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Longbourn - Elizabeth

D r Russell emerged from William Collins’ sickroom, his face grave. “His fever is getting worse,” he said quietly to the assembled family. “I do not believe he will last until morning.”

Mr Collins had not regained consciousness since being brought to the house the day before.

Dr Russell had hardly left his bedside, while Elizabeth had thrown herself into practical tasks - fetching water, trying to keep her mother calm.

Jane and Kitty assisted where they could, but Lydia’s hysterics were proving so disruptive that Mary had been tasked with keeping their youngest sister occupied.

“What will happen if he dies?” Mrs Bennet’s voice rose shrilly as soon as Dr Russell left the drawing room. “They are not even married yet! Oh, if only Mr Bennet had not died before they had married! ”

“Mama,” Jane said gently, laying a hand on her mother’s arm, “even if they were married, it would make no difference now. Mr Collins is gravely ill.”

“We will be thrown out of the house!” Mrs Bennet wrung her hands in distress. “What happens to Longbourn if Mr Collins does not survive the night? Who is his heir?”

Elizabeth and Jane exchanged helpless glances.

They had always known Mr Collins was their father’s heir - the entail had been explained often enough, how their grandfather’s younger brother’s line took precedence through William Collins.

But they had never considered who might inherit if William himself died without issue.

Elizabeth felt a strange detachment from the whole situation - the person she might have been, Mrs Elizabeth Collins, seemed like a stranger now, a ghost of a future that would never be.

“Mr James Collins is the heir.” The words came softly from Mary’s corner of the room.

Mrs Bennet whirled to face her third daughter. “What did you say?”

Mary lifted her eyes from her book, her voice growing stronger. “Mr James Collins - he is Mr William Collins’ younger brother. If William dies without issue, James would inherit under the terms of the entail.”

Mrs Bennet’s expression shifted from despair to calculation in an instant. She turned back to Elizabeth and Jane, a familiar gleam in her eye. “Lizzy, you must write to Mr James Collins directly, and invite him to Longbourn.”

Elizabeth stared at her mother in disbelief. “Mama, I cannot write to him.”

“Why-ever not, you silly girl?” Mrs Bennet waved her hand dismissively. “He is to be your brother in-law. It is only proper that you should write. ”

“Mama!” Elizabeth’s voice sharpened with distress. “I am not married to Mr Collins, nor am I likely to be, given his condition.”

“You are as good as married,” Mrs Bennet insisted, her voice rising. “The wedding would have happened already if your father hadn’t-”

“I do not believe,” Mary interjected quietly, her eyes still on her book, “that either the bishop or the church of England would consider a planned wedding equivalent to a marriage.”

“What do you know about such matters?” Mrs Bennet rounded on her middle daughter, but before she could continue, Jane’s gentle voice cut through the brewing argument.

“Uncle Gardiner should write to him.” The suggestion, delivered in Jane’s calm manner, seemed to settle the matter.

“Yes,” Elizabeth seised on this solution, already rising from her chair. “That would be most proper. I believe my uncle is with our aunt and the children now.”

At the door, Elizabeth paused. “Mary, would you come with us? We may need your knowledge of the entail.” Mary nodded, marking her place in her book before following her sisters. Jane brought up the rear, closing the drawing room door on their mother’s renewed lamentations.

They found their aunt and uncle in the nursery, where the eldest Gardiner children were being put to bed. The younger ones, not understanding the gravity of the situation, begged their aunts to play with them as usual.

“Not now, dears,” Mrs Gardiner said gently, noting her nieces’ serious expressions. She motioned for them to keep their voices low, mindful of the settling children.

“Aunt,” Elizabeth whispered, “might we speak in father’s book-room? It’s rather important.”

The small party made their way down the corridor in silence.

At the book-room door, Elizabeth hesitated, drawing a steadying breath.

She hadn’t entered since before her father’s death.

Even Mr Collins, in an uncharacteristic show of respect, had left the room largely untouched - her father’s last book still lay open on the arm of his favourite chair, his reading glasses perched atop it as if he’d just stepped out for a moment.

“Lizzy?” Jane’s gentle voice drew her back from her memories. Their aunt and uncle waited patiently while Elizabeth collected herself.

Turning resolutely away from her father’s chair, Elizabeth explained the situation - William Collins’ grave condition, the question of inheritance, and Mary’s knowledge of the younger brother.

Mary added details about the entails provisions, while Elizabeth tried not to think about how recently she had expected to be mistress of Longbourn herself.

“So you see, Uncle,” she concluded, “we need someone to write to Mr James Collins, and Mama insists…” She trailed off, unable to voice her mother’s schemes.

“Of course I’ll write to him,” Mr Gardiner said firmly. “As head of the family now, it’s my responsibility to handle such matters.”

* * *

Monday, 30th of March 1812

London - James Collins

James Collins sat in his modest London lodgings, Blackstone’s Commentaries open before him as he attempted to focus on the finer points of property law.

The evening’s reading on inheritance and entail had proven particularly dense, and his notes lay scattered across the small desk.

At twenty-two, the younger Collins brother found comfort in such detailed study - the precise language of the law suited his methodical nature far better than his brother William’s endless talk of patronage and position.

His candle had burned low, and James was just considering whether to light another when he heard his landlady’s voice calling up the stairs.

Something about an express having arrived - though who would be sending him an express?

His brother wrote rarely, and then only to remind James of his duty to study hard and make something of himself despite being a second son.

Unlike his brother, James had never yearned for grand connections or noble patronage.

The great Lady Catherine de Bourgh, whose name featured so prominently in William’s letters, was merely a distant figure to him - someone whose very existence emphasised the different paths the brothers had chosen.

Indeed, James had felt a quiet relief at being overlooked by their father’s schemes for advancement.

Better to focus on his legal studies than live under the weight of such expectations.

Their father, though not a wealthy man, had always made his preferences clear.

“Billy,” he would say, clapping his elder son on the shoulder, “you’ll be the master of an estate one day, mark my words.

” Then he would turn to his younger son with a sigh.

“And Jimmy… well, Billy will have to look after you, won’t he?

” That assumption of James’s helplessness had stemmed from a single childhood incident - at eleven, he had found and consumed an entire bottle of wine.

His father had never quite forgiven this transgression, and from that day forward, James had been marked as the son who needed watching, the one who couldn’t be trusted to make his own way in the world.

The irony was that while William had indeed secured a position through Lady Catherine’s patronage, James had quietly pursued his own path, finding satisfaction in the precise logic of the law.

His small room might lack the grandeur of Hunsford Parsonage, but at least its contents - the carefully annotated law books, the neat stacks of notes - were truly his own.

Billy had always taken pleasure in his role as the responsible elder brother, reporting James’s every minor transgression to their father.

As children, Jimmy had hated this constant surveillance, but as he grew older, he learned to keep certain parts of his life private - not that there was much to hide, just small acts of independence like the occasional stolen biscuit or moment of inattention during lessons.

These days, he thought little of his brother; their lives had diverged so completely that William’s monthly letters, full of Lady Catherine’s opinions and parish matters, seemed to come from a different world entirely.

Rising from his desk, James prepared to venture out for his evening meal.

The mist had thickened outside his window, and he knew his worn coat would offer little protection against the damp chill.

Still, he would make do - a quick trip inside to fetch his umbrella, then to the pub around the corner where the prices were reasonable and the food consistently good.

He had just reached for his hat when Mrs Brown’s voice carried up the stairs.

“Mr Collins!” Mrs Brown’s voice called from her sitting room near the front door. She always left her door open, the better to monitor her tenants’ comings and goings. “There’s an express come for you.”

James paused with one foot on the bottom stair. “An express, Mrs Brown? For me? Are you quite sure?”

“Of course I am sure,” she replied tartly, clearly offended by the suggestion she might mishandle her tenants’ correspondence. “Would I call you otherwise?”

Suppressing a sigh, James stepped into her small, overcrowded sitting room. Mrs Brown sat ensconced in her usual place by the fire, her feet propped on a footstool, an empty sherry glass at her elbow. She gestured vaguely toward a table against the wall where the express lay waiting.