The Member for Rosings: A Profile of Mrs. DeBourgh 

The Albion Courier, Features Desk 

[Mrs. DeBourgh, Member of the House of Resources for Rosings Mining Company, agreed to speak with the Courier at Rosings. The interview was conducted on her terms, at her preferred time, and in a room she had clearly arranged for the purpose.] 

There are interviews where you feel like the one in charge of the conversation. This was not one of them. 

Mrs. DeBourgh received us in what her assistant, Miss Price, described to us as the smaller of Rosings’s two formal reception rooms.  It was not small. It was appointed with the kind of deliberate magnificence that signals not wealth exactly, though wealth is certainly present, but priority: this is what I have chosen to show you, and I have chosen carefully. Mrs. DeBourgh herself sat at the far end of a long table, which meant that you spent the first thirty seconds of the meeting walking toward her while she watched you do it. Whether this was intentional is a question she would almost certainly consider beneath her. 

She is, in person, exactly what her public record suggests: formidable, precise, and entirely comfortable with the impression she makes.  

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Builder of Bridges: A Profile of George Wickham 

The Albion Courier, Features Desk 

[George Wickham, Member of the House of Commons for Bond Street, agreed to speak with the Courier at a café near Parliament. The interview ran considerably longer than scheduled. He did not appear to mind.] 

There are politicians who make you feel like the most interesting person in the room. George Wickham is one of them, and he is good enough at it that you are halfway home before you start wondering how he managed it. 

He is tall, broad-shouldered, and possessed of the kind of easy confidence that reads as warmth rather than arrogance, a distinction that matters more in politics than most professions. He arrived at our meeting slightly late, apologised with complete sincerity, and within ten minutes had asked three questions about this journalist’s own career that suggested he had done his research. It is the sort of thing that should feel calculated. Somehow it does not. 

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The MP for Longbourn: A Profile of Elizabeth Bennet 

The Albion Courier, Features Desk 

[Elizabeth Bennet, Member of the House of Resources for Longbourn Mining Company, agreed to speak with the Courier via video conference. The resulting article has been lightly edited for length.] 

There are Members of the House of Resources who treat their Parliamentary seat as a burden, a necessary inconvenience attached to their family business. Elizabeth Bennet is not one of them. 

She is younger than you expect, dark-haired with lively brown eyes. She gives you her full attention without ever giving you the impression that she has forgotten you are a journalist. She answers questions directly and completely, and somehow by the end of the interview you find yourself with a thorough understanding of Longbourn Mining Company’s public position on every matter of policy and very little idea what Elizabeth Bennet thinks about any of it personally. It is, in its way, an impressive performance. She would almost certainly object to that word. 

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