The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After (16 page)

N
ot long ago, I told my husband that the more I read Jane Austen’s novels, the more I foresee some rough spots ahead for the Knightleys and the Darcys.

Mr. Knightley, who believes he could never love Jane Fairfax because she “has not the open temper which a man would wish for in a wife,” still doesn’t know the extent of Emma’s deviousness at the time of their marriage.
²²
By the end of the novel Emma is going around saying (in imitation of the man she loves),
²³
“Oh! if you only knew how much I love every thing that is decided and open!” But she has proven to us time and again that for her, giving up scheming is like peeling an onion with your fingernails.
²⁴
What will Mr. Knightley think when he finds out that Emma’s matchmaking extended to mistakenly encouraging Harriet to believe he loved her, and that she egged Frank Churchill on to bully Jane Fairfax with suggestions that Jane was in love with a married man?

But the Darcys are likely to have an even rougher marital adjustment ahead of them. My husband, who’s much less social than I am, found my worries about them quite compelling. Especially when after a party at our house I quoted him Darcy’s confession of his social awkwardness—“I certainly have not the talent which some people possess, of conversing with those I have not seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done”—and Elizabeth’s retort—“‘My fingers,’ said Elizabeth, ‘do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women’s do. They have not the same force or rapidity, and do not produce the same expressions. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault—because I would not take the trouble of practicing.’”

“He
is
going to be miserable,” was my husband’s immediate reaction.

Darcy—really a shy man, more than a proud one—is a sensitive plant compared to Mr. Knightley, who will undoubtedly be able to cope with Emma. Elizabeth Bennet can be awfully sharp, and Darcy, as she notices even in the first flush of happy love, “had yet to learn to be laughed at, and it was rather too early to begin.” When Elizabeth does begin laughing at him ... is he going to like it?

Hearing my worries about the Darcys and the Knightleys, my husband said, “You’d better quit reading those novels, or you won’t be able to write your book.” And I said, “No, no. It’s not
like
that. Think about
us
.”

Jane Austen’s blissful couples are going to be all right, really. When my husband and I first fell in love, we were just as caught up in each other’s perfections and the prospect of total bliss as Elizabeth and Darcy. And of course we turned out not to be perfect, either as individuals or as a couple. We both have hard edges and weak spots. We’ve hurt each other. Happily ever after is not quite like what we pictured, looking ahead. But looking back, the initial bliss doesn’t seem like something to be cynical about. It wasn’t a cheat. It was a good beginning.