Pamela Aidan - These Three Remain

2. As one of the world’s most celebrated writers, Shakespeare’s plays are performed with regularity throughout the United States. Find a local performance of Much Ado About Nothing, or rent Kenneth Branagh’s 1993 film rendition, to watch a couple who spar with as much wit as Elizabeth and Darcy. You can even make a night of it with members of your Book Club!

With such beloved characters, the pressure to write a fantastic climax to the Fitzwilliam Darcy, Gentleman trilogy must have been great. Can you tell us a little about your process for writing These Three Remain?

This book was far and away the most difficult to write. That it was finished at all is due in great part to the encouraging yet critical help of my husband.

As I wrote a section, he would read and critique it with an honesty that sometimes smarted but was always with the goals of keeping me on target with Austen and the characters as I had drawn them and challenging me to become a better writer.

 The details of Rosings Park truly make the magnificence of the garden come alive for readers. Did you visit any such estates or parks for inspiration?

I’ve been to Europe several times and toured gardens in France and Italy as well as paged through books about gardening and its history. Gardens were a deeply integral part of European homes, whether wealthy or not. Great changes in gardening philosophy had occurred during the fifty years before and during this time period that relate to how people of the time regarded nature and their place in it.

 The scene at Lord and Lady Monmouth’s soiree introduces the historical conflict between the Irish and the English. Can you elaborate a little on the state of affairs between these two peoples at that point in history, and on why you chose this subplot?

Ireland was a conquered land and all the worst excesses of occupation that accompany that fact had and were being visited upon its people. The other factor in its oppression was Ireland’s Catholicism. Since the time of Henry VIII — excluding the reign of his daughter Mary — Catholics had not been allowed to vote for fear that the Pope would then be able to reinsert himself into British politics. During the Regency, the loyalty of the Irish troops in the war with Napoleon became a serious issue, as was the loyalty of Irish peers, so “The Catholic Question” (i.e. their enfranchisement) was taken up by Parliament. Prince George had previously let it be known that he was in favor of giving Catholics, and therefore the Irish, the vote and full citizenship in the Empire; but when he became Regent, he disavowed it and the upheaval of a war-time political scene pushed it back out onto the fringe of consideration. Ireland had long been sympathetic to France due to their shared Catholicism and lately their overthrow of a hated aristocracy. Some British Whigs were also sympathetic to “republican” ideas. Then, there was the assassination of the prime minister in 1812, when Pride and Prejudice is generally allowed to have taken place. It seemed hard to ignore.

Its usefulness as a subplot only occurred to me when I decided to bring Lady Sylvanie back into the story. In her, I had a half-Irish villainess who had disappeared, only to marry an old classmate of Darcy’s. Characters and events began to fall into place in my mind, and I decided to use Sylvanie and her new quest for power through politics to bring Darcy to a situation in which he finally was forced to admit that he no longer could trust his own judgment or perception.

The twist of Lord Brougham’s being a spy was surprising! What inspired you to shape this character into a man of intrigue?

Dy Brougham was a surprise from the beginning and was another one of those characters that appeared full-blown almost out of nowhere and told his own story whether I liked it or not! Of course, Sir Percy Blakney — the Scarlet Pimpernel — was a model in some ways. I wanted Darcy’s friend to be a character of great wit and yet a mystery. But any true friend of Darcy’s would have to be much more complex than a public clown. By creating him as a domestic spy, he immediately became someone who could appear and disappear from the storyline and yet be incredibly well-informed and capable when he was needed. As the story progressed, the usefulness of his “occupation” dovetailed so well with his friendship with Darcy, that it became integral to the plot.

You’ve added quite a bit of material to the story, including new scenes, characters, and significant events that never graced Austen’s pages. Did you feel like you were “filling in the blanks” of Pride and Prejudice, or did the story take on a life of its own?

Both of your surmises are true. The trilogy was always meant to be more than merely a converse look at Pride and Prejudice. Its beginning was the intriguing question: how did Fitzwilliam Darcy change so dramatically between the opening pages of the book and his reacquaintance with Elizabeth at Pemberley, a change not only in his inner man, but one that carries him to great personal acts of charity involving a man he has every reason to hate? To discover this, there had to be a significant “filling in” because it was an entire blank! That is why Elizabeth is not in every scene, why the events of Duty and Desire, why the new characters and scenes. How else can we get to know Darcy and see him change than by observing him in his world and plunging him into challenging situations? Then, also, the story quite often took on a life of its own. There were times I felt more like a secretary taking down dictation from all my characters than their creator!

This gives a “behind-the-scenes” look at some of the most exciting plot points in the conclusive chapters of Pride and Prejudice. How did you choose which events to highlight?

I chose the ones that seemed to me to be the most difficult for Darcy to deal with: challenging his long-held assumptions, demanding he make a choice, or sorely testing his new growth, understanding, and character. Some of them were great fun to write, almost writing themselves, and others were very difficult. And, frankly, some just offered delicious moments of high drama!

Will you explain the significance of the title, These Three Remain ?

These Three Remain is a portion of the New International Version’s translation of I Corinthians 13, the famous chapter on love written by the apostle Paul that is often heard at weddings. There he lists admirable character qualities and actions, but states that without these things arising from love, they mean nothing and will not, in the end, last beyond the grave. But (in verse 13) “These three remain: faith, hope, and love (charity, in the King James Version), and the greatest of these is love.” Throughout the trilogy, these three concepts — along with the related one of mercy — have challenged duty and desire as the keys to character and living a worthy life.

The primary male characters in this novel — Richard, Darcy, Brougham, and Bingley — are all more sentimental and romantic than readers may be used to when it comes to reading about men and love. How would you compare them to the heroes of today’s romance novels?

That is a question I’d like to hear answered by my readers! I don’t read much Romance nor do I write by formula. So, please, let me know!

There are new Jane Austen spin-off novels and movies being made every year. Do you have any favorites you’d like to share with your readers?

I don’t read other Austen spin-offs that have to do with Pride and Prejudice because I don’t want to be influenced by them. A friend of mine is publishing her take on Persuasion: Fredrick Wentworth, Captain in late 2006 that is great fun to read. My favorite movies besides the 1995 Pride and Prejudice are the version of Emma with Kate Beckinsale and Mark Strong and Persuasion with Amanda Root and Ciarin Hinds, as well as the wonderful rendition of Sense and Sensibility with Emma Thompson, etc.

Is it safe to assume Mr. Darcy is your favorite Austen character? Do you have other favorite romantic literary heroes?

Yes, you are perfectly safe in that assumption! Sir Percy Blakney, the Scarlet Pimpernel, mentioned previously would be another.

Now that the trilogy is complete, what’s next?

I want to write a follow-up book on the Darcys and tie up some deliberately left loose ends. Principally, I want to write Dy Brougham’s story and intersect it with Darcy and Elizabeth and their young family and an “of age” Georgiana Darcy during the years shortly after the war with Napoleon ends.