Chapter 40 Closets and Confessionals
CLOSETS AND CONFESSIONALS
It took some doing, but Saye was at last able to persuade Miss Goddard to come with him to return to the room where he had found paper for Darcy’s missive. “A few minutes,” he told her. “There is a fine view of the gardens.”
“I doubt there is a fine view of anything in the dark,” she told him but followed him anyhow, which he thought was an auspicious sign.
He knew not what sort of room it was…a small family sitting room, perhaps? It hardly signified; for the quarter of an hour he planned to spend within it, it might as well be a coal cellar.
Alas, just as he had taken her into his arms, there was a rattle of the door latch, and it began to open.
Saye had prepared for such a problem, however, and had noted a convenient closet.
“In,” Saye urged with scarcely enough time to shove Miss Goddard into the closet which was rather commodious and, happily, not burdened with an excess of shelves.
“Saye!” Miss Goddard gave him an adorably ineffectual shove, her eyes wide and her voice low. “You are going to ruin me!”
“My darling—” He gave her a little kiss on the tip of her nose. “Should I decide to ruin you, I will ensure you enjoy it far more than this. And it would not happen in a dark closet.”
This warranted a slap on his chest, which he answered with another little kiss and then another and another. Alas, the kisses were so very enjoyable that they were quite insensible to the conversation being had by the occupants of the room who had driven them into the closet.
“…female mind is ruled over by its sensitivities, and for this reason, such important decisions can never be made by young ladies, as they lack the ability to discern the course of greatest and truest reason and rationality. As Lady Catherine herself once said—”
“Will you please stop talking for once!”
It was the woman who had married that Collins fellow.
Saye believed she might be a daughter of the house?
In any case, it seemed she was quite done hearing his blather.
Collins must have been shocked by the revolt, for there was a portentous silence until Mrs Collins said, “Forgive me, I am very tired.”
“She does not sound like she is very sorry,” Miss Goddard murmured, and Saye nodded.
“Of course, my dear,” said Collins, sounding…oily. “Let us both retire…together.”
Disgusting, thought Saye. Mrs Collins is hardly a handsome woman, but neither does she deserve to have that toad sating himself on her.
It was not that he wished to immerse his thoughts in such matters, but for a brief moment he wondered how that must be, exactly, for a woman to be forced to share a bed with such a loathsome creature.
Did it stop once a child came along? Or would he keep at her endlessly?
Poor thing is no better than a kept woman.
At least a kept woman is afforded her freedom between visits from her lover.
Even going outside the home would be no relief, for then she must have to contend with Lady Catherine.
Saye shuddered. He despised his aunt and her dreadful, gaudy house which showed no real style whatsoever.
He loathed his wan, porridge-faced cousin who sat there wrapped in shawls all the day long.
But most of all, he hated the way both his aunt and his cousin lorded it over everyone they knew, so wholly persuaded of their own superiority.
There is nothing worse than a miserable creature who does not know it is miserable.
He had just opened his mouth to offer this bon mot to Miss Goddard when the two in the room began to speak again.
“In any case, as I was saying, I do not think the kinship of the Bennet family and myself can rightly be maintained. It would be better that Cousin Elizabeth should be dead than to blacken her family name as she has.”
“Dead? That seems…hard. She will marry Sir James and then— Why do you shake your head so?”
“Marriage might cover the sin, but the stain shall remain.” It sounded as if Collins was pacing, his footsteps slow and heavy and thudding. “‘A wife of noble character, who can find? She is worth far more than rubies.’ That is in—”
“Proverbs, yes, I know,” said Mrs Collins impatiently. “But Mr Bennet surely did her no favours in removing her from the party as he did. No one has spoken of anything else since.”
“Exactly my point. The Bennets are a blight unto themselves. There is nothing of nobility or acclaim to them. And that is why to associate such persons with my own name seems…unwise. The Collinses have always been a respectable family. I fear that nothing less than cutting all ties with the Bennets will prevent the blotch upon the Collinses.”
Saye rolled his eyes. “Idiot,” he whispered.
“It is nothing to do with you,” said Mrs Collins to her husband. “And do think that if you should disclaim the Bennets, then legally—”
“I might need to disclaim Longbourn. Perhaps I must. I am not sure my claim on the inheritance would be affected, but so be it if it is. Gold and silver have I none but—”
“Stop quoting Bible verses at me,” said Mrs Collins, sounding very tense. “Cousin Eliza will marry and then—”
“But the stain will linger, as I said. In any case, I am not wholly certain Sir James will marry her. He did not arrive to keep his appointment with her father today, you know.”
Saye could not repress a smirk of victory at that. Darcy surely did owe him a substantial debt.
“’Tis best that my godly character, the sanctity of my name, be held above all causes.”
Saye was not certain, but he believed he might actually hear Mrs Collins breathing rapidly, panting like a dog almost.
“I will go to Bennet tomorrow and tell him—”
“No! You must not. Not tomorrow.”
“You did not hear what I was saying,” said Mr Collins, sounding petulant.
“Of course.” Mrs Collins inhaled loudly. “What is it you wish to tell Mr Bennet?”
There were six slow, thudding footfalls before Mr Collins said, “Tell him I forswear all connexion to him. Tell him I no longer wish to be considered a cousin to a fallen woman, no matter that some man has subsequently picked her up.”
“But the entail,” said Mrs Collins, sounding desperate.
“Fie on the entail,” said Mr Collins. “I must do as needs must and devil take the consequences.”
“You will see us ruined!”
“I will tend to our immortal souls,” Collins cried out, sounding like he was delivering a sermon.
“It was I who did it. Not Eliza!”
Saye and Miss Goddard both gasped.
“She conjured up the rumours?” Miss Goddard whispered.
“It seems so,” Saye replied just as quietly.
“You did what, Mrs Collins?”
The panting was happening again and sounded like it was mixed with little sobs. “I made it all up.”
Saye could only delightedly imagine Collins’s cod-mouthed gape at his wife.
“Wh-what do you mean?”
It was the first time Saye had ever heard Collins sound uncertain.
“Made what up?”
“Eliza did not do anything. I saw her, from the window. It was just as she said. She was alone. In the garden. Reached into the rose bush and tore her gown. Sir James was nowhere in sight.”
Another prolonged silence. “Mrs Collins, I am utterly shocked. I scarcely know what to say to you. This is dreadful. Perfectly dreadful.”
“Yes, I know.” It sounded as if Mrs Collins had begun to weep.
“My own wife, a liar and a Judas,” said Collins with wonderment. “I cannot think how I so grievously misjudged your character.”
Mrs Collins said nothing to that. “There is nothing to be gained by forswearing your inheritance from the Bennets,” she said. “We must urge Eliza to marry Sir James so all of this nonsense can be put aside. All will be well.”
“All is not well,” said Mr Collins, still sounding shocked. “Mrs Collins, you have been an instrument of destruction for your dear friend, my own cousin. You have contributed to her despair most grievously.”
“Yes, I know,” said Mrs Collins. It sounded as if she too was now pacing.
“Do you think I am not distressed by the result of my own actions? It…the whole of it simply spun out of control, and before I knew it, things were…as they are. But Eliza will marry and all will be well. He is a baronet, is he not? Hardly a bad prospect for her.”
Saye gave Miss Goddard one last kiss to the cheek. “Wait here,” he said. “Come out after we are all gone.”
“What?” Miss Goddard asked. “But what are you going to do?”
He did not answer but, instead, opened the closet just enough to step out. “Alas, Mrs Collins,” he said. “Your view of things is not one that my family, most particularly my cousin Darcy, shares.”