Glittering Images Part II

Charles talks to the guests at the Bisohop's palace and learns more about Dr Jardine's background, and how he had a religious maniac father and a Swedish stepmother whom he loved. He tries to pay court to Miss Christie but she is very rebuffing. Jardine has some upper class friends, including Lady Starmouth, who is half American, and through them he meets an American lady who lectures at a college there, Loretta Staviski. He meets her too and finds that she was involved in a romance with Alex when he was a young married man. She fell in love with him and he returned her feelings as his own marriage was less than happy. Charles finds Loretta attractive, but confides in her about his feelings for Lyle, and says that he loves her. He breaks down and Loretta takes him to the Anglo Catholic abbey in Starbridge diocese to see a spiritual counsellor. He meets Jon Darrow, a monk who is forceful, gifted and formerly married. Charles has long talks with Darrow, and we learn that he and his father do not get on at all well and that his parents' marriage is not too happy. Charles talks to his parents and his brother Peter, and then finds that his father is not his real father.. that his mother had an affair with a handsome doctor as a girl, and became pregnant and the man could not marry her as he was already married to a woman in an asylum. Eric, Charles father, was a rather dull man, who rescued her, and married her but then was a very strict and jealous husband to his young wife and her son. Because of his father's strictness, Charles suffered as a boy and got on badly with him as a man. Charles finds that his biological father is living in Starbridge, now married and still a doctor, and he likes the rakish old man.. but he realises that Eric Ashworth was a good father in his way. He finds that Lyle's situation is seriously deteriorating. She admits to him that she has been involved in a relationship with Jardine because he and she both beleved that he could end his marriage to Carrie and go through a private ceremony with Lyle. But she has grown uneasy with the private marriage idea and now realises that it was wrong. To make matters worse she is pregnant.

Glittering Images by Howatch Part I

Glittering Images is the first of Howatch's novels about the Church of England. She had not written anything for a few years, during which time she became interested in religion and studied the history of the Church. This novel is set in 1937, just after the Abdication, which was caused by the desire of the King to marry a divorced woman. This issue provoked discussion of the place of the Church, and about divorce. Charles Ashworth is a clergyman in his 30s who has a post as a lecturer in Cambridge, and he's asked by his former patron to visit Bishop Jardine, in Starbridge, who is a controversial figure. Jardine comes from a modest background, and is generally thought to be very clever but his radical views have annoyed many other bishops. He criticised his archbishop for a lack of leadership on the divorce issue and he believes in making divorce easier. His domestic situation is unusual in that his wife, who is a rather silly disorganised woman, relies very much on a paid companion to help her with her duties as a Mrs Bishop. His marriage is childless and rumoured to be not too happy. The companion is very good looking and the Archbishop fears that there may be a perception that Jardine keeps her in the house because he finds her attractive. Charles wonders if he really wants to undertake this job of spying on a bishop, but he agrees to go. He lost his wife after a short marriage and he's not in a very happy frame of mind. He is successful in his clerical career, but his relationship with his family is not good. When he goes to Starbridge and meets the Jardines and Mrs Jardine's companion, he like Jardine, feels sorry for his rather foolish wife, and is smitten by Lyle Christie, the companion, a beautiful woman in her 30s.

Heart Breaker Part IV

Carta finds that she is being replaced in Gavin's life by Susanne, who is now his girlfriend, but this frees her to commit to her relationship with Eric. She and Eric finally decide to marry, but she still worries over Gavin. He seems to be avoiding social contact with everyone but Susanne and Lewis, the assistant priest. Gavin finally gives evidence in court about the violent and murderous activities of Elizabeth and Asherton, how they exploited gay men, were involved in sadistic sexual and psychic practices and made snuff movies with young gay guys who were impoverished and whom nobody cared for if they disappeared. He feels he has done something worthwhile in taking a part in putting away these 2 evil people, but then collapses with survivors guilt afterwards. He rarely goes out, and becomes upset by his gay past, finding it very hard to have contact with men Lewis continues to visit him however and over time, Gavin tells him about his past life. He is from a middle class family, but his parents were always closer to Hugo, his brother, than to him. When Hugo died in his teens, Gavin tried to make up for the bereavement by becoming a doctor, like his brother had planned to do, but he failed his exams and in despair walked out. His family acted like he was a failure, and not good enough to replace Hugo. He then worked at casual jobs in London, and ended up working for an escort agency, run by one of Elizabeth's associates. She decided to train him to entice gay men and made a lot of money with him. Gavin however has been haunted by the memory ghost of Hugo, who lives on in his mind, continually abusing him for his degradation and failures. He begins to improve, after long talks with Lewis, and to let Hugo go. Then his mother appears. She has remarried after the death of his father.. she tells him that they did try to find him after he left home but he was drifting and using aliases. He realises that his parents did thier best for him and become a little less depressed but he still finds it hard to think of leading a normal life. Carta has now married Eric, who is busy with his writing and she is still working on the Appeal for funding for the Healing Centre. She and Lewis persuade Gavin to try going to a healing service which soemtimes helps people who are blocked mentally. He agrees to go, but at first does not feel antying. Then, he hears his father's voice, and turns to see Lewis... and he puts his arms round him. He is finally healed. The book ends on this note - it is not my favourite Howatch. The plot is very long and complicated and the picture of violence and criminal activity is not that convincing. It is too melodramatic, unlike the Starbridge series which is about clergymen who get into trouble but never into anyting too outrageous.
It rather feels at times that Howatch has to hype up more and more wrong doing and drama to make a good story, and that she thinks that people from outside the church are in danger of getting involved in all sorts of murder and Mayhem.

Heart Breaker Part III

Gavin and Susanne make love then he tells Susanne that he is going to get out of the life once she has transferred the money for him, and that he will take her with him to the church where they will be safe from Elizabeth and Asherton. He goes home to his flat in Elizabeth's house, but the next day, when he tries to go through his normal routine, he breaks down. Susanne rescues him and tells him to pack his things and get out. But when he gets home he realises that Elizabeth has found brochures from the Healing Centre appeal and that she's planned to be out that night to lure him back to the house. But he has found in her safe a tape of horrific value, a snuff movie made by Asherton and he is determined to get it to the police. He is about to sneak out when he finds that the door to the downstairs flat is opening and he has no way of getting out as the flat is very securely locked. Asherton appears with some bully boys and Gavin gets in a fight with him. Asherton stabs him but he manages to escape and tries to drive away, but he is only able to get to the houses of Parliament. He calls Carta and tells her he's been injured and that he has to admit to her that his Elizabeth is indeed the Elizabeth Mayfield who damaged her husband. Carta calls an ambulance and finds Susanne, and Gavin is taken to hospital. He survives the stabbing and is able to talk to the police and to Carta and Nick.

Heart Breaker Part II

Carta feels an attraction to Gavin, who is so handsome that he makes a lot of money from his having sex with men, and also has women vying for his attention. Eric gets jealous about Gavin and it causes arguments between him and Carta. She hopes never to see him again, but he then lets slip that his manager who runs his business life, is called Elizabeth and she tells Nicholas that she thinks that his Elizabeth is Mrs Mayfield, who drove Kim to suicide. Nicholas worries that she is obsessed with this issue. Then they find that they have received large donations from well to do people in the City, and all of them mention Richard Slaney, Gavin's lover and Carta's friend. Nick and Carta are flummoxed as they feel uneasy at the idea of taking money from men who heard about the Appeal through their association with a high class rent boy. It might lead to salacious stories in the Press if it got out. They decide to meet Gavin and see if he is sincere in his desire to help the centre, but when they meet him, he says that his manager would not let him work with a Christian centre. He seems mixed up and unhappy, but insists that he likes his lifestyle. Carta longs to find out if his Manager is indeed her nemesis Mrs Mayfield, but she is worried by her attraction to Gavin, as her boyfriend is increasingly jealous. Gavin is trying to play both sides. He is infatuated with Mrs Mayfield who has given him a home and a job and is his mistress at times.. so he wants to please her by bringing in rich clients for her psychic groups, but he also wants to try and seduce Carta so he's worked hard to find rich admirers who will donate to her Healing Centre appeal. Gavin begins to realise that Elizabeth is involved together with her business partner Asherton, in seriously evil behavour. HE has enjoyed his lifestyle of making a lot of money, exploiting the admiration of rich gay men, and seducing pretty girls on the side. But he begins to feel that there is a darker side to Elizabeth and the more he gets involved with Carta and the church the more uneasy he becomes about this side of his life. He gets involved in a row with one of his rich clients, Sir Colin, who hits him and knocks him out, and he realises that this incident is on tape and may be seen by Elizabeth. This forces him to seek help from Susanne, Elizabeth's secretary who is a tough streetwise ex hooker who dislikes Gavin. He begs her for help, and she agrees to get him into Elizabeth's flat when she's out so he can steal back the tapes. Much of his sex life with the clients is taped to give Elizabeth a hold over the men. However Susanne while she helps him, also tells him that Elizabeth is cheating him.. He has an offshore bank account which he's using to save money to get out of the rent boy life, and Susanne tells him that the account is in Elizabeth's name, not his and he will not be able to get hold of his money. Gavin begins to realise more and more that he is being cheated and that Elizabeth is exploiting him and does not really care for him. He tells Susanne that he wants to get his money, and she agrees to transfer the money to a new account for him, if he will share the money with her. He decides that he has to do this, or he'll lose it, so he agrees. He tells Susanne a bit about his personal life and how he fell out with his nice middle class family when his brother died of cancer and he felt that they did not love him as much as they loved the brother. She and Gavin begin to bond.....

Heart Breaker Part I

This is Howatch's final published novel. She said afterwards that she was going to write shorter works, but they have never appeared. There seems to have been nothing from her in many years now so I suppose she has been suffering from ill health. Her last novel in the St Benets Trilogy moves on to some new characters, which I think is one of the problems of the work as a whole. In Starbridge, we get to know several characters very well over their whole lives, but in St Benets, it jerks uneasily from one set to the next. This is about another outsider who comes into contact with the church. The novel takes up the story of Carter who now spells her name, Carta, 2 years after her husband's suicide. She is living with Eric Tucker, a would be novelist.. but the 2 of them find it hard to make the commitment of marriage. Carta is much richer than him, and she still has some guilt issues about Kim. Nicholas Darrow has married Alice but his ex wife is still inclined to try to involve him in her life. This doesnt seem to ring true to me, as Rosalind was earlier desperate to persuade Nick to give her a divorce. Carta has taken up a volunteer job in the Centre, as a fund raiser, trying to raise money to improve the Healing Centre's faciilities. She admits she does not know much about fund raising but she has contacts among the rich of the City. She asks advice on fund raising from a friend, who is a corporate lawyer, Richard Slaney, and his wife Moira, who does charity work. Richard tells her that he has some family problems, and she offers to listen but he will only tell her he is in love with someone else, and that his daughter has anorexia... Then suddenly Richard dies of a heart attack, and Carta finds that the person he is in love with is another man. She knows that he met his lover in a flat in the city, and went there only to find that there is a handsome young man called Gavin Blake, who claims to be straight but who has a business having sex with middle aged City men. She is shocked and amazed, and is even more angry when she finds that Gavin is making a pass at her. Part of the novel is narrated by Carta and part of it by Gavin. We learn that he works for Mrs Mayfield who is now living under another identity as Mrs Elizabeth Delamere, and she runs psychic healing groups, sex groups and also runs Gavin as a high class rent boy.

High Flyer

The story is more exciting adventure than a religous story, as the Starbridge novels were. Howatch said some time ago that she had done a set of novels about the Church and its clergy, set in earlier days when "clergymen were gentlemen" and when the Church was a lot more formal. She hasn't been writing for many years and I imagine that she's in poor health, but she did indicate some time ago that having "Done" novels on the church and clergy, she did not want to revisit that field again. However, the novels tend to give a picture of people who are outside the Church.. and often hostile to Christianity, but they usually wind up revealing that being outside church life has led them to evil paths. So there seems to be an implication that Howatch thinks that being non religious may well mean that people end up not as commonplace ordinary people who are averagely selfish, but that they will get into serious trouble morally speaking. She is realistic about people within the church and knows that they are often far from wonderful people, but she has a tendency to over write and to show up non Christians or anti Christians as treading a dangerous path. In the second novel High Flyer, Carter gets trapped in a house with her dangerous husband, whom she has encouraged to tell her about his past. When he comes out with the story of how he had to kill his blackmailer, she realises that he may now decide that he has to kill her to stop her going to the police. Eric Tucker who works at the Centre, is in love with her, and he has followed her to the country house and helps her to escape. She gets back to London to find that Kim has gone back to their flat to get his passport so he can leave the country, but the police catch up with him and to escape them, he jumps off the balcony of their high rise luxury flat. Mrs Mayfield disappears and the police cannot find her. Carter goes through a difficult period of trying to work out why he wound up in this world of occultism, weird sexual practiices and general evil, and why she married such an awful man. She feels she can't trust Eric Tucker though she cares for him. Eventually she comes to a point of being able to forgive Kim and to at least trust Eric enough to go out with him. She has inherited a lot of money from Kim, and decides to become a volunteer for the centre....

Wonder Worker Part II

Rosalind, NIcholas' wife tries to tell him she wants a divorce but he pressurises her and even uses hypnosis on her to push her to stay in the marriage. Rosalind gives in but acts even more wildly, and in the end, Nicholas while feeling very guilty, reaises that he and Ros have never had much in common and that the marriage is over. Stacy, who has had doubts about his sexual orientation, ends up in a dreadful tangle and commits suicide. Alice realises that she idealised Nick too much but she still loves him. She can see that he has made dreadful mistakes in his marriage but she loves him and wants to marry him provided he can get his act together as regards his obligations to his former wife and his sons. The next novel moves from a lot of analysis of the Healing Centre staff to more of an adventure story. It is set 2 years later and Nicholas is in the throes of getting a divorce. Alice works as a freelance chef and gets a job doing a dinner for a successful corporate lawyer in the City. The Lawyer, Carter (Catriona) Graham is recently married to a German born man who is also a successful lawyer in a city firm. She then finds that her husband's first marriage broke up because he was, as his ex puts it, dabbling in the occult. Carter refuses to believe in this at first because she is militantly against religion and thinks that talk about the occult is nonsense. However, she meets Mrs Mayfield, who runs sex and occult groups, who cured Kim, Carter's husband of sexual problems and she realises that he has been lying to her in a big way. He had an affair with Mrs Mayfield, and used lots of women in the sex groups. She begins to understand that she knows very little about religion and that she has made a very bad choice of a husband. She goes to visit Sophie, Kim's ex wife to try and talk to her and find Sophie dead. It turns out to be an accident, she had a fall, but it frightends Carter and drives her to seek help from the Healing centre's staff. Kim has a breakdown, and ends up in hospital and when he comes out, he confesses to Carter that he used to have homosexual flings, and that one of the men he slept with blackmailed him, so he killed him.

WONDER WORKER

This is the first of the 3 novels, it also has the title Question of Integrity. The title Wonder worker refers to Nick Darrow, who is seen as a brilliant priest, skilled at working with the physically and mentally ill. He is in his forties, happily married with 2 sons and a beautiful successful wife. His life seems charmed. Then Alice Fletcher appears at the Healing centre. SHe is not well off, she is also fat and plain and struggling with life. She has been nursing her elderly great aunt, who has been a teacher and who brought her up when her parents' marriage broke up. She feels a great loyalty towards her aunt and has promised her she will look after her till she dies and that she wont die in a hospital. Her aunt is dying slowly after a stroke, and Alice can't get a job as a cook which is her profession which will help her to pay for care. She also is very shy and conscious of her plainness and as a result has no friends to help. Nicholas meets Alice at his church, where she has taken shelter when it was raining, and stumbled on a healing service. He and his co worker, a doctor called Valerie Fredericks, offer her support while she's caring for her aunt. After her aunt's death, Alice loses her house in Westminster where her aunt had a tenancy, and Nicholas suggests she looks for a job as a live in cook in upper class Belgravia. She becomes cook housekeeper to Lady Cynthia Aysgarth (daughter in law of Neville Aysgarth of the Starbridge novels) and moves into her home. Lady Cynthia is kind to her but she has trouble losing weight and does not make any new friends. Then her employer meets an American and decides to marry him and move away and Alice is homeless again. Cynthia makes a generous donation to the Healing centre and enables them to hire a live in cook and Alice gets the job. However, she finds that while she likes working there, and fits in better, things are not as rosy as they seem on the surface. Lewis Hall loses his ex wife (he is divorced) and this leaves him free to remarry, but he knows that he's not really very good with women, and that perhaps he is not designed for married life. Nicholas finds that his perfect marriage is in trouble. Nick's wife has never shared his interest in church work or healing, and is a busy businesswoman with a floral consultancy. She rather dislikes his being involved in the paranormal and also the "lame ducks" that he meets in his ministry. She lives in a country house and Nick visits her at weeekend but she is starting to get fed up with being alone all week and a husband who does not share her interests. Nick also does not realise that Stacy, the young Liverpool Irish curate who lives with him and Lewis, is getting more and more unstable and isn't really suited to the priesthood or the ministry of healing. M/F

St Benets Trilogy

This is the last set of novels written by Susan Howatch, who has not written anything for many years. They are set in the City of London, in one of the churches there, which has a Healing Centre which is open to everyone. Nick Darrow and Lewis Hall are the 2 priests who run it, who were important characters in the Starbridge novels. The books are less good than the Starbridge series. Howatch chose to concentrate on lay people who are involved with the church, more than with the clergy, and I think it suffers from that. She was not a young woman by the time she started the St Benets series, and I think her knowledge of non church going people in the 1980s and 90s was limited, and she also chose to bring in a lot of stuff about the Occult and the sex industry, which again, she probalby had no real experience with. But her novels all have something good in them, so I enjoy re reading them. I will write a bit more about the contents of the novels in my next blog.

Novellas By Nadine Sutton

I have 2 stories available on Amazon. Beds and Blue Jeans and Rough Music. They are both set in America - on in the 2010s and one in the 1970s and 1980s, they are about music and bands. Blue Jeans is about Sam, a young singer in Nashville, who sleeps around, but has a partner and baby, and tries to build up his relationship with them, and to turn his life into a new direction. Rough Music is about a country rock band in the late 70s and the two lead singers who both have problems with what they want to do career wise, and with their wives.

Good Companions finale

Jess comes back from Yorkshire, and finds that the troupe is breaking up. MIss Trant is getting married and she had been thinking of offering him some work as a handyman at her litlte house, but now she will be moving away. Susie gets a part in a West End show, and the other CP people go on with their work, the less talented and lucky ones. Susie is fond of Inigo but is reluctant to get married in case it infereres with her career. Jess gets the problem in Yorkshire sorted out and realises the police are not after him. He decides to go to Canada to live with his daughter Lily..... He moves to Canada and gets a little house near his daughter who soon has 2 children. He works with his son in law and is happy though he misses Yorkshire. Miss Trant has 2 sons and is happy though she sometimes misses the stage.

Good Companions Part II

The book follows the Good Companions around England, moving from town to town. Susie Dean the young singer and actress is clever and ambitious and determined to get onto the London stage. Inigo falls in love with her and writes songs for her. Other members of the party are not so attached to the rambling life and one of them marries a Gentleman friend and leaves the show. Miss Trant worries that there are squabbles at times, and that the show isn't making any real money. Jess keeps in touch with his family and goes home to see his wife, but finds she is not in good health but she wont talk to him about it. His son who is aspiring to a good job as a gentleman's hairdresser is never friendly with him -so he leaves, but goes back a couple of months later. He finds that his wife is in hospital, having refused to see a doctor till it was too late and she dies after he comes back. Miss Trant finds that she comes up against a middle aged businessman who has a few cinemas, and he is annoyed that the Concert party lure people away form his films and his business is falling off. He pays some roughs to catcall and boo, and to start a fight in the theatre, and in the resultant riot, Miss Trant is injured. She ends up in hospital with a broken arm and to her amazement, meets Hugh, a young Scottish doctor whom she met some years earlier while she was on a holiday with her father. She and Hugh fall in love and get engaged.

The Good Companions

This is one of JB Priestley's most popular works, a long novel set in the 1920s in England, about a concert party, a form of entertainment which was well known then. These were fairly second rate actors, comics and dancers and singers who provided amusement in provincial towns, and particularly in seaside resorts. They performed songs, comic skits and occsionally did some acting, but it was mostly variety. They were looked down on by the well to do, and the sophisticated, but when cinemas were still relatively new, and people did not have the money to go to London, they were a way of finding amusement and entertainment. The novel starts with the introduction of three characters who are outside the Pierrot world, and who join in with a concert party. One is Jess Oldroyde, a Yorkshire working man who gets on badly with his wife and son, and misses his daughter Lily, who has married and gone to Canada. Jess gets in a kerfuffle with a drunken man, on his way home from a visit, and he thinks that the law are looking out for him. Scared, he decides to leave his town and go travelling which he has always wanted to do. But he is robbed of his small bit of money and then meets up with the concert party who need a man to do props and stage carpentry. He has never been far away from Yorkshire, and is delighted to find an occupation which pleases him and gives him a chance to travel and see the shows. The other 2 are Elizabeth Trant, and Inigo Jollifant. She is a middle class spinster who has recently lost her father and has moved from the family home to a smaller house. She has a modest income and some capital and she had decided to go on a motoring holiday, after moving house. Her sister and brother are horrified when she becomes friendly with the concert party and decides to take on their managment, even though she does not have much money and knows nothing about theatres or touring. Inigo was a master at a small prep school where he was under paid, bored and ill fed and he decided to walk out and go on a tour around England and get material for a book. He liked to play piano and write songs, so when he mets up with the concert party who have been stranded with no manager or money, he takes on the role of piano player.

Pride and Prejudice Part V

Elizabeth is relieved that Lydia's marriage will stop her becoming a scandal, but she still feels unhappy and ashamed. Lydia and her husband arrive for a brief visit, before going to join a regiment in the North, and Lydia then lets slip that Mr Darcy was at her wedding. Elizabeth is shocked and writes to her aunt Gardiner askng for more information. Mrs Gardiner writes back that Darcy was the one who found Lydia and Wickham living in London and bribed him inot marrying her. Mrs Gardiner writes that she has the impression that Darcy must care for Elizabeth, or he would not have lowered his own pride to go and cajole Wickham into marriage. A little later, Bingley comes back to Netherfield, with Darcy, and he asks Jane to marry him. Elizabeth tells Darcy that she knows of his kindness in saving Lydia, and he tells her that he did it for her and that he still cares for her and understands her better now, and still wants to marry her. Elizabeth accepts him and they marry..... This is probably Austen's most popular novel. Elizabeth is charming and witty. Darcy is handsome and very rich, while the heroes in other books are not so well off or glamorous.

Pride and Prejudice Part IV

After Lydia's departure to Brighton, Elizabeth prepares for a summer trip with the Gardiners, who are planning to travel North. She is very fond of her aunt, who is a sensible kind woman and very unlike Mrs Bennet. THey go to see the beauty spots of Derbyshire and then discover that they are near to Pemberley, Darcy's home. Mrs Gardiner suggests that they go there for a visit, but Elizabeth tries to get out of it. However, she tries to find out if the Darcy family are likely to be there and agrees to go when she learns that they are not going to be there. She and her aunt and uncle visit the house, and find that the housekeeper, Mrs Reynolds is clearly fond of Darcy, but she likes the house. However, while she is exploring the gardens, she finds Darcy, who has come to the house a day ahead of his party, and she is horrified that he might think she was trying to see his house. However, Darcy is polite and friendly and welcomes her aunt and uncle, inviting them to meet his party of friends when they come the next day. The Gardiners who are in trade, are surprised at his easy manner and so is Elizabeth. She meets Georgiana, his sister, whom Wickham had told her was a very haughty girl, and realises that the girl is merely very shy. She understands more and more that Wickham told her a lot of untruths and that Darcy is a far more admirable man in spite of his pride. Then, she gets a letter from Jane, express, to say that Lydia has eloped from Brighton with Wickham and then a further letter to say that she has not gone to Scotland, but disappered and they fear that he never intended to marry her.. She meets Darcy and tells him the awful news and tells him that Lydia will have lost her reputation. He lets her go and she and the Gardiners return to Longbourn. Soon afterwards, they get news from Mr Gardiner that they have found Lydia and that she is going to be married to Wickham. Mr Bennet realises that he will need to buy Wickham off in order to enforce a marriage in a way that minimises the scandal. Mrs Bennet is delighted to have one of her girls married, not seeming to understand that Lydia's marriage will cause a lot of talk...

Pride and Prejudice Part III

Elizabeth's angry feelings towards Darcy increase, even though she can see that at times, he is embarrassed by his Aunt Catherine's arrogant rude behaviour. She knows he's more intelligent and less crude in his family pride than Lady Catherine but she is very angry that he has interfered in Janes love affair. Jane is her beloved sister and she wishes to protect her. Then after a few days, Darcy arrives at Charlotte's house when Elizabeth is alone there, and to her amazement asks her to marry him. She is startled as he has never given any indication of liking her, and he tells her that he had to struggle against his family pride and class feeling, to make this proposal. Elizabeth turns him down rudely, and accuses him of cheating Wickham out of a living. Darcy angrily that Elizabeth seems to take a lot of interest in Wickham. He leaves her, but the following day he meets her in the park and gives her a long letter he has written. He explains that he did not cheat Wickham... that he knew Wickham was not suited to being a clergyman, and that Wickham himself who had been leading a scandalous life, told him he would prefer to study law, and Darcy gave him money to further his law studies. THen Wickham tried to elope with Darcy's 16 year old sister, Georgiana, in order to get his hands on her fortune and Darcy only stopped him because Georgiana, feelig guilty, told him what she had planned. Elizabeth realises that she was naive in believing what Wickham said, because he was handsome and charming. Darcy's letter also refers to the Jane affair and he claims that he genuinely felt that Jane was not in love with BIngley. Elizabeth thinks over all she has read in the letter and begins to think a little better of Darcy, but she still blames him for Janes loss of Bingley. She is due to return to her home, Longbourne and she and Jane meet up and go back to the family home. Lydia is upset because the Regiment is going to Brighton and she wants to go there as well and Mrs Forster, the wife of the Colonel invites her to stay for a few months. ELizabeth is increasingly uneasy, knowing how silly Lydia si but her fahter agress to let her go. Elizabeth tries to tell him that the silliness and vulgarity of the 2 younger girls is enough to put off some men who might fall in love with someone in the family and begs him to restrain the girls but Mr Bennet laughs her off.

Pride and Prejudice II

THis novel is set during the Napoleonic wars and a regiment of soldiers is quartered in Meryton. The local young ladies are delighted to have handsome officers at their parties, particularly Elizabeth's two youngest sisters, Kitty and Lydia, who make a show of themselves chasing the officers. Elizabeth meets Mr Wickham, who turns out to be a boyhood friend of Darcy's. His father was the business manager on Darcy's father's estate. He tells Elizabeth that when he was a few years younger Darcy refused to let him have a living as a clergyman on the estate, which Darcy's father had promised him. Elizabeth dislikes Darcy even more, and enjoys a romantic flirtation with Wickham, who seems so handsome and charming. To her horror, however, her best friend Charlotte Lucas accepts a proposal from Mr Collins, who is determined to find a wife. He and Charlotte get engaged but Elizabeth feels she can never respect her friend again, for making a mercenary marriage with a man she does not care for or respect. The Bingley party then abruptly leave Netherfield and it seems that they are not that likely to come back. ELizabeth worries about Jane who is saddened by the sudden desertion of her young man, and she and her aunt, Mrs Gardiner who is a kind sensible woman, get Jane to go to London to stay with her uncles family, to give her a chance to get over Bingley. In the meantime Elizabeth accepts an invitation from Charlotte to go and stay with her for a few weeks, though she feels she will never like Charlotte as much again. She can see the temptation that Charlotte faced, to make a sensible marriage to a man with financial prospects but she still feels it is wrong to marry without liking or respect. She goes to Kent, and stays with her cousin and Charlotte, and thinks that her friend manages her husband very well, but she does not like Lady Catherine De Bourgh, who is Dary's aunt and owns the living where Mr Collins works. To her surprise, Darcy arrives to visit his aunt, with a cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, who flirts a bit with Elizabeth. She likes Fitzwilliam but he makes it clear that he as a younger son, cannot marry someone like her who does not have a large dowry. Then he tells her that Darcy, whom he likes, recently told him that he managed to separate Bingley from a young lady whose family were not quite genteel, and does not realise that he's talking to the sister of the lady involved.

Pride and Prejudice

This is one of Austen's earliest novels, and its generally considered the most popular. It is a story of love and class. Elizabeth Bennet is the daughter of a country gentleman, who is comfortably off but not as rich as Darcy. Her mother is middle class and silly and vulgar. Elizabeth takes a dislike to Darcy, because he is so arrogant and sneers at her for not being handsome enough to dance with Darcy and his friend, Bingley, arrive at Meryton, when Bingley rents Netherfield Park, a nearby estate. Bingley is rich, but his money was made in business. He now wants to buy an estate and rents the house, and comes to stay there with his 2 sisters, Caroline, who is attractive but spiteful, and Louisa, who is married to a man who is not that well off. Darcy is from an aristocratic family, and he domineers over the gentler, younger Bingley. Elizabeth is aware that her prospects for marriage are not good as she and her sisters only have a small portion each.. and the family estate will go to their cousin Mr Collins when her father dies. When Mr Collins comes to visit the Bennet family, he shows himself to be a very silly man, who shows a foolish admiration for his patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh who is Darcy's aunt. He is a clergyman. He offers to marry Elizabeth as that would save the family from losing the house when Mr Bennet dies. Elizabeth firmly refuses him and her mother is very angry. Jane and Bingley seem to be falling in love but Jane is uneasy that his sisters, though they seem affectionate, may not want him to marry a girl with only a small dowry, when he could do better.