Charles
* * *
Darcy was bent over the writing desk in the drawing room, too intent on his letters to greet Carter as he entered the room. Some minutes passed before he set down his pen, stretched his shoulders, and saw the man standing before the fire sipping from a glass of brandy. “Forgive me for not greeting you, Carter. I wished to set my thoughts down while they were fresh in my mind.”
“Of course,” the officer replied easily. “Matters of business?”
“Yes, the flour mill at Pemberley suffered a failure of the water wheel when the wheat harvest had just come in. Temporary repairs were affected, but those have now failed. I have just authorised the suspension of milling until a new wheel can be fitted. I think it will cause fewer delays than constantly stopping and starting for patch-work.”
Bingley entered the room during this speech, and turned a laughing look upon his friend. “Are you boring poor Carter with estate talk?”
The officer shrugged. “Not at all. I am to have an estate one day, and so I am happy to learn how more experienced landowners deal with such problems as arise.”
The other gentlemen’s surprise could not be hidden. “I understood you to be a second son?” Bingley asked.
“Yes, but my uncle is a confirmed bachelor, and has long intended to leave Morton Grange to me.” He bowed slightly to Darcy. “It is nothing to Pemberley, from what I have heard, but it does have a mill, and now I have learnt a little something about maintaining it.”
“Well, that is fortunate,” exclaimed Bingley, pouring himself a drink. “Very few second sons, I think, can look forward to being landowners themselves. Will you tell us a little of it?”
The captain moved from the fire to take a seat. “It is a tidy little estate, not far from my father’s in northern Hampshire. It is, I think, similar to Mr Bennet’s in size and income, however I have a little money my mother left me, and thought to acquire more land. The farms are very productive, and though I should like to breed horses I would not wish to speculate good farmland on the venture.”
Darcy found himself further impressed by the man’s intelligence and common sense.
“Goodness, I feel such an idle fellow next to you!” Bingley exclaimed. “I am these three years from university and have only just acquired a lease; I have no notion yet of purchasing, much less expanding!”
“Well—that is only sensible.”
Bingley chuckled. “I was entirely ready to purchase the first estate that came along! The prudence was all Darcy’s!”
Darcy bowed his head in a theatrical manner. “And so it was.”
They all three laughed at that, and Carter asked Bingley how he liked being master of Netherfield.
“It is a great lot of work, but I think I am beginning to catch on,” he replied, with a quizzical look at Darcy.
“You are coming along very well,” Darcy agreed. “The spring planting will be the first great test, but as it is some months off, you will have ample time to prepare.”
“By which you mean, finish reading that great stack of books you foisted upon me!”
“For a start, yes.” Darcy smirked.
“A start? Damn me, it’s more than I read at Cambridge,” their host objected.
Darcy turned to the other gentleman. “Do not let him fool you, Captain. Bingley does not read for pleasure, it is true, but when he reads for information, he retains it prodigiously well. He is not half the fool he pretends to be.”
Bingley only grinned and raised his glass.
CHAPTERFOURTEEN
Mr Jones was ridingbetween Mr Johnstone’s small estate and his sister’s home at Haye-Park early the following afternoon, when a thunder of hoof-beats presaged Captain Carter’s arrival upon Bingley’s prized hunter. “You are needed at Netherfield, sir! Take Orion here, if you will, and I shall follow on yours.”
“Mr Hurst?” he asked, quickly dismounting and seizing his bag.
“Yes.” The officer held Orion’s reins while Mr Jones mounted and tied his bag down, stepping back as the apothecary nudged the swift beast into a gallop and, bent low over its neck, disappeared round the bend.
Jones left Orion with a groom who awaited him before the house and rushed inside, waving off the footman and running directly up the stairs and into Mr Hurst’s room.
“It has begun, then,” he said, moving to the bed without even removing his coat or hat. He sent everyone else away and addressed the patient, who was awake if not entirely alert. “Mr Hurst, how are you feeling? Are you in any pain?”
