The Winter of Our Discontent: A Pride and Prejudice Variation (Pride and Prejudice Variations)

by Grace Gibson

when it came time to give Mr Darcy his gift, I admit to being quite nervous. I only got him a book, and a silly satire at that. And after the beautiful pearl he gave me, I felt quite wrong in my choice. I sat back and put down my pen, recalling the look on his face. “Gulliver’s Travels?” he had asked in the strangest, most bewildered tone. “Well, y-yes,” I stammered. “I made a joke about Captain Pedro de Mendez and discovered your sister had never read it.” He stared at me and so I blathered on. “I was sure a library such as yours would have a copy, but after searching quite methodically, I never found it. So, I went to the nursery⁠— “You went to the nursery?” he asked numbly. “Well…yes, to find Gulliver’s Travels, and there it was, but with the entire voyage to Laputa cut out and many other pages shockingly vandalised. I found this, a printing of that same year, for your library…” My monologue dwindled into a feeling of dread. The room fell silent. Mr Darcy looked down at his book and traced the embossing of the leather. “Thank you,” he eventually said. “Have I done wrong, sir?” I asked. Really! I sometimes felt as though there was a story in that house that I did not know, and when I touched upon it, everyone’s eyes fell to the ground, and I was left stupidly ignorant of what I should or should not have said. “What? Oh no. No, of course not.”