CHAPTER 1 THE PUG AND MR. COLLINS #2
“Empress is my companion, Miss Elizabeth. My solace in times of trial, my comfort in my day of despair.” He coughed, the brightness fading from his round face like a candle guttering in a draft.
“She was a gift, originally. From my former patroness. But circumstances change, do they not? Alliances shift. And when it became clear that my position at Hunsford was no longer… that is to say, when Lady Catherine and I reached a parting of ways…”
He trailed off, looking suddenly smaller and less ridiculous. The pug, sensing his distress, emitted a sympathetic grunt and attempted to climb out of the basket with all the grace of a furry cannonball.
“You left Lady Catherine’s service?” I asked, curious as to his change in circumstance. “I thought you were quite devoted to her. Your letters to my father rather suggested—”
“I was devoted! I am devoted! That is—” He caught himself, glanced around the room as though checking for eavesdroppers, and lowered his voice to what was presumably meant to be a confidential murmur but remained audible throughout the entire neighborhood.
“It was a matter of honor, Miss Elizabeth. Miss Lucas, that is, a young lady of my acquaintance, was visiting Hunsford, and Lady Catherine made certain remarks about her… her situation in life. Her prospects. And I could not—could not, in good conscience—remain silent while a lady of good character was thus maligned.”
I blinked, unable to reconcile the contradiction of a man who wrote with such pomposity with the one in front of me who had stood up to his formidable patroness in defense of a lady’s honor.
The image seemed as impossible as Empress performing a quadrille, yet here he stood, dismissed from his position and traveling to strangers with nothing but a wheezing pug and a fragile hope that someone might find him and his pug worth keeping.
“You argued with Lady Catherine de Bourgh,” I said slowly, turning the information over in my mind like an unexpected coin. “Over Miss Lucas.”
“I did not argue. I merely expressed—” He straightened, and an expression like dignity returned to his round face.
“I told her that Miss Lucas was the kindest, most sensible young woman of my acquaintance, and that I would not hear her spoken of with such disdain. Lady Catherine did not take kindly to the correction.”
“I imagine she did not.” Mama found her voice. “Whatever will you do?”
“I was given one week to find alternative employment. Hence, my letter to your father. Hence—” He gestured around the parlor with an air of desperate hope.
“—my presence here. I am not asking for charity, Mrs. Bennet. The living at Longbourn is vacant, is it not? I am a capable clergyman. I have references. And I have some training in the apothecary arts. I attended lectures in Edinburgh before taking orders, and I have found the knowledge most useful in tending to the sick.”
The living at Longbourn—I had nearly forgotten.
The small church in the village, its elderly rector having passed in the spring, the position unfilled because Papa had not been well enough to interview candidates, and Mama had been too distracted by his illness to care about anything so practical as the spiritual welfare of the parish.
And here was Mr. Collins, offering not just to fill the position but to bring medical knowledge with him, knowledge that might—
Mama looked toward me, no doubt entreating me to conjure a witty remark meant to discourage without causing offense.
“My father is unwell,” I said, the words coming carefully. “You know this?”
“I do. It was mentioned in his response to my letter. Which is why—” He reached into his coat and produced a small glass vial, stopped with a cork, and filled with an amber-colored liquid.
“I took the liberty of preparing a tincture. A compound of willow bark, meadowsweet, and certain other elements. It eased my mother’s suffering considerably in her final years.
I thought perhaps—if Mr. Bennet would permit—”
He held out the vial like an offering. On the floor, Empress had escaped her basket and was investigating my left ankle with snuffling intensity, her wrinkled nose pressing against my stocking with the thoroughness of a customs inspector examining suspicious cargo.
“You made medicine for my father,” I reflected aloud. “A man you have never met.”
“I wished to be useful.” Mr. Collins’s voice had lost its pompous edge, becoming simply earnest. “It is all I have ever wished, Miss Elizabeth. To be of use to someone. To be wanted somewhere.”
The pug sneezed against my stocking, apparently satisfied with my scent.
Something about the raw hope in Mr. Collins’s voice stirred a similar sentiment inside of me.
He was prosy and awkward and prone to sentences that wandered like lost sheep across the pastures of common sense.
But he had defended a woman’s honor at the cost of his position.
He had prepared medicine for an ailing stranger.
He had traveled to a strange household with nothing but a pug and a vial of willow bark and the desperate hope that someone might find him worth keeping.
“I will speak to my father.” The words surprised me even as they emerged. “About the living. And about your tincture.”
Across from me, Jane beamed with approval while Mama cringed at my bald-faced offer.
Mr. Collins’s face transformed with such sudden radiance that I half expected the room to be set ablaze. The painfully hopeful intensity directed at me made me wish I had said nothing at all.
“You will? Oh, Miss Elizabeth—I cannot express—the generosity, the condescension—”
“Please do not attempt to express it, Mr. Collins. The afternoon is not long enough.”
Jane made a small choking sound that might have been a suppressed laugh. Mama looked utterly bewildered by this turn of events. And Empress the pug, having apparently decided that my ankle was satisfactory, heaved her barrel-shaped body into a sitting position.
She bumped her wrinkled head against my skirts, apparently deeming me worthy of her allegiance. I scratched behind her ears and wondered what, precisely, I had just agreed to.