The Miracles of Marriage
A Pride and Prejudice Novel Variation
Elizabeth Ann West
Elizabeth Ann West
Copyright © 2019 by Elizabeth Ann West
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Ebook ISBN: 9781944345204
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You may reach the author at [email protected]
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Contents
Books By Elizabeth Ann West
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Books By Elizabeth Ann West
About the Author
Books By Elizabeth Ann West
The Trouble With Horses
Very Merry Mischief
To Capture Mr. Darcy
The Whisky Wedding
If Mr. Darcy Dared (mature)
Much to Conceal (exclusively in the boxed set 3 Dates with Mr. Darcy)
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The Moralities of Marriage Series
By Consequence of Marriage
A Virtue of Marriage
The Blessing of Marriage
The Trappings of Marriage
The Miracle of Marriage
The Heart of Marriage (TBA)
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The Seasons of Serendipity Series
A Winter Wrong
A Spring Sentiment
A Summer Shame
An Autumn Accord
A Winter Wonder
A January for Jane (bonus novella)
From Longbourn to Pemberley (Boxed Set, Year One)
A Spring Society
A May for Mary (bonus novella)
A Summer Spouse (TBA)
An Autumn Argument (TBA)
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Shop all of Elizabeth’s books on all major retailers by visiting her catalog:
http://www.elizabethannwest.com/roseroom/catalog.html
To Lisa West, because girl.
1
Since the murder of George Wickham hit The Times in August 1812, the street outside Darcy House in London buzzed for weeks with abnormal activity. Without the family in residence, the front path before the door contained a motley mix of men from sailors to coppersmiths, alternating from yells to jeers for most of the day. They stayed on the street side of the iron gate, blocking the walk and oftentimes congesting traffic.
Inside, Mr. Darcy’s staff kept life running, as usual, utilizing the back doors that led them down alleys to the far side of the block behind the carriage house. The mob had not braved the catacombs of Mayfair to Berkely and Piccadilly and its rivers of slop running between the city homes of great men.
“Why have they nowhere to go? Where’s the Watchman?” the young footman Jack asked as he peeked out the front window. Arrested with fascination, the growing unrest stirred in him an equal part of admiration and disgust. He couldn’t fault the men wanting their due, but he found the display unsettling and against the rule of law.
Jack’s own situation was just as precarious. He was grateful the master’s sister had been taken to Kent as she had insisted he perform as her lover. While he missed the release of passion, he did not miss the discord. Mrs. Wickham’s moods were very unpredictable, and the position it had put him in with the rest of the staff and Mrs. Potter had left him without allies. Unsure if he would even have a job when the master returned, Jack sloughed off more than he worked, a policy that wouldn’t help his case if it was put before Mr. Darcy.
“They’re angry. They’ve lost their money; spent where they shouldn’t, and believe Mr. Darcy shall fix it,” Mrs. Potter retorted as she also stole a wary glance at the escalating situation.
She agreed with Jack about the Watchman. Usually, the crowd would be dispersed every hour, but she had not seen such an effort since the previous day. The faces changed out in the masses as Catherine Potter warily observed most days from a window on the third floor when she was checking the maids’ work. But today felt different, there was a charge in the air, and even she felt uneasy. As she joined Jack to look over his shoulder, her intuition proved correct.
A chunk of rotting cabbage sailed over the iron fence and landed near the front steps. The mob cheered and soon a second handful of rotting vegetation followed, more and more heaping upon the steps. Scowling, the housekeeper turned away and applied the same logic to the footman.
“The question is why do you have nowhere to work? Is the silver finished? Have the stores been dusted?”
“That’s for the maids!” Jack scoffed, as Mrs. Potter gave him a glare of stark dismay.
“The maids, is it?” She grabbed Jack by the crook of his arm as the stockier and more senior footman, Stephen, appeared. “Perhaps you’d prefer to find work elsewhere entirely!”
“There you be! I wondered where you slagged off to!” The older footman tossed a polishing rag at Jack as Mrs. Potter released him, causing Jack to stumble a few steps towards the dining room.
“The family is not even here. Who will know if we take a day off?” Jack asked, shaking the dirty rag he had involuntarily caught to prevent the filth from hitting his face.
“Who will know? I will know! And the master will know. We tolerated long enough the tough spot Mrs. Wickham placed you in, but she’s gone and you either need to fall back in line or leave without a reference since you deserve none.” Mrs. Potter advanced on Jack’s position as Stephen stood next to her to close ranks. “Do not allow a brief liaison with a lonely woman to puff up your ego. I hear the factories are hiring on the Southside,” Mrs. Potter smiled as Jack sauntered off back to work and didn’t listen to more of the lecture. She muttered about how grueling factory work would be compared to the minor task of polishing silver even without her intended audience.
A louder chanting began to echo from outside, and Stephen took sentry at the window to spy the growing tensions. The crowd started yelling in unison, “Open the gate!”
“There’s more than yesterday,” he commented.
Mrs. Potter frowned and sighed. For a spell, the two more senior staff members listened to the yelling. The unison would fall apart for a cacophony cry for justice, then swell again.
“They cry for justice,” the senior footman remarked as a sharp burst of sound hit the door, startling them both. Then another report rang out, then three in a synchronized volley.
“Are they throwing—”
“Get away from the window!” Mrs. Potter yelled as Stephen just missed a heavy stone crashing through the glass. The four-inch half of brick landed with the shards on the pristine marble floor of the entryway. As they both ran, more rocks assaulted the door and front windows.
“Will the gate hold?” he asked.
“Who knows! You and the other footmen barricade the door. Use all of the ground floor furniture that
you can find,” Mrs. Potter yelled as she continued into the dining room.
“And where are you going?” Stephen roared as he ducked in reaction to the sound of another window breaking.
“To find help!” she explained over her shoulder as she yanked open the door to the kitchen below.
The two other footmen, who had been dutifully polishing silver, and Jack stared at Stephen with wide eyes as they could hear the glass breaking and stones starting to hit the windows behind them.
“Right, lads! Grab what you can and let’s block the door. They can throw all the rocks they want, but we’re not letting them in!”
“And why not? Why are we saving this house that’s not even ours?” Jack argued as the two other footmen had begun to help Stephen but then paused as they became unsure about what to do.
“Because it’s our necks! You think they’re coming in for a spot of tea? The Watchmen will come and clear the streets. But in the meantime, we need to barricade the door!” Stephen grunted as he picked up one of the heaviest of the dining chairs that sat at the head of the table. Another footman rushed over to help him lift it as the other grabbed the second of the double doors to push it open.
Jack grunted and blew out the candles.
“JACK!” the other footmen shouted.
“Well if you want the house to bloody catch on fire then,” Jack shrugged, and the others looked sheepish. Snuffing the candles was a good idea to prevent catastrophe if one the candelabras were knocked over.
As the group of four men began moving the contents of the dining room into the hall, they all prayed that the soldiers would arrive soon to disperse the crowd. And they blew out every candle they passed.
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Mrs. Potter issued orders to the kitchen staff to help above stairs and dashed out the back delivery door. She sent a hall boy ahead of her to run to the garrison, but for Catherine Potter, she knew more help than that would be needed.
Two alleys down and a dash across Mount Street, Mrs. Potter and the maid she enlisted to go with her finally arrived at Matlock House.
“Shall we go around back?” the young maid asked, timidly. She had been in service long enough to know that the front doors were not for her kind.
“No, there is no time.” Mrs. Potter marched up to the front door and used the knocker excessively until the butler opened the door. She didn’t wait for a greeting. “Darcy House is being attacked by a mob! Windows have been broken. Please, find the earl.”
After they gained entrance, they found both the countess and the earl were in residence, making plans for their evening out to the theatre. Mrs. Potter relayed the circumstances of the Watchmen abandoning their post, and the earl grew incensed.
“Rioting in the streets? What is Derby thinking?” Henry Fitzwilliam, the third Earl of Matlock, complained in a voice loud enough to frighten the poor maid from Darcy House.
“Dear, let’s not place blame on another peer just yet. Why do we not send our guard with these ladies and you can send a personal message to the Blues. I cannot imagine the crown will want rioting so close to the palace.”
“This is Northumberland’s doing!” The Earl of Matlock further accused and his wife, Margaret Fitzwilliam, cautioned her husband for his bombastic ways the same way she just had, and throughout their entire marriage. She stepped directly into his line of sight and nodded her head with a mock whistling gesture from her lips. As she blew out her breath, her husband began to calm.
“Yes, yes, my apologies, Mrs. Potter,” the earl offered his nephew’s housekeeper the respect she was due to her position. “We shall send you with a guard and hopefully disperse this rabble. Has anyone been hurt?”
Mrs. Potter shook her head. “Not to my knowledge, your Lordship, but I cannot speak for circumstances now.”
The earl nodded his head and instructed his butler to also send for Dr. Matthews. “In case anyone is unwell, or merely needs draughts of courage.”
The butler escorted Mrs. Potter and the maid out towards the back as the alarm was raised for the men in Matlock’s employ to arm themselves and head towards Mayfair.
“I shall go directly to the Blues,” the earl spoke out loud, expecting his wife’s disapproval.
“Yes, take the carriage, go directly. I did not wish to see this show anyway. The reviews have been lackluster.” Lady Matlock supported her husband’s plans.
“And what will you do?” he asked, as he gave the order to a waiting footman for his carriage to still be readied for his new destination.
“Someone must send word to Darcy. He left Scotland I believe, and should be in Hertfordshire with that friend of his.”
The earl nodded as another footman brought him his hat and gloves.
“With any luck, he can be here on the morrow. May the good Lord see fit to spare his dwelling,” Henry Fitzwilliam said, leaving his wife with a peck on her cheek.
As Lady Matlock called her favorite footman, Seamus, to attend to her in the library as she wrote out the many letters, she also wished for him to write a letter to his brother, Declan, in Kent. Margaret Fitzwilliam did not care for the troubling signs brewing in London, and she would protect her family as much as she could manage.
2
The Darcy carriage traveled efficiently from the happy frolicking days of the couple's Scottish wedding trip to the daunting mantle of family responsibility waiting for them in the south. Elizabeth Darcy sat on the bench across from her husband and insisted her maid, Higgins, join them for much of the journey.
Such a change occurred at the first stop when the dreadful silence marred most of the first leg of their journey. Mr. Darcy did not argue with the arrangement due to his wife's delicate condition. But it was not for symptoms of carrying a child that Mrs. Darcy wished to have Higgins near. Instead, the two women talked excessively about fashions and changes to Elizabeth's wardrobe for the change in residence and season. As Scotland's summer was cooler than the English summers, much of her clothing would work well for the autumn with new trimmings and a reduction of plaids.
Between hours of chatter about gowns and bonnets and his wife's deafening silence, punctuated by the shortest answers when he asked her a direct question, Mr. Darcy's temper ran high at the last stop before they expected to reach Mr. Bingley's home. The early morning dew was long burned off by the sun when the last Darcy carriage was rigged with a new team so they could continue their travels. Mr. Darcy spied Elizabeth whispering earnestly with Higgins. Then Mrs. Darcy shooed her maid away.
Mr. Darcy walked up to the train of vehicles, after settling their bill with the innkeeper, and dared to make his wishes known.
"I should like it very much if we rode alone," he said in his master of Pemberley voice, knowing better than to have his words be an actual demand.
Elizabeth watched Higgins reach Simmons, the two women shared a conspiratorial nod, and then she smiled at her husband.
"Of course we shall ride alone. I do not wish to arrive at Netherfield Park and let Caroline Bingley believe we are quarreling. I've instructed Higgins to ride with the other servants." Elizabeth stood with her chin jutted out in pride as to her the matter was settled. But not so for her husband. And so he did not reach up to open the door and assist his wife inside, a courtesy he had been performing since their wedding over the anvil.
"You misunderstand me, Madam. I do not wish for us to ride alone for mere appearances that we are not quarreling. I wish for us not to be in a quarrel," Fitzwilliam explained.
Elizabeth began to feel annoyed. Days of morning nausea coupled with the long travel and anxieties of seeing her family after such a tragedy at Longbourn did not leave much patience in reserve for her husband.
"I, too, also do not wish to quarrel, but I cannot pretend that my feelings are settled on the entire matter. Would you prefer artifice?" she asked, unaffected by her husband's stormy expression.
Mr. Darcy clenched his fists together and then raised one hand to pull open the carriage door. Elizabet
h casually reached out her hand for his to take the first step and grabbed the strap above her head for the bulk of assistance to take her position inside the carriage.
Mr. Darcy watched as his one act of opening the carriage door inspired a flutter of activity across the five vehicles traveling together in one long caravan. For such a trip, both Mr. and Mrs. Darcy had carried with them extensive luggage and obtained new belongings during their stay in Scotland. A sixth carriage with a mounted guard had peeled off the main road to head back to Pemberley with various letters for the Darcy staff there.
As Mr. Darcy looked up, he spied Elizabeth leaning forward and grinning at him with the bright countenance he remembered from before all their troubles. Her smile was all the encouragement Fitzwilliam Darcy needed to lift himself into the carriage, slam the door, and take his rightful seat next to his wife.
Elizabeth twisted in her seat so that she faced her husband.
"I am sorry that I have not yet managed to forgive you completely, I suppose."
"I do not understand why you hold such a tender regard for my sister's husband." Mr. Darcy allowed old jealousies of Mr. Wickham to cloud his assessment of his wife's emotions. Truthfully, Elizabeth had barely met George Wickham before they had gone to Hertfordshire to appeal Mr. Bennet's blessing on their marriage.
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