Chapter 13 #3
Unbidden, the image of Mr Darcy propped into her head, his determined gaze and tight jaw communicating a stubbornness that matched her own. A pang of some strange and heady emotion shot through Elizabeth’s body like lightning, and she recoiled from its violence and unfamiliarity.
“No, I do not have any husband in mind!” she almost shouted at Mr Collins, before hastily modulating her tone. “I shall be quite content as a spinster aunt to my sisters’ children. Now, I must ask you to let me be. I have much to do before tomorrow.”
“This is most irregular,” Mr Collins said, having shrunk back into the corridor already, as soon as Elizabeth raised her voice, and now regarding her with mingled fascination and wariness. “I must speak with your parents. Yes, that is it. I must speak with Mr and Mrs Bennet, straight away.”
As she puzzled over her cousin’s odd cringing, Elizabeth suddenly realised she was wielding a boot in one hand.
Perhaps her cousin thought she intended to hit him with it?
Though she would never do such a thing, she could not deny that the thought, once it occurred, was as tempting as it was impossible.
An inappropriate burst of laughter bubbled up through her disordered thoughts, but she managed to swallow it as she set down the boot beside its companion.
“As you will, Mr Collins,” Elizabeth said.
To her mingled relief and embarrassment, she was beginning to hear the sound of young male voices coming down the corridor from the main hallway.
“But I fear my mother will be busy with tea and officers for some time. I recommend that you reflect on my words and change your course. Mary would…”
“How can I return to Hunsford without having secured a bride? Lady Catherine would be most disappointed, and I cannot fail her. She instructed me most clearly on this point. ‘Mr Collins,’ she said…”
Losing patience entirely, and having finished her task in the boot room, Elizabeth marched away past Mr Collins and back towards the drawing room. Behind her, she heard Mr Collins knock again at the library door. Again, he received no answer.
Her cousin truly was the most stupid man she had ever met.
∞∞∞
“Mrs Bennet, please, I must again beg a few minutes of your time,” Mr Collins implored. He trailed forlornly after Mrs Bennet as she emerged from the parlour, letter in hand and an expression of pleasant distraction on her face.
I allowed a full ten minutes for Mr Collins to regain his senses, if he has any, and yet here he is again, Elizabeth groaned inwardly as she hung back in a doorway and watched this scene playing itself out.
“Do stay in the drawing room and take some tea with the officers, Mr Collins,” Mrs Bennet urged, barely troubling herself to look back at him.
“I’m sure you will be missed by the girls.
Another letter from the Dowager Countess of Grantchester has arrived for me and requires my fullest attention.
I really must write back quickly on the colour scheme for flowers and bridesmaids. ”
“But, Madam, my concern is of the utmost import,” he protested, red-faced and obviously pained by her disinterest.
“Then you must speak to Mr Bennet,” she replied decisively. “He is the head of the household, you know. He is usually in his library at this hour.”
“Mr Bennet does not seem to be in, and the library is locked,” Mr Collins pointed out. “I have knocked and knocked. No one seems to have seen him.”
“Then there’s nothing I can do, is there?” Mrs Bennet returned, growing even less patient. “If you have knocked and got no answer, there is little point in my repeating it, is there? Now, I shall go to the drawing room. Go and join the other young people and —”
“Mrs Bennet, I wish to marry your daughter,” Mr Collins pronounced dramatically. He fell silent and looked at her expectantly, waiting for an enthusiastic response with obvious assurance.
“Do you?” she asked with a frown. “You had not given that impression, Mr Collins. Mary has said nothing…”
“Again, Mary!” he exclaimed irritably. “Why does everyone keep trying to talk to me about Miss Mary?”
“Well, then, if you won’t have Mary, and with Jane and Lizzy being off the market, you may marry Lydia or Kitty as you prefer,” Mrs Bennet told him bluntly, “only do sort it out yourself. I am very busy.”
As Mrs Bennet walked past Mr Collins, ignoring his further supplications, he tried to follow her but tripped on the rug, only narrowly keeping his balance.
This small accident was received with an unexpectedly loud volley of giggles and guffaws.
Elizabeth and Mr Collins both realised belatedly that the parlour door had been partly open and a group of laughing girls and young men now stood there.
Jane appeared behind them a few moments later, an expression of dismay on her gentle face.
“You really had better try Mary, Mr Collins,” Lydia told their cousin with great mirth. “She is the only one with a taste for sermonising. I think it is the most boring thing in the world, don’t you, Kitty?”
Utterly humiliated in the sight of both his young cousins and the officers of the militia, Mr Collins turned the colour of an overripe tomato. His brows knitted deeply as he finally observed Elizabeth watching too, from over near the staircase.
“I have never been so insulted in my life!” he declared angrily, almost shaking with the injury to his dignity in a way that Elizabeth supposed could not bode well for the Bennets’ future.
“Mr Collins, do not be hasty,” put in Mrs Bennet, having belatedly come to the same understanding as Elizabeth. “I am sure that Lydia and Kitty meant no disrespect.”
“Their intent is very plain, Madam, and that of their parents too. Three of your daughters have declined my hand, although I offered it only to Cousin Eliza. You have made it clear that I am not welcome—”
“Elizabeth?!” Mrs Bennet exclaimed in astonishment, pulling a face that seemed likely only to provoke Mr Collins further.