“Papa, I do not wish to wait. I do not wish to risk becoming like Charlotte Lucas. I will not trust to fate. And if none of us marry, what shall happen to us all when you die?”
“You will be perfectly fine. Jane is more likely than not to marry that very rich man. I do not think that there is much worry for any of you. As much asshedespises the prospect, the settled funds on your mother are more than sufficient to maintain you all in food and ample shelter, even if they are not enough to maintain your consequence.”
“And what about Lizzy,” Mary said. “Mama insists that she will not support her, and she deserves and needs as much as the rest of us. Besides, I do notwishto live with my mother and sisters on two hundred a year, no matter how much I shall not starve in such a case.”
“Lizzy is reasonably likely to achieve a respectable situation which is concordant with her birth,” Mr. Bennet said sharply. “It is not your place to worry for her.”
“She has been my sister, and you tell me not to worry.”
Elizabeth felt truly touched, but she felt it incumbent on her to say, “Mary, I beg you not to considermywelfare at all. Your choice primarily affectsyourwellbeing.”
Despite saying this, Elizabeth’s mind was filled with the question of just what Mr. Bennet had meant by a “situation concordant with her birth”.
Mr. Bennet and Mary stared at each other.
At last Mr. Bennet looked down, and said unhappily, “I beg you to not throw yourself away.”
“It is my choice.”
This chiefly ended the conversation, as Mr. Bennet demanded that both girls leave the room so that he might think.
In the end, Mr. Bennet was not a gentleman who would absolutely refuse his daughter her choice of husband. If she wished to ignore his advice upon the matter after he had earnestly and clearly offered it, he would not be the brute who stood in the way of her happiness, such as she expected it to be.
Mr. Bennet decreed that the couple must extend their courtship for a period of months before he would permit the marriage to proceed, and further that he expected Mr. Collins to put himself to the expense and unpleasantness of visiting regularly during this delay so that his happy fiancée would have ample opportunity to become better acquainted with him—that is, Mr. Bennet hoped that Mr. Collins would wear out Mary’s patience and tolerance for his foibles before absolutely irrevocable events had occurred.
At first Mr. Bennet wished for this delay to extend a full twelve months, and while he was by no meanshappywith it, Mr. Collins respected Mr. Bennet’s will in this matter. He said that it showed all that was reasonable, prudent, and caring in a parent. Mr. Collins even went so far as to say that Lady Catherine had once favourably commented upon the value of long engagements—those designed in early childhood by the parents of the respective parties, such as the one subsisting between Anne de Bourgh and Mr. Darcy were of the greatest value.
Mary was too relieved to not receive further opposition—and in no hurry at this time to end the period of courtship—to complain.Mrs. Bennethowever was extremely opposed to this, and her strenuous arguments brought the term down first to six months.
This of course did not satisfy her, and she continued to complain endlessly.But Mr. Bennet was determined upon this point.
Now that they were engaged, Mary began to feel more and more actual affection for her future partner in life.
Mr. Collins was very much under her influence, and he always praised her extensively, described how he had been inspired in his sermons by the readings that she had suggested to him, and he told Mary about Lady Catherine’s approval of the said sermon.
Mary had to feel gratitude for her influence over him, and he showed marks of his own growing affection. She knew perfectly well that he had asked her at first because he was determined to marry now that he had a position that allowed him to do so, and that he held her in no real affection, no more than she did for him. But as Mary had insisted to Mr. Bennet, he really was not so stupid as he appeared. If Mr. Collins had a tendency to pompously say the obvious, Mary had a tendency to say equally obvious things in the form of improving quotes and to give them as studied an air as possible.
The couple matched well in terms of interests, and the opposition of her father gave an additional impetus to Mary’s determination to find that which she could like in Mr. Collins.
And beyond all this, the extensive walks that Mr. Collins took under Mary’s direction caused the gentleman to become somewhat less heavyset, and this was sufficient to make a palpable improvement in his air and general looks in just the course of only six weeks.
Upon Elizabeth’s suggestions, Mr. Collins left off using overly strong pomade that he’d slathered his hair with, and he began to dress rather better. Of course, Mr. Collins would never be a handsome man, he now appeared to his better (though not best) advantage.
And as Mr. Collins began to look better than tolerable, moving into the state of being almost tempting given his good position in life, Mary started to develop a decided curiosity about the mysteries of the married state.
The result of this was that when Mr. Bennet carefully quizzed Mary about her present sentiments early in February, her views in favor of Mr. Collins had become so decided that Mr. Bennet thought that requiring the couple to go through an additional four months of this was sufficiently unlikely to make Mary reconsider, that he might as well allow the couple to end their agony of delay (and end his regular requirement to bear Mr. Collins’s company—a burden which had become heavier with his growing familiarity with the gentleman), so he gave the couple permission to marry as soon as they might.
After such a time Mrs. Bennet was insistent that they do so via common license, and so in late February the happy couple was united in tolerable matrimony.
While Mr. Collins and Mary waited for Mr. Bennet’s consent, Mr. Bingley returned from London, and as everyone had expected him to, he called upon the Bennets for a not so long delayed family dinner, and within a week’s time of his return, he was Jane’s declared lover.
After the proper number of weeks for the banns to be read, Mrs. Bingley settled at Netherfield as the mistress of the manor, and Mrs. Bennet could not have been more delighted. Two daughters to be married!
Elizabeth split her time between occasional fond thoughts about Mr. Darcy and wondering again and again what Mr. Bennet had meant by “a situation that matched her birth”.
He ought to have said something more about it. After their conversation before she’d gone to nurse Jane at Netherfield, he knew thatsheknew about the circumstances of her birth. It was unkind of him to leave her dangling and worried.
But perhaps he had meant to reassure her that therewasa plan. The only thing that Elizabeth could guess was that there was in fact some money left to her by either her mother or her father. But that would not explain the mysteriousness with which Mr. Bennet always spoke of the matter. If Mrs. Bennet had thought she was to have some money, she would have been treated very differently over the years.
