“Yes, well, let us hope that day is far in the future, and that you will all be well settled afore it comes,” Mr Bennet said drily.
“Why is he coming, Papa? I did not think you had ever met,” Mary enquired.
“Ah! I will allow him to answer your question, through his letters. He wrote to me in October, but that was not a suitable time to accept his visit, so I put him off. But he has written again recently, and I can see no way to deny him this time. Let me read you his first.” He pulled two letters from his pocket and opened one to read aloud.
Mr Collins’s letter went on in an overblown and wordy way for two full pages, much of it congratulating himself on his own happy situation as parson to a great lady and inviting himself to attend his relations at Longbourn before concluding with flowery good wishes. “What do you think of that, eh, girls?” Mr Bennet asked as he folded up the letter. “He seems to be a most conscientious and polite young man, upon my word, and I doubt not will prove a valuable acquaintance, especially if Lady Catherine should be so indulgent as to let him come to us again.”
Elizabeth, struck by his extraordinary deference for Lady Catherine and obsequious turns of phrase, watched as her amused father unfolded the second, thankfully briefer missive.
Dear Sir,
It having been two months since the lamentable loss of Mrs Bennet, and I as a clergyman neither requiring nor expecting much in the way of entertainment, such activities being largely forbidden to you at present, I hope that there can be no objection to receiving me for that visit which has so long been anticipated, I flatter myself to think, on both sides. That I may now condole with you and your amiable daughters upon your loss is, I think a great benefit which I am privileged to add to this reunification of our family. My patroness, the Right Honourable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, has graciously condescended to allow me a fortnight complete for my travels, and thus I propose to wait upon you Monday, 27th January, and remain for twelve days in total.
With prayers for the lessening of your grief and the increase of your future felicity, I remain, dear sir,
your friend and cousin,
William Collins
“And so, you see,” Mr Bennet concluded with some satisfaction, “we are to have a guest in less than a fortnight.”
‘The increase of your future felicity?’Elizabeth looked around the room at her sisters, like her, clad in their mourning blacks. How well this Mr Collins could condole with them was doubtful, but he might indeed provide them some entertainment—welcome or not.
Before their cousin was due, however, was the wedding of Charlotte Lucas to Mr Jones. The day before the event, Jane received a letter from Louisa Hurst which ended all hope that the Netherfield party would return in time to attend. Miss Bingley had been invited to live indefinitely with her friend Miss Symonds, which would save her the cost of her companion. Mr Bingley was in the process of securing to his sister the income from her dowry, that he might have less cause to interact with her in future, but the solicitors were very busy and the business proceeded slowly. He was also sorting out a number of bills she had run up in his name, and putting in place safeguards against a repeat of this spending.
Though Mrs Hurst related these events in a rational, even dry, manner, her frustration was not entirely hidden from the recipient, or Elizabeth, with whom Jane shared the missive. The young widow admitted that she resented Caroline for prolonging their stay in town, which Louisa was finding entirely too loud and busy in her present state of mind, and concluded by relating that her brother had particularly asked to be remembered to Miss Bennet.
As Jane penned a sympathetic reply, Elizabeth could only marvel at Miss Bingley’s attitude. Elizabeth was quite sure she could run a comfortable household for herself and a companion with the interest from twenty thousand pounds, and wondered at the sense of entitlement which led to spending much more than that on one’s wardrobe and entertainments alone. Shaking off such musings, she cheered herself with the thought that her dear Jane should not find herself sharing a home with such a sister.
When she dared to speak that notion to Jane, she did not receive the reproof she expected. Rather, Jane looked thoughtful for a moment and replied that while she felt sorry for Miss Bingley, so unhappy despite such resources, she had rather not be in the position of living with anyone who had demonstrated such selfishness.
“That is the most unforgiving speech,” said Elizabeth, amazed, “that I ever heard you utter. Good girl! It would vex me indeed to see you continue to think well of her after what she has done—she might have started an epidemic in London, had she contracted smallpox here and not been forced to remain strictly at home, lest her situation—living alone without a better companion than the housekeeper—become known.”
Jane visibly shuddered at the notion of a smallpox epidemic tearing through the teeming streets of London, and all because one desperate woman absconded to avoid the illness. “Well, I hope they may settle her business soon, and return to Netherfield. Perhaps it is not right to think in such a way while we mourn our dear mama, but I do miss their society.”
Although Elizabeth smiled, she forbore from teasing Jane over the question of precisely whose society she missed, and instead replied, “As do I. Though your Mr Bingley is a friend to all, I have come to like Mrs Hurst and Mr Darcy very well, also. It is a pity that Miss Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam cannot be expected to return.”
“I think there may be many opportunities to meet with Miss Darcy again in future,” Jane offered with a small, private smile. “She is often with her brother, who is often with Mr Bingley.”
“And you will be always with Mr Bingley, if there is any justice in the world,” Elizabeth teased, and laughed at her sister’s blush.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR
Though he hadbusiness of his own in London, Darcy discovered that being away from Hertfordshire also allowed him the time and distance he required to think on his attraction to Miss Elizabeth Bennet with greater clarity. His cousin’s words he could not discount; Fitzwilliam had been entirely correct in saying that Elizabeth had no expectations, and likely no hopes, of him. Attempting to prove to himself that his feelings were reciprocated, he had compared her behaviour towards him to her behaviour towards his cousin and had found very little difference, save that Fitzwilliam made her laugh more often.
But what of our private conversations, the consolation I offered her, and the commiseration and confidences we exchanged? Has she forgotten those moments when we appeared to be connected by shared feeling, or did they mean less to her than to me?
Unlike Jane Bennet, who could hardly be drawn from a conversation with Bingley to engage with the others present, Elizabeth was often the one to draw others into the rare private exchanges he managed to have with her. While he had sat in the parlour at Longbourn feeling as though his every yearning was writ upon his forehead, she and all her family had remained cheerfully oblivious. She was certainly not waiting in expectation of his addresses!
He felt more certain with every passing hour that he had fallen deeply and irrevocably in love with her. The difference in their stations he was now able to view with complete indifference; her lack of connexions was certainly not the great evil for which he had initially seen it. On the subject of her younger sisters, however, he could not yet be easy. If they were to revert to their old ways, he would be caught between protecting his own sister and his wife’s natural desire to associate with her own.
And there you go again, old man, assuming that you could make her love you enough that it would be worth asking, he thought wryly.
On one point there was no question at all—his own love, and his increasingly passionate dreams of her notwithstanding, he would not marry Elizabeth Bennet if she did not love him. Some inequality in their affections he believed he could bear, especially at first, for surely the intimacies of married life would work upon a heart as warm as hers, and strengthen any love she already felt. But if she could not love him, that would be the end of it.
Fitzwilliam Darcy was not a man who embraced the vagaries of life. He preferred that his plans, once made, proceed without issue to their conclusions. This much he recognised about himself. It was not until he had been in London a fortnight, missing her more with every breath he took, that he knew he must attempt to turn her heart towards him, however difficult the endeavour proved to be, or how much his relations might disapprove should he succeed. Despite the disparities between their families, she was—in person and abilities—everything he wanted and needed, lacking nothing of real importance, only money and status. He might be the grandson of an earl, but in manners and consideration for others she was vastly his superior. What a mistress of Pemberley those qualities would make her! What a sister to Georgiana!
What a wife. If only he could win her.
