Chapter 2 #6
Richard Collins exhaled sharply, a sound midway between a sigh and a groan.
“I owe money everywhere—to the excise man, to the butcher and the baker, to the brewer and the wine-merchant. No banker in Portsmouth would advance me a shilling on such security as this.” His voice dropped to a whisper of despair. “I am at the end of my rope, cousin.”
“And William?” Mr. Bennet asked softly, directing the question like a well-aimed arrow.
Richard flinched as though the name itself were a blow. He turned his face away, staring at the cold hearth as though seeking counsel from the dead ashes.
“He is all I have left,” the innkeeper said at last, the words dragged from him with pain.
“My only son. Yet what can I give him? This crumbling inn, these debts, this—” He spread his hands in a gesture of utter defeat.
“He might take it on one day, when I am gone. It is the only trade I know to teach him.”
Mr. Bennet regarded him steadily, a faint ache stirring in his own breast as he considered the parallel threads of their lives—two men bound by blood yet divided by fortune, each burdened with a future he could not fully secure.
“You still envy me my estate,” he said quietly.
“It is true that Longbourn is landed property, and I am accounted a gentleman. Yet it is entailed, and I have five daughters to establish in the world with little enough to offer them. Do not imagine, cousin, that certainty has been more generously bestowed upon me than upon you.”
Richard shook his head stubbornly. “Land endures. An inn may vanish overnight.”
“And responsibility endures likewise,” Mr. Bennet returned, without mockery. “It may wear a different face, but the weight is much the same.”
Another silence fell, broken only by the distant clink of crockery as William passed through the passage with a tray. Richard’s gaze followed the boy unconsciously, lingering with a mixture of pride and anguish.
“If I had thirty pounds,” he said at last, his voice scarcely above a whisper, “I could settle the most pressing debts and keep the doors open quietly for half a year. If the cook could be persuaded to return—for I haven’t paid her over last month—and the maid induced to stay, I might yet contrive. ”
Mr. Bennet inclined his head in acknowledgement. “I should tell you that a solicitor wrote me concerning Martha’s passing. So here I am. Your wife left provision. But—”
Richard’s head snapped up, hope and suspicion warring in his bloodshot eyes. “She did?”
“She did indeed,” Mr. Bennet confirmed. “But not for your relief. I am appointed trustee until William attains his majority, and those monies are reserved exclusively for his education and advancement. They may not—and shall not—be diverted to any other purpose. Do I make myself clear?”
The hope in Richard’s face died as swiftly as it had kindled. His jaw tightened until the muscles stood out like cords. “So you will not spare a penny of my own son’s inheritance to save us all.”
“Not from his portion,” Mr. Bennet answered, unflinching. “No.”
The words hung starkly between them, final and irrevocable.
Yet after a measured pause, during which Mr. Bennet studied the play of emotion across his cousin’s countenance, he continued in the same calm tone: “Nevertheless, I will place thirty-five pounds in your hands. Not as a loan to be repaid, but as assistance freely given.”
Richard stared at him, incredulity slowly overtaking despair. “Why would you do such a thing?”
“Upon one condition,” Mr. Bennet replied evenly. “That you renounce strong drink henceforth—entirely.”
A bitter, incredulous laugh escaped Richard. “And what do you demand in exchange for this generosity?”
“Nothing,” Mr. Bennet said simply. “Save that you permit William to pursue the path now open to him. I have already set certain arrangements in train. Let the boy follow where his abilities and his mother’s hopes may lead him.”
Richard’s hands clenched upon the table. “I need him here. Without William—”
“You will find another pair of hands,” Mr. Bennet interrupted, though not unkindly. “They will come if the house is soberly kept. Do you know a lad named James?”
“La! The dock-worker’s thin boy whom William has befriended?” Richard frowned in recollection. “The pale one who lingers about the back street?”
“The same. Would he not serve for modest wages and two square meals a day?”
Richard hesitated, turning the notion over with reluctant hope. “He might. I cannot say for certain.”
“Consider it carefully,” Mr. Bennet advised. “We shall speak again this evening. Until then—remember your pledge.”
Richard’s broad shoulders sagged beneath an invisible weight.
He understood, at least dimly, his cousin’s intention: to secure William’s future by removing him from the narrow confines of the inn and preparing him, should he prove equal to it, for the University.
He stared, and finally consented—not from gratitude, but from that weary relief by which negligent men so often accept the removal of responsibility.
“If you think it worth your while,” he said, with a shrug, “I shall not stand in the way. William was always made for books, not business. Only do not expect me to turn scholar myself.”
“I expect nothing of the sort,” returned Mr. Bennet.
“Oh, it is hard already without Martha,” Richard Collins muttered, almost to himself. “The nights are long, and the days longer still. I cannot manage this inn alone any longer.”
“Then prepare,” Mr. Bennet replied with quiet gravity, “soon it will be hard without William also.”
Richard looked up sharply, alarm flashing across his features. “You mean to take him from me?”
“Only for the day,” Mr. Bennet assured him.
“I shall take William to Mr. Jennings’s office for an examination of his abilities, and thence to St. Thomas à Becket’s church.
We shall return by noon. If matters proceed as I reasonably expect, he will be accepted as a copyist and placed under instruction to repair what his early schooling has left imperfect; and when the time comes, he will leave Portsmouth.
In a year or so, should he persevere, he may be fit for college. ”
A long silence followed, heavy with unspoken fears and half-formed hopes. Richard’s eyes glistened suspiciously in the morning light; he dashed a hand across them as though brushing away smoke.
“Why do you trouble yourself with us at all?” he asked at length, his voice rough with emotion he could not quite conceal.
Mr. Bennet met his gaze squarely, allowing a rare note of genuine feeling to enter his voice.
“Because you are my nearest kinsman, Richard—the only relation I may claim beyond my own immediate circle. I cannot turn my back while you stand upon the brink, not when a steadying hand may yet avail. And because—” He paused, the words coming slowly, as though drawn from some private well of reflection.
“—I should wish, if misfortune ever overtook me, however improbable, to believe that my wife and daughters would not be wholly abandoned, but might receive such aid as you could offer until they are safely settled.”
Richard Collins frowned in sudden concern. “Are you unwell, cousin?”
“No,” Mr. Bennet answered, with the ghost of his customary lightness. “God be thanked, I am in tolerable health. But you asked for honesty, and I have given it.”
His cousin nodded in understanding.
“Also, I have promised—” Mr. Bennet said while he drew from his pocket a small leather purse, weighed it once in his hand, and set it down upon the table between them. “There are five-and-thirty pounds,” he said quietly. “No account, no reckoning. Spend it as you must—only keep your word, Cousin.”
Richard nodded slowly, the unaccustomed tears standing openly in his eyes now. He made no effort to conceal them.
“You will speak to William, then,” Mr. Bennet concluded gently. “It is essential for him to know you stand behind him—whatever it may take.”
Richard drew a deep, shuddering breath, steadying himself as best he might. “Yes,” he said, the single word carrying more weight than any oath. “I will speak to him.”
Only now, after all he had seen and done in Portsmouth, did Mr. Bennet permit himself to believe that Richard’s word might hold—that his own determined generosity could still redeem both father and son from collapse, and that Providence, working in its silent way, might grant the boy a future brighter than the narrow, laborious one he had known.
***
The day proved very industrious indeed. Richard Collins sought his son in the quiet interval after breakfast, drawing him aside into the small parlor that had once served as Martha’s private domain, and there spoke with him privately, without witnesses and without ceremony.
He explained Cousin Bennet’s intentions as he himself understood them—plainly, without embellishment, and without offering assurances he was not yet certain he could sustain.
The father did not feign enthusiasm, nor did he disguise his own unease at the prospect of losing the boy’s daily help; yet he made it clear, in his rough, unpolished way, that he would not stand in the way of what had been proposed.
William listened in silence, his posture respectful and his young countenance grave beyond his years.
The effort of self-command was visible—not in any restless agitation, but in the careful stillness with which he held himself, as though the slightest motion might betray the tumult within.
When his father had finished, the boy did not reply at once, allowing the weight of the words to settle fully upon him.
At length he spoke, quietly and with a seriousness that touched even Richard’s hardened heart, without any appeal to sentiment or undue dramatics: “I will do my utmost to deserve it, Father. Thank you.”