Page 23 of Five Gentlemen at Netherfield (Pride and Prejudice Variations)

Longbourn

Half an hour later, with a silk shawl wrapped around her shoulders, and a lace cap covering her still-blonde curls, Mrs. Bennet made her way down the stairway to the dining room.

She was thankful that her own chamber was closer to the stairs than her husband’s, as she was afraid to even pass the door behind which her husband lay.

The news of her late rising had obviously found its way to Cook, who had arranged for fresh muffins and coffee and tea and stewed plums in the breakfast parlor.

She was, she realized, extremely hungry, and reminded herself that whatever else happened, she simply must eat and keep her strength up.

She owed it to her daughters and her husband.

She was more than halfway through her meal when the door opened to reveal Mr. Collins, who stepped inside, bowed deeply, and said, “Mrs. Bennet, good morning.”

“Good morning, Mr. Collins,” she replied, though rather thickly. She took another sip of coffee and said again, more clearly, “Good morning, though it is not truly a good morning. My poor, dear husband! But do sit down, sir, and break your fast!”

“I already enjoyed an excellent meal,” the clergyman answered gravely. “I need to speak to you on a matter of the upmost importance, but I will, of course, wait until you have finished eating.”

Mrs. Bennet was more or less full now, and she deliberately pushed her plate to one side and said, “Please, do sit down and let us discuss whatever is on your mind, Mr. Collins.”

Mr. Collins took a seat and had hardly settled into his chair before he said, “Last evening, after the doctor informed us of Mr. Bennet’s condition and most of you left the drawing room, I asked for my cousin Elizabeth’s hand in marriage.”

Unease gave way to delight. “Oh, Mr. Collins, how wonderful, how absolutely wonderful! Many congratu…”

“She refused me,” Mr. Collins interrupted, his face settling into a petulant frown.

The mistress of Longbourn jerked upright. “Refused you? No!”

“She did,” her guest said and then added resentfully, “moreover, she informed me that one of her aunts died recently and left her some money. Is that correct?”

Mrs. Bennet did not think quickly at the best of times, and this was not the best of times.

“She refused you?” she repeated, lifting a handkerchief to swimming eyes. “That … oh! That cannot be true, can it? How could she be so selfish, so unkind, as to … oh, I will speak to her immediately, I promise you!”

“A moment, please,” Mr. Collins said, holding out a staying hand. “This matter of a dowry. Is it true?”

The lady blinked in surprise and said, “Erm, yes, erm, my sister Amelia died without children, and she kindly bestowed her entire fortune on my daughters.”

“How much?”

Mrs. Bennet hesitated and then said, “All but Mary received five thousand pounds.”

“Each?” Mr. Collins demanded and began striding up and down an open space at the end of the room.

“Yes, so that means the girls will have two hundred pounds a year when they are old enough. That is, they will not have control of their fortune until they are either five and twenty or are married.”

Mr. Collins turned an appreciative look on Mrs. Bennet.

“Two hundred pounds is not a great deal, but it is a substantial sum. But as for Miss Elizabeth, if she does not choose to wed, I will not force her. But you have four other daughters, Madame, and given that Cousin Jane is being pursued by Mr. Bingley, perhaps Miss Kitty?”

The mistress of Longbourn stared at him in confusion and said, “Kitty? She is but seventeen. Why not Mary? She is eighteen, and a sensible girl with a great respect for the Scriptures.”

Her companion frowned portentously and said, “My dear Mrs. Bennet, as much as I wish to be kind and generous in my choice of wife, it seems reasonable that I would choose one of your four daughters who has a dowry. It seems unfair that Miss Mary has nothing, but…”

“Oh, you mistake me, I assure you, sir! Mary received five and twenty thousand! She is my sister Amelia’s primary heiress!”

Mr. Collins’s response could not have been more gratifying.

“Five and twenty thousand pounds?” he squeaked.

“Indeed, which means a thousand pounds a year in the four percents. It would be wonderful, would it not? Longbourn earns a full two thousand pounds a year, and with Mary’s fortune…”

“Three thousand pounds!” Mr. Collins said, proving that he could at least do simple sums. “Very well, Mrs. Bennet, I will ask for my Cousin Mary’s hand in marriage!”

***

Mr. Bennet’s Bedchamber

Longbourn

Evening

Mr. Bennet’s eyes were open, and the right side of his mouth was lifted up. It pained Elizabeth to observe that lopsided smile, but she forced herself to smile in return before returning to her book, The Tempest , which was one of Mr. Bennet’s favorite Shakespearean plays, and began reading.

If by your art, my dearest father, you have

Put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.

The sky it seems would pour down stinking pitch,

But that the sea, mounting to th’ welkin’s cheek,

Dashes the fire out. O! I have suffered.

With those that I saw suffer. A brave vessel

Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her

Dash’d all to pieces! O, the cry did knock

Against my very heart. Poor souls, they perish’d.

Had I been any God of power, I would

Have sunk the sea within the earth or ere

It should the good ship so have swallow’d, and

The fraughting souls within her.

She turned the page and glanced up, only to note that Mr. Bennet’s eyes were now shut, and based on the soft snuffling emanating from his mouth, he had fallen asleep.

She closed the book and looked at the clock. It was midnight, and she was exhausted after two hours with her father.

“Miss, if you do not mind my saying so, you ought to get some rest.”

Elizabeth turned to Mrs. Turney, a nurse who assisted Mr. Jones on occasion, and smiled wearily. “You are correct, of course. You will look after him carefully?”

“Of course, I will,” the woman said comfortably, “and I have Mr. Hill and Caleb to assist as well.”

“Thank you,” Elizabeth said, looking back at her father for one long moment. He seemed to have aged a decade in a few days, with his face pale and his eyes sunken. He continued to have little control of the left side of his body, and it seemed unlikely that he would survive for long.

And then what? She would never regret refusing Mr. Collins, but with her father’s death, the situation would be…

She shook her head and forced her frantic thoughts elsewhere. Mr. Bennet was not dead yet, and as the Scriptures said, “Take therefore no thought for the morrow, for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the dayisthe evil thereof.”

She rose to her feet and walked hastily out of the door of her father’s chamber, past her mother’s, and turned left on the corridor which led to the west wing.

She kept her feet quiet as it seemed likely that the rest of the house slept, and she knew her mother and sisters needed as much rest as possible.

She opened the door to her own room and halted in surprise. Three wax candles on the mantel were lit, and the fire was blazing enthusiastically. On a small settee near the fire, Mary and Jane sat arm in arm, both wearing anxious expressions.

Elizabeth’s fatigue gave way to alarm.

“Whatever is wrong?” she demanded, pushing the door closed and hurrying over to her sisters.

“Mr. Collins asked Mary for her hand in marriage,” Jane said bluntly, which provoked a sob from the third Miss Bennet.

Elizabeth stared in disbelief and sputtered, “What? How could that be? He asked for my hand in marriage the day before last, and I refused him!”

Jane gaped at this information, but Mary apparently did not even hear her and choked out, “Mother has given Mr. Collins her blessing. I understand, I do, why Mamma wishes … Oh Lizzy, she is so frightened and does not want to lose Longbourn, but I do not wish to marry Mr. Collins. What am I to do?”

Mary burst into tears, and for two minutes her older sisters bent their efforts to soothing her, while Jane murmured to Elizabeth, under cover of the sobs, that she had done her very best to assure Mary that she had no responsibility to marry Mr. Collins, but that Mary did not seem convinced.

When Mary was calm enough to listen again, Elizabeth said, “My dear sister, I understand that you are concerned about our mother and wish to be a good daughter to her, but I beg you to refuse the man, at least for now. You hardly know one another, after all. Moreover, you are an heiress and will take care of our mother as needed. There is no reason for a headlong rush into marriage!”

Mary sighed deeply, her back unusually slumped.

“I know,” she murmured. “I know, but when I think of how much Mamma wishes to stay here at Longbourn, it seems selfish to refuse Mr. Collins.”

Elizabeth sat back and cogitated. It was incredibly obvious to her that a marriage based on guilt was likely to be a disaster, but Mary had a very different temperament than she did.

“I think,” she said carefully, “that you would not be doing Mamma, or Longbourn, a favor by marrying Mr. Collins. He does not strike me as being a particularly sensible man, and bluntly, Mamma is not sensible either. You would find yourself in a tug of war between them both, with Mamma wanting more money than is justifiable and Mr. Collins writing letters to Lady Catherine in search of probably bad advice. No, it would be best if Mr. Collins married someone outside of the Bennet family, a woman who can come into the house and is not beholden to our mother as we are. A small cottage will be entirely reasonable for Mamma, and you know it, and you have the funds to provide that for her.”

Mary did not look convinced, and Elizabeth leaned forward to clasp her sister’s hand in her own. “ Promise me that you will not give your assent until at least Uncle Gardiner arrives. I am confident he will come soon and will be able to give you good counsel in this matter.”

Mary wrinkled her nose and said, “I will do my best, but it is hard. When Mamma is crying and wailing, I have a difficult time refusing her.”

Elizabeth had no such problem, but again, her personality was different from Mary’s.

“Tomorrow morning, early,” she stated, “we will rise together and walk to Meryton. You can spend the day at our uncle and aunt Phillips’s house.

Uncle Phillips will understand, and indeed, he is one of the trustees for our dowries.

I daresay he would not be pleased at your marrying a man like Mr. Collins out of obligation to Mother when your fortune gives you tremendous prospects. ”

Mary hesitated and then nodded. “Very well, I will do that, though it feels like I am running away.”

“Running away is totally reasonable at times,” Elizabeth declared drily, and then added, more urgently, “I will not pretend that our father has been a particularly diligent sire, but even he would not wish for you to hastily wed Mr. Collins, whom he considers ridiculous. Now, let us go to bed.”