“Their first stop was Mr. Jennings’s office, where William was at once set a simple trial of writing. He copied a short legal notice under observation, his hand steady, his attention exact; and before the ink was dry, both the solicitor and Mr. Cobb exchanged looks of undisguised satisfaction. The boy’s pen moved without haste or flourish, but with a care and legibility that spoke of habit rather than accident.
“You can write slowly and hesitantly, yet beautifully; or you can write a fair page in minutes rather than hours, Mr. Collins,” Mr. Jennings declared, delivering his judgment with professional emphasis. “The essential point is not speed for its own sake, but correctness without waste of time. That, young man, we shall see to.”
The necessary papers were then signed with dispatch, Mr. Jennings greeting the conclusion of the business with his customary measured courtesy and expressing a quiet confidence that the arrangement would answer well. Mr. Cobb, for his part, could scarcely conceal his eagerness, and spoke already ofexercises to be begun and improvements to be made, as though the first lesson could not be commenced soon enough.
From thence they proceeded to the parish rooms adjoining St. Thomas à Becket, where Father Hartley received them in the vestry with unaffected kindness and the calm cordiality of one accustomed to quiet duties rather than display. The clergyman, long acquainted with William and already concerned for his improvement, expressed his approval of the arrangement as the fulfilment rather than the alteration of hopes he had himself entertained for some time.
Mr. Aldridge, a capable scholar and retired clergyman, long engaged in instruction and still warmly devoted to learning, was therefore introduced without delay. The good man greeted the company with courtesy, regarded William with encouraging warmth, and examined him briefly but attentively with an experienced eye, engaging him in a few short exchanges of Latin and English, by which he assessed both the lad’s attainments and the difficulties that must yet be overcome.
After a few minutes, he observed with candid good sense, “We must strengthen the language somewhat. Portsmouth docks are no preparation for the halls of Oxford or Cambridge.”
He then assured both Mr. Bennet and the clergyman that their studies should commence on the morrow, with particular attention to securing the boy’s foundations in Latin, and extending them, as diligence allowed, to Greek.”
The third and final business of the day led them into a large street not far from the High Street, where a tailor of respectable reputation kept his shop. There, with no ceremony beyond what decency required, William Collins was measured for two suits of plain but serviceable clothes—one intended for daily wear, theother of somewhat better cut, suitable for Sundays and for such occasions as might require a more orderly appearance.
The tailor, accustomed to such commissions, named a term of ten days for their completion—a period neither unusually short nor unreasonably long, and one to which Mr. Bennet readily assented. The cloth selected was sober in color and durable in quality, chosen less for fashion than for propriety; for it was evident to all present that the young man’s present attire, though clean and carefully mended, could not long serve him in his new employment without betraying its modest origin.
From thence they proceeded to a shoemaker nearby, where, after some hesitation on William’s part and a firm but kindly insistence on Mr. Bennet’s, a new pair of shoes was ordered and fitted. They were not elegant, but soundly made, suitable for daily use, and a necessary provision for one who was to sit long hours at a desk and walk regularly between home, office, and church.
William had already been furnished with a reminder—gentle, but unmistakable—that while he might attend the solicitor’s office for a few days in his present best Sunday clothes, such expedients could not be continued without embarrassment, nor without diminishing the respect due to his position. A copyist, however humble his beginning, could not appear perpetually in garments worn thin by service at an inn.
Nothing in these purchases was extravagant; yet to the boy they signified more than comfort or decency. They marked, in quiet but unmistakable fashion, his passage from necessity to purpose—from chance employment to a path deliberately chosen and cautiously prepared.
Three
Mr. Bennet returned to Longbourn with no greater outward alteration than a degree of fatigue which he made no attempt to conceal—evident in the slight weariness about his eyes and the unhurried manner in which he relinquished his travelling coat to the servant—and a seriousness of manner which, though it passed unnoticed by his daughters in their cheerful bustle of welcome, was immediately perceived by his wife.
Mrs. Bennet, who had for the last few days been indulging herself in a variety of conjectures—none of them agreeable, and several bordering upon the catastrophic—concluded at once that Portsmouth had been every bit as dreadful as she had anticipated, and prepared herself, with a flutter of her cap strings and a quickened pulse, to hear of inconveniences, expenses, and perhaps even illness contracted amid the damp sea air. She was therefore surprised—and not a little disconcerted—when her husband was at last seated opposite her in the parlor, the late afternoon light slanting through the windows and catching the dust motes in the quiet air, to find that he spoke not of roads or weather, sailors or inns, but of the young son of Cousin Collins.
“William Collins!” she bristled, in a tone which united astonishment with reproach, her hands clasping tightly in her lap as though to contain her rising agitation. “I thought you went to Portsmouth to offer condolences, not to bring home relations! Upon my word, Mr. Bennet, one would suppose you meant to quarter the whole family upon us next.”
“I have no such ambition,” returned Mr. Bennet mildly, allowing the faintest trace of amusement to touch his lips, though his eyes remained serious, “nor, as you may observe, have I brought the boy with me. Nor have I any such power. I merely wish to inform you of a resolution I have taken—a resolution rendered necessary by circumstances you already know from the solicitor’s letter.”
Mrs. Bennet drew herself up, her color heightening, and arranged her shawl with a decision which always preceded resistance. “Necessary! And resolved! I knew it. I was certain the moment you spoke of staying longer than a day. There is always some resolution when you leave me to manage alone. And pray—what is it now? Do not tell me you mean to educate the boy. We have daughters, Mr. Bennet—five daughters—and not one of them provided for!”
Her husband, who had anticipated this reception with his customary foresight, bore it with patience, leaning back slightly in his chair and regarding her with that steady, half-veiled gaze she both resented and relied upon.
“I am perfectly aware of the size and composition of my family,” he said. “They have not escaped my notice. And I have reasons to believe he will become a fine clergyman, should his inclinations and abilities continue as they promise.”
“Then I cannot imagine,” Mrs. Bennet continued, warming with her subject and gesturing with increasing vehemence, “what you can be thinking of, to take upon yourself the expense of another man’s son—an innkeeper’s son, too!—when we must look to our own future. What will become of me, and the girls, if you spend our income upon strangers? I protest I shall not sleep a wink if this goes on—my nerves will be quite shattered, as you well know.”
“You may sleep quite securely, I assure you,” replied Mr. Bennet, his voice calm and measured, offering the reassurance she craved even as he knew it would not immediately suffice. “The boy shall not cost you or the girls a shilling.”
Mrs. Bennet stared, her mouth forming a small circle of surprise before suspicion quickly reclaimed her features. “Not a shilling? Then how, in Heaven’s name, do you propose to make a clergyman of him?”
“By spending my own money,” said Mr. Bennet, “and by spending it in such a manner as to leave our household precisely as it was before—neither diminished in comfort nor altered in its prospects. The boy will be employed as a copyist; the small provision his mother left will suffice to improve his primary instruction; and he will not be without his father’s support.”
This declaration did not immediately produce the tranquility he had intended; for Mrs. Bennet, though comforted by assurances of economy, was seldom satisfied without a full comprehension of particulars, and her mind, ever quick to foresee calamity, now turned to fresh apprehensions.
“Your own money!” she cried, rising half from her seat in her agitation. “As if that were not the family’s money! What difference does it make whether it is paid out of one pocket or another, when all must come to the same end? And what return do we make upon it? Gratitude!—I know what gratitude is worth. The moment the boy is settled, we shall be forgotten, I dare say, and laughed at for our folly.”
“I do not propose to purchase gratitude,” said Mr. Bennet, with a faint, dry smile that acknowledged the justice of her worldly wisdom even as he dismissed it. “I propose to encourage merit—a quality I have observed in the boy, and one which his mother’s careful provision was intended to foster.”
Mrs. Bennet was not to be softened by so abstract a motive. “Merit does not keep a roof over one’s head. Nor does it secure husbands for daughters. And what if he should marry? What if he should bring a wife and children upon us, and expect to be maintained, because we have once helped him? Irresponsible as you are, you might die sooner than you should. These schemes are all very well for men, who never think of consequences; but women must consider them—we have no choice but to consider them.”
Mr. Bennet smiled faintly, though a shadow of genuine reflection passed across his countenance at her mention of his mortality. “You may spare yourself that anxiety. William Collins has no such expectations, and no such inclinations.”
“How can you be sure?” she demanded, her voice rising with renewed alarm.
