Variations on the theme “All Was Joy and Kindness”

I love this month’s theme, chosen by the wonderful Joana Starnes: “All was joy and kindness“! We could always use more of that in the world!

When I first saw the phrase, I thought immediately of the holiday season; only later did I realize, with chagrin, that it’s a quote from Pride and Prejudice. (How is it I have not yet memorized every brilliant word of the novel?)

I couldn’t decide how best to post about this theme: should I include a holiday-related excerpt from one of my novels or should I attempt to write something new? Given my indecisive nature, as well as my great talent for taking longer than I expect to finish any piece of writing, I have decided to do a little of both! Consider this post a medley of the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future!

Below, I’ve included a little bit of what I’ve published in a past (which has a definite holiday theme), a short story I’m presently writing (based on the phrase “All was joy and kindness” from Pride and Prejudice), and a small section of the unfinished novel I really do hope to publish someday in the future (though there’s little joy or kindness in that storyline!).

Enjoy — and happy holidays to all who celebrate this month!

Past

In this excerpt from Chapter Eleven of The Year in Between, Marianne Dashwood is working hard to throw off the bad habits of the past — and to make sense of her increasingly confusing feelings for Colonel Brandon. This scene takes place the Christmas after Elinor and Edward have married and almost a year after Marianne learned of Willoughby’s engagement to another.

Some context for readers who aren’t familiar with the novel: When Marianne thinks of Eliza, she is thinking of the younger Eliza Williams, whom Willoughby seduced and abandoned with child. Marianne has recently met and befriended Eliza in the novel. There is also mention of a Mrs. Whitmire; she is an original character, a rich and handsome widow of thirty who has set her cap at Colonel Brandon.

 

The Christmas season passed in a whirlwind of preparations and parties—a surprising sort of blessing, for Marianne did not generally enjoy preparations or parties (at least not those held at Barton Park). However, she threw herself into the bustle of this Yuletide: attending, with relative good cheer, every one of the many fetes Sir John organized; helping Lady Middleton, Mrs. Jennings, and her mother make up the boxes that would be delivered to tenants and servants on St. Stephen’s Day; and directing Martha and Thomas as they prepared Barton Cottage to be closed up for the winter.

These activities, which in other circumstances would have been abhorrent to her, now provided some measure of solace, for they kept her too busy to miss Elinor. True, she would see her sister soon enough, but what was Christmas without that steadiest of sisters to oversee the decorations or to serve as an author for charades? The greenery looked terribly off-kilter this year, and their Christmas Eve games had ended almost before they had begun, for no one was as good as Elinor at devising riddles.

“I cannot help but wonder,” Margaret said, when the Dashwood ladies sat around the hearth, gazing a little glumly at their small Yule log, “how Elinor and Edward fare. Do you suppose they are lonely without us?”

Marianne attempted a laugh. “We are more likely to be lonely without them.” And it must have been true, for she could not imagine her sister wishing to be anywhere but with Edward now.

A year ago, she would have wagered everything that she was the Dashwood sister most likely to spend Christmas as a newlywed. Indeed, she had imagined the scene in such vivid detail: Mrs. John Willoughby, dressed in red-wine velvet, presiding over a table laden with goose and puddings; each seat in the dining room occupied by family and friends; and nearby, a whole host of hunting dogs, lounging on the hearth rug before an enormous Yule log. At the very center of this fantasy: Willoughby, glass raised as he toasted (with a quote from Shakespeare or Wordsworth) the glories of his dear Marianne.

Never mind that Marianne had never once seen the dining room of Combe Magna; never mind that she and Willoughby would not have been able to afford a lavish Christmas feast; never mind that she did not, in fact, much care for dogs. This vision had felt so real that it had seemed more prophecy than daydream—proof without evidence, truth without facts. It was unalloyed desire, so pure and strong that it had seemed to prove absolutely that Willoughby loved her—and she him.

Well, he had not loved her—at least, not enough. And perhaps she had not loved him enough, for she had seen in Willoughby only the man she had wanted him to be, a man of her own making.

Such thoughts—what might have been and what never could be—Marianne allowed herself only on Christmas morning, when she sat in solitude before the fire, waiting for the others to rise from their slumber. If she were to cry for herself, let her cry alone. Yet she had not wept, not even a little. Indeed, she had found the memory of that impossible daydream almost amusing—certainly easier to think on than the people she truly missed: Elinor and Edward, of course, but also her father, who had always made Christmas such a joyous season. Then there were those she missed, but for reasons she could not—would not—fully explain to herself: Eliza, a friend, yes—but one who inspired more concern than delight; and Brandon, who defied classification altogether.

How was he spending his Christmas? Had he gone to visit Eliza—and if so, how had she received him? Had he joined Elinor and Edward at the parsonage, or perhaps invited them to dine at Delaford? Surely they had met at least once or twice of late, and Marianne felt an unsettling combination of joy and jealousy when she imagined the three of them together, without her.

Sometimes, when the fetes at Barton Park became too tedious to hold her attention, she found herself looking for him, as if he would suddenly appear in the drawing room doorway, in spite of his stated plans to remain in Delaford. She blamed Mrs. Jennings and Mrs. Whitmire for planting such silly thoughts in her head, for those good ladies spent much of the Yuletide season speculating about Brandon: how he would have enjoyed the dancing (did he dance?); how he would have played their favorite carols on the pianoforte with such feeling (why had she never heard him play the pianoforte?); how dull the conversation was without him (that much was true).

“I am almost certain,” Mrs. Jennings had said more than once, with a sly wink for Mrs. Whitmire, “the colonel will visit Barton Park before the new year. Mark my words: he will not be able to keep away!”

But he had kept away, and Marianne was glad of it; it was, after all, easier to bury her uncertain feelings for him when he was not present.

© 2021 Christina Morland

---

Present

Next up — an excerpt of a short story I began last month, using the theme “All was joy and kindness” as inspiration. Set in the Regency period, the short story (tentatively titled “Shattered”) begins on the evening Elizabeth spends in London before heading to Kent with Sir William and Maria Lucas to visit Charlotte at Hunsford.  

Please note: this is a rough first draft excerpt — and definitely speculative! What happens at the end of this excerpt…well, it rarely happened in England, but oh well! That’s what fiction is for!

“All was joy and kindness. The day passed most pleasantly away; the morning in bustle and shopping, and the evening at one of the theatres.” — Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 27

Elizabeth had never failed to enjoy an evening at the theater. If the play was sublime and the players skillful, could there be any greater form of entertainment? And if the play was silly or the players clumsy (a more likely state of affairs, in Elizabeth’s limited experience), one had only to watch the audience to discover the drama lacking on stage.

It was the latter approach Elizabeth had been compelled to employ on this, her single evening in London—though not due to any real defect in the play. Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar was a fine (if not her favorite) tragedy, and even she, in her distracted state, had been moved by Caesar’s forlorn cry of “Et tu, Brute?” If, on occasion, Cassius botched a line or Portia bungled a stage direction, Elizabeth could not fault them. No, when it came to her wandering attention, she could fault no one but herself.

Well, she could fault Mr. Darcy.

Just before the curtains rose, she had (much to her dismay) spotted him sitting in the box directly opposite her. Yes, blaming Darcy would do quite nicely, for Elizabeth was not of a disposition to despise herself, and Darcy was, of all her acquaintance, the most perfectly disposed to being despised.

“I am glad to see you smiling, my dear,” said Margaret Gardiner, as they linked arms and weaved their way through the crowd exiting the Covent Garden theater. “You appeared grave for so much of the evening. I do hope our conversation between acts—in particular, my observations regarding certain individuals—did not distress you.”

“In truth, I was distressed,” said Elizabeth, “not by your words so much as the circumstances.”

Standing on tiptoe, Elizabeth peered into the crowd, trying to catch a glimpse of her sister, who had walked ahead with their uncle. When was the last time she had seen Jane smile—truly smile? Though Aunt Margaret had tried to assure Elizabeth that Jane’s spirits were on the mend, they both knew the truth: Jane’s heart still ached for Mr. Bingley.

Unworthy man! He had seemed so amiable once, but then, could anyone befriend the likes of Mr. Darcy without taking on that gentleman’s proud and disagreeable ways?

“Well,” said her aunt, “it is as you said: Miss King has inherited a fortune. We cannot wholly fault Mr. Wickham for wanting some measure of independence.”

“Miss King? Mr. Wickham?” Elizabeth’s brow furrowed, and then she laughed. “I had forgotten our conversation about them. I was thinking of Jane.”

Margaret gave Elizabeth’s fingers a quick squeeze. “Ah! What a dear sister you are. I should have realized that no man, not even one as charming as Mr. Wickham, would have caused you to appear so unnaturally serious.”

“You must not think so highly of me, Aunt. If I appeared serious this evening—an unnatural state of being, indeed!—it was likely because I was meditating on the very great pleasure a pair of brooding eyes can bestow.”

This she said with a sardonic laugh, for if Elizabeth had derived any pleasure from catching Mr. Darcy staring at her during the play’s first act, it came only from imagining how astonished he would be on learning that the respectable, genteel people sitting with her lived in Cheapside, rather than Mayfair.

“Ah, so you, too, found the actor playing Brutus to be overwrought.” Margaret sighed. “I did not think his eyes particularly brooding, but he spoke with such affection!”

Elizabeth bit back a smile; she had rather liked the actor who played Brutus. Well, it was no wonder her aunt had mistaken the target of her sarcasm. Even Elizabeth could not believe she had spent so much of the evening thinking of Mr. Darcy.

“I do hope his stilted performance did not detract from your enjoyment of the play,” her aunt added, as they made their way down the front steps of the theater. “I know how much you admire Shakespeare. When your uncle saw the playbill, he thought immediately of you.”

She came to a sudden stop, head swiveling left, then right. “Speaking of your uncle, I fear we have lost…ah, there he is, securing a hackney. He and Jane have walked too fast for us!”

Elizabeth glanced behind her. “Just as we have been walking too fast for Sir William and Maria. They have not yet made their way out of doors. I imagine Sir William is holding court in the lobby, telling all and sundry of his presentation at St. James’s those many years ago.”

“Now now, Elizabeth,” Margaret chided, but with a smile; she, too, had heard much of St. James’s in the twelve hours since Sir William Lucas had come to Gracechurch Street, where he, Maria, and Elizabeth would spend the night before traveling on to Kent.  “Let us be more generous and assume that, in this mass of people, we none of us can set our own pace.”

“You are indeed the soul of generosity,” said Elizabeth, thinking of how the Gardiners had, just this evening, invited her to travel with them to the Lake District. “I know of no better aunt on this earth, though I beg you not to say so to Aunt Philips.”

Margaret laughed. “My lips are sealed. Now come along, my dear, impudent niece. Our coach awaits.”

“But Sir William—“

“Oh, we need not wait for him; he told your uncle that he wished to hire his own hackney.”

“Indeed?” Elizabeth glanced out at the line of coaches, each filling quickly. “Would it not be more convenient for us all to return to Gracechurch Street together? The carriage will be crowded, for sure, but we managed well enough on our journey here.”

“Ah, well,” said Margaret, lips twitching, “perhaps he wished to show his daughter the exterior of St. James’s?”

Elizabeth threw back her head and laughed, earning more than a few raised eyebrows and pursed lips from the other patrons emerging from the theater. Just as she was thinking how fortunate it was that she knew no one in this great metropolis (or at least, no one who did not already love her, in spite of her impertinence), she found herself meeting the gaze of Fitzwilliam Darcy.

For the second time that night, to boot.

Then again, had he actually seen her in the theater? He might simply have been staring into the distance. He did not nod or wave (though she could not imagine Mr. Darcy waving under any circumstances); indeed, he gave no indication at all that he had recognized her. After the first act, he did not, as far as she could tell, glance her way even once. Perhaps he, too, enjoyed Brutus’s overwrought acting, for even when the gentleman at his side nudged his arm or leaned closer to speak to him, Darcy did not look away from the stage.

So no, she could not be certain Darcy had seen her earlier; she knew only that she had spent far too much time watching him. Elizabeth laughed at herself. Vanity—a weakness indeed!

Well, now she was certain Darcy had noticed her, thanks to her unchecked laughter. He stood staring at her from just a few yards away, a head taller than most of the people streaming past. She was struck by his appearance—not his clothing (elegant, yet unremarkable), nor his expression (indecipherable, even blank) but his presence: stately and stiff, surrounded by others yet utterly separate from them. He reminded her, oddly, of a tree she loved: a towering oak rooted near an old riverbed in the woods behind Longbourn. When the rains came, water lapped at that tree without ever seeming to touch it.

“Oh!” her aunt exclaimed as someone jostled them from behind. Elizabeth glanced back, but saw no one close enough to intrude. Margaret looped her arm more tightly around Elizabeth’s. “Come, let us go. I see your uncle searching for us.”

Indeed, he stood on the step of the coach he had hired, peering out into the crowd. Just behind him, Jane’s face appeared in the opening of the door, and Elizabeth feared, for just a moment, that her sister had also spotted Mr. Darcy.

How relieved Elizabeth had been to discover that she recognized no one in Mr. Darcy’s box! When she had first spied him, Elizabeth’s stomach had dropped—not because of him, of course, but at the possibility of Jane meeting Bingley in a public setting. Though that danger seemed to have been avoided, Elizabeth hoped Jane would not see Darcy, either. Let her have no more reminders of Netherfield; only then did Jane have a chance of forgetting—eventually.

“Lizzy, my dear,” said her aunt, “you are taller than I am. Will you wave to your uncle? He looks frantic to find us, and yet we cannot pass this crowd of people without shoving our way through!”

It seemed the people behind them had come to the same realization—only they seemed to believe shoving their way through was no true impediment. Again, Elizabeth and her aunt were jostled, this time with enough force that they stumbled away from each other. They glanced at each other, eyes widening, and then looked down at the ground. Was it moving?

“Earthquake! It’s an earthquake!” someone nearby cried out, and then, she and her aunt truly were jostled, not by the moving of the ground beneath them, but by the swarm of people behind and beside them, all attempting to make their way to the street — as if that, somehow, represented a place of safety for any of them.

“Aunt, you go ahead, find Uncle!” called Elizabeth, though it hardly mattered what she advised, for her aunt was carried forward with the crowd so rapidly she had not time to look over at Elizabeth, who found herself carried in quite the opposite direction.

© 2023 Christina Morland

---

Future

So, believe it or not, I’m still trying to write Disappearing Act, a Regency-era variation I began way back in…oh, I don’t remember when.  But I hope to finish and publish it…one day! For now, here’s a first-draft scene that brings me a little joy because it’s the first time Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy begin to work together to help Georgiana escape a very terrible Wickham.  

Please note: there are mentions of domestic violence in this scene. This is a very serious subject, and I hope to approach it with care and concern. If you have feedback, please feel free to share. If you are a survivor, I honor your strength and hope these words do not lessen your experience or cause you pain. 

 

Excerpt from Chapter Six of Disappearing Act

“Why are we stopping?” Bennet asked. “This is not Baker Street.”

“Do you mind walking?” he replied, after hopping down from the box and opening the carriage door. “If so, I am disappointed in you, Bennet. From our brief time together in the park, I took you to be an excellent walker.”

She started to laugh, only to press her lips into a wavering frown. “You mean to say that I am an excellent runner, or at least quick enough to keep you at a distance. Well, sir, if you wished to remind me that you are untrustworthy, you have succeeded.”

“What I wish is to find a way of speaking with my sister.”

“Then why do we not go directly to her house? If you are so desperate to speak to her, why do we delay?” she asked, refusing to budge from the carriage.

“Are you about to rattle off another dozen questions, or may we proceed? We are wasting time, Bennet.”

“You may walk—or rather, lurk—on your own, Darcy,” she replied, emphasizing his last name in the same manner he had been emphasizing hers. “I have asked Mr. Hudson to drive me to your sister’s residence, and that is where I will go.”

He was tempted to let her march up to the front door, only to have it slammed in her face. Then again, she seemed the kind of person who would stick her foot in the doorway just before the door thwacked shut. Such an outcome would surely lead to an injured ankle and a great deal of pain—or so he had found.

Whether she, too, would then rush past the servant who opened the door, dodge a pair of louts in the front hall, and race madly through the house until the aforementioned louts caught up, he could not say. But he required her help (and rather liked her, too), so he supposed he had better convince her to approach matters differently.

“You told me you had made several errors in judgment today. Well, Bennet, allow me to tell you one of mine.”

She leaned forward, her expression so open, her eyes so inviting, that he found himself wanting to tell her everything.

Instead, he said, “I have already attempted to call on my sister in the conventional way. Soon after I left you in the park—”

“Soon after you chased me.”

“Soon after I left you, I went to Baker Street and called politely at the front door, as you seem to think we ought to do now. When I encountered her wretch of a husband, the actual Wickham, I received this”—he pointed to his bruised mouth—“as thanks.”

His account was not entirely accurate. Shouting “I demand to see my sister!” as he ducked under the swinging fist of one of Wickham’s brutes did not exactly qualify as an attempt at polite conversation. And what he had done next—running up the stairs, throwing open each door on the first and second floors, all the while yelling his sister’s name—was by no means the embodiment of conventional behavior.

The truth was, he had rushed into action without a shred of forethought—an all-too-frequent tendency, of late. At Pemberley, he was cautious and responsible; he considered problems from every angle before proceeding. Since coming to London, however, he had acted almost entirely on impulse, as if the nature of his sister’s proximity—near yet unreachable—made rational thought impossible.

Still, he could not bring himself to regret his impulsivity. Even when Wickham’s two thugs had caught up with him, forcing him to his knees and holding him in place while Wickham struck him, Darcy had felt relief, not regret. Finally, he had done something.

But not enough. After spitting blood in Wickham’s face and using the subsequent moment of shock to wriggle free, he should have gone to the third floor to investigate the sounds he had heard above him: a consistent, loud thumping, as if something or someone were pounding against the floor of the room directly overhead.

Instead, he had raced down the stairs and out of the house, knowing he would not be able to escape Wickham and his men a second time, certainly not from the confines of the third floor.

He had chosen, per usual, himself.

“I suppose it is not surprising that Wickham would hit you,” said Bennet, sighing. “He is clearly a man with a violent temperament.”

“How do you know anything about his temperament? You must not have met him, not if you thought I was Wickham.”

“I do not need to have met him to have seen the signs of his abuse.”

At that word, he recoiled—and then immediately attempted to flatten his expression into indifference. He must have failed, for Bennet quickly climbed down from the carriage.

“You were not aware,” she murmured, reaching out, as if to touch his forearm, and then pulling back just before she made contact. “Before today, that is—you did not know, did you?”

“I…”

What could he say? That he had worried, dreaded, feared—and done nothing? Or next to nothing. Sending his valet once a year to bribe household servants in return for news of Georgiana had, in retrospect, been a pathetic attempt to ease his own concerns—a few drops of laudanum to dull the pain while the rot continued to fester and grow.

He forced himself to look at Bennet, prepared for an expression of disgust or, even worse, pity. But she looked at him with—well, he did not know how to characterize her expression. Her gaze was candid, but not cold. She frowned, but with concentration rather than disapproval.

“So, you did not know for certain,” she said. “Well, she did make every effort to conceal her situation.”

“Then how did you know? How can you be certain that—”

“I saw the bruises,” she interjected quietly. “Only once, soon after we met last month, and quite by accident.”

“Where?” His response was more of a growl than spoken language.

Either she could not or chose not to understand him. “If you think I will not be admitted through the front door, I suppose I must sneak in through the servant’s entrance.”

Whatever he had expected her to say, it was not that. Still, he refused to be distracted: “Where were the bruises?”

She studied him for a long moment. “Are you asking for your sister’s sake—or for your own?”

In the aftermath of Wickham’s beating, Darcy had stumbled back to his rented rooms and submerged his bloodied face in a basin of cold water. In that moment of immersion, his lungs had burned, his mouth had throbbed, and his thoughts had become blessedly lucid.

Her words, too, had that effect: they stung, and they clarified. For all his past mistakes, he now had an opportunity to help his sister. He had to concentrate on the task at hand.

“You are not sneaking in through the servant’s entrance,” he said. “That is a ridiculous plan.”

©2023 Christina Morland

---

Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed these variations on “All Was Joy and Kindness”!  Feel free to leave any thoughts, suggestions, questions, or comments below. A Happy New Year to you all!