Elizabeth walked with him as far as the front steps, where the carriage waited, the gravel crunching softly under their feet in the mild morning air.
“I am glad you came, Cousin William,” she said frankly, meeting his eyes with her customary directness. “You have made us all wish you well.”
“That is more kindness than I deserve,” he replied, his voice low and earnest. “But I hope to deserve it in time, Miss Elizabeth.”
Mr. Bennet, observing them from a little distance, his hands clasped behind his back in habitual pose, allowed himself a look of quiet satisfaction, the faint curve of his lips betraying a deeper contentment than he often permitted to show. When William turned to him at last, ready and composed, he said only—
“Come, sir. Oxford will not admit us the later for punctuality.”
William obeyed at once, with a nod that acknowledged both command and trust.
Mrs. Bennet, in a burst of maternal feeling that surprised even herself, kissed him lightly upon the cheek, her earlier reservations quite forgotten in the moment of parting.
“Do not forget us, Mr. Collins,” she cried, her voice trembling with unaccustomed emotion. “And pray remember that Hertfordshire has its merits, even if Oxford thinks otherwise.”
“I shall remember both,” he answered, with a gentle bow that encompassed the entire family.
As the carriage turned from the sweep and took the road, Mr. Bennet leaned back against the cushions and allowed himself a moment of reflective silence, his thoughts already travelling beyond Hertfordshire. In the boot behind them lay a small but carefully packed chest of books—volumes gathered over years of quiet accumulation, some duplicates, others long since read and set aside—selected with deliberate care for Professor Saunders. A portion he intended as a gift, in acknowledgment of past friendship and present kindness; the remainder, by prior understanding, Saunders would purchase at a fair valuation, the sum to be held in readiness against the expenses of William’s first year, should the trial at Oxford conclude as Bennet cautiously hoped.
The arrangement pleased him—not merely for its prudence, but for its propriety. No debt incurred, no favor abused, no dependence encouraged beyond what necessity required. If the boy succeeded, he would do so with means honestly contrived and responsibility clearly apportioned.
After a mile or two, during which William sat upright and silent, gazing steadily ahead as if fixing the road in his mind, Mr. Bennet spoke at last.
“You understand, sir,” he said quietly, “that nothing is yet decided. Oxford will judge you on what you show them—not on my opinion, nor on anyone else’s.”
“I understand, sir,” William replied at once. “I ask for no indulgence.”
Mr. Bennet inclined his head, satisfied. “Very good. Then we shall proceed as we ought.”
And the carriage went on, bearing them toward Oxford—not with flourish or expectation loudly proclaimed, but with that steadiness of purpose which, when it succeeds, appears afterwards to have been inevitable.
***
Oxford received them in the late afternoon, when the heat of the day had softened and the light lay broad and golden upon stone that had known centuries of scholars, disputations, prayers, and ambitions both fulfilled and disappointed. To William Collins—who had never before been beyond the bustle of Portsmouth and the measured quiet of Longbourn—the place seemed at once austere and alive, grave without gloom, and ordered without rigidity. Towers and quadrangles rose about them with a solidity that spoke not of fashion, but of endurance; the very air appeared steeped in study, as though thought itself had taken lodging there and refused to depart.
Mr. Bennet observed his young companion with a discreet attentiveness as their carriage passed beneath ancient arches and along streets where gowns brushed the paving-stones and voices floated in learned fragments of Latin and English alike. William sat upright, his hands folded upon his hat, his countenance composed but intent, his eyes moving with quiet absorption from façade to façade, taking in the carved dates, the narrow windows, the doors worn smooth by generations of hands. There was no vulgar astonishment in his manner, no display of awe; yet it was plain to any careful observer that the sight pressed upon him with a weight both solemn and exhilarating.
“You need not look as though you were entering a tribunal, Cousin Collins,” Mr. Bennet remarked mildly, after a moment. “Oxford prefers curiosity to fear, and diligence to either.”
“I am not afraid, sir,” William replied, after a brief hesitation. “Only—very desirous not to be found unequal.”
“That,” said Mr. Bennet, “is an anxiety more likely to serve you than to injure you.”
They were received first at the lodgings of Professor Saunders, who, though attached by fellowship to another college, resided conveniently near St. Edmund Hall, and had long since acquired a reputation for plain living, exact habits, and a judicious kindness toward those placed under his informal guidance.
The house in which Professor Saunders had his residence stood in a quiet street not far removed from the colleges, yet sufficiently withdrawn to escape the perpetual stir of undergraduate life. Built of pale brick and marked by a sober regularity of design, the frontage was distinguished by a precise symmetry: two matching entrances, set to either side of the central axis of the building, each approached by a short flight of stone steps and secured by a solid door, dark with age and respectable use.
The left-hand entrance served a physician, Mr. Gale, who both resided and kept his consulting rooms there—a man of discreet habits and settled reputation, whose windows looked upon the street and at certain hours revealed the subdued movement of waiting patients. He was known in the neighborhood rather by inference than acquaintance, spoken of seldom, and never lightly; a presence quietly acknowledged, and for the present no more than observed.
The opposite entrance admitted one to the apartments occupied by Professor Saunders, consisting of a small suite of rooms whose arrangements reflected the temper of his mind: orderly, unpretending, and governed by habit rather than display. His rooms were clean, well-aired, and furnished with solid comfort, the shelves lined with well-used books rather than objects of ornament. With him lived Mrs. Wells, his cook—an established woman of middle years, steady in her ways and competent in plain, nourishing fare—and Mr. Edmunds, a general servant of few words and many uses, equally capable as messenger, caretaker, or overseer of those small but continual demands to which an older house must submit.
The clear division of the building, and the quiet regularity with which each part was maintained, gave the whole an air of moral order, as though every person and profession within its walls understood both its place and its limits—an impression not lost upon Mr. Bennet, who regarded the arrangement with a calm satisfaction, well suited to the purpose of their visit.
Professor Saunders came forward himself upon hearing their names announced, his countenance lighting at once with unaffected pleasure.
“My dear Bennet!” he exclaimed, grasping his friend’s hand with scholarly warmth. “You arrive precisely as you promised—and with no sign of having been weather-beaten on the road, which is more than I can say for half my pupils. You are heartily welcome.”
“And I thank you for receiving us, Saunders,” returned Mr. Bennet. “I feared I might find you buried beneath papers and unwilling to surface.”
