Page 34 of Some Natural Importance (Pride, Prejudice and Romance #3)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Elizabeth inhaled sharply but did not gasp when the thorn pricked her thumb. The injury came as no surprise but at least helped restore clarity to her thoughts.
Her emotions were not fit for the stillroom.
The occupation of her thoughts and worries were such that being confined to a room with her family was near impossible.
Long walks had always enlivened her spirits, or calmed them when needed; the cadence and sounds of her boots moving through the grass or crunching the leaves provided a metronome to pace and direct her mind.
Finding time alone these past days had been difficult; her walks, her last escape, were joined by a sister equally eager for escape, or by Mr Darcy.
To call it a vexing situation was an understatement.
Her mother and sisters were mourning a husband and father who had left them with neither money nor assurances for their comfort.
Only she had been provided the means to provide these things, by marrying her cousin or Mr Darcy.
Although the choice should be an easy one, deciding whether to tie her future happiness to a man she had never met or to a man whom she could not trust was not so simple.
Elizabeth put aside the dried roses and reached for the ewer, poured water over the crushed petals and stirred the mixture slowly before sealing the jar.
Her effort had none of the soothing effect she had hoped for, but her mother would appreciate the end result, as would Hill and the other servants, all of them overtasked with Mrs Bennet’s despairing needs and preparing for the arrival of Mr Collins.
The calm, unchanging life that Lydia often criticised as dull was not seen that way by Longbourn’s servants, who themselves were grieving and uncertain of their futures.
Placing the jar in the window to warm in the weak autumn sun, Elizabeth stretched her arms over her head before wrapping them around herself.
She yawned, then rubbed her gritty eyes.
The nights when she could fall asleep moments after her head touched her pillow seemed long ago.
Once in the arms of Morpheus, she slept ill, as if struggling to escape his grasp.
Elizabeth was not made to be idle but she wished her mind could be so.
Every thought centred on Mr Darcy and a choice she must make.
Was she a fool for believing him or a fool for thinking she needed to make the acquaintance of Mr Collins first before deciding?
Was the vicar, as her father said, a man unequal to her and unfit to be her husband?
How was she to trust his judgment, a man who rarely lifted his eyes from a book, on the worth of either suitor?
How was she to realise what was best for her?
Mr Bennet had said not a bad word about Mr Darcy, but he regularly mocked his neighbours and made sport of Mr Collin’s ‘lugubrious presence and oleaginous prattle’.
How she had laughed at such a description.
She and Jane had been spared their cousin’s overtures not two months earlier, when he came to visit his future estate and, according to her mother and sisters, inventoried the shelves and cabinets, linens and silver.
Could he be so awful that Mr Darcy was needed to save her family? Was Mr Darcy a saviour or a scoundrel?
She hoped an answer would come soon.
‘Soon’ turned out to be earlier than hoped or expected when a weathered carriage, its sides marred by scrapes and scratches, pulled up in Longbourn’s drive later that afternoon.
The carriage looked nothing like the expensive, finely polished conveyance that had carried Mr Darcy’s trunks to Netherfield two days earlier; likewise, the man who stepped out of it bore no resemblance to the owner of that excellent carriage.
He was tall, yes, but in a heavy way and his countenance, rather than handsome hauteur, was plain, and distinguished only by generous jowls and small, watery eyes.
Elizabeth joined her sisters outside, standing behind Mrs Bennet as their cousin arrived at Longbourn’s doorstep.
“My dear cousins! And Mrs Bennet. I come to condole with you on the tragic death of your husband and father.”
Mrs Bennet paid all due attentions to Mr Collins, greeting him in a tone more formal than Elizabeth anticipated. “A quick journey here, Mr Collins,” she said, her eyes flicking to the baggage being handed down. “We were all anticipation for your arrival a day or two hence.”
He nodded, while his eyes, having moved from one Bennet sister to the next, settled on Jane.
Then Elizabeth. Then Jane again. Elizabeth was desperate to break up the conversation and pull away his gaze, but feared drawing his attention.
It mattered little as Mr Collins replied, “The delay experienced in receiving word of my cousin’s demise could only hasten the urgency of my arrival.
Six ladies, alone and bereft, in need of my support and advisement both as a man of the cloth and as the man who is your nearest male relation. ..”
Uncle Gardiner and Uncle Philips have been forgotten so quickly and conveniently. Mr Collins continued speaking and Elizabeth continued ignoring his stupid words. I cannot marry this man. One minute in his company and that, at least, is decided.
“Of course, you remember my younger daughters, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia. You have not met my eldest, Jane and Elizabeth, as they were in London with my brother, Mr Gardiner.”
“Ah yes,” he replied. “The eldest blooms amongst the Bennet garden.”
Elizabeth bit back a laugh as she considered whether Mr Collins might actually be the cousin of Sir William Lucas.
“How was your journey, Mr Collins?” her polite elder sister enquired.
“Very well, Cousin Jane. Such kindness you exhibit in your care for my comfort.”
As they entered Longbourn, Mr Collins spoke at length about the ease of the carriage ride, the difficulty of leaving his parsonage and his parishioners, and the blessings he incurred by being so near the glorious home of the late Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
Ushered into the drawing room, the six Bennet ladies sat as Mr Collins took the seat Mr Bennet had favoured.
His eyes made a slow inspection of the walls, silver, and rugs before turning to Mrs Bennet.
“You have made a gracious display of your mourning. I anticipate black draping and bombazine shall adorn Longbourn for some time.”
Before his hostess could respond to the expectations in his half compliment, Mr Collins’s voice turned cool.
“I should have liked to have been present at my cousin’s funeral but I appear to have missed the service by some days.
In spite of your grief and that of Longbourn’s many neighbours, did no one think to write to me? ”
Mrs Bennet looked as though she might faint.
Elizabeth felt a slight tremor of anger and arranged her skirts, tapped her foot—anything to keep her unsettled emotions from her voice and her eyes as she replied.
“My mother was in some shock at my father’s death.
None could have anticipated such a rapid decline in his health and we feared for her as well.
The news was sent to all our family as soon as we were able. ”
This information was met with apparent scepticism and no sincere graciousness, although Mr Collins’s grandiose reply may have convinced some otherwise.
Elizabeth was not among those fooled, and she suspected at least two of her sisters were equally certain of their cousin’s meaning when he bobbed his head and made sympathetic noises.
What followed was just as discourteous: the lengthy tale of his own dear father’s death and the niceties undertaken on his behalf, all of which he wished to have extended to Mr Bennet.
He concluded with one final reminder of his self-importance.
“Few gentlemen are so fortunate to have a vicar as such a close relation, and as an heir. I should imagine Mr Bennet would have wished for my company as he lay dying, in order to pass on his knowledge of the estate.”
The unhappy widow looked at her enemy as if he were a particularly loathsome insect crawling across her pillow.
Jane, of course, was all graciousness, guileless and sweet as she smiled and nodded at the man who preened in reply.
Any relief Elizabeth may have felt for herself was lessened when Mr Collins remarked on the particular shade of black that he favoured for the deepest mourning and his expectations that Mrs Bennet should remain in widow’s weeds for whatever time God granted her before joining Mr Bennet in the great hereafter.
Once again it took Jane’s easy kindness to avert a violent reaction from Mrs Bennet and Elizabeth’s quick thinking to divert him into a discussion of the chickens and gardens he kept in Hunsford.
His enthusiasm was fervent but poorly digested by his audience until he ruminated on the fallow fields he had seen at Longbourn and how his own methodology for coaxing large turnips and potatoes and roses from his beds would be a boon to the kitchen in his new home.
“Although I recall no hardship in dining at Longbourn when last I visited,” he assured Kitty, who nearly fell from her chair when so directly addressed.
“Mr Collins,” Elizabeth began, vowing silently to add vinegar to his soup and pepper to his gruel, “you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. We shall pass on your praise to Cook.”
Elizabeth felt the burn of her sisters’ incredulous gaze as the man swelled with pride for the compliment to his compliment; Lydia’s elbow met her ribs.
After a moment of blessed silence, she noticed Mr Collins’s gaze was once again roaming.
His eyes seemed to hover on Jane, then on a painting, then on the draperies and rugs.
A quick glance at her mother informed Elizabeth that she, too, had noticed the cleric’s roving eye.