Chapter 13 #4
Thankfully, at that moment, Mary and Charlotte Lucas swept in from the hallway, the former having spotted their neighbour in the lane a few minutes earlier and gone to fetch her in for tea.
Overhearing only the final exchange with Mr Collins, Charlotte looked astonished at first but then recovered quickly, with her usual good sense and practicality.
“Mr Collins, I called to say farewell to Elizabeth and Jane. However, my parents also wished me to remind you that you are very welcome to dine at Lucas Lodge. If you would care to dine with us tonight, you might accompany me back there now.”
“What a good idea,” Mrs Bennet rushed in with artificial cheeriness. “Sir William and Lady Lucas would so appreciate your company, Mr Collins. Just as much as we do, I am sure.”
“Thank you, Miss Lucas. I shall fetch my coat and hat,” responded Mr Collins, barely even looking at his present hostess or cousins. “The generosity and good manners of your family touches me deeply. How rare such qualities are these days, even in the best of families!”
The younger girls and their officer friends had already returned to the parlour by the time Charlotte swept Mr Collins out of the house, with a knowing nod and smile to Elizabeth as she went.
“Mr Collins proposed to me in the boot room, completely out of nowhere,” Elizabeth murmured to Jane as they watched the pair walk away towards Lucas Lodge.
“Oh dear! How strange, and how unfortunate. What can he have been thinking?”
“I cannot say, but I doubt Mr Collins will marry any of us now. At least he must leave soon, I suppose. He can have no remaining hopes, can he?”
Closing the front door, Jane took Elizabeth’s arm and strolled back along the passage slowly. “I shouldn’t think so,” she answered, shaking her head.
“Still,” Elizabeth sighed. “Mother should have been more civil to him, and Lydia and Kitty ought to be disciplined after such an ill-mannered display as that. There was no need to mock Mr Collins, even if he is a most unfortunate marital prospect. I hope he does not take my refusal in the same spirit as our sisters’. His offer was simply quite impossible.”
“It was very badly done by Lydia,” said Jane soberly. “No, I’m sure you were more respectful, Lizzy.”
“I am not thinking of marriage at all, and I certainly could not marry Mr Collins,” added Elizabeth, feeling obscurely that she must defend herself. “There cannot be that many women in the world who would. He is very trying.”
“I do see that,” Jane soothed her. “You would be far better marrying Mr Bingley, I think.”
Elizabeth laughed at the idea, especially when recalling Mr Bingley’s quiet admiration for Jane herself.
“Because he is rich and handsome?” she suggested. “Fie, Jane. I thought you higher minded than that, whatever mistaken path our mother might be set upon.”
“Not only that,” Jane replied with warmth. “Mr Bingley is also of vastly more amiable and estimable character than Mr Collins, don’t you think? He is rich and handsome too, but that would not stand him in such good stead if he did not possess greater virtues.”
“How lucky you are, Jane, to have fallen in love with a man who is rich, handsome, amiable, and estimable,” Elizabeth remarked.
“We cannot all be so lucky, however. As I love neither Mr Collins nor Mr Bingley, and never could, I shall not be marrying either of them. Likely, I will marry no one and end an old maid.”
Jane gave a very long sigh.
“It seems a shame. I should like to see you happily married one day, Lizzy, and Mr Bingley deserves happiness too.”
Such a statement made Elizabeth uneasy on several fronts.
It was all very well to feel kindly towards Mr Bingley, but her sister could not realise the way he gazed so adoringly upon her whenever they met.
Any encouragement, however innocent, could only increase his estimation of Jane, and his inevitable pain at its non-fulfilment.
Jane was to marry Lord Grantchester next year, and Mr Bingley could have no hopes.
Elizabeth hoped they would not meet Mr Bingley often in London, for his sake, as well as wishing to keep Jane from embarrassment. Never mind that seeing Mr Bingley seemed inextricably bound with seeing Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy, whose handsome, arrogant face seemed to haunt her own imagination.
“Oh, never mind marriage and men,” Elizabeth said hastily. “Let us leave worrying over these things to our mother, and think instead of what we will do with ourselves in London.”
“I cannot wait to see all our dear little cousins again,” Jane said immediately. “That is always my favourite thing in any visit to London.”
“I was thinking more of the social events we will be attending, and your seeing Lord Grantchester again,” Elizabeth protested lightly, puzzled once more over Jane’s way of thinking. “Aren’t you looking forward to that, too?”
“I suppose I am,” Jane agreed.
Elizabeth looked at her sister sharply. Something, she hardly knew what, was not entirely convincing in the words.
But her sister’s face wore a gentle smile that communicated nothing, and though Jane had not told her what she most wanted to know, she had at least said that she wished to see her fiance.
However lacking the words felt, they were all Jane was going to say, and Elizabeth had to be content with them.