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Miss Bingley’s lips parted in surprise, but she schooled her features quickly. “Of course I wish you to sell the mill! The very notion that we should be in trade is deplorable! I cannot bear it!”
“Then what papers did you assume were before me?” he asked, ignoring the brisk tone of his sister’s voice.
“Why, a marriage settlement for yourself and Miss Bennet, of course! You plan to ignore the better interests of yourself and your family and marry that country nobody.”
None of Mr. Bingley’s usual good humour remained after such remarks from his sister. “Miss Bennet is a gentleman’s daughter and a lady of excellent character. Given that until I sign the papers before me, I am yet in trade, I am fortunate that her family is willing to even consider me as an acceptable match for their daughter. She is your superior, Caroline, in every imaginable way.”
Miss Bingley stared at her brother, wondering how Miss Bennet had so bewitched him. He had never before spoken to her in such a manner. “Surely you do not mean to call me inferior to a Bennet? To call her family genteel is a great exaggeration. Their connections are nothing. Their manners, at best, are merely serviceable. They have no fortune and no fashion. Miss Bennet is beautiful, that I will grant you, but that is all she is. She is beneath you, Charles.”
“Enough, Caroline. I will not hear any more insults to Miss Bennet or her family,” Mr. Bingley said severely. “I will do as I believe best, as I am the head of this household. If you do not like it, then you may remain with the Hursts at their home. At three o’clock, Mr. Hewitt will return, bringing with him both papers for the mill and what is required to begin drawing up the marriage settlement. I will be offering for Miss Bennet when I return to Netherfield, which will hopefully be very soon.”
“You cannot mean it,” his sister said softly.
“I do mean it. I love Miss Bennet and I mean to make her my wife. I will not hear one more word against her.”
“But she does not love you, brother,” Miss Bingley said. “I can tell that she is indifferent. She wishes only for your fortune.”
“I know the opposite to be true,” he answered. “Now, leave my study, Caroline, or else I shall have you shown out of the house.”
Miss Bingley’s eyes widened, and she drew in her breath to give a retort, but quickly stifled it. Charles had never spoken to her in such a manner as this, nor had he ever had such a determined look on the rare occasions he countermanded her. He was set on Miss Bennet. She might be able to do something to separate them, but she certainly could not do it now, nor could she take such action alone. She needed to remain in her brother’s good graces if she were to ever become Mrs. Darcy. She rose from her chair with deliberate movements, hoping to show her brother how a real gentlewoman carried herself, how Miss Bennet never could. She swept from the room in silence, not looking back at her brother—a man she hardly recognised any longer.
∞∞∞
For her part, Lydia was left mostly to stew in resentment in the nursery while her father searched for a school willing to take her so close to the end of a term. Moreover, he did not wish for her to return when the other young ladies did over Christmas, for such a short period of time would not be sufficient for her disposition to have undergone a material change. The largest of the stable hands were placed outside Lydia’s door on a rotation and her windows were nailed shut, lest she try to escape in that manner. All of this, Mr. Bennet was ashamed to say, had been at the behest of either his cousin or his daughters, who knew his daughter’s mind much better than he did.
It was difficult to find a school willing to take an unruly girl on such short notice. Mr. Hill and a footman had been the county over and yet were unsuccessful in their search. Only the message from Mrs. Gardiner bore any fruit, for she knew of a seminary in London that not only had a place, but could, Mrs. Gardiner believed, provide the sort of reformation that Lydia required. St. Etheldreda’s Seminary for Young Ladies was a respectable establishment popular amongst both rich tradesmen hoping to teach their daughters the manners and accomplishments required to marry into the gentry and landed families of modest means. The fees were reasonable enough and its standards were suitably rigid that Mr. Bennet felt certain they could handle a girl such as Lydia. Better yet, Mrs. Gardiner assured him that the school was a former convent, with high walls surrounding the grounds and windows barred against nocturnal escapes. The girls were kept busy, not only with their studies but also daily duties such as maintaining their own quarters, doing mending for the poor, and tending to a garden that provided some of the food for the school. Best of all, the school provided year-round instruction, although some families decided to remove their daughters for the typical breaks.
None of that, however, made it any easier to get his most difficult child into the carriage when it was time to go to the seminary.
“I will not!” she yelled as the footmen carried her trunks down the stairs.
“Well, all of your trunks are packed and they are going to the seminary, so you ought to as well, unless you wish to have only the dress you are wearing,” he answered calmly.
Lydia responded with a noise that fell somewhere between a growl and a wail. “You are the most unfeeling father in all of England! I shall never forgive you if you make me go, not if I live to be a hundred!”
Mr. Bennet ignored the comment, instead directing his attention to one of the maids. “Hannah, do allow Matthew to help you with that trunk. It is far too unyielding for you to manage the stairway with it alone.”
The maid, who was carrying a small trunk that she thought herself perfectly able to handle, followed her master’s advice nonetheless and allowed the manservant to take the other side of the trunk as they descended the stairs.
“You do not even care!” Lydia stomped her foot and crossed her arms in a display more befitting a child of four than fifteen. “You are a cruel man!”
“If I were a cruel man, I would leave you at the mercy of your own whims, likely to ruin yourself and harm others in the doing of it,” Mr. Bennet said, internally shuddering at the very thought of what might have happened to Lydia if Mrs. Ellington had not come to Longbourn and helped him see the error in his ways. “I have been cruel, perhaps, in the past, by letting you come out unprepared and not seeing that you were adequately chaperoned. But now, indeed for the first time, I feel that I am actually doing right by you.”
“I will not listen to the people at the school! I will scream until they make you come and get me!”
“Eventually, your voice will give out if you scream for too long,” Mr. Bennet said, before requesting that one of the maids find Mr. Hill and two footmen.
Footsteps sounded against the stairs a moment later, and Mr. Hill appeared, followed by two of the footmen that Lydia had spent the past several days verbally abusing.
“Hill, have my daughter brought to the carriage, however that must be managed,” Mr. Bennet said evenly.
“Very good, sir,” Mr. Hill replied, his face a mask of polite indifference mastered over years of service.
The footmen stepped forward, ready to take the young lady firmly by the arms, but Lydia did not wait for them to close the distance. With a wild cry, she lunged to the side, taking up a bucket of ash from beside the hearth and hurling it in the servants’ direction. It fell a foot short of doing any injury, dirtying their uniforms with a dusting of soot. A collective coughing fit overcame the men as they breathed in the grey cloud she had stirred up. Certain of her triumph, she turned on her heel and bolted out the door and down the hall, only to be caught a moment later by two of her sisters.
“Let go of me!” she shrieked, grasping a handful of Kitty’s hair and pulling with all her might.
“Lydia! Let go of Kitty’s hair!” Elizabeth cried as she took hold of her younger sister’s hands and dug her nails into her skin until she was forced to release her grip.
