by Maria Grace
“But the fact is, that being, as I am, to inherit this estate after the death of your honored father, who, however, may live many years longer, I could not satisfy myself without resolving to choose a wife from among his daughters, that the loss to them might be as little as possible, when the melancholy event takes place—which, however, as I have already said, may not be for several years. This has been my motive, my fair cousin, and I flatter myself it will not sink me in your esteem.”
It really is gracious of him. Staying at your home, forever, knowing none of your sisters or mother need to fear is a good thing.
“Indeed, it is most kind and gracious of you,” she stammered and squeezed her temples. She had prepared herself for this moment. Why were her thoughts running away with her?
April cheeped and flapped her wings. “Do you hear it, too?”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened, and she fell back into her chair as though slapped by an icy hand, its chill flowing across her face and neck in waves.
April heard a voice? A dragon voice?
Those words, they were not her own thoughts. Someone was attempting to persuade her!
But who?
Mr. Collins clasped his hands behind his back and paced in front of the fireplace. “And now nothing remains for me but to assure you in the most animated language of the violence of my affection.”
He likes you. That is sufficient for now. Just give him your answer. Why draw out the unpleasantry?
It was a voice! Subtle and soft, but there could be no doubt now. She clutched her hands tight against the desire to brush away the trespass.
It was one thing for a dragon to persuade one who could not hear them. But to try persuasion on a Hearer—the very notion was indecent! Immoral. Illegal.
“To fortune I am perfectly indifferent, and shall make no demand of that nature on your father. I am well aware that it could not be complied with, and that one thousand pounds in the four per cents, which will not be yours till after your mother's decease, is all that you may ever be entitled to. On that head, therefore, I shall be uniformly silent, and you may assure yourself that no ungenerous reproach shall ever pass my lips when we are married.” Mr. Collins pressed his fingers to his lips.
See how reasonable he is being? An excellent sign of a truly agreeable match.
She clutched the arms of her chair.
Make him an answer. What more do you need to hear?
“Stop!” She clapped her hands to her ears.
Mr. Collins staggered back, eyes bulging, jaw gaping.
She sprang to her feet and ducked behind the dragon perch, sucking in gulps of air against the drowning sensation. “Forgive me, sir, I am overwhelmed by your declarations.”
He pulled his shoulders back and adjusted his lapels, eyes and jaw settling into their naturally smug attitudes.
If only she could catch her breath to speak. “Accept my thanks for the compliment you are paying me, I am very sensible of the honor of your proposals, but it is impossible for me to make you an answer right now.”
“I understand,” Mr. Collins, waved his hand in a formal flourish, “that it is usual with young ladies to reject the addresses of the man whom they secretly mean to accept, when he first applies for their favor, and that sometimes the refusal is repeated a second or even a third time. I am therefore by no means discouraged by what you have just said, and shall hope to lead you to the altar ere long.”
She stammered something even she did not understand.
“When I do myself the honor of speaking to you next on this subject, I shall hope to receive a more favorable answer than you have now given me. I am far from accusing you of cruelty at present, because I know it to be the established custom of your sex to reject a man on the first application, and perhaps you have even now said as much to encourage my suit as would be consistent with the true delicacy of the female character.”
Do not be a fool! Accept him now!
Where was the voice coming from?
She edged toward the door. “Is it not a demonstration of conceit that you presuppose my response?”
“You must give me leave to flatter myself, my dear cousin that your hesitancy toward my addresses is merely words. My reasons for believing it are briefly these: it does not appear to me that my hand is unworthy of your acceptance, or that the establishment I can offer would be any other than highly desirable. My situation in life, my connections with the family of de Bourgh, and my relationship to your own, are circumstances highly in its favor. You should take it into further consideration that in spite of your manifold attractions, it is by no means certain that another offer of marriage may ever be made you. Your portion is unhappily so small that it will in all likelihood undo the effects of your loveliness and amiable qualifications. As I must therefore conclude that you are not serious in your rejection of me, I shall choose to attribute it to your wish of increasing my love by suspense, according to the usual practice of elegant females.”
He is correct. No other man is ever going to want you.
She gasped. Was it not enough that voice would try to persuade her? Now insults as well? Utterly intolerable.
The voice was coming from beneath them.
“Pray, understand me, sir, I have no pretension whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man. I would rather be paid the compliment of being believed sincere in whatever I express. I thank you again and again for the honor you have done me in your proposal, but you must now excuse me. I am far too overwhelmed to think.” She fled from the room, April flying in her wake.
Foolish girl! Do not run off. You will lose this opportunity.
“Enough!” She stomped and ran for the cellar door. It flung open with a grouchy creak. The dark, narrow steps warranted caution, but she was long past any kind of restraint. Only the hand of Providence stayed her from breaking her neck on the way down.
Scrapes and slithers, deep down and far away into the dragon tunnels, taunted her. Cold, damp air enveloped her in teasing silence as dangling cobwebs tickled her face. But the musty, dusty smell of dragon was unmistakable. A dragon in the cellars had been trying to influence her response to Collins.
Coward. Longbourn was a big, scaly coward.
April landed on her shoulder. “Will you go after him?”
“Not through the tunnels. Longbourn might not object to slithering in the dirt, but I do. I will see him in the woods.” She gathered up her skirts and traipsed back up the uneven stairs.
Where was the family? Voices came from the morning room, so best head in the opposite direction. Once clear of the house, she sprinted towards the woods.
Hidden in the cover of the trees, she paused in the dappled sunlight, panting hard. At least the air was not so cold that it hurt to gulp it down. She needed breath to speak, a great deal of it for all the things that she had to say!
April launched from her shoulder and zipped around the stand of small trees. “I do not know. I do not know.”
“What do you not know?”
“The voice. I did not recognize it.” If she kept buzzing about like that, she would whip herself into a senseless frenzy.
“Of course you did not. It was a persuasive whisper. We have not heard it from him before because it is unethical for him to speak so to us.”
“Still, I am not certain.” April landed on a narrow branch, just above Elizabeth’s head, panting.
“Who else could it be? There was a dragon in the cellar. You do not imagine for a moment that Longbourn would tolerate a strange dragon in his territory, much less in our house! He barely tolerates the minor dragons of his Keep.”
“No, no, he would not. But the voice, it did not sound at all like him.”
“I know you are afraid of him now. Perhaps you should not be here. Return to the house. I will handle this.” She folded her arms over her chest and scanned the woods for signs of the wyvern.
“No, I will not leave you. I would see how he defends himself f
or such behavior.” She huddled close to Elizabeth’s neck.
She pulled her shawl over April and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Longbourn! Where are you? Longbourn! I would speak to you immediately.” She stomped.
A black bird cawed in the distance.
“Stop this right now. You cannot avoid me. If you do not come out, I will come to you. Decide where we will converse, for it will happen one way or another. Longbourn, come out!” She grabbed a large branch and slammed it against the nearest tree trunk in a deep resounding tattoo.
A thunderous thump answered.
At least he was listening.
The ground trembled beneath her feet. Trees shook and limbs rattled, raining dry leaves upon them. Longbourn crashed through a curtain of saplings. “So, is it done?”
She batted leaves from her face. “Is it done? Is it done? That is all you have to say after your shameless behavior?”
He pulled back and blinked, squeezing his eyes shut tight several times.
If he tried to play dumb, she might just swat his nose. “It was not enough that you provoked Papa into ordering Collins to propose to me. You had to try to manipulate me, too.”
“What are you talking about?”
She clenched her fists until they shook. “Do not insult me by pretending not to know. I may be a woman, but that hardly makes me a fool. I would thank you not to treat me as one.”
“I will treat you that way when you are acting like one. I have no idea what you are talking about.” He lashed his tail across the ground, clearing a wide swath.
“You were eavesdropping in the cellar whilst Collins offered the most ridiculous proposal I have ever heard.”
“How would you know it was ridiculous? You have never heard a proposal. You have not had an offer of marriage before.”
“That is hardly the point here.”
“How can you fault a proposal as ridiculous if you have nothing else to compare it to?” He sat back lightly on his haunches.
“Do not play that game with me! The material issue is that you were listening in on a conversation to which you were not invited.”
“I was not.”
“There was a dragon in the cellar, one that ran away from me when I went down to see.” She tucked her elbows under her shawl and balanced her hands on her hips. She would never be as big as the wyvern, but whatever size she could muster to her advantage would be helpful.
“And you assume that was me? It sounds like a trick of that sneaky tatzelwurm who now lives with you.” He cocked his head, the very picture of innocence.
“There is no way Rumblkins could have made those noises. They came from a major dragon.”
“But you admit he might have tried?”
“Hardly! He detests Collins and would not have tried to persuade me to marry him. He would sooner see you eat Collins.”
“It was agreed you would marry him. Why would you need to be persuaded?”
“Why indeed?” She threw her arms in the air, very near his face. “I am at a loss, but I expect you will have a rather good explanation for the dragon voice from the cellar, trying to persuade me to marry Collins.”
“I did no such thing.” He slapped the ground with his tail.
Now he was trying to intimidate, the bully.
“You would entertain another major dragon in your territory and permit it to meddle in the affairs of your Keepers?”
“It was not me.” He stomped hard enough to shake the trees.
“Stop lying to me.” Now he had done it—provoked her to shout. Few could boast that accomplishment. “Why would you violate our relationship that way? A Dragon does not try to persuade his Keeper. It is not a done thing.”
“I did not!”
“Just like you did not scoop me up like a bit of prey, rendering me unconscious, breathing venom in my face.”
“I would not have hurt you. The venom was an accident. You made me so angry.” At least he had the grace to sound remorseful.
“No, you lost control. That is no fault of mine. You may not have liked what I said, but you violated my trust. And your stunt today did nothing to earn it back.”
They stared eye to eye until he turned away, grumbling.
“You promised to marry Collins.”
“No, I did not. I said I would see. And perhaps you do not believe it, but I have been diligently working to adjust to the idea of a husband I can hardly tolerate and who certainly does not respect me. I have been trying to learn how to manage him and see that I might have some sort of a decent life with him.”
“Then that is good and it is all settled.” He sat back, mouth widening in an eerie wyvern smile.
“Hardly. I did so in good faith that we would all be working toward an amenable future. But you have stooped to trying to manipulate me to get your way, not even treating me like a Keeper, just some inconvenient warm-blood. I will not have it. I cannot live without respect, and you have shown me no more than Mr. Collins does.”
“You are not being fair. I told you I did nothing, and I meant it.”
“Declaring it so does not make it so. I came here hoping that you might own to what you did and we could come to some resolution, but I see that was a pointless hope. If you will not be honest with me, there is nothing more I can do.”
“What does that mean?” The smile disappeared, replaced by deep, worried lines.
“I will not live like this.” She wrapped her shawl tight around her and stormed away.
Arrogant, maddening, cold-blooded—
“What if he was telling the truth?” April whispered in her ear.
“Give me one reason to believe he might be, just one tiny bit of evidence to hold on to, and I will consider it. I promise you, I will.” It would be so much easier if she could.
“It is such a serious offense, and he has never shown any sign of violating the Accords before. Do you really think that he would do such a thing to you?”
“I would not have thought so until today ... until I heard it myself.” She clutched her forehead.
April cuddled against her cheek. “What will you do now?”
“Return to the house and have a very long talk with Papa. He certainly cannot condone such behavior.”
***
She slipped in the back door. Rumblkins met her several steps inside.
“We have been so worried since you ran off into the woods.” He rubbed his long body around her ankles.
“Do you know anything about a dragon in the cellar this morning?” She crouched to fondle his silky ear tufts.
“There is often a dragon in the cellar. I saw no cause to worry.”
“You see, April.” She pressed her temples. “This is intolerable.”
“What is?” Rumblkins reared up and reached his paws up as high as he could.
She scooped him up and rested him on her unoccupied shoulder. “Nothing for you to worry about. Keep Mrs. Hill happy. That is all you need concern yourself with.”
He rubbed his face against hers, purring.
“But now I must talk with Papa.” She set him down, straightened her skirts, and slipped out of the kitchen.
Halfway down the hall to Papa’s study, the voices became clear.
No! She needed to talk to him now, before the fury subsided and she surrendered to the temptation to excuse Longbourn’s transgressions.
Mr. Collins’ voice filtered through the closed door, almost as clearly as if he was standing with her. “I cannot say that she refused, more that she did not give me an answer of any kind. It is entirely likely that my eloquent offer of marriage left her quite speechless. Indeed, I am apt to believe this the case as she fled my presence, color high and unable to speak. I trust it was the natural outflowing of her bashful modesty and genuine delicacy of character.”
She had been speechless as it were. How shocked he would be to learn the cause.
“But depend upon it, Mr. Collins,” Mama’s shrill voice pierced the air like a hat pin, “that
Lizzy shall be brought to reason. I will speak to her about it myself directly. She is a very headstrong foolish girl, and does not know her own interest; but I will make her know it.”
“Pardon me for interrupting you, Madam, but if she is really headstrong and foolish, I know not whether she would altogether be a very desirable wife to a man in my situation who naturally looks for happiness in the marriage state. If therefore she actually means to reject my suit, perhaps it were better not to force her into accepting me because if she is liable to such defects of temper, she could not contribute much to my felicity.”
Naturally, his felicity was his only concern. Was it a surprise, though? He had never once asked after her desires or preferences. Selfish buffoon. What a disaster he would be as master of a dragon estate.
“Oh, Mr. Collins!” Mama shrieked, her hands probably waving to and fro. “Lizzy is only headstrong in a very few matters. In everything else she is as good natured a girl as ever lived. Mr. Bennet shall very soon settle it with her, I am sure. Will you not, sir? You must make Lizzy marry Mr. Collins, for she vows she will not have him, and if you do not make haste, he will change his mind and not have her.”
“Calm yourself, Mrs. Bennet. You have invented things which have not yet occurred. As I understand, Lizzy has not actually refused Mr. Collins, nor has he threatened not to have her.” Several loud thumps must have been Papa rapping on his desk with his knuckles. It hurt his hands so that he only did that when entirely provoked.
“No indeed, sir, she did not. She only said that she could not yet offer an answer and that she needed time to think.”
“You see there, Mrs. Bennet. She has not refused, so we are hardly in a position of forcing her to accept.”
“But what is there to think about in such a matter? With such a desirable offer before her, what has a young woman to think about?” Mama’s voice rose and fell as though she was pacing across the room. “Truly, this must be your fault for insisting that she begin thinking in the first place. That is not the province of a woman, you know. We are made for sensibility and men for sense. You should not have taught her otherwise.”