Chapter Five

Upon her return to Longbourn, Elizabeth found the house all in a buzz. Her mother stood in the hallway, her face all flustered, as she waved wildly a letter from Mr. Collins. “Jane and Collins shall begin a sudden visit in two days! Two days, to prepare everything for the master! And with so few servants. Not that he shall excuse anything on that basis, even though it is wholly his fault. Only two days! I do believe I shall go distracted. Distracted.”

“Now, now, Mama,” Elizabeth said comfortingly, though she sincerely wished Jane was still here to do the office of calming their mother when she fluttered. “All shall be put in good order, and he cannot expect any sort of perfection in the house when he has given us leave to hire so few servants.”

“Oh, men! Men! They are all unreasonable awful creatures. Your Papa always expected everything to be done ridiculously cheap, and he never understood when anything he took it in his mind to consider important was poorly done. They are all the same!”

“I suppose then,” Elizabeth replied impishly, “that I ought to join Mr. Darcy in taking a vow to never marry.”

“Oh, that man! He was so rude to us all. And to not realize how his poor girl suffers. You can see how disordered her rearing is without a mother to superintend over it — he ought to marry one of us . You are pretty enough to be the second wife to even a very great gentleman. Even without any fortune.”

Elizabeth refrained from telling Mama at this point that she had met the gentleman again and conversed with him at length.

The fact was that she had been subtly annoyed on the walk back home, even though she had enjoyed her conversation with him enormously. She liked Mr. Darcy too much, and it would be easy, much too easy, for her to forget herself and become open to a deep heartbreak. She ought to be more cautious around him.

The letter itself was canvassed at great length after the first orders to Mrs. Hill and their maid had been given. “So sudden a visit,” Elizabeth said. “Does the letter explain why he did not give more notice?”

Elizabeth worried for Jane, worried for all of them, and she had a slight worry that this change would become permanent. Her situation would become detestable if she was forced to deal with Mr. Collins daily, however amusing the gentleman might be in small, carefully measured doses. Had he perhaps fallen out with his patroness? “It is not in Mr. Collins’s manner to make a visit so suddenly.”

“Jane wishes to see me, is that not enough?” Mama replied. “And Mr. Collins, Lord, our dear Mr. Collins. He thinks of me as his own mother! He said as much.”

Lydia exclaimed, “Haha. I bet he disliked his own mother!”

Elizabeth suppressed her laugh with a faked cough as Mama scolded her youngest sister.

“But Lizzy, you shall need to be upon your finest behaviour! None of your running about and being always so impertinent. Mr. Collins is bringing a friend with him!”

And now Elizabeth suppressed her wince. It was more difficult than the suppression of her laugh. “A friend of Mr. Collins is, of course, always welcome. But I can hardly see how this would be of any particular importance to me.”

“Oh, but it shall — Mr. Collins mentioned how he thought the both of you would have a great deal in common.”

Now Elizabeth did not manage to suppress her wince. But fortunately, Mama was looking at the letter again. Lydia though saw her wince, and stuck her tongue out at Elizabeth in a gesture of clear delight that she was not the one who would face an unwanted suitor in the next few days.

“Let me see, yes here: And furthermore, my friend Mr. Sykes shall join us two days after the arrival of myself and my sweet Jane. He is a respected member of the neighbourhood and has been widowed nearly a year. A man who is not too old, with a tolerable estate, though he has several children half grown. He is a charming man of excellent character, and what is more a most charming manner. I do believe he has hopes of finding a new companion for his future life, now that a suitable period of time has passed since the death of the second Mrs. Sykes. I thought that he and Cousin Elizabeth might find a great deal to speak of, and that is why Lady Catherine and I suggested to Mr. Sykes that he might accompany me on my visit to Longbourn. My patroness as well is most eager to see him settled and married once more, for the sake of the neighbourhood, and for the sake of his dear children.”

After hearing that speech, Lydia giggled. “Mr. Collins thinks he is charming? La! What a joke. He’ll be the dullest man we ever met.”

“Lydia! Do not say such things,” Mama scolded her.

“Hahaha.” Lydia laughed again. “Lizzy will need to marry a dull, dull man!”

“For my part,” Mary said, “I am inclined to believe that you might like him very well, as Mr. Collins is a serious man of the cloth, and we ought to believe what he says of this Mr. Sykes.”

“Maybe,” Elizabeth suggested, “he will take one look at you , Lydia, and be filled with an unquenchable passion, and it will be you who are obliged to marry him.”

“Na na! I would never marry someone like Mr. Collins. Not for a million pounds.”

“You would too,” Mama said. “I would insist on it.”

“La! I shall marry an officer.”

“Oh, if there was a smart young colonel, with two or three thousand a year who wished to pay court to you,” Mama sighed, “I would not object. I liked a uniform very much when I was young.”

For her part Elizabeth was now filled with substantial anxiety about the visit. At least there was the better part of a week for her to prepare herself for meeting this, almost certainly, unwanted suitor.

It was not that she would find it so difficult to refuse the man, but she feared for the consequences to the tranquillity of her life.

For most of the afternoon Elizabeth employed herself in many various tasks and errands — not only did this offer distraction, but the work itself was necessary given their paucity of servants. It was only when the family sat down for their dinner that Elizabeth was able to take the letter from her mother to peruse herself.

The desire of Mrs. Collins to see her mother was prominent in the text, as was Mr. Collins’s own filial respect for Mrs. Bennet. He specified his desire to fulfil every duty to the estate and its tenants by giving them a high example of marital fidelity, personal grace, and excellent clerical advice. Additionally, he wished to improve his acquaintance with all of the excellent members of the neighbourhood.

Despite all of this, Elizabeth suspected that the following text actually was the principal explanation for the visit, onto which the additional hope of foisting her upon Mr. Sykes had been then added: Lady Catherine was most surprised to hear that her nephew, Mr. Darcy of Pemberley, who she can also happily call son, and her granddaughter were present in the vicinity of Meryton, and she hopes that we will have the opportunity to extend her compliments to that exalted personage.

Darcy had said enough to make it clear that he was on no good terms with his aunt, and it seemed likely that upon learning that he was present in the home territory of her priest, she sent him off to spy upon the gentleman. And of course he wanted to introduce Mr. Sykes to his cousins.

The descent of Mr. and Mrs. Collins upon Longbourn created a great disruption in their lives.

Mama moved herself and her clothes to Elizabeth’s bedroom, while Elizabeth was to sleep in the same bed as Mary for the duration of Mr. Collins’s visit. The guest room was to be occupied by Mr. Sykes. As they made the preparations in the room for it to be occupied by him, Mama repeated to Lizzy happily, “And Mr. Collins says he is such a charming man! Such a charming man! And with an estate of more than two thousand a year. Such a charming man!”

A recommendation of that sort from a less reliable source could not be imagined by Elizabeth.

Elizabeth was comfortably confident that she did not wish to become the acquaintance of anyone who Mr. Collins was eager to introduce her to.

The next two days were constantly busy as a great deal of cleaning, cooking and work filled the time of the servants and the family. An additional manservant was borrowed from the Lucases, and they hired an extra two maids of all work. Their old cook had gone to London to serve in the house of a baronet — Mama had always insisted on having an excellent table to entertain with — but they were able to hire on a contract for two weeks a cook from two towns over who had recently become unemployed after he had placed two different maids at once into a delicate condition.

And then a little before four o’clock, on Monday, Mr. Collins arrived with the old Bennet carriage that he’d appropriated upon inheriting the position.

When he had done them all the enormous favour of marrying Jane, Mama had done Mr. Collins the favour of telling him that all that was hers, was his. As a result, there had been no dividing of the estate’s property from the family’s property, and Mr. Collins had treated everything he found within the confines of Longbourn as his, to do whatever he wished with.

Upon alighting from the carriage, he came to embrace Mama. “Dear Mother Bennet. Your absence from our lives has been the saddest aspect of my otherwise happy and irreproachable life in Hunsford — though I cannot but confess that my connection to Lady Catherine serves as a sufficient recompense for the loss of your presence.”

Jane came down slower, and with a sort of heaviness to her stride. She looked quite pale, and upon reaching the bottom closed her eyes and pressed her hand against her mouth. Elizabeth went to embrace her dearest sister as Mr. Collins continued to effusively greet the rest of them.

“My dearest Jane,” Elizabeth whispered to her. “You do not look well.”

“I only require a few—” Jane broke off and suddenly vomited next to the carriage.

Elizabeth held her.

Mr. Collins glanced over, frowned and said, “Again? — if only you ate more at breakfast, as Lady Catherine counselled, you would not cast up your accounts so often.” He then grandly turned to the family. “Do not worry, do not worry. There is no reason to be concerned for our dear Mrs. Collins. It is merely a feature of her delicate condition. She found the long period in the carriage difficult. There is nothing amiss with her, and the doctor who Lady Catherine called to look at Mrs. Collins was wholly sanguine, though he did give her a small salutary bleeding. Lady Catherine always insists that if only her own doctor had been allowed to look after her own daughter during her lying in, she would have given birth without any ill effects, rather than dying from the blood flow.”

That speech gave Elizabeth’s chest a tightness of worry. She did not want to think about how her sister could die like Mr. Darcy’s wife.

And she resented Mr. Collins. Why did her husband cheerfully talk, and mostly ignore the retching?

Jane did not yet have that characteristic belly of women close to their confinement, and after she wiped her mouth with her handkerchief, she looked about with a healthy and clear eyed expression.

She embraced Elizabeth. “I have missed you so much!”

“I missed you as well.” Elizabeth teared up at the face of her beloved sister. “I have missed you so, so much!”

When they went into the house, Mr. Collins acted very much as the proprietor, criticizing the servants for having excessively fine ribbons and an irregularity in their uniforms — all he said was peppered with references to Lady Catherine’s endless fount of wisdom. He noted that certain of the hedges had been trimmed too far back, and that another hedge had been unevenly trimmed.

Mrs. Hill said something in her own defence, and Mr. Collins replied, “Accept your rebukes silently, and with good Christian modesty. As the Lord would have you, and as I am one of his anointed.”

“But, Mr. Collins, without Goodman to do the gardening, we cannot—”

“No, no.” Mr. Collins wagged his finger warningly in her face. “No, no. Do not make a defence of yourself. Do better in the future. I will expect when I next visit to see the hedges, and all other matters, in proper order.”

The way that Mrs. Hill’s eyes flashed at that speech made Elizabeth worry for the sanctity of Mr. Collins’s future soup.

Mrs. Hill’s excuse simply was the truth — with only four servants doing the work that used to require eleven, the house would not stay in such good order as it could when Mr. Bennet was alive.

Before he allowed them to settle down for tea, even though it was evident to Elizabeth that Jane wished to sit again, Mr. Collins demanded a thorough tour of his sovereign domain. The silver was not adequately polished. Mr. Collins found a fresh spider web. He spent three minutes castigating Mrs. Hill for that . The pantry was both overstocked and understocked. And in the daily schedule the dinner was served a half hour too early.

Lady Catherine had declared once that the damage to the digestion from too close proximity to the afternoon tea was inestimable.

While Mr. Collins’s frequent references to that woman had never given Elizabeth any pleasure, she now began to properly detest her.

Through it all Jane simply kept the same serene, amiable expression.

If Elizabeth had not known better, she would begin to believe her sister had been struck down by a blow that deprived her of her good sense. For her part, Elizabeth knew that she would not have been able to endure such speeches without washing away the rust that Mr. Collins had found on one of the knives with the blood of her husband.

At least she would have screeched at him, rolled her eyes, and found some way to retreat to a different room.

Unless she feared that he would beat her — though nothing Elizabeth had seen from him, including now, hinted that Mr. Collins ever behaved as a beast.

He was a petty tyrant, but Elizabeth hoped for her sister’s sake that her assessment that he was not a violent one was correct.

Jane would not discover what sort of temper he might show towards an impertinent wife, as Jane would always keep that serene, content, submissive smile. That stupid smile. An expression Elizabeth found as frustrating as Mr. Collins’s speeches.

And the only thing worse than that was how Mama fawned over the gentlemen.

When they sat down to tea, he ordered toast for Jane, without giving her any chance to tell Mrs. Hill herself what she wished to have.

Even that little action filled Elizabeth with resentment on behalf of her sister, even though it was an act that could have been understood as caring, rather than domineering, from a different gentleman.

Jane’s peaceful expression did not change, and she showed no resentment on her own behalf.

Elizabeth found that Mr. Collins now studied her.

“Lady Catherine,” he said, “in her wisdom has commented several times lately upon how such a large family of unmarried daughters — four! — hardly reflects well upon me. I am your guardian now. I have invited a member of our neighbourhood who lost his second wife a year ago to visit, in hopes that I might rectify this. He has promised to come ready to admire and be admired. I wrote in my letter about his station in life, his connections, and his position. Furthermore, and I perhaps ought to have led with this, he has the approval of Lady Catherine. Of lesser, though not trivial importance, Mrs. Collins would also be eager,” Mr. Collins now looked directly at Elizabeth again, “for one of her sisters to be settled near her, especially when the time of her confinement draws near.”

“Oh, that would be wonderful!” Mama clapped her hands. “To have another of my daughters married! I could not imagine such happiness. Lizzy, you must be very friendly to this man when he comes, I command it.”

Elizabeth ventured not to answer.

That sense of isolation and of being trapped in a world without any friend in her home was back. She wished Mr. Darcy was here. She wanted to tell him about the story and ask him to agree with her that she should not marry Mr. Sykes, unless she very much liked him. And she was confident that she would not admire any man who was a favourite of both Lady Catherine and Mr. Collins.

When Papa had been here, she always could trust him, and trust that he would support her in such a situation. Her mother would throw her to the wolves, and Elizabeth knew that it was possible her situation at Longbourn might be made intolerable.

“Perhaps Mary, or Kitty might also like Mr. Sykes,” Jane said softly.

It seemed that she could still tell, despite the months since they had seen each other, what Elizabeth’s attitude on the matter was.

“Nonsense,” Mr. Collins said. “Mary is not nearly handsome enough for Mr. Sykes, and Cousin Catherine is only four years older than his son.”

Lydia giggled. “They’re gonna make you marry an old ugly man.”

Elizabeth rather wanted to vomit like Jane had at the prospect being given to her, but she hid everything under a fixed small smile.

After the tea had been brought and served, Mr. Collins sipped it thoughtfully, swirled it around in his cup, and then he rang for Mrs. Hill to return. “The quality of the biscuits are quite poor, while this tea is too fine to be economical. Unless you are entertaining a great man from outside of the neighbourhood, you should use a cheaper leaf.”

Mrs. Hill, her resentment clear enough to Elizabeth, simply bobbed her head, and said, “Yes, sir.”

She’d apparently learned her lesson about making any attempt to explain her reasoning to Mr. Collins the last time she’d tried.

“Very good, now go, go.” Mr. Collins waved her off, and then he said, “There was an additional reason, beyond bringing the estate under proper management once more, and introducing you to Mr. Sykes, that drew me from Kent to Hertfordshire — I hoped to make the acquaintance of the exalted nephew of my Lady, Mr. Darcy. I have been informed he is presently resident in the neighbourhood. We shall call on him at the appropriate hour tomorrow, but I wish to learn what is said of him and how he behaves now.”

“Oh, he is a very fine gentleman. Very sad, he always wears a mourning armband, and sombre clothes. He thinks himself too fine for our neighbourhood,” was Mama’s reply.

“As he ought to, his wife was a very great woman,” Mr. Collins replied placidly.

“I thought he liked our Lizzy,” Mama said with annoyance. “But he told us all that he was absolutely determined to never marry again. It is not right.”

“He is right not to. It will give her ladyship joy to hear that from me,” Mr. Collins said. “His first wife, as the daughter of Lady Catherine, was of such quality that she could never be surpassed by any other. No one could take her place. And Mrs. Bennet, I must warn you, you have looked above your station. Even should Mr. Darcy marry again, Cousin Elizabeth is from far too humble of a station to be worthy of marrying such a great man.”

Well, if Mr. Collins thought so, Elizabeth should simply accept that fact. But having it specified hurt. She’d been stupid. She kept trying to not imagine being taken away from this situation by such a dashing and charming gentleman — and one she liked talking to, who could be a true friend, and who was a perfect father to his child. But despite her efforts, the reminder that it would never happen, that she was simply not enough for a man like Mr. Darcy, hurt.

If only she had met a man who was like Mr. Darcy, clever and conversational, but poorer and without a determination to never remarry.

“My girls are good enough for any gentleman in England,” Mama stoutly insisted. “Especially Lizzy.”

Mr. Collins put down his tea cup with a small clank. He stared at Mama. In a cold yet thin voice he said, “Mrs. Bennet, I beg you to not defy me.”

Immediately Mama bowed her head before her master. “I apologize. I did not mean to do so.”

“I bless you with my forgiveness.” The usual warmth, such as it was, returned to Mr. Collins’s voice, and he said, “The chief impediment to his future marriage is that Lady Catherine’s grandchild is a girl. As Mr. Darcy’s estate is not entailed, at present she will in good time unite both Pemberley and Rosings. Two of the greatest estates in the land. Can you imagine what a great wealth of power and position would follow from that? But if Mr. Darcy remarried…” Mr. Collins’s voice trailed off as though all should understand the menacing implication.

“What might transpire if he marries again?” Elizabeth asked in a brightly fake voice.

“He might have a son.” The slow tone of Mr. Collins’s voice said clearly enough that he believed himself to be speaking to a dullard. “And then Lady Catherine’s blood would lose its rightful place. And then the great estates of Pemberley and Rosings would not be united.”

“How horrible,” Elizabeth replied, “for Mr. Darcy to have a son .”

“You now possess an ample understanding of the considerations which make it so that he must never remarry.”

Elizabeth could not bring herself to reply.

“Now tell me, have you seen the child? Is she healthy?”

“Emily is a very healthy, very happy, very bouncing child,” Elizabeth replied with a smile. “She can walk quite successfully, and she seems to have both the virtues and defects of her age. A boundless joy, a delight in shouting and excitement, a tendency to cry easily, and a strong affection for her father.”

“You say that she is healthy? But what you say makes it sound as though her spiritual wellbeing is not being amply cared for. As a clergyman I am always sensitive to such matters. Furthermore, it is well known that women, especially young women, are frequently mistaken about the health of young children. And things which they take as the markers and, ah, harbingers of good health, are almost universally the insignia of impending Providence, that is to say, impending death and ill health. Mr. Darcy ought to submit Miss Emily to an examination by a doctor of Lady Catherine’s choice every day.”

“Every day?” Elizabeth said with surprise. “Is that not excessive?”

She could see something in her mother’s face that clearly suggested that her mother also thought, though of course she would never say it, that Mr. Collins was being ridiculous.

“Nothing can be excessive when the fate of one of the noblest children in the land is in question.”

“And, I am curious,” Elizabeth added, “if what is taken as indicators of good health are almost universally signs of ill health, might that imply that those conditions taken as a sign of ill health are in actuality the signs of good, or even excellent, health?”

“Cousin Elizabeth, this is why women ought not attempt to reason or embark upon the rigors of philosophical thought. But no, signs of ill health are, of course, signs of ill health.”

“Then what are the signs of good health?”

Mr. Collins rolled his eyes, and he again spoke to her as though he were lecturing a particularly slow dullard. “Do you not realize the truth? I had believed you to have more cleverness. There are no signs of good health. We all labour under Eve’s curse. We are all doomed to die. Woman ate of the apple and doomed us all. Every feature of a person is a sign of future decay, death, and inevitable dissolution.”

“Ah,” Elizabeth replied. It was exceedingly difficult to not smile widely, despite how morbid the statement was. “I am glad to have been enlightened by your knowledge on the matter.”

As he had no suspicion of sarcasm, nor the cleverness to detect it, even if he had such suspicion, Mr. Collins was most satisfied by her reply.

The next morning, before they went to Netherfield to call upon Mr. Bingley and his guests, Mr. Collins was far less satisfied with Elizabeth.

“I studied the account books of the estate last night,” he said with a deep frown, “and it thus came to my attention that you continue to have a subscription to a circulating library.”

Elizabeth sat with a thin pasted smile. She could not deny the accusation. She made no attempt to do so.

“Have you nothing to say to defend yourself on the matter?”

“I… enjoy reading.”

“You enjoy reading?”

She hated him. The way he looked at her, peering over his nose. The smug, satisfied look. The way that he had gained a slimy control over Jane. The way that he had far too much control over her own life.

Elizabeth gazed back at him, half smiling, refusing to answer the question and implied criticism.

“I worry, by all the holy rites of the Church of England, I worry for the state of your soul! Lady Catherine has always been most insistent — young women should not be permitted to read novels. There are a few such books, of godly sentiment, which have been written by the most religious amongst us. For example, the History of Goody Two Shoes . But the usual novels from circulating libraries are light, trifling tales. They divert the mind that ought to be focused on more important matters, on the hereafter. And then they display all forms of immortality — I mean immorality — and encourage their readers into engaging in forms of behaviour that are quite contrary to the dictates of the church, the best parts of society, and they encourage young women to act against their own true interests.”