Chapter Thirty-One
Longbourn
Mr. Bennet put his newspaper down, looked around the breakfast table, and cleared his throat. As expected, his wife and daughters looked up from their plates.
“Yes, Mr. Bennet?” his wife demanded, evidently not at all happy to have her breakfast interrupted.
“I have some news,” he began.
Mrs. Bennet clapped her hands. “Mr. Bingley has asked to court Jane!”
Jane looked startled, but her father reassured her at once. “No, no. It is not that. The news is that I expect a visitor in a few days’ time.”
“Another single gentleman?” Mrs. Bennet asked, hopefully.
“Yes, now that you mention the subject. He is very much single.”
The girls all traded glances. They well knew their father’s sardonic tone, and knew equally well that it did not bode well.
“And who is it, Papa? Stop teasing us!” Elizabeth said.
“It is my heir, Mr. Collins.”
A hubbub of voices followed this announcement, with Mrs. Bennet’s voice rising above the rest. “Mr. Collins! I hate the very sound of his name! And he thinks to stay here? I will not have it!”
“Be sensible, Mama,” Jane said at once. “There is nothing to be gained by antagonizing him.”
“On the contrary,” Elizabeth added. “There is everything to be gained by cosseting him in every possible way. We want him to like us, do we not?”
It took a good deal of time and effort, but Mrs. Bennet was eventually brought around to seeing the benefit of being on good terms with the man who could and likely would throw them all out of the house in the event of Mr. Bennet’s demise.
Then her brow wrinkled, and she addressed her husband.
“But how do you know he is single, Mr. Bennet?”
“Why, because it appears that he wants to marry one of our daughters, my dear.” The smirk on Mr. Bennet’s face made it plain that he had been waiting for someone, anyone, to ask that exact question.
“He thinks it is his duty to compensate our family’s loss of the estate by marrying one of our girls.
One almost suspects he would marry more than one of them, were he allowed to do so. ”
A hubbub of speculations followed. What would he look like? Would he be tall? Dark? Fair? Mr. Bennet could answer none of their questions, for he had never met the man himself.
He was only able to say that the man was a rector and was in thrall to one Lady Catherine de Bourgh, whoever that might be, and he was a prolific writer. And he had one last piece of information to impart. “I think him not a sensible man, but we shall see.”