The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy

Table of Contents

 

 

 

When I was a little kid playing with my toys in the den,
my grandmother, Helga Franklin, sat down with me and I
proceeded to explain to her the complex backstories of all
of my assorted action figures in great detail.
“Marsha, how do you come up with all these stories?”
she asked me. I've never been able to answer her.
This is for you, Grandma. It'll have to do.

“Everybody likes to go their own way—to choose their own time and manner of devotion.”

JANE AUSTEN (1775 – 1817),
MANSFIELD PARK

WELCOME, READERS! Quite a bit has happened in the world of the Darcys and the Bingleys since Jane Austen left off with them, so let's do some summaries to help everyone catch up.

After their most joyous coming together in
Pride and Prejudice
, Elizabeth Bennet married Mr. Darcy (of Mr. Darcy fame), and her older sister Jane Bennet married Mr. Bingley (of Darcy's friend fame). Seriously, if you're a little foggy on your
Pride and Prejudice
, I suggest some freshening up. At least rent the movie or something. Anyway, the Darcys and the Bingleys proceeded to have a whole mess of kids. (Fortunately, not all at the same time.) The Darcys' oldest child is Geoffrey Darcy, and the Bingleys' oldest child is Georgiana Bingley.

Caroline Bingley, Charles's unwed sister, became involved with a Scottish earl, who then turned out to be a rake, and by that I mean a nineteenth-century scoundrel and not a gardening tool. This was all exposed in time for her to also reveal she was actually in love with the impoverished Dr. Daniel Maddox. Dr. Maddox lost his social standing when his older brother Brian gambled away their family fortune. After some sword fighting and the bad guy getting clobbered with a candlestick, Dr. Maddox and Caroline Bingley were married.

Mary Bennet, Jane and Elizabeth's unmarried sister, returned from studying in France and brought the news that she was with child, the father being an Italian seminary student. Darcy and Elizabeth traveled through Europe to find him, on the way discovering that Darcy had an illegitimate half-brother named Grégoire Bellamont-Darcy holed up in a French monastery. Mary's wouldbe suitor was found and he offered her a settlement. Mary had a son, Joseph, and is currently unmarried and living with her parents. Darcy also discovered that George Wickham (the villain in
Pride and Prejudice
who seduced and married Lydia Bennet, the youngest Bennet sister) was also his half-brother. Their family reunion went the worst possible way, with fratricide and a complete lack of potato salad. Lydia got over her husband's death rather quickly but was left with two children, George and Isabella Wickham. Brother Grégoire, still a monk, went to live in Austria. Dr. Maddox and Caroline Bingley had a daughter, but also adopted a son—the bastard child of the Prince Regent and a prostitute—named Frederick (the son, not the prostitute).

(There will not be a test. Just so you know.)

When Napoleon invaded Russia in the tumult of war, Darcy lost track of his brother, Grégoire, and Dr. Maddox lost track of his brother, Brian, who was supposed to have married a Transylvanian princess but then disappeared. The two of them traveled to Austria to find them, but ended up in a Transylvanian dungeon as hostages, and their wives ended up rescuing them after locating Grégoire. Brian Maddox and his wife, Princess Nadezhda, reappeared after being missing for two years, having taken the long way home to England via Russia and Japan. So it turned out they had been fine all along. No one was thrilled to hear that the happy couple had been so thoughtless. They brought with them a mixed-race Japanese convict named Mugin, whom I only mention because he pops up from time to time.

Lydia Bennet remarried and had a whole mess of kids with her new husband, Mr. Bradley. Kitty Bennet, the last remaining
Bennet sister to be mentioned, got married to a Mr. Townsend, a story really not worth going into because she isn't a very interesting character so I don't like to spend a lot of time with her.

After the war, Grégoire Bellamont-Darcy moved to Spain, his previous monastery having been dissolved by Napoleon.

There is also a Bavarian saint named Sebald buried in Darcy's graveyard instead of his traditional home in Nuremburg, but there's a long story behind that, so just take it for what it is.

 

Marsha Altman
New York, NY
2011

Bold
face indicates living,
italics
indicates deceased.

Assorted:

Assorted:

CHAPTER 1

“BROTHER GREGORY,” said Prior Pullo, “the abbot requests your presence.”