Within Thirty Miles

At the end of Pride and Prejudice, Austen settles Jane and Elizabeth “within thirty miles of each other”. This is the year it took.

December 1812. A fortnight married, Elizabeth Darcy sits at the breakfast table at Pemberley with a husband she loves and does not yet wholly know, and a letter from Lydia in Newcastle. Lydia asks for nothing. She says so twice, and mentions the price of coals.

Someone is paying the Wickhams’ bills, and nobody is saying who. Elizabeth has her own reasons for keeping quiet; Darcy, it seems, has his. Each means it kindly. Each believes the other need never know.

At Christmas 1813, with the Bennets under Pemberley’s roof and the park white with snow, private kindnesses begin to come to light. Then Elizabeth and Darcy must reckon with what their silences have cost, and with how far each can trust the other.

Within Thirty Miles is the first volume of The Longbourn Years, a continuation of Pride and Prejudice in four volumes.