Page 5 of The Fire at Longbourn (Pride and Prejudice Variation)

Longbourn

The apothecary, Mr. Jones, studied the summer kitchen as he and Ben hurried up to it.

It was set some distance away from the house to prevent Longbourn from overheating in the summer, and had thick gray stone walls and only a handful of cheese-cloth covered windows.

Ben rushed ahead to shove the door open, and Mr. Jones took stock as he stepped inside.

Dust motes floated in the dim light of some few tallow candles, drifting down to settle onto the thin carpeting of dust that coated every surface.

In the middle of the room, a great oak table held Miss Mary Bennet, while her mother was perched in a rickety specimen of a chair nearby.

“Oh, Mr. Jones, Mr. Jones!” Mrs. Bennet cried out as the apothecary rushed into the summer kitchen. “Oh, my leg! I fear I might have broken it. How it pains me!”

“See to Mary first,” Bennet ordered, his face pale and grim. Mr. Jones immediately turned toward the third Bennet daughter, who was lying on the large wooden table with a pillow under her head and blankets tucked warmly around her body, though her arms were left free.

“What happened?” Jones asked, moving over to inspect Mary’s arm and then leaning forward to gaze into the young woman’s face. Mary’s eyes were closed, her breath was quick and her face twisted with discomfort.

“Mary,” Bennet rasped. “She … she … realized that Mrs. Bennet was trapped upstairs and rushed up to her mother’s bedroom, broke the window, and pushed my wife out of the window. She then jumped out of the window herself to avoid the encroaching flames.”

Jones frowned and asked, “Was she awake at any time after her fall?”

“No,” the master of Longbourn said and swallowed convulsively. “No, she missed the bush that cushioned Fanny’s fall and hit the ground instead. Her arm seems broken, and she has not … she has not been conscious since her fall.”

“I see,” Jones said, forcing himself to speak calmly. “Mr. Bennet, I will set her arm now while she is yet in a swoon, and then we need to move her to a warmer place as quickly as possible. Perhaps your brother Phillips’s house?”

“Yes, of course,” Bennet agreed, and then turned to his sobbing wife and said, “Fanny, I will have the servants prepare the carriage, and you and Mary and Mr. Jones will go to your sister’s house in Meryton.”

“But what of you, Husband?” Mrs. Bennet exclaimed. “Will you not come with us?”

Bennet hesitated, debating between watching over his wife and daughter in pain and dealing with the aftermath of a devastating fire. He could trust Mr. Jones and the servants to care for his wife and daughter, and his role, as master of Longbourn, was here.

“I will stay here,” he declared.

“Oh, no, no!” Mrs. Bennet shrieked. “If you die in the fire, what will happen to us all?”

“I will be very careful,” Bennet responded, and as Jones began moving Mary’s broken arm, he said, “I must go arrange for the carriage!”

/

“Take these paintings,” Darcy ordered, yanking a large oil painting of a bearded man off the wall and handing it to two servants.

They were in the drawing room now, and while the fire had not yet spread this far, the air was smoky and the temperature dangerously hot.

Better to remove the valuables from the room in case the fire spread further.

“Who is in charge here?!” a voice bellowed from outside, and Darcy could hear the thumping of dozens of hooves. He crawled back outside and heaved a sigh of relief at the sight of Colonel Forster, with many of his militia at his back.

“Colonel!” Darcy returned in greeting, as the military man swung down from his horse.

“Mr. Darcy,” the colonel said, looking around. “How can we help?”

“We are trying to drench the inside of the house at the moment to keep the flames from spreading,” Darcy explained.

“We could use another bucket chain going to the dining room and adjacent rooms to saturate them, as well as the one fighting the fire. We also need some water on the upper levels, though anyone working up there must be careful not to be trapped. The fire is not thus far breaking through the wall of the east wing upstairs, but the door there should be wetted down.”

Colonel Forster nodded briskly and turned, rapping out orders. His militiamen sprang to obey, running in an orderly way toward the house and taking up their assigned tasks efficiently. Forster looked towards the sky. “Is that just smoke, or are there clouds gathering?” he asked quietly.

Darcy looked up as well. Yes, beyond the gray haze of the smoke, the sky was becoming overcast. “Yes, those are clouds,” Darcy agreed, “but I am not certain they are rainclouds. We shall have to hope and pray, and in the meantime, do what we can to quench the fire ourselves.”

He turned back to the house, thrumming with energy, and paused a moment to watch as two maids carefully maneuvered into view, carrying a large painting between them. They passed out of sight, and he moved to join the bucket brigade, slinging water onto the fire in endless rhythm.

It was mindlessly repetitive, wearying work, and Darcy lost himself in the task of fighting the fire. So he startled rather badly when a familiar voice exclaimed in his ear, “Hullo, Darcy!”

He looked up as he passed the empty bucket back. Bingley grinned at him with undampened cheer, teeth glinting white in his smoke-smudged face. “They said you were around here telling everyone what to do.”

“When did you get here?” Darcy asked blankly, accepting a new bucket and looking back to the fire to judge the most effective spot and fling the water towards it. Beside him, his friend did the same.

“Some time back. I came along with Sir William Lucas and his household and several of the Meryton men.”

Indeed, as Darcy glanced around, he saw Sir William’s rotund figure over helping the maids fill buckets.

Several men in the plain garb of the townsfolk had joined the bucket brigades, including six brawny barrel-chested figures who could only be the blacksmith and his sons.

He also saw Mr. Collins in the bucket line.

The parson was sweating heavily, but it was to the man’s credit that he was assisting.

So it was that Darcy, fully absorbed in fighting the fire, scarcely noticed the damp across his head.

He reached up absently to brush his sleeve across his forehead, clearing the sweat away from his eyes, and slung more water on the fire.

He noted absently that the smoke seemed to be getting worse, squinting through stinging burning eyes, and sweat was running down his forehead once more.

He took a moment, tilting his head back to try and breathe – and got a face full of water as the clouds opened up in earnest with a hissing susurration across the yard.

Smoke billowed whitely off the house, and Darcy and several of the other men stumbled back away from it, hacking and choking and coughing.

Steam hissed and curled, the smoke turning the yard opaque as everyone staggered away.

But it was helping – the flames, losing the battle with the rain, were sullenly slumping down, defiant tendrils flicking skyward before being beaten back.

People stood panting and looking at each other and the house, relieved and grateful and mournful and so, so weary.

/

The Phillips’ House

Meryton

Mrs. Emma Phillips was five years older than her sister, Mrs. Frances Bennet.

While young Fanny Gardiner had been an ethereal beauty in her girlhood, Emma had been pretty but not lovely, and she had never aspired to marry a gentleman.

She had, instead, married Mr. Alan Phillips, a solicitor who had taken over the elder Mr. Gardiner’s business when the man retired.

Mrs. Phillips was a kindly, vulgar woman, and largely a happy one, but she was not particularly sensible. Generally, Jane and Elizabeth enjoyed their aunt’s company, but at this moment, the lady of the house was not helping the situation in the least.

“My poor sister! My poor niece!” Mrs. Phillips exclaimed, her blue eyes reddened with tears and anxiety. “Where are they? They must be dead! Oh Fanny! Oh Mary!”

“We must go to Longbourn, we must!” Lydia repeated for the twentieth time. “Mamma and Father! What if they ... what if...?”

Jane, who had overcome her original weakness, wrapped an arm around her youngest and tallest sister and said, “I want to go to Longbourn as well, my dear sister, but we would only be in the way.”

“But what is happening? Why has no one come to tell us anything?” Kitty cried out, and then began coughing as she generally did when distressed.

“Kitty, drink this,” Elizabeth ordered as she poured water from a pitcher into a cup.

She too felt ready to jump out of her skin with apprehension, but there was nothing to be done but wait with her aunt and sisters.

The Phillips’ male servants had rushed to assist with the fire, and Mr. Wickham, after he escorted them to the house, had also departed.

“Oh, oh, it is the Longbourn carriage, girls!” Mrs. Phillips cried out from her position by the front window.

A moment later, all five women dashed for the front door in a manner which would have been humorous under more relaxed circumstances; in this case, however, Elizabeth could only be frustrated when Lydia struggled to turn the knob to open the door.

At last, the door flung wide, and Elizabeth rushed down the steps to the pavement as her family’s carriage came to a halt.

She yanked the carriage door open and thrust her head inside the cabin to discover her mother, her sister Mary, and Mr. Jones, the apothecary, seated within.

Mrs. Bennet, swaddled in a blanket, her face was ravaged by tears, drooped against the squabs.

Mary, well wrapped in quilts, lay supine on the rear facing seat with her eyes closed, her face gray with soot.

“Mamma!” Elizabeth exclaimed in a trembling voice. “Mary! Are you all right?”

“My ankle is broken, I think!” Mrs. Bennet wailed, “and my poor Mary! She saved my life, Lizzy! Oh, she is dying, I know it!”

“She is not dying, Mrs. Bennet,” Jones said sternly. “Miss Elizabeth, would you ask your coachman and manservant to assist with carrying Miss Mary into the house? She is showing signs of waking up, and I would prefer to have her comfortably situated inside when she does so.”

Elizabeth stepped back and stumbled over Lydia, who was crowding as close as possible.

Elizabeth gently shoved her youngest sister away so that the coachman and manservant could reach inside, and with the apothecary’s assistance, they removed Mary from the carriage.

Then, with a voluble and excitable Mrs. Phillips leading the way, the men carried Mary up the half flight of stairs and into the drawing room, where they carefully placed her on a padded sofa near the fire.

Elizabeth and Jane, deserted by the menfolk, found themselves assisting their mother up the stairs and into the room where Mr. Jones was leaning over Mary.

Now that their sister was laid out and the blanket adjusted, Elizabeth could see that her sister’s right arm was splinted to a straight piece of wood.

“Is her arm broken?” Jane whispered.

“Yes,” Jones replied absently and looked at Mrs. Phillips, who was wringing her hands.

“Madam, would you be kind enough to have your maids bring warm water and rags? Miss Mary and Mrs. Bennet would doubtless like to have clean faces and hands. They would also likely appreciate some hot tea and honey.”

“Of course, of course!” Emma Phillips cried out, and bustled off, obviously thankful for something to do.

Elizabeth, observing her younger sister’s pale face, felt a lump form in her throat and beside her, both Kitty and Lydia began sobbing.

“Where is Father?” Jane asked, which caused Elizabeth to jerk in surprise. Yes, her father. Where was he? Could it be…?

“Mr. Bennet is safe,” the apothecary said briskly, turning toward his older patient. “He stayed back at Longbourn to fight the fire. Mrs. Bennet, please allow me to look at your ankle now. I fear this will hurt…”

A moment later, the matron shrieked in anguish, and Jones said, “My apologies, Mrs. Bennet. I think that it is merely sprained, but it will need to be wrapped. Mrs. Phillips, could you call one of your maids to assist Mrs. Bennet to clean her hands and face?”

“I will do it,” Elizabeth volunteered. She wanted … no, she needed to do something to dispel this feeling of utter helplessness!

A short time later, she told the servant girl who appeared at her side with a pitcher of hot water, “I will take that. Here, Mamma, let me help you wash your face and hands.”

“Mamma?” a weak voice came from the couch, and everyone turned toward Mary, whose brown eyes were now half open.

“Oh, Mary, thank God you are not dead!” Mrs. Bennet shrieked, her voice shaking with emotion.

“My dear Mary!” Jane exclaimed, hurrying over to sink down by her sister’s side. “Oh Mary, how do you feel?”

“Is Mamma well?” Mary asked hoarsely.

“Oh yes, Mary, I am well enough! My ankle is injured but that is nothing … oh Mary, you saved me! You saved me!”

A slow smile formed on the girl’s lips, and she leaned back against the pillow, her eyes closing again. “I am … I am so glad, Mamma. I was so … so frightened.”

Elizabeth found herself trembling with a mixture of reaction and relief. Longbourn might well be lost to them, but at least everyone in their family had survived.