Confronting

Confronting

Abandoning Mr Collins, Mrs Bennet hurried up the stairs to her husband’s library and entered without knocking.

She called out as she entered the library, “Oh! Mr Bennet, you are wanted immediately; we are all in an uproar. You must come and make Lizzy marry Mr Collins.”

Mr Bennet looked at his wife and replied laconically. “If you paid more attention, you would see your second eldest daughter right there beside my desk, and you interrupted her just as she was about to tell me what all the fuss and bother is about.”

A startled glance passed between Mrs Bennet and Elizabeth, who was in fact sitting at the desk looking extremely peeved.

Elizabeth started to speak twice or thrice; each time being interrupted by some flavour of the same complaints her mother had already made several times. To add insult to injury, Mr Collins joined the fray a few minutes later.

Elizabeth observed in horror as her father watched the pair enter a silliness contest which could go either way. This went on for several minutes as she tried without success to goad her father out of his indolence with her eyes.

When Bennet graduated from smirking to laughing outright, Elizabeth lost all semblance of patience and shouted, “ENOUGH!” and punctuated it with a loud slap to the desk.

Dead silence reigned for perhaps half a minute before Elizabeth saw the telltale signs of the pair restarting their argument, while her father looked on, doing nothing— absolutely nothing.

With a sigh, she snapped, “Mama! Mr Collins! I require a conference with my father… if he can be bothered to leave off his indolence for a few minutes. I ask you kindly to continue your argument elsewhere. Anywhere out of my hearing will suffice! ”

Mr Collins said, “My dear cousin… you are uniformly charming—” and probably would have continued for some time if Elizabeth had not interrupted him somewhat peevishly.

“MR COLLINS!”

She stood up abruptly, pointed emphatically at the door, and snapped, “Either accept my previous answer or go somewhere else! You as well, Mother!”

Mrs Bennet stood up with a resolute sniff and one last wave of her handkerchief. “Well… I never!” she huffed angrily.

Seeing the look of implacable resentment building in her most misunderstood daughter, Mrs Bennet took the gentleman in hand. “Come along, Mr Collins. Let Lizzy talk to her father. You know how young ladies need their fathers’ advice from time to time until it comes time to seek it from their husbands.”

With much shuffling and far more words of farewell than were required (or desired), the pair finally left, while Elizabeth did her best not to snort.

Mr Bennet watched them go and gave another small laugh.

Elizabeth snapped. “Do not give me that smirk. You have been married a quarter-century with nary a finger lifted to support your daughters. I require your assistance… NOW! ”

All traces of mirth gone, Mr Bennet replied haughtily, “And I require the respect due me.”

Just as angry, Elizabeth snapped right back, “I AM giving you the respect you have earned. You watched Mr Collins sniffing around my skirts for weeks and did nothing unless it contributed to your amusement—exactly as you did nothing to make your daughters marriageable, and nothing to protect us after your demise. Now it falls to me to make up for your deficiencies. The least you can do is not make sport of the position you put me in. As things stand, even Jane cannot bring a man to the point, so it falls to me to discharge your responsibilities. The least you can do is show me the respect I deserve for seriously considering paying for your indolence with the rest of my life.”

She finished with another thump, breathing hard and leaning across the desk supported by her knuckles while glaring daggers at her father.

He stopped sniggering and looked at her pensively. “Are you seriously considering marrying that fool?”

“I am,” she said in exasperation, wondering if all men were as stupid as the day’s experiences were leading her to believe. If they were, then Mrs Bennet might be right, and it made little difference which particular idiot she married.

“You do not even like or respect him,” Mr Bennet said with some asperity.

“So! You dislike and disrespect your wife while she returns the sentiment! It is the way of the world.”

Bennet sighed, wishing to carry his point, but unable to come up with a convincing argument. “Are you requesting my consent?”

“Not yet, but I am considering it.”

Bennet stared, looking as if he might finally be starting to feel the shame of the position he had placed his daughters in.

He sighed. “I suppose if you ask my consent, I will grant it but let me advise you against the scheme. Take it from me—you would be miserable tied to such a man.”

Elizabeth was tired of being angry and sighed in resignation.

“That is easy for you to say. The rest of your existence will be lived in your customary ease and indolence, followed by death. Ours will comprise years of increasing nervousness, desperation, and mother’s nerves—most likely followed by years of poverty or being a burden to our uncles. Mr Bingley is gone forever. Mr Darcy can barely be bothered to dance with one of us. We have no other prospects, nor are we likely to gain any. Charlotte Lucas is Jane and I in five years—presuming you cut down on your port and survive that long. I owe it to my sisters to see if I can be prevailed upon to save them. The very least you can do is refrain from ridiculing me for doing your job.”

Bennet sighed, seemingly unable to contradict her. “I suppose you wish for an apology or a promise to do better.”

“I expect no such thing. I am accustomed to unreliable men, and I have never seen any man revise the habits of a lifetime. I do , however, expect you to do your duty as a father for once. I need you to escort me to town.”

“To town?” he snapped, as if it was the most surprising thing he ever heard.

“Yes, to town! London, to be specific.”

“For what purpose?”

“To gather information,” she said somewhat cryptically, not feeling up to one more argument.

Bennet put down his book. “I am not inclined to go to town.”

“And yet you will.”

“No, I think not.”

Elizabeth sighed in exasperation and thought for a moment. “Fine! I will give you a choice. Either you take me to town in one hour, or…” and then she paused.

Looking more amused than ever, Mr Bennet asked, “…or what?”

She sighed. “…or I will take the next stage from Meryton with Sarah as a chaperone. On the way out the door, I will inform both my mother and Mr Collins you are preventing me from deciding about our cousin’s offer, and strongly suggest they put their backs into convincing you to do your duty.”

Bennet gasped and carefully observed his daughter, who seemed angry enough to chew nails, then finally sighed in resignation. “Very well, one hour.”

Elizabeth sighed, uncertain whether she was more satisfied she had carried her point or disappointed to see her father once again deciding an important matter entirely on the path of least inconvenience.

~~~~ ~

Somewhat to his chagrin, Mr Bennet found the effect of book room solitude could be achieved in a closed coach with a daughter who would not even deign to look at him, let alone speak. For all the hours it took to travel to town, no amount of sighing, quips, or opening gambits produced any response. In vain he tried, barefaced questions, ingenious suppositions, and distant surmises; but she eluded the skill of them all with nary a glance or raised eyebrow.

For the better part of an hour, the gentleman tried every strategy he could think of before falling back on the obvious. He eventually observed that sitting in a carriage capable of transporting six women, with only his smallest and (presently) quietest daughter for company, was only slightly less comfortable than his book room. Once he opened the same book he had been reading when the whole imbroglio started and substituted his flask for his port glass, he was perfectly content and even moderately amused.

Once or twice, he tried to open the subject of her potential ill-fated marriage proposal, which he would approve or not based on the whim of the moment, but nothing could drag a single comment out of his daughter. She had apparently said all she had to say. Given the conversation thus far, he deemed silence was probably an improvement.

Entering London he asked, “Exactly where are we going?”

She replied with her first words since his library. “Thomas knows.”

With that, he tried going back to his book, but it amounted to more pretending than reading. As the quality and size of the houses improved, he suspected he was in for even more amusement than Mr Collins could provide.

When they entered the Mayfair area, which he had visited with university chums during his sojourn at Oxford, he became almost certain of their destination. They stopped at a stately house on a street he did not recognise, at least a dozen steps above his station in life.

Just to repay peevishness with peevishness, he exited the coach and neglected to hand his silent-as-the-tomb daughter down. She spoiled his amusement by jumping down with alacrity and did not appear surprised by his pettiness—apparently only riding inside the coach because it was expected, (not to mention cold).

The knocker was off the door, but Elizabeth was not intimidated. She simply grabbed her father’s walking stick, unconcerned if she knocked him down the steps in the process and reached out to bang on the door. She was saved the trouble when it opened suddenly. She avoided bashing the butler in the head, but it was a near thing.

While Bennet looked on in amusement, Elizabeth, without a by your leave, reached into his pocket to extract a card, and handed it to the butler.

“Mr Bennet and Miss Elizabeth Bennet to see Mr Darcy on a matter of some urgency.”

The butler gave him the haughty, stone-faced near frown she assumed was taught in butler school. “I will see if the master is available. Pray, step this way.”

Elizabeth reflected she would not have been surprised if the man left them cooling their heels on the steps, but then supposed such an action would reflect worse on the master than the visitors.

The butler returned a few minutes later, trailed by a maid who took their wraps and gloves, then gestured them to follow him.

They arrived at a largish parlour decorated mostly in blues and greens. The furniture was expensive but not ostentatious. It bespoke calm elegance and generational wealth far more clearly than the garish displays common to new money (like the Bingleys).

If she were perfectly honest with herself, Elizabeth thought she could like it quite a lot. Whether it was a testament to Mr Darcy’s good taste or his good sense to leave his mother’s work well enough alone, she had to grudgingly give credit where credit was due.