CHAPTER 1 THE PUG AND MR. COLLINS
Elizabeth
The trouble began, as most troubles at Longbourn did, with my mother’s voice carrying through three walls and a closed door.
“Five thousand a year! Five thousand, Mr. Bennet! And his friend has ten! Ten thousand a year and an estate in Derbyshire, and they are both unmarried!”
I set down my book, a novel I had been enjoying precisely because it contained no mention of unmarried gentlemen or their annual incomes, and resigned myself to the inevitable. When Mama discovered eligible men within a twenty-mile radius, no corner of the house remained sacred.
The library door was slightly ajar. I had been curled in the window seat of the small parlor adjacent, trying to enjoy the rare October sunshine slanting through the glass.
From this position, I could hear every word of the conversation unfolding next door without straining, a skill I had perfected over twenty years of living in a house where privacy was more theoretical than actual.
“My dear, I am aware of Mr. Bingley’s circumstances.” Papa’s voice carried the particular weariness that had become more frequent since his illness began in August. “You have informed me of them no fewer than seventeen times since Tuesday.”
“Eighteen! I mentioned it again at breakfast, which you would know if you ever listened—”
“Ah, yes. Eighteen. My apologies.”
Through the crack in the door, I caught a glimpse of my father in his worn leather chair.
A blanket lay across his knees despite the fire burning steadily in the grate.
He had lost weight these past two months.
The physician from London, summoned at great expense when the local apothecary had proved insufficient, had prescribed rest, laudanum for the pain in his joints, and a tincture whose cost appeared to be measured by the strength of its odor.
Papa had followed none of these instructions, except for the rest, which his body had enforced regardless of his preferences.
“And you must call on him! It is only proper. How else are we to be introduced? How else are our girls to have any chance at all?”
Mama’s voice had risen to that particular pitch that signaled rising panic, and despite my irritation, I could not entirely dismiss her concern.
We were five daughters with inadequate dowries and no claim to our home.
When Papa died, Longbourn would pass to the closest male relative, a clergyman in Kent about whom I knew nothing except that his letters to Papa were prosy, obsequious, and frequently referenced his patroness in terms that bordered on idolatry.
The entail hung over us like a sword suspended by a fraying thread. None of us spoke of it, except Mama, who spoke of it constantly and to anyone who would listen, as if by repeating the injustice often enough she might somehow alter its reality.
“I shall call on Mr. Bingley when I am well enough to ride,” Papa said mildly. “Which may be tomorrow, or may be never. The uncertainty lends a certain excitement to the proceedings, do you not think?”
“Thomas Bennet, if you die before those girls are settled, I shall never forgive you!”
“I shall endeavor to haunt you regardless, my dear. It seems only fair.”
I pressed my hand over my mouth to stifle a laugh that was not entirely amusement.
Papa’s wit had not diminished with his health.
If anything, it had sharpened, honed itself into something more pointed, as though he were determined to spend whatever time remained saying precisely what he meant.
But beneath the banter, I heard what Mama could not: the exhaustion, the measured breathing, and the careful rationing of energy that allowed him these brief performances before retreating into silence.
He was frightened. We all were. But none of us had yet found the words to say so, and so we carried on as though the world were not quietly tilting beneath our feet, as though everything might yet right itself if we simply pretended hard enough.
Mama’s entreaties were interrupted by the sound of a carriage.
Since I was already seated at the window, I glanced up to note that the carriage did not bear a crest. It was smaller than a gentleman’s equipage, considerably less elegant, and pulled by horses that looked as road-weary as the vehicle itself.
We did not expect visitors. My youngest sister, Lydia, was busy complaining about the injustice of being forbidden to walk into Meryton unchaperoned, a complaint that had become so familiar it had nearly ceased to register as language at all.
Jane was quietly embroidering, Kitty stared vacantly at the wallpaper while Mary made notes in her prayer journal, and Hill was clearing the luncheon things.
Mama rose quickly to the window. “Who on earth could be calling so early?”
Unexpected visitors were either opportunities or inconveniences, depending on their marriageability and financial status, both of which could be assessed with remarkable speed by a woman who had raised the calculation of eligible bachelors to an art form.
“I believe it could be Mr. Collins,” Jane said softly. “Mama, do you remember? He wrote to Papa, asking permission to visit.”
The name fell like cold toast on a warm table.
Mr. Collins. My father’s cousin. The clergyman who would inherit Longbourn when Papa died—a prospect that had seemed distant and academic until August, when it had suddenly become neither.
I had read his letters over my father’s shoulder, effusive documents full of references to his “noble patroness” and his desire to “heal the breach” between our families.
Papa had found it amusing. I had found it ominous.
“He is early.” Mama’s voice sharpened like the knives she no doubt thought about greeting him with. “He said Thursday. This is Wednesday.”
“Perhaps he miscounted,” I offered. “Arithmetic can be challenging when one is occupied with composing sentences so long and winding.”
“He has come to gloat over your father’s illness and take inventory of our belongings lest we remove the family silver.” Mama worked herself up with a puff of indignant affront.
“Surely he means well, Mama,” Jane said gently. “Perhaps he simply wishes to offer comfort during Papa’s illness. We should not assume the worst of his intentions.”
Mama grabbed Lydia’s arm so strongly that she squeaked. “Quick, girls, go to your rooms and tidy up.”
My younger sisters escaped with giggles and titters, making mockery of the strange cousin, and Mary marched to the music room with the solemn air of a jurist.
“Lizzy, Jane, I suppose we must endure the present trials.” Mama fanned herself, forestalling our retreat. “The man who will turn us out to the hedgerows has come to pick over the carrion bones. Lizzy, do use your wit and inform him that we are quite well and in no need of his condolences.”
Jane gave me a look—half reproach, half suppressed smile.
I smoothed my dress, tucked an errant curl behind my ear, the curl that had been escaping since childhood and would presumably continue escaping until my dying day, and prepared to meet the man who would someday own everything I had ever called home.
The vulture was not what I expected, though I suppose I am not certain what I had expected—perhaps someone elderly and grim, all sharp angles and disapproving frowns, the physical manifestation of an entail made flesh.
Instead, Mr. William Collins was perhaps five-and-thirty, round-faced and round-bodied, with the eager expression of a dog who desperately wished to be patted and was not entirely certain he deserved the attention.
He wore a clergyman’s black that had been carefully brushed but not recently tailored, and he entered the parlor with a bow so deep and so prolonged that I briefly worried that he might topple forward entirely.
The footman set his traveling case and luggage in the foyer, but he held on to a small wicker basket as if it were the remnants of a particularly precious roadside lunch.
“Mrs. Bennet! What an honor—what a profound honor—to be welcomed into your home. The elegance, the refinement, the evident good taste—I see at once that my noble patroness—that is to say, my former patroness, for as I wrote to Mr. Bennet, circumstances have—but I digress. These must be your daughters! The famed five beauties of Longbourn, of whom I have heard such—”
A noise interrupted him—a strange, snuffling, wheezing noise, accompanied by the frantic scrabbling of small claws against wicker.
The top of the basket popped open, dislodging the worn velvet, and from within it emerged the most peculiar creature I had ever seen accompanying a clergyman.
It was a pug. Or at least, I believed it was a pug.
I had seen illustrations in books, the sort of sentimental prints that depicted ladies of fashion with small dogs draped decoratively across their laps.
However, no illustration had prepared me for the reality: the flat, wrinkled face that looked as though someone had pressed it firmly against a door; the bulging eyes that swiveled with suspicious assessment; the compact, barrel-shaped body; and the expression of profound disapproval directed at the room in general and Mr. Collins’s left shoe in particular.
The creature fixed me with its uneven gaze, and its expression suggested that I was being evaluated by a judge far more discerning than any magistrate.
I stared back, uncertain whether to laugh or retreat.
“Ah!” Mr. Collins brightened. “I see you have noticed my dear Empress! A remarkable animal, Miss—forgive me, I have not yet been properly introduced—”
“Elizabeth,” I said, still caught in the pug’s accusatory stare. “I am Elizabeth. That is Jane. What exactly is that creature doing in your basket?”