By then I knew she was not indifferent to me and that my infatuation was now full-blown and deep love. I informed him that I intended to ask for a courtship when she came out. Bennet told me he would be happy to entertain that request from me, but he wanted me to wait until she was nineteen, a year after her entry into society. I agreed, of course, she was worth the wait.
Not long after her come out I admitted my feelings to her; my relief was immense when she told me that she returned them in full measure. Now I am less than an hour away from making the request I have wanted to make for over two years.
Richard was snapped out of his reverie by Bingley’s nervous pacing. Bingley was much relieved after reviewing his doubts with his two friends the previous evening when they had returned home, but still not sure. The Colonel, who had known the Bennets for many years, assured Bingley the only thing that would be important to them was the content of his character, and whether Jane loved him and he her.
Darcy agreed with his cousin, adding that everything he had observed about the Bennets agreed with Richard’s conclusion. He reminded Bingley what they had heard Mrs. Bennet say to her girls that one day not long after they had made their acquaintance about only marrying for the deepest love. Bingley had felt much better after the discussion, the result of the relief meant he was one of now three getting ready for a mad dash to Longbourn.
The Hursts smiled knowingly at them as they observed the three anxiously watching the clock, paying attention to little else other than not walking into one another or any furniture as they roamed about the sitting room. At the first chime indicating it was at last nine o’clock in the morning, they took their leave with barely a word, and they sprang on their waiting horses.
Richard had requested the mounts be made ready as soon as he had descended the stairs that morning. The three men eagerly galloped off in the direction of Longbourn. Richard had waited years to claim his Mary but this ride, to him, seemed like the longest trial though in fact none of them had ever ridden to Longbourn so fast.
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All three handed their coats and hats to Bennet’s butler, then were shown in and announced to the group sitting in the blue drawing room where bows and curtsies were made.
“Welcome gentlemen,” Bennet smirked as he looked at their faces brightened by the exercise. He had watched them galloping and then slow as they reached the gate and had little doubt what the morning would bring. He had determined it was best to make them squirm a little as he had for his Fanny, otherwise one might miss the opportunity to so keenly appreciate a positive response.
“You have arrived as we are being entertained with the most ridiculous letter I have ever read.” He offered the three young men who had practically taken residence in his house leave to sit, amused they were waiting for the offer when of late they had acted as family because his Fanny had given them leeway to do so since the Fitzwilliams were, in fact, in residence.
Bennet provided some background to the amusement of the listeners, explaining that prior to the birth of his sons, Tom and James, the estate had been entailed to a very narrow-minded, illiterate, and otherwise uneducated, miserly cousin, a Mr. Ned Collins.
The cousin had felt it a personal affront Fanny had dared to produce not one, but two sons, and had in jealousy and disgust severed all contact while apoplectic over the usurping of what he deemed his God given right to inherit Longbourn. Bennet also explained the man had unsuccessfully tried to stop the breaking of the entail in front of a judge.
This same cousin had since passed away and now his son, who had taken orders and was the rector at Hunsford, which was the living gifted by Rosings Park, had written a letter inviting himself to come visit. In Collins’s expressed words, he wanted toheal the breach and offer an olive branch, as instructed by his much-exalted patroness, none other than thegreatLady Catherine de Bourgh.
As soon as William and Richard heard this, they knew this vicar would be as obsequious and sycophantic as all the others Lady Catherine appointed, never mind it was no longer her gift to appoint. The more of a sycophant the appointee was, the more she preferred it. She was the kind of person that needed her ego puffed up by senseless and unwarranted grovelling.
The Fitzwilliams in residence had already apprised Bennet of the type of man that the rector would be. From what Bennet described of Collins’s letter, this inhabitant of Hunsford was the worst specimen yet, and that was really saying something.
Not only had he invited himself with no prior acquaintance or introduction, but he was a mixture of servile, praising, pomposity, and pandering obsequiousness rolled into one. Even worse, it was determined from his writing that he was no smarter than, as he called him,his dear honourable departed father.
Based on the manner in which he went on about Lady Catherine and her condescension to him, one could rightly be confused whether he worshiped the Lord on High or Lady Catherine or both. Due to his lack of attention, or his inherent inability to handle details, the letter had been misdirected and he was due to arrive on the morrow at four o’clock.
Bennet decided not to send his express rider to Hunsford to deliver a response telling him that he was not welcome because he was certain the parson would ignore the express and come anyway.
The fact Collins had the gall to suggest his offering of an olive branch would be to marry one of the Bennet daughters, so when Mr. Bennet went to his eternal reward he would be there to lead and guide the family when he took over the estate, was the point that made him most unwilling to host this idiot.
“He does realise Longbourn will be mine one day hopefully many, many years from now, does he not? In addition, I have my brother James so there are two sons, and the entail was broken almost six years ago. Was he not in the court when the judge delivered his verdict?” Tom stated incredulously.
“Given the mean understanding he displays in his letter, Son, he more than likely believes with Lady Catherine’s permission, and his being a member of the clergy, the rules do not apply to him. He seems to share a trait with Miss Bingley in that he considers no facts that do not fit with what he wants and makes up his own reality,” Bennet opined.
“That would make him very compatible with Catherine. She has always believed the rules are what she decides they are, and the truth is whatever she wants it to be. She thinks she is above the law, the King, and even God, I dare say. I have no proof, but I strongly suspect she had a hand in my late brother Lewis de Bourgh’s death these fifteen years past,” Lord Matlock stated. “Why do you think that in the face of both written and oral proof contradicting her nonsense of an agreement for William to marry his cousin, Anne, she steadfastly repeats the lie she has told since my brother George passed?”
“Is she really that bad, that delusional?” asked Thomas.
“YES!!” All the Darcys and Fitzwilliams present simultaneously responded.
“And far worse! You thought Caroline Bingley lived in her own dream world? She has nothing on our Aunt Catherine,” Richard added in not toosottovoce.
“Other than ride out to meet him on the road on the morrow, there is nothing we can do but wait for this interesting specimen of humanity to arrive. Once he arrives and we assess the situation, we will decide what to do with my uninvited, distant cousin.” Bennet sighed in resignation.
If the three young men did not have a very specific purpose in mind for that day, they may have thought about volunteering for the office of riding out right away to send the wayward parson home. But this day their minds were much more pleasantly engaged.
The three besotted men asked the Bennet siblings and Georgie if they would like to take a turn in the park. Once the group of ten had their outerwear, they all exited the house for their walk.
It did not escape Fanny and Thomas, Reggie and Elaine, and Andrew and Marie that the three men who had shown up at the earliest possible moment a gentleman caller could come were paired with the very same ladies they had danced with thrice at the assembly.
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