Page 70 of Out of His Wits (Pride and Prejudice Variation)
“Lydia, sit down this instant!” Mrs. Bennet cried, half scandalised, half delighted. “To think, Mr. Hurst—a man I always believed quite useless—should suddenly be the talk of the county. Depend upon it, they will sing ballads of him in the taverns!”
Elizabeth, smiling into her cup, observed, “It seems Netherfield has found an unlikely champion. One wonders whether he will now take more interest in matters beyond the dining table.”
Jane coloured slightly, though her eyes shone. “Mrs. Hurst must be very pleased.”
Mary, who had been silent until now, said quietly, “It is strange, is it not, how adversity uncovers the substance of a man? One would hardly have expected Mr. Hurst to rise so, yet he has. I wonder how many more might prove themselves, if only they were pressed.”
Elizabeth’s hand tightened about her spoon.
At once she was back in that moment—Darcy’s arm anchoring her, the press of his coat against her cheek, the quick, fierce rhythm of his heart beneath her ear.
The scent of leather and clean linen, the heat of him, the strength in the grip that had steadied her trembling frame—these sensations flooded her with such force that her breath caught in her throat.
To have such strength as a protector, one who would never boast of it, seemed a treasure beyond reckoning.
She lowered her gaze quickly to her plate, unwilling to invite her mother’s notice.
Mrs. Bennet, unheeding, resumed in triumph. “Pleased? She ought to be beside herself with joy! A husband who can protect her with his sword—why, it is the very thing every woman desires. I declare, I must tell Lady Lucas at once.”
Miss Bingley, ever eager to reclaim attention, perceived that her prospects in Meryton had withered beyond revival.
Her noble efforts to silence gossip had been met with stubborn ingratitude; even an artful swoon had failed to win Charles’s sympathy.
Clearly the fault lay with the neighbourhood, not with her.
It was, she assured herself, entirely her own idea to depart.
She longed for the polish of London, or Bath, for company that could properly appreciate her wit, for drawing-rooms not furnished with provincial chatter.
Yet for all her lofty reasoning, the truth whispered otherwise.
Charles had grown disconcertingly firm of late, and his solicitude bore the unmistakable air of dismissal.
She was being banished with every courtesy he could contrive.
Still, she congratulated herself on the elegance of her retreat.
If she must go, she would describe it as a triumphal return to Town.
She surveyed the disordered state of her chamber with a haughty indifference she did not feel.
Below stairs, the footmen murmured still—of swords, of grappling, of Mr. Hurst’s miraculous turn from indolence to heroism. Even the scullery maid had spoken his name with something approaching reverence. Miss Bingley had long since tired of the tale. Yet it persisted.
Her own triumphs—the arrangement of entertainments, her many accomplishments, the cultivated superiority of her wit—had gone quite unnoticed in this rustic outpost. Whilst Mrs. Hurst received callers wishing to hear again the tale of Mr. Hurst’s victory and glancing often at the gates as though expecting another invasion, not one call had been paid to Miss Bingley since the event at the Lucas’s when Charles had behaved so savagely.
Miss Bingley stood by the window in her travelling pelisse, chin lifted, gazing nowhere in particular.
“I trust the servants will survive without my supervision,” she said, though no one had asked. “Mr. Bingley has grown so … countrified of late, I fear my influence is wasted.”
Sophy bit back a reply and bent to retrieve the hatbox.
The room, once arranged with obsessive elegance, looked ransacked—petticoats abandoned, slippers lying about like casualties of war.
The footmen had stopped lingering about her threshold, and the housekeeper had sent no tea tray this morning. Sophy had noticed.
Word had spread too quickly. Mr. Hurst, of all people, was being hailed as some kind of provincial Achilles.
That he had risen from his usual torpor to fend off an armed intruder seemed to have shaken the neighbourhood to its roots.
He had become a local legend overnight, the sort village children would play at reenacting.
Sophy had heard the cook humming a tune about him.
Miss Bingley, meanwhile, had become something far more pitiable: ignored.
“I shall be established in London shortly,” Miss Bingley went on, brushing an invisible speck from her cuff. “A charming little house in Mayfair—quite genteel. My brother will insist, of course. Naturally, he wishes me to have the funds to run it properly.”
Sophy nodded politely, having already sorted out that Mr. Bingley had both negotiated the lease and, more pointedly, returned his sister’s dowry to her—not as a favour, but as a settlement. Independence thinly disguised as exile. Miss Bingley would soon learn the limits of her own purse.
“I do not require much,” Miss Bingley added quickly, as if to herself. “A small staff. One must be prudent.”
Sophy’s spine prickled at that. “If I may, madam—since you wish for a more modest household, I would be grateful for a reference.”
Miss Bingley turned, startled. “You would not remain in my service?”
“I had thought, madam, that you might prefer someone … better suited to the reduced arrangements. I have never served without a housekeeper, nor without footmen to call upon. I expect a maid who is accustomed to doing for herself would answer better. I daresay you will find someone less particular in her expectations.” Sophy accompanied this remark with a fair approximation of Miss Bingley’s own disdainful, superior sniff.
The silence that followed was long enough for Sophy to finish tying the hatbox. Outside, the carriage wheels scraped against the gravel.
Miss Bingley straightened her spine with theatrical serenity. “As you wish, Sophy. Of course. I have no doubt I shall find someone of superior capability in Town.”
“Very good, madam.”
The hallway was empty when they finally descended. Even the footman had failed to appear to carry her personal things once the trunks were taken.
Miss Bingley stepped towards the waiting carriage with a rustle of silk and the faintest hesitation. As the door closed behind her, she settled her expression into one of mild disdain. Sophy handed up the last bag and stepped back without a curtsy.
Miss Bingley found opposite herself in the conveyance a broad-shouldered woman in a plain grey cloak and travel bonnet of uncertain age.
The woman bobbed her head. “Morning, ma’am. I am Mrs. Spragg, the laundress’s sister—though for today I am being a ‘chaperone.’ They said you was going to London. The master thought we might ride together. I was headed to Town meself to visit family in Clerkenwell.”
Miss Bingley gave a tight smile and arranged her skirts to occupy the entirety of the seat. No heated bricks were offered.. No one tucked in the lap robe. No one ensured the flounces of her pelisse had not been caught in the door.
She was obliged to fasten her own reticule, locate her own hand warmer, and shield her bonnet plume from the draught herself. The horses jerked into motion, and a jostle sent one of her hatboxes toppling from the rack above.
Mrs. Spragg reached for it. “Got it,” she said cheerfully. “Hope it ain’t the one with the feathers.”
Miss Bingley gave no reply. She pressed a gloved hand to her temple and stared fixedly out the window, past the hedgerows and fields, towards the city where she imagined herself once more the arbiter of taste and consequence.
Behind them, Netherfield receded into the mist.
Colonel Fitzwilliam personally escorted Wickham to London, charging him with the attempted murder of Mr. Hurst, Mr. Darcy, and the entire Netherfield party.
The colonel’s father, the earl, hearing the tale, was outraged at the negligence of Colonel Forster.
He employed his much superior influence in the Horse Guards and the War Office.
Soon Forster was demoted to lieutenant, ordered to endure endless days of marching raw recruits under the fierce wind in Brighton.
Word of Hurst’s brave defence spread swiftly beyond the citizens of Meryton, who regarded him as a hero, their admiration transforming his once laughable reputation into one of quiet respect.
Mrs. Hurst, glowing with pride and newfound affection for her husband, soon revealed she was with child, bringing further joy to the household.
Darcy had been at his desk, letters unopened, when Fletcher entered with uncharacteristic urgency.
“Sir,” he said gravely, “a matter you must hear. Word has reached the house from Meryton—the militia are repeating a new story. It began from the gaol.”
Darcy looked up sharply. “Go on.”
“It concerns Mr. Wickham, who, in one of his rages, spoke of Miss Elizabeth in terms no lady should suffer. He hinted that her…affections had been misplaced, and that, disappointed, she sought—”
Darcy’s head came up sharply. “Sought what, Fletcher?”
Fletcher stirred uneasily, his eyes on the carpet. “He suggested she, that in desperation, she turned to another quarter.”
Darcy’s voice cut like steel. “Enough. Say it without disguise.”
Fletcher bowed, then forced the words out.
“Very well, sir. Wickham shouted in the gaol that when he met her in the lane, Miss Elizabeth begged him to marry her, since you had cast her aside. He boasted she was already with child, and that he would spread it abroad that the babe is yours. The guards heard it clear, and the officers repeat it in their mess as if it were gospel.”
Darcy went white, then scarlet. He seized his coat with sudden decision. “The carriage. At once. I am to Longbourn.”
Fletcher stepped forward, setting the coat smoothly across his shoulders..