Entrenched . . . it was such a terrible fate. We know it as being “on a budget.” 🙂 I felt so bad for Kitty in this story…but YAY Uncle Gardiner! We should all have an uncle like him!
XOXOXO Elizabeth Ann West
Chapter 6 - A Winter Wonder, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
Three members of the once wealthy Fitzwilliam family traveled in heavy silence from London to their country seat at Matlock. Lady Matlock furiously moved her knitting needles adding a tedious layer of metal clicking to the normal creaks and groans of the carriage. Her eldest son, Robert Fitzwilliam, sighed as he turned another page in his book, repositioning himself to better find light that quickly dwindled. The winter’s sun tarried not in the afternoon and one last meeting with the bank had delayed their departure from London.
“My mind still cannot fathom you once again ran over your allowance. I thought I made myself crystal clear of how tenuous our situation resided.” Reginald Fitzwilliam verbally flogged his offspring once more.
“Should I bother to ask again why you reinvested with the same company that lost money last year?” Robert Fitzwilliam did not look up from his book to even dignify his father’s anger with eye contact.
“Do not dare question me, boy, it is I who carry the mantle Earl of Matlock. You would do well to remember you are not of any consequence until my death.”
“Provided there is even an Earldom to inherit once you’re finished fleecing the coffers.”
“You insolent-” the Earl of Matlock surged forward but his wife’s practiced arm jetted out and placed a calming bar to his chest.
“The only person who deserves to be angry in this carriage is me.” Lady Matlock’s tone brooked no nonsense, attracting the attentions of both men for her boldness. “Oh yes, I lay the situation at the feet of both of you. It was not I who spent over her budget. It is not I who gambled and lost.”
Distracting her husband and son from their own interests in the dismal prospects of the Fitzwilliam family, both men considered the wise woman’s words.
“Margaret, it was a business deal, I’m terribly sorry-“
“Not again, Reginald, I cannot abide your apologies again.” She removed her arm from her husband as he attempted to kiss her hand to placate her. Furiously working the knitting needles in an even greater pace, Lady Matlock cursed herself under her breath for giving these men the satisfaction of seeing her pique.
Another silence descended the carriage as the last turn was made into the lane for Matlock. an estate held in the Fitzwilliam line since King Henry VIII, the reality of the financial stakes soon registered with all of the occupants inside.
Word of the family’s financial troubles had already scurried through the staff’s correspondence. A very somber welcome greeted the Earl and Countess and their son. Lady Matlock gave instructions for a simple meal for the evening and announced she would retire to her apartments for the remainder of the afternoon. Similar austerity measures would be taken at the grand estate just as it had in London. The most recent setback made it unlikely the Fitzwilliams could avoid renting out their town home in London for the much-needed cash come spring.
A new squabble erupted between her son and her husband as she took the stairs, but the impossibly crushing feeling of defeat prevented Margaret Fitzwilliam from turning around and seeking peace once more. Her bejeweled hand, looking thinner than she remembered it last appearing, shakily glided around the ornate wooden finial, an action that for decades had given her the comfort of arriving home.
Nostalgia and melancholy tickled her tear ducts and the Countess of Matlock ever so slightly increased the speed of her gait so as to not burst out into tears in the hall of her own home. She had already resolved when Robert was first denied credit at his club that no matter what ridicule may befall her family in this time of financial strife, she would never break in front of another. It was a promise she managed to keep as she safely tucked away into her sitting room.
The argument between the Fitzwilliam men did not yield upon arrival and instead spilled into the study. Both men felt the other more to blame for the public now knowing the secret instability of the family’s funds.
“What is the solution this time, father? Shall we sell more land?”
Reginald Fitzwilliam glared at his pompous son, almost not recognizing his own heir as he sat before him.
“This behavior of yours, playing the dandy. It’s from that new lot you run with, those poets. Did you feel superior always paying for the drinks and your merry mischief about town?”
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Chapter 6 (cont'd) - A Winter Wonder, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
“My lot are artists. Their words capture and explore the very trying times we all face. The winds of change have blown, father. Percival was shot dead in the street! The common man has not wielded his sword, but first blood has been drawn.”
“Don’t be daft, it was the act of a madman! None rioted in the streets. You talk of the struggle of the classes beneath us but look around. It is our class that faces extinction with these new liberal policies.”
Robert Fitzwilliam stalked angrily from his normal seat before the desk to pour himself a drink, only to find the decanter empty. Placing the crystal vessel forcibly back down on the tray, he was gentle just enough not to impose any damage. “We are to starve and die of thirst as well?”
The Earl of Matlock gazed out of his favorite window in his study, one that looked out over the estate’s inner belly as it was called, where bursts of activity among the staff could always be seen. A few servants moved crates and goods to the various outbuildings, but it was a pale turnout for the return of the master and mistress.
“Holmes is watering down the rum as I have instructed, it should arrive soon. I managed to send our last three barrels of scotch to market before it closed for the season.”
Robert Fitzwilliam scowled and took a seat on the lone sofa still in the study, trying to ignore the sudden burning desire for the amber liquid he could not have. “At least Pemberley will have decent fare.”
The Earl of Matlock turned around clenching his fists so as not to pummel his ungrateful son now lounging before him as if all would magically right itself.
“I cannot impress upon you enough” he began through clenched teeth, “the enormity of the precipice upon which we teeter.” Taking a breath, Reginald found a calmer tact to deploy with Robert. “If you fail to marry this season I will not have the funds to carry us through another year.”
“Don’t be preposterous, father. Our relations are wealthy. No one will wish us to fall completely from grace. Our family might benefit from using more silver and less gold.”
The naive young viscount waved his hand to refer to his surroundings, disdainful of any good such grandeur might represent. Tired of arguing without profit with his father, the eldest Fitzwilliam son tore himself from the sofa and bowed to his father. He would retire to his apartments and see if his parents remembered to drain his own decanter. Tomorrow would see another day of travel, and there was no solution to be had at the moment. But if he was lucky, there might yet be a drop of decent liquor somewhere in the house. And that was a goal the Viscount Ashbourne saw to be a reasonable one.
Mary Bennet’s moping was soon joined by another’s. After the festivities of the tenant party, one Bennet sister spied little to hope for come Christmas or the New Year. Staring at a blank piece of parchment, Catherine Bennet found a welcome rest from Georgiana’s constant chatter of their London debut by hiding in the library. It was not that Georgiana did not enjoy reading, but her first love was music, while Kitty’s was not. Mrs. Annesley, though appointed companion to both of the young women, rarely bothered to track Kitty’s movements. And that is how her Aunt Gardiner began to visit with her in the afternoons, as their private tete-a-tete, between the book stacks.
“Pardon my tardiness, the children simply would not take to their naps.” Madeleine Gardiner smiled as she found her niece sitting prettily in a corner of the room, a different location from where they normally sat and chatted by the fire.
“I suppose if I were their age, I would not wish to rest with all of the excitement around me, either.”
“Too true, though I do wish Fanny had asked me before sneaking the children down to test Cook’s desserts for the holiday.”
“Mama means well. To her, food is love.”
“Your father always complained she talked incessantly about menus when he wished he could speak to her more about books!” Mrs. Gardiner smirked as she remembered Robert Bennet’s chief complaint all of the many years the Gardiner and Bennet family gathered.
Kitty giggled at the memory of her parents’ squabbles. “She does, what I mean is, my mother always believes a good meal will erase the day’s ills. I suppose to a point, that is true.” Kitty sighed and twirled her clean quill in her fingertips. For once, the formerly ink-stained Bennet girl possessed hands pristine and pure.
WHAT A DEAL!
A kiss at the Netherfield Ball . . .
Three Dates with Mr. Darcy is a bundle of: An exclusive story, Much to Conceal, a novella that imagines what if Elizabeth confessed to Jane in London that Mr. Darcy proposed in Kent?
A Winter Wrong, the first novella in the Seasons of Serendipity series that imagines what if Mr. Bennet died at the very beginning of Pride and Prejudice?
By Consequence of Marriage, the first novel in the Moralities of Marriage series that wonders what if Mr. Darcy never saved his sister Georgiana from Wickham’s clutches?
Elizabeth Ann West’s Pride and Prejudice variations have enthralled more than 100,000 readers in over 90 countries! A proud member of the Jane Austen Fan Fiction community since the mid-2000s, she hopes you will join her in being happily Darcy addicted!
Chapter 6(cont'd) - A Winter Wonder, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
“I see that you have not written,” Mrs. Gardiner leaned over her niece to find a better view, but the parchment sat blank from all directions.
Kitty’s mouth twisted in dismay. Her past time and comfort had become a double-edged sword. She followed Fitzwilliam’s punishment meted out over the fraudulent letter to the publisher, but still her stories spun in her imagination. For a time, she considered giving up her writing, just become an obedient sister and daughter, take a normal path. But the thought of dancing with men after all that had happened . . .
“Aunt, why does no one talk of Lydia coming out this Season?”
Aunt Gardiner blanched at the sudden discussion of the lost Bennet daughter, but recovered soon enough. “Oh, I’m sure she’s still much too immature to handle a London Season. Now, tell me about your new story idea, I’m dying to hear the premise.”
Kitty began to layout plans of a fortune hunter lady who made up lies of her relations and nearly snares the cousin of the Prince Regent when she interrupted her tale as errant thoughts again took over. “But no one even discusses her plans for spring. No one talks of when she will come home from Scotland, not even Mama!”
“Kitty, dear, she is ill. You want your sister to get well?”
“Yes, but is she too ill to have plans made for her Season?”
“Well, I’m not sure . . . ” Madeleine Gardiner paused as she was unsure of what would persuade Kitty into dropping the subject, “do you not trust your mother and Lizzie to have the situation managed?”
Kitty look conflicted as she turned away from her aunt entirely and stared at the Persian beneath her feet. Tears welled at the sides of her eyes but she did not wish to cry like a baby not getting her way. It was unfair that there was something about Lydia everyone was keeping quiet, it was not like her sister to not write in nearly six months!
“And Jane? Do you not think sweet Jane is doing all she can to nurse Lydia back to health?”
At the mention of Jane, Kitty sniffled to restore her composure, dabbing the eyes with the back of her wrists. She looked up at her aunt and smiled a weak, wobbly thing. “I suppose if I write a new story, I can write it for Lydia? For when she gets all better?”
Mrs. Gardiner smiled a warm beam in return and clasped her niece’s hands in her own. “That’s a jolly good idea, be sure to write many dashing red coats just for her!”
Kitty joined her aunt in a laugh. “She does so love the military men.”
“That she did, that she did.”
Mrs. Gardiner looked out at the windows with a far away look in her eyes and that was when Kitty knew. Like a violin string tuned too tightly, Kitty’s heart snapped and poured all of her melancholy over not being written in return. Her aunt had just spoken of her sister in the past tense and a nagging suspicion began to cloud Kitty’s mind. But she shook it off and dipped her quill, blowing out a few deep breaths to steady her nerves. In time, she would get to the bottom of Lydia’s situation, in time she would.
Two letters from Pemberley forced Edward Gardiner to close his business early for the holiday season and leave his Gracechurch Street home. His cigar and tobacco contracts secured, he felt a smug satisfaction in also arranging for three buyers of his clients’ silks and added one new bookstore to his catalog.
The import and export business stood founded on a relationship game. Clearly communicate to whom you are representing and what you have to offer, make your expectations plain to your clients, and never give back a penny paid. And with two older sisters, Edward Gardiner was an accomplished negotiator and practitioner of keeping the peace since his childhood.
The first letter, written by his niece Mary, put ice in his veins. The child sounded so despondent, so hopeless, her words pushed flights of fancy in his mind that she would make a rash decision if some resolution did not come concerning her colonel. Since her confessions to him of her adventures, affections, and now advances on this man, Edward felt most like a father figure to her than her other sisters. There was a bond of responsibility he carried where it came to her happiness, a mantle he wore with pride. And if that was not his chief objective, his wife’s letter made it clear that it should be.
Riding in his carriage, a sudden swerve provided too much inertia and his fears hollowed in his gut. Flashes of wreckage raced through Edward’s mind as he banged madly on the roof.
“Have a care! There is no rush! I wish to arrive in Newcastle in one piece!”
The carriage immediately slowed and Mr. Gardiner’s heart beat eventually returned to a normal cadence. Straightening his disheveled appearance, Edward Gardiner warily looked at the bleak countryside around him. Deep ruts in the few inches of snow, early for the time of year, provided a clear trek to the township proper. By the drooping sun, Gardiner estimated they would arrive before dark, a necessity of great value owing to the new moon. Relaxing his posture in the bench, he managed to find a short nap before his carriage slowed before one the grandest homes in town.
Startled awake by his footman, Gardiner shook off the fog of slumber by focusing on the chap’s cherry nose. He wished to give his staff permission to warm themselves at the inn, but business must always come first. With a sharp rap of his required walking stick, Gardiner kept his balance on the icy stoop with a hand on the door jamb. Before too long, the man with sharp, eagle-like nose he recognized as the Colonel’s personal man answered the door.
“I am here to see Colonel Richard Fitzwilliam.” Edward Gardiner attempted to enter the home as he anticipated an easy welcome, but Pratt would not allow it.
“The Brigadier is not available for civilians at this time. Please make an appointment.”
“See here, Brigadier is it now, tell him Mr. Edward Gardiner is here to see him and will not leave until I have satisfied the three hundred miles suffered.”
“As I say, Mr. Gardiner, the Brigadier–“
“PRATT!” A great booming voice bellowed from behind the door just off the main entryway.
Pratt winced and motioned to close the front door, but Mr. Gardiner had his fingers now around the door jamb and he took a step inside. Ready to bully his way in, Gardiner entered unscathed as the seasoned army corporal chose his battles well. It would not please his superior to ruff up a man with a limp.
Mr. Gardiner waited patiently as the thin, wiry man disappeared into the office and it felt like an inordinate amount of time before Pratt opened the door and walked past him without a word. Turning his head back and forth after the man who just left the room in front of him and then back to the entryway, resentment over having to travel so far reclaimed Mr. Gardiner’s mood. Marching into the study with all of the pomp a man with a gimpy leg could muster, he hoped his taller posture intimidated. But there was no need.
Behind the very large desk in the center of the room sat a man with only a haunting resemblance to the healthy and stout colonel Mr. Gardiner knew. Thinning patches along the ginger hairline of Mary’s beau reflected the candlelight combating the dusk’s advances. Wearily, the man looked up with blood-shot eyes, the tell-tale sign of a man wretched in love.
“My god! Have you taken ill? Is that why you do not write my niece?”
Brigadier Fitzwilliam leaned back in his chair away from his desk, looking his adversary up and down. “My correspondence is no one’s business but my own. You’ve traveled too far I’m afraid to play postmaster.”
“I traveled too far to see a grown man in a fit of tantrum, that’s what I’ve traveled to far for. So go on, give me your excuses. Please number the times you would like my niece to lay her heart bare for a rogue the likes of you before you will cast off your superiority and make your match.”
“My superiority? You think I find Mary unworthy?”
“You explain your position to me. I understand your family has had some financial difficulties–” Mr. Gardiner paused as he caught Richard’s nostrils flare, an involuntary response of his surprise at Gardiner holding such intelligence, “don’t be daft, it’s all over London that the Fitzwilliams cannot pay their bills.”
Richard Fitzwilliam did not take too kindly to not knowing his enemy’s position. How could Gardiner of all people already know? His mind tallied the possibilities, but each seemed as unlikely as the next.
“So I am here to drag you to Pemberley where you will kindly satisfy both my niece and my wife, and the ten thousand is yours.”
Violently shaking his head, Richard closed his eyes for a moment to consider if he heard correctly. “And will that satisfy you?”
“That remains to be seen.”
“How so? Worried I might not treat her as I should? Worried I might abandon her to fight some war?”
Mr. Gardiner smiled as he used his walking stick to assist his trek towards the door. “My only concern is that you meet me at the inn tomorrow morning to begin our journey and that not a penny of my money finds itself into the hands of your father or brother.”
“That is a promise I can easily keep.”
“I know, son, that’s why I rode three hundred miles to fetch you and we are traveling nearly two hundred more. With fresh horses I’ve arranged, we should arrive by Christmas.” Mr. Gardiner showed himself out as the newly promoted army leader sat dumbstruck. Without so much as a trick, the hot-tempered Brigadier of His Majesty’s Riders just agreed to travel to his cousin’s estate to wed his true love on the morrow.
As Gardiner took his first step back out in the blistering cold, he heard one word.
“PRATT!”
You’ve been reading A Winter Wonder
Confronting her first trials at Pemberley, Elizabeth takes on the tenant Christmas party, sidestepping her mother’s meddling, and finding a way to support the needs of all of her family members. But finding time alone with her husband, Mr. Darcy, in a house full of people is a challenge, even at an estate as large as Pemberley! As old secrets bear fruit, Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth stand united and find support in each other. With a babe on the way, and surprise visitors, there may just be more than one winter wonder to behold.
The fifth season in the Seasons of Serendipity, a historical family saga that imagines how the story of Pride and Prejudice might have changed had Mr. Bennet died of illness before Mr. Collins arrived.
A Winter Wonder, Seasons of Serendipity a Pride and Prejudice novella variation series
Release Date: July 3, 2015
232 pages in print.
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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.