Chapter 17
Jane Collins cringed every time her libidinous husband came to her at night. Even though he kept to his commitment to bathe daily, he still made her skin crawl. The way he drooled over her turned her stomach.
Thank goodness the stratagem she had devised with her mother had fooled the man. She heard the housekeeper report to the master the next morning that there had indeed been blood on the sheets. Jane did not want to know what her husband would have done were it absent.
Her home was not bad, if one could remove her husband and his virago of a patroness—who thought it was her right to direct even the tiniest decision in the running of Jane’s home, down to the size of the joints she ordered.
Jane was at a loss what to do with her gowns and dresses, as Lady Catherine had suggested shelves in the closets, and a suggestion from her was like the Word of God to her husband. He could not understand the problem as in his mind, nothing his patroness uttered was anything but brilliant.
Jane could still hear the conversation with Lady Catherine in her head, which took place when the Collinses arrived that Friday evening, the day of their wedding.
No sooner had they arrived than her husband dragged her to Rosings Park so his patroness could meet her.
More importantly, he could demonstrate to her that he had obeyed her edict.
When the newlyweds followed the butler, Jane thought she was in a baroque palace that displayed every distasteful and gaudy item from the period. To hear her husband tell it, Lady Catherine had the most discerning of tastes, but Jane saw only evidence of the opposite.
The butler led them into a drawing room which was, if possible, more ostentatious than what she had already seen.
In the centre of the room was a raised throne-like chair with a gilded frame.
It had the same red velvet upholstery one would expect to see on the monarch’s seat—all that was missing were the lions which were part of the royal standard.
Her husband began a long soliloquy praising his patroness, then she cut him off. He placed his hand in front of his mouth as if that would halt the flow of words. “Approach, Mrs. Collins, so I can see you properly,” came the imperious command from the lady on the raised chair.
Lady Catherine may have been considered handsome at some point, but now her face was full of lines and wrinkles with a very angular bone structure. Jane had done as commanded and stepped forward and then she had made a deep curtsy.
“You will do. You are a prettyish kind of girl,” Lady Catherine pronounced with a sniff. Then the officious lady had sniffed some more. “Mr. Collins, you smell different.”
“You have my apologies a thousand times over, your beneficence, I had to agree…” Again, he had been cut off.
“Your odour is much more pleasant; see you keep it up.” Although Jane had agreed with the rude lady, still for her to humiliate the man in such a fashion was beyond the pale.
She did not love, nor even like, her husband, but to see him so treated did not make her feel good.
Then she looked at her husband. He had not realised he had been insulted; he bowed and scraped while thanking the great lady for her condescension.
“I will provide you with all the direction you need to run your house correctly; I like to pay attention to everything in my sphere,” Lady Catherine had announced.
“My wife will be most grateful…” Collins tried to say.
“Mr. Collins! When I address your wife, I expect her to answer, not you. She is not a mute, is she?” Lady Catherine had spat out, almost causing Mr. Collins to vacate his stomach there and then, as he bowed even lower to display his contrition.
“I thank you, your Ladyship,” Jane had responded.
Lady Catherine dismissed them with a disinterested wave of her hand.
Since that first meeting, Lady Catherine had visited the parsonage once with her sickly daughter in tow, the same one her husband described as the ‘Rose of Kent.’ She was a small, wan creature and if she was a rose then Jane would have eaten her bonnet.
The same woman who had taken her husband to task for not allowing Jane to speak for herself never allowed her daughter to speak, and always answered anything directed to Miss de Bourgh. Jane took pity on the woman. If she were able to, she would try and befriend her.
They dined at Rosings Park twice; five course meals for a normal day, not for a special event.
Jane wondered how it was the lady who ordered her to buy smaller joints wasted so much food.
Her husband ate as much as he could; his table manners were atrocious, Lady Catherine picked at a little here and there, and Miss de Bourgh hardly ate a mouthful.
She just pushed her food around her plate.
Even when Jane did not enjoy what was being served, she took a bite of each course to spare herself a lecture on arriving back at the parsonage about how she insulted the great lady by not eating from each course.
One time, Jane had tried to get her husband to allow her to run the house as she saw fit, pointing out although his patroness might be expert in some things, Jane knew full well Lady Catherine was not, but could not chance her husband’s wrath to point that out.
Rather she had prudently pointed out that Lady Catherine was used to running a mansion, not a small house like theirs.
Collins had screamed at Jane, telling her if she ever contravened any of Lady Catherine’s advice, he would punish her severely, just like he would have enjoyed doing to her former sister. That was the first time Jane saw the vicious side to her husband; she had been truly scared.
She had written to her mother to tell her how things were and in a very short, curt letter in reply to hers, Jane received no sympathy in return. Her mother told her to obey her husband. It seemed now that Jane had secured her future, her mother had no more time to expend on her.
To keep herself busy, she threw herself into visiting parishioners, trying to help where she could in the parish.
Jane found a great deal of mistrust there because people were accustomed to her husband sharing everything they told him in confidence with Lady Catherine, who then would scold them for some perceived wrong.
Jane knew she would have to earn their trust. As she truly started to wake up to the terrible person she had become, she acknowledged she had much for which to atone—and atonement would require deeds, not words. Being tied to a man like Mr. Collins was but a part of her penance.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Fanny Bennet finally decided if her brother would not answer her letters, she would take the carriage and journey to Gracechurch Street and would drag her wilful daughter back if needs be.
She needed her life to change. She had been convinced things would blow over in only a few days.
That had not happened. No matter how many times she made the attempt, none of her former friends would receive her.
If she tried to approach any of them on the High Street in Meryton, they cut her, even her sister Hattie did the same.
Bennet’s study door was not thick enough to shut out the wailing, crying, and gnashing of teeth at the terrible daughter who had cursed them. It was then he started to come to terms that going along with his wife had bought him nothing.
Between Mary banging away on the out of tune pianoforte, his youngest two banging on his door telling him to fix things for them, and his wife bursting in multiple times a day to demand the same of him, he was at his wits’ end.
When his wife barged into his study, demanding he accompany her to London to make Miss Lizzy come home and fix their reputation in the community, he refused point-blank.
He told her she was welcome to go if she chose, but he would not go on a fool’s errand.
None of her normal stratagems worked and Bennet stood firm for almost the first time in their five and twenty-year marriage.
In the end, Fanny left without him, taking her remaining three daughters with her. She arrived at 23 Gracechurch Street just as a very large and expensive looking coach was pulling away.
Bennet had sent an express to Gardiner, warning him of the problem on her way to him. Gardiner read the missive; appreciative he had not consigned it to the fire unread.
One of the Matlock coaches picked up Elizabeth; she would stay with Tiffany and Giana for a few days.
Gardiner was not worried about fending off his sister, but neither he nor his wife wanted to subject Lizzy to her vitriol.
Charlotte and Maria Lucas had arrived the previous day and had accompanied Lizzy to Matlock House.
“Move aside! I am here to see my brother and bring my disobedient daughter home,” Fanny screeched at the butler as her three daughters stood behind her watching, Lydia and Kitty giggling.
The butler had been told to allow Mrs. Bennet entrance to avoid the spectacle she might cause on the Gardiners’ doorstep.
Fanny marched into the drawing room, followed by the three Bennet sisters.
“Where is that daughter of mine who has caused us so much trouble?” Fanny demanded without greeting her brother and sister-in-law.
“Of whom do you speak, Mrs. Bennet? Were you under the impression Jane was here with us? Has she run away from that man already?” Gardiner asked, knowing full well who she meant.
“What is this nonsense you speak of about Jane, Brother? I am talking about Miss Elizabeth Bennet. There is none but she who caused the problems we now live with,” Fanny asserted. “My poor Lydia and her sisters can have no fun because they are no longer received anywhere.”
“These misfortunes sound heavy indeed, but we have no Elizabeth Bennet as part of our household,” Gardiner informed his sister.
“Good, you threw the hoyden out! Where is she? I need to bring her home to fix what I, I mean, what she has caused,” Fanny shot back.