Chapter Thirteen
"I hope, my dear," said Mr. Bennet to his wife, as they were at breakfast the next morning, "that you have ordered a good dinner to-day, because I have reason to expect an addition to our family party."
"Who do you mean, my dear? I know of nobody that is coming, I am sure, unless Charlotte Lucas should happen to call in — and I hope my dinners are good enough for her. I do not believe she often sees such at home."
"The person of whom I speak, is a gentleman and a stranger."
Mrs. Bennet's eyes sparkled. — "A gentleman and a stranger!
It is Mr. Bingley I am sure. Why Jane — you never dropped a word of this; you sly thing!
Well, I am sure I shall be extremely glad to see Mr. Bingley.
— But — good Lord! how unlucky! there is not a bit of fish to be got to-day. Lydia, my love, ring the bell."
"It is not Mr. Bingley," said her husband; "it is a person whom I never saw in the whole course of my life."
This roused a general astonishment; and he had the pleasure of being eagerly questioned by his wife and five daughters at once.
After amusing himself some time with their curiosity, he thus explained.
"About a month ago I received this letter, and about a fortnight ago I answered it, for I thought it a case of some delicacy, and requiring early attention. It is from my cousin, Mr. Collins, who, when I am dead, may turn you all out of this house as soon as he pleases."
"Oh! my dear," cried his wife, "I cannot bear to hear that mentioned.
Pray do not talk of that odious man. I do think it is the hardest thing in the world, that your estate should be entailed away from your own children; and I am sure if I had been you, I should have tried long ago to do something or other about it. "
Jane and Elizabeth attempted to explain to her the nature of an entail.
They had often attempted it before: but it was a subject on which Mrs. Bennet was beyond the reach of reason; and she continued to rail bitterly against the cruelty of settling an estate away from a family of five daughters, in favor of a man whom nobody cared anything about.
It should be said in her defense that she understood the essential point rather better than either of them, and had done for four-and-twenty years.
What she could not be brought to accept was that a thing so plainly wicked should also be true, and she had spent two decades in the reasonable conviction that somebody, somewhere, must be able to do something, and that the only reason nobody had was that nobody had troubled.
"It certainly is a most iniquitous affair," said Mr. Bennet, "and nothing can clear Mr. Collins from the guilt of inheriting Longbourn. But if you will listen to his letter, you may perhaps be a little softened by his manner of expressing himself."
"No, that I am sure I shall not; and I think it was very impertinent of him to write to you at all, and very hypocritical. I hate such false friends."
He read as follows:
Dear Sir,
The disagreement subsisting between yourself and my late honored father always gave me much uneasiness, and since I have had the misfortune to lose him I have frequently wished to heal the breach; but for some time I was kept back by my own doubts, fearing lest it might seem disrespectful to his memory for me to be on good terms with any one with whom it had always pleased him to be at variance.
My mind however is now made up on the subject, for having received ordination at Easter, I have been so fortunate as to be distinguished by the patronage of the Right Honorable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, widow of Sir Lewis de Bourgh, whose bounty and beneficence has preferred me to the valuable rectory of this parish, where it shall be my earnest endeavor to demean myself with grateful respect toward her Ladyship, and be ever ready to perform those rites and ceremonies which are instituted by the Church of England, and those older offices which, in a parish so anciently held, are annexed to the living.
As a clergyman, moreover, I feel it my duty to promote and establish the blessing of peace in all families within the reach of my influence; and on these grounds I flatter myself that my present overtures of good-will are highly commendable, and that the circumstance of my being next in the entail of Longbourn estate will be kindly overlooked on your side, and not lead you to reject the offered olive branch.
I cannot be otherwise than concerned at being the means of injuring your amiable daughters, and beg leave to apologize for it, as well as to assure you of my readiness to make them every possible amends — but of this hereafter.
If you should have no objection to receive me into your house, I propose myself the satisfaction of waiting on you and your family, Monday, November 18th, by four o'clock, and shall probably trespass on your hospitality till the Saturday se'ennight following, which I can do without any inconvenience, as Lady Catherine is far from objecting to my occasional absence on a Sunday, provided that some other clergyman is engaged to do the duty of the day.
I remain, dear Sir, with respectful compliments to your lady and daughters, your well-wisher and friend,
WILLIAM COLLINS
"At four o'clock, therefore, we may expect this peace-making gentleman," said Mr. Bennet, as he folded up the letter.
"He seems to be a most conscientious and polite young man, upon my word; and I doubt not will prove a valuable acquaintance, especially if Lady Catherine should be so indulgent as to let him come to us again. "
"There is some sense in what he says about the girls however; and if he is disposed to make them any amends, I shall not be the person to discourage him."
"Though it is difficult," said Jane, "to guess in what way he can mean to make us the atonement he thinks our due, the wish is certainly to his credit."
Elizabeth was chiefly struck by his extraordinary deference for Lady Catherine, and his kind intention of christening, marrying, and burying his parishioners whenever it were required.
"He must be an oddity, I think," said she. "I cannot make him out. — There is something very pompous in his style. — And what can he mean by apologizing for being next in the entail? — We cannot suppose he would help it if he could. — Can he be a sensible man, sir?"
"No, my dear; I think not. I have great hopes of finding him quite the reverse. There is a mixture of servility and self-importance in his letter, which promises well. I am impatient to see him."
"In point of composition," said Mary, "his letter does not seem defective. The idea of the olive branch perhaps is not wholly new, yet I think it is well expressed."
She had also observed the phrase those older offices which are annexed to the living, and had turned quite cold at it, and had said nothing, because in that house it was well understood that when Mary spoke about bindings the subject was changed.
To Catherine and Lydia, neither the letter nor its writer were in any degree interesting. It was next to impossible that their cousin should come in a scarlet coat, and it was now some weeks since they had received pleasure from the society of a man in any other color.
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Mr. Collins was punctual to his time, and was received with great politeness by the whole family. Mr. Bennet indeed said little; but the ladies were ready enough to talk, and Mr. Collins seemed neither in need of encouragement, nor inclined to be silent himself.
He was a tall, heavy looking young man of five and twenty.
His air was grave and stately, and his manners were very formal.
He had not been long seated before he complimented Mrs. Bennet on having so fine a family of daughters, said he had heard much of their beauty, but that in this instance fame had fallen short of the truth; and added, that he did not doubt her seeing them all in due time well disposed of in marriage.
This gallantry was not much to the taste of some of his hearers; but Mrs. Bennet, who quarreled with no compliments, answered most readily.
"You are very kind, sir, I am sure; and I wish with all my heart it may prove so; for else they will be destitute enough. Things are settled so oddly."
"You allude perhaps to the entail of this estate."
"Ah! sir, I do indeed. It is a grievous affair to my poor girls, you must confess. Not that I mean to find fault with you, for such things I know are all chance in this world. There is no knowing how estates will go when once they come to be entailed."
"I am very sensible, madam, of the hardship to my fair cousins, and could say much on the subject, but that I am cautious of appearing forward and precipitate.
But I can assure the young ladies that I come prepared to admire them.
At present I will not say more, but perhaps when we are better acquainted—"
He was interrupted by a summons to dinner; and the girls smiled on each other.
They were not the only objects of Mr. Collins's admiration.
The hall, the dining-room, and all its furniture were examined and praised; and his commendation of every thing would have touched Mrs. Bennet's heart, but for the mortifying supposition of his viewing it all as his own future property.
The dinner too in its turn was highly admired; and he begged to know to which of his fair cousins the excellency of its cookery was owing.
But here he was set right by Mrs. Bennet, who assured him with some asperity that they were very well able to keep a good cook, and that her daughters had nothing to do in the kitchen.
He begged pardon for having displeased her.
In a softened tone she declared herself not at all offended; but he continued to apologize for about a quarter of an hour.
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Elizabeth watched him do a thing four times before she understood what she was watching.
He did it at the front door as he came in, and again at the door of the dining parlor, and again at the foot of the stairs, and once more at the drawing-room window where the old part of the house joins the new: he laid the flat of his right hand against the frame, and held it there for perhaps two seconds, and took it away.
It was done quite openly. He did not trouble to conceal it, because it did not occur to him that it was a thing requiring concealment, any more than a man taking possession of a house conceals that he is looking at the roof.
The fourth time, he did it twice.
He pressed his palm to the frame, and waited, and frowned very slightly — and then did it again, a little higher, the way a man tries a lock a second time in case the first was his own clumsiness.
Then he turned round and found Elizabeth in the doorway, and was not in the least discomposed.
"Longbourn is a very fine old property, cousin Elizabeth," he said. "Very fine. Four hundred years, I understand, in the male line without a break, which is more than can be said for a great many houses of far greater pretension."
"So we are told, sir."
"Lady Catherine, when I did myself the honor of consulting her Ladyship upon the propriety of this visit, was so good as to say a number of things upon the subject which I shall not soon forget.
" He clasped his hands. "Her Ladyship observed — and I thought it a most striking observation, and set it down in my pocket-book directly — that ground which has been long held is often shy with a new holder.
Shy, madam. Her Ladyship's very word. She said it is by no means uncommon, and that the ground must not be blamed, for it has known one blood a great while, and it may want some years to be reconciled — or —"
He paused, in the manner of a man arriving at the good part.
"—or it may be introduced," said Mr. Collins, "by the shortest and most agreeable road, which her Ladyship was pleased to point out to me with her usual condescension, and upon which I have every intention of acting during the course of this very visit."
He bowed, and went in to the ladies, and complimented Mrs. Bennet on her chimney-piece for eleven minutes.
Elizabeth stood in the passage.
She was very quick, and she had a gift that read intent, and she had not needed it: she had seen his hand on the doorframe, and she had seen the frown, and she had heard the word introduced, and she was two-and-twenty and not a fool.
The house had not answered him.
And he had come into it, with Lady Catherine de Bourgh's advice in his pocket-book, to find something of the old blood in it that would open the door — and there were five of those in the drawing room, drinking tea, and one of them was fifteen.