CHAPTER 4 #3
“Lady Catherine de Bourgh,” said he, “has often observed that a clergyman cannot be too attentive to domestic arrangement. Her ladyship’s own shelves at Rosings are placed with a judgment I despair of describing adequately.”
“Then perhaps you had better not try,” said Lydia.
“Lydia,” said Jane again, with more urgency.
Mr. Collins merely bowed, for condescension, once borrowed from a great lady, is not easily exhausted by interruption.
Lady Catherine was condescension itself.
Lady Catherine’s discernment was unequalled.
Lady Catherine’s opinions on poultry-yards, chimney-pieces, parish clothing, boiled potatoes, sermon length, and the proper situation of shelves in a clergyman’s study had formed him more or less entirely.
Her daughter, though unhappily delicate, possessed a sweetness of disposition proportioned to rank.
Her ladyship’s table was unexceptionable.
Her rooms were noble. Her notice of his parish arrangements had been flattering beyond measure.
By the time he reached the windows at Rosings, Lydia was gazing fixedly at the saltcellar in a condition of spiritual fatigue.
Kitty had begun covertly to kick her under the table, first from amusement and then from the restless wish to make something happen.
Mary looked as if she found some part of his seriousness promising, though even her expression faltered when he praised Lady Catherine’s correction of his sermons.
Jane was doing her utmost to appear attentive.
Elizabeth had fully entered that inward state in which one listens not from hope of instruction but from the necessity of identifying future inconvenience.
Later, when the ladies were together before tea and Mr. Collins had been surrendered for a few blessed minutes to Mr. Bennet’s library, Mrs. Bennet drew Elizabeth aside with the air of a woman bringing sense to a daughter who had long been in want of it.
“You perceive, I am sure,” she said, “that Mr. Collins is exceedingly well disposed.”
“He disposes himself with confidence,” Elizabeth replied.
“Do not be perverse. He is not handsome, perhaps, but that can signify very little in a clergyman, and his connexions at Rosings are prodigious. Besides, Jane is now quite another matter.”
“Jane is not a matter.”
“Do not split words, Lizzy. Jane is as good as settled, and a mother must look to her other girls. Mr. Collins will not look at Lydia or Kitty; they are children, whatever Lydia thinks of herself. Mary would frighten him with sermons of her own before the banns were called. But you are of an age. You have been out. You have lived in London. You have money enough to make a man overlook a great deal of liveliness, and he has Longbourn.”
“How romantic.”
“Romance has nothing to do with it, and very properly too. With your fortune — for I am sure it must be near a thousand a year, whatever your aunt chose to say of poor investments and hard times — joined to Mr. Collins’s living and Longbourn in prospect, you would be very handsome indeed.
A house in town and a country estate! Only think of it.
The family would be prosperous beyond anything. It is a lovely match.”
Elizabeth, who knew exactly how far from the truth this estimate fell, felt a sudden gratitude for every year Mrs. Marwood had cried poor while being decidedly nothing of the kind. There had been wisdom in it. More wisdom than Elizabeth, in youth, had appreciated.
Thank God, she thought, Mama has never been near my accounts.
“It is an arithmetic,” she said.
“Marriage is always arithmetic when one is sensible.”
“Then I shall be foolish.”
Mrs. Bennet’s eyes sharpened. She had come prepared to persuade and was beginning, as she often did when persuasion failed, to feel herself injured by the other person’s understanding.
“You have lived away too long,” she said. “It is not natural. A girl may have a house in London and still require a proper place in the world.”
“I have a proper place in the world.”
“Not like this. Not connected. Not settled. A young woman alone in town, mistress of herself, with no husband and too much money to be guided — do you think people will not talk? Mr. Collins would give you consequence of the proper sort.”
“The sort that comes with boiled potatoes and Lady Catherine’s shelves?”
“The sort that comes with a husband, a living, and Longbourn. You may laugh, but you would be mistress here one day.”
Elizabeth looked at her mother.
It was impossible, in that moment, not to understand that Mrs. Bennet believed herself generous.
She had taken Elizabeth’s independence, reduced it to an inconvenience, and found a man dull enough to correct it.
She had taken Longbourn, which had once relinquished Elizabeth without any great effort of resistance, and offered it back as if it were a crown.
“No,” Elizabeth said.
Mrs. Bennet blinked. “No?”
“No.”
“My dear Lizzy, you cannot say no before he has even asked you.”
“I can prepare the ground.”
“You are the most provoking girl in the world.”
“I have often been told so.”
“And no gratitude! No consideration for your family! You might secure Longbourn. You might make everything comfortable. You might bring your fortune back among your own.”
“My fortune,” said Elizabeth, very quietly, “does not require a family errand.”
Mrs. Bennet drew herself up.
“You think yourself very grand now.”
“No,” said Elizabeth. “I think myself unavailable.”
Before Mrs. Bennet could answer, the door opened and Mr. Collins returned, released from the library with the air of a man who had mistaken endurance for admiration.
His eyes moved at once toward Elizabeth.
Not boldly. Mr. Collins had not boldness enough to be direct where obliquity would do.
But they moved. Toward her mourning gown, plain but unmistakably fine.
Toward the rings on her hand, old rather than flashy.
Toward Mrs. Doddridge, seated with the composure of a companion whose place in the house had never been in question.
Toward Pom-Pom’s coat, which no sensible man could have admired but which any observing one might understand had been made in a house where odd indulgences could be paid for without discussion.
Elizabeth saw the small movements and disliked them.
It was not admiration she objected to. Admiration, when misplaced, could often be ignored.
It was appraisal.
Mr. Collins had come prepared to pity daughters. He was beginning to calculate one.
Mrs. Bennet, recovering herself, smiled with renewed purpose.
“Mr. Collins,” she cried, “you must sit by Lizzy. She will tell you everything worth knowing of London, though I daresay you know far better from Lady Catherine what is truly elegant.”
Mr. Collins bowed with grave satisfaction and advanced.
Elizabeth looked down at Pom-Pom, who had opened one eye and fixed it upon the approaching heir with a dislike so pure it seemed almost principled.
“Yes,” she murmured. “I am afraid we are agreed.”