I hope you're all having a lovely Easter! I am absolutely delighted to welcome Shannon Winslow, a fellow Austen Author, to my blog - she's celebrating the release of her new novel, Return to Longbourn, and she is sharing an exclusive, never-before-seen extract with us today! Over to you, Shannon.
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| Shannon Winslow |
I was delighted when Jane invited me to
stop here on my blog tour for my new novel Return to Longbourn. Writing this book was an absolute joy! It was such a treat to
have an excuse to spend time with Darcy, Elizabeth, and the rest of the Pride and Prejudice cast again, and to
revisit Longbourn, Netherfield, and Pemberley.
I pick up the story again about five years later
(after the end of The Darcys of Pemberley),
when Mr. Bennet sadly passes away. With Mr. Tristan Collins (the new heir to
the Longbourn estate) on his way from America to claim his property, Mrs.
Bennet hatches her plan. The man simply must marry one of her daughters.
Nothing else will do. But will it be Mary or Kitty singled out for this dubious
honor?
Neither of them is too eager at first. Kitty
cannot imagine how being married to anybody by the name of Collins could be
even tolerably agreeable. And, by this time, Mary is comfortably settled in her
chosen life as governess to the family at Netherfield. Well, perhaps I
shouldn’t have used the word “comfortably,” for her employer, Mr. Harrison
Farnsworth, is not an easy man to get along with. That was apparent from the
first moment Mary met him, four years past:
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| Return to Longbourn - Shannon Winslow |
In those former
days especially, the atmosphere at Netherfield altered perceptibly with the
master’s presence. An air of apprehension crept over the place from top to
bottom, as if the house itself held its breath in anticipation of some unknown
outburst or accident. Thus, it required nothing more than Mr. Farnsworth’s
suddenly coming into a room to start his wife and servants fidgeting and his
children forgetting how to behave.
Mary had
observed the phenomenon from her earliest days on the premises, and she could
not help but feel fiercely sympathetic on Mrs. Farnsworth’s account.
“So, this is the new governess,”
declared the lord and master at his first setting eyes on Mary those years ago.
Mr. Farnsworth
was not an especially imposing man to look at, being of no more than average
height and build, yet his autocratic tone made even this simple statement of
fact sound like a challenge – daring her to deny the charge.
Rising to face
him, Mary had only nodded curtly in response.
“Yes, my dear,”
his wife, who looked more frayed about the edges than usual, hastened to say.
“This is Miss Bennet, Miss Mary Bennet from Longbourn. You will recall that I
told you about her. She is a most accomplished and genteel young woman, and I
am sure she will do very well by the children.”
“I will be the judge of that,
if you please, Madam.”
“Naturally,”
Mrs. Farnsworth murmured, dropping her eyes to her lap, where her hands were
tightly clasped.
A maid, who had
come in with the tea tray, cringed as she set it down with more clatter than
she intended.
“Must you make
such an infernal racket?” Mr. Farnsworth barked, darting an eye in the
direction of the offender.
“Sorry, sir,”
said the maid as she shrank from the room.
“The rest of
you, out as well,” he said, pointing to the door. “Mrs. Farnsworth, kindly take
your children and go. I wish to speak to Miss Bennet.”
Mr. Farnsworth
had once been a captain in the Navy, so his military bearing did not surprise
Mary. Whilst the others scrambled to obey, she studied her new employer, taking
his features apart one by one – the bristling dark hair, the deliberately
narrowed cobalt eyes, the hard set of his mouth, and the prematurely graying
beard. The beard, she told herself with devilish satisfaction, had probably
been grown by way of disguising what would ultimately prove to be a weak chin.
Yes, that must be the case.
It was a trick
she sometimes used to steady herself when confronted with an ominous problem,
mentally dissecting it into a collection of smaller, more manageable bits. In
the brutish case before her, she perceived one part tyrant and one part diffident
boy, both covered over with a quantity of practiced intimidation. The gentleman
did not appear so alarming under this analysis. He was formidable, not by true
essence, she concluded. It was rather by considerable effort, as if he could
only bolster his own confidence by cowering others. Judging from the prodigious
scowl he wore, Mr. Farnsworth had next set himself the task of cowering her.
“Well, Miss
Bennet,” he commenced, slowly striding across the room with hands clasped
behind his back and a cool, sideways gaze leveled at her. “Let us come to a
right understanding at once. My wife may have engaged your services, but you
shall stay or go according to my verdict. Is that clear?”
I’m proud to report that Mary stood her
ground, earning a degree of respect and a wary truce with her employer. Then,
when his wife died, much of the fight seemed to drain out of Mr. Farnsworth.
The effects of a tormented conscience, perhaps, for treating the woman badly
while she lived? These days, his moods are so changeable that Mary never knows
what to expect when they meet – the old tyrant or the new man of enlightenment.
The only truly safe course is to stay out of his way completely.
So maybe Mary should consider making a play
for Mr. Tristan Collins after all. Then she might end by being mistress of
Longbourn instead of a governess forever. On the face of things, it shouldn’t
be a difficult choice, especially when her returning cousin proves to be
surprisingly handsome and excellent company. Still, it wouldn’t be easy to
leave Netherfield and the three children she’s become attached to. And now
Kitty has taken an interest in Mr. Collins as well, setting herself up as
Mary’s rival.
What do you
think? Should Mary open herself up – to the possibility of romance, but also to
the risk of emotional ruin? Does she stand a chance with Tristan Collins
against her younger, prettier sister? Or is she fated to find her future at
Netherfield?
I didn’t know the answers myself when I
began, but I’ll tell you this much. The story started pure Jane Austen, and
somewhere along the way it took a turn for Jane Eyre.
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Shannon Winslow,
her two sons now grown, devotes much of her time to her diverse interests in
music, literature, and the visual arts – writing claiming the lion’s share of
her creative energies in recent years.
Ms. Winslow has
published three novels to date. In 2011, she debuted with The Darcys of Pemberley, a popular sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, For Myself Alone a stand-alone
Austenesque story, followed in 2012. And now comes Return to Longbourn, the next chapter of her Pride and Prejudice series.
Shannon lives
with her husband in the log home they built in the countryside south of
Seattle, where she writes and paints in her studio facing Mt. Rainier.
Learn more at
Shannon’s website/blog (www.shannonwinslow.com),
and follow her on Twitter, Facebook,
and Austen Authors.
Thank you for joining me today, Shannon, on your blog tour and for sharing such a fantastic excerpt! What will happen next for Mary Bennet, I wonder?!!!