by P. O. Dixon
He’d spent many hours venturing back and forth between his humble little abode, which abutted the estate, and the manor house. The thought of how many more times he would pass that way again overcame him. Collecting himself, Collins swallowed. Soon enough, he would be standing before his own manor house, admiring all there was to see. This consolation spurred him on, even hastened his pace, for his noble patroness was not one to be kept waiting.
Indeed, Lady Catherine had been the one to summon him as was her wont to do whenever she was in the want of diversion.
What a stroke of luck it was to be summoned on the very day he wished to seek an audience with the grand lady. He needed to share his happy news with his noble patroness who, to his way of thinking, had been the first person to recognize him for the honorable man that he always strived to be throughout his entire life. He did not, however, want to give her the impression that he was not grateful to her. He was sure he would forever be in her debt.
As evidence of his gratitude, he meant to offer to stay on at the parsonage until such time as a new parson could be installed in his place. Whether it be a month, two months, six months, or even a year, his commitment would remain steadfast. He owed everything to Lady Catherine. Besides, he liked to think that his elevated station in life would enhance rather than diminish their connection to each other going forward.
Moments later, the eager gentleman was shown into the drawing-room where her ladyship awaited his arrival. Once all the usual civilities were exchanged, and the tea-things were set, her ladyship wasted no time pressing her point.
Seated in the center of the ornate room in a gilded chair befitting her noble roots, the grand lady looked as though she were holding court. “You can be at no loss, Mr. Collins, to understand the reason I have summoned you here this afternoon. Nothing that happens in this parish escapes my knowing.”
Collins had no reason to doubt her ladyship’s claim. In the short time that had passed since he assumed his duties, he knew almost everything there was to know about his parishioners. For that, he had Lady Catherine to thank. The business of her life was to be of service to others, and by her own account, no one was more qualified than she was in that regard. Mr. Collins, of course, could not agree more.
“Indeed, Lady Catherine,” he began, “I am very aware of your omnipotence as regards all such matters. I am most grateful for the opportunity you have given me to speak with you and, hopefully, to seek your counsel, for it is with a rather conflicted heart that I come before you this afternoon. I hardly know where to start.”
“Ordinarily, one would start at the beginning. However, the frankness of my character does not allow me to feign ignorance of your situation.” Setting aside her cup, she continued. “I understand that owing to the confirmed demise of the previous heir apparent, you are now the owner of a small, country estate in Hertfordshire.”
Mr. Collins nodded. He meant to say something that might aptly convey his sentiments as well as atone for the disruption that was sure to follow, but before he could fashion his response, Lady Catherine said, “If not for the particular circumstances of your good fortune, I would be congratulating you. But the celebration of someone’s untimely death–even the death of someone that one does not know–is hardly a cause for joy.”
For as much as her ladyship already knew of the inheritance, there was even more to be discovered, and thus a lengthy back-and-forth discussion ensued, during which Collins did more listening than speaking. Soon the matter of Longbourn’s current inhabitants arose. Mr. Collins told his inquisitive patroness all he knew. He had almost exhausted himself on the subject when Lady Catherine seized control of the conversation.
“Five daughters!” Lady Catherine exclaimed. “All of them single?”
Mr. Collins’s head bobbed two or three times.
Her ladyship rose from her seat. She started pacing the marble tile floor. “I have heard all I need to hear in order to advise you on what you ought to do. Despite this turn in fortune, you are a man of the cloth, for I believe having been called, it will always be your true calling. You ought to extend your good fortune to the Bennet family.
“I have been meaning to instruct you to choose a wife for some time. It stands to reason that you must choose one of the Bennet daughters. If you do not heed my advice, then what is to become of them? Do you mean to throw the widow and her five single daughters into the hedgerows and thereby render them beholding to sundry family members?”
She ceased pacing and regarded Collins directly. “Did I correctly understand you to say the mother is the daughter of a tradesman? That her daughters have little to no dowries to speak of? I daresay you are that family’s best hope.”
“Do you really suppose the family might be receptive to such a scheme, your ladyship?”
Not that Collins doubted his ability to woo whichever Bennet daughter he set his cap on, but he knew Lady Catherine well enough to know she would appreciate his modesty. Such false modesty on his part would never do among those whom he considered his equals and most especially among his inferiors. With the incomparable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, diffidence was the order of the day.
In his heart, he knew any woman would fancy herself fortunate to have garnered his affections and never more so than now, what with his being among the landed gentry.
“Do you think I would have proposed the scheme if I suffered a shred of doubt regarding its viability? What choice do they have?” she asked, resuming her former attitude pacing the floor. “Surely they must know they are beholden to you—that you may turn them out as soon as you please.
“It is decided. You must travel to Hertfordshire and make an offer of marriage to one of your Bennet cousins.
“That said, I advise you to choose properly. One must assume the young ladies are all gentlewomen in every sense of the word, despite their recent impoverishment, but one must also suppose they are vastly different in temperament. Choose wisely for my own sake, especially, should there be a possibility of any future connection between us. Choose judiciously for your own sake as well. Let the Bennet daughter of your choice be an active, useful sort of person and one who knows and understands a woman’s place. One can only suppose the Bennet daughters were not brought up high, especially with relations in trade.”
Steadily pacing, she said, “I do not suppose such an estate as Longbourn allows for any degree of extravagance. No doubt, the Bennets are not accustomed to having much, which will serve you well. If you are to have any chance of getting rid of the other four sisters after you have married the most sensible of them, you will have to be ever mindful of what must be very meager dowries, and you must always be cognizant of ways to supplement them.”
Concluding her directive, Lady Catherine said, “Do as I say, and your felicity in marriage shall be assured. As soon as you can, you must bring your bride to Rosings, where I shall be happy to receive her as my guest.”
Chapter 4
“Why must one of us be obliged to marry that odious man?” cried the youngest Bennet daughter, Lydia. “It is not as though he is an officer. Perhaps if he were an officer, then none of us would have any cause to repine, for who would not wish to catch such a man?”
Suffice it to say that upon his much-anticipated arrival at Longbourn, Mr. William Collins did not make the most favorable impression on his Bennet relations. No sooner than he had presented himself to the family as a distant cousin and heir of the estate, he requested a private audience with the lady of the house. Having written to Mrs. Bennet the week before, Collins first congratulated himself on his own good fortune even as he apologized for the nature of its being brought about. The gentleman’s letter went on to read:
“Although I am sure nothing can take the place of a most beloved husband and father, as I am certain the late Mr. Thomas Bennet indeed was, I have every intention of making amends for the inconvenience of the entail on the estate afforded to you and your daughters. As I now find myself a single man and the master of an est
ate, it is incumbent upon me to find a wife. I can think of no greater reparation to your family than to choose a bride from among your five daughters.”
Upon reading these words, Mrs. Bennet hardly attended to anything else he had written. Not only was Collins’s letter akin to music to her ears, but it was also an answer to her prayers. The business of Longbourn’s missing heir, as well as a preponderance of inherent questions, had gone on for far too long. Would he be married with a family of his own? Would he be mean-spirited? Would he toss them out into the hedgerows with nary a second thought?
Were the lady to rely on Mr. Collins’s letter alone, he surely satisfied her every notion of what Longbourn’s heir ought to be. She was determined to be his staunchest supporter, knowing that she would remain in her home for the rest of her life once she had married off one of her girls to the new master.
“Mind your tongue, Child,” cried Mrs. Bennet in response to her youngest’s outburst. “In such a time as this, one can ill afford the luxury of marrying where one chooses. Why, if one of you girls were to marry Mr. Collins, then we will always have this house. None of us would ever risk destitution. I am sure that is what your father was thinking of when he passed away so unexpectedly that one of you would marry the heir to the estate. Why else would he have failed to break the entail before he died?”
Elizabeth almost wanted to roll her eyes. But what would have been the point? She had attempted on more than a few occasions since her father’s passing to explain the rules of the entail to her mother but to little avail. Mrs. Bennet was just the sort of person who once having formed an opinion, however poorly conceived, stood by her original opinion to the end. Nothing anyone might say could make her change her mind. Her daughter had simply stopped trying.
Mrs. Bennet threw a glance about the room and examined her daughters one by one. She said, “Jane cannot marry Mr. Collins. Despite all her beauty, that gentleman will want a wife who can fully oversee his household. He will undoubtedly look right past her other amiable qualities and concentrate on what she cannot do rather than all that she can do.”
As she was sitting next to her eldest daughter at the time, she placed her hand on Jane’s. “Not that you have any reason to repine in that regard, my dear. No one blames you because you are blind. If anything, I blame that old horse you were riding at the time. What a beast!”
Jane merely offered her mother a smile, just as she always did when her mother went on in that way. Jane knew there really was no one to blame for the malady.
The tragic onset of her loss of sight had remained an unexplained calamity for more than a decade. The Bennet family’s lack of fortune prohibited them from seeking a remedy beyond a perfunctory examination by a London physician. Restoring Jane’s vision had been accepted as beyond anyone’s power.
Jane had never seen Kitty and Lydia. Her memory of Mary (the third Bennet daughter) was primarily the product of a child’s imagination. She was sure she would recognize her sister Elizabeth even among a crowd of young ladies were she once again blessed with a return of her sight. Until such time which may or may not come, Jane was largely beholden to her family to make sure she was cared for, and she could have no reason to suspect she might ever be any man’s choice of a wife.
“No,” Mrs. Bennet continued, “Mr. Collins is far more likely to choose Lizzy to be his bride. She is, after all, second in age to Jane as well as in beauty. I posit you younger girls are quite safe.”
Hearing this, Elizabeth’s expression was beyond description. She, too, had spent a fair amount of time wondering what would happen when Longbourn’s missing heir finally turned up. Her greatest fear was he would want nothing to do with the Bennets—that they would be forced to leave their home with little more than the clothes on their backs.
Her mother’s inheritance was far too insignificant to provide for the six of them. No, her family would be torn apart, forced to rely on the generosity of family and friends if they were lucky but more likely forced to seek employment as governesses. The thought of her younger sisters, Kitty and Lydia, being governesses to anyone’s children, was laughable and for a good reason. The two of them were scarcely more than children themselves, even if they were out in society.
She never once supposed that Longbourn’s missing heir might be a single man in want of a wife. If Elizabeth had her way, neither she nor any of her sisters would marry Mr. Collins. She wanted nothing more than for him to go away and never come back. His so-called benevolence toward her family aside, the man was pompous and somewhat ridiculous.
Alas, the sad state of living in a home entailed away from the female line of the family took away every possibility for the Bennets to remain there in the absence of a marriage between a Bennet daughter and Longbourn’s heir.
Elizabeth knew herself far too well to imagine that she would happily submit to such a scheme, even though her beloved father had relegated the care of her mother and sisters to her, upon his passing. That was but one of the reasons she held her tongue. The other reason was she had just escaped an ambush by none other than the gentleman himself in which he had attempted already to press his point.
Folding her hands in her lap, Elizabeth shifted in her chair a little. Thankfully, I managed to put Mr. Collins off for now. I fear, however, I am only postponing the inevitable. I fear only a miracle will save me from my mother’s prognostication.
The younger girls’ joy in hearing this was just as was what might be expected. “Thank heavens for that. Lizzy is so old anyway. She ought to be lucky to have Mr. Collins!”
Elizabeth, speaking up in her own defense, cried, “I am not that old!”
“Well,” Lydia responded, shrugging, “You are on the wrong side of twenty, which makes you plenty old to me.”
“I could be Mr. Collins’s choice,” a quiet voice from the corner of the room could be heard saying.
Mrs. Bennet spun around in her seat. Every eye in the room trained on the third-born daughter. “What is that you just said, Mary?”
Mary cleared her throat and raised her voice. “I said I could very well be Mr. Collins’s choice.”
Her mother, as well as her two younger sisters, nearly laughed out loud.
“Mary!” the former exclaimed with energy. “How you enjoy speaking nonsense. Despite your habit of espousing Fordyce’s Sermons to anyone who will listen, I highly doubt your doing so will be enough to garner the gentleman’s favor, even if he does fancy himself a clergyman at heart. Mr. Collins seems far too proud and self-important not to set his cap on your sister Lizzy.
“Saying that,” she continued, “I must applaud your optimism, however ill-founded it is. I am sure your heart is in the right place.”
While Mrs. Bennet had been quick to dismiss Mary’s opinion, at least one of the other occupants in the room most assuredly did not - specifically, Elizabeth.
Chapter 5
Elizabeth’s heart went out to her sister Mary, who, undoubtedly, did not like hearing such a rebuttal from her own mother. Mary, in consequence of being the only plain one in the family, was often the target of derision on account of it. She bore her lot with equanimity and always worked hard for knowledge and accomplishments. A striking contrast indeed to the younger sisters, Kitty and Lydia, who never took the time to accomplish much of anything that did not have to do with looking pretty, attending balls and assemblies, and flirting with gentlemen in scarlet coats.
Thus repulsed by her mother and sisters, Mary resumed reading her book. No doubt, upon fashioning a fitting retort to her mother’s assertion, she would return to the debate.
Elizabeth could not help but think about Mary’s assertion. If Mary was the one Bennet daughter who would gladly meet the ridiculous Mr. Collins at the marriage altar, why on earth would Elizabeth not do everything in her power to bring such an alliance about? The plain and simple fact was that the surest means of the Bennet ladies remaining at Longbourn was for one of them to marry Mr. Collins.
As much as it pains me,
I believe Mary’s conjecture is the miracle I hoped for, Elizabeth silently considered.
It was not as though she had accepted Mr. Collins’s condescending proposal when he made it earlier that same day. She had simply asked for some time to think about it. And she had done it in such a way as not to extinguish any cause the man might have to hope. She had supposed she could postpone her decision long enough to find a means that would satisfy everyone’s purpose and especially her own, and now, thanks to Mary, Elizabeth had cause to believe that she did indeed have the reason she had hoped for. As much as she loved her family and would do anything to see that they had every creature comfort they would need, a part of her was not entirely persuaded it would be in her best interest to sacrifice her own chance for felicity in the process.
Now thanks to her sister Mary, perhaps she would not have to. Thus decided, Elizabeth knew what she needed to do. She only needed to persuade Mr. William Collins to go along with her scheme.
Elizabeth found Mr. Collins in the library. What an odd fellow he was. Owing to his extraordinary deference to his noble patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Elizabeth was given to wonder if he was a sensible man or if he could be easily swayed. She would soon find out.
There he stood, staring out the window with his hands clutched behind his back. He was a tall, heavy-looking young man of five-and-twenty. His air was grave and stately, and his manners were very formal. His countenance was not entirely unpleasant, Elizabeth was forced to concede. She had undoubtedly seen far less attractive gentlemen in her time. Still, he was not half so appealing as she might have wished.