Solidity – How to Handle Unexpected Object Returned from Basic Solidity Contract Using Hardhat and Ethers.js

I can't work out what i'm doing wrong here. Why can't i get a simple uint to return from my contract when running using hardhat tests?

Contract.sol:

// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
pragma solidity ^0.8.4;

import "@openzeppelin/contracts/utils/math/SafeMath.sol";
import 'hardhat/console.sol';
import "@openzeppelin/contracts/access/AccessControl.sol";

contract Contract is AccessControl {
    using SafeMath for uint256;

    constructor() {
        _grantRole(DEFAULT_ADMIN_ROLE, msg.sender);
    }

    function doIt() public returns (uint256) {
        console.log("Returning 1 from contract");
        return 1;
    }

}

Test.js

const { expect, assert } = require("chai");
const { ethers, upgrades } = require("hardhat");

describe("Contract", function () {  
  let acontract;

  beforeEach(async function () {
    // Deploying contract
    const aContract = await ethers.getContractFactory("Contract");
    acontract = await aContract.deploy();
    await acontract.deployed();
    console.log(`Contract deployed to ${acontract.address}`);
  });

  describe("test contract", function () {
    it("doIt", async function () {
        console.log(JSON.stringify(await acontract.doIt()));
    });
  });
});

Output:

npx hardhat test test-test/test.js

  Contract
    test contract
Contract deployed to 0x5FbDB2315678afecb367f032d93F642f64180aa3
Returning 1 from contract
{"hash":"0x2e7cd7d48db5bf437d117ca6c2de3d067c4299fba02b55b69d7a0037a01de74f","type":2,"accessList":[],"blockHash":"0xb15cbb79171f086b59bfa277aa643510022bc787098c4e3a77309c939ae36885","blockNumber":2,"transactionIndex":0,"confirmations":1,"from":"0xf39Fd6e51aad88F6F4ce6aB8827279cffFb92266","gasPrice":{"type":"BigNumber","hex":"0x6978bc25"},"maxPriorityFeePerGas":{"type":"BigNumber","hex":"0x3b9aca00"},"maxFeePerGas":{"type":"BigNumber","hex":"0x9756ae4a"},"gasLimit":{"type":"BigNumber","hex":"0x01bad458"},"to":"0x5FbDB2315678afecb367f032d93F642f64180aa3","value":{"type":"BigNumber","hex":"0x00"},"nonce":1,"data":"0xb29f0835","r":"0x1c77fabb8795afe562dd6772bd3c26db9b73f94d0be5774dfc3488a3a1e6d299","s":"0x30a98924f50a02f6f06698edf29b14d1be2f3fddea60cba276a4e60a3198e33d","v":0,"creates":null,"chainId":31337}
      ✓ doIt

Any help appreciated. Thanks