Chapter 18
The Colonel
On the nineteenth day from the moment she saw Mr. Darcy’s apparition for the first time under the cherry trees, something changed.
Elizabeth woke early as usual.
But soon she was engulfed in a furore when a certain Colonel Fitzwilliam showed up at the parsonage looking for her.
“Lady Catherine will be so pleased to see you have arrived with news!”
Mr. Collins prattled away as Charlotte settled them all in the parlour with tea and scones.
Elizabeth took the chair next to Maria. It was at an angle from the Colonel and afforded her the chance to observe him without the full force of the realization that something would transpire very soon. Something unknowable.
“I hope Mr. Darcy has been recovering well,” Mr. Collins continued.
“We have had him in our thoughts constantly. I was inspired to lead a special prayer and sermon this past Sunday to bring her ladyship some comfort during these tough times. If I may be so bold, Lady Catherine was especially pleased with it.”
He picked up a scone from the plate Charlotte was offering to everyone.
“She said to me, ‘Mr. Collins, you have outdone yourself on behalf of my nephew!’ And I said to her, ‘It is but my duty, your ladyship, as a man of the cloth. The lifelong pursuit of offering sustenance to the spirit, and bringing the word of God as succour against the darkening of hope, is but the noblest of actions one might do.’”
He eyed the scone in his hand for a brief moment, before he—very clearly—chose to forgo his sustenance in order to speak some more.
"I do believe, if I say so myself, that the role of a clergyman never truly ends. One must be ever ready to tend to his flock. And more so the munificent patroness—as everyone in Hunsford and the surrounds recognizes Lady Catherine to be—during her own period of tribulation.”
Mr. Collins eyed the scone again.
“I believe the sermon brought some comfort to Miss de Bourgh, however small and humble,” he continued. “It must be quite the distress to know her betrothed lies indisposed in locales unknown. It would surely be a relief to her to know such little details. Would you not agree, sir?”
Mr. Collins finally took a bite of the scone while fixing a hopeful look on Colonel Fitzwilliam.
The eagerness to discover such an elusive—and invaluable—detail for Lady Catherine was undisguised on his face. His jowls moved rapidly, crunching the scone between his teeth in a manner that Elizabeth always found repugnant yet riveting. She held her peace and sipped her tea.
It had not escaped her notice how Mr. Collins had left out, from his rather long-winded speech, all the criticisms Lady Catherine had heaped on him after the aforementioned (and dubiously honourable) Sunday service.
Criticisms that included the state of dress of the congregation, their lack of volubility, and the church needing a thorough cleaning of the stained glass windows. How else were their prayers supposed to reach the Almighty?
“Yes, well, I thank you for your efforts,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said, and then he glanced at Elizabeth.
He had been eyeing her discreetly ever since they had been introduced. Elizabeth could not fault it. She had, after all, sent him a rather outlandish letter… when they were not even acquainted with each other.
“Would you like some more tea, sir?” Charlotte asked the Colonel.
The conversation soon drifted to more pleasant subjects.
Elizabeth tried to participate. But the burning desire to find out what had happened to Mr. Darcy reduced her contributions to inanities and monosyllables.
She wondered if Colonel Fitzwilliam would ask her about her letter in present company. Or allude to it. She hoped he would not.
The possibility of facing a ruinous reputation had not been so stark to her while she was helping Mr. Darcy. But it had, suddenly, become more apparent with the cousin of the man sitting in the parsonage’s parlour and enjoying Charlotte’s hospitality.
It unsettled Elizabeth the longer the pleasantries and conversations went on.
…and then the Colonel proposed a walk outside.