Chapter 35 #2
“I see you have more than enough men, including one bigger than any I have ever beheld. As such, I will leave you to it and wish you Godspeed. I will not be sorry when such a man no longer pollutes my neighbourhood.” Austen stood and extended his hand to Bennet.
After Bennet, the other five men shook the magistrate’s hand before taking their leave.
In the drive, they mounted their horses and were soon on their way to the inn.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Collins was enjoying sleeping late when he was suddenly awakened by the sound of the door to his chamber being thrown open with force.
He was about to complain loudly and indignantly when he saw his cousin’s two huge footmen bearing down on him.
His eyes got as wide as saucers with the fear he felt.
‘Surely, this was a nightmare.’ Cousin Bennet would have no way of knowing he was here.
That was it; it was a dream. That illusion was disproved in an instant when the men each grabbed an arm and picked him up like he weighed nothing, sending his bedclothes flying.
As soon as he knew this was real, Collins relieved himself all over his nightgown.
Neither Biggs nor Johns was surprised that the snivelling man had pissed on himself. It did add to the foul odour of the man, but they cared not about that. They stood the coward up in the middle of the rug.
“Dress!” Biggs growled.
Expecting blows to be rained down on him at any moment, Collins said not a word.
He went behind the screen in the corner and dressed.
While he did, he cogitated. ‘Surely, my cousin is not aware of my plans, but then why are his men here? If they try to remove me from the inn, I will scream that I am being kidnapped. But will they hit me if I do?’ As hard as he tried to, Collins could not divine any answers.
He decided to delay as long as he could.
“‘Urry up!” Johns barked.
Hearing the command and the implied threat of physical harm, Collins completed his dressing and stepped out from behind the screen.
Before he had a moment to think, the huge men took an arm each, and they marched him out of his room.
They forced him downstairs and then half carried and half dragged him into a private parlour.
It became a living nightmare at that point.
In the parlour, all glaring at him were his cousin, the Earl of Matlock, Lord Hilldale, and three men he did not know.
Collins decided his only option was to bluster his way out of this. “H-how d-dare y-you s-s-s-send t-these b-brutes to k-k-kidnap m-me?” He stammered. No matter how much he tried, he could not calm his fears.
“You are not being kidnapped; you are being arrested. We have the blessing of the local magistrate to take you with us when we leave here.” He paused, trying to control his fury.
“How dare you solicit someone to have my wife harmed?” Bennet growled menacingly, barely controlling his urge to place his hands around the man’s corpulent neck and squeeze the life out of him.
As hard as it was, Bennet would allow justice to be done.
‘Surely not! How can my cousin know this?’ Collins thought. “That is a lie! I am a good Christian man; I would never…”
Bennet held up the page Collins had given to Wickham. “Except you did. You were even stupid enough to write your instructions. I called you a halfwit; it seems even that was an overestimation of the depths of your lack of intelligence.”
“I-I-I. I mean…” Collins attempted to come up with an excuse. He could find none.
“George Wickham, the man you planned to pay one thousand pounds in return for him murdering Mrs Bennet, has told us all, which includes handing over the instructions Bennet holds,” Matlock boomed.
“His Grace should have excommunicated you. You are no Christian! In fact, I will see that he does so before you are hanged for the crime of soliciting the murder of another. There will be no transporting you to Van Diemen’s Land. ”
As soon as he heard Lord Matlock’s pronouncement, Collins lost control of his bladder once more. How was it he would hang for trying to correct a great wrong the Bennets perpetrated against the Collinses?
“I tried to tell you the truth about Longbourn and your ancestor, but you were so lost in the delusion of the lies you were told that you could not hear anything I said. I am sure that if you saw the land register, which proves beyond any doubt that a Collins never owned Longbourn, you would find a way to lie to yourself and ignore the proof before you. Just remember this when you are led to the gallows: the lies your father and others told you are what have condemned you to death. By the way, you simpleton,” Bennet added, “the mark on my wife’s cheek is a port-wine birthmark, not, as you were babbling about it being, the mark of the devil. The only true evil I know is in you.”
“Also remember this,” Matlock stated. “When, not if, the Archbishop excommunicates you, your body will be placed in an unconsecrated potter’s field.”
As the enormity of his errors became clear to him, all Collins could do was to sob. His legs would not have kept him up had the two huge men not being holding onto his arms.
Bennet nodded to his men. Biggs and Johns bound the prisoner’s wrists and gagged him.
Then, as they had when they brought him to the private parlour, they half dragged, half carried the extremely overweight man to the waiting Bennet carriage.
Biggs went to the other side door and while Johns pushed the reluctant criminal in, Biggs leant through the cabin and pulled the former clergyman inside.
As foul as he smelt, they followed him in, making sure all windows were wide open.
Soon enough, the conveyance was on its way to Longbourn with two large men—two of Mr Darcy’s toughest footmen—as escorts on horses.
Before they departed the inn, Bennet was assured by the landlord that the arrested man had paid all he owed. Thereafter, he joined the riders, which with him totalled ten, for the ride home.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Louisa had been distracted at Netherfield Park waiting with the ladies, so when Aunt Hildebrand suggested they all travel to Longbourn to await the men there, Louisa had agreed with alacrity.
Like Lulu was, the Bennet sisters all worried as well for their father, and the three eldest were hoping their respective suitors would be well.
That left Ladies Elaine and Marie to be concerned for their husbands.
The men had promised the ladies there would be no real danger, but until they saw them unharmed for themselves, all of the ladies were worried, as much as they tried not to show it.
At just after half past ten that morning, Kate, Anna, and Lydia, who was seated nearest to the windows looking out over the drive, all jumped up.
“They are all returned,” Kate crowed happily. Rather than crowd around the two youngest Bennets and the youngest Darcy at the windows, led by Louisa, the rest of the ladies flowed out of the drawing room on their way to the front door.
Bennet’s heart swelled when he saw his Lulu lead the ladies out of the house into the drive.
Before he knew what he was about, he leapt off Jupiter and met his wife halfway to the entrance.
He pulled her into a hug and, without a thought, kissed her on her lips.
By the time they separated, all of the men had dismounted and were pointedly looking anywhere but at the married Bennets.
Jane, Elizabeth, and Mary all would have liked to be embraced by the respective man courting her in the same fashion, but they knew there were steps to take before they reached that point.
As she watched her niece and new nephew, Hildebrand’s heart sang at this additional proof of Lulu being loved.
Thinking of love made the face of a certain rector appear in her mind’s eye.
He was away for a few days to visit his children and grandchildren, and Hildebrand had to own that she looked forward to his return.
“I think we should repair inside,” Louisa suggested once she and Thomas joined the rest.
No one objected, and everyone filed into the house.
The footmen who had returned with the six men led all of the horses to the stables to be looked after and rubbed down.
“Well?” Louisa asked for all of the ladies as soon as everyone reached the drawing room. “I can see you are well, but where is that criminal who was attempting to have me murdered?”
“He is in the carriage, bound and gagged, being watched over by Biggs and Johns inside of the conveyance as well as Darcy’s Thompson brothers acting as outriders,” Bennet revealed.
“As I had previously said, he is a coward, and when confronted with irrefutable proof of his crimes, he acted as one. Sir William will send him to Hertford to stand trial at the assizes, which will begin on the final Monday of this month. With the mountain of evidence, he will surely hang.”
“For trying to have my sister murdered, he deserves no less,” Bingley insisted.
Matlock reminded all that he intended to write a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury to recommend excommunication.
“It is no less than is right,” Jane said for her sisters. “He may be a halfwit, as Papa calls him, but that does not make him less dangerous or less evil.”
There were only nodding heads in the drawing room.
Knowing that Thomas and Lulu would want some time alone, and the other men all needed to wash from their rides, Hildebrand suggested the residents of Netherfield Park return to that estate. No one disagreed, and soon they were off.
“Where will he be kept?” Louisa asked once they were alone.
“Per Sir William, in the town gaol. As far as the one in our cellar goes, he will remain until the trial. If needed he will testify, and then, as soon as the trial is over, he will receive his punishment from the militia, and when his back has healed enough, he will begin his journey to New Holland.”
Soon the Bennets would have much more pleasurable things to do than think of the criminals who had attempted to harm them.