“What I know,” he said, “is that books are safer than conclusions. They permit one to be curious without being committed.”
Elizabeth turned toward him. “That is not an answer.”
“It is the only one I am prepared to give you just now.”
She frowned. “You have noticed it.”
“I am old, not blind. But pray, elaborate, in case I have missed something.”
“The headaches. The way I feel when Mr Collins speaks. And—” She hesitated. “When Mr Darcy is mentioned. I know you saw that.”
His brows lifted. “Did I?”
“Do not trifle, Papa. You pointed that coincidence out before I had even made the connection.”
He sighed and dropped his hand from the shelf. “Very well. I have no explanation about Mr Darcy, but I have noticed that you are more yourself when Mr Collins is not imposing himself upon the room. I have also noticed that you appear less so when he is. I require no philosophy to account for that.”
“That is not fair.”
“Nor is Mr Collins,” her father said dryly. “And yet he persists.”
Elizabeth crossed her arms. “Then you do not think there is anything… particular about him?”
Mr Bennet hesitated. Just long enough.
“I think,” he said slowly, “that he is a man who arrived pre-equipped with certainty and has never misplaced it since. Such people are tiresome. Occasionally harmful. Rarely interesting.”
“That is not what I mean.”
“Well? Be more specific, Lizzy.”
She pressed her lips together. “What do you know of his family?”
That did it.
Papa’s mouth curved—not in amusement, but in something more reluctant. He returned to his chair and sat, folding his hands upon the desk as though arranging his thoughts before allowing them speech.
“Very little,” he said. “And most of that second-hand.”
Elizabeth waited again.
“His mother,” her father went on, “was a cousin of my own, once removed and twice regretted. She was thought… delicate. High spirits, they called it at first. A less charitable description was ‘troubled.’ She was married young to a man with a keen eye for property and a temper equal to it.”
“And she was well?”
Papa shrugged. “Define well. She disappeared from family life with remarkable efficiency. Letters arrived. Perfectly sensible ones. Polite. Domestic. She seemed, on paper, entirely reconciled to her circumstances.”
“And in truth?”
“That was less clear. There were whispers. Accusations. A quarrel between her husband and Collins’ father—my cousin—that ended all communication. Collins insists she died. Others believed she was… placed somewhere quieter.” He waved a hand. “It is many years past. No one saw fit to pursue the matter.”
Elizabeth stared at him. “You say this as though it were nothing.”
“I say it as though it were no longer actionable,” he replied. “One cannot rescue a woman twenty years too late, nor indict a son for accepting the version of events most convenient to him.”
She swallowed. “And you think it has no bearing on me.”
“I think,” Papa said carefully, “that families are full of unhappy stories if one is inclined to look for them. I do not propose to burden you with every skeleton rattling about in our relations’ cupboards.”
