Mr. Bennet sighed and looked at the kneeling gentleman with distaste. “Please Mr. Collins, send my daughter to me. I must speak with her to understand.”
At last Mr. Collins left the room.
As soon as it was only the two of them Mr. Bennet resumed pacing. “What is she about? Surely Mary can see that he is a fool. She is not so clever as you, Lizzy. She is a silly enough girl, but her abilities and sense are far superior to thoseofMr. Collins. She is merely eighteen though. Perhaps that is the source of the foolishness.”
“It has been clear to me,” Elizabeth said, “that she has put this question to serious consideration over the past week. Her reply to Mr. Collins was certainly not the whim of an instant.”
Mr. Bennet frowned, studied Elizabeth. “You have been helping her to dress better. But can you not see that—”
Mary’s entrance to the room prevented Mr. Bennet’s further pursuit of the question. He immediately turned to his daughter and gestured for her to sit in a chair directly facing his desk. While still standing himself, Mr. Bennet said, “What are you about? What do you mean by this? Why did you accept such a man? I promise you that you do not need to worry about your mother’s anger. I will see to it that she cannot punish you once we’ve sent the gentleman off.”
Thinking that it was not proper for her to remain during this conversation, Elizabeth rose from her seat. “I shall go to—”
“Stay, Lizzy.” Mary leapt up and took her hand. “It shall be easier for me if you remain. I fear Papa will hear nothing I might say. Perhaps you can explain what I mean better than I might. He does not consideryouto be so flimsy of mind and spirit as the rest of us.”
At this statement, Mr. Bennet turned his sarcastic eye upon Elizabeth. “Lizzy, explain it then. What is Mary about? Why would my daughter descend to accept an offer of marriage from one of the stupidest men in England?”
“He is not so stupid!” Mary exclaimed. “I am to marry him, and I hope I do not deceive myself into considering him as having higher desserts than are his due, but he is not really stupid. Not at all.”
“It is yet to be decided if you are to marry him. I am not at present inclined to give either my blessing or my approval to a match which seems likely to be deleterious to the happinessof all the parties involved. Believe me, there is great danger in marriages where there is a large distance between the sense and understanding of the parties. Such a thing is not to be undertaken lightly. I would not see you unhappy, Mary.”
Mary looked very much to be on the verge of tears. “You wouldn’t!”
Mr. Bennet studied her with a steady gaze. He steepled his fingers together. “It is not Mrs. Bennet’s anger that you fear. He would not have proposed at all, not to you at least, if you had not drawn him to do so. I think I understand. Lizzy shall correct me for you if I do not: You are determined to have an independent establishment for yourself. You do not have any particular liking for his person, nor for his mind, but you are making an effort to convince yourself that such things do not matter. You have, after all, never fancied yourself to be in love, and so you cannot think that it should be such an important consideration when you choose the partner of your future life. You foresee yourself having every joy that can be had from the command of your own garden, your own table, and your own idiot—your mother’s approval will be total. Until such time as Mr. Bingley makes his declarations, should he do so, you will be beyond any doubt Mrs. Bennet’s favorite, which is something that you have never experienced before. And you know that likely these next three days are your only hope of ever having such joy.”
Now Mary did start to cry heartily.
Elizabeth embraced her, and she looked at Mr. Bennet with a rare disapproval. That speech had been unkind to Mary.
Seeing how Elizabeth glared at him he sighed, pulled his hand through his hair, and rubbed at the bald spot on the back. “I apologize, Mary. I became sharper and more sarcastic than I ought. I was unkind. But I was most shocked to receive Mr. Collins’s application. I have not yet recovered from that.”
“He is not so stupid!” was Mary’s insistent reply. “I do not claim he is so very bright. But…he is like Lizzy is around Mama. He always tries to say exactly what is expected of him, so that he will never anger anyone. You made him very anxious with how you spoke to him when he came in. That is what makes you think he is so stupid that he always tries to be loudly grateful to everyone. It is unkind of you! The way you judge him. His father was a barbarous man; Mr. Collins has told me how he would be beaten as a child. It is no wonder that he is so grateful to a person who has given him preferment and advice rather than cruelty. It is no wonder that he sings their praises.”
“You cannot think he is a man of superior understanding,” Mr. Bennet began. “He is in no way like Lizzy. What do you mean about Lizzy around Mama?—oh, but now is not the time for such a subject. That you pity him does not mean you should marry him.”
“He is not so stupid. If you had ever cared to speak to him seriously after you were done laughing at my poor Mr. Collins, you would have found that he has learning and thoughts and an ability to think that is not in any way beneath the ordinary. I know he shall never be so clever as you or Lizzy, and no doubt you will always despise him for that, but he is clever enoughfor meto like his company. And he cares about things that matter tome, which you only sneer at.”
Mr. Bennet sighed, clearly surprised by how strongly Mary had chosen to defend Mr. Collins on these grounds, and by how she had criticized him. But Mr. Bennet was not the sort of patriarch to demand total respect, or to reply in anger when he thought there was some truth to what was said of him.
Mary looked at him with tears still in her eyes, but a vibrating challenge in her posture. In truth her fierceness reduced Elizabeth’s doubts about Mary’s wisdom in marrying Mr. Collins.
For a while Mr. Bennet stood by his desk rubbing the back of his head. “Can you tell me, with complete honesty, that you are in love with Mr. Collins?”
The young woman was silent for a while. Then she slowly said, “I believe I will become very fond of him.”
“No.” Mr. Bennet shook his head. “Not if that is your answer to that question.”
“And if I had said that I was in love,” Mary replied instantly, “you would have said that I was a fool blinded by love, and that his stupidity would offend me in the end, and that nothing I had said in his credit could be trusted, because I was such a fool to form an attachment with such a man, and after such a short course of time. I know how you are, Papa, always criticizing every side.”
Mr. Bennet rubbed at the back of his head again. He looked clearly unhappy.
“I wish to marry him,” Mary said. “That is my decision, and I think I will have a better chance at happiness in such a marriage than with anything else I might do.”
“You do not know what you are about,” Mr. Bennet said. “I tell you, do anything rather than marry without love. An independent establishment is not worth that. Assuaging wounded pride…nothing.”
From her expression, Elizabeth suspected that this was not the reply that Mary had expected. She paused, sitting in her chair. She smoothed her dress down, and then said, “This is my choice. You would not credit it if I said that I cared nothing for Mr. Collins’s current position and prospects. But I do wish to marry, and I am not ashamed to like the idea of marrying well. I know I am not so pretty as any of my sisters. I truly believe that Mr. Collins has more worth than you think, and that he will become better and more capable under my influence. He alreadyhas. I convinced him to behave more sensibly than he otherwise would have on several occasions last night.”
“You managed to make him less of a fool than his natural tendency—I apologize—” Mr. Bennet said looking at Elizabeth with a thing in his eyes that said that he knewshewould criticize him for insulting Mr. Collins in front of Mary again. “Let me say, more of a wise man than nature and education have made him. That is hardly a sufficient reason to expect to find happiness. Mary, I beg you to reconsider. One day you will find a gentleman who you will love in truth.”
