There are times when we get lost in the differences between Darcy and Elizabeth. One is filled with pride of position that informs his prejudices while the other suffers injured pride of person that sets her face against the author of her discomfort. Yet, both must overcome these barriers to discover love.
As I was writing In Westminster’s Halls, I found what I believe Austen has been pointing me toward all along—that these two people were not only equals in their gentility but also in inner awareness. Both were easy to anger although they tended to regulate themselves through either stoic suppression or vigorous exercise.
What made them an ideal couple was that one’s sockets accepted the other’s knobs and vice versa. They were ultimately complementary once they got past mutual misunderstanding.
Yes, ODC balanced one another. However, as I alluded to a moment ago, they were far more alike than either realized. In many ways, their lives, albeit separated by gender and age, ran on parallel tracks. That led me to explore their similarities through the development of the story.
In the early stages, their amanuensis were Mr. Bennet for Elizabeth and Richard Fitzwilliam for Darcy. Their respective encounters take place on the same evening at about the same time after Darcy delivers the insult. Both are in studies: one found in Gardiner House, the other at Darcy’s mansion on Grosvenor Square. Flickering candles and a fireplace’s glow illuminate the encounters. Adult beverages are also in play. What is undeniable, though, is that certainty gives way in the face of gentle nudging.
Both Elizabeth and Darcy would have to undergo further growth and development as In Westminster’s Halls unfolds. There are no bolts out of the blue to shake ODC at this early stage, but, intelligent as they are, they begin to question if all they have seen is what really is.
Please enjoy these excerpts from two chapters early in the book.
Please also enter the drawing for one of ten free Kindle e-books of In Westminster’s Halls through August 4, 2024. Use this link:
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These excerpts of In Westminster’s Halls are ©2024 by Donald P. Jacobson. Reproduction is prohibited.
From Chapter Five
Mr. Gardiner’s Study, Gracechurch Street
Bennet and Elizabeth swept through the front door, rousing Uncle Gardiner from his comfortable fireside chair. His inquisitive look earned him a “Do Not Ask” from his brother and an agitated look from his niece. Prevented from following them to his study, the master shook his head and retreated to confer with his wife.
While they waited for coffee and rolls—Elizabeth had told her father a long night may be ahead—Bennet poured a short sherry for her and a long port for himself. A maid bustled in with the coal scuttle, chivvied there by Gardiner’s alert housekeeper, who knew something was amiss when the Bennets had returned scarcely two hours after leaving.
Two wingback chairs faced the fireplace. Settling in one, Bennet kicked off his boots before extending his long legs and stockinged toes to warm his feet before the crackling fire. Another knock brought Sarah in from the family bedrooms upstairs to collect Elizabeth’s jewels, gown, and gloves. She had also brought two banyans: one of heavy knotted wool that Mr. Bennet jokingly referred to as his smoking jacket, the other, silk. A back corner of the library became a dressing room where Sarah helped Elizabeth with her gown and petticoat. Then, topcoat, dress, and boots in hand, the young woman left the father and daughter to their conference.
Elizabeth had enjoyed a thimbleful of Iberian nuttiness in the past. However, at eighteen, her experience with adult beverages was limited, usually just a glass of wine with dinner and certainly nothing stronger than ratafia at Aunt Philips’s house. Tonight’s draught was more substantial and, she mused, more therapeutic. The warmth soothed Elizabeth’s throat and relaxed her enough to settle deeply into the chair’s cordovan-dyed leather rather than perching atop the cushion’s front edge.
Elizabeth fixed her father with a potent stare. “I cannot repress myself! I had planned to tell you something I had learned this afternoon at Mrs. Walters’s levée, but not until tomorrow. However, tonight’s unpleasantness demands that I inform you instantly.”
Bennet’s eyes widened in wonderment at her adamant statement. Finishing his drink, he bent forward to pick up his coffee before signaling her to continue with a nod.
“You told me that you had a friendly but professional acquaintance with Mr. Darcy, that the Prime Minister summoned him to the House for the same reason as you.”
“Yes, and he has been ill for three sennights. I sent several of your précis to inform him of the doings before the Commons. Our chance meeting at the opera was the first time I had seen him since the session opened.”
Elizabeth absorbed the indication that the relationship was more than a nodding one. “So, Mr. Darcy is beholden to you for helping him stay apace of the issues.”
Bennet scanned a thoughtful look. “Yes, and that makes his ungracious, belligerent behavior doubly confusing. He acted like a bear with a sore tooth and never allowed me to introduce you.
“I understand what he mistook you for, but he immediately jumped over every other possibility as if that were the only reason you could have been on my arm. He acted as if your very presence offended him.”
Elizabeth could not claim any extensive knowledge of the male of the species. However, Master Shakespeare’s tragedies proved instructive. “Once you hear what I relate about Mr. Darcy—no, Papa, this is no idle gossip like Mama and Lady Lucas favor—you will understand his deeper motivation. Like that doomed Scottish laird Macbeth, he reacted because of a sense of shame and guilt.”
Elizabeth then explained her conversation with Mr. Wickham, including that he had followed Darcy to Brooke’s townhouse. Her earnest delivery insisted that Thomas take every word at face value. He had often stated that his Lizzy was an astute student of human behavior, and if she sketched someone, it was one step away from Mr. Gainsborough.
When she finished her history, Bennet’s chin firmed. “I must let Clarkson know about this. The bill would be in trouble if we lost him. While the House seems to favor abolishing the trade, the slightest wobble by someone like Darcy could start a rush for the Nay Lobby. Darcy speaks for his uncle, the Earl of Matlock, and half of Derbyshire. While the back benches owe much to the Ministry, the slavers have deep pockets, too, which can be persuasive.
“Based upon what you learned from this Wickham fellow—and I would appreciate speaking with him—I can see that something dangerous is afoot. We have endured more than our share of plots since ’93.
“If we take Wickham’s story at face value, Darcy’s behavior is easily explained. I doubt he expected to see anyone tonight who might ardently support the Cause. When he did, though, he came at us like an Imperial column to feel better about his inconstancy.”
Bennet stood up, padded to the sideboard, and grabbed the brandy decanter. He tipped it toward Elizabeth, who shook her head, desiring to avoid the fumes distilled from Cognac’s best grapes.
Her father shrugged and filled a fresh tumbler before turning back to Elizabeth. “Wickham’s story rings true in nearly every detail: the desire for ready cash, the willingness to do anything, including being indebted to those in trade, and a conspicuous arrogance that countenances any action as right and moral if he does it. I would bet that every word Mr. Wickham spoke sounded as if it came down from the throne on high. That is why it is so convincing. On top of that, to an innocent like you, Mr. Wickham did not fit the image of a conniving man but instead gave every appearance of goodness.
“Yet, there is one inconvenient truth.
“I know—as you do now—that Darcy has been bedridden since December 14th. If so, how could Wickham follow him to the Gascoyne reception last week?”
Elizabeth froze at her father’s words. The Bard was known to show his audiences who were either villains or heroes through physical devices. Mr. Wickham looked and sounded the latter’s part. He did not own a hunchback, a hooked nose, or a propensity to sneak about furtively.[i]
Having been exposed to tonight’s Mr. Darcy, I cannot doubt Mr. Wickham’s account. Why would he lie to me when the Member for Kympton Abbey has every reason to deceive?
She focused on where her father stood. “While I accept your question as posing a valid point, one need not be true for the other to be false. Whatever weaknesses in Mr. Wickham’s story might confirm Mr. Darcy’s behavior when he came upon us at the Opera.
“Given how Mr. Darcy acted tonight, I wonder if he was so bound to his bedchamber that he could not have escaped his warders to visit with his benefactors if only for a brief period. He seemed healthy enough, able to don eveningwear and immerse himself in the floodtide of the ton. Mr. Wickham’s account is too filled with fact to be a rank falsehood.
“Mr. Wickham did not say Darcy was dancing a country reel at Mr. Brooke’s house. He told me Mr. Darcy met with his employers to receive his thirty pieces of silver and instructions. If the man is motivated by pounds and their comfort, he could find the strength to drag himself a few streets before spending another week recovering.
“No, Papa, until someone offers more evidence either exonerating Mr. Darcy or indicting Mr. Wickham, I will hold fast to my conclusion that what I told you is the unadulterated truth.”
The fire cast Bennet’s careworn features into harsh relief, making his face a chiaroscuro map worthy of one of Señor Goya’s portraits. He took a long pull on his brandy. “You are an apt student of human nature, Elizabeth. However, I beg that you keep your judgment provisional until you can confront Mr. Darcy with his guilt.
“You sometimes hold fast to your initial impression rather than assess their character’s true nature. Your prejudice against him—although well founded—may blind you to alternate explanations.”
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Chapter Seven
“She sounds magnificent! You should poach her from the old man if she is the treasure you say. You can better any offer he could imagine. Set her up in Mayfair, easy enough to reach of an evening.”
Richard Fitzwilliam had a soldier’s way of reducing the sacred to the profane. For Darcy, although he loved his cousin, this trait grated like fingernails on a schoolroom slate.
He had just spent the better part of a bottle of brandy describing the Battle of Bow Street and the remarkable woman forever out of reach. All Richard could do was leap to carnality. Did he not understand the root of Darcy’s anger was his pain at seeing the woman of his dreams reduced to selling herself?
She was lost to him before he even had the chance to discover her. “She is wholly unsuitable! If I had given him the opportunity, Bennet probably would have introduced her as his niece!
“The ton has a surfeit of nieces, far too many of them warming their uncles’ beds!”
Darcy’s stomach soured the more he contemplated her creamy skin unveiled for her keeper’s pleasure. “And what will happen to her when he tires of her or leaves town to return to Hertfordshire? He, like me, is here to help Grenville get the Bill over the line. The moment Grenville says ‘go,’ Bennet will.
Richard shook his head. “If she is as intelligent as you think, she has planned for that. Besides, what concern is it if yours? When the Prime Minister prorogues the session, you will be deep in your Derbyshire den, having discharged your responsibilities.
“To revise the poet from Stratford on Avon, Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much.”
Then Fitzwilliam switched his approach. “Are you sure you were not mistaken about the nature of their relationship?
“You described her as dressed fashionably in a complete ensemble including jewels. I’ll admit that my mother or your sister would be better able to assess her style.
“But you said Bennet is a gentleman with a middling-sized estate near town. Not that his income would deter him from sponsoring a ladybird. However, for him to offer carte blanche to someone so arresting in slightly more than a fortnight beggars my imagination. Might there be an innocent interpretation? Might she be a family friend, the daughter of someone of means?”
Now Darcy paused, nervous but refusing to shift from his closely held notions. “I do not believe she is someone we would ever know. I have never seen her at any event here in town. Yet, I doubt that someone like her would do well in the wilds of, what is his hometown, oh yes, Meryton. She is too refined and has too many town manners to have come from anywhere but here which tells me she is from the demimonde, ready to trade her favors. That she latched onto Bennet says more to me about him than her. We both expect such behavior from a city woman.[ii]
“I am sure that Bennet is keeping—perhaps, renting—her.”
Richard dropped his chin onto his chest. “What about widows? That is the one station where it is acceptable for a lady to own multiple gentleman callers and the gifts their admiration brings.”
Weariness, worry, and brandy’s fumes made Darcy’s usually precise mind spin. His cousin’s dogged questioning of what had been so plain an hour ago reminded him of a terrier attacking a fat marrow bone. Darcy knew his cousin was winding up for a speech that would flay his pompous prejudices.
Why cannot Richard ever agree with me and let it go?
The colonel jumped to his feet, planted one hand on the mantel, and faced Darcy, looking like a Cambridge tutor ready to lecture a thoroughly unprepared student. “Listen to yourself. You preach from an ivory pulpit, so sure of everything you know.
“Consider this: you say you could provide for her and give her a life of comfort and security.”
Darcy snappishly replied, “Do not be foolish. Of course, that is what I would do! She would never want for anything!”
Fitzwilliam’s reply slammed Darcy back in his chair. “So, your marriage would be legally sanctioned carte blanche!
“Assuming you know the mind of a woman to whom you have never spoken, can you not imagine that is what she has obtained from Bennet without complicating paperwork? Mind you, I accept your sketch of her character for argument’s sake.”
The colonel warmed to his topic. “You preach about the sanctity of the marriage bed, but why does that matter? Why must a prospective wife be innocent? Oh, I will grant you the hygienic aspect. She must be so that one can assume she is disease-free. What man would wish to catch the pox from his wife? Yet, the burden of being pristine falls solely on the woman. She cannot engage in relations or even suffer the appearance of having done so—I am sorry to recall Georgie’s situation—at the risk of ruining her reputation. Yet is such a stricture laid on a man?
“The only real reason is male conceit, the belief that whatever gave them control of the land, people, and wealth rises from superior bloodlines as if they counted the Godolphin Arabian in their heritage. In a land governed by men, where property passes by birth, and all goes to the firstborn, men will only feel secure if sons are theirs. Drawing a through line from loin to loin…”
“Richard!”
Fitzwilliam did not have a blushing bone in his body. “There is magical thinking on a man’s part as if the recipe for water can be inherited; thus, your firstborn’s blood will be as superior as you believe yourself.
“Second sons—spares like me—must necessarily own diluted life essence because everything was poured into the first. We are proof that lessers in the birth order are parasites on their elder brother’s inheritance.
“So, we become the family’s contribution to the nation afoot or afloat. We either bring the family honor by dying nobly or plundering enough treasure to support ourselves without tapping the family fortune. Otherwise, we are condemned to a twilight existence of dinners at our mother’s table and forays into the marriage mart to find a well-dowered mare to begin our line of Honorables.
“Our society—that of the Ten Thousand—is based on the sacred pretext of birth order inheritance. Considering the French give all sons equal shares of their father’s fortune, it is a very English idea. That French way, Salic Law, leads to trouble. Just ask Louis the Pious, who had the good fortune to be Charlemagne’s only surviving heir. However, his planning failed when he split the empire among his three sons. That guaranteed a thousand years of war. The current set-to is just the latest chapter of eternal animosity.[iii]
“Recall King Henry the Rotund? He was nothing if not about securing the Tudor succession with a boy child. Yet, two of his daughters became queens of England after their weakling brother. There was no impediment to them taking the throne. However, the sight of Philip of Spain trying to be England’s king through his wife Mary might have led Good Queen Bess to remain forever unwed, undoing her father’s dream and leading to the Stuart Ascendancy.
“Yet, why does that matter? Although Georgie can inherit Pemberley—and you have reminded everyone that there is no entail on your fortune—she can own it only as long as she remains unwed. Unless you—yes, you and nobody else—declare Georgie a feme sole and free from coverture. The moment she marries, the whole kith falls to her husband.[iv]
“Wickham wanted Georgie’s thirty thousand for immediate comfort, but unless you married and sired an heir, your sister was next in line to inherit everything! If she died childless, everything would have been his. If he had gotten her to Gretna, I would not have placed much stock in you or Georgie being long for this world. You would have been the first to conveniently go toes up. Then, unprotected, your sister would face the Reaper’s scythe.”
He raised a hand to still Darcy’s objections. “My father would mount a massive legal onslaught, but Wickham would have Pemberley’s resources at his command. Even if the courts found against him, can you imagine the havoc he would wreak on the estate’s accounts? He could lose and still find himself a chicken nabob!”[v]
Wearing down from his dissertation, Richard leaned over and grabbed his goblet to take a long pull of brandy. He shrugged and launched a final salvo. “I wonder if anyone has asked the ladies what they think of this coverture business. Mrs. Wollstonecraft has her opinions, but I am unsure how well-accepted they are.
“I have heard that the Cherokee in the American South confounded the first English settlers because the women ruled! A man went to his wife’s house, and if she tired of him, she sent him packing by the simple expedient of placing his moccasins outside the front door.
“What choice do our women have? I do not care if she is a fishwife or a countess; both trade what they have—the ability to increase and bring children into the world—in exchange for a roof, bed, status, and food.”
He sighed and looked deeply into his glass as if the dregs held the universe’s secrets. “You did what you usually do, leap to the worst possible conclusions because you, Darcy, are a cynic. Bennet’s companion had to be what you thought because that is what you thought.”
Darcy thoroughly disliked Richard’s ability to poke holes in the bastion of his certainty.
[i] Richard III, Shylock, Iago, and Cassius as opposed to Henry Tudor, Bassanio, and Marc Antony.
[ii] Lyin’ Eyes (1975) by the Eagles. Opening lyrics: “City girls just seem to find out early how to open doors with just a smile. A rich old man and she won’t have to worry. She’ll dress up all in lace and go in style.”
[iii] Louis the Pious divided the Carolingian Empire in the Treaty of Verdun (843 CE) between Charles II (the Bald) (West Francia/France), Lothair (Rhineland and Italy), and Louis II (the German) (East Francia/Germany).
[iv] I was researching “kit and caboodle” and learned that “kith” means estate. Thus, the whole kith means everything you own. https://hotidioms.com/2013/03/22/kit-and-kaboodle/
[v] While usually referring to someone who had been successful in looting India, Fitzwilliam is using the term to describe the size of a man’s fortune—in this case, over £50,000. A full-blown HEIC nabob was worth over £100,000.
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