Free Netherfield Park Revisited by Rebecca Ann Collins

Bingley’s house at Barton Place, Bath? Is she a friend? A lodger? And what allows Miss Bingley to believe that she and Mrs Watkins, whoever she may be, are entitled to advise Mama to leave Father and us in Kent and travel to Bath to stay with them?
    This, I believe, is their advice to her, although one cannot be certain since Mama appears thoroughly confused! She spends most of the day with them, during which time, I have no doubt, they fulminate against Papa, and by nightfall is reduced to such a state of agitation and rage that she is quite pathetic.
    I have great fears for her. Charles, I beg you please come down here immediately and help me put a stop to this insane nonsense, before Mama does something really stupid.
    Your loving sister Anne-Marie
    Anne-Marie Bingley, though a year younger than her brother, often acted as if she were his elder sister. Charles’ natural disposition was very like his grandfather’s, amiable and easy-going, though not lazy or indolent. Indeed, of late, inspired by the example of Dr Richard Gardiner, he had worked assiduously to prepare himself for a career in the medical profession.
    Anne-Marie thoroughly approved of her brother’s conversion to serious study. She had herself effected a change in her life not very long ago.
    After several years of being treated by her mother as a pretty little doll to dress up in fashionable clothes and expensive jewellery at a very early age, Anne-Marie had rebelled and tossed out all her finery.
    In the midst of the worst period of the Crimean War, when she was not much more than sixteen, with daily tales of horror from the front line, Anne-Marie had become mesmerised by the suffering of the soldiers. Later, inspired by the example of Florence Nightingale and her own aunt Louisa Bingley, she had joined a group of women who took extensive training in nursing in preparation for the return of thousands of wounded and dying men at the end of the war.
    Despite the protestations of her mother, who tried to dissuade her with dire predictions of contagion and disease, and the light-hearted jibes of her brother, who was unconvinced that his lovely young sister was seriously interested in nursing the sick, Anne-Marie, energetic and determined, had successfully completed an arduous course of training, surprising her friends and family with her skill and dedication.
    Soon afterwards, she discarded most of her fine clothes and jewellery, donned a plain gown and took work in a large military hospital outside London, where the reforms initiated by Miss Nightingale were already showing results, as better sanitation and hygienic hospital practices had helped reduce the rate of infection and death.
    Her father had been astonished by her determination and capacity for hard work, while her mother bemoaned the fact that dozens of expensive gowns had to be given away because she would not wear them any more.
    As for Anne-Marie, she claimed she had never been happier, and indeed, she looked so well that it was difficult to disbelieve her.
    While she retained a taste for fun and would occasionally attend a ball or enjoy a dinner party, she dressed with a new simplicity that actually enhanced rather than detracted from her general appeal. Though this had upset her mother, who thought she looked “old and dowdy,” it had greatly increased her standing among the rest of her family and friends.
    Chief among those friends was young Eliza Courtney, eldest daughter of Emily Gardiner and the Reverend James Courtney, Rector of Kympton on the Pemberley Estate.
    Eliza had recently married the son of a distinguished family with a reputation for philanthropic work among the poor. She was, now, Mrs John Harwood of Harwood House, which her husband’s family had owned for several generations.
    One part of the Harwood property had been opened up for the use of the army as a military hospital for returning soldiers. On discovering, quite by chance, that Anne-Marie was