Banished
A Pride & Prejudice Variation
Prologue
Mid-November 1810
How had it come to this? It was unfathomable to Elizabeth Bennet; not only had her father not supported her, but he had turned on her and agreed with her mother. Even more shocking was the serene Jane, who, before her eyes were opened, Elizabeth would do anything for, had abandoned her when she needed her sister as never before.
Elizabeth Bennet had been banished from Longbourn, her childhood home near the market town of Meryton in Hertfordshire, for refusing to marry the most stupid, obsequious, pompous, andodoriferousman she had ever met, her distant cousin, William Collins.
Elizabeth was walking to Meryton, dragging her trunk behind her. Mrs. Bennet, she was not her mother any longer, had stridently ordered Mr. Bennet to refuse to allow any of Longbourn’s servants to assist Elizabeth. As he always did, he gave into his overbearing wife. She would have been penniless, save for her habit of saving her pin money since she was a child. Her mother had insisted her father deny her any funds.
When she was three years old, she heard her favourite uncle, Edward Gardiner, begging her father to invest money with him for the future of his family. Her father could not trouble himself to do so, but little Lizzy had given her uncle the one pound she had managed to save and asked him to invest it for her.
At the time, she did not understand what she was asking her uncle to do, but she had heard him tell her father whatever amount was invested would grow. In the seventeen years since, Elizabeth had turned over close to a thousand pounds to her uncle, and the last time she asked, he told her she had over two thousand pounds total from moneyshehad added and the interest.
In order to protect her money from his spendthrift sister, Fanny Bennet, and from his weak and indolent brother, Thomas Bennet, he held the funds of his favourite niece under his name. That way, if either of her parents discovered she had money, they would have no legal means to take it from her.
Over the years, Elizabeth had learnt her mother must never know she secreted money in her bedchamber, or she would have taken it and spent it in a thrice. One time Lydia, the indulged and unmanageable youngest Bennet, had discovered Elizabeth’s cache of money, about five pounds and some change.
As was her wont, Lydia was rooting around in her sister’s possessions to see what she could find to claim for herself. When she discovered the money, she had run to their mother and handed it to her. Elizabeth had begged her father not to allow her mother to spend the money she had saved, but as he always did, Bennet took the path of least resistance.
Lydia had been gifted a new bonnet, and Fanny had spent the rest on lace. From that day on, Elizabeth never kept her money in her bedchamber. Mrs. Hill, the long-time and long-suffering Bennet housekeeper, agreed to hide the little girl’s funds in her room.
Elizabeth had a little over ten pounds to her name which she had not yet been able to give to Uncle Edward. Mrs. Hill managed to hide those funds in a dress she had sown a secret pocket on the inside of where she hid Miss Lizzy’s money. The housekeeper had returned the dress to Elizabeth and her former mother had not cared that an old dress neither of her favourites would want was given to her disobedient daughter. It was the dress Elizabeth was wearing as she trudged toward the town.
Having learnt her lesson many years ago, Elizabeth kept no more than a few shillings and pennies in her reticule; the rest was hidden in the secret pocket in her dress. At least Mrs. Bennet had not demanded to remove the few coins from her reticule before her departure from Longbourn.
When Elizabeth reached the Red Rooster Inn on Meryton’s High Street, she purchased a ticket on the London post-coach for the morrow and rented a room for the night. The landlord would not have rented to a single lady on her own, under normal circumstances, but he knew and liked Miss Lizzy very well. The last thing she did was send an express to her Aunt and Uncle Gardiner to expect her on the morrow.
She knew that her best friend Charlotte Lucas’s family would have taken her in, but she had no desire to cause trouble for them if her former mother discovered she was with them. Elizabeth loved the Lucas Family almost like her own blood. She had left a note to be delivered to her dearest friend in the world, Charlotte Lucas, and she would write to her as soon as she reached her destination.
Only when she reached the privacy of her room did she allow her pent-up emotions to express themselves, flinging herself on the bed and crying herself to sleep.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Elizabeth was dreaming she was at home in her own bed—the bed she had slept in since Jane had her moved from their shared chamber at the tender age of ten, until she was evicted from her home at more than twenty years of age—when she was awakened by one of the inn’s maids.
It was a dream. When she opened her eyes, she was in a small chamber at the inn, not cuddled up in her warm bed in her former bedchamber at Longbourn. Jane. Jane, who she had always believed to be much more than a sister, to be her best friend.
Elizabeth decided to put thoughts of her sister’s betrayal and true nature behind her for now, as she allowed the maid to assist her in dressing for the day. Considerately, the landlord had sent a tray up to the bedchamber for Elizabeth to break her fast, being sure she would not want to be seen in the public dining parlour. Elizabeth was most appreciative of his thoughtfulness.
For a moment, she thought about seeking succour from her Aunt and Uncle Phillips but dismissed the thought quickly. By now Mrs. Bennet, she was no mother to Elizabeth, mayhap never was, would have notified her older sister of her disobliging daughter’s banishment. Elizabeth assumed that her Aunt Phillips would support her sister.
Although older than Fanny Bennet, in Elizabeth’s opinion, Hattie Phillips had a similar relationship with her younger sibling as Kitty and Lydia Bennet. In both cases the younger sibling led the older one and in both cases the direction was, more often than not, wrong.
Unlike her father, Uncle Phillips would put his foot down at Mrs. Bennet’s worst excesses, but that being said, Elizabeth knew her only option was the one she had already chosen. The post to London and the Gardiners home near Cheapside, at 23 Gracechurch Street, must be her destination. Yes, it was the sabbath, but there was no choice.
When she thought about her beloved aunt and uncle, Elizabeth could not but remember the open disdain of Miss Bingley, Mrs. Hurst, and of course the insufferable, proud, haughty Mr. Darcy. As she had with Jane, Elizabeth decided there was enough unpleasantness in her life without thinking of more.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Those persons Elizabeth was determined not to consider, while she was choosing to put them out of her mind, were departing Netherfield Park as she was boarding the post coach for London.
After the ball, where her brother had thankfully not danced with the insipid Jane Bennet, who Miss Bingley now knew hid a vicious side to herself, andherMr. Darcy had danced with none other than that hoyden Eliza, Miss Bingley had been determined to close up the house and quit the neighbourhood as fast as might be, especially as her brother had agreed to leave this backwater county and not return.
She had done as she planned, she had sent a note to herdear friend, Miss Jane Bennet asking her how the hoyden Miss Eliza like being betrothed to her smelly cousin, Mr. Collins. Miss Bingley relished the thought of the woman she disdained being tied to such a man. She would use the information to kill any residual inclination Mr. Darcy had for the hated woman.
