Lucas Lodge
I truly despise large gatherings and avoid them whenever possible because even with my ear stopped with cotton or beeswax, I could still hear what sounded like hundreds of conversations at once.
I eventually trained myself to ignore most of them and allow my ears to pick out a name or other matter of import.
I used soft cotton to stop my ear in those situations.
It did not serve as well as beeswax, but I could remove it in a moment in case of need.
The necessity arose when I least expected it.
I heard a name important to me and withdrew the plug with alacrity.
With the stopper in, I could not distinguish direction very well, but once my ear was free, and I moved to the proper location, I could hear the conversation between the two redcoats as easily as an ordinary person a yard away.
“What about Miss Elizabeth? You must admit she has impressive assets and a fiery disposition. A man could wait a long time to find such a fine specimen.”
“While she would be a fine one to bed, I doubt she could be brought to the point voluntarily. She seems too sensible. Miss Elizabeth is as likely to give you a drubbing as a tup. In my extensive experience, you need someone younger and stupider.”
“Such as Miss Loosey Lydia!” Captain Carter said with a boisterous laugh.
“Aye… not much challenge there. She does have the right attributes, seems keen to put them to use, and is not especially bright!” Lieutenant Wickham replied.
I had heard that sort of talk more often than you can imagine.
Most of the time, it was merely idle boasting, what I called ‘boys being stupid’, or in my less charitable days, ‘stupid boys practising being stupid men’.
As I said, my malady did not allow one to naively retain a favourable impression of our society without a great deal of effort—which I was mostly unwilling to expend.
I listened carefully for quite some time. They had other friends join and depart, but they kept returning to the principal subject.
The coup de grace came when they welcomed ‘Miss Lydia’ to their company, and Wickham started plying her with the very words they had rehearsed earlier. It was as if the two rakes had written the script for a play in their earlier discussion, and they were enacting it on stage.
After she left, the two curs continued discussing her furtively, along with another half-dozen of the younger and sillier girls in our little community. When they made a substantial wager on the outcome and summoned another officer to witness the wager and record it, my course was set.
Fortunately, most houses in the neighbourhood purchased laudanum by the pint, so it was easily obtained.
My acute hearing made me an excellent spy, and I could move like a cat when I felt the need.
It was child’s play to slip a bit of laudanum into their cups, and I naturally dosed the scorekeeper as well; and Colonel Forster for good measure, merely for maintaining such lax discipline.
Since the two men were not only plotting the next week’s conquests, but in their minds, the following month or two, they mixed freely and gave the impression of being two savage lunkheads who could not hold their liquor.
They staggered and swaggered and braggered their way through the assembly, provoking disgust in all the sensible people, and prodigious bouts of sighing stupidity in many of the sillier young ladies.
Towards the end of the night, a whisper sent both hurrying downstairs with the expectation of something they might truly enjoy in the form of an enterprising maid.
Unfortunately for them, stairs are a bit tricky for inebriated men—especially when someone trips one man at the top and shoves him down on top of the other.
They tumbled down the stairs with a most diverting bit of clash and clamour, groans and thuds. They landed at the bottom with a resounding thud, and I was paces behind.
Captain Carter was stone dead with a neck broken severely enough to be at a most sickening angle, but Lieutenant Wickham stared at me with malevolent, hate-filled eyes. He even threatened the most severe retribution once he regained his feet.
I was rather enjoying his taunts, but I did not have all night. With a sigh, I grasped the side of his head and his chin. A quick twist of the wrist, a grunt, and a satisfying crunch put an end to all his wagers.
After that, I simply raised a great clamour. When Sir William appeared, an appropriate amount of babbling incoherency was all it took to establish my innocence. I thought it best to report to the magistrate while he was at least half-disguised, and my ‘discovery’ was accepted as exactly that.
Back in my bed I fell easily into the dreamless sleep of the just with one last thought:
? Lydia is safe!