As part of my third year studies here at Portsmouth, I took a unit entitled Fan Fiction, where we had to produce an original 2,500 word piece of fan fiction based on certain criteria. I wrote a piece entitled “The Younger Miss Bennets”, which explored what happened to Mary and Kitty Bennet after their elder sisters got married at the end of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”. You can read it here.
Jane Austen herself gives the younger girls a brief mention at the end of the book:
“Kitty, to her very material advantage, spent the chief of her time with her two elder sisters. In society so superior to what she had generally known, her improvement was great. She was not of so ungovernable a temper as Lydia; and, removed from the influence of Lydia’s example, she became, by proper attention and management, less irritable, less ignorant, and less insipid. From the farther disadvantage of Lydia’s society she was of course carefully kept, and though Mrs. Wickham frequently invited her to come and stay with her, with the promise of balls and young men, her father would never consent to her going.
Mary was the only daughter who remained at home; and she was necessarily drawn from the pursuit of accomplishments by Mrs. Bennet’s being quite unable to sit alone. Mary was obliged to mix more with the world, but she could still moralize over every morning visit; and as she was no longer mortified by comparisons between her sisters’ beauty and her own, it was suspected by her father that she submitted to the change without much reluctance.” (The Complete Novels of Jane Austen, p 443)
I have tried to incorporate some of the elements introduced here into my own work, as well as sticking true to what Jane Austen herself thought happened to them: “Jane Austen not only carried her characters in her mind’s eye, but took an enduring interest in in their later lives; she told her family that Kitty Bennet was satisfactorily married to a clergyman near Pemberly [where Jane and Bingley later moved], while Mary obtained nothing higher than one of her uncle Phillip’s clerks, and was content to be considered a star in the society of Meryton.” (“Jane Austen – The World of Her Novels”, p 202)
The addition of Margaret Dashwood – if indeed anyone picked up on the connection – is purely my own. I do not think it is entirely inconceivable that her and Miss Kitty Bennet might have met, and I have always fancied that they would have taken a liking to each other, based on their individual characters. It was a liberty I enjoyed taking.
I just wish the word count had allowed me more space to go into even more detail, as well as to include titbits about all the other miscellaneous characters that so deserve their own followings! Let me know what you think!
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