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As the eldest Fitzwilliam child, Lady Catherine thoroughly resented the fuss that was made over her younger brother (anointed Viscount Ashbourne and the heir to the Earldom) and spent a great deal of time and energy working to make her parents (and everyone else) acknowledge her own superiority.

Perhaps because of his elder sister’s constant desire to outdo him, young Lord Henry learned early to get his way through steady, reasoning stubbornness rather than tantrums. His skills at mediation would later aid him when he took his place in the House of Lords.

Lady Anne was younger than Henry by six years and vastly different from her elder sister in both looks and personality.

Blond and pretty where Catherine was dark and angular, musical and artistic where her sister was direct and tactless, Anne was a quiet child with a natural warmth and desire to please.

Lord John and Lady Alice spent little time with their children, leaving them in the care of nurses and governesses as was customary.

However, when the family did gather together, the parents would laugh to themselves that three more different children could not exist in a single family.

According to the Fitzwilliam family tradition, their son spent time working on different parts of the estate to gain a better sense of what the tenants and staff did.

Catherine, being only a year older than Henry and exceedingly strong-willed, often managed to insert herself into whatever he was doing.

Although Lady Alice drew the line at any manual labor, she did not think it so bad for a ten-year old girl to spend some time in the barns, learning to milk a cow or feed the hens.

Like her husband, the Countess believed that it was important for her children to understand the responsibilities that came with their birth, not solely the advantages of wealth and position.

This upbringing would serve Lady Catherine well when she married Sir Lewis de Bourgh at twenty-one (he was thirty-four).

Despite her pedigree and dowry, few suitors had shown any lingering interest in the Earl’s eldest daughter over her first two seasons.

Lady Catherine was flattered by Sir Lewis’ attention, even if he was only the second son of Lord Maxwell de Bourgh, Baron Ramsey.

She reassured herself that his status as second son was redeemed by the de Bourghs’ great wealth.

Sir Lewis courted her assiduously in the salons and ballrooms of London and they married at the end of the Season.

Unfortunately, the bloom of her newly wedded state wore off quickly.

Sir Lewis moved his new wife to his estate in Kent and set about his marital duties with great pertinacity if not finesse.

Upon ascertaining that she was with child, he returned himself to London for “business.” At first the young bride believed him but as weeks went by with little or no communication from her husband, Lady Catherine’s opinion plummeted.

As the months passed, the lackadaisical management of the estate also became clear to her.

Sir Lewis de Bourgh had no interest in the property except that it continued to fund the lifestyle to which he was accustomed and occasionally served to host a country house party for his friends.

Catherine’s family, had they known of the situation (she was too proud to tell anyone), could have predicted what happened next.

Despite being several months pregnant, the young wife began to take the reins of the estate herself.

It required every ounce of her formidable will to browbeat the servants and tenants into acknowledging her directives after being accustomed to the freedom of an absentee landlord.

The steward, a Mr. Gibbs, was nearing fifty and, having been born at Rosings Park where his father had served as steward, fully intended his own son to follow in his place.

As the de Bourgh family had paid little interest to the management except that its rents continued to fill their coffers, the Gibbses were accustomed to carry on as they deemed best.

In spring of 1777, Catherine gave birth to a healthy boy and her husband returned in time to christen the babe Frederick Alexander Montgomery de Bourgh.

Sir Lewis paid little attention to his wife when she attempted to discuss her concerns over the estate.

Under the guise of celebrating the birth of his heir, he assembled a large house party, although more gambling and drinking occurred than fishing or hunting.

Soon Catherine was pregnant again and de Bourgh departed Kent, feeling that he had fulfilled his duties as husband and landlord and was justified in enjoying the benefits of his position far away from his disagreeable wife.

Lady Catherine’s life followed a similar pattern for several years but as Frederick was followed by another boy (Herbert Malcolm Godfrey de Bourgh), she felt justified in barring Sir Lewis from her bedchamber.

For the most part, that gentleman preferred the more compliant opera girls and courtesans he frequented in town, but on the rare occasion that he found himself in Kent he would demand his rights as a husband out of principle.

One of those occasions resulted in the birth of Miss Anne de Bourgh, nearly ten years younger than her eldest brother.

Unfortunately for the new babe, neither of her parents saw much use in female offspring, particularly one that seemed to cry constantly and in such a shrill tone that the nursery was removed to a distant wing, far from the family apartments.

Anne’s wet nurse was hired just as she was weaning her own child, so even that woman had little affection to spare for her Ladyship’s colicky baby.

As Anne grew, she progressed from a noisy babe to a nearly silent child, often hiding from her loud, jolly brothers and critical mother.

Of her father she knew nothing at all except for a portrait in the gallery—that gentleman had not even bothered to attend her christening.

Although Lady Catherine attempted to instill what she considered to be Fitzwilliam family values in her sons (to varying degrees of success), she largely ignored her daughter.

Even as her brothers were educated by a series of tutors and then sent off to school, Miss de Bourgh grew up with the same woman who was first hired under the title of governess and later promoted to companion.

A young widow, Mrs. Jenkinson was a good woman but any spirit she arrived with was rapidly crushed by Lady Catherine.

She did her best to educate her charge but lessons were frequently interrupted by Anne’s many childhood illnesses.

After much tribulation, reading was mastered once Mrs. Jenkinson discovered Anne’s taste for fairy stories and romantic novels.

Lady Catherine would have been scandalized by most of the books purchased under the guise of “school texts” but it was a well-kept secret between student and teacher.

The collection of penny dreadfuls and trite romances squirreled away in Anne’s bedroom was never brought to the notice of her mother, who much preferred to call the girl to wait on her than to visit the nursery.

Mrs. Jenkinson did have some talent for music and had brought her small pianoforte with her to Kent after selling off all the other furnishings of her dead husband’s house in order to pay his debts.

In her rare free moments, the widow would closet herself with her old instrument and play songs that reminded her of a happier time.

To that woman’s credit, she made a valiant attempt to teach the young lady but it was soon clear that in addition to a weak voice, Anne was entirely tone deaf and without any sense of rhythm.

Thus singing and playing were given up, though they explained to Lady Catherine that it was on account of her daughter’s poor health.

All of this changed in the summer of 1800.

In 1787, Lady Anne Fitzwilliam had married an untitled but tremendously wealthy and well-connected gentleman named Mr. George Darcy.

The match was shockingly advantageous for the Fitzwilliam family and Lady Catherine was extremely displeased that her younger sister had surpassed her.

Despite her elder sister’s sniping, the new Mrs. Darcy settled in Derbyshire to enjoy her exceptionally happy alliance.

Before her second wedding anniversary, Lady Anne bore her husband a healthy boy, the heir to Pemberley, christened Fitzwilliam in honor of his mother’s family.

Sadly, subsequent years brought a series of miscarriages until the year of young Fitzwilliam Darcy’s tenth birthday.

Lady Anne had not told her husband of her failures; they had occurred so early that he had not noticed any change to her figure and she was uncomfortable speaking with him on such intimate subjects.

Thus, the continuation of this last pregnancy through those uncertain early months to the point that she felt the babe quicken made her alternately euphoric and fearful.

Mrs. Darcy went into labor more than a month early and so it was that after breakfast on his tenth birthday, young Fitzwilliam was brought to his mother’s bedchamber and introduced to his new baby sister, Georgiana; it was a precious memory that he would treasure for the rest of his life.

It had been a difficult delivery and Lady Anne had been attended by only her mother-in-law, the midwife, and her friend, Rebecca, the vicar’s wife.

Her sister had been present for her previous confinement but because of the premature labor, Lady Catherine did not arrive at Pemberley until baby Georgiana was nearly a month old.