Page 221 of Pride and Prejudice Resolutions

We moved on.

The hardware merchant, Mr Potts, was polishing a horseshoe. He looked up, saw the mud, and his polishing slowed to a funeral pace.

"Drainage supplies, Potts!" I announced. "Stone, gravel, the works! Netherfield is going to be the envy of the county."

Potts regarded me as if he had just discovered that his best customer was also his worst nightmare. "Hope it sticks better than you do, sir." He nodded at the flakes of clay drifting from my breeches. "One of the tenants before you promised the same. Left us with a half-dug ditch and a bill."

I laughed—too loudly, perhaps—and slapped a handful of coins on the counter. "Then consider this a deposit on my soul, Potts. I am staying. I am deepening. I am… draining!"

He took the money, but his sigh could have inflated a hot air balloon.

The stonemason next door was worse: a wiry man with a perpetual squint, who eyed my boots as though they had offended his craft.

"Drainage, eh?" He scratched his chin. "Hope it holds better than your last resolution to winter here. We still talk about that one at the Green Man."

By now a small crowd had gathered—women with baskets, children peeking from behind skirts, even the butcher wiping his hands on his apron to watch the spectacle. I kept my chin high, mud flaking off me like badges of honour. Every step left a print that said,I was here. I am here. I am staying, confound you all.

I was a walking advertisement for perseverance, if perseverance were sold in the form of a very dirty gentleman on a very patient horse.

The whispers grew: "…back again…" "…a ploughman's mud…" "…thinks gold fixes everything…" I smiled at them all, waving as though they were cheering instead of judging. One small boy pointed and laughed outright. I winked at him. He hid behind his mother's skirts, but I swear I saw a grin.

Finally, we reached Mr Philips's office. I dismounted, handed Jupiter to Greene, and marched in, trailing dirt like a comet's tail. The bell above the door gave a startled tinkle, as though surprised to see me.

Mr Philips looked up from his desk, his spectacles slipping down his nose. He blinked once, twice, as though trying to reconcile the ledger before him with the apparition now filling his doorway.

"Mr Bingley." His voice came measured. "You bring the outdoors with you."

"Drainage demands it!" I beamed, shaking his hand (he winced slightly at the mud transfer). "I wish to purchase Netherfield outright. Contact my London solicitor—fast! I am here to stay, Philips. Permanently. Indefinitely. For the century, if the century will have me!"

He rose slowly, poured a glass of water from a cut-glass pitcher, and offered it with the careful politeness one reserves for the recently escaped from Bedlam. "Constancy is valued here, sir."

"Constancy is me!" I declared, taking the glass. The water was tepid, but it tasted of victory.

Then the door burst open with the force of a cannon shot.

Mrs Philips swept in, her cap quivering as a storm cloud about to unleash, her eyes sharp as dressmaker's shears. She stopped dead, taking in the scene: her husband, the muddy gentleman, the glass of water, the general air of mayhem.

"Mr Philips!" she exclaimed, her voice pitched to shatter crystal. "I was informed we had a visitor from Town! A visitor who has returned after vanishing in November!"

"Mrs Philips—" I began, attempting to rise, but my legs—still recovering from the trench—wobbled like a newborn foal's.

"Do not rise, Mr Bingley." She advanced, her skirts hissing with the sound of serpents. "The mud claims you already. How unfortunate you ignored it last autumn. The ground was just as deep then, though perhaps not quite so… à la mode."

I opened my mouth. Nothing emerged.

She turned to her husband. "Do not let this young man waste too much of your time. He is liable to disappear mid-sentence. He has proved it."

I felt the barb land like an arrow in a target labelledCharles Bingley. "I buy Netherfield!" I protested, my voice cracking only slightly. "I stay!"

"Buying a county to buy a soul?" Her laugh was brittle as winter ice. "Extravagant! Very extravagant. Now, if you will excuse me, I have actual business to attend to."

She swept out, leaving behind only the faint scent of lavender and the heavy silence of utter defeat.

Mr Philips resumed his seat, his face once more a mask of professional calm. "I shall write to your London solicitor by Monday. Good day, Mr Bingley."

I stood, my boots leaving one final, muddy imprint on the carpet as a parting signature. Outside, Greene waited with the horses, his expression carefully neutral.

"She is quite formidable, sir," he gestured to the retreating figure of the lady.