Elizabeth's Christmas Memories: A Pride and Prejudice Holiday Variation

By Celia Norman

Every winter Elizabeth Bennet and her elder sister Jane spend several delightful weeks in London with their aunt and uncle. But with the arrival of each Christmas, Elizabeth must remind herself to keep a very special secret close to her heart.

 

For Elizabeth Bennet has made a very unexpected friend in London, a young man who loves poetry and talking long into the afternoon about everything and nothing—a young man named Fitzwilliam Darcy.

 

But as the years pass, Elizabeth begins to wonder if she might have stronger emotions for her friend... Emotions that she is certain will not be reciprocated. While she does not know much about the gentleman who has befriended her, it's clear enough that he's from a family whose station in society is far above her own. 

 

With Mrs. Bennet more than eager to see her daughters married to gentlemen of a goodly income, Elizabeth knows that it will not be long before she will be unable to meet with her friend. Will there come a Christmas where she can no longer see him? Can she bring herself to speak of what truly lies in her heart before it is too late? Or will she be forced to keep her secret as nothing more than a sweet memory...

 

Elizabeth's Christmas Memories is a sweet, clean, Pride and Prejudice Holiday Variation that is suitable for all lovers of Jane Austen's romanctic classic. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blue Flowers Press
• Release date: Nov 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215848418

Book preview

1

As we had every winter since we were children, my elder sister Jane and I had been invited to London to spend the months leading up to Christmas with our favorite relatives.

Much to our mother’s continual despair, our aunt and uncle had lived in London since their marriage, and it seemed to me that any time we spent away from Hertfordshire was time that was wasted in her perpetual search for husbands for all of us.

But in London we could forget about such things, and I longed for the winter every year so that we might escape our mother's machinations if only for a little while.

Much like her nieces, Mrs. Gardiner was a country girl, raised in Lambton in Derbyshire… But very much unlike her nieces, my aunt had grown comfortable in her city life, and did not seem to pine for the quiet of the countryside as I did whenever we visited. 

I had always found London exciting, but as the weeks dragged on I would always begin to long for the journey back to Hertfordshire and the quiet chaos of Longbourn.

I knew that Jane felt the same, and the carriage ride to Longbourn was always made quicker by our decisions on which stories to tell our eager sisters, and which gifts would suit them best. 

But when our conversation died away, or while Jane slept, my mind was filled with thoughts that I could never share with my sister.

A secret.

One that I had kept for many years, but one that I would recall with some fondness every time we returned to London, and especially at Christmas. 

The Gardiner’s house was on Gracechurch Street, near a small park, and in the springtime I liked to walk there to read among the newly blooming spring flowers. Every spring, the garden changed a little more, the trees were a little taller, the flower beds a little larger, and the places where she could sit became more sheltered and hidden from passers by. 

But in the winter it was at its most magical, at least in my mind, for it was in this garden after the first snowfall of the season that I had first met Fitzwilliam Darcy.

Our meeting was not how I had always imagined such a thing should be. Of course, I had met several boys my own age in Meryton, but they had no time for the games of young girls and my interactions with them had been brief and highly supervised.

As I had grown older, I had been sought out at dances by those same boys who had suddenly become young men before they found me too bookish, too serious, or too... myself to keep their interest. 

But ever since that day in the garden it had been Fitzwilliam Darcy’s face I saw in my mind when those young men smiled at me, and it was his voice that echoed in my mind when they asked me to dance. 

But he would never come to Hertfordshire. I knew that for certain. 

But perhaps, by some chance, I might see him again in London.

I had hoped for the very same thing every year since we had met, and I often wondered if he felt the same. Or if he ever thought of me.

What is this? A rabbit in the snow? 

That was how he had greeted me on that snowy morning.

I smiled as I looked out the carriage window. Jane was asleep, her head heavy on my shoulder, and I was free to let my memories overtake me.

It had not been so many years ago, but I remembered everything about that day as though it had only just happened.

I was only sixteen, but I was not as silly as Lydia. At least, I hoped that I had not been.

My sixteenth birthday had only just passed before we departed Longbourn, bound for London.  

It had been early in the morning, Jane was still sleeping, and my aunt was busy with preparations for her ladies' group's upcoming salon. It was their final salon of the year and the pressure to have a successful event was very high.

Mrs. Gardiner was glad to have me out from underfoot if I could not be of any help, and I could not resist walking in the freshness of the morning. Dark clouds gathered overhead, and I knew that it would snow again very soon.

A sharp wind blew through the streets from the warehouse district, but the park across from my aunt and uncle's house was covered in a light dusting of snow and would offer some shelter from the worst of the gusts.

The show was fresh and bright, and while I wasn't sure that I would be able to sit on the benches in the park, I had a book of poetry tucked under my arm. A birthday present from my father. 

I had brought a wool blanket with me to spread on the bench, and I hoped that it would not get too wet.  

The snow covered branches and the height of the hedges created a secret corner in the park for me, my own private garden. I felt slightly giddy, as I always did, to be hiding in plain sight, and I had brushed the snow off the bench with purposeful strokes before I spread the blanket over the bench.