As I age, I have become acutely aware that I have fewer days before me to build new memories than I have in my wake. My work has, consequently, become imbued with a touch of nostalgia and a deeper consideration of Time.
Contrary to the dominant trends in our genre, my characters have become older. Elizabeth contemplates her aging, feeling the impending pressure of the empty nest. With those departures, she questions her identity, which her children had defined. Darcy, too, faces questions a man in his forties would confront. He is not vain in the sense of a Regency dandy seeing the flight of youth. Rather, he fears how his impending demise—for what are receding hairlines and sagging jowls a sign of but death (OH DARCY!)?
Darcy on his father:
After she took her last breath, he counted each of his as one too many.
A Bennet Wardrobe Christmas Miracle steps again into the Bennet Wardrobe’s universe and gives the reader a bird’s eye view of these questions and how Darcy and Elizabeth work to step into their tomorrows hand-in-hand. The novella also views parents’ desires to again bring their family together if only for one night.
Yet, the Wardrobe has one last gift up its metaphorical sleeve.
Please enjoy this excerpt from my short novel for the 2024 holiday season, A Bennet Wardrobe Christmas Miracle.
This excerpt is © 2024 by Donald P. Jacobson. All rights reserved. Published in the United States of America.
Chapter Eighteen
An encounter in a gallery.
From behind, Bennet marveled at Lizzy’s man studying Georgiana’s likeness. He was the physical picture of propriety. Standing tall, broad-shouldered, Darcy was that steady rock upon which English society, no, the nation itself, built its edifice. Unshakable Darcy!
How weary must he be, showing one face to meet his interpretation of the world’s expectations while he boils with—and contains—every human emotion. Mary, alone in her adolescence, clung to Fordyce’s musty sermons about women’s ‘proper’ role. I wonder if a bereft Darcy, mourning his mother and ignored by his father, sought comfort in Bunyan’s moralizing.
Bennet knew Fitzwilliam Darcy, Master of Pemberley, was a bundle of contradictions. Behind every schoolboy rote-recited quality of an English gentleman Darcy displayed lurked its discursive opposite. Hidden behind that granitic face, the inner man wrestled with doubt, worry, jealousy, misguided concern, and…pride…pride that tried to keep the others in check.
The older man found little reason to keep his tongue in check as his final journey neared. He remained his old sarcastic self and could cut to the quick with a word, phrase, or glance, but the four-year-long search had been filled with painful losses. Those, especially one, had dulled his wit’s blade. His pleasure in watching the folly of others was reduced. Now, Tom Bennet wanted to pass on hard-learned wisdom. For him, that was neither pride nor conceit but rather an urge to ease a child’s path forward. Whether the young man would accept counsel or not was open to question.
Resting on the bench was the tonic Bennet needed. “Past and future, Darcy. That is what I think is weighing on you.”
The object of Bennet’s attention slowly turned. “I know that each of your daughters has her unique abilities. Jane can calm a room by closing her eyes. Elizabeth has an unfailing sense of direction to that place she calls Home. That used to be Longbourn, but now it is Pemberley. Mary wields great might capable of splitting the social bedrock holding people captive. Lydia takes all of these and bundles them. She is a force—for her, this is manifested in fierce protectivity.
“Much as it pains me, in that regard, the countess is most akin to me.
“You, sir: is your Bennet power one of perception? For years, I have watched you sitting like a badger in his den, comfortable but watching everything. You would have made an excellent butler, your invisibility letting you stand on the edge of all conversations.
“I see you as Mr. Erasmus Darwin, picking up pieces of the world and displaying them in your laboratory. Your family may name you The Founder, but you are better called The Collector.”
Amusement filled Bennet’s breast. He so enjoyed it when they understood and comprehended that he gathered diverse bits of what-not and pieced together a puzzle, the picture of which existed only in the most fragmentary of images. His pleasure came from both his accomplishment and their amazement.
Taking what for him was a deep breath, Thomas replied, “Yes, Darcy, ’tis true that I derive pleasure from watching the inanities of Man, but I also am student enough to appreciate when people reveal their souls. You have been a most interesting case in point.
“I will repeat myself: past and future, Darcy. That is what has thrown a barrier between you and Lizzy. Something from your past clouds, colors, your vision of the future.”
He patted the cushion beside him urging Darcy to sit. “In another place and time, I had become acquainted with a lady of middle years who had carried on her father’s study of the mind. Like her papa, Miss Freud asserted that our childhood shapes our adult being.
“Think of your present as always being in the shadow of your past. Our great challenge is to avoid living in the now affected by what we experienced in the then.”
Darcy stared intently at Bennet. “Recently, I have worried about how Elizabeth would fare if I were swept from the board.”
“Why?”
“My knees. My back. My hair. They tell me that I am ageing.”
Bennet snorted. “You make that sound as if it is unique to you. Look at me, Darcy: I am a wreck of a human. All men get old, some sooner than others.”
He paused and asked again. “Why?”
Darcy looked chagrined. “Forgive me, Mr. Bennet, but because I am looking at you, I fear my time is fast approaching. My father never reached fifty, and you are fifty-eight or so.”
Bennet’s glittering blue eyes speared him. “Fifty-five, which proves my previous point. And you are forty-four closing on forty-five. What of it?”
Darcy seemed to fold in on himself. “My father wasted away beginning the moment my mother died. After she took her last breath, he counted each of his as one too many.
“Only the estate kept him engaged. His children surely were reminders of his loss. In most situations, he handed Georgie and me to our relatives or left us in servants’ care. We were starved for his affection as we lamented our mother. We were too young to know that we ought to have been grieving him as well.”
He rallied. “Can you not see, Bennet, I will not condemn Elizabeth to be a half-dead widow maundering through a grayscape filled with the wraiths of her memories of me.”
“And how, pray tell, do you propose to prevent that?” snapped Bennet. “You will die: tonight or fifty years from now. None of us can predict when Atropos wields her shears.”
“I can make Elizabeth hate me,” Darcy asserted, “despise me, or at least lose her ardor for me. Then, when I go, she will happily cast off her mourning clothes when the time comes.”
Bennet felt the hair rise on the back of his neck. “You would count her affection as being so fickle? Has she not stood by you during real—not imagined—tribulation?
“In what world would my Elizabeth throw over the man who gave my child her first heartbreak, first kiss, and first child? Is she so shallow that your feeble attempts to alienate her affections would have her tossing a hand up in the air and trilling, ‘Oh lah! Finally! My anchor is gone at last. Now I can be twenty-one again!”
Tom’s outraged retort left him breathless. He fisted his chest and wheezed. “You came closest to the success you want now when you played the officious buffoon trying to separate Bingley and Jane. Even then, Lizzy found it in her heart to forgive you for that and herself for being blind to your bumbling attempts at courtship.”
Chest heaving, Bennet held up a hand so he would not have to talk over Darcy’s objections. “Elizabeth saw something, continues to see something, in you, although at this moment, I am unclear what that is. I am tempted to agree with you and further your campaign.
“But I will not. Elizabeth loves you as deeply as you love her.
“So, Darcy, this must stop. You are not doing anything but hurting Lizzy…and yourself.
“Love is the greatest gift God has given us to make this life worthwhile. The crime is denying it when it falls into your hand. You cannot defeat love. I have seen a woman whose husband has been condemned to the high drop cry out ‘I love you’ at the foot of his gallows.”
The waning force of Bennet’s sermon nevertheless pushed Darcy back in his seat. The message was so potent. “You have spent so much time arranging a world where Elizabeth would avoid suffering. It is futile, son. Although some argue they are the same, the Universe and your wife are not well pleased, and I would change my ways if I were you.”
Now Darcy asked the question. “How?”
Bennet chuckled as his breathing settled. “There is no one answer. Each couple is different. I can tell you that you must continually work to maintain your ancient affinity. That takes work and labor—every day—until you float to the Realm of the Guides.”
At Darcy’s quizzical look, Bennet clarified. “Don’t give up, son, until you drink from the silver cup.”
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