Page 220 of Pride and Prejudice Resolutions

"Enormously! We shall venture out at dawn. Five-thirty. Prepare my most durable attire, Tepper. Something that says, 'man of the soil' without screaming 'fashionable.'"

Tepper held out the coat. "Depth is a burden one chooses, sir. But remember: even anchors rust."

The master bedroom was a cavern of luxury, its massive bed a sea of linens that threatened to swallow me whole. I lay there,staring at the ceiling's swirling plasterwork, which seemed to mock my newfound resolve. Moonlight crept across the floor resembling a burglar testing the windows.

"Tepper?" I called into the darkness of the dressing room. "Are you still there?"

A sigh emanated from the shadows. "I am a fixture of the night, sir. Much like your insomnia."

I propped myself on an elbow. "Do you think she liked the flowers? Miss Mary Bennet. Yellow, you see—not a rose's demand, but an inquiry. Of depth."

Tepper's voice drifted back, laced with dry amusement. "Yellow signifies friendship, sir. Or, in some lexicons, jealousy. Or perhaps an apology for one's own confusion."

I smiled. "Confusion no more! I call on Longbourn soon. First, the clay. Though… I do not actually know what I am supposed to do. I hope Greene knows. But it shall be my gospel, Tepper. My testament to permanence."

"A muddy scripture, sir. Sleep now. Dawn approaches faster than you think."

I closed my eyes, dreaming of ditches and yellow blooms.

The infernal clock struck five-thirty, and I awoke to Tepper's merciless ministrations—curtains wrenched open, shaving water steaming, and a coat that looked as though it had been designed for a particularly rugged explorer.

"Tepper," I groaned, "the sun is still abed. Why must we rise before it?"

"The clay waits for no man, sir." He yanked back the covers. "And Mr Greene is downstairs, fortified by porridge and purpose."

I dressed in a haze, each button a battle. By the time I descended, my legs moved as reluctant participants in this charade. Greene stood in the hall, the expression he bore was one of suspicion.

"Good morning, Mr Bingley. The air is fine for conquest."

We rode to the north pasture, the July dawn a faint grey that burned into oppressive white heat. The trench awaited—a jagged scar in the earth, lined with rubble and brushwood that looked heavier than my regrets.

"The soil is stubborn, sir." Greene gestured to the pit. "Geological defiance."

I stepped in, and mud seized my boots with a wet suck. "Stubbornness meets its match, Greene!" I declared, though sweat already prickled my brow.

Greene seemed to know what he was doing, and I pretended I understood everything he said, nodding gravely as he spoke. For hours, we laboured—I prodded clods, inspected holes, listened to lectures on irrigation while the sun baked me. My coat clung to my skin, my cravat a limp rag. But beneath the grime, I felt… substantial. Filthy, yes, but rooted.

"We ride to Meryton now," I announced, wrestling one boot free from the clay's embrace. "We need supplies from the local merchants. Netherfield's coin is theirs."

Greene nodded, a flicker of approval in his eyes. "They will be surprised, sir. Masters rarely arrive with so much earth upon them."

The village received us like a dubious aunt eyeing a prodigal nephew who had returned smelling strongly of the stables. Meryton had not forgotten my abrupt departure last November, and the memory lingered.

As Greene and I rode in, a patriotic bunting of mud still clinging to Jupiter's flanks, heads turned. Whispers followed. A cluster of matrons outside the milliner's shop paused their gossip, their fans frozen mid-flutter, as though I were a theatrical villain making an unscheduled entrance.

At the timber yard, Mr Higgins was measuring a plank. He was a man of few words and many splinters, his apron a map of everyboard he had ever sawn. I reined in Jupiter with what I hoped was a heroic flourish, sending a small avalanche of dried mud cascading from my boots onto the ground.

"Higgins!" I called, my voice bright as polished brass buttons. "Five hundred feet of seasoned oak and the same in pine—by Friday, if you please!"

He glanced up slowly, as one might regard a persistent fly. His eyes travelled from my sweat-dampened hair, down the ruined coat, to the boots that now resembled nothing so much as two very unhappy loaves of rye bread. He did not smile. He did not frown. He simply exhaled through his nose with the force of a small bellows.

"Seasoned oak for transient tenants?" He returned to his plank as though it had asked a more interesting question. "Scarce, sir. Very scarce."

I dismounted—nearly slipping in the process, Jupiter giving an indignant snort—and produced my pouch of gold with the air of a conjurer revealing the ace of spades. Coins glinted in the July sun, bright enough to buy forgiveness—or so I hoped.

"I stay for the century, Higgins! Not a tenant—a fixture! A permanent fixture! Now, oak and pine, or I shall take my business elsewhere."

Higgins snatched the pouch, weighed it in his palm, and muttered something about "sudden fits of permanence" under his breath. He relented—grumbling, of course, as though parting with wood were akin to parting with a firstborn—but the order was taken.