REGINA JEFFERS, HORSE RACING IN THE REGENCY. INTRODUCING ELIZABETH BENNET'S GALLANT SUITOR.

 

HORSE RACING IN THE REGENCY

In my latest Austen-inspired novel, Elizabeth Bennet’s Gallant Suitor, part of the action centers around a horse race—specifically one with a horse called “Bingley’s T,” owned by Charles Bingley. Yes, I have Bingley take Netherfield not only to satisfy his father’s wish for his son to own property, as would a proper gentleman of the time, but also to satisfy Bingley’s obsession with horses. In my tale, Bingley hopes to develop a line of thoroughbreds. “Bingley’s T” is an Arabian mare and untested and an unknown in her first race.

REGINA JEFFERS, PEMBERLEY'S CHRISTMAS GOVERNESS: A HOLIDAY PRIDE AND PREJUDICE VAGARY

 

GOVERNESSES IN THE 19th CENTURY

Parents of the 19th Century required different skills from their governesses. Some governesses taught only a few subjects each day. Others oversaw the children throughout the day. Most families chose a particular governess for the lady’s strengths in specific subject matter. A “finishing” governess might be hired to prepare the older daughters for their society entrance. This might include music lessons, painting, drawing, singing, and social etiquette.

REGINA JEFFERS, MOURNING CUSTOMS IN REGENCY ENGLAND & WHERE THERE'S A FITZWILLIAM DARCY, THERE'S A WAY

The mourning rites we customarily think of as being so strict during the Regency era, were actually those imposed by Queen Victoria after the death of her husband, Prince Albert. Victoria was known to wear black for many years and strict forms of comportment during the mourning period. The Georgian Era/Regency held its moments, especially during the country's mourning for King George III and later, King George IV. But the mourning of individuals differed. 

MR DARCY'S BRIDEs BLOG TOUR & GIVEAWAY - AUTHOR REGINA JEFFERS, BREACH OF PROMISE LEGALITIES IN THE REGENCY

In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Miss Austen brings up the issue of “Breach of Promise Suits” as they apply to Lydia and Wickham. This exchange actually occurs after Darcy’s second proposal (chapter 60) when Elizabeth is asking Darcy when he fell in love with her:

REGINA JEFFERS, ANNUITIES IN THE REGENCY ERA AS THE BASIS OF THE PLOT OF 'MR DARCY'S BARGAIN' + GIVEAWAY

Much of the action of latest release,  Mr. Darcy's Bargain, is based around a scam perpetrated by Mr. Wickham upon the citizens of Meryton, as well as Mr. Darcy's attempts to thwart him. Wickham convinces many in Hertfordshire to invest in an annuity scheme. But how exactly did annuities work during the Regency?

First, if you are like me, your eyes blur over when people in other fields start tossing around the "jargon" associated with their occupations. I do not pretend to be an expert in such matters as annuities, but I will attempt to keep my description of public funds at the time as simple as possible.

First, there were Navy five percent annuities that were produced from about fifty millions of stock, partly formed out of navy bills and converted in 1784, into a stock bearing interest at five percent, whence the name.

Four percent consolidated annuities were popular at the time. They were produced from a like stock as was the Navy five percent funds. They offered a profit of 4% as the title indicated. They originally carried a higher percentage rate.

MR DARCY'S PRESENT BLOG TOUR - REGINA JEFFERS' S GUEST POST & GIVEAWAY

I admit it. I love autumn. I live in North Carolina where for the past two summers we have had a string of 90+ degrees days. This year, since May 27, we have had 82 such days. The lowest temperature we have experienced in three months is 83. So, I am thankful for the latter days of September and the early days of October when the heat and the humidity take a backseat. We will still receive a few days of 85+ degrees until November, but the heat eases, and people start thinking of the upcoming holidays.

Moreover, in my family, we have a series of birthdays between now and year’s end. I turned a sweet 69 years on September 17. [There was a time I thought being 69 meant one was ANCIENT! Not so much now.] My granddaughter Annalise turns 3 in early October. My stepson Tim will be 40 on Halloween. My grandson James will be 5 in early November, and his father (my son) Josh will be 32 in mid November. We have Thanksgiving in the States at the end of November [which included my late mother’s birthday] and Christmas in December. And the much anticipated event at the beginning of January will be a new grandchild. So you can see how my heart grows lighter once the heat of summer disappears.

On one of those recent hot summer evenings, I was speaking to my long time friend Charlotte on the phone, and is customary between us, we were reminiscing about some crazy antics from our childhood. Soon, I was telling her about the year I received four Easter baskets. This was a monumental event for my parents were separated in a time when divorce was still not “accepted.” My mother did not know whether she could scrap up enough money to purchase an Easter basket, and so she had prepared me for disappointment. Then God smiled on my 10-year-old self for my grandfather bought me a basket, our neighbors, who had no children of their own, did likewise, the woman for whom my mother worked presented me with a third one, and my mother was the bearer of the fourth. It was too much chocolate for one child, but I rationed it out to last a LONG time. What was odd about each was that somehow the little note from the presenters were mixed up, and I kept thanking the wrong people for the chocolate bunnies or the jelly beans. Soon the situation became a family source of laughter.

REGINA JEFFERS, THE PROSECUTION OF MR DARCY'S COUSIN - AUTHOR GUEST POST & GIVEAWAY

When I began writing The Prosecution of Mr. Darcy’s Cousin: A Pride and Prejudice Mystery, I thought to use the actual Regency era case known as “The Ratcliffe Highway Murders” in the plot line for the although a suspect was identified, the man committed suicide and nothing was proved in court. P. D. James and T. A. Critchley discuss this case in great detail (and a bit of editorializing) in “The Maul and the Pear Tree.”

However, as I set up the story line for my novel, many changes needed to be made to the actual Ratcliffe mystery to fit my manuscript. Most importantly, the Ratcliffe murders occurred in December 1811. In my books, Major General Fitzwilliam (Colonel Fitzwilliam in the original Pride and Prejudice) married Miss Georgiana Darcy right after Napoleon escaped from Elba and right before the Major General returned to serve with Wellington at Waterloo. That means my story is set in 1816.

The Major General and Mrs. Fitzwilliam have been married sixteen months and are the parents of a daughter. The major general resigned his commission and became a landed gentleman in Oxfordshire. Yet, doing so brings Fitzwilliam no success for 1816 was the “Year Without Summer,” when the ash from the Mount Tambora eruption spread across Europe, England and America, disturbing the weather and disrupting crops. Fitzwilliam knew much success as an Army officer, and this “failure” plays hard with his nature.

I used the concept of the mass hysteria associated with the Ratcliffe Murders in this book. What would happen if several gruesome murders occur in Wapping? What if the prime suspect is the son of an earl? Would justice prevail? Would the victims, part of the poor of London, know justice? There are bits of Jack the Ripper-like hysteria in the tale.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, JANE AUSTEN! REGINA JEFFERS, WRITER

What would my life have been without Jane Austen? Regina Jeffers answers: 

If Jane Austen had not quietly crept into my world when I was but twelve, I would have developed a liking for Edith Wharton, and a recent New Yorker article summed it that possibility: “Nobody Likes Edith Wharton.” In 1929, Janet Flanner described Wharton as: “On the whole she finds herself living in a generation in which conversation is lost. She is a dignified little woman set down in the middle of her past. She says that to the greener growths of her day, she must seem like a taffeta sofa under a gas-lit chandelier. Certainly she is old-fashioned in that she reserves her magnanimity for special occasions. In belief she is still nothing of an iconoclast but has become liberal through reflection.”
 Now, I ask you what kind of role model would that have been for an impressionable young girl, who was inflicted at birth with the “Cinderella” gene? A girl who craves her “Happily Ever After”? I prefer my characters to learn to love intelligently, as well as to have the weak and the powerless protected by a formal code of behavior. I also prefer the “sound” of Austen’s slightly biting voice in my head rather than the sound of wealth and disdain found in Wharton’s novels. I was raised on the ideals of duty to society, the want for education and extensive reading, religious seriousness, and the need for manners. I required an author who would speak to those issues and provide them importance. So, without Austen, I would go to sleep with images of Selden discovering Lily’s overdosed body or of Zeena tending to Mattie after Ethan Frome’s death. I am much more inclined toward the delicious Mr. Darcy, the honorable Captain Wentworth, and excessively understanding Mr. Knightley to the “reality” of Wharton’s works. In truth, there is already too much reality in my life; I require my HEA to know hope for a brighter tomorrow. That is Jane Austen’s place in my life.