Chapter Twenty-Six
Longbourn
Elizabeth
The following morning, after their return from Netherfield, Elizabeth could not suppress a grimace when her father announced, with all the unconcern of a man communicating nothing more troublesome than the state of the weather, that he had received a letter from his cousin concerning an impending visit to Longbourn.
“He writes with such evident satisfaction at the prospect of coming that I confess I have not the heart to discourage him,” Mr. Bennet said, lowering his spectacles to survey the breakfast table.
“Though I own I have not the smallest notion what to make of a man who requires two pages to announce a visit with scarcely two days' warning. At any rate, we are to have the pleasure of his company on Friday.”
“Mr. Collins? This Friday?” Mrs. Bennet set down her cup, the name alone sufficient to sour her expression.
“What can that dreadful man want with us now, after all these years of silence? I hope he does not mean to come here and gloat over the entail, Mr. Bennet, counting the rooms he means to have for his own the moment you are cold in your grave.”
“I could not say precisely what he means by it, my dear, though his letter suggests a mind rather more given to obsequiousness than malice.” Mr. Bennet's mouth twitched with the particular amusement he took in his wife's alarm.
“He writes at considerable length of his patroness's condescension, his own humility, and his earnest desire to heal whatever breach exists between our two branches of the family. There is, however, a rather pointed passage towards the end concerning my five daughters, which I have not yet determined whether to find promising or alarming.”
Elizabeth exchanged a glance with Jane across the table.
She knew, of course, of the elder Mr. Collins who had stood to inherit Longbourn, and had heard only some months before that the gentleman had died and his son had succeeded to his place in the entail.
Of the younger Mr. Collins himself, however, she knew nothing; neither she nor any member of her family had ever met him.
“What manner of passage, Papa?” Elizabeth asked.
“He expresses a wish, in language considerably more elaborate than the sentiment strictly requires, to make such amends as may lie within his power for the unfortunate circumstances of the entail.” Mr. Bennet's eyes glinted over the top of his spectacles.
“I leave you to draw your own conclusions, Lizzy, as I confess I have already drawn mine and find them a great deal more entertaining than alarming.”
“He means to marry one of us,” Mary said, without looking up from her plate.
Mrs. Bennet turned towards her. “Marry one of you?”
“It would answer the difficulty rather neatly,” Mary replied, with the matter-of-fact solemnity she generally employed when she believed herself to have perceived what others had overlooked.
“If Mr. Collins regrets that Longbourn must pass from Papa's daughters to himself, marrying one of those daughters would allow him to reconcile his inheritance with his professed desire to make amends.”
Mrs. Bennet's expression altered with remarkable speed. The indignation which had possessed it only moments before gave way to calculation, and she looked slowly from one daughter to another as though Mr. Collins's arrival had suddenly become a matter of considerably greater promise.
“Well. If that is his intention, I do not see why it should not answer very well indeed, whatever ill will I bear the man upon the general subject of the entail.” Mrs. Bennet's expression brightened considerably.
“Jane is all but settled with Mr. Bingley, and Lizzy has Mr. Darcy paying her more attention than any mother could reasonably ask for, so naturally it falls to Mary. A clergyman with a good living and Longbourn to look forward to is nothing to be sneezed at, and Mary has always had a taste for sermons. I daresay the two of them shall get on famously.”
Mary looked up at last, her expression caught somewhere between surprise and the wounded dignity she generally displayed whenever the family's attention settled upon her without warning.
“I have said nothing to suggest that I wish to marry Mr. Collins, Mama. I merely observed what seemed the most obvious course for him to take.”
“Well, you may as well be the one to take him, since neither of your elder sisters is likely to require him.” Mrs. Bennet returned to her tea, plainly satisfied that the matter required no further consideration.
“A clergyman ought to value seriousness of mind in a wife, and you have always possessed a great deal of seriousness, Mary.”
Mary's mouth pressed into a thin line, though she made no reply.
“Mama,” Elizabeth said, torn between amusement and genuine sympathy for her sister, “you cannot dispose of Mary to a gentleman she has not yet met merely because Papa suspects he may have matrimony in view.”
“I am disposing of nobody, Lizzy. I am only observing what seems sensible, which is a very different thing entirely.” Mrs. Bennet waved away the objection.
“We shall see what the man is like when he arrives, and then we may judge for ourselves. Though I do not see why Mary should object to a clergyman. She is forever reading sermons and improving books as it is.”
“Reading a sermon and marrying the gentleman who delivers it are not necessarily the same undertaking,” Elizabeth observed.
Mr. Bennet's mouth twitched.
“Well, I am sure I have said nothing unreasonable,” Mrs. Bennet protested.
“And if Mr. Collins truly means to marry one of the girls, I should like to know what objection anyone can have to Mary. Jane cannot be expected to throw over Mr. Bingley, and I certainly shall not have Lizzy encouraged to look at a clergyman when Mr. Darcy has ten thousand a year.”
“Mama!”
“What? It is only common sense.”
Mr. Bennet, who had watched the exchange over the top of his spectacles with evident enjoyment, returned his attention to his breakfast. “I have five daughters, madam, but I have not yet resigned myself to auctioning a single one of them to appease a cousin neither of us has any particular fondness for. Mary least of all, given how very little say she has been permitted in the matter thus far.”
“I have not auctioned anybody!”
“No, my dear. Mr. Collins has not yet arrived. I am merely anxious that we observe the proper order of things.”
Kitty smothered a laugh behind her cup, while Lydia made no such attempt. Even Jane's smile threatened to escape her, though Mary maintained a rigid attention to her plate.
Elizabeth caught her father's eye across the table and saw there precisely the gleam she had expected. Whatever the rest of the household might feel about the arrival of Mr. Collins, Mr. Bennet was plainly anticipating Friday with considerably more relish than dread.
~
Having read Mr. Collins's letter for themselves on the morning following their father's announcement of his impending visit, Elizabeth was not surprised to find Mary quite unmoved by their mother's recommendations concerning her dress for the occasion.
If Mrs. Bennet had already determined that Mary ought to encourage their cousin's matrimonial intentions, Mary herself appeared equally determined that no alteration in her appearance should suggest she shared the design.
Mrs. Bennet was still lamenting her refusal to wear the green gown and matching bonnet, which she declared did more for Mary's complexion than anything else she possessed, when Mr. Collins's carriage was seen approaching Longbourn at about four o'clock on Friday afternoon.
The announcement immediately threw the house into greater activity, Mrs. Bennet abandoning Mary's appearance only because there was no longer sufficient time to improve it.
Elizabeth had formed no very distinct picture of her cousin, but the gentleman who descended from the carriage answered tolerably well to what little she had imagined from his letter.
He was of average height and somewhat heavy in his movements, with a slight unevenness in his gait which became more apparent as he approached the house.
His clothes were respectable without being particularly elegant, and Elizabeth privately thought that several days upon the road might account for the untidiness of his hair, though it could not so readily excuse the stained teeth displayed whenever he smiled.
“What a lovely day it is finally to see you, Cousin Bennet.” He bowed with a solemnity which appeared carefully practised, his voice carrying the same affected civility Elizabeth had already detected in his letter. “And to see Longbourn and its environs at last.”
“Wonderful to see you too, cousin,” Mr. Bennet replied. “You speak as though you had looked forward to seeing Longbourn in particular.”
Mr. Collins froze. His expression passed first through perplexity and then alarm as he appeared, rather slowly, to comprehend that his greeting might be interpreted as expressing more eagerness for the estate he would one day inherit than for the relations who presently occupied it.
“I apologise, my good sir.” He bowed again, rather more deeply than before. “I meant only that my father spoke so often of Meryton and Longbourn that I have naturally wondered for many years what they were like. I assure you, sir, nothing improper was intended by the observation.”
At this Mr. Bennet merely smiled and nodded, to Mr. Collins's evident relief, before proceeding with the introductions of the assembled household. Elizabeth suspected her father had already discovered considerably more entertainment in his cousin than even the letter had promised him.