by Bethany Delleman
To anyone from the outside, Elizabeth Hamilton’s marriage seemed to be a perfect blend of familial duty and proper conjugal affection. It was perfectly natural for a ward raised alongside her cousins to fall in love with one or the other of them; and both Frederick and John were such good, handsome young men. Any nice young girl, brought up at the expense of her nearest relation, must want to repay that kindness by marrying and thus bestowing a large fortune on her uncle’s sons. It was a done thing; an expected thing; a respectable choice.
Not a single person could conceive that there was anything untoward in the business. On the wedding day, the bride appeared perfectly happy. When she had cried real tears when the vows were spoken, and sobbed so hard that it nearly choked her words and made the final “I do” so strangled that it seemed it had been torn from her throat, it could be supposed by the rational onlooker to arise from the depth of her regard for the young Frederick. When he accepted her with such a cold solemnity that she nearly shrank from him, was it not simply his respectful manner during such a sacred ceremony?
Everyone was so perfectly resolved to find no fault in the proceedings that nothing could dissuade them from that preconception. Not the groom’s disinterested manner, nor the bride’s frequent wishes, “That John might have come,” or the strange fact that John, the younger brother and only six or seventeen, had been suddenly sent away to distant relations. The happy couple rode away on their tour of the seaside without incident, unless one happened to glimpse the newly made Mrs. Brandon’s look of horror at the maid who was to accompany them, or caught her hurried words of request that her childhood servant would be permitted to come instead.
The dispute was over too quickly to be observed by most, and the carriage door shut and the married couple departed on their journey of conjugal felicity.
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To anyone from the outside, Elizabeth Brandon’s affair seemed to be the terrible result of disregarded duty and improper passions. It was completely unnatural for a wife married to a close cousin, brought up in the same house, to be so ungrateful to her husband and his family. How was it that such a well-bred girl who was under the care of her nearest relation could have turned so wild? How could she have squandered fortune and disregarded the family who did so much for her? It was a shocking thing; an unexpected thing; a disrespectful misadventure.
Not a single person in London could understand what could have brought on such disgusting behaviour in the wayward wife. The young man had been profligate and extravagant, but that was the way of young men. The young woman had often seemed unhappy, even in public, which was very unbecoming. However the marriage had begun poorly (people were beginning to remember), it had gone on badly. She had not been willing to forebear. There was perhaps fault on both sides, but no one knew the truth. It was impossible to know what went on at home, behind closed doors. How was anyone to have known her feelings?
Everyone was so perfectly willing to lay the blame at Elizabeth’s feet; nothing could dissuade them from that notion. Not the husband’s frequenting of his mistress’s apartments, nor the wife’s occasional observations that, “he is sometimes unkind to me,” or the strange fact that he had brought an opera singer on their wedding journey. There was certainly no inciting incident, unless one considered that Mr. Brandon had very recently brought a child under their roof that was not his wife’s, after she had suffered an unfortunate confinement. One did not speak about such things.
The divorce was over quickly, and Elizabeth Brandon, disgraced and worn, departed from the place that had been at one time her home, having never experienced anything like conjugal felicity.
For more short stories, go here
For my crossover romance, check out Prideful & Persuaded
For my Mansfield Park variation, here Unfairly Caught