And now the events of Books 1, 2, and 3 are coming clear… Mr. Bennet IS ill (as Elizabeth knew from seeing him collapse in Book 1), Georgiana is thoroughly rotten, and I really wish we could all go play hide-go-seek with Mr. Darcy at Pemberley… don’t you?
XOXOXO Elizabeth Ann West
Chapter 4 - The Trappings of Marriage, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
“More wine!” Georgiana Wickham’s voice echoed in the empty dining room at Darcy House in London. Abandoned by her friend Caroline Bingley after the Whitcomb party, in which she reunited with her banished husband, the young woman further felt the victim when her husband soon stopped coming home to her bed.
When the staff did not move, Georgiana barked her order louder and directly at the young footman, Jack. The staff of Darcy House resented their new employment revolved around keeping Mr. Darcy’s younger sister well plied with spirits. A few hours into the afternoon and more than a few bottles drained, the young mistress of the home in the absence of the rest of the family became an absolute misery to bear.
Georgiana lustfully leered at the young footman as he leaned over to pour more wine into her glass. She licked her lips as she took in the man’s body.
“You do pour that so well. Nary a drop spilled.” Georgiana offered the young man a compliment laced with a suggestive tone.
Young Jack gulped.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
Jack righted his posture and stepped away from the table, when the mistress reached out and grabbed the young footman by the forearm.
“Pray, do not leave so soon. I believe I need assistance in cutting my meat.” Georgiana batted her eyelashes up at the sandy-haired youth who began to turn pale white with such notice in front of other members of the staff. He glanced to the first footman of the house for a reprieve, but found no ally there. He was on his own in the dangerous waters of admiration from the master’s sister.
“Would you – how may I be of assistance?” Jack carefully placed the decanter of wine upon the table, as Georgiana released his arm and slowly handed to him her knife and fork. The footman began to lean to the side of Mrs. Wickham, but Georgiana would not have that.
“No, no,” She gently guided him to move to a position behind her chair. “I’m afraid this meat is so tough it shall need to be cut properly.” Georgiana’s statement briefly reminded her of the horrible way in which her brother’s trollop closed off the household accounts to the finest butchers in the city and left Mrs. Wickham with nothing more than the cuts not fit for even a dog. “Stand behind me,” she commanded.
Reluctantly, Jack followed her commands and guidance, silverware in hand, to carefully cut Mrs. Wickham’s meat as the young woman cooed and rubbed her face along each one of his arms, as if he were embracing her like a lover and not performing a task as a hired hand. Perspiration began to bead along Jack’s forehead as, after each cut, he looked furtively to the door to the dining room. Mrs. Wickham’s husband, George, was a mean sort of man who was once thrown out of the house, but brought back in thanks to his young wife. No one had seen him for days, and Mrs. Wickham became more ornery each hour her husband remained about town.
“Now, take the seat next to me, and I believe I shall need your assistance to eat each bite.” Georgiana continued to give inappropriate demands of the young footman until a sudden cough behind them attracted her notice.
Stephen, the most senior footman of the house, apologized profusely and bowed, asking for Mrs. Wickham’s forgiveness for his misstep. Georgiana cooly slanted her eyes, and Jack hoped he would now be released from the attentions of Mrs. Wickham.
“I believe this room is entirely too crowded. Leave us.”
Jack winced as the two other footmen in the dining room followed their orders and began to shuffle out to the hall.
“I’m certain you will be able to provide for any need I might have,” Georgiana shamelessly flirted with Jack.
“Please, ma’am, I should like to, that is, I do not wish to lose my position.” Jack stood slightly taller at attention until, to his horror, he glanced down. Mrs. Wickham’s fingertips began to dance from his knee up to his thigh across his breeches.
“Tut tut; I can plainly see when a man is attracted to me. And you shall not lose your position. As a footman, you are to provide any service your master or mistress might need, no?”
Jack looked up at the ceiling as the woman’s hand came perilously closer to his personal privacy. “Yes, ma’am.”
He breathed a sigh of relief when suddenly her hand snatched away.
“Good. Kindly help me from my chair and let us retire to my chambers. I find I am no longer hungry for this poor excuse of a meal and have other appetites to satisfy. And bring the wine and two glasses.”
Torn between rejecting Mrs. Wickham’s commands or being thrown out of the house that night, Jack cursed himself for not keeping more of his pay in reserve. He had nary a farthing to even pay for passage to Pemberley, where he might plead his case before Mr. Darcy. And so, without response, he lifted the heavy oak chair so that the sixteen-year-old Georgiana Wickham could elegantly rise, considerably more plump than just a few months before, and seize a lifestyle so familiar to many a woman in her social set.
She climbed the stairs, looking back every few steps at the poor young footman who looked as if he were marching to the executioner. Georgiana laughed as she realized Caroline Bingley had been right all along. As soon as she stopped thinking like a child, the world was indeed much more open to her than she had realized. And if her beast of a husband could spend days in the arms of his lover, then she would do the same.
Young Jack would suit for now, but soon she would fight harder for her own household as Caroline had suggested. Her brother’s taste in footmen did not please her predilections, but as a mistress in her own right she could fix that. What was a dowry of £30 000 good for if she couldn’t even hire her own servants?
Chapter 5 - The Trappings of Marriage, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
Elizabeth Bennet silently recounted her steps as she stood before a new wing of Pemberley so she might remember later. She had climbed the main staircase, turned right, dashed down the corridor to the end, and then turned left.
At the end of that corner, she found a corkscrew set of stairs behind a door barely large enough for a closet. Despite an army of dust bunnies compared to the more frequently used portions of the house, she climbed the stairs to find another corridor with an ancient blue runner before her. She looked out the window, realizing she was now on the third floor.
The expansive greens of the Pemberley lawns and surrounding forests laid out before her all the way to the reflecting pool. A small contingent of groundsmen dotted the landscape that she could see more clearly if she squinted her eyes. But other than those few workers, Mother Nature’s great bounty rolled in a pristine and majestic manner around the estate, like so much of the manor house she now explored.
Renewing her focus, Elizabeth began to tiptoe as if somehow reaching a new part of the house required her to remain quiet lest she be found out like a naughty child. But it was her right to discover and learn all that she could about the home, a mission she took most dearly to her heart as, day after day, Mr. Darcy rarely left his study.
The wood-paneled hallway before her held many doors and she closed her eyes to think of the first number that came to her mind, then happily skipped to door number five on the right. The doorknobs were fashioned in brass with a healthy amount of patina, and the doors and frames stained in color to match the paneling in the hall instead of the fashionable white-painted paneling on the second floor. To her surprise, this door was not locked. She squealed in delight that she did not have to bring out the mistress’ key as she allowed herself to enter the mysterious room, a basket of provisions still in hand.
Her anticipation outside quickly diminished as the door squeaked open to reveal yet another room with nothing but ghostly furnishings. Elizabeth sighed and frowned at the gorgeous golden carpeting and pale yellow walls appearing cold with every wall hanging, chair, and sofa draped in white cloth. Pushing her disappointment aside, Elizabeth stepped into the room, leaving the door behind her open and placed her basket upon the marble hearth before the unused fireplace. Had it not been early summer the room might have been a frozen white echo chamber, but the day’s sun had spilled in through the tall windows extending above the drapes.
“Well, this shall be just like opening presents,” she said to no one but herself, the sound of her voice giving her a shock of how silent the room truly stood. Calling upon a youthful exuberance, Elizabeth Bennet stepped forward and grasped the corner of the nearest white sheet. With a mighty “Aha!” she pulled the cover to reveal a crimson velvet sofa with gold accents, almost a near match to the coverings of her bedroom’s dressings.
Wheeling around on her heel she nearly stumbled over a small mysterious object at her shins, and she reached down to lift another white cloth. This action revealed an overstuffed footstool that matched the sofa. Suddenly, the room began to look as if it had a life again as Elizabeth continued removing more and more drop- cloths until, at last, she came upon the tall, rectangular outline taking up most of the far wall. Not wishing to pull the great frame down, she gingerly held the bottom of the white covering and rippled up a waft of energy through the fabric so that the top corners fell off their edges and the cloth slowly fluttered to the ground.
Elizabeth coughed as years of dust fluttered down as well, but once the air settled she stared up at the most beautiful portrait of a woman with pale coloring, dark brown hair, but green eyes that seemed to look into your very soul. She stood before the painting, taking in every small detail, even noticing the elegant sofa the woman sat upon in her cream dress was the same furnishings behind her! Elizabeth spun around to compare the two subjects and gawked in surprise as none other than Mr. Darcy stood in the room, looking down at her basket.
“Fitzwilliam! Whatever are you doing here?” Elizabeth smiled despite her astonishment and swiftly crossed the room, minding the footstool so as not to trip disgracefully, and met him by the fireplace.
“And I might ask the same of you. Mrs. Reynolds told me you are making a habit of opening long-closed rooms and removing the protective cloths. A maid saw you go to the third floor and I thought I might discover your mischief myself.”
“It is mischief now for a mistress to learn about her home?” Elizabeth stated more than questioned as she admired her handiwork and did not regret a single action. Her mission lay in equal measures of part discovery and part rescue, though the latter did not enter her mind until Fitzwilliam confronted her just now.
“That is not my sentiment, but surely even you could agree that it might be wiser if we discussed this with Mrs. Reynolds, and perhaps the staff could prepare rooms in a sequence for your inspection.” Fitzwilliam ceased talking as Elizabeth shook her head.
Elizabeth grasped the handle of her basket and carried it over to the two large expansive windows on the far side, near the portrait. She had already pulled the drapes to let in more light when she first found the room held great promise. Two more covered chairs and what must be a table stood in the alcove, and she demonstrated for her soon-to-be-husband precisely why such an arrangement of opening the rooms in a sequence would not suffice.
Using her hand like a great magician, she waved a beckoning palm over the chair and then lifted the white cloth to reveal not an upholstery that matched the sofa, but a leather offering with studs and wooden ornamentation that would make the chair much better in a lodge than in a stately home such as Pemberley. Fitzwilliam’s eyes opened wide at the chair, and Elizabeth misunderstood his gaze. She giggled.
“See, you are surprised as I was! I fully expected this to match the rest, but what a unique specimen.” Elizabeth walked around the chair to stand at the front edge before unceremoniously plopping down to test the springs.
“It is so comfortable!” She wiggled her fingers to urge Mr. Darcy to come over and unveil the second mysterious chair, but Fitzwilliam stood stoically by the fireplace, unmoving.
When he refused to play along, Elizabeth uncovered the table and revealed an intricately-designed geometric pattern laid in marble across the tabletop. She moved to unveil the next chair, but Fitzwilliam’s voice finally called out.
“Stop.”
Elizabeth froze.
She slowly turned her head to see Fitzwilliam angrier than she had ever seen him before.
As she stood and backed away from the chair, Fitzwilliam stormed across the golden carpeting to challenge her with his taller presence.
“Have you any idea what this room is? Who is in that painting above you?” Fitzwilliam pointed, but he dared not look. Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder and realized the woman did look quite familiar.
Suddenly, the furniture made sense. Feminine. Masculine. The room must have been a particular sitting room of his parents.
“She is your mother?”
“We shouldn’t be in here,” Fitzwilliam began, and he tried to take Elizabeth’s hand to urge her to the door, but she jerked it away.
“No.” She darted out her other hand and pulled the white sheet off the other chair, finally revealing one that matched the upholstery of the sofa.
“Elizabeth…”
“Can’t you see? This house. These rooms. They’ve all been buried and it’s sad. Your parents could not have wanted for you to live in a monument.”
Fitzwilliam rubbed his hand across his forehead and finally braved looking up at the oil portrait of his mother when she was but married to his father for a year. As a boy he had always loved that painting, and he remembered many an evening coming into this room, with his nanny leading the way, to spend time with his parents. All the good memories were long before his mother grew sicker with each child she could not carry to term. By the time Georgiana was born, his mother no longer possessed the energy to come up to the third floor from the new family wing below, redecorated solely to accommodate her illness.
Darcy pulled himself from his melancholy recollection as he noticed Elizabeth had taken a seat in his mother’s customary chair and began to pull out food from her basket.
“What is this?” he asked, suddenly noticing the scene to be much more cheerful than he first assessed.
Elizabeth tilted her head to the window. “Every day I eat my midday meal in a new room of this house. I have found I prefer rooms with east-facing windows, as it has the prettiest view of the grounds.”
Darcy slowly lowered himself into his father’s chair, and scowled at the truth the love of his life seemed to force him to face at every turn. “If you prefer the lawn, I can see your point. But the Conservatory on the south side holds a veritable garden indoors, and leads out to the manicured roses that were a favorite of my mother’s.”
Elizabeth looked up at Fitzwilliam as she dutifully handed him the small bottle of wine she had asked Cook to tuck into the basket.
“The Conservatory? I’m afraid I have not discovered that room yet. Perhaps I shall find it in time.” She watched him barely struggle with the corkscrew to open the bottle. “But it is cheating that you’ve given me the direction,” she noted. He offered her a sheepish grin and poured the wine into glasses Elizabeth produced from the basket.
Once more he tried to convince Elizabeth into a more predictable study of the house. She raised her glass to his idea and soundly rejected it.
“As I am not yet allowed to explore outdoors without you, and you are always in your study with important work, I have satisfied myself with the discovery of the indoors. You cannot ruin my fun, Mr. Darcy, with maps and listings of rooms. I may not find them all before we go to Scotland, but I shall treasure the ones that I find first.”
“But the work. The staff?” Mr. Darcy glanced around the room at the utter disarray of white cloths all about the floor.
“Yes, I meant to speak to you about that. Unless there is a question of cost, I should like to increase the staff. This house is so lovely and . . . large.” Elizabeth laughed at her vulgarity, and Mr. Darcy joined her. She placed her wine glass down upon the table and reached across for Fitzwilliam’s hand. Still slightly taken aback at the times when Elizabeth initiated affection, his thumb gently rubbed her petite palm interlaced with his.
“I wish for us to fill this house with life again. Friends, family, people!” Elizabeth laughed.
Fitzwilliam gave her a sultry stare as she pulled her hand back and continued to remove items from the basket for their impromptu indoor picnic.
As Mr. Darcy aided her efforts, he had to admit she was completely right.
“You mean I do not sound like a spoiled bride making changes for change’s sake?” Elizabeth arched an eyebrow, making her future groom cough that she would be so plainspoken with him.
“Not in the slightest.” He sipped a healthy portion of his wine. Two birds flew by the window in a mid-air tussle over some matter before diving lower beyond their view in the window. “If I was certain we could be back to finalize the harvest plans . . .”
“Fitzwilliam, I am not impatient. I know you have been away for months. Since last autumn!”
“We would leave Pemberley this afternoon for the border,” he finished.
Elizabeth gulped and folded her hands in her lap, then changed her mind to find a morsel to eat and give them employment. She inwardly scolded herself that all of this was her family’s fault. If her father was not so stubborn as to believe the gossip, they could have married in Hertfordshire with his blessing! But it was not to be had, and she would not turn one and twenty until August.
“I promise, no more than another week.” And Darcy meant this vow as Elizabeth sighed, revealing she had secretly hoped it would be a shorter spell. In all aspects of his life, patience remained the virtue in which Fitzwilliam found the greatest comfort. He had more than a few ideas of how he might help fulfill Elizabeth’s request that Pemberley become full of life once more, but those ideas would have to wait.
Once they married over the anvil, he did not intend for them to leave Carver House for three months or more since he wished to give her the excitement of a wedding trip without the actual travel. Both of them had traveled more than their fair share in less than a year. And keeping what few traditions he might, he did not share this new intelligence with her so some element of the wedding trip might be a surprise, even if it was merely the duration.
“Another glass of wine before you leave?” she asked, offering for them to finish the bottle. Darcy smiled and leaned forward to give Elizabeth a quick kiss.
“Only if you give me a hint as to what direction I might go to find you again tomorrow.”
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 Trappings of Marriage, a Pride and Prejudice Variation
Mr. Bennet of Longbourn peered into the small hand-glass rescued from the meager possessions remaining of his second daughter, Elizabeth. With Jane married, Elizabeth off with that cad Mr. Darcy, and Kitty in hiding with her married sister, the volume at his entailed estate existed at a diminished level compared to the same time last year.
He turned his head side to side and glanced for spots. Finding none, he stuck out his tongue which appeared a deep purple from his penchant for drinking port throughout the day. The damn wars had made any decent spirit from the Continent and now America hard to come by, but the gains in Portugal at least kept port in somewhat regular supply.
His hand shook as he flipped the looking glass over and tucked it back into his desk just as the door to his study burst open to a flummoxed Mrs. Bennet.
“Mr. Bennet! Do you know who it is I have just seen and heard the most distressing news?” Mrs. Bennet’s volume of voice had not waned, despite the lack of family members currently living in her home.
Mr. Bennet shrugged, but he did not bother with a further response to his wife who would continue in a one-sided conversation without effort on his part.
“Why, my sister Phillips has told me that Jane has taken to her bed and Kitty will remain at Netherfield in service to her sister!” Mrs. Bennet paced the small rectangle of carpet in front of her husband’s desk before turning around to confront him directly. “Did you sanction this arrangement?”
Mr. Bennet sighed as he interlaced his fingers below his chin. To claim he had sanctioned such an arrangement would be a falsehood. To describe being thrown out of the Bingley residence by none other than the affable Mr. Bingley himself when he had tried to take both Elizabeth and Kitty home to Longbourn weeks ago was entirely more accurate. However, Mr. Bennet’s pride was not of such a low register for him to confess he held little control over any of his daughters, despite the evidence of losing two-fifths of their population to their headstrong ways.
“Mr. Bennet!”
With a cough and clearing of his throat, the husband of a score and five years began the practiced skills of polite discussion with his easily agitated wife. “It was you who detailed to me that Jane’s condition belied a complication, was it not?”
Mrs. Bennet quivered her lower lip but then appeared to think twice about such an admission. She pressed her mouth into a thin line, and made a small sound that betrayed her complicity in her husband’s question but also vocalized her existing disgust at being passed over by her eldest daughter for comfort.
“And did you not unequivocally say we could not receive Mr. Darcy and Lizzie, even though we knew that Mr. and Mrs. Bingley supported their cause?”
“We could not! Why, poor Lydia still mopes and cries over her embarrassment.”
Mr. Bennet nodded. His breath hitched with tightness in his chest that made keeping his composure a challenge. Believing himself to be sitting too long in one attitude, he pushed up from his chair and soon felt an immediate regret for the solution. Trailing his fingers delicately along the edge of his desk in a protective manner to steady himself if it should be needed, he slowly approached his wife. “We live the consequences of our positions. When I die–”
“Do not speak of such things; I cannot bear it.” Mrs. Bennet tried to turn away to emphasize her emotional response to a greater height than perhaps she felt. Mr. Bennet gently touched her shoulder to turn her back towards him.
“When I am gone you will have precious little to live upon. You, Mary, and Lydia should survive. I cannot advise pursuing further discord with your eldest daughter.”
“But she has rejected me! Not a line for her dear Mama, but she writes to her Aunt Phillips . . . And she says that Kitty is painting.” Mrs. Bennet’s eyes widened, as if such an activity of artistic endeavor was akin to walking the streets of London at night.
Mr. Bennet laughed a hollow echo of his once-jovial self, and suddenly Mrs. Bennet’s face fell. She reached up to take her husband’s hand from her shoulder and held it tentatively in her own. With the smallest voice any would be privy to hearing come from Mrs. Bennet’s mouth, the woman most anxious to see her five daughters married in good matches displayed an uncommon instance of sense.
“Your condition has progressed,” she pronounced with no theatrics or fluttering of handkerchiefs.
Mr. Bennet scowled.
“Progressed, regressed, that fool Jones has a different prognosis for me each time he comes. I feel no better or worse.”
Mrs. Bennet released her husband’s hand as he trampled backward a few steps to find his chair once more. She twisted her bottom lip and bit the corner, a behavior Mr. Bennet had long seen his favorite daughter, Elizabeth, perform in a reflection of her maternal lineage.
Mr. Bennet smiled, thinking of the many times young Lizzie had come to him; yet she would come to him no more. When he had confronted his daughters and their beaus at Netherfield Park just two weeks ago, he had drawn a line in the sand for Elizabeth to come home and declare her loyalties once and for all. She had declared in the Bingleys’ foyer precisely where her loyalties lay, but they were not with him.
Mrs. Bennet misinterpreted her husband’s wistful smile as she wrestled with herself about sharing the intelligence she’d gathered at her sister’s home. Thinking her husband in a fair mood, she no longer held back information she worried would distress him the most.
“Mr. Darcy and our daughter have left Netherfield. They did so the morning after Kitty removed herself to Jane’s home.”
Mr. Bennet clasped his face and pulled his fingertips across the skin around his mouth, down to his chin.
“So the die is cast.”
“Should you not go after them?” Mrs. Bennet’s question stood practically rhetorical. Half a month’s head- start meant there was no catching Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth before they crossed the Scottish border. They were likely already married over the anvil, as the nearest hamlet to do the job was only a week’s ride away. Mr. Bennet explained as much to his wife, but Mrs. Bennet shook her head.
“Jane has had a letter. It appears they stopped at Pemberley for Mr. Darcy to see to his affairs before continuing, and the delay is longer than anticipated. You were right, Mr. Bennet. That man possessed not a single honorable intention towards our daughter, and here I was, slightly foolish in hoping our daughter was right about him.”
As his wife prattled on about plans for dinner and an invitation to Lucas Lodge for cards later that week, Mr. Bennet privately withdrew in his mind to his memories of the young Lizzie playing chess and reading in his study. He perfunctorily nodded at the prescribed times to his wife’s further discussion, but he would not allow himself to fully reflect on the last nail in the coffin for his favorite daughter’s fall from grace. At least, he would not think about it further until he was alone with nothing but the bottle of port.
You’ve been reading The Trappings of Marriage
Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet are off to Gretna Green!
In Book 4 of the Moralities of Marriage series our dear couple have survived accidents, forced marriages, and meddling relatives. After a short stay at Pemberley where the future Mrs. Darcy comes to terms with the kind of wife Fitzwilliam Darcy will need on his arm, they take off for the border to marry over the anvil. When Mr. Darcy plans an idyllic wedding trip to his family estate just outside of Dumfries, the newly married Mr. and Mrs. Darcy discover the trappings of marriage have yet to relinquish their hold.
The Trappings of Marriage delivers the highs of the Darcys’ love and devotion in spite of the lows of scandal and destruction they left behind in England. Join author Elizabeth Ann West and the thousands of readers who read this book as it was posted chapter by chapter for a unique visit into the world of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
The Trappings of Marriage, Book 4 of the Moralities of Marriage
a Pride and Prejudice novel variation series
Release Date: August 26, 2017
394 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.