best landlord, and the best master,” said she, “that ever lived; not like the wild young men nowadays, who think of nothing but themselves….” This says much about who Darcy really is, yet is so at odds with what Elizabeth thinks she knows of him. Therefore, the setting for these observations was where the “silent time” needed to begin in order to flesh out the truths of Mrs. Reynolds’s declaration.
Duty and Desire concerns characters and events that never grace the pages of Austen’s original, thus creating a “spin off” that is really quite a departure. Were there cues in Pride and Prejudice that helped direct you?
No, I cannot point to any clues from the original. By this time I had been writing Darcy for over a year and had begun populating his life with other people for him to react to and against such as his valet, Fletcher, and his best friend, Dy Brougham. Also, I had established his close relationship with his sister and cousin. Writing Darcy just began to flow because I “knew” him and his world so well. The trip into gothic romance in the second half of the book was a natural result of several factors. First, it was in tribute to Northanger Abby in which Austen had some fun with that very popular genre of her time. Second, I wanted to deal with some of the realities of upper class life during this time period and take a look into its seamier side. Third, I wanted Darcy to be truly tempted by another woman. Elizabeth Bennet, in my view, should not just win Darcy’s heart by default!
The cast of characters Darcy meets in Duty and Desire are colorful and varied. Is there a little bit of you in there somewhere?
As the Tin Man said to the Scarecrow after the attack of the Flying Monkeys, “That’s you everywhere!” I think that there are bits of me in Mrs. Annesley (my faith), Miss Judith Farnsworth (my love of horses and riding), and even Lady Sylvanie (my desire to reach beyond my grasp and love of Celtic music).
There are so many Jane Austen Web sites and fan groups. Do you have any favorites you’d like to share with your readers?
I have not kept up with all the sites that are now out there. I am most familiar with and appreciative of The Republic of Pemberley (pemberley.com) and The Derbyshire Writer’s Guild (austen.com). Also two of my friends have excellent sites for their Austen fiction at crownhillwriters.com.
There are several sets of siblings in this novel, all examples of different kinds of relationships: Darcy and Georgiana; Miss Avery and Lord Manning; Lady Sylvanie and her half-brothers Sayre and Trenholme. Do you have any siblings? If so, did your relationship with them inspire any of your characters’ actions?