Chapter 2
“Do not tire yourself out when performing your husbandly duties. Remember to save energy to make your pastoral visits. A husband should always consider such matters first.”
-Lady Catherine de Bourgh
It was Tuesday night, which had long been deemed by Lady Catherine to be the most auspicious night for marital activities.
Lady Catherine had an active interest in everything that went on in the parish, and that included Mr. Collins’ husbandly prerogatives.
The nights she had long declared to be the only approved ones for marital activities were Tuesday and Friday.
Never Saturday night, because Mr. Collins ought to be preparing his sermon, and never Sunday night, because he ought to be beginning his next sermon.
My husband was a great bear of a man, but he made love like he a mouse trying to sneak past a cat to get a piece of cheese. I knew who the mouse was (my husband), who the cheese was (me), and unfortunately, I also knew who the cat was (Lady Catherine de Bourgh).
Although we had been married for almost a year now, his methods of making love still startled me, but I knew Lady Catherine deemed them to be the most healthful, and William always heeded her advice.
First, he began with a deep vocalizing, a sort of eerie throbbing hum that was meant, according to her, to “stiffen the sinews and begin the harmonic vibrations.” His big chest heaved as he begun the humming.
William was a good man in so many ways, but he did not know how to carry a tune, so I lay beside him and bit my tongue severely as he made his way hummingly through the chorus of an old hymn.
I felt sometimes that I could bear the humming very well if it wasn’t for the fact that he chose such a lugubrious hymn.
Lady Catherine had told him that I ought to be lying on my back and that any other position was “not Trinitarian.” As my husband was a big, broad man, he was nervous about hurting me, thus he held himself back from me with an expression of the utmost terror in his face.
As usual, I felt a mixture of excitement and nervous twisting pressure at the feel of his hands on me.
It wasn’t like I did not enjoy Tuesday and Friday nights.
It was just that they felt. . .incomplete somehow.
I was well used to it by now, but when he was done I always felt a strange pressure sitting heavy in my core. It felt like an itch I couldn’t scratch all over my skin.
Sometimes I wondered what would happen if he would just slow down. Maybe things would improve, but he never did. Lady Catherine had warned him that Speed was Of the Essence when it came to fulfilling his husbandly duties.
“Did that seem healthful, my dear?” Mr. Collins asked me anxiously, turning to me as he always did, his face pink with exertion, curls plastered to his forehead.
“Very healthful, my dear,” I lied, as I always did.
He looked at me for another second, still breathing a bit hard, and I flushed as I thought I saw a strange hunger in his eyes.
My core still throbbed with the pressure and I wondered if there was anything that could make the feeling go away besides tossing and turning in bed.
Maybe if he did it again?
But, no, Lady Catherine had said Speed Was Of the Essence and More Than One Time Was Unbecoming. So my husband turned over and went to sleep, and I tried not to toss and turn, the tight pressure in my belly burning and tearing at me.