Darcy’s Christmas Wish: A Pride and Prejudice Variation: A sweet Christmas Regency romance for Jane Austen fans

Cute but you can’t live on hero moments alone

The start of our story is 15 years earlier in the life of Darcy and Elizabeth. He is nearly twelve and is visiting Rosings during the Christmas holidays with his parents and baby sister. He disobeys Lady Catherine’s instructions…orders to stay away from the north side of the estate that is near the frozen pond. Of course that is the best hill and Darcy precedes to take his sled and attempts to navigate the hill only to be thrown onto the pond which cracks and he falls into the icy water.

With no one around, young Darcy, unable to get out of the water by himself, thinks he is going to die. When he cries out for help, a very young Elizabeth [visiting a neighbor with the Gardiners] hears him and manages to pull him from the water. She covers him with pine boughs, to keep him warm, and goes for help. When she returns he is gone, apparently he was found by the Rosings servants that had been looking for him. Darcy couldn’t get anyone to believe him when he said that a little girl had helped him. His Christmas wish, over the plum pudding, was that he would someday meet the little brown eyed girl.

Fifteen years later, Elizabeth is visiting Charlotte Collins, nee Lucas, and Darcy along with Colonel Fitzwilliam and his son are visiting Lady Catherine. From here on the story falls apart for me. I know we want the hero moments and the author provided them numerous times; however, it is the space between those hero moments that doesn’t work for me.

Problems…perhaps if this had been written in a different era or time period it might have worked better. Elizabeth was too outspoken even for her…far more than canon. Her sensibilities were way too modern and so was her speech and actions. Not only did she address and challenge men, she also chided and challenged a peer…called him a liar to his face and in public. She went against everyone around her in order to come to the rescue of a disgraced maid and could have lost the Collins the living at Huntsford. Her behavior was stubborn, and she repeatedly encouraged Charlotte to go against Mr. Collins [her husband and lord] and Lady Catherine [their benefactress]. They could have lost their home with no references.

Mr. Collins was not best pleased with his cousin nor was Lady Catherine that this visiting upstart would dare insult a neighbor and a peer in her home. To our modern sensibilities and notions of welfare and economic – social reforms, her actions would have been lauded. However, in the Regency era…her actions went against the norm and society. Lady Catherine was the law in her province and whatever she said… was followed no questions asked. Elizabeth was a stranger and yet took on the whole village in addition to Lady Catherine. It was too risky on all levels.

I don’t want to be the bad guy. I know the author wanted Elizabeth to be the hero in defense of the disgraced maid. The author was attempting to shine a light on the abuses the aristocracy often inflicted on servants, especially young maids. But this was not the best way to do it. Elizabeth had caused any amount of trouble between a husband and wife and their employer. During that time period…a husband had absolute control and authority over his wife and what she could and could not do. This was dangerous.

I liked the story. I liked the idea of the story. And, there were bits and pieces of it that were cute and enjoyable. However, there was this discordant note that kept sounding out of tune and felt not quite right.

The Darcy and Elizabeth moments were cute however, propriety, comportment, etiquette, and proper conduct was thrown out the window. Some things you just didn’t do and they did them with abandon.

Colonel Fitzwilliam was a weak version of his canon self. I felt for him; however, I do not think he would have allowed things to progress the way they did. I believe he could have handled the situation differently. Being accustomed to raw recruits and recalcitrant soldiers, I think he could have creatively maneuvered around his small child. Three stars: I’m sorry.