Page 69 of Collins Takes Charge

“Did I really never speak of anything but her beauty? She is physically beautiful after all,” Bingley said dreamily as he saw Miss Bennet’s prodigious beauty in his mind’s eye.

“Yes, you only ever spoke of her beauty,” Darcy said while Fitzwilliam and Hurst nodded.

“Bingley, you are my brother-in-law, and I like you, but do you not see that even as you were asking if all you see is Miss Bennet’s beauty, you comment on the fact that she is a great beauty?” Hurst pointed out.

“I think I enjoyed it more when you were playing at being a drunken sot,” Bingley shot back sardonically. “Yes, I do see that all I saw were her looks.”

“When do you make for London with your younger sister?” Fitzwilliam asked.

“On the morrow, first thing in the morning,” Bingley responded. “I heard from my Uncle John and Aunt Hildebrand. They will take Caroline in the unlikely event the physicians judge her sane. If that comes to pass, I will be travelling directly to Scarborough. Hurst and Louisa will be here, so you are all welcome to remain as long as you chuse to.”

“Anne, Andrew, and I are going to London on the morrow,” Fitzwilliam related.

“Actually, little brother, I may remain here for a while longer,” Hilldale drawled. “I find the area very interesting.

Even though he was sure why the viscount wanted to remain, or more precisely for whom, Bingley said nothing. He had lost Miss Bennet because of his own deficiencies, so he should not be surprised she had interested another.

“So, Rich, how long before you sell out and resign?” Darcy smirked. He remembered when his cousin had said he would never marry and leave the army.

“I will begin the process as soon as I am back in London,” Fitzwilliam stated. “Now Andy and William, you remember what we are to do to help Collins this morning, do you not?” He saw his brother and cousin nod. “As soon as Collins sends word, we will make for Meryton.”

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

Biggs and Johns were huge, but they were fleet of foot and could blend into the background if the task called for them to do that. On this day, they sent three of the other men out. They were dressed like farm labourers so their quarry would not notice them.

The men were watching when the youngest Bennet slipped out of the front door and walked down the drive to the lane where she turned towards Meryton. After about two hundred yards, she struck out across the fields to her right.

The girl obviously did not expect she would be followed, which explained why she never looked behind her even once. It took about twenty minutes before she reached a rundown hunting lodge. The three former soldiers took up positions in a large triangle where they had a clear view of the structure and could see one another as well in case they needed to signal each other.

“Wicky, I am here,” Lydia sang out as she skipped into the dilapidated one-room lodge. Not immediately seeing her love, she stopped at the door and looked around.

“Wicky, where are you? This is not funny if you are teasing me. I am not amused! You are supposed to propose to me today. You also said something about our vows; what was that? Where are you?” Lydia stomped her booted foot. The force caused the rotted floorboards below her foot to crack.

Lydia waited for a half hour before she gave up and began to stomp back towards Longbourn. She was so preoccupied with her pique that she never noticed the three farm labourers who were following her.

~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~

“It is good that the seducer is under lock and key. Hopefully, after today, things will change here,” William Collins said to Biggs after hearing the man’s report about Miss Lydia’s adventure and return, stomping her feet all the way. William thanked the man and made his way to Cousin Bennet’s study. He knocked on the door and waited.

Bennet knew his wife was not up yet, so he called out for whoever was at his study door to enter. “What can I do for you, Cousin?” he said disinterestedly when he saw who entered the room.

“It is the other way around. It is what I can do for you to make sure your family is not ruined,” William responded evenly.

“Ruined? You exaggerate and overstep. Do not concern yourself with my family beyond the daughter you are to marry,” Bennet barked. He pinched the bridge of his nose as he calmed himself. “I assume that you mean the two youngest? How are they to accomplish ruining themselves when none of the officers would look at them? With them sitting on the side for most of the night, I had very little amusement at the ball. It was hardly worth going.”

William knew that his cousin needed a great shock before he would be willing to listen to reason. “What if I can prove what danger your youngest two present to your family by running wild?” he questioned.

Before he dismissed his cousin’s words as maundering, Bennet saw the look in Collins’s eyes, and he saw resolve. “What can you prove?”

“You will discover how close your daughters came to ruin,” William promised. “To really have the effect that is required, your wife and two youngest daughters need to be with us. May I count on you to order their compliance?”

Either he was going to be amused, or a disaster would be averted. As such, Bennet agreed to have the three women his cousin mentioned accompany them. Bennet nodded.

“We still need to have a much longer conversation, but this needs to be dealt with first,” William added. Let him come to grips with his failures as a parent before he was shocked with the terms of the entail William could enforce if he chose to do so.

Bennet sent Mrs Hill to rouse his wife and two youngest daughters from their beds. He had not a clue that Lydia was already up and about and in a very bad mood after her unsuccessful attempt to see the man she thought would marry her. If any of the three refused, Bennet told Hill to tell them that refusal would result in one-year’s loss of allowance.

While two of the three Bennet ladies were being waked, Collins wrote a note to Fitzwilliam and sent it to Netherfield Park with one of the former soldiers who was riding Vulcan.