Page 52 of Out of His Wits (Pride and Prejudice Variation)

“I begin to understand,” Darcy said quietly, “why some men lose faith in lawful authority. When rank and connection matter more than duty and competence, when the powerful protect themselves whilst abandoning those they are meant to serve what alternative is left but to seek justice through other means?”

“A dangerous path,” Colonel Fitzwilliam warned. “Once men begin taking the law into their own hands, even from the best of motives, the very foundations of ordered society begin to crumble.”

“Yet what is one to do when ordered society has already failed? When its representatives are corrupt, lazy, or simply incompetent?”

Neither man had an easy answer to that question. They walked on in sobering silence, each contemplating a future where protection depended not on lawful authority but on private initiative, where justice was a privilege of the powerful rather than a right of all citizens.

“We shall have to find another way to deal with Wickham,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said eventually.

It was not Lydia’s custom to take much notice of the wives of soldiers, but there was something about the woman near the draper’s stall that drew her eye.

The gown she wore was several seasons out of fashion and much mended, yet its cut bespoke a finer origin.

Her gloves had been patched rather than replaced.

Her bonnet had once been elegant, but the ribbon trailed limp and sun faded.

She stood with quiet dignity, exchanging coins for coarse thread, and spoke with an accent that did not belong to the barracks.

Lydia lingered. When the woman turned to go, she followed at a little distance, as if propelled by some idle curiosity.

They had not gone far before the woman turned.

“Are you following me, miss?”

Lydia coloured but lifted her chin. “Only because I think we might once have met. I am Miss Lydia Bennet.”

The woman studied her for a moment, then gave a small, worn smile. “I am Mrs. Arthur. My husband is with the—well, no matter. Would you like a cup of tea? It is not far.”

Curiosity warred with propriety, but in the end, curiosity won.

The dwelling to which Mrs. Arthur led her was scarcely more than a hut, tucked behind a row of stables and half-hidden by a hedgerow.

The door hung askew. The floor within was packed earth, swept clean but uneven.

There was a narrow hearth, a chipped teapot on a low table, and a single stool.

Mrs. Arthur gestured for Lydia to sit on the stool and turned to prepare the tea.

“I apologise for the want of refreshment,” she said, pouring water into the pot. “The leaves are a bit tired, but they will serve.”

Lydia said nothing, taking in the shabby surroundings. A rough bed stood at the far side of the single room; its ropes stretched to the floor. The lumps in the mattress made the coverlet appear to be covering a series of small mountains..

Mrs. Arthur brought the pot and two cracked mugs to the table. Her every motion was deliberate, economical. She had not the elegance of a drawing room hostess, but there remained a certain composure—like someone who remembered how life was once lived and had not quite given up the memory.

“You are very kind to entertain me,” Lydia said at last.

Mrs. Arthur gave a dry smile as she drew up a wooden crate to sit upon. “It is a rarity to speak with another lady. I was once Miss Clarissa Marchmont of Surrey. You may not know the name. We had a small estate. My father is a gentleman.”

Lydia blinked. “What happened?”

“I fell in love with Lieutenant Arthur at sixteen. Against my family’s advice, of course.

He was stationed nearby, and I thought him terribly romantic.

He had no money, but a very fine pair of eyes.

When he suggested we elope to Scotland, I thought it the most romantic idea ever conceived.

” She paused, then gave a faint, brittle laugh.

“We stole out one night with nothing but a portmanteau and a few shillings from my pin money. My mother was frantic. My father refused to speak to me for over a year. We were married by a blacksmith, breakfasted on cakes and ale, and returned to the regiment before the week was out. I thought it glorious—like something from a novel.”

Her expression flattened.

“It was not.”

Lydia said nothing.

“The regiment moved on. My dowry- a thousand pounds- lasted but a trice, lost at some gaming table in Brighton. My fine-eyed lieutenant grew coarse and tired. There was no money, no welcome. I was expected to keep house with no training, no guidance, no help. The other officers’ wives barely spoke to me. My family did not write.”

She looked around the narrow space—not bitterly, but with the calm of one who had long ceased expecting anything more.

“Now?”

Mrs. Arthur looked around the room. “Now I rise before dawn. I light the fire, fetch water, cook what I can afford, and mend what I cannot replace. I buy the cheapest cuts from the butcher, or haggle with fishwives. There is no maid, no laundress. I wash my own linen, scour the hearth, walk to market, tend the chickens when we can get them, and patch my husband’s uniform.

In winter I cut kindling with a borrowed axe.

It is a blessing that we have not had children. I would have nothing to feed them.”

Lydia took a sip of her tea and set the mug down carefully.

It was bitter and thin—no milk, no sugar, no hint of the comforting richness she associated with tea at home.

The leaves had been steeped too many times, and she suspected the water was not quite as pure as that from Longbourn’s well.

There were no biscuits, no cloth on the table, no second cup waiting to be offered.

Only the bare essentials, and even those worn thin.

She glanced again at the bare walls, the crooked door, the single room. It was not what she had imagined— not at all .

“Will you go to Brighton with the regiment?” Lydia asked, thinking that such a grand adventure would surely be a vast improvement.

Mrs. Arthur sighed. “Yes, we are to join the regiment in Brighton. We shall live in tents—canvas and rope, pitched on trampled ground with little to soften the earth beneath us. The tents are set up cheek by jowl. There will be no privacy, no rest. The summer heat turns the air foul, and when it rains, the mud swallows everything.”

She stirred her tea, though there was nothing to dissolve.

“The officers keep to themselves, of course, as do their wives. The rest sleep close by the men—wives, laundresses, the women who cook or nurse, and those with nowhere else to go. There are children in the camp as well. Infants, even.”

She looked up.

“The soldiers get drunk nightly and fight with whoever is nearest. Tempers flare over trifles. Gambling, shouting, brawling—it never stops. The women—some wives, many others , endure what they must. Some follow out of desperation, others out of hope. But hope does not last long under canvas.”

Her voice thinned.

“I knew of three girls ruined before autumn last year, and another beaten so badly she could not walk for a fortnight. The officers’ ladies remain apart, but we see—well. It is not a season by the sea, Miss Bennet.”

Lydia stared down at the tea, her fingers wrapped around the mug though it offered no real warmth.

Mrs. Arthur continued, not unkindly, “For an officer’s wife, unless she has a fortune of her own, like Colonel Forster’s wife, there is no carriage, no allowance for gowns, no pianoforte, no invitations, no dances.

There is only what one can endure. Love fades, and then the man who once whispered sonnets now stinks of gin and snores beside you in the dirt.

I often wonder what my life might have been had I not been a romantic ninny. ”

Neither of them spoke.

When Lydia did rise, she did so quietly.

“You are very—generous—to tell me so much,” she said.

“I should not like another girl to learn by degrees what I learned all at once.”

Lydia nodded. She curtsied, looking Mrs. Arthur full in the face. “I thank you.”

Then she turned and walked away—more slowly than she had come, her step more measured.

The supper party at Lucas Lodge was just large enough to require civility and just small enough to encourage speculation. Tea had been poured, cake offered, and the air hummed with the genteel tension of polite society waiting for something to be said that ought not be.

Miss Bingley sat with near the hostess, offering smiles like receipts—polished, formal, and entirely without warmth.

“I must say,” she remarked lightly, “Miss Elizabeth Bennet has the most admirable composure. Some young ladies would have made a spectacle, but she—no, not Miss Eliza. She has such natural discretion.” she said, with a smile of studied brightness.

“Many young ladies might have given in to drama or faintness, but she—no. She is so sensible. So calm.”

There was a murmur of polite assent, though no one quite met her eye.

Lady Lucas blinked over her teacup. “She has always borne herself with confidence.”

“Oh, indeed,” said Miss Bingley smoothly. “Particularly in moments of uncertainty. Some people misunderstand such presence of mind, of course.”

Lady Lucas looked up, uncertain whether this was praise or an indictment.

Miss Bingley pressed on, her voice sweetened by effort. “It is such a pity how quickly innocent actions are misconstrued. A gentleman unwell, a lady lending assistance—it is hardly the stuff of novels.”

Miss Long’s cousin—Miss Arabella Faxon, with a notable fondness for adding trimmings to tales—tilted her head. “Oh? I had heard that Miss Elizabeth Bennet had been indiscreet.”

Miss Bingley’s laugh was far too quick. “No, of course not. Only that some might misread the scene. But I am quite determined to speak on her behalf. In such cases, a lady’s reputation deserves not just protection—but clarity.

There is always someone eager to misunderstand a harmless scene.

The best response is to conduct oneself with such composure that no one dares say more. ”

Miss Faxon furrowed her brow and leant forward. “But there was something, was there not? Talk about the music room at Netherfield?”

The elder Miss Long, a young woman with an avid interest in any misfortune not her own, leant forward. “I had heard she was quite alone with a gentleman that evening.”

There was a hush—not quite frozen, but suddenly brittle.

Miss Bingley laughed, a touch too quickly. “Ah, that! Yes, yes—Mr. Darcy had taken ill. Nothing scandalous, I assure you. She happened upon him, and very sensibly summoned assistance. No one civil would have done otherwise.”

Miss Long tilted her head. “But the servants said—”

“Servants,” Miss Bingley interrupted, “repeat whatever they hear. It is our task to correct misapprehensions. That is all I meant.” She looked across the room towards Darcy with a gesture of one bringing him insistently into the circle. She raised her voice. “Surely you agree, Darcy?”

Darcy’s eyes were on the window. His words came with glacial reluctance. “I agree that Miss Elizabeth’s conduct was exemplary. What others make of it speaks more to them than to her.”

Miss Bingley faltered. “Well, naturally—but surely you do not mean—”

“She offered help when I was unwell. There is no shame in that.”

“I would never suggest shame,” Miss Bingley said quickly. “Only that you need not—no one would expect you to—feel any particular obligation.” Miss Bingley gave a nervous laugh. “Of course. But you must admit, you were not at all yourself. You need not take any particular action as a result.”

His gaze turned towards her. “And if I expect it of myself?”

She flushed. “But surely you are not—bound—by a few minutes of confusion?”

“I am bound,” he said, “by the conduct of a gentleman. I have no respect for those who ought to have known better than to turn a young lady’s compassion into grist for rumour.

” Darcy looked intently at Miss Bingley.

“If there is an obligation,” he said evenly, “it arises from the falsehoods of those who permitted, nay, fostered, idle talk to flourish, not from anything Miss Elizabeth did.”

There was a pause. Colonel Fitzwilliam studied the fire, his expression unreadable.

Miss Bingley coloured but rallied. “From your words, one would think someone encouraged the gossip deliberately. That would be most unjust.”

“It would, would it not?” Darcy said softly.

A silence followed. It was uncomfortable—at least for Miss Bingley.

She sipped her tea too quickly and burnt her tongue.

There was a brief, terrible silence.

Charlotte set down her teacup with excessive care. “Most unjust, certainly,” she added smoothly. “Happily, in this neighbourhood we know Miss Elizabeth too well to credit such idle invention.”

Miss Bingley moved sharply, her silk rustling, her smile strained. Charlotte let the silence hang a moment, then inclined her head toward Darcy. “Surely, Mr. Darcy, no one is better placed than you to judge how little such whispers deserve attention.”

“Those who trade in scandal declare their own base character,” he replied.