Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
Throughout the winter and spring, many letters travelled back and forth between Elizabeth and Mary.
In those letters, Mary shared first of her growing familiarity with the new heir to Longbourn, Mr. William Collins, a young man of just twenty-three who was waiting to take his orders to become a rector.
Mary and her cousin formed a friendship, and Mary recommended him to the Allens in Meryton who might help the young man find a curacy.
Since he was not yet of a proper age to take orders, Mr. Allen was able to offer him the position of curate for his church in Meryton. This pleased the young man, who enjoyed the company of his cousin. The two were frequently in company as their friendship continued.
Initially, he stayed at Longbourn, though Mrs. Bennet’s shrill complaints and her vocally insisting that Mary and Mr. Collins wed “to save the family” grew taxing on everyone.
When Mr. Allen offered Mr. Collins not only the position as curate but also a small cottage for him to live in, he gladly accepted.
He earned enough to hire a maid to help with the cleaning and washing, and he knew enough to brew a cup of tea and prepare a few simple dishes.
Mrs. Allen often invited him for meals, and as he became more involved with Longbourn’s tenants and the parish's less fortunate, the number of invitations to meals and social events steadily increased.
It became widely known that the young curate was the heir presumptive to Longbourn, which made him an eligible catch by many of the women of that small village.
However, most of these ladies seemed to want to bide their time, for they saw where and how he lived and were not quite ready to suffer the hardships of being a curate’s wife, regardless of his future prospects.
Mary’s letters indicated a growing regard for the gentleman although it was evident that she viewed him as a friend and brother, not as a future husband, much to her mother’s frustration.
Toward the end of April, not long before Elizabeth’s nineteenth birthday, two critical events came to pass.
The first was that Elizabeth discovered she was with child after emptying the contents of her stomach every morning for nearly a fortnight.
Both she and Darcy were concerned by this until a casual reference by the housekeeper reminded Elizabeth of a conversation she had with her aunt before her marriage.
She sent a note to Mrs. Gardiner asking her to visit and related the symptoms she was experiencing.
It did not take long for Mrs. Gardiner to confirm what Elizabeth already suspected and when she informed her husband of the cause of her so-called illness, he was delighted.
The two would become parents before the year was out.
The second event was much more upsetting.
A letter from Mary informed the pair of a smallpox epidemic spreading through Longbourn village.
It had begun with the tenants and servants and quickly spread to the family, with each member of the Bennet family suffering from the illness in varying degrees.
Mary returned to Longbourn, and as she remained unaffected, took up nursing the rest of her family.
The least ill of the servants assisted her in this, as did Mrs. Allen and several others from the neighbourhood who had smallpox as children and were therefore at less risk.
Mrs. Hill, the housekeeper, was one of these as was Charlotte Lucas, and these three proved invaluable in assisting those who needed it.
Jane was not particularly ill though she was perhaps the most affected by the rash.
This was enough to keep her confined to her room for the duration, believing what her mother had taught her, that her only value came from her appearance.
Therefore, she did not want anyone to see her when her body was marked by the sickness.
When anyone entered her room, she would cover her body with the bed clothes and refused to be seen.
This frequently made caring for her more difficult, while, as usual, she did not seem to realise how her actions affected others.
Though Mrs. Bennet, Kitty, and Lydia were all ill, they recovered reasonably quickly.
It was Mr. Bennet who was the sickest in his family.
Mr. Allen came frequently to speak to the gentleman, as did the apothecary and Mr. Phillips, all who had fallen sick from the illness in their youth.
Each of these conversations was serious, and they provided guidance in the only way they could: Mr. Allen tended to him spiritually, Mr. Jones medicinally, and Mr. Phillips spoke to him of his family’s future.
Unsurprisingly, none of these conversations were pleasant.
Mr. Bennet was angry with himself, his family, God, pretty much everyone, blaming each in turn for the illness that befell him.
He had little to say to Mr. Jones, though he did listen to his advice.
However, Mr. Bennet’s health only grew worse.
It was Mr. Phillips who heard the worst of his anger.
Mr. Bennet had done nothing to plan for his eventual demise, and Phillips could barely disguise his disapproval at this lack of foresight, leading to several arguments between the two men.
As Mr. Bennet declined further, Mrs. Bennet took to her own bed, demanding attention from her daughters.
She could not help but bemoan Jane's altered appearance, lamenting the small scars from smallpox near her right ear.
Though minor and confined to a small area, Mrs. Bennet acted as if Jane was now hideous.
All the praise she had once heaped upon her daughter for her beauty turned into cries of lost chances.
Therefore, Elizabeth was mostly unsurprised a little over a week later when she received a black-edged letter from Longbourn announcing the death of Thomas Bennet.
She was still in London, and while a part of her wanted to pay her final respects to the man who had given her life, neither she nor Darcy were willing to travel to Hertfordshire for the funeral.
As a female, Elizabeth would not be permitted to attend, and neither wanted to be party to the inevitable complaints from the Bennet matriarch when they would not give into Mrs. Bennet’s demands to provide for the rest of the Bennet ladies.
They had fortunately met Mr. Collins a few months earlier when he visited London on Mr. Phillips’s behalf.
He was a good man; they had heard good things about him through Mary’s letters, and knew she considered him almost as a brother.
Despite Mrs. Bennet’s insistence that Mary and Mr. Collins wed, neither had any intention of doing so, especially now that the Bennet family was in mourning.
When they met, Mr. Bennet had been healthy although Darcy and Collins had spoken of what might transpire upon the event of that gentleman’s demise.
Collins agreed with Darcy that since the Bennets had cast Elizabeth from their home at the tender age of eight, that she owed nothing to her parents, particularly her mother.
Due to his friendship with the middle daughter, Collins reassured Darcy and Elizabeth both, along with Mr. Phillips and Mr. Gardiner, that he would not cast the Bennet family from their home immediately upon Mr. Bennet’s eventual death.
So long as Collins was unmarried, he would allow the family a minimum of six months to mourn their father before even attempting to claim the estate as his own, though he would begin managing it as soon as he could.
However, he was comfortably situated at present in his little cottage, and so would not do as Mrs. Bennet feared and “cast them into the hedgerows.”
He also agreed that, as long as he could, he would assist the widow and her daughters financially, ensuring they had enough to live on.
When it came time for him to claim Longbourn as his, he would allow Mrs. Bennet and her daughters the use of the dower house.
However, he did ask Darcy for some assistance in ensuring the dower house was suitable for residence since he was uncertain of its condition at this moment.
Darcy and Elizabeth agreed since it was unlikely to cost as much as what Mrs. Bennet might demand; Elizabeth felt assisting her sisters in this way was the least she could do for them.
She did not offer it on Mrs. Bennet’s behalf, but truly, most of it was done for Mary since she was the only sister who had continued a correspondence with Elizabeth that did not consist of demands for new clothing, ribbons, or trips to town.
After Mr. Bennet’s death, Elizabeth received a letter from Mary. She was very surprised to find a second letter addressed to her inside. She did not recognise the handwriting and opened it.
My Dear Elizabeth,
It hardly seems fair to you to call you dear now, though I did want you to know that you were, in fact, dear to me.
You were my always favourite child, little though I showed it, and I missed you dreadfully when you went away.
However, by that time, I had spent the last decade giving into my wife’s demands, without thinking of what it may cost me.
Losing you was a much larger cost than I fully realised.
I doubt even Mary knows it, but I have read each letter you sent her and know more about your life at present than I have any right to.
You have been generous in your advice to her, and, frankly, generous in continuing to correspond with her at all, given what Mrs. Bennet and I have forced you to endure.
We wilfully threw you to the side when I ought to have stood up to my wife.
What happened to Jane that day was not your fault, and I think Mrs. Bennet must realise that as well, though she would never admit to it.