This scene was so hard to write. When you read it, please realize that going against your parents was a very serious transgression. When Elizabeth Bennet rejects Mr. Collins, it is akin to throwing her mother and sisters out of Longbourn should something happen. XOXOXO Elizabeth Ann West
Chapter 34 - By Consequence of Marriage, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
On the morning of Jane’s wedding, Elizabeth opened her eyes and experienced a sharp pointy elbow, belonging to her eldest sister, poking her most acutely between her shoulder blades. It wasn’t the pain that made Elizabeth frown, but the immediate realization this was the last such morning a similar sisterly trouble would occur.
Carefully, Elizabeth nudged her sister’s arm away and burrowed deeper into the quilt. She closed her eyes and willed herself to go back to sleep, but the chirping of birds outside and sounds of the world waking up made such a task impossible. She had just slowed her breaths back to a measured rhythm when the door to her shared bedroom with Jane flew open.
“Girls! Girls! How could you still be in bed at this late of an hour?” Mrs. Bennet stood in the doorway with her hair still tied in ribbons to curl her locks, glaring at them both.
Jane sighed in her sleep, rolled over onto her back and blinked her eyes at their mother. Mrs. Bennet fell under the spell and the sweet, beautiful eldest daughter shared a shy smile that made her mother beam with pride. Elizabeth curled from under the coverlet and pushed feelings of jealousy over her mother never gazing at her with the same expression out of her mind. Today was about Jane. No matter what occurred, Elizabeth vowed she would do all in her power to make the day the best ever for her favorite sister.
As Mrs. Bennett’s gaze moved to include Elizabeth, her expression melted away.
“Hurry, hurry! Get out of bed. Jane dear you take a bath first, Lizzie I’m sorry it’s too late for you to get a bath afterwards. Hurry downstairs and collect the laundry from Hill. We need all of the stockings, ribbons, and bonnets brought upstairs immediately.”
Elizabeth yawned and stretched as she removed herself from bed, walking over to her closet to don a morning dress until she changed into her finer gown for the ceremony. Unfortunately, this was not part of Mrs. Bennett’s plans.
“There’s no time for niceties. Put on your dressing robe and hurry downstairs! The maids have brought up the hot water for Jane.”
Puzzled, Elizabeth did as she was told. It was unlike her mother to go so far as to ask Elizabeth to perform the menial tasks reserved for servants. She expected that perhaps the day’s chaos was to blame.
Feeling self-conscious, she tiptoed down the stairs with her hair still braided from last night, positive she appeared a fright in just her dressing robe and slippers. As she turned the corner to cut through the dining room into the kitchen, she stopped in her tracks as a fully dressed Mr. Collins sat in the dining room, uncomfortably erect in a chair that was turned to face the doorway.
“Cousin Elizabeth, I am waiting for you.”
Raising an eyebrow in complete confusion, Elizabeth pulled the top of her dressing gown closer together at the neck. “Forgive me, Mr. Collins, I must fetch something for my mother.” She ducked her head and took two steps to move around the table when Mr. Collins hastily hopped up from his chair to block her way.
“I see you fell for my ruse I planned with your mother. I had hoped to make this a surprise for you.”
Elizabeth’s heart raced as a feeling of dread dropped like a stone to the bottom of her stomach. She stood as a startled deer at the edge of the woods, too nervous to say or do anything that might encourage the man before her.
“It cannot have gone amiss since my arrival you are the cousin to attract my undivided attentions. Originally, when I planned to visit, I did so hope somehow your father and I could find a way to ally our mutual families and preserve the history of this grand estate as it passed most nobly along the male line.”
“Mr. Collins –” Elizabeth started to speak, but the man hushed her lips by actually placing his fingers upon them.
“Sssh, I know well your penchant for expressing opinions not entirely your own and occasionally insulting those around you, though I hardly credit your gentile nature for intending to do so.”
Elizabeth took a step backwards to again establish space between them. “I assure you, Mr. Collins, I have never intentionally insulted anyone without meaning to do so. If someone felt insulted in my company, they should know it absolutely was by my own intent.”
Mr. Collins chuckled and again raised his hand to touch her face. Elizabeth slapped it down with ferocity. “You are stunning when you are angry. Has anyone ever told you so?”
“Good day, Mr. Collins. I have a wedding to get ready for.” Elizabeth turned to march out of the dining room when Mr. Collins again grabbed her arm to keep her there. Not knowing what to do, Elizabeth began to scream out for help, assaulted in her father’s own home! She pulled and fought and yelled until the entire household came thundering down the stairs wondering at the scene before them.
Elizabeth’s father stood in the doorway to the sight of his weeping daughter and a very angry Mr. Collins in the dining room. “Whatever has happened here? Lizzie? Mr. Collins?”
Elizabeth, sobbing, explained he would not let her leave the dining room, grabbed her arm and abused her thus.
Mr. Collins sniffed and tucked his waistcoat down over his portly belly. “I have offered my genuine affections and care to my fair cousin this entire visit. She spurned my offer of marriage. I tried, in vain, to overlook the haphazard manner in which all of my cousins were brought up. Why my patroness, Lady Catherine, warned me of the potential problems in marrying such a woman who calls herself a lady yet did not grow up with the benefit of a governess. I am afraid I can no longer offer for this woman with a clear conscience.”
Mrs. Bennett’s cries rang out and she barged into the dining room to follow Mr. Collins as he escaped through the kitchen. Calling after him that she would rectify this situation if only he would allow were the last words that echoed into the dining room.
Elizabeth, trembling from her encounter with Mr. Collins glanced at her two younger sisters standing in the hall with their mouths open in shock. She turned to Mr. Bennet hoping to see a father’s acceptance, yet she spied a man with nothing but pure anger in his eyes.
“My study, Elizabeth. Now!” he bellowed.
The two younger girls jumped out of their father’s way as he stormed into his study, fully expecting his wayward daughter Elizabeth to follow. Taking a moment to restore her composure, Elizabeth did not tarry to obey her father’s command.
As she entered the study, she was instructed to shut the door. The last time she had followed her father into his study seeing him so angry was when she was caught climbing a tree on the edge of Winslow’s Woods by the gamekeeper of Netherfield Park, nearly ten years ago. Silently, she stood before her father’s desk and waited for him to speak.
Mr. Bennet paced the small space behind his desk with his hands behind his back, muttering to himself. Every few moments he would glance at his daughter, and continue his pacing and muttering. Elizabeth stood discomposed in her father’s study for a number of minutes until her mother barged in, disrupting the speechless standoff.
“It is an uproar, Mr. Bennet! Mr. Collins cannot be prevailed upon to marry Lizzie and he refuses to consider any of the other girls, even Lydia! She has ruined forever the security of her own family!”
“Well, Elizabeth, what have you to say for yourself?”
Elizabeth began to weep afresh. “I cannot control when Mr. Collins was going to attempt to propose to me, Papa. I did everything in my power to discourage the man and to encourage his attentions towards Mary. She would make him a fine wife. He was aggressive with me and twice he placed his hands upon my person in an attempt to bully me.”
Elizabeth expected some sign of sympathy from her father, but instead she had only made him angrier. “I thought I had made myself quite clear, young lady, regarding my expectations. You sat right here,” Mr. Bennet pointed at her place by the window, “and I shared my vision for your continued happiness. You promised me you would give that man an honest chance but I’ve observed you, Elizabeth, and not once in the last two weeks have you shown any ounce of genuine kindness toward your cousin. You have been mean, you have been missish, and you have taken it upon yourself to make decisions affecting this family when it is not your place to do so.” Mr. Bennet lectured.
“No, Papa, I cannot marry that man. I never meant to defy you or disrespect your position as my father.”
“Be that as it may, it is too late to change what you have wrought.” Mr. Bennet finally took a seat behind his desk.
For a moment the only sound in the study was Elizabeth’s continued sobs. She had never considered that her father would take her rejection of Mr. Collins to be a direct flout of his authority. She assumed he found the man as ridiculous and unsuitable as she did. She could not understand why her father had chosen her to fall on the family’s sword of injustice.
Unfortunately Mrs. Bennet took the silence between her husband and her least favorite daughter as indication that once more Miss Lizzie would receive a reprieve for her headstrong ways.
“Mr. Bennet, I insist that you –”
“There will be no further discussion of this matter until after Jane’s wedding breakfast. Elizabeth, go upstairs, wash your face and put on a brave smile.”
“But Mr. Collins –” Mrs. Bennet started again.
“I’ll handle Mr. Collins. The man won’t wish to be embarrassed any more than we wish to be embarrassed amongst our friends and neighbors. A jilted man has no desire to spread his tales, though I highly doubt your youngest daughters will allow that.” He scowled for a moment, then gazed at his wife. “The wedding, Mrs. Bennet, you have more than enough on your plate to handle with the wedding.”
Utterly defeated, Elizabeth curtsied and quit her father’s study, leaving her parents alone to discuss matters further. There was nothing more she could say and she did agree with her father that today was Jane’s day.
She wiped her eyes a final time and found her sisters standing solemnly in various states of dress upon the stairs. Managing a smile, Elizabeth looked at Jane.
“Only two more hours and you’ll be a Bennet no more!” Elizabeth reminded Jane of the happiness still to come. As she took the stairs, she was surprised that it was Lydia who offered her comfort by embracing her shoulder as they were at the end of the Bennet girl line-up on the stairs. Within minutes, all of the bedrooms were a flurry of gowns, ribbons, bonnets and gloves as today would be so very important for all of them, but especially Jane.
Chapter 35 - By Consequence of Marriage, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
Fitzwilliam Darcy examined the sparsely populated church and noted the majority of frowns. In fact, the only person smiling in the entire church was Georgiana Darcy. Clasping his hands in front of him, Darcy gazed up to the ceiling and said a prayer of thanksgiving his own wedding would not be so miserable. He and his cousin, Richard, had secured a way to smartly sidestep his heavy-handed Aunt Catherine.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, who also happened to be Georgiana’s godfather, finished the ceremony, as Darcy again inspected the few people his aunt invited to bear witness. He did not find his friend Charles Bingley present and he was certain after their exchange at the club Bingley would attend. The bored and halfhearted cheers seized Darcy’s attention back to the matter at hand and he flexed his hands as George Wickham openly kissed his sister, sealing forever his place in the family.
Dragging his feet behind the happy couple, Darcy paused at the first pew to speak to his aunt who was still applauding the completion of the wedding.
“Did you not invite Charles Bingley to the wedding?”
Still acting her part, Lady Matlock viewed her nephew with a confused expression on her face. “The tradesman’s son? Why ever would I invite him?”
The various conversations in the church swirled and Darcy felt an innate sense of dread overtake his person. Charles clearly stated the wedding was to be held November Thirteenth. What wedding was he possibly referencing if he did not mean Georgiana’s? Darcy’s long strides carried him out of the church and down the steps with his cousin Richard nipping at his heels.
“Darcy! Darcy, the carriages are over here!”
Darcy continued walking to the east towards his own townhouse. He called over his shoulder, “Not now, tell Aunt I’ll be at the breakfast. I have an emergency I must handle.”
Swiftly arriving home, Darcy surprised the staff and found them celebrating the marriage of Miss Darcy. He asked Mrs. Potter not to interrupt the staff as he bolted for his study, praying his man Simmons had not cast the social invitation pile to the flames just yet. Relieved to find the invitations next to the letters he had marked for post, Darcy flipped through the pile, casting all but Bingley’s to the flames in the fireplace. He had ignored the letter as it was written in too careful a hand to be Bingley’s, but now he hastily ripped it open.
Inside was an invitation to a ball at Netherfield Park next week. A folded piece of parchment fluttered to the floor from the envelope. Darcy retrieved the letter and read the contents with haste. The missive was in Bingley’s wretched penmanship, the many smudges and cramped letters took Darcy a number of passes to fully decipher. He made out Charles was to wed Jane Bennet on November Thirteenth in Hertfordshire. This likely meant the bride at the dressmaker’s shop was Jane Bennet and not her sister Elizabeth! Darcy shouted in joy as his cousin Richard entered the room.
“Stalling is over, old man, we may not be able to keep our food down, but we are expected to attend this breakfast.”
Darcy waved the letter from Bingley in triumph. “She’s not married!”
“Who is not married?”
Darcy paced the study in tense agitation, nimbly counting on his fingers the various plans he needed to make without delay. He hoped Charles would forgive him for missing his wedding, but he harbored a greater need to hasten to Hertfordshire.
“She’s not married! Charles married her sister, so there’s still hope! Don’t you see?”
“No, Cousin, I’m afraid I do not follow, but you may explain the gist to me on the way to breakfast.” Richard Fitzwilliam moved to stand behind Darcy to encourage him towards the door. His cousin complied but continued to spout nonsense about some woman in Hertfordshire he nearly killed with his horse but now wished to marry. Richard only interjected to remind Darcy that until Easter, he had to appear as engaged to Anne. This reminder stopped Darcy’s ranting cold. He renewed his rambling as the carriage arrived at Matlock House.
“But I must at least go to Hertfordshire and apologize to Charles. I’ll send Georgiana and George on a honeymoon trip to Bath. They can stay in Lady Catherine’s townhome there.”
“And how do you intend to explain to this lady—”
“Miss Elizabeth.”
“How do you intend to explain to Miss Elizabeth you are tacitly engaged to another woman?”
A stormy Darcy and jovial Richard entered the most somber wedding breakfast London had ever seen. With a few hints, Darcy managed to convey how it would slow the tide of society regarding their marriage if perhaps the Wickhams took a trip to Bath for a few months honeymoon.
“You are the best brother!” Georgiana Wickham exclaimed as she overheard the conversation. “I knew once you finished being angry with me you’d admit you were wrong about the wonderful match I made! I would adore a trip to Bath and to walk on the shores! Mr. Wickham, Mr. Wickham, would you not also enjoy a trip to Bath?”
George Wickham looked to his relatives who held the purse strings. Since this morning when he learned of the fine print he signed in the marriage contracts, the best he could manage was indifference to Fitzwilliam Darcy and his ilk. Always Darcy was denying him his due!
“Anything that will bring you happiness my dear will indeed gain my approval.” He offered his new, young, naive wife a bow. Geography was clearly not her strongest suit to play.
“Splendid, splendid.” The Colonel clapped George on the shoulders, making the groom jump. “Darce, why don’t you head back to Darcy House and make the arrangements? I shall put in papers tomorrow for a week’s trip to Bath. Just to assure our happy couple is indeed happy, mind.”
George Wickham’s smile faded. The earl and countess took their leave to circulate amongst their other guests, uninterested in Darcy’s escape from the wedding breakfast. If his haste were less, Darcy might have spared a moment to congratulate his cousin Richard’s brilliant tactical skills.
NEW RELEASE
For the Love of a Bennet
What if Elizabeth Bennet traveled with Lydia to Brighton?
A reimagining of Jane Austen’s most beloved tale, Pride & Prejudice, join author Elizabeth Ann West as she writes the romantic adventure story she always wanted! When Lizzy and Lydia arrive in Brighton, it’s very clear that the younger Bennet sister came with very serious plans towards Mr. Wickham. Thankfully, an old ally is also in town, with problems of his own to solve. After Mr. Darcy, himself, is summoned to Brighton to hopefully solve two dilemmas with one wealthy member of the gentry, the whole militia is thrown into an uproar by Wickham’s most dastardly deed, yet. Together, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy have to save Lydia from her own undoing, or it will mean more than just mere reputations are ruined.
For the Love of a Bennet is a novel length story, currently being posted chapter by chapter on Elizabeth’s author site. This story was originally conceptualized in 2019 as a part of the All Go to Brighton challenge.
Chapter 35 - By Consequence of Marriage, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
As the coach for the newly married Bingleys and Mary Bennet wheeled away under the heavy load of luggage for three people, followed by Bingley’s regular carriage for the staff attending them on their wedding trip to Bath, the remaining Bennet family and Mr. Collins dutifully bade them farewell. The barren gray sky of late autumn’s temper matched Elizabeth’s mood as tears streamed down her face. The full weight of losing her sister Jane crushed her heart. Kitty handed her a handkerchief and Elizabeth cleaned her face. The caravan of vehicles turned the sharp bend half a mile down the road and the family could no longer see them.
“Well, Mrs. Bennet, I admit I had my doubts but you were correct that our Jane would make a splendid match.” Mr. Bennet offered his wife a rare compliment in front of their girls. He tugged at his tight cravat and loosened the fabric’s chokehold on his neck.
“I’ve always said she could not be quite so lovely for no good reason. Now with Jane married to Mr. Bingley, all of our girls will be thrown in the way of rich men, mark my words.” Mrs. Bennet narrowed her eyes as she stared pointedly at Elizabeth who immediately felt the shame of the day’s earlier debacle. Not up to starting an argument with her mother, the new eldest daughter of the house stared down at her shoes.
“I am happy to report that I have been generously invited to dine with Sir Lucas and his family. If it is no trouble to you, Mrs. Bennet, I believe I shall begin walking my way over to their happy homestead and bid you all a fair afternoon.” Mr. Collins doffed his hat and made a half bow.
“The Lucases?” Mrs. Bennett’s voice trembled. “How peculiar, I mean particular, they invited you to dine today during Jane’s wedding breakfast.” She glanced to her husband who returned a disinterested frown. “We all must be good neighbors, good neighbors are good fences as they say, so do enjoy your time, Mr. Collins. I hope we shall see you later this evening?”
Mr. Collins took a few steps back increasing the space between himself and the current residents of Longbourn. “I believe it might be quite late before the Lucas carriage returns here. I do look forward to my last few weeks here in Hertfordshire before I must return to my patroness, Lady Catherine, in Kent.”
Elizabeth wondered at Mr. Collins failure to invoke his parish when he talked about needing to return to Kent. As a pastor, she would think his allegiance was first and foremost to the church, another failing of his character she could not reconcile. She wisely kept these observations to herself.
As Mr. Collins bowed once more and dismissed himself from their company, it was Mr. Bennet who turned first to go inside. As the rest of her family filed in, Elizabeth’s feet clung to the ground beneath her. Even one step into her future life that would not include Jane felt impossibly difficult. It was not until Lydia began complaining for Elizabeth to come in that she allowed herself one last glance down the road and turned to go inside.
The air inside felt wrong somehow. Elizabeth scarcely closed the door before a terrible pain seized her from behind. Mrs. Bennet grabbed Elizabeth’s hair by the dozens of carefully pinned curls at the nape of her neck and pulled her towards the stairs. Elizabeth cried out, mimicked in her cry by the younger girls in distress at the sudden abuse of their sister.
“No traitor in my household! No upstarts who would happily throw her mother and sisters out into the hedgerows!” Mrs. Bennet shouted as she thrust Elizabeth forward. Crashing to her hands and knees upon the stairs, Elizabeth cowered in a defensive position, preparing for another onslaught.
Mrs. Bennet charged again, grabbing Elizabeth by the arm and dragging her up the stairs. She continued to yell abusive epithets about Elizabeth’s betrayal of the Bennet family. On and on she screamed how she was not fit to consider herself a part of the family. Arriving in the room she shared with Jane, Mrs. Bennet did not let go of her wayward daughter until they neared the bed.
“Take it all, Lizzie, take it all. You will not step one foot over the threshold again as long as I am mistress!”
For a moment all Elizabeth could do was stand there and cry, utterly baffled by her mother’s abrupt change, but her mother had other plans. As Mrs. Bennet stormed over to the closet Elizabeth once shared with Jane and began tossing the remaining dresses out, Elizabeth bolted for the door. Ignoring the pain in her ankle, she ran down the stairs in a staccato echo of feet crying for her father at the top of her lungs.
“Papa, Papa!” As Elizabeth made it to the bottom of the stairs, she locked eyes with her father who was standing in the doorway of his study.
“Papa?” Elizabeth pleaded.
Mr. Bennet shook his head and closed the study door.
Instantly, Elizabeth’s emotions of pure abandonment seized her chest and she collapsed on the stairs. Catherine Bennet rushed forward to embrace her sister, and as she held her in her arms she rocked Elizabeth gently back and forth.
“Shhh, shhh, you’ll be safe. Mama is just angry,” Kitty whispered.
Francine Bennet stood at the top of the stairs, formidable in the late afternoon shadows, the hallway enveloped in darkness except for the lone candle that illuminated her face. As she cleared her throat, her two daughters sitting on the stairs stared up at her.
“Elizabeth Bennet you have business to attend. In one hour the carriage will take you to the post change in Meryton.”
“Where am I to go?”
“That depends entirely upon you.” Mrs. Bennet began to descend the stairs, making her daughters jump out of her way. As she reached Elizabeth, her second eldest daughter stood this time prepared to fight back if need be, her fists clenched by her side. “The law demands you will have your settlement, but not another farthing. You brought this upon yourself, young lady.” Mrs. Bennet marched past her daughters and began barking orders at Hill for preparations of dinner.
Abused and hurt, Elizabeth stared at Kitty in abject horror. The second to youngest Bennet daughter was ill equipped and unprepared with words so she merely offered to help her older sister pack her trunks. As soon as Lydia realized that Elizabeth could not possibly pack all her belongings and would likely be giving any castoffs to Kitty, she also offered to assist her sister. But while Kitty actually helped Elizabeth strategically fill her trunks, Lydia was little more help than laying on the bed and listing all of the places Elizabeth could possibly go.
The more Lydia talked, the more fanciful the locations became. Ramsgate, Brighton, even so far as towns in Scotland! For a moment, Elizabeth forgot her distress, thoroughly impressed with Lydia’s unexpected knowledge of geography. When her hands clasped the book of Shakespearean sonnets belonging to Mr. Darcy, Elizabeth smiled. There was truly only one place she would go and with any luck, make her mother rue the day she threw Elizabeth Bennet out of her father’s house.
You’ve been reading By Consequence of Marriage
By Consequence of Marriage, Book 1 of the Moralities of Marriage
a Pride and Prejudice novel variation series
Release Date: December 23, 2014
65,000 words, ~334 pages in print.
When his horse throws a shoe, Fitzwilliam Darcy misses rescuing his sister, Georgiana Darcy, from the clutches of George Wickham by only one day. Now on the hunt to find them both, the gossip beginning to swirl in London forces him to abdicate the search to his cousin, Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam, while he plays the wayward gentleman in Hertfordshire with his friend Charles Bingley. After a collision with his future, Darcy struggles to satisfy his attraction to a pair of fine eyes and keep his family’s scandal hidden.
Elizabeth Bennet dreams of nothing more than remaining close to her sister, Jane. When a rich gentleman, Charles Bingley, enters the neighborhood, it seems certain that Jane will make a match with him. After all, Jane Bennet is the sweetest and most beautiful woman in the county! But Elizabeth’s efforts to find her own local match go awry and she feels abandoned by the first man to cause stirrings in her heart. Her parents attempt to marry Elizabeth off to her cousin, William Collins, who is set to inherit the estate. But when she refuses, she soon finds herself In London with relatives, forced to find her own happiness.
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A Jane-of-all-trades, mistress to none! Elizabeth Ann West is the author of 8 novels and 11 novellas, 18 of which are story variations of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice.
How very exciting, Bravo
I read a subsequent story on ff.net and had to read your others.
I accept you AN at the start, but for her dad to dismiss her similarly is rough.
For never having a hand laid on her (per chapter between aunt and Elizabeth regarding Collins grabbing her) to full-on physical abuse, from her mom, seems extreme. I hope this opens Kitty and Lydia’s eyes to things greater than flirting.
This whole series is a very different exploration of the Austen characters. Some is from my personal life, like how I experienced when I got really sick in high school and the doctors couldn’t fix me, how that changed my dynamic with my father. I think this series very much looks at that darker side that was there in Regency, more that wouldn’t get popularized until a little later than Austen with the Bronte sisters and Dickens, but re-imagines the story more as a drama than a comedy. That is a huge departure from Austen, no doubt. But so is writing in a series. It might be fair to say my series books have a tendency to have darker moments in them because you need those crisises to keep propelling the story forward. My stand-alone tales have less space to redeem villains or put time between betrayals and pain, so they have a tendency to be more light-hearted. I can say Kitty has grown a great deal in this series . . . Lydia? Not so much. I should probably work on finding a story idea to redeem her in… hmm, maybe in the current project I’m working on.. that’s not a bad idea… 🙂
See? This is why I dearly cherish reader comments. I LOVE being pushed and prodded. We find entirely new doors of opportunity together! 🙂
This departure from lighthearted view or darker side is welcome from my own opinion. Fathers and mothers may need to take a tough love approach at times feeling an alternative from methods that they feel aren’t helping them convince their child for what is best.