This is the book that was never planned in this series… but when I sat down to write what I wanted Book 3 of the series to be, Elizabeth Bennet had other plans . . .
XOXOXO Elizabeth Ann West
Chapter 4 - The Whisky Wedding, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
IN LONDON, AFTER nearly a week of searching for Lydia Bennet there was no trace. In fact, it had been Edward Gardiner who had gone out the last two days, as long as he could reasonably stay away from his business. Thomas Bennet, on the other hand, had helped himself to a book and brandy, sparring intermittently with his host about more or less waiting for Lydia to find herself.
“What if she has turned to the streets?” Edward began a fresh assault on his sister’s husband for some decency regarding his youngest child.
“The foolish girl turned away from her family the moment she boarded the carriage with that man. I came to London to satisfy Fanny, but even I know when there is nothing to be done.”
“But Elizabeth and my wife are searching the road from here to Scotland! The least we could do is search town.”
Thomas sipped his drink and considered the frustrated and reddish complexioned man chastising him for inaction. He had already declared his favorite daughter’s flight to Scotland with a chaperone a fool’s errand, but Mr. Bennet did not wish to insult Gardiner’s wife. So he began his own line of questioning.
“You think I should search for my daughter?”
“Yes!” Edward Gardiner bent at his knees in exasperation and looked to the heavens for a divine dose of patience with the impertinent man.
“And you suspect she has been sold, or cast off, and now warms the bed of men who pay the penny?”
Gardiner nodded, feeling relieved that his line of thought finally matched Bennet’s slower uptake.
“And you are prepared to run all over London, visiting the houses of ill repute with your wife on holiday, even on this street as it’s more likely what that lowlife could afford had they picked lodgings first?”
Mr. Gardiner’s mouth opened and closed in a poor imitation of a fish gulping for water to pass through its gills. “I—that is—I had not thought about how it would appear . . .”
“I see.” Thomas Bennet returned back to his book. Appearing to be at a stalemate, he licked his thumb and forefinger to turn the page. “My daughter has sullied her name and ruined her family. Do not drag yours down into the muck with mine. Tend your business.”
Feeling broken, Mr. Gardiner poured himself a drink and without his favorite chair available due to Bennet’s claim, he settled upon the bench running along his bookshelf. He had devoured a good half of the glass before he wondered if his brother Bennet knew even more he was not sharing.
“And what explanation do you plan to give Fanny?” Edward’s older sister was prone to high theatrics and taking to her bed at the slightest provocation. He worried what might happen when the truth of her favorite daughter being lost to the capriciousness of the London streets finally made its way to her heart.
Bennet sighed. “Jane and I shall remain here until Elizabeth returns and then say our farewells. You will not be able to send for her or Jane for some time, if ever again.”
“And Lydia?”
“A year of quiet living in the country with no mention of her will go a long way to vindicate my family. Perhaps in time, we shall see a way back to the good graces of our friends. If not, then I hold little hope for my remaining daughters and may live to see them regret me forever as their father.”
“You mean we cannot shield . . .” Edward gulped more drink as Thomas Bennet shook his head.
“I would not ask you and Madeline to take such a burden. You have your own children to worry about. And worry about them you should, I am learning too late for my own sake.”
The pungent scent of regret and helplessness permeated the office as the two men came to an understanding. They would wait for the ladies to return from Scotland, and then endure the aftermath of Lydia’s fall in their own ways.
Outside the study, silent tears fell down Jane Bennet’s face as she heard the men inside speak so crassly about her sister, her reputation and her future. When it appeared that nothing more would be said, Jane wiped her tears and went above stairs to fetch the maid, Sarah. Her father had said it was likely Lydia and Wickham took lodgings somewhere affordable, and so she would renew the search by asking every inn and boarding house she could find. For good measure, she enlisted the aid of the footman Nat, who was tall and burly, who had enjoyed hearing Miss Bennet’s stories when he was but a lad and serving the family.
When Jane knocked on the door of her uncle’s study and announced she would be taking a walk in the park for fresh air, her father asked perfunctorily if she was taking a chaperone.
“Yes Father, a maid and a footman, if you do not mind, Uncle?”
Edward Gardiner shook his head and looked at his niece with great pity.
“Enjoy the city as much as you can, child. We will see you at supper.”
Jane did not lie, she did begin her search for Lydia with a walk in the nearest park. Then she, Sarah, and Nat began the walk down the lane and started stopping at any place with a sign for lodgings. Jane told herself she would have to come up with better ideas for excursions so she could borrow the carriage, she would not be able to search very far on foot. But it was a start.
Chapter 5 - The Whisky Wedding, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
THE ENTIRE TRIP to Scotland Elizabeth fretted and worried over the pace of the Gardiner carriage heading to the border. She logically understood the horses and children, and even her aunt and herself, needed rest. Yet this understanding did not keep the edge from her voice every moment she barked at her aunt or cousins when she felt them tarrying too long at a stop. That her uncle had the resources to change their team at nearly every other stop satisfied her little. They were moving much too slowly to reach Lydia before she married Mr. Wickham, though by now, there was little to be done but make them marry if they should find them less so.
At last they reached the Three Hammers, an appropriately named place for the blacksmiths that performed many of the ceremonies. As the Gardiner carriage rolled to a stop, Madeline Gardiner gently put a hand on Elizabeth’s arm before she might alight from the equipage.
“Remember, we must be discreet. There is little to be gained if anyone knows we are searching for a Lydia Bennet.”
“Descriptions only, to be sure, much like the last score of stops.” Elizabeth bit her lip and tried not to feel despair. At both of the last two inns, there had been no recollection of a man in uniform and young, lively brunette traveling together. There was a passing resemblance between Elizabeth and Lydia, but none of the innkeepers or stable hands thought of another lady of a similar coloring and look. As loud as Lydia liked to be, it was too much of a long shot to hope her sister had merely remained quiet and demure if the couple had stopped. Truth be told, it was seeming less and less likely Mr. Wickham and Lydia ever left London at all, but Elizabeth refused to admit it.
The common rooms of the Three Hammers belied the unifying purpose of the weary travelers. More than a half dozen young couples filled their bellies and drank their ale, some in clear celebration of their fait accompli, a few looking a touch nervous as the sun began to set. Perhaps they had yet to hear the anvil’s clang, pronouncing them man and wife. As Elizabeth approached a table with her aunt’s permission, and young Peter not far behind her, she overheard the most distressing situation for a young couple in Gretna Green.
“Tis not my fault the Smith’s boy be out on errand! I paid him his gold and tomorrow we shall wed,” a young man scolded his female companion who sniffled as she cast her gaze down to her pewter plate of stew.
“Pardon me, have either of you met a soldier and a young woman, looking perhaps similar to me, on your way here?” Elizabeth drew in a deep breath as this interview would be the same as the others.
“We lives here, we do.” The indignant young man challenged Elizabeth’s assumption that the young couple was anything but proper.
“Please, I am not meaning to offend. My sister Ly– is lost and I am desperate to know if she and her beau have made it safely to Gretna Green.” Elizabeth caught herself before saying a name and hastily sought sympathy by confessing her loss. Unfortunately, the young woman who was companion to the lad burst into tears.
“My pa! My brother!” The young woman wailed, but turned to her companion for comfort.
“Best be off with ye, ain’t seen no soldiers.” The man spat on the floor, dangerously close to Elizabeth’s feet. This made Peter step forward closer to his master’s niece, but Elizabeth held up a hand. She nodded and continued on, interviewing as many in the inn as she could. But table after table, there was little to learn and time did not live on her side.
Exhausted by her efforts, Elizabeth could not find her stomach in the suite of rooms once she joined her aunt and cousins above stairs for the evening.
“I am truly sorry we did not find her, Lizzie. But perhaps it’s not all for naught. Your uncle and father might be enjoying a dinner with your sister and her new husband as we speak.”
Elizabeth poked the blobs of gray in the gravy on her plate and rubbed her neck with left hand. She dropped her fork with a clatter.
“I did manage some news. It appears the blacksmiths here charge a small fortune of the desperate couples. Many travel further to Coldstream and Lamberton . . . ” Elizabeth’s last bit of hope spilled out with the last resort she held to find Lydia.
Madeline Gardiner looked at her children, weary and fussy from such a breakneck pace of travel. “That’s another eighty miles!” She shook her head as she mentally calculated the distance.
For her part, Elizabeth wistfully remembered a conversation she once had about fifty miles of good road with Mr. Darcy but did not think her aunt would find such a reference at all helpful. In fact, thinking about Mr. Darcy of Derbyshire felt like a bad omen as Elizabeth began to accept the social pariahs she and her sisters would soon become. If only she had known how incorrectly she had judged that shy man, a man as reticent as her sister Jane! Perhaps she and Mr. Darcy might have married and forced Lydia to remain home for the summer and she would not be so far from home and worn ragged by a fruitless aim.
“I am sorry, my dear, but we will remain here a few days to rest and then return home. If we travel more slowly to the south, perhaps we might enjoy a few sights and hills before we face whatever outcome we must in London.” Madeline Gardiner offered Elizabeth a half-smile, and her niece scowled.
As Elizabeth nodded to her aunt, a new plan niggled in the back of her mind. She had some money of her own and perhaps it was the memory of Mr. Darcy or the horrors to come, but she simply could not give up! Just a little further, perhaps to Coldstream and back, and Elizabeth would rejoin her aunt. After all, her father had sent her to London on the post chaise many a time with her sister. Come first light, she would hop the carriage heading further northeast and feel satisfied she had done all that she might to save her family name.
That night, as Elizabeth wrote a note to her aunt with her plan while everyone else slept, the ghost-like memory of her mother’s face plagued her thoughts. Each excuse Elizabeth wrote sounded less convincing than the last, but her promise to her mother that she would find Lydia spurred her to push the doubts and fears aside. When at last she was finished, Elizabeth placed the folded note so her aunt would see it come morning, and she tiptoed out of the room to go find Peter in the stables.
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 6 - The Whisky Wedding, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
TWO MILES FROM Canonbie, Elizabeth Bennet’s foolish plan to search alone came to an abrupt end. The axle on the mail post carriage cracked with an enormous boom! The vehicle toppled over, casting those in the less-expensive seats outside into the muds of summer. Inside, passengers violently tossed to one side of the cabin, resulting in a tangled mess of bodies. Elizabeth cried out as she received a sharp elbow to her ribs and a kick to her stomach but being on the far side of the carriage before it toppled, she thought herself the least injured.
From the screams outside, her heart raced and she used all of her might, and the hand of a strapping Scotsman outside, to climb through the door above her. One by one, those who had ridden in the carriage climbed out to survey the damage.
“My boy! My boy!” An older woman who had traveled upon the same bench as Lizzie hobbled past her to the edge of the road lining the forest. She fell to her knees and cried in agony next to a body laid out upon the grass. The boy of about eleven lay peaceful, as if he were merely sleeping, and not as one of those unlucky enough to have been crushed beneath the equipage. Sorrow filled Elizabeth’s breast as she felt the mother’s pain, her feet rooted to the ground as more shouts of men and others swirled around her.
A shot rang out causing the assembled group of travelers in various states of injury to leap at the crack. The driver tucked the pistol back into his belt and one of the horses lay still upon the road.
“Poor beast broke a leg,” he explained, coming to the group gathered around the young lad. “Shame the rut got him, too.”
“You were traveling much too fast!” one man shouted, his one arm hanging limply at his side.
“Yes, yes, much too fast!” The crowd began to turn on the driver as they came out of their shock from the accident. The driver began backing away, fumbling to reload his pistol.
“Now, listen, listen, I went same as I always do. Go look, the road was half washed away. Wasn’t anything I could do!”
Elizabeth’s head began to ache as she took in her surroundings. Trunks and luggage lay strewn across the ground with two parcels split open, but neither were hers. She twirled around pressing her palms to her temples in search of Peter, suddenly panicked at the thought of the young man lying grievously injured, or worse, as he was not standing near her.
“Peter! Peter?” she called, walking away from the angry mob still fussing at the driver, though the man was joined by reinforcements. A postillon and another traveler were defending the driver and it appeared frustrations merely needed a vent before cooler heads might prevail. Elizabeth walked quickly to the other side of the carriage, seeing for herself the exposed underside completely cracked in two. Down in the field, a stir attracted her attention and Elizabeth stumbled down the embankment.
“Peter? Is that you? Are you hurt?”
“I am uninjured,” the voice of her aunt’s servant put a glimmer of hope into Elizabeth’s heart.
“I am coming to help you!” But by the time Elizabeth reached him, the thickset young man had righted himself and stood in a crop of wheat up to his knees.
“However did you get all the way down here?”
Peter allowed the niece of his master to offer him a hand back up to the road where the passengers who were not mourning in wails, nor wailing in pain, had begun the process of continuing their journey. A small procession walked on carrying their belongings down the road.
“When the carriage took the turn and hit the rut, I heard the crack and leapt off.” Peter limped and winced in pain as he had injured his ankle with his fall.
“Well, blessings be that you are only minorly injured.” Elizabeth found her trunk and squinted her eyes down the road to the people already on their way. Turning back to Peter, she lowered her voice. “The boy atop did not survive.”
Peter looked down at the road in shame, but hoisted Elizabeth’s trunk onto his shoulder. They made a dozen steps before he put it down, clearly in too much pain to make much progress with the trunk.
“Wait here.” Elizabeth marched over to the driver and tried to negotiate for one of the horses, but her plea fell on deaf ears. The driver held no interest in handing over one of his horses to a woman traveling without a companion, and gave a clear indication he suspected Elizabeth would steal the horse rather than ride it to the inn. Angry, Elizabeth picked up an end of her trunk and began to drag it, cursing the pompous driver with each step.
“Miss Bennet, you must not. I shall carry the trunk.” Peter remained faithful to his job, knowing her uncle would not be happy to hear that Peter made his niece carry her own trunk after a carriage accident.
“You . . . can . . . scarcely . . . walk.” Elizabeth grunted, seeing the people ahead of them becoming smaller and smaller as the road sloped upward towards a hill and a few disappeared over the crest.
“But I–”
Elizabeth paused and looked behind her, as with his injury, Peter walked slower than she did even while dragging the trunk.
“The inn is two miles that way. I shall manage my trunk if you manage your feet. If you cannot make it, I do not believe I can even drag you to safety, so step lightly and mind the ruts.” Elizabeth Bennet gritted her teeth and dug back into her task. Two miles of good road never much worried her, but in a strange land with a lame servant, she suddenly felt very exposed. The sun had not yet reached its zenith, so even with her burdens they should reach the inn before dark. But only if young Peter had suffered a sprain, and not a break.
You’ve been reading The Whisky Wedding
When Elizabeth Bennet of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice learns of her sister’s elopement before leaving for the Peaks District, she and her aunt are off to Scotland to chase the wayward couple. Inn after inn, there is no sign of Lydia or Mr. Wickham, but Elizabeth won’t give up. A foolhardy decision to continue to search on her own lands Elizabeth right into the arms of a familiar face . . . Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy.
Join author Elizabeth Ann West in a tale of carriage accidents, amnesia, and a forced marriage, but happy endings for all. Well, maybe not Mr. Wickham!
The Whisky Wedding
a Pride and Prejudice novel variation
Release Date: December 28, 2016
514 pages in print.
+ 23 additional Pride & Prejudice variations are available at these fine retailers . . .
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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.