In expectation of seeing you,
Mr F Phillips, Esq.
After the second reading, Collins decided he should go and hear what the solicitor wanted. Although now that he was the master of Longbourn, what this could mean he could not guess.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Fanny Collins was a shell of her former self. Her husband had beaten the woman she used to be out of her. She could not complain or contact anyone, because Mr Collins—he denied her the privilege to call him ‘Clem’ since she had not given him a son—forbade her from sending or receiving post. She was not allowed to leave the house. The only servant remaining was Mrs Winters, and on the one half day off she had each fortnight, her reticule was searched to make sure she was not carrying a letter for the mistress. Fanny realised that even had there been a way to write and post an epistle, there was no one left who might have a sympathetic ear to her plight.
For so long, Fanny had blamed everyone else for her failings, but in the last months, she had finally understood that she was paying the price for her wrongheaded actions and decisions. By the time she owned that she needed to admit what she had done with her Bennet daughters, her husband had decreed that she was not to communicate with anyone outside of Longbourn’s manor house. After admitting her faults to herself, Fanny decided that she was suffering justly for what she had done. Denied the ability to post letters, Fanny poured her confessions into missives which she placed inside of her journal.
So far, she had been able to protect Kitty—who although not comely, was thankfully not like her father in looks—and Lydia who looked far more like herself than her husband, from the worst of Mr Collins’s wrath. He had only slapped Kitty once, and so far Lydia never. Her daughters were timid and withdrawn as she had taught them to do nothing which would anger their father.
To spare her youngest two daughters as much as possible, Fanny did almost all of the work the maids would have done. She gave Kitty and Lydia easy and light tasks which would not callous their hands like had happened to her own. In addition to callouses, Fanny’s hands were scarred and stained from doing the laundry. To add to her woes, she had lost a lot of weight because of the meagre scraps that Mr Collins allowed her and his daughters. Of the little he set aside for them to eat, Fanny gave most of it to her girls. At least the girls ate enough. It was thanks to the food augmented by Mrs Winters, who would always bring additional bread, fruit, and cheese when Mr Collins was not at home or too much in his cups to pay attention. Fanny would only eat the food Mrs Winters brought once her daughters were sated.
She prayed that one day Edward would discover her journal and find the letter of apology and confession she had written to him. If God were good, He would end her suffering soon, although she was determined to remain in the mortal world as long as she could to protect her two daughters still at Longbourn.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
As Collins walked to Mr Phillips’s office, his already bad mood worsened. Here he was, master of the second-largest estate in the area, having to walk the one mile into Meryton. That excuse for a carriage he had been left with was no longer in working order—it had been that way for well over a year—and he had not the money to repair it. As no one had wanted to purchase the nag, he had slaughtered it and ordered Mrs Winters to use it for food.
Since he had become master, especially as his financial problems had become serious, the chickens and pigs had slowly been turned into comestibles for him. He had been most put out when Mrs Winters informed him there were no more eggs. It was only then he realised he should have left a few hens in the coop.
Phillips was not surprised when the idiotic bully walked into his office without an appointment. He had Jamison open all of the windows and doors to try and dissipate the foul odour which arrived with Collins. It was well known in the area, especially by anyone who had the misfortune of smelling him, that the master of Longbourn was averse to bathing.
“What is it you want?” Collins demanded after sitting without being invited to do so.
Phillips had to fight not to block his nose. “Mr Collins, aside from the clauses I indicated to you the day the late Mr Bennet’s will was read, have you read the whole of the entail document?”
“Why should I? I own the estate now; so there is no need,” Collins insisted.
“Mr Collins, you arenotthe owner of Longbourn. Like the late Mr Bennet before you, you are a lifetime tenant. The reason I asked about the entail is that there are clauses which cover the situation you have caused, the insolvency of the estate,” Phillips explained slowly as if to a young child.
“My estate is not bankrupt! You are jealous because I am a landed gentleman, and you are a lowly solicitor,” Collins bit back.
“As you almost always are, you are wrong! My wife and I are the owners of Netherfield Park, and mysonwill one day be the master of a much larger estate in Devonshire. So of what, pray tell, have I to be jealous?” Phillips mocked.
On the seventeenth day of October 1798, Lawrence Franklin Phillips had been born. He was named after his grandfather Morris and his father. The babe had become the heir apparent to Beech Hill on his birth. Agatha and Frank Phillips’ pride and joy had turned one-year-old a month and a day past.
“Or should I envy the fact that you took an estate which was earning more than three thousand pounds per annum and ran it into the ground, earning less than five hundred pounds now? Perhaps you think I want to be a man devoid of honour like you who beats his wife? Tell me, Mr Collins, which of yourstellarattributes or achievements have ignited my jealousy?” Phillips was about to sit back when he saw the moment the rage took over, and the portly, malodorous man opposite him decided to attack him.
Thanks to being a champion pugilist at Oxford, Phillips jumped up from his chair, and easily sidestepped the man and unleashed a devastating jab which connected with the despicable man’s face. He watched with satisfaction as the bully’s head snapped back and blood began to fall from his damaged nose.
“Now sit so we may conclude our business, or do I need to demonstrate my skill with my fists again?” Phillips growled.
Collins did what he always did when he was faced with one stronger than himself—he backed down. He returned to his seat and began to dab his bleeding nose with his rather filthy handkerchief. “Why am I here?” Collins managed.
“The entail states with no ambiguity that if a lifetime tenant drives the estate into insolvency, then the next in line will inherit.” Phillips raised his hand in the shape of a fist, and the man opposite understood that he was to keep his mouth closed, so he did. “You have no son, so therefore the estate becomes the property of the three Bennet sisters, who by blood are closely tied to the late Mr Bennet. When one of them has a son who does not have his own estate, that son will become the new master of Longbourn as long as he takes the Bennet name.” Phillips saw the brute was about to interject, so he shot him a quelling look. “I am fully aware that we do not know where the sisters are. As Mr Gardiner is their guardian, he will administer the estate, as he is their funds, which are rather extensive, and all of the items which are being stored and hold it in trust until one of the girls is discovered. You see Mr Bennet provided very well for his daughters.”
“What if none of the chits is found? Is it all mine then?” Collins queried. His eyes getting large imagining everything coming to him. However, as he did not want to anger Mr Phillips again, Collins kept his voice calm and deferential.
“The instant I signed this document,” Phillips lifted it, “you were removed from the line of succession. It is irrevocable. So what may or may not happen if one of Mr Gardiner’s wards are not discovered is not your concern. I mentioned Wednesday in my note because by midday on the following day, you and your family must vacate Longbourn, and you may not remove anything that is listed in the inventory attached to the entail.” He paused to allow his words to penetrate the buffoon’s brain, such as it was. “Do you understand?”
“What if my wife births a son?” Collins questioned as he was grasping at straws. Perhaps a son would save him.
“Are you delusional, or do you truly not know?” Phillips asked.
“Do not know what?” Collins responded looking genuinely confused. What was the man going on about?
