Chapter Fifteen The Dawn Chorus
The grandfather clock in the hall measured out the agony of Mrs Bennet's existence, each tick a hammer blow against her fragile constitution.
Three days. Three days since Mr Bennet abandoned reason for gravity, flinging his person into a ditch and leaving his wife to the terrors of a potential entail.
Mrs Bennet paced the drawing room rug like a woman possessed. She paused at the window, flattening her nose against the glass. The road remained insolently empty. She turned around to the morning parlour.
"He is not come," she moaned to the unlit fireplace. "My Son has forgotten the mother of his wife. I am abandoned to the wolves and the apothecaries."
A low rumble vibrated through the floorboards.
Mrs Bennet shrieked. She flew to the glass. A barouche of gleaming darkness, drawn by four horses of matching grey, swept around the bend. It thundered towards the house, mud flying from the wheels in a glorious spray of wealth and urgency.
"Hill!" She sprinted for the door, her skirts flying faster than her handkerchief. "Open the doors! Prepare the sherry! My Son arrives!"
She reached the portico just as the footmen lowered the steps.
Jane descended first. The new Viscountess seemed radiant, wrapped in a pelisse of sapphire blue velvet. She smiled, stepping onto the gravel.
Mrs Bennet did not pause. She did not wave. She swerved around her eldest, fairest daughter as though Jane was a decorative plant obstructing the path to salvation.
"My Son!"
Robert Fitzwilliam, Viscount Keathley, emerged from the carriage.
He stood six feet and two inches of chaotic aristocracy high, wearing a driving coat of many capes and a hat of dizzying height.
In one hand, he clutched a gold-knobbed cane.
In the other, he heaved a gilded birdcage the size of a small church.
"Mother of mine!" He roared, dropping the cane to extend a welcoming arm. "The cavalry has arrived! Cease your weeping!"
Mrs Bennet collided with his greatcoat. She buried her face in the wool, inhaling the scent of expensive cologne and peerage security.
"Oh, you are here! You have come to save me!
Mr Bennet is broken, Kitty dreams of tombs, Mary is unchaperoned among the bachelors, and Mr Collins lurks in the shrubbery! "
"A full roster of calamity," the Viscount boomed, patting her back with enough force to rattle her teeth. He swung the cage up to eye level. "Sir Polonius, pay your respects to Mother."
Inside the cage, a parrot of violent green plumage adjusted its grip on a mahogany perch. The bird fixed Mrs Bennet with a beady, judgmental black eye.
"Squawk," Sir Polonius declared, bobbing his head. "Bankruptcy. Bankruptcy."
"He is a financial genius," Robert explained, guiding the weeping woman back into the house while Jane trailed behind, shaking her head. "I won him in a card game from a Duke who had terrible luck. Jane pretends to despise him, but I catch her feeding him almonds when the moon is high."
Jane followed them in, offering a bemused smile to Hill. "Hello to you too, Mamma," she murmured to the air, bending to kiss Kitty's cheek.
Kitty stood in the hallway, draped in black crepe, a spectre of premature mourning. She offered her sister a solemn nod. "Welcome back to the house of affliction, Jane."
"Affliction indeed!" Mrs Bennet ushered the Viscount into the drawing room, slamming the door behind her. She pulled Robert onto the best settee, collapsing next to him. "Tell me you brought lace. I need lace, Robert. Valenciennes. Yards of it. It is the only cure for the nerves."
Robert handed the birdcage to a bewildered footman. "Alas, Mother. The news of the disaster reached us, and we departed post haste. The lace merchants were not yet awake. I could not wake them. It is against the Magna Carta."
Mrs Bennet let out a wail of despair that shook the chandelier. "No lace? Then I am truly lost. The entail will take me, and I shall be naked in the hedgerows!"
"However," Robert reached into his voluminous pocket and produced two small, gold-foiled boxes. "I stopped at a confectioner who claims to supply the Prince Regent. Bonbons, Mother. Dusted in cocoa and angel wings. They contain a significant amount of brandy."
Mrs Bennet snatched one box. Her weeping ceased for exactly three seconds as she popped a bonbon into her mouth.
"Oh." She chewed, tears leaking from her eyes. "Oh, these are divine." She swallowed and immediately resumed sobbing. "Mr Bennet is in agony, Robert. He lies at Netherfield, tended only by Mary, who will likely read him to death. And here I am, eating chocolate while the world ends."
"You must keep your strength up," Robert advised, draping a heavy arm around her shoulders and pulling her head onto his chest forcibly. He grabbed a bonbon for his own consumption. "You are the pillar of this family, Mother. If the pillar crumbles, the roof falls, and then the parrot gets wet."
"It is true," she agreed, taking another bonbon. "I am a pillar. A suffering, chocolate-eating pillar."
"Squawk," Sir Polonius contributed from the corner. "Liquidate assets."
Jane and Kitty stood by the fireplace, watching the tableau. The Viscount sat nodding gravely as Mrs Bennet detailed the precise nature of her husband's tibia. He simultaneously fed Mrs Bennet chocolates like one might feed a very sad, very loud swan.
Kitty sighed, a sound that emerged from the depths of a soul that had seen too much. She turned to Jane, ignoring the spectacle on the settee.
"Tell me, Jane," Kitty whispered, her voice hollow. "In Town... do the fashionable corpses prefer velvet or satin for the casket lining this season? I feel I should prepare a trousseau for the afterlife."
Jane blinked, glancing from her morbid sister to her husband, who was currently shouting agreement that Mr Jones the apothecary was a butcher and should be tried for treason.
"Velvet, I believe," Jane whispered back, watching Robert wipe a smudge of cocoa from Mrs Bennet's chin. "Though Robert prefers we focus on the living."
"Typical," Kitty muttered, watching Mrs Bennet finish the first box and reach for the sherry. "No appreciation for the aesthetics of the end."
Securing the peace of mind of Mrs Bennet required the reassuring presence of a Titan. Robert Fitzwilliam stood firm on the portico of Longbourn, wrapping his heavy driving coat around the trembling Matriarch like a fortress of wool and sandalwood.
"Fear not, Mother." He squeezed her shoulders, holding her gaze with unwavering confidence.
"I go to conquer Bedlam. I shall march into Netherfield, secure the invalid, and ensure that neither death nor Mr Collins dares to cross the threshold.
You are to remain here, safe in the stronghold of Longbourn, armed with the bonbons. "
Mrs Bennet gazed up at him, her hands clasped under her chin, her expression one of religious ecstasy. "My Son. My protector. You will save us from the hedgerows?"
"I shall save you from the hedgerows, the ditches, and the apothecaries. Bring me more calamities. I shall save you from everything." He kissed her forehead—a benediction from on high. "Rest your nerves, Madam. I am on the case."
Mrs Bennet let out a sigh that fluttered the ribbons of her cap, watching him with sheer adoration as he turned and swept Jane and a mourning Kitty towards the waiting barouche.
The carriage thundered down the drive. Robert leaned back against the leather squabs, adjusting his cuffs with a snap.
"Right," he declared, the devoted son shifting instantly into the chaotic investigator. "The Matriarch is pacified. Now, let us see what madness Bingley has wrought."
Soon enough, he descended to the gravel, ignoring the footman's offer of assistance.
He felt large, loud, and entirely too energetic for the countryside.
Jane followed, a vision in blue velvet, casting a worried glance back at the road to Longbourn.
Kitty emerged last, draped in her every-day funereal crepe, blinking at the sunlight as if it were a personal affront.
"Squawk," Sir Polonius announced from his gilded cage, which Robert swung casually by a single finger. "Foreclosure."
"Optimism, Sir Polonius. Try it." Robert marched up the stairs.
The Netherfield butler opened the doors, his expression freezing instantly upon sighting the Viscount wielding a cane and a tropical bird.
"My Lord." The butler bowed, his eyes darting to the parrot.
"Take the poultry." Robert thrust the cage into the man's arms. "Feed him almonds. Do not play piquet with him. He cheats. Where is the body?"
"The... body, my Lord?"
"The invalid. The Fallen Patriarch. The Man of Broken Bones."
"Keathley."
Colonel Lindon appeared from the shadows of the hallway. He looked weary. His uniform was immaculate, yet his expression implied he had spent three days herding cats through a thunderstorm.
"Colonel!" Robert clapped a heavy hand on the Colonel's shoulder, nearly sending the man into a side-table. "You look terrible. Rural life disagrees with you. You possess the pallor of a root vegetable."
"We have had a week, my lord." Lindon rubbed his temples. "Between the storm, the fracture, and Bingley's newfound identity as a peasant, I am ready to surrender to the French. It would be more restful."
"Take us to the scene of the crime."
The Colonel led them through the house. "Miss Bennet is upstairs," he said quietly to Jane. "She barely slept these three days, never left your father's side. Tepper finally forced a cup of broth into her hands and banished her to the guest quarters an hour ago."
"Poor Mary," Jane murmured, gathering her skirts. "I shall go to her the moment we see Papa."
"Prepare yourselves," the Colonel warned, stopping before the door. "The Green Room has become... a theatre. Literally."
He pushed the door open.
Robert strode in, ready to offer condolences, and halted.