Mr Collins in Love

Chapter 1

“G ood, Mr Collins,” said my patroness, Lady Catherine De Bourgh. “That sounds most satisfactory.”

I breathed again, murmured a thank you, and bowed over my gilt-rimmed teacup.

She took a sip of tea, nibbled her seedcake.

My detailed account of the new linen cupboards in the rectory—work she had been so gracious as to suggest herself—had gone over well.

I’d barely slept the previous night, debating with myself whether she would consider my raising such a domestic detail to be an impertinence or a compliment to her wise advice.

However, in the end, I had proceeded, and it was now clear I had done the right thing.

Since my account had gone so well, a repetition of the essential points might not go amiss. I have often observed that many people repeat themselves much of the time, generally to the apparent pleasure of all.

Lady Catherine and I were seated—along with Miss de Bourgh and Miss de Bourgh’s companion, Mrs Jenkinson—amidst the blue and gilt of the Rosings drawing-room, and I first attempted to ascertain from their respective demeanours whether either of those ladies wished to take their turn in the conversation.

Miss de Bourgh was gazing palely into her tea cup. Miss Jenkinson appeared to be studying, with some reverence, the lace upon Lady Catherine’s dress.

I opened my mouth, therefore, to reiterate just how commodious the new arrangements for the rectory linen were, when Lady Catherine gave me a sharp assessing look, quite unlike her usual glances, which were generally so brief she barely put herself to the trouble of focusing upon me at all.

I tried not to flinch. What had I said—or not said? I schooled my expression to what I hoped was one of mild inquiry, and wished, with a part of my mind, that the room was not so stuffy and that Lady Catherine would permit a window or two to be opened.

“Yes,” she proclaimed. “I have said it before and I will say it again: An establishment such as yours can never have too much storage, and shelves, I am persuaded, are of far more use than any other kind of cupboard space. Indeed, I’m certain you will be very glad of those shelves—” I opened my mouth to agree, but she went on, “—and I am sure so will your wife.”

My heart dropped like a winged bird, for I had no wife.

Had she momentarily mistaken me for some other clergyman of her acquaintance?

Should I correct her? Or was it more gracious to ignore her error?

But then, what if she laboured under the misapprehension that I indeed had a wife for several days or weeks?

At some point it must come out that I did not.

All kinds of embarrassments came trumpeting towards me. I must hint at my confusion.

“W…wife, Ma’am?” I managed.

She raised her eyebrows. “Certainly. You are a single man, are you not? And in possession, now, of a very tolerable living. Not exactly a fortune, perhaps, though it might be called so by some men in your position, Mr Collins, indeed it might. So, now you must be in want of a wife.”

I went hot all over. My face felt stiff and I could not blink.

I bowed again. It was difficult while seated and holding a full cup of tea, but it gave me a moment’s respite from her eyes, which were pale and piercing and altogether too much.

Miss de Bourgh and Mrs Jenkinson had been disturbed from their reveries and were also directing their gazes at me, clearly wondering how I would react.

My mind went blank, as it did at times of strain.

My tea was quivering against the golden rim of the cup.

There, a little had spilled into the saucer, leaving a stain down the outside of the cup.

Bad. Must not spill any more. Nor fumble the cup and break it.

Nor keel over, cup and all, onto the expensive Turkey carpet while they all stared at me in horror.

She meant I must get a wife. That I must marry.

If only one could anticipate such outrageous topics. If only one had time to prepare a suitable response. But I had no time, and anyway, I knew what was expected.

“Just…just so, Ma’am,” I managed. “Your ladyship is quite right, I am sure.”

I risked a glance. Her visage, never encouraging, had become stony, nostrils slightly flared. I had not agreed with sufficient celerity. She put down her morsel of seedcake.

Silence was descending upon me; that unhappy state, almost of paralysis, that has oft afflicted me in company since childhood. My tongue was made of lead, my mind as quick as a lump of clay.

Once I should have remained thus; speechless, staring, almost deaf. These days, I knew what to do: I must become Trafford.

Trafford. His very name was a magic spell. Already my tongue felt lighter, my mind less dull.

Trafford, the son of a bishop. Trafford, whom I had never met but whom I had observed so many times at Oxford. His borrowed consequence and loquacity had saved me a thousand times. Aping Trafford had got me my current position. It had helped me keep my patroness’s good opinion these several months.

I pictured him, now, at table in the hall, surrounded by men of his acquaintance, words dancing from his lips in a ceaseless rivulet.

I sat straighter. Yes, I was Trafford. Full of talk and opinion, all of it suitable, all of it expressing the right opinions and the correct preferences of a clergyman. I cleared my throat.

“As your ladyship so wisely points out, matrimony is a blessed institution, and one that those members of the clergy for whom it may be possible must certainly enter into if they are fortunate enough to find themselves in a position to do so.”

I had only just begun, but Lady Catherine, who was eyeing her cake as if it were a slug upon her plate, interrupted.

“Yes, Mr. Collins, but I do not make this observation in general terms. Indeed, I have given the matter some thought and I see no reason for you to delay. You are five-and-twenty, are you not? That is quite old enough for marriage.” She lifted a hand as if I had tried to interject.

“Gentlemen of leisure may marry when they please—though what they hope to gain by delaying overlong I fail to comprehend—but you are not a gentleman of leisure. You are the rector of Hunsford and as such you must consider your position and the duties incumbent upon you.”

I opened my mouth to say that I did consider my position, that I considered it almost every waking hour and often at night too, and that I took my duties very seriously indeed, but she was speaking again.

“A wife will greatly assist you in those duties. I am an observant person, as you know, and I have often remarked that a parson’s wife may facilitate any number of small matters about the parish.” She picked up her cake and added, “Beef tea. Baskets. And so on.” She took a bite of cake.

I wanted to say that if it were truly a matter of facilitating my duties, what I really needed was a new cob, because Pilot was lame again, and in the matter of saving shoe leather, a new horse would be a great deal more use than a wife.

But I realised, just in time, that a new cob could not make beef tea, and that in any case Lady Catherine likely was not truly interested in facilitating my duties.

She wished me to marry for reasons of her own—because she thought it fitting, or to prove to herself the degree of control she had over me, or perhaps simply because a clergyman’s wife may be counted upon to make up the numbers at quadrille when there is no better company to be had.

“Quite so, Ma’am,” I murmured. “Beef tea. Quite so.”

Lady Catherine nodded. “Moreover, the parsonage is well appointed—” She cocked her head, as if considering just how well appointed.

I winced internally, for I was conscious of the great comfort in which I lived, my father having taught me well to both crave luxury and to feel guilty about enjoying it.

“— very well appointed,” Lady Catherine was saying. “ Some might consider it now almost too well appointed for a clergyman, though I’m sure I should not concern myself with such quibbling.”

It was a threat, of course. I can be stupid when it comes to conversation, but I am good at recognising threats, having become accustomed over the years.

Lady Catherine glanced around the drawing-room, as if daring us to leap up and contradict her.

Miss de Bourgh murmured, “No, Ma’am,” and Mrs Jenkinson did likewise. I joined them; an echo of an echo. Polite demurrals seemed to linger always in that drawing-room, caught in the very upholstery like the grubs of moths.

Lady Catherine inclined her head, mollified by our chorus, but the steely glint in her eye remained. “Very well, then. It is settled. Mr. Collins, you are to marry. I am sure you will not disappoint me.”

“No, Ma’am.”

I hoped that was an end to the matter, for my hands were shaking and my stomach cramping around the mouthful of tea and the bite of cake I had consumed. But when I dared to glance up, she was still watching me in that new and unnerving manner, sparse eyebrows raised in mild expectation.

I added, “I’m sure I hope I should never do that. Indeed, when your ladyship has bestowed such unlooked-for generosity upon her humble servant, I should be mortified to cause even an ounce of disappointment.”

I spoke fluently enough and allowed myself a moment of pride at being able to speak at all. My Trafford trick was clever, indeed it was. But my heart was sunk to my lights, for I could see there would be no escaping this most unpleasant of circumstances.

Lady Catherine moved on to other topics.

I nodded, tutted, murmured a word of praise or censure, added a suitable allusion, now Biblical, now classical, and generally did all I could to comport myself as the rector of Hunsford.

I felt, however, as a boy awaiting a beating.

It was only the company that stopped a tear from escaping my eye.

I did not want to marry. I had no interest whatsoever in such an adventure, for reasons both personal and private.