“Why would I jest with you, when at that point we had not even been introduced?” The Earl scoffed at the idea, waving away the intimation as inconsequential. Collins was about to respond but the Earl cut him off. “My nephew Darcy is not now, nor has he ever been, engaged to my niece Anne. And I know for a fact it is not the match Anne desires, either,” the Earl stated in what all present knew was a warning to accept, but Collins was never praised for his being able to understand the tone of a conversation.
“As much as it pains me to contradict a personage of your rank your Lordship, you must be in error. My patroness is never wrong, she knows all. Why she even told me to put shelves in my closets at my humble abode, the parsonage at Hunsford, which was nothing less than brilliance on her part,” Collins related with pride.
As Collins spoke of his patroness, all watching noted he looked like he was in raptures. It was to his deep displeasure to discover everyone was laughing at him and he could not understand why. Unfortunately for those present, he was then even more determined to carry his point, but the Earl had heard enough of the idiotic pronouncements emanating from the very stupid parson.
“Mr. Collins, do you worship God or my sister?” The Earl asked with gravity that stopped the merriment in the room.
The parson was once again sweating profusely, undoing almost all of the good that was done by his bathing. “God, of course. What kind of question is that? I am not a heretic!” Collins replied with a look of the deepest offence.
“Is God always right?” the Earl pressed, and the parson allowed it was indeed so. “Is there any mere mortal, man or women, that like God, is always right?” the Earl asked, trapping Collins so obviously all others there, other than the dim-witted Collins, knew it was occurring.
“No, your Lordship. That distinction is for God on High and His Son Jesus alone,” the stupid parson said smugly, not seeing the hole he had just dug for himself.
During this exchange, the rest of the party was doing whatever they could to stop from bursting out in laughter at the ridiculousness spewing from the man that had forced his company on them.
“So, you are saying no man is like God who is always right?” the Earl continued his lesson.
“I just said that, your Lordship.” Collins replied with barely contained exasperation but allowing that the Earl must be hard of hearing.
“Well then, Collins, you must be a heretic. You have multiple times now put mydearsister on the same plain as our Lord God on High. Did you not say more than once that she is never wrong? And did you not say there is no man or a woman who is never wrong? Did you not just say that distinction is only for God Almighty and His Son?” The Earl tightened the figurative noose around the throat slightly obscured by Collins’s flapping jowls.
It took the very dull parson some time to assimilate the Earl’s words, then he almost had an apoplexy as he realised what he himself had said. He had, in fact, made Lady Catherine equal to God. He fell back into a chair and forced himself to calm down somewhat.
He was succeeding until Darcy addressed him. “The Archbishop of Canterbury is my cousin. I believe I should ask him how your theological leanings fit into the Church of England’s doctrine,” Darcy stated with absolute solemnity.
“Please Mr. Darcy, I pray you would not. I misspoke. No one other than God, my patroness included, is never wrong, although I do submit she is right most of the time,” Collins offered in what he fervently hoped was deference to both.
“So now you, who have known Lady Catherine since she appointed you what, four months ago?” Darcy waited and Collins nodded, “you think you know her better than her brother who has known her all of her life, or those that make up the rest of her family here that have known her since their birth?”
Darcy was far from done with this excuse of a parson who had dared attempt to come between him and his Lizzy. “As my uncle, theEarl, has already told you, my being engaged or promised to my cousin Anne in any way, shape, or form is a complete fabrication Lady Catherine started to pronounce after the death of my honourable father.”
The parson was about to reply but Darcy kept on without giving him a chance to interrupt. “Your patroness is aught but a fortune hunter. Do you know Rosings Park actually belongs to my cousin Anne, not to my Aunt Catherine, and that my Aunt has always coveted Pemberley’s fortune? Is not coveting that which belongs to someone else breaking one of the Ten Commandments?”
“You have been tricked into this engagement by my cousin. I am sure she used her arts and allurements to distract you and induce you to say these things that cannot be true since my patroness would never say something that was not true,” the parson rationalised, looking like he was going to be ill at the desperation of separating Darcy from Miss Elizabeth Bennet. As the near head of the household, it was his duty to see it done.
“I am not now, nor have Ieverbeen engaged to my Cousin Anne. If I hear you repeat this lie one more time or speak a word of disrespect about my betrothed, I will call you out!DO I MAKE MYSELF VERY CLEAR?” Darcy growled, his eyes narrowing in warning and anger as he looked down at this far from shining example of a human being, let alone the type of person who should lead a flock of God’s children.
Unable to speak, the parson merely nodded. He was very close to soiling his pants, so he asked to be excused and lurched toward the door. As he reached it, Bennet told him a tray would be sent up with his dinner.
“I suggest you take the evening to think about things since you are to depart Longbourn on the morrow. If you want to stay in the area, you will have to take a room at the Inn,” Bennet stated firmly, making it clear that once he departed right after he broke his fast, which too would be taken in his room alone, Collins would never be welcome back at Longbourn.
“I am very sorry Bennet; I know he is your cousin, but that man needs to be defrocked,” the Earl said to Bennet after a very dejected Collins left the room.
“No apology needed, Reggie. I could not agree with you more.” Bennet sighed, relieved this farce would soon be over.
“I will speak to my Cousin Archibald Darcy, who is, as I said, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Once he hears about this debacle of a rector, he will defrock him and remove the Hunsford gift for as long as Aunt Catherine tries to make appointments,” Darcy started to calm down, taking Elizabeth’s waiting hand and kissing it in thanks and appreciation.
“Do that, Darcy!” his uncle agreed.
Darcy asked Bennet if he could use the study to write an express to his cousin, which Bennet assented to with alacrity.
“How can anyone be so obtuse? He is obsequies, proud, and a sycophant all in one, and no intelligence at all,” Tom asked after Darcy went to the study.
“He is terribly odoriferous, even after Papa sent him to bathe before dinner,” James put his finger under his nose as if smelling a very bad odour.
“You are lucky you did not smell him before his bath,” The Earl agreed with clear disgust on his face.
Chapter 10
