Welcome to the shrubbery

I realised that most of the Caroline Diary entries were all higgledy-piggledy and all over the place, making it almost impossible even for me to keep track of what belonged where, so I reposted everything in chapters and am now making this link-list for all the finished chapters.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six

Part Seven

Part Eight

Part Nine

The family tree for the Latimer family that I mentioned in my last post is now available as a pdf (I scanned the hand-written tree) in case anyone is interested.

Also available is a facsimile of a few pages of the Caroline Bingley Diaries in Caroline's own hand. Or at least as close as I can get ;-)

This just popped in my head ... don't think it'll be of any use, but whatever.

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'And how is your dear brother, Miss Bingley?' Lady Catherine inquired. 'Such a charming young man, and such a good correspondent!'

Caroline almost choked on her tea.

'My - brother?' she stammered. 'Co-correspondent?'

'Oh, yes, indeed,' Lady Catherine said. 'I am always most delighted when I receive a letter from him. They are always so full of information.'

She set down her tea-cup.

'Much better than Darcy's,' she continued. 'He writes on and on, crams his paragraphs with long words and in the end, you only learn that he had fish for supper. I ask you, who wants to pay twopence for that information? Now, your brother, on the other hand -'

Caroline reached for a biscuit, but did not dare put it in her mouth.

'- he can convey so much information on so little space. He doesn't blather around or uses unnecessary adverbs. No, he's straight to the point - none of this 'using interesting conjunctions' and bothering about the correct subjunctive - I'm not paying for grammar advice, thank you very much.'

'I always thought that my brother wrote very interesting letters,' Caroline said weakly.

'As I said, my girl, as I said,' Lady Catherine said. 'Did you not listen? Of course, I can see how duller persons of slow mind, like Darcy here, would not understand the true brilliance of your brother's letters, but I have never condoned stupidity and I will not do so now. I am sure Darcy could achieve at least decent results if he practiced more and studied less for complicated words that nobody needs. When I receive letters, I want gossip, not an etymological lecture, thank you very much.'

She took a sip of tea and then added, 'not that I do not understand etymology, of course, mind you. If I had put my mind to it, I should have been a true proficient.'

Not sure if I'll use this or not, but I decided to write an epilogue. Sort of.

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