At Home with Mr Darcy Read Online Free PDF

Robyn’s face. ‘We’ll just have to un make her mind up, won’t we? I mean, there are more of us than there are of her and we’ve got the whole weekend ahead of us.’
    Warwick grinned. ‘Robyn’s right. Miss Berry is surrounded by some of the most ardent Janeites in England. If we can’t change her mind about Austen then nobody can.’

Chapter 5
    The next morning before breakfast, Robyn filled Dame Pamela in on the discovery about Melissa Berry.
    ‘Are you sure?’ Dame Pamela asked. ‘Are you absolutely sure?’
    ‘Pretty sure,’ Robyn said. ‘Katherine and Doris saw the notes she’d made. They weren’t very flattering.’
    ‘Oh, dear,’ Dame Pamela said. ‘I feel so responsible.’
    ‘Don’t blame yourself,’ Robyn said kindly. ‘You weren’t to know.’
    ‘But I should have. I really should have,’ Dame Pamela said, shaking her head in dismay. ‘I never seem to learn my lesson with journalists. Each time, they win me over with flattery and then betray me!’
    ‘That’s not true,’ Robyn said. ‘You’ve had some wonderful pieces written about you.’
    When Robyn had taken on the role of personal assistant to Dame Pamela, she had been given the rare privilege of looking through the vast archives of clippings which had been kept over the decades to get her up to speed. It had to be said that there were a few stinkers of reviews for some of the theatre performances and films but that was to be expected in any career which spanned the years as Dame Pamela Harcourt’s had but, for the most part, they were glorious. The public and the press adored her.
    ‘But what are we going to do?’ Dame Pamela said, twisting an enormous diamond solitaire on her left hand.
    ‘I think we should call a meeting,’ Robyn said. ‘We should let everybody know what’s going on because Melissa Berry is going to write about us all, isn’t she?’
    Dame Pamela nodded. ‘Yes, yes,’ she said.
    ‘Now, I saw Melissa head into Bakewell. She said she going in search of a proper cup of coffee.’
    ‘What’s wrong with the coffee here?’ Dame Pamela asked.
    ‘Not up to her London standards, obviously,’ Robyn said, ‘but that’ll buy us some time. I’ll round everybody up and we can take it from there.’
    Dame Pamela took a deep, fortifying breath and Robyn could see that she had instantly regained her composure after her initial scare. They were going to fight this together, Robyn thought.
     
    Just ten minutes later, the little group of holidaying Janeites had gathered in the living room.
    ‘I knew she wasn’t to be trusted,’ Mrs Soames said, her chin wobbling as she shook her head.
    ‘How did you know that?’ Rose asked. ‘She seemed like a perfectly decent girl to me.’
    ‘She’s from London, isn’t she?’ Mrs Soames said. ‘You can’t trust anyone from London.’
    Annie shook her head in despair at her mother’s generalisation.
    ‘But how are we going to stop her from writing what she wants?’ Roberta asked.
    ‘What do you mean, how do we stop her?’ Dame Pamela said. ‘We’ve got to make her fall in love with Jane Austen – that’s how! And that can’t be hard for a group as passionate as we are.’
    ‘But is that morally right?’ Rose asked.
    ‘Who cares if it’s morally right or not when the reputation of Jane Austen and her fans are on the line?’ Dame Pamela said and there were a few nods of agreement from around the room.
    Robyn cleared her throat and chipped in. ‘What I think we should do is to expose Melissa Berry to the very best that Jane Austen has to offer.’
    ‘Indeed!’ Dame Pamela said. ‘The most moving scenes from the books and the films, the most passionate declarations of love, the heights that the human heart can soar to and the depths of despair that her characters feel,’ Dame Pamela said, making it sound – once again – as if she was reading from a very well-rehearsed script.
    Everybody listened in stunned silence.
    ‘Any ideas, anyone?’