TENNANT, Emma - An Unequal Marriage

An Unequal Marriage or Pride and Prejudice Twenty Years Later

by Emma Tennant

QUOTES FOR DISCUSSION

It is an opinion often expressed, that children come as a blessing to a marriage.
However mixed the blessing may turn out to be, this opinion is so well fixed in people's mind that a deficiency in the offspring of one family or another becomes a matter of disproportionate interest; and never more so than when a man of good fortune and his inheritance are concerned.

-pg. 3

But you dwell on the sad losses you have suffered, Mrs. Bennet, and not on the happy celebration of the present day - this very day indeed.
- pg. 4

The most powerful and wealthy in the land my be less able to rear a child int ehknowledge of right and wrong than a humble labourer.

- pg. 11

Elizabeth's affections, remained closer than any other person - save her husband - to her sister, and when confidences were exchanged between the two women, still youthful and in the full bloom of contentment and motherhood, it was easy to recall Miss Bennet and Elizabeth Bennet as girls, understanding and caring for the other under Mrs. Bennet's impractical eye, at Longboourn.

- pg. 13

... she had never been to Venice, and knew only that a city built on water must be a wonderful thing.
- pg. 27

"Papa is careful, while you are too quick, Mama!" said Miranda, laughing. "He is overcome, I have no doubt, by the great improvement in Edward - but he does not like to express his feelings to soon."
- pg. 29

The past has been grim, for father and son alike.

- pg. 30

"You are wise, Miranda," said Elizabeth sighing; and as she did so she reflected, not for the first time, that they were more like sisters than mother and daughter; while at time she had to confess she felt herself Miranda's daughter and their roles entirely the other way about.

- pg. 30

He had seen the cavalier manner in which Darcy had treated his young bride when she had been tormented by his friends and relations on the occasion of her first Christmas party at Pemberley.

He had witnessed Darcy's pompous and unexplained departure for London, when Lady Catherin's demanded to sit in a room apart from Elizabeth's mother, Mrs. Bennet, had driven Elizabeth to extremes of mortification and share;

- pg 30

...but he was unable to see, probably for the very good reason that he did not wish to that Darcy was a violently in love with his wife as ever; and that Elizabeth was as much in love with her husband, in turn.

- pg 31

I never knew anyone play as badly as poor Miss Merriman - with the exception of your dear daughter Mary, God rest her soul! She has no idea of how to render a piece -

- pg. 39

... Lady Catherin had, by a stroke of misfortune, been present at the time of Edwards's rebellion and refusal to honour his parents - and she had not been pleasant on that occasion, either.

- pg. 43

Elizabeth's high spirits never deserted her for long, and she put these memories aside;

- pg. 43

"Marriage is an act of choice," replied Lady Sophi, in a voice that was both hard and loud,

- pg. 47

That Elizabeth had learned tact and diplomacy in her years as the wife of Mr. Darcy was acknowledged and appreciated for and wide.

pg. 48

... for she says buttercups and daisies are Gods flowers, yellow and white and from the fields, unlike the lilies and white roses we have cultivated here at Pemberley - devil's garlands, I dare say she thinks them.

- pg. 52

Lady Catherine advises strongly against the coastal regions," said Mr. Collins, "for the air is most harmful to the lungs, and the persons who spill out on the beaches of the bigger towns are reprehensible in the extreme!"

- pg. 56

... it seemed to her that the day grew longer still; and that the dinner need never take place, where Mr. Falk would annoy Mr. Darcy, and Miss Bingley would annoy everyone else - while Lady Sophia, doubtless disgusted with the fine repast her hostess had taken so long to design with the housekeeper, Mrs. Reynolds, might, for all she cared, call for bread and milk.

- pg. 62

A box of soldiers, tidied by a maid, but still protruding at an angle from the shelf of toys, brought a tear to Elizabeth's eye - until her sense of reality, her spirit which could not be quashed for long, reasserted itself, with the truth of the past and the present coming together in an urgent need to plan , to survive somehow, the shock of all that had gone wrong.

- pg. 68

"I only wonder that an elaborate scheme of education, such as was provided here by a special tutor, " said Lady Catherine, who was not to be so easily silenced, "can have produced such dire results. Logic, moral philosophy, and metaphysics, was it not, Mr. Falk? The lesson in moral philosophy appear to have particularly unsuccessful."

- pg. 73

Elizabeth bit her lip at his - for to find herself accused now of extravagance in her stewardship of the kitchens and cellars at Pemberley was clearly but a precursor to the suggestion that Edward inherited his gambling streak and other nefarious habits from her.

- pg. 74

Poor Mama, Elizabeth thought, as she made her way through the throng; if she had only made herself more serious, when she was young, her marriage might ave been a happy one.

- pg. 94

She is not fond of wasting her time, as so many women are these days, whether in lying about reading novels or the like.

- pg. 95

She was a Darcy, in her abilities and expectation of governance; her orders, when given, were issued with lightness and wit, but demanded obedience, on the instant; and, like Fitzwilliam Darcy, she avoided the tag of arrogance through charm and thoughtfulness, always disarming when apparently inconsiderate.

- pg. 97

...without Edward she had no outlet for her strong feelings of sisterly love; and no prospect of further occasions for the sibling laughter Elizabeth still heard echo in the house on the occasions of the boy's return from school.

- pg. 97

... and his company had been known to organise a larger party of people to set out walking on the moors in the most unseasonal weather, rather than hear his monologues and soliloquies.

- pg. 98

... that Master Roper appeared incapable of understanding the needs - or, as at times she had considered in the past, the existence of the rest of the world.

- pg. 99

"The driver knows the way," was all Mrs. Bennet would give out, though she spoke doubtfully, her eyes trained backwards out of the carriage, to the mansions which stood alone facing Green Park. "He is perhaps not permitted to go directly there," said Mrs. Bennet, for in any situation hope was the last of the qualities to leave her. "We are not accustomed to all this commotion, Lydia - it may be we will have to go by another route in order to go back up there!"

Lydia shook her head in disagreement - but, before any further conversation could take place, the coach was jolted violently, as if someone had delivered a vicious kick to the horses, and Mrs. Bennet's equipage had broken away from the line of waiting vehicles, to be carried at speed up Regent Street and beyond. A figure had mounted the box - this was all they could see - and the first relief at movement, on the part of the stationary carriage, was superseded by alarm.
"This cannot be right!" cried Mrs Bennet, who was thrown back on her seat and threatening palpitations. "Tell him, Lydia, for Heaven's sake - he goes the wrong route, and much too fast!"

- pg. 102

"What can they be thinking of, Lydia? said Mrs. Bennet to her daughter. "It is not becoming, to wear such colours and to sport so low a décolletage! I dare say Lady Harcourt does not permit such persons outside her house - she cannot live here, Lydia, she cannot be privy to all of this!"

- pg. 103

But none of this hindered the whispers - which swelled until Elizabeth could swear she had a sea of hostile speculation in the pews behind her, each monster that dwelt therein dreaming of a reason more grotesque for the absence of her husband than the last.

- pg. 105

"If Raphael had lived in England, he would have decorated Pemberley, just as in Rome he did the Vatican! said Mrs. Hurst, more loudly than she had intended, for her sayings were now succeeded by a profound silence. ...

... Mr. Falk it was who put a stop both to Miss Bingley and to Mrs. Hurst. "Raphael was employed to decorate the Vatican not because he was a great painter but because his uncle was architect to the Pope," announced the old tutor, and downing a glass of punch which was demonstrably not his first, he walked with an unsteady gait down the long gallery.

- pg. 113

... she told of the years of anguish she had suffered since Edward had first shown his disaffection, when he was all of seven years old; that she was accustomed to harden her heart against news of him, in case it was bad -

- pg. 115

Darcy will tell me when he choose to - when the time is right!

- pg. 116

..she tried, though with little success, to imagine that Lady Sophia's awkward exterior hid a heart of gold. That this was not the case was borne out an instant later, when Elizabeth, shown to a chair by a beaming Colonel Fitzwilliam, found the superficiality of her judgement of the wife of Darcy's cousin lay in an excess of charity, rather than the other way about.

- pg. 136

I was warned of the failing within your family, before we were wed Elizabeth. My deepest regret is that I proceeded with my proposal of marriage, to you.

- pg. 141

Nor did I approve of the potted salmon you had decreed - it is not a fish that agrees with me at all - and i asked of Mr. Roper that he countermand it, and substitute a good dish of boiled beef.

- pg. 143

"When a man is determined by his own inclination to act or not to act in a particular manner, he invariably set about devising an argument by which he may justify himself to himself for the line he is about to pursue, " said Mr. Falk.

- pg. 148

... neither man nor woman can be worth anything until they have discovered they are fools. This is the first step to becoming either estimable or agreeable; and , until it is taken, there is no hope. The sooner the discovery is made the better, as there is more time and power for taking advantage of it.

- pg. 185

VOCABULARY

acquiescent, pg. 116

Disposed or willing to acquiesce

accept or consent to something without protest

agreeing or consenting without protest

equerry, pg. 79

equerry is an officer of honour. Historically, it was a senior attendant with responsibilities for the horses of a person of rank.

A personal attendant to the British royal household

exeat, pg. 5

leave of absence from school or some other institution.

The Latin word exeat ("he/she may leave") is most commonly used to describe a period of absence from a centre of learning.

fatuous, pg. 142

complacently or inanely foolish : silly

unconscious, complacent manner; silly especially in a smug or self-satisfied way.

2. unreal; illusory.

nefarious, pg. 74

Wicked or criminal

evil; wicked; sinful

from nefās unlawful deed,

Infamous by way of being extremely wicked.

parsimonious, pg 137

use of the simplest or most frugal route of explanation available

exhibiting or marked by parsimony; especially : frugal to the point of stinginess.

2. : sparing, restrained.

extreme care or reluctance in spending; frugality;

Paucity, pg. 82

The presence of something only in small or insufficient quantities or amounts; scarcity.

smallness of quantity; scarcity; scantiness: