As Good as a Lord...P.O. Dixon

Available on Amazon

I am happy to welcome P. O. Dixon back to More Agreeably Engaged. It is always a pleasure, Ms. Dixon. I am quite intrigued by your new release, As Good as a Lord, and the character with the starring role. I agree with you on the comical rantings of this particular character!  Dear Readers, let us know what you think and if you have any favorite rants by this person named below! Your comments will enter you in the giveaway! Yay!

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The title of my newest release is As Good as a Lord. With such a title, can there be any doubt of which Pride and Prejudice character has a starring role? If you guessed Mrs. Bennet, then you are correct.

Many of Mrs. Bennet’s rantings provide some of my best laugh aloud moments in the story.

Here’s one of my all-time favorites:

“Oh! I am not afraid of her dying. People do not die of little trifling colds. She will be taken good care of. As long as she stays there, it is all very well.”

By the way, that particular quote to some extent inspired parts of As Good as a Lord. Of course, the following passage is the primary inspiration for the story:

“My dearest child,” she cried, “I can think of nothing else! Ten thousand a year, and very likely more! ‘Tis as good as a Lord! And a special license. You must and shall be married by a special license.”

As Good as a Lord includes the following question as its premise: What happens when Mrs. Bennet learns that her headstrong daughter has refused the hand of a second respectable man in less than six months?

I hope you will enjoy the following excerpt from Chapter 1.

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Elizabeth sat up in bed. “Jane, you will not believe what happened to me while I was in Kent.”

“Does this have anything to do with Mr. Darcy?”

Puzzled, Elizabeth asked, “Why would you think that?

“From my knowing he was there also. It is no secret that the two of you do not always get along, despite his having confided in you regarding Mr. Wickham’s true character.”

“Oh, dearest Jane, that is precisely the reason I find all this so troubling.”

“What happened? Did the two of you get into some sort of altercation?”

“In a manner of speaking that is exactly what occurred. That is to say, immediately after he offered me his hand in marriage.”

Jane gasped. “Are you—are you secretly engaged?”

“I most certainly am not!” Elizabeth stiffened. She thought she heard a thump from the other side of the door. “Did you hear that?”

Jane could not say that she did.

Elizabeth shrugged. “I suppose it is merely my imagination. Who would be afoot at this hour?” Having reasoned away the sound to her satisfaction, she resumed telling Jane all those things she could about the proposal.

“Why did you not tell me any of this before?”

“You cannot know how much I wanted to tell you, but I did not want to put you in the uncomfortable position of keeping secrets from Mama. Oh, Jane, you and I know only too well how impossible my life would be were our mother to learn that I spurned such an advantageous alliance.”

~*~

The moon was high in the midnight sky, and the lady of the house was quite restless. This must certainly account for Mrs. Bennet’s being out of bed at that hour when the house was otherwise still. That and a healthy dose of fate, for what she heard while passing by the slightly ajar door of her eldest daughters’ room might very well be the means of changing the rest of her life. Why, she was certain it would. She only needed to devise the means of using this newly discovered information to her best advantage. The first half hour after her startling discovery she spent pacing the floor.

“What a sly creature Lizzy is,” she cried to herself for she was the only one in the room. “Everyone in Meryton is aware that Mr. Darcy was in Kent at Easter. Sir William saw to that bit of information—he and his daughter Maria Lucas. Lizzy said nothing of his being there. Of course, no one expected her to. Everyone knows how much she has always hated the man. Nevertheless, is that any excuse to refuse such a man as Mr. Darcy? Oh, what on Earth was she thinking?”

Mrs. Bennet drifted to the window and stared out into the darkness. Fretting while watching the moon slip behind the clouds, she said, “Obstinate, headstrong girl! She has been the means of frustrating my hopes not once but twice. Who does she think she is always rejecting proposals of marriage from decent, respectable men?”

The aggrieved matriarch was half-tempted to march into her husband’s room, awaken him from his sleep, and consult him on the matter. Indeed, she made it to the door before the memory of what had happened last autumn halted her footsteps. Alas, recollections of the nasty business with Mr. Collins flooded her mind.

“I will not marry the odious man! You cannot force me to, either!”

Mrs. Bennet winched. It was months ago and yet her daughter’s defiance distressed her still and gave her cause to wonder what she had done to deserve such a disloyal child. She had thought that surely her husband would be an ally in forcing Elizabeth to be reasonable, even though he always considered their second born his favorite. His flippant reply had been the means of placating the latter and wounding the former.

“An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day, you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do.”

Mrs. Bennet, who had persuaded herself that her husband regarded the affair as she wished, was excessively disappointed. Her own husband had been a party to ruining her fondest wish that the next mistress of Longbourn would be one of her daughters owing to that ridiculous entail on the estate to the male line.

“I shall have no help at all in getting Mr. Bennet to force Lizzy to marry where she will not this time either.”

Such a marriage would be the means of saving us all, she silently lamented. “Why, even I would not have been so foolish as to refuse such a man as Mr. Darcy, even if he is haughty and above his company. The man has ten thousand pounds a year. How rich and how great she might have been! What pin money, what jewels, what carriages she might have had!

“If only I’d had the slightest hint of Mr. Darcy’s regard for Lizzy, I might have better spent my time encouraging a match in that quarter. Instead, I wasted my time on his inconstant friend, Mr. Bingley, and my Jane. Mr. Bingley is nothing to Mr. Darcy—nothing at all.

“Lizzy might have had a house in town! Everything that is charming! Ten thousand a year, and very likely more! ‘Tis as good as a Lord!”

A fierce motherly impulse infused Mrs. Bennet’s resolve. “I cannot stand idly by and allow such an opportunity as this to escape. Mr. Darcy proposed to my Lizzy once. Surely he can be worked on and thereby persuaded to do so again. I shall take matters into my own hands to see that he does.”

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Loved the excerpt from Chapter 1. I can just hear Mrs. Bennet and see her 'nerves' on full display. Oh, but to wonder what she will do taking matters into her own hands...that is a scary thought, indeed! ;) Thank you so much for sharing this excerpt and your favorite rants! Now readers, it is your turn to have 'your share in the conversation'! Tell us your favorite rant/rants by Mrs. Bennet and you will be entered in the giveaway! P.O. Dixon is generously offering one paperback of As Good as a Lord, for giveaway, US only, and one digital book of the same, worldwide! Fantastic, isn't it! Thank you, Ms. Dixon, for this opportunity for my readers! The giveaway will end at 11:59 PM, 28 September, 2015. Good luck to all!