Just read somewhere that I'm not supposed to be doing a Q and A on this website so I've changed this to my thoughts and comments based on your feedback and reviews (surely, I can have a right of reply?!). I quite enjoy this interactive feedback especially when the Australian language sometimes confound you!
So, below are my updated and meandering responses based on your comments and reviews:
And there we have it! :-) I hope you've enjoyed this fluff. I'll shut this down by the end of the week and label it as complete. Thanks again folks for your feedback. I've thoroughly enjoyed reading them.
Ok peeps, I'm now winding down these extra post-get together life for ODC. I only have a couple of more chapters left for them. I think I've tied up most of the loose ends but as Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli once duetted about, "It's time to say goodbye" (con te partiro)
I hope you've enjoyed the 40 extra chapters or so thanks to YOUR input :-)
It's been a blast! I've enjoyed writing about these fantastical scenarios and reading your comments.
So like last time, I'll leave this open but I'll write a more extensive epilogue if you have any more questions and then close this fan fiction and then satisfyingly label it as complete :-)
Re: race. JA was more interested in class than race. Except for Emma and the attitude towards gypsies (probably similar to the attitude some still display today), race never came up as an issue in her novels. Persuasion would have been a good exploration of this issue since Captain Wentworth travelled but JA retreated back to her safe middle class background as opposed to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. Wentworth would have been exposed to the different cultures of the world that's why I find that story not as persuasive in the modern world. Anne would have a career instead of waiting and Wentworth would have been with any woman he met on his travels who appreciated his hard work.
A modern relationship could be possible if Anne was required to travel to the same places as him - unavoidably - instead of being stuck in Bath. But Anne pines and waits as an impoverished aristo, so I thank the suffragettes for changing that attitude. Of course the American million dollar princesses show that titles still have cachet despite their impoverished title holders.
That's why I've tried to make Georgie more than as merely Darcy's younger sister eventhough she's still an idle trust fund baby. If a modern Wickham was successful with Georgie, she'd have left him asap. The JA age of Georgie would have made her jailbait hence finding a believable reason for her trauma was the thing I struggled with the most. Unfortunately, being raped during freshers' week is not an uncommon scenario. Deflowering a Darcy would have been a goal on someone's bedpost, as unfortunately, our own colleges show with their hazing issues (see the Elizabeth Broderick report on university rape culture and the current trial of Bruce Lehrmann over his alleged rape of a female staffer at Australia's Parliament House).
It's hard, in today's modern world, to avoid race and see issues of covert or overt racism. It will be an ongoing conversation so it's hard to explore it even in this fanfic. I've kept it fluffy because I read to escape!
We travel globally, we meet different people from different countries. Cross-cultural relationships are inevitable (Georgie and Wayne) and unavoidable in cosmopolitan cities like Sydney (Lizzy and George). Character, action and merit are more important than what a person's skin colour is. Don't know JAFF and AHA so can't possibly comment :-)
LOL Batman - glad someone picked up on that! It was unintentional truly (though there are bats in the cave). I came up with Bruce for a really Aussie ocker name (see Monty Python). And as you can see I played into the naming stereotypes (Hamish and Duncan in Scotland). But when I had to come up with a Balinese name, the Anglicised version would be closest to Wayne or sound like Ryan. Wayan means first-born son and only after I started writing the story, I thought uh-oh, someone would put Bruce and Wayne together. So thank you my eagle-eyed reader. I thought I'd be the only one LOLing over it.
Re: understated - less the PDA but more the material wealth he could shower her with; ie Elgin which she objects to. But yes, I take your point LOL.
Sorry, not a travel writer. I wish! That would be my dream job - be paid to travel and eat LOL. Sydney has so much international food it's incredible - so food unites the cultural differences of this city. Also, food and travel are good conversation starters ie "small talk". Beats the weather anytime. Ask your immigrant Sydney taxi driver where his favourite eats are - good way to breach the cultural divide and get to know the city a bit and its many different subcultures.
Not an aristo either but have travelled a lot. Who has not watched or read "Brideshead Revisited" and "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" and their movie adaptations "Valmont" (Colin Firth and his baby mama)/ "Cruel Intentions" and thought that set is truly stifling? "Another Country" is an early Colin Firth movie - highly recommended. To counter that of course is a French movie "Les visiteurs" which shows how modern post-revolutionary French aristos live. The kissing cousins bit is hilarious - see also "Four Weddings and a Funeral" with the toff who's not the sharpest tool in the shed.
Then again one thinks of the Habsburgs and inbreeding didn't really work out for them...
What I think shows JA's naïveté is she was solidly middle class and Darcy to her (and I supposed to most of us on here) is the ideal romantic nobleman, not fucked up like most of them (see George Byron, the 7th Marquess of Bath and so many others) and let's not go into the slavery and colonialism bit. I once asked a French acquaintance what she thought of the Grimaldis, specifically Stephanie and she said her set avoided them like the plague.
So my Darcy is like most HEA Darcys on here, projecting my ideal - noble, loyal, easily misunderstood, has the luxury of wealth and means to fix things, but also has a heart of gold for the right Lizzy. I also think Darcy's also lonely just with him and Georgie. No material wealth can ever replace his lack of kinship ties (excl Lady C and the Matlocks).
Too many real life Darcys, I believe, have married Caroline Bingleys and instead of bringing the best out of one another, the marriages have become stale and the Darcys cheat to escape their marital prisons.
Fun fact: Australian Opera singer Dame Nellie Melba's (Peach Melba!) granddaughter married into the Vestey aristo family. So Australia has many aristo and aristo-adjacent people including a what if the succession line for the English kingdom followed male primogeniture and the heir-general was a rice farmer from Jerilderie, a town famous for Ned Kelly the bushranger. See C4 2004 doco "Britain's real monarch" aka Michael Edward Abney-Hastings, 14th Earl of Loudoun.
Charles was expecting to introduce Darcy to Lizzy at his wedding which he did not attend. I explain why our ODC never met up in Chapter 8: William Darcy. And yes Darcy's pretty judgy towards young single mums, so a good thing they didn't meet until James was older!
Re: Nusa Penida - Hidden enough for Georgie! I could have chosen any tropical island getaway in the Pacific. Bora Bora is a nice spot but too well known. And since there are so many Aussies in Bali, hard not to do the 'Georgie in Bali' thing LOL.
@Cari1201 Gracias! "Se non è vero, è ben trovato" LOL
LOL at bike ride. My SO also suggested that. Something about female riders showing their g-strings when they ride...I'll try to weave that in ;-)
@levenez Yes, Georgie leads a lonely life that's why I struggled with her the most. But people deal with trauma in different ways so Georgie has the means but not necessarily the support given it's just her and Darcy. I had the option where her life went on the rails - see Schapelle Corby case in Bali - but she strikes me as person who was specifically targeted easily and was the wrong person at the wrong place. So a predatory phantom Wickham in this case who is still unknown. Darcy will have her perpetrator killed so I might leave this hanging in the air. Her HEA will be more of a slow burn than Darcy and Lizzy.
The Camino de Santiago de Compostela is a medieval pilgrimage route on par with Jerusalem and Rome. It has had a revival these past few decades. A good film to watch on the Camino is 'The Way' with Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez. Pamplona and Burgos are two major cities on the route. Pamplona is known for its San Fermin festival thanks to Ernest Hemingway's book 'The sun also rises'. Lots of young Aussies go to Pamplona just to run with the bulls! So, Pamplona loves Papa the way say Bilbao honours Gehry. Pamplona is also Basque. Burgos is Castilian and a Royal city. They have nice cheese. LOL
I'd like to think the twins were doing penance or doing la ruta terapia instead of partying in Pamplona or they could have joined Hamish's other minions in Ibiza. Perhaps they went to Ampleforth College (Catholic school for English aristos) and they have a better chance of finding a new patron on the Camino.
Why did it take so long for Darcy to act even though he heard their slurs? Because he was jealous over Al, and Al, as agreed, was inseparable from Lizzy at Pemberley to fend them off.
Darcy was in a bind because he was the host and invited these people along see Chapter 56: Darcy's birthday - where Lizzy understands why he behaved like he did. He was trapped. Hard to turf out all your peers at the Cup over a woman who brought another man along. Darcy wasn't going to burn his bridges because Al was there with Lizzy. He'd be thought a cuckold. Darcy didn't realise they weren't a couple until Lizzy told him so.
The rugby field was the first time Darcy was right next to her with one of her tormentors and Lizzy finally divulges exactly what happened at the opera. She tried to hint at this in the Scared chapter. I think anyone would be hurt at the slurs because what Lizzy thought was the beginnings of a beautiful relationship was tainted and thought of the worst by Darcy's social set when they hadn't even kissed at that stage! They're cynical because they've also been hurt. There's a lot of damaged people who find joy in being cruel to others. I think that's why they live in bubbles because that reinforces the herd mentality of said class. Lack of social mobility reifies that.
So this time, there's no Al. Lizzy is still upset over what happened to her and Darcy realises this. If she weren't, she'd have moved on. But she hasn't. That's why he's so apologetic. He needed a catalyst to respond.
While Lizzy found satisfaction kneeing Hamish at Chapter 55: The Darcy Cup, she hadn't with Percy. Lizzy's own personal honour needed satisfaction. This time Lizzy is in Sydney, her territory. Nobody messes with her at home. She wanted blood from Percy. Darcy finally intervenes. Darcy is also thinking long-term to have Lizzy return to Pemberley.
The major difference between the two men is that Al uses his wit, while Darcy uses his wealth and privilege to finally do right by her. Darcy can be slow when it comes to his outward displays of affections for Lizzy (no longer after the Sex Chapter!) and his timing's poor but he gets there eventually.
Pongy, pronounced as po-ngee. It sure is LOL. Georgie has a sensitive nose.
The Bennets' Longbourn are a Federation home in the lower north shore and near a ferry wharf. It is north and east of the bridge. As is our ODC's new home. Barangaroo is where Darcy's family office is located and is south and west of the bridge.
There are no exes of Darcy Lizzy needs to be concerned about. And Darcy won't subject her to them. Once an ex, always an ex. Charles mused on their love lives in Chapter 8: William Darcy. Their love lives were pretty dire.
That's why Darcy was upset in Chapter 64: Scared. Lizzy was avoiding him because he knew what it meant. She was cutting him off and cutting him out of her life. She wanted to move on from their catastrophes every time they got together. Her conversation with tante in Chapter 50: Windmill Pub was her perspective on her 'friendship' with Darcy. And he didn't want that. Obviously.
James and Darcy's relationship are evolving. I'm sure they will fight at one stage - when he's a teen or something. LOL
I have no connection to any tourist authorities / agencies of the countries I have mentioned here, but I think they should pay me LOL. Except London. Or Derbyshire.
I can definitely recommend the Vivid Festival if you want to visit Sydney. The only downside is, it is our winter here (so like Lizzy, please bring along your cashmere coats, socks, beanies and gloves LOL). The upside is that it is FREE and you need at least a couple of nights to a week to see everything as it is pretty spread out. If you have any Sydney friends, ask them if you can visit Sydney during this time while you forego your northern summer. Vivid only comes alive at night. I went to Vivid this year and I managed to get five nights' worth of viewing in but I probably only saw just a slice of the festival and missed out on some of the headline attractions (here's looking at you smoke and light show rave party at the Goods Line Tunnel with your impossible queue). My profile photo is of one of the Vivid installations at Barangaroo :-) You can easily spend one night at the Opera House, one night at Darling Harbour, one night at Taronga Zoo etc. There's too much to see and yes, there are crowds. Best way is to take the ferry around the harbour so you can have the best view of the Opera House show without the crowds at west Circular Quay. It feels like every night is NYE for the weeks it is on. For those of you who have spent Hogmanay in Edinburgh, the cold weather will not deter you!
The Hunters Hill place is big! It has wings people! Enough space for people not to walk in. Poor Aunt Georgie, she's become James's babysitter. LOL
Lizzy has never brought any man home she's dated. I covered this in Chapter 72: Shoal Bay Beach. So yes, James in his naivety has never been in that situation before - and same with Darcy. He's never dated a single mum before.
Lizzy has been protective of James. She's covered her experiences of dating emotionally damaged men in Sydney in Chapter 41: The Common with her aunt Maddy, and Chapter 48: The invitation.
She wasn't going to introduce those types of men to James! James has his alternate dads like Charles and John so James thinks it's more of the same with Darcy except Darcy is very physical with his mum.
Glad someone liked the cashmere condom bit LOL! Let's face it, imagine someone walking in head to toe (insert designer of your choice) is a borderline fashion victim. Lizzy's JoE habit is OTT.
Re: marriage proposal - won't be for awhile yet. Use your imagination for the time being in the Epilogue. LOL
Percy's sister - see Chapter 45: Don Giovanni; she first gets a mention in Chapter 25: The second audition. Should I give her a name? Penelope or Penny? Persephone or Persie like her brother? Open to some jolly hockey sticks type of name. Should I give her a Cambridge Blue? Darcy would have one ;-) LOL
On second thoughts, probably not. Percy's sister doesn't deserve much and has a good dose of karma arriving her way. She's fucked in London now.
I could have made the Don Giovanni chapter worse and made it more personal for Lizzy by including slurs against James. My point was that Lizzy had been in a bubble after her Scottish trip with Darcy. See her conversations with her tante where she's oblivious about the implications of dating Darcy. Until then she didn't care much about what people thought. Darcy was afraid what she would do if he exposed her to his world early - see Chapter 34: Hogmanay.
Don Giovanni showed Darcy was a man of immense consequence and whoever dated him... well, there would be consequences too. So after Don Giovanni, she suppressed whatever feelings she had for him and made sure she was armed with Al - because Lizzy's a fighter. That's why she avoided Darcy when he returned to Sydney. She didn't and doesn't want to be part of his classist / feudal world.
We use Roman numerals for traditional English games.
XV = 15. There are 15 players from each team on a rugby field. There are 30 players in the field of play.
XI = 11. There are 11 players from each side on a cricket field. The 12th man is the extra (drinks buddy).
When you read 1st XV, 2nd XV, 3rd XV etc it means the 1st XV are the best players, 2nd are the reserve players but can be feeders to the 1st XV etc.
The more teams you can have in school rugby the more resources you have obviously.
All brawn, no brain - anyone who has watched a post-match interview with a sports player would understand this. They just came off the field of play exhausted and they can't string two words together. It's a stereotype of a sports player who has been professionally conditioned for their sports, so don't expect any discussions of Foucault, Derrida or Wittgenstein with them. They only want to get drunk after the game. LOL
Percy might still hang around but he and his sister have been reduced in their circumstances. They now need to manage their champagne lifestyle on a beer budget. Still haven't decided whether they should rent out Sydney or rent London. There'll be vicious schadenfreude with either city. If Percy's sister wasn't such a snob, New Zealand or the USA would be a good place for them.
As for Hamish. He's truly fucked - instead of the twins, he'll have prison buddies. Shout out to Kevin Kwan's 'Crazy Rich Asians' for the threesome thing LOL but my Darcy is a far better gentleman. The UK SFO investigated Harlequin Resorts and it jailed its Chair David Ames for 12 years - I've had to quickly Google fraud cases LOL!
Yippee! One of you wants Georgie in Bali. I'll set up a subplot for that because let's face it, Georgie's getting sick of the cold in Sydney. That's why Georgie will never live in England. It's colder than Sydney. Canadians would tell me their tales of woe growing up in the boondocks with two metres of snow during winter. They're never going back. You can tell in Sydney who the tourists are from cold climates vs tropical climates. Cold climate people - they wear shorts once the temperature goes over 10C (Hairy Kiwis in shorts lol). Tropical climate people - they wear jackets once the temperature goes below 20C.
Re hooked up - context I guess. One-nighter : one night stand; hooked up for the night : one-nighter. Since their relationship is only a week long, Lizzy's not thinking too long-term. She's enjoying the unabashed romantic Darcy who's no longer hesitant. He still second guesses her but they're getting to know one another and Lizzy is starting to compromise (eg the boat - pre-Darcy Lizzy would have torched it) and picking her fights with him more. He's a lover not a fighter. LOL
However, John has forced both of their hands on moving together. For many couples now - I think - it's the moving together that is the bigger commitment - the wedding's just the formality so there'll be no destination wedding for them. So yeah, Darcy's rushing her! Once Darcy knows what he wants, he just waits for Lizzy to catch up with him. He bought a house within 24 hours and sorted her Scottish trip in two hours so he's a quick decision maker!
I've read some of the fanfics here where Darcy and Lizzy both marry other people and they are sooooo sad :-(
I also never got the third Bridget Jones' film where Mark Darcy and Bridget had divorced and they were trying to get together again. Darcy would have never divorced Bridget/Lizzy! If Darcy is supposed to be the ideal fantasy man then the third film, I thought, was unconvincing ex-canon.
Austenland captures some of our high expectations when it comes to Darcy. The scene where the ex-boyfriend destroys Colin Firth's cardboard cut-out is LOL. Who is Darcy? Where is Darcy? Does he truly exist? Well, we all want him to exist :-)
Yes, poor James. As the Notorious BIG once said: Mo' money, mo' problems.
@levenez - He took the week off. He "delegated." He'll be back at work next week, something something about Percy's companies. LOL
What about James? You're going to get James! Patience peeps! LOL
On Fanny and why she diverges from canon, I've tried to cover that in the earlier chapters. Let's face it, her arguably most sensible and intelligent daughter falls pregnant in her early 20s with someone she's disapproved of (she's a snob to George and his parents - poor table manners!), Lizzy's lover dies (Fanny feels very guilty - the killed were going to the Bennet home because they'd never go to the western suburbs for lunch!), never saw Lizzy in tears until then, Lizzy wants to commit suicide whilst holding her new grandson...The dynamic would change. Fanny can still be obnoxious when she wants to be (Netherfield dinner) and she thinks Lizzy can be dim (mother knows best), but I think Lizzy's circumstances have brought them closer together because it was unexpected for Lizzy to become this single mother who'd mope around like Queen Victoria: "I do not mope" (but she does!) So Fanny the mother hen has come out and my Fanny at least has a better relationship with Lizzy (Fanny tells me what to do LOL).
How casual is sex in Australia / Sydney? Depends? I think we're more open to talking about it (eg brewers droop, rooting, shagging) and that the environment tends to encourage it outdoors (topless on the beach, pregnant women in bikinis at the beach, nude-only beaches, pool sex, national park sex, camping sex, tropical sex, waterfall sex etc).
Our ODC took nearly a year to get together so that's why they're having so much sex now. Waiting a year to have sex with someone you've been interacting is unheard of for singles in Sydney! Third date sex seems to be the unwritten standard? Who's never had sex while having a boring FaceTime call? LOL
If Darcy didn't have to leave Sydney after his Newtown / Hunsford proposal, I reckon Lizzy would have eventually slept with him to get the sexual attraction - that they both feel - out of the way after one of their fencing nights. Then again that would have opened a divergence from my plot where Darcy could have evolved to become her fuckbuddy (which she avoids) and all its confusion. But it's also hard to fuckbuddy a person who is your brother in law's best friend. You don't shit in your own backyard.
Most couples here tend to move in first together while other couples don't get married at all as they're recognised as de facto marriages even without the ceremony. So we don't have that rigidity in other places when it comes to sex and marriage, but at least in this fanfic, Lizzy and ex-Bohemian Fanny can talk about sex freely and given their closer bond, I don't see why they can't discuss their sex lives with each other. But other Aussies may disagree LOL.
@liketoreadnotwrite Which uni? Open to all suggestions LOL Do you really want Lizzy to stay at a cold, dark, damp Pemberley in December OVER an Aussie summer at Port Stephens? LOL
Thanks for all your comments on Darcy and Lizzy's post-get together life in Sydney. I'm afraid this will be the boring stage of living the mundane so there won't be much action. Unless I send them across the Pacific to San Francisco for work? Any American takers? (Nobody wants the Georgie in Bali scenario where she hooks up with a Balinese Prince - sniffs)
And for those of you who are keen on the pregnant-baby epilogue expansion, that will take me awhile to get there! Once I get the "no more please we are sick of this fanfic" stage I will organically wind this down. LOL
There seems to be delays with the comments posted on the website vs those posted on the app. So to all my guests, some of your questions have already been responded to so you may not be reading the latest chapters - get the app! It's so much better!
Rugger bugger : rugby union player. They're chunky and meaty with thick necks especially if they're front row forwards. Watch the Rugby World Cup or Six Nations. LOL
Fanny is a former Bohemian - see Chapter 3 'An accident'. She likes sex and because she's not getting any, she'll talk about it. Including to Darcy. LOL
Plots and sub-plots are all over the place now! LOL
For the time being they'll be in Sydney. London's far away as it's bad memories for both of them. There could still be room in their life for Pemberley - if you note, Darcy does his hemispheric travel when it's summer on either side. He's a workaholic and needs to chill.
Darcy does buy-outs as it's easier. Does Lizzy keep her maiden name? Yeah I think she would. She'll be Mrs Darcy when it suits. ;-)
@levenez thanks for your suggestion. That will have to be a London scene. And Darcy will pull his rank and wealth if somebody hurts his Lizzy again. Kevin Kwan's 'Crazy Rich Asians' has several instances of the consequences of insulting the very wealthy. Buying the London hotel in the book/movie was a power move. But you see that expressed all the time.
The film 'Les Rois Mages' had a scene where one of the three kings was insulted by the receptionist and a sheik came in to exercise his power play.
But back to Kwan, there are also rewards from the very wealthy to save / prop-up the insecure and arriviste husband of Astrid Leong which didn't really work out in the end as his ego couldn't handle the inequality in wealth, status and class. The Crazy Rich Asians characters needed to work. Too much idle richness which destroyed the personalities of the people.
Lizzy has her work which has become an extension of her personality. She isn't just Darcy's bit on the side and she has forged her own character outside of meeting him. She has James. She is a mother - and all its attendant baggage of guilt and responsibility - long before she is Darcy's lover. She has less to lose than Darcy if their relationship fails. She has experienced loss already with George and she now knows how to bounce back from tragedy (with a great deal of help from her family AND work AND James). Whereas Darcy has known loss of his parents but not a relationship like Lizzy. So he'll be the one who'll emotionally struggle if their relationship does not work out. Maybe the stiff upper lip will help. In 19th century British India, a lot of British officers had liver problems so alcohol may help dull the pain.
Interesting to note that both Colin Firth and Matthew MacFadyen were fathers already when they played Darcy in the adaptations. That probably gave them the empathy on the screen when it came to unrequited love after Hunsford - something that may be difficult for a bachelor to achieve on screen. Pity there are no single mother Lizzys on screen! Maybe back to the Madonna-Saint/whore dichotomy faced by women even these days (LOL "allurements" from Lady C is such a double entendre in canon).
Kwan's books also expresses the post-colonial mindset of former British colonies with respect to London. Kwan, I think, was inspired by P and P in his novels too as there are many parallels but the Darcy in his book had an extended family interfering in his relationship at every turn. But that's to be expected with modern medicine and generational wealth at stake. Does the partner of the heir or heiress have the right credentials to meet the family's expectations, not only his? But his Darcy chose love - so omnia vincit amor is universal regardless of time, space and culture.
In hindsight, maybe the Darcy parents should have remained alive in my fanfic. Hmmm...
Anyway, gotta love Kwan's book as the bachelor's party ended up at Uluṟu!
Lizzy DGAF about London (except for her family there) and London has such bad juju. Seems to attract really bad events eg Wickham and Lydia in the canon.
JA lesson: Don't go to London! LOL
Darcy will have to wind down his life in the northern hemisphere. He needs Lizzy more than his wealth. Lizzy completes him, she makes him content. But it will take awhile to wind these interests down hence he's asked Lizzy for 'patience'.
LOL how and when Fanny finds out Lizzy is:
a) dating Darcy
b) pregnant again
LOL ;-D
Ok my demanding readers, I shall supply and wing my way through in the aftermath of the D and E get together. If JA had you as an audience, she'd never have finished P and P! Whatever happened to Georgiana? Who does she marry? Did she ever marry? How many children did Charlotte have? Did Charlotte have sex or was Mr Collins too busy tending his bees to copulate?
I'll try to answer your queries over the next whatever interest there is for this.
Yes I like Al too - he's special. He's named after a former Australian Wallaby rugby union player but not gay in real life. He's a composite of great actors in the Sydney theatre scene.
I'll write about him way, way AFTER the Port Stephens chapter. My epilogue chapter looks it's going to be expanded as a result. LOL
Officially this fanfic ended with the "Sex" chapter - so anything after that is because YOU demanded it. LOL.
This is going to be one of those endless Star Wars Opera spin offs but hey, if I'm only going to write my one and only fanfic I might as well go for broke!
Anyone interested in Georgie going to Bali and doing an "Eat, Pray, Love" thing? LOL
Someone earlier mentioned Wickham. There's a Cape Wickham here on King Island which is a lighthouse-golf course place now. King Island is on Bass Strait which separates Tassie from the Aussie mainland.
If you're from the (Tobias) Furneaux Group of islands - Flinders and Cape Barren - Tassie is your mainland like the Maria Islanders; so you're the island off the island off the island.
Sorry, island joke.
Cape Wickham is also the name of a famous double brie cheese here produced by the King Island Dairy Company, a famous cheese company. Try their triple brie if you can. It's fattening!
If you ever get to watch "Upper Middle Bogan", King Island cheese is referred to it, so's the Blue Mountains. It's a modern take on Australian class divisions so highly recommend it.
While JA has disabused the Wickham name, he's known as a nice unctuous fattening cheese here. LOL.
Ok I'll write a Port Stephens chapter later this week since they're now officially together.
Re: Morningside was/is a posh suburb of Edinburgh. Think Maggie Smith's accent in 'Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' or as Minerva McGonagall in 'Harry Potter'. Compare her accent to Ewan McGregor's accent in 'Trainspotting.' It's the differences between Received Pronunciation (RP) or BBC accent vs the dying Cockney accent; or the refined Australian accent (see Trude and Prue in the original 'Kath and Kim') vs the ocker or broad Aussie accent of Paul Hogan / Crocodile Dundee. Accents, again, are an indicator of class distinction (see Pierce Brosnan' explanation in the rebooted 'Thomas Crown Affair' - Crown is originally Glaswegian and has a Caribbean pad LOL though he's not as noble as our Darcy).
The point with the Morningside accent is to anticipate the Hamish/Lizzy scene. Didn't expect Hamish to take so much space but he's evolved to be the villain in this story and he needed his comeuppance because Lizzy is a kick-ass woman who can handle assholes.
My Lizzy is closer to the Lizzy character in the P and P Zombies who looks sexy (the first five minutes of that movie with the corsets and the garters and the suspenders with the hidden knives is cinematic erotica), knows herself, and doesn't really need a Darcy to 'complete' her. Darcy in that film (he needed to be taller) needs her more and it's the same in my story. Why would a modern career woman need a Mr Croesus when we see billionaires with baggage behaving badly? So this is where the intangible compatible things matter more than the material things a modern Darcy can offer. Thank God for the suffragettes!
Hamish probably went to Fettes College (aka Fetid College - sorry Fettes please don't sue me, this is what ex-Fettes people tell me). Fettes ignobly had Tony Blair as an alumnus from that school. After Fettes, Hamish directly entered the British Army (can't believe I have a background story on Hamish now!). I think Gordonstoun caters more for the English and not the Scottish crowd so Fettes, and not intellectual Eton, for Hamish.
Sorry my Scottish readers. I'm sure the real life Hamish is a Sassenach with vast estates in Sutherland. LOL. That being said - go devolution! LOL
So I finished this ahead of the month of the intermezzo as I did not want this hanging over my head. Pleasure before duty! Arghh!
Nevertheless, I hope this was a nice surprise to you all my dear readers. :-)
I now look forward to Aussie fanfic versions of Lizzy and Darcy in Melbourne (LOL Darcy fails as a barista and Netherfield or Pemberley is located in the Mornington Peninsula with an "Upper Middle Bogan" theme), in Brisbane, in Perth etc etc.
So to my fellow Aussies - it's your turn! Have done my Sydney contribution!
I struggled with two sub-plots.
One I included, the other I excluded.
The one I included was the Georgiana sub-plot but I had some guidance from the characters. So I think I've managed to weave her in the text adequately. One sub-sub-plot saw Lizzy and Georgie playing Mozart's K382 Rondo together but it seemed superfluous - the Byron villa atmosphere didn't suit the music as opposed to a Pemberley drawing room setting. There's a German movie called 'Trillertrine' which looks at this piece.
I would have included more music but it evolved so that the locations in countries became more important as chapter titles due to the constant travel the characters made.
The one I excluded was the Lady Catherine de Burgh sub-plot.
I was ambivalent about whether to have the welcome drinks for the Darcy Cup at Rosings/De Burgh House in Hampstead Heath so that would introduce Lady C but decided not to. Sorry Lady C, Darcy's a modern man.
So that took away the sub-sub-plot of Lady C visiting Fanny in Sydney and I had this entire scene where Fanny invokes her Irish ancestors (victims of the potato famine) against the feudal oppression of the real life De Burghs/Fitzwilliams/Darcys who were historically wealthy Anglo-Irish landowners. That's why I had Edward Gardiner re-named as Edward Gardiner Kelly (possibly related to Grace Kelly).
Oh well.
I'll leave this sub-plot up to your imagination.
"Lost in Austen" already did a similar scene / confrontation where Mrs. Bennet said to Lady C "sweep, sweep, sweep!" which made Mr Bennet rediscover his libido for his wife.
I suppose you could argue Hamish became the modern day version of Lady C.
While I was writing the fencing sequence, I realised the theme of foils and foiling were present. Al was obviously the main foil and I could have probably used him more but the Darcy Cup was getting too long and in the end I felt sorry that Lizzy used him so. Aussies amidst British snobs are an unedifying sight - we either get very drunk or retreat. Unless of course if they're the northern Britishers of good Yorkshire and Lancashire working class stock. The town of Bingley is located in West Yorkshire.
I thought of Colonel FitzWilliam as the second son of the impoverished Duke (not Earl) but didn't want to belabour the point. Al needed a shag at the end of his service at Pemberley. I also didn't want to delve into Colonel F who would have provided support to Darcy. I had already used Matlock so was done with that connection. Bingley probably had a bit of Colonel F in him and Darcy went to Sandhurst so he doesn't need Colonel F. Maybe someone like the hot Major Johnny Thompson. Oh well!
Al did attend the wedding with the Gardiners.
The last scene in Ridley Scott's film "A Good Year" is how I envisage the HEA of our sexy couple in the Byron Bay villa - Tom Hollander's (William Collins in the P and P film) character telling off Russell Crowe's character:
"You realise of course you'll never last there...And as impossible as it may seem, the very things you find unique now will soon become the dread of your day-to-day existence...And then after months of eating, drinking, sleeping and fucking, what have you got to look forward to? Boredom!"
Hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I've had fun writing it. We have many beautiful places in Australia but Byron called for the last scenes. LOL. Gotta love Byron! (Georgiana in Byron; Lord George Byron etc)
The alternative was a Pemberley island on the Whitsundays but my characters never favoured the location.
I couldn't believe I hadn't written a bikini scene until Byron - neither Darcy nor Lizzy swam at Hyams Beach as the waters off the south coast aren't as warm as the sub-tropics of Byron so I made sure the winter pool scene was possible because the Byron pool was heated! LOL. Details!!! Perhaps if I wrote the scene earlier, they'd have gotten sooner together?
As for their eventual residence, it would be in Australia (Sydney first but they could move to Melbourne for example) with the Byron weekender. I never got to explore Lizzy's beach house - oh well it's there when she gets pissed off with Darcy; I did have a sub-plot where she goes there after a fight and he finds her. Maybe post-wedding.
If things go well with James, I envisage him following in the footsteps of Taiwanese-Australian violinist virtuoso Ray Chen. I've watched him perform at the Sydney Opera House and he was brilliant.
Pemberley would be turned into one of those country houses opened to visitors - maybe an "Heir BNB" (cf Tahani Al-Jamil in 'The Good Place'). Lizzy hates the English class system. It's an oppressive, outdated system so her relationship with Darcy would not have survived had they moved to Pemberley. And Lizzy's a diligent public servant. LOL.
For real life comparisons, see actress Rachel Ward and her Australian actor husband Bryan Brown. Rachel Ward is the grand-daughter of the 3rd Earl of Dudley. Rachel Ward's sister Tracey was married to the 12th Duke of Beaufort, Bunter Worcester. Tracey's now divorced from Bunter.
Rachel and Bryan are in a film called 'Palm Beach' which was a location I thought for Darcy's Sydney pad but wanted something more central and old money. Traffic up Palm Beach on Barrenjoey Road is depressing and there aren't too many helipads around the area so he'll be run out of the peninsula by neighbours. Anyway, he has Byron.
If you want to check out some of the Australian places I've mentioned, have a look at our real estate websites such as Domain or RealEstate dot com dot au
More trivia: JA once wrote about Don Juan / Don Giovanni: "I have seen nobody on the stage who has been a more interesting Character than that compound of Cruelty and Lust."
Specific responses to comments:
@ibethgarcia Agree with the sentiment that Darcy should have defended Lizzy more against Hamish and his crew. But Darcy is part of that class and it will take awhile for him to disengage (which he also tells Lizzy in the "Scared" chapter). See also how the British Establishment is treating Prince Harry in real time. They're awful people and he is only one man against an entire elite class - see the dilemma people have in the chapter "Darcy's birthday" of the repercussions between choosing Pemberley or Lauriston. I could have made the chapter "The Birdsville Track" longer so that would reflect the arduous resources Darcy quietly deployed to help Lizzy and her family. Saving the lives of three people (Lydia, Kate and David) and therefore preventing Lizzy from being re-traumatised again over her previous traumatic event (George and his parents) is heroic and shows deep love on his part. Yes, it was lust at first sight but I think the physical attraction between these two can't be ignored. He's a sexy man so I'm not going to apologise for his lustiness.
@levenez thanks for your chapter comments LOL - hope you sleep well now not waiting for my updates!
Thanks to the following for expressing their enjoyment:
@liketoreadnotwrite and the Guest posters.