In Darcy
on the Hudson, West Point cadet, Joshua Lucas (Charlotte’s brother)
invites Georgiana Darcy to a formal ball at the academy. Of course, she must be
accompanied by her brother. Originally, Jane and Elizabeth Bennet, as well as
Charles Bingley, were to have made the journey thirty-five miles up the river
from Tarryton. Instead, Darcy finds himself in the company of Caroline Bingley:
Darcy
stood on the deck as the sloop John Jay made its way through the Tappan Zee,
the widest part of the Hudson, where wise sailors shorten sail. Small fishing
boats shared the inland sea with schooners and barges carrying poultry, grain,
and vegetables for the markets in New York while, nearby, dozens of sloops,
with their single masts and retractable keels, negotiated around the shoals in
the river.
As
the hours passed, the sloop approached the Hudson Highlands, passing Anthony’s
Nose and Breakneck Ridge. Farther up the Hudson, vast woodlands appeared with
their leaves showing hints of the fall colors that would soon burst into a
cornucopia of reds, yellows, and oranges that would ignite the hills from the
Hudson to Appalachia in a blaze of color.
