Mr Collins smiled, a greasy, ingratiating stretching of the lips. “But you are the eldest marriageable sister, so I thought to honour you with the title you deserve.”
Silence fell thick and heavy across the dining table. Kitty openly gaped; Mary gazed upon him as though he were a slug encountered on the garden path. Jane and Lydia looked wounded. Their father’s expression was stern.
“You dare insult my sister, sir?” Elizabeth hissed, provoked beyond civility. “The kindest, sweetest lady who ever lived? Believe me when I say that I wish for no such honours!”
Mr Collins chuckled nervously, rubbing his hands together. “It is pleasing that you are so devoted to your sisters, yes…very becoming. But your manner of addressing me is not acceptable. When we are married, I will demand your respect in all things.”
“I beg your pardon,” Elizabeth exclaimed. “I have received no proposals from you, and I most certainly have not accepted. You presume too much!”
“But my attentions have been most marked, surely you have not failed to understand,” he replied. “Naturally a formal proposal will be made. You are too sensible to refuse an honourable offer which will secure your future, and that of your sisters.”
“Mr Collins,” said Mr Bennet severely. “Let me be rightly understood. Jane is my eldest daughter, and shall be addressed as such. Any further failures of courtesy in this matter I shall consider a personal insult. And while it is admirable that you wish to offer my daughters a home after I am dead, I will not force any of them into a marriage which they find distasteful. To marry a daughter of mine, you must first gain her consent.”
“Of course, of course,” Mr Collins replied, entirely unperturbed, as if it did not occur to him that his proposals might be in any way objectionable. “In my desire to please Miss Elizabeth, I failed to consider Miss Bennet’s feelings. I will not err so again, sir, now that I know your view of the matter.”
Mr Bennet gazed at his cousin through narrowed eyes but said nothing further. The timely arrival of the roasted chicken gave them all an excuse to turn the subject.
CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE
The next dayopened a new scene at Longbourn as Mr Collins made his declaration in form. His words conveyed more syllables than sense, more stupidity than sentiment. Elizabeth held back laughter as she listened. After a few long minutes of pontification, however, the man’s very decency was called into question.
“...the fact is that being, as I am, to inherit this estate after the death of your honoured father—who, however, may live many years longer, though it is generally believed that widowers do not linger long in this realm, for the bachelor life is unnatural and unwelcome to any gentleman who has known the care and support of a helpmeet—I could not satisfy myself without choosing a wife from among his daughters, that the loss to them be as little as possible when the melancholy event takes place—”
It was absolutely necessary to interrupt him now. “My father, sir, is but five and forty and I expect he shall be with us another twenty years at least,” she answered coldly. “For if he has not a wife to tend him, he has five daughters who will not allow him to decline, if he were disposed to do so.”
He smiled condescendingly upon her and hardly paused to draw breath before continuing his conceited and insulting speech. On and on he droned; Elizabeth ignored him as best she could until she heard yet another insult. “...though there is, I think, reason to believe that your mother’s funds would be most sensibly distributed between yourself, Miss Mary, and Miss Catherine, for it is impossible that the other two shall ever require a dowry, and I shall bring it up with your father when we are making the settlement. On the subject of fortune—”
Offended almost beyond words for Jane and Lydia, Elizabeth shot to her feet. “You are too hasty, sir! You forget that I have made you no answer. Let me do so this instant. I am sensible of the honour of your proposals—”No honour at all, that is, she thought, “—but it is impossible for me to do otherwise than decline them.”
Elizabeth immediately and in silence withdrew from the dining room to find her father waiting outside the door. His obvious amusement did not improve her mood. She followed him back into the dining room, where Mr Collins sat with a satisfied smile. On the appearance of his quarry’s father, his smile only widened, and he opened his mouth to speak.
Mr Bennet preceded him. “I understand, sir, that you have made an offer of marriage to my daughter Elizabeth, and she has refused you?”
Mr Collins nodded and began a lengthy peroration on the error of such a reply. It was the man’s insistence that Elizabeth would provide him the ‘right answer when next I raise the question’ that saw anger overtake her father’s amusement. Mr Collins was slow to notice that the gentleman he addressed bore a face like thunder, and his posture was neither agreeable nor obliging.
“I beg you will recall, sir, my statement of last evening, when I declared that I would not force any of my daughters into marriage. She has given you her answer, and you will not ask her again!”
“But…my position…the entail…” the clergyman sputtered.
“These have evidently not been enough to win my daughter’s hand,” Mr Bennet declared dismissively. “I am sorry for your disappointment—as is Elizabeth, I am sure—but the matter is settled.”
Elizabeth and her father left Mr Collins to brood alone. Shortly after, into this uncomfortable atmosphere came Mr Bingley, Mrs Hurst, Mr Darcy and, in a welcome surprise, Miss Darcy, delivering themselves rather than a note to announce their return to Netherfield.
Elizabeth’s pleasure in their unexpected arrival was nearly as great as Jane’s, but it was their cousin who most openly exhibited his own joy. Mr Collins, upon hearing the name ‘Darcy’, scrambled to present himself, without introduction, to the gentleman and his sister, describing in the full flow of his wit and verbosity his connexion to their honoured, gracious, and condescending aunt. Mr Darcy eyed him with unrestrained wonder, and when at last Mr Collins allowed him time to speak, he replied with an air of distant civility.
“You must excuse us, sir—we have not yet greeted Mr Bennet or his daughters.” He moved quickly past the clergyman, who was bowing repeatedly in a grovelling manner, Miss Darcy clinging to her brother’s arm and equally eager to escape.
Mr Bingley and Mrs Hurst had made use of the spectacle to slip along the edges of the room, and were happily engaged in conversation with the ladies of the house. The Darcys fetched up before Mr Bennet, who regarded them with equal parts sympathy and amusement, and kept the civilities to a minimum that they, too, might join his daughters. He then did them all a great favour, by distracting his cousin for some minutes.
The five Bennet sisters and their four guests thereby received a full half an hour to speak amongst themselves. After the state of the roads had been canvassed, and Miss Bingley enquired after— “We are very disappointed with her. She believes she was correct to flee the area and will hear no other opinion,” Bingley reported—Lydia then turned to Mrs Hurst and Miss Darcy and confided, “Lord, but we are glad you have come! Mr Collins has been with us for more than a week, and today he has been worse than usual, for he is angry that Lizzy refused him.”
“Lydia!” hissed Elizabeth, Jane, and Mary in concert. Mary continued by saying, more gently, “That is Elizabeth’s private business, Sister. If she wanted our friends to know it, it was for her to tell them.”
Lydia had the grace to look rather abashed. “I am sorry, Lizzy, I spoke without thinking. But surely such good friends can be trusted to say nothing of this to anyone?”
Their guests were looking in wonder between the pompous clergyman and Elizabeth, obviously astounded that the odd fellow would think to win her with an acquaintance of only a few days, and in the midst of her mourning, no less.
The silence lengthened, the only sound in the room now the excited chatter of Mr Collins, and Elizabeth eventually dropped her hands from her burning face and nerved herself to look at her friends. “It is true. He made me an offer this morning, and I have refused it. It seems that his patroness, your aunt,” she added with a nod to the Darcys, “has informed him that it is time he married. Knowing he had five female cousins who would depend upon his goodwill in the event of our father’s demise, he concluded that the most expedient method of obeying would be to select one of us.”
