Chapter Nine The Strategy #2
"Try to wash before you meet them," Mr Bennet called back over his shoulder. "My daughters have a very low tolerance for the scent of stagnant water."
Charles stood in the pasture, the mud seeping into his boots, and a strange, bubbling sensation filled his chest. He had been mocked, humiliated, and dumped in a ditch. And yet, for the first time in months, he was exactly where he was meant to be.
By the time the sun had reached its midday peak, Charles Bingley was no longer a man.
He was a walking, sweating monument to the rigours of agricultural reform.
The ride to Oakham Mount on Jupiter had been an exercise in sensory overload.
The Hertfordshire sun, usually a mild and indifferent companion, treated Charles's face like a blacksmith's forge.
He caught a glimpse of his reflection in a roadside trough and nearly fell from his saddle. His skin had reached a vibrant, startling shade of orange—a hue suggesting he was either suffering from a rare tropical malady or had recently been used as a signal fire.
"Steady, Jupiter," he murmured, his voice raspy from the dust.
The dust was the other problem. It was not merely on his clothes.
It was of his clothes. Every movement of his horse kicked up a cloud of grey powder that seemed to possess a magnetic attraction to his sturdiest woollen coat.
He did not have the time to return home to bathe, and when he reached the crest of the mount, he seemed less a gentleman and more a statue that had been forgotten in a very busy masonry yard.
He dismounted, his legs leaden and his spirits only slightly dampened by the fact that he was currently radiating heat like a bread oven.
Miss Bennet and Miss Kitty were already there, established in the shade of a cluster of oaks.
Miss Kitty was currently using a fan with a vigour that suggested she was trying to create a small, localised hurricane.
Her serious face was currently obscured by a layer of perspiration and a bonnet that seemed to be losing a battle with gravity.
Miss Bennet, conversely, appeared exactly as she always did: clinical, composed, and utterly unbothered by the fact that the world was currently melting.
She sat on a low stone wall, her spectacles perched on the end of her nose, and in her arms, she held a bundle of fur that Charles initially mistook for a discarded cloak.
"Ah, Mr Bingley." Miss Bennet's gaze travelled from his orange forehead down to his dust-encrusted boots.
She did not laugh, but the way her eyebrows quirked upward suggested she was currently cataloguing his various physical failings for future reference.
"I see you have encountered the Hertfordshire morning in all its glory. "
"I... I am a little warm," Charles admitted, mopping his brow with a handkerchief that was already past the point of being useful. "But I have the book! And I have Mr Bennet's consent for our meeting."
"And you carry a significant portion of the pasture, apparently," Miss Bennet observed.
Charles turned his attention to the bundle of fur. As he approached, a pair of narrowed, yellow eyes peered out from beneath her arm.
"You brought Charles?" he asked.
"Yes." Her voice softened.
Charles was curious and he had to ask. "You named your cat after me?"
"I did," Miss Bennet replied with dry, cutting precision. "He was named in December. It was a statement on the nature of transience. Though the cat, I must note, is far more consistent in his whereabouts."
She shifted the animal, and the full majesty of the beast was revealed. He was a large, ragged-eared tomcat with a face that appeared to be constructed from spare parts and a lifetime of grudges. He let out a low, vibrating growl that seemed to rattle his entire frame.
"He hisses to everyone," Miss Kitty added, her fan slowing for a second. "And everyone hates him. He is a truly miserable creature. Mamma says he is a manifestation of the house's bad luck, and that he was named for a man who did not know his own mind."
"He is merely discerning," Miss Bennet corrected, stroking the cat's head. Charles-the-cat's tail twitched with a distinct lack of neighbourly feeling. He surveyed Charles-the-human with a gaze that was both judging and unimpressed.
Charles was overtaken with an absurd urge to win the animal over. He reached out a hand, his fingers extended as he had seen his sisters do with their pampered lapdogs.
"Hello, Charles," he said softly.
The cat's ears flattened. A low, menacing hiss escaped its throat.
"He does not care for people, Mr Bingley," Miss Bennet warned.
Charles pulled his hand back, feeling fifteen and clumsy all over again. He sat down on the grass, a safe distance from the stone wall, and tried to ignore the fact that his trousers were currently grinding pasture dust into his skin.
He was orange. He was dusty. He was being hissed at by a cat with his own name. And yet, as he watched Miss Bennet—who was currently gazing at him with an almost smile—he felt a spark of the "Strategy" begin to glow.
He was here and he was trying. And if he had to win over a cat and a village to earn the right to stand next to this woman, then he would simply have to get more mud on his boots.
The silence of the mount was broken only by the rhythmic click of Miss Kitty's fan as she tried to maintain her pensive expression while the heat attempted to bake her alive. Miss Bennet continued to stroke the disgruntled Charles, whose tail was still performing a slow, hypnotic dance of distrust.
Charles Bingley, realising that his current sitting position was resulting in a significant transfer of more Hertfordshire topsoil to his breeches, decided to shift. He reached out to adjust his position, and in doing so, his hand brushed against the stone wall.
Suddenly, the bundle of orange fur in Miss Bennet's arms uncoiled. With a grace that took Charles entirely by surprise, Charles-the-cat launched from her lap. He landed squarely on Charles-the-human's dusty knees.
Charles froze. "Is he going to eat me?"
The cat did not eat him. Instead, he performed a slow, deliberate circle, his claws kneading into Charles's thighs like a baker working a difficult dough. Then, with a sigh that sounded remarkably as a human groan of resignation, the animal curled into a tight ball and began to purr.
It was a low-frequency sound that vibrated into Charles-the-human's bones.
Miss Bennet's jaw dropped. The clinical mask of the scholar shattered instantly, replaced by a manifestation of such utter astonishment that Charles almost forgot his own orange face.
"Well, I never...! He never does that," she whispered, her eyes wide behind her spectacles. "He despises all of humanity. He has spent the last five months hissing at everyone and attempting to trip my mother."
Miss Kitty stopped her frantic fanning, her eyes bugging out in a way that was entirely devoid of seriousness. She let out a sudden, high-pitched giggle. "Look, Mary! The two Charleses have merged. It is like an orange six-legged disaster area."
Charles could not move. The weight of the cat was surprisingly substantial, and the vibrating purr was strangely comforting. "Perhaps he recognises a fellow victim of the sun," he suggested.
Miss Bennet's eyes moved from him to the cat, then back again.
She let out a laugh—a real, genuine sound that was not dry or cautious, but full of a light he had never heard from her before.
It was a beautiful sound, and it sent a jolt of pride through his chest for causing it.
At this instant, he swore that he would do anything to hear it again.
"Perhaps." Her composure returned, though her eyes remained bright. "But we have business to attend to. The feline Charles may accept you, but the village requires more proof of your merit."
"Do your worst, Miss Bennet." Charles tried to appear nonchalant while pinned by a sleeping tomcat.
"The strategy is simple," she began, returning to her lecture tone. "You will start with the fences. That is good. But the village of Meryton is a hierarchy of social debt. To win the collective mind, you must strike at the core. You must conquer Lady Lucas."
Charles blinked. "Lady Lucas? But she is very friendly. She always asks after my sisters."
"She is a gossip of the highest order," Miss Bennet corrected. "But because Sir William has a title, her word carries the weight of law. If Lady Lucas declares you a gentleman of substance, the rest of the village will follow as sheep to a salt lick. You must make her your champion."
"How?"
"By being useful in a way that highlights her importance. Offer your assistance to the vicar for the upcoming charity auction, but do so in her presence. Ask for her advice on the procurement of local wool. She loves to give advice, and she loves to be seen as the matriarch of the parish."
Charles nodded, absorbing the logic. "So, I must be a student of her wisdom?"
"Precisely. And you must do it with a sense of... light. You are too heavy at the moment, Mr Bingley. You are trying to be my father, and while I appreciate the effort, the village needs the man who can jest about his own orange face. They want amiable who stays, if you catch my drift."
Charles smiled, a broad, simple smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. "Well, I suppose it is a good thing I have plenty of practise at being ridiculous."
She laughed again, shorter this time, but no less genuine. "Yes," she murmured. "I suppose it is."
The journey back to Longbourn was a slow, dusty procession that Charles found remarkably tranquil, considering he was still upset from the proximity of a purring cat and a laughing scholar.
He walked on the left, leading Jupiter by the reins, while Miss Bennet and Miss Kitty occupied the lane beside him.
Charles felt the weight of his "Strategy" settling into a comfortable reality. He was no longer a weathercock, spinning aimlessly in the winds of other people's opinions. He was a man with a list of structural failings and a plan to conquer a knight's wife.
"You are very quiet, Mr Bingley," Miss Kitty observed. Her fanning had reached a more reasonable tempo, and her expression had returned to its serious default state. "Are you contemplating the vanity of the world? Or is it the heat?"
"A little of both, Miss Kitty," Charles replied, offering a bow from the waist that was only slightly hampered by Jupiter's desire to investigate a nearby hedge. "But mostly, I am thinking of wool. And Lady Lucas. It is a fascinating combination."
Miss Bennet regarded him over the rims of her spectacles. "Do not underestimate the wool, Mr Bingley. In this parish, a man who knows his staples is a man who can speak for hours without ever revealing a single private thought. It is the perfect social camouflage."
"I shall be a master of the fleece," Charles promised.
They reached the gates of Longbourn, where the familiar, lively facade of the house rose up to meet them.
Charles felt a sudden, sharp prickle of memory—the sound of Mrs Bennet's voice, the coldness of the reception he had received only a fortnight ago, and the lingering sting of the "desertion" charge.
He stopped at the gravel drive.
"You are not coming in?" Miss Kitty asked, her disappointment surfacing through the gloom. "Papa will want to hear about the strategy. And Mamma has ordered a remarkably large tray of biscuits."
Charles surveyed the front door. He could almost feel the atmospheric pressure of Mrs Bennet's pique emanating from the parlour windows. He thought of his orange face, his muddy boots, and the quiet dignity he had felt while being mocked by Mr Bennet in a pasture.
"I think not, Miss Kitty." Charles sounded firm, with a newfound resolve. "I am in a state that would potentially cause Mrs Bennet to suffer a relapse of her nerves. And besides, I have a great deal of soil to remove before I can face the village as a gentleman of merit."
"A principled retreat," Miss Bennet noted, her gaze lingering on him for a second longer than usual. "A rare choice. Most men find the lure of a biscuit to be the most powerful force in the county."
"I am a man of the Levant journals now," Charles glanced at her with a mischievous spark in his eyes. "I require more than just biscuits to satisfy my soul. I require a list of fence failures."
Miss Bennet reached into the folds of her gown and produced a small, neatly folded piece of paper. "I have it. It is organised by the severity of the dry rot."
Charles took the paper. "Thank you, Miss Bennet."
He performed a final, sweeping bow to the ladies, his dusty coat fluttering in the breeze. He gathered Jupiter's reins and turned back towards the road to Netherfield. He did not glance back, though he could feel the weight of their eyes on his retreating figure.
Behind him, Charles-the-cat, secure in his mistress's arms, observed his namesake's gallop, then turned to her and delivered a pointed "meow."