Page 1 of The Secret Diary of Anne de Bourgh

18 February 1814

Today is the day that my cousin Fitzwilliam Darcy takes to wife Miss Elizabeth Bennet of Hertfordshire.

Today is the day when all hope ends. I wish I were dead.

19 February

Goodness me, what a melodramatic mood I was in yesterday! Anyone would think me desperately in love with Darcy. I’m not, of course. I love him dearly, and I did wish to marry him. But it would never have been the passionate marriage it is clear he will have with Miss Elizabeth – Mrs Darcy now, of course. I do wish Mother had relented and let us go to the wedding. I am sure Elizabeth would have been beautiful with her dark hair a glorious contrast to the cream satin gown Georgiana told me she planned to wear.

I liked Elizabeth very much when we met last year, though I am sure she thought me a poor feeble creature. She dared to stand up to Mother as I have never seen anyone do, not even Uncle Matlock. She was perfectly civil, yet Mother could never quite get the better of her. I was not in the least surprised to see Darcy staring at her constantly, nor when the rumours reached us of their engagement.

I’m happy for Darcy and Elizabeth, truly I am. I must keep telling myself that, or I shall again fall upon my bed weeping because he did not marry me.

20 February

I have not explained why I wanted to marry Darcy when I do not love him as a wife ought. I fear Mother might find these pages. Yet I must write it somewhere.

Darcy would have taken me away from Rosings.

I hate this place. No one else will marry me unless he wants Rosings, and then I shall be kept here all the same. Darcy would have insisted upon Pemberley, and Mother would have remained behind.

I want to be away from Mother even more than from Rosings. How I envied Miss Elizabeth’s – Mrs Darcy, I must remember she is Mrs Darcy now – ability to defy her with such charm! When I am in my mother’s presence my tongue seems to freeze to the roof of my mouth and I can barely utter a word unless it is a simple “Yes, Mother.”

24 February

It is Thursday and finally I have enough energy to stay awake in the afternoon while Mrs Jenkinson takes her nap. How I hate the beginning of the week. Every Monday Dr Thornely comes and every Monday without fail for the last ten years he has insisted on bleeding me. How Mother can still believe that this is good for me I cannot fathom. Surely it is time for a new treatment, a new doctor, something? But all of my pleas and reasoning – with Mrs Jenkinson, I cannot find the courage to raise the subject with Mother – fall on deaf ears.

Oh, God, Darcy, why did you have to fall in love? Why could you not have just given in to Mother and taken me away from this hell? You would have found a new doctor, you would not have forced me to be bled and to drink potions which make me feel so queasy I cannot eat. I no longer know if I truly am sick or if my illness comes from the treatments. Perhaps one day he will give me too much of a potion, and I shall not wake. I am ashamed to find that I do not much care.

9 March

Well, I daresay that is what I deserve. After my last entry I drove my phaeton to the vicarage to see Charlotte, hoping she might cheer me. And of course, to suit my miserable mood, the skies opened on the way home and I was quite drenched. By nightfall I had a nasty case of the shivers and by the morning it was a full-blown influenza.

Now I remember what it is to be really ill. Dr Thornely was summoned and immediately announced I needed to be bled again: I am afraid at that point I gave into a most unladylike fit of hysterics and accused him of being a monster who was trying to drain me of blood for nefarious purposes. Of course my mother then accused Mrs Jenkinson of letting me read Gothic novels.

Well, in the end I snatched the scalpel and told the doctor I would let ten times as much of his blood as he did of mine, and he went away in a huff. I do not know where I found the strength: it must have been the fever.

I don’t recall exactly what it was that I said, but I made some sort of bargain with Mrs Jenkinson that I would take medicines and accept any nursing without fuss so long as I was not bled until the illness was past. It seems I do not want to die after all. If the doctor had bled me while I was fevered, I might not have survived.

10 March

Charlotte came to see me today. She had assisted Mrs Jenkinson in nursing me, and it seems that I may have said a few intemperate things when the fever was at its highest. I do not recall, but she looked at me oddly and asked one or two questions about why I dislike the doctor so much.

I wish I dared confide in her, but what, after all, could Charlotte do to help me? She visits me solely on Mother’s sufferance, and she is answerable to that toady little twit Mr Collins, who would rebuke her for questioning Mother.

I did my best to distract her by demanding every detail of Fitzwilliam’s wedding and ignoring Mrs Jenkinson’s interjections that Mother did not want it spoken of.

11 March

Mother received a letter from Mrs Darcy today. She sat debating with herself for a good half hour whether to read it or throw it on the fire, but in the end her curiosity won out and she opened it. She read it through, sneered and left it on the table in the hall. I pilfered it on the way upstairs for my afternoon rest and here reproduce a few paragraphs. Oh, Elizabeth is a delight! I wish that Darcy would bring her here for Easter, but I quite understand why he will not.

“Dear Lady Catherine,

I thank you for your letters. Although both arrived on the day of our wedding, I am afraid that both Fitzwilliam and I were rather too occupied to attend to them until the following day.”

Hah, they were too sensible to allow Mother’s ill-will to spoil their wedding-day, is what she means!

“My husband has requested that I apply my letter-writing skills in responding to both. I regret that he does not feel himself equal to fully addressing your concerns at this time.”