Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
The butler entered, walking quickly to Darcy and handing him a letter. Darcy read, and his body went rigid. He handed the letter to his cousin, who gasped.
His mind raced, but he had to master his emotions and speak nothing of the cause for his alarm. “We must depart immediately,” Darcy said to James, loud enough that the room could hear.
“At this hour?” asked his aunt, her full imperiousness brimming as she rose. “No, you shall see the evening through and—”
“See that our things are packed. Now!” Darcy bellowed at the butler, who hurried from the room. This was not the time for his aunt’s meddling, and he would not, could not, cave in the face of her demands.
James trailed him as the men made for the door. All but Anne were on their feet now, and his aunt yelled, “I demand an explanation!”
Darcy stopped long enough to say, “We cannot stay. It is an urgent matter of business.” He bowed, his eyes holding Miss Elizabeth’s a moment. He had hoped—No. This was more pressing than even his attraction to her, or his own future.
He left for his rooms.
Lady Catherine commented repeatedly about the unusual nature of the events that had transpired, with Mr Collins assuring her that, though it was irregular, they would think no less of her graciousness and generosity, nor of her nephews.
“I must ask you to depart,” Lady Catherine said in full agitation. “I shall call for the carriage to take you home.”
“No need,” said Mr Collins before she could summon any servants.
“Your household has more pressing matters to attend to. Waste not your magnificent resources in assisting we who are accustomed to walking and sacrificing for the greatness of those such as yourself.” He bowed and gestured to the door.
Mary made to leave, as did Elizabeth.
It was all so strange that she did not know what to make of it. Why did Mr Darcy not say what the trouble was? What could send him away with such haste?
In moments their coats were on and they were outside, breath visible in the chill air.
Just as they reached the last bit of road to the Parsonage, they heard the clatter of a carriage. It was Mr Darcy’s, and the driver was whipping the horses to their full speed.
“I should like to extend my sincerest hopes that all is well with the gentlemen,” announced Mr Collins.
“No, dear,” said Mary, “now is not the time. You might write a letter or—”
But it was too late. Mr Collins had stepped into the road, hands held up to stop the carriage, but the coachman did not see him, and even if the moon had been fuller, the carriage was moving too quickly to stop at so short a distance.
There were screams in the air, and Elizabeth could not be sure if one of them was her own.
She had looked away when disaster was certain, and missed the precise manner in which Mr Collins was thrown and crushed, but when she looked back, his body was still and broken.
The carriage rolled to a halt with bellowing and cursing, the coachman and footman leaping down and running to where Mr Collins lay. The carriage door opened, and Mr Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam emerged, hurrying back, as well.
“Good God, man!” shouted Mr Darcy.
“I did not see him until it was too late!” said the coachman, shaking as he knelt over the bloody body of Mr Collins.
“He came out of nowhere!” shouted the footman.
“I did not see. I did not see!” repeated the coachman.
“Is he—” Mary could not finish the sentence, but stared and stared.
Elizabeth rushed to her sister, wrapping her arms around Mary and squeezing her, but Mary did not seem to notice.
Colonel Fitzwilliam leaned down so his cheek was near Mr Collin’s mouth and waited. Then, expression grim, he reached for Mr Collins’s neck and pressed his fingers to it.
One moment passed. Elizabeth held her breath. Another moment. Another. Please, she thought, do not let him be dead.
Colonel Fitzwilliam sat up and shook his head. Mr Darcy winced, and the coachman cursed.
Mary screamed and began to sag, but Elizabeth held her aloft. “Help me,” Elizabeth begged, and the maid, who must have run out of the house at the commotion, swooped in to grab Mary from the other side. The footman rushed over and lifted Mary off her feet, carrying her into the house.
Elizabeth wanted to follow, to attend to her sister, to offer words of comfort, but she was frozen, staring at Colonel Fitzwilliam. He was regarding his bloody hands, perhaps wondering how to clean them.
“Is the carriage sound?” asked Mr Darcy.
The coachman stared at him wide-eyed.
“Is the carriage sound?” Mr Darcy repeated with impatience.
“I know not, sir. I—”
“Inspect it, damn you. We must depart.”
“But Mr Darcy,” said Elizabeth, as the coachman sprinted to the carriage, “my sister, Mr Collins.”
“They will be cared for.”
The footman was outside again, and Mr Darcy instructed him to run to Rosings and tell them what had occurred and to make all necessary arrangements. Then he turned to the coachman and asked, “So?”
“It seems all is well.”
“Then we go.”
Colonel Fitzwilliam shook his head. “I will stay to attend to this unfortunate business.” When Mr Darcy looked as if he might argue, the colonel said, “Write me and tell me what has transpired. I will join you if needed, but I have no doubt only one of us is required.”
Mr Darcy looked angrier than Elizabeth had ever seen him, but he left his cousin, and without so much as another word or a bow, he was gone.
Elizabeth would never forgive Mr Darcy. Not for abandoning them. Not for putting his needs above others. Not for killing her sister’s husband.
No, he had not killed Mr Collins. Not directly.
Yet she found herself blaming him. Whatever the cause, he could have waited until morning to attend to his business.
He could have refrained from urging the coachman to push the horses as he had.
He could have stayed another minute or ten or an hour at the Parsonage to ensure that all was well, and if not well, that the ladies were attended to properly.
They would never be well. Mary certainly would not.
The days following the accident were long.
A letter was sent to the Bennets, who returned word that they would arrive as soon as possible, likely two days hence.
Lady Catherine came to the house accompanied by Colonel Fitzwilliam, and vowed to see to all funeral costs.
The vicar from the neighbouring parish was contacted, and he arranged for the funeral’s particulars: a coffin, a gravedigger, and a mourning wreath.
As the coffin was already on church grounds, there was no need for horses or carriages or feathermen, though Lady Catherine said she would have furnished these things if required.
Mary insisted on washing Mr Collins’s body herself. Elizabeth offered to assist, but was refused, saying it was not proper, so the maid helped. Elizabeth hated to hear weeping from behind the closed door, but respected her sister’s wishes to be left alone.
Ladies from the town brought food and expressed their condolences, but Mary sat stone-faced, leaving Elizabeth to thank them and hint that they ought to make the visit brief.
Elizabeth took on some tasks to prepare for the funeral since Mary mostly sat in frozen silence.
She gathered rosemary from the garden and purchased ribbons to make small bouquets for the men who attended the burial to throw into the grave and more for mourners at the house to take away as remembrances.
She asked Mary if she desired a piece of jewellery be made with Mr Collins’s hair in it.
As Mary could not answer, Elizabeth decided to do so, choosing a design suggested by the jewellery maker.
On the ring was wheat made from Mr Collins’s plaited hair set under transparent crystal, which was a reference to Psalm 126 in the Bible: “Those who went sowing in tears came back singing, carrying their sheaves.” On the hoop of the ring was engraved Mr Collins’s initials, his date of birth and date of death.
When the jewellery maker asked if more rings were to be made, she declined, for he had no relations of which she knew, and no other Bennets would want one.
The child—oh the unborn child!—would not know his or her father, and though Elizabeth thought to have something made, she could not decide what, so decided to forego it.
Mary preferred to receive guests at the Parsonage, declining Lady Catherine’s suggestion of Rosings, which Elizabeth suspected she offered because she knew Mary would not accept.
There was a question of how long her sister might be allowed to remain in the Parsonage, but when Elizabeth asked, Lady Catherine waved her away and turned to suggesting a dressmaker be brought in from London, though she did not offer to pay.
Regardless, Mary declined. She handed over much of her wardrobe to be dyed and fitted for mourning by a local woman, and, due to Lady Catherine’s connexion to Mary, it was done far quicker than it might otherwise have been.
The Bennets soon arrived with questions and noisy conversation, giving the sense that this was all part of some play upon the stage rather than Mary’s personal agony.