Chapter 8 #2
I wished her good day again in the hall and made for the study, where I hoped Mr Bennett would not be in possession of the best chair, for if I was walking to Meryton in the afternoon I should certainly want a rest between now and then.
However, Mr Bennet was very much in evidence, ensconced in the good chair with a large folio.
I felt a spurt of irritation, unwarranted, of course, for it was his house and his library.
I greeted him politely and asked after his health.
“What a very punctilious young man you are, Mr Collins,” he said. “For you have not failed to enquire most minutely about my health every day you have been here. Indeed, one might almost think you had a particular interest in the matter.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said. “Certainly, I believe that it is only by showing great attention to the correct behaviour that we may assure ourselves of never giving offense. And it is surely the duty of a guest to concern himself with the health of his host.”
“Interesting that you raise the topic of giving offense, sir. For some might say that a man in your position would do well to allow himself to become—shall we say, a little more disinterested—in the health of a man in my position.”
How I loathed talking to Mr Bennet! He bewildered me at every turn.
And yet he seemed to enjoy doing so and it was my duty to converse with him.
How I missed Jem. How I missed talking with him of potatoes, or cabbages, or the best way to deal with slugs or with wayward parishioners.
I never felt he was trying to trick or to confuse me.
His conversation was plain, like a piece of good bread when one is hungry.
“Might they?” I answered, valiantly trying to imagine what type of person might hold such a view. “It sounds unmannerly to me. For does Saint Luke not say ‘as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise’?”
“He does, sir. He does. Yet the Bible also says we should season our words with salt, does it not?”
“Colossians,” I said. “One should speak with grace, seasoned with salt.”
“Quite so, Mr Collins. Quite so. The salt is the thing, eh? It adds a little interest, does it not?”
“You are quite right, I’m sure, sir,” I said, desperately. I had no idea what we were talking about.
There was a pause and then he said, in a musing way, “So Lizzie will not have you, Mr Collins.”
This was the last thing I wished to discuss, but the dictates of good manners meant I could not remain silent. I managed to say, “No, sir.”
“Females are empty-headed creatures, though Lizzie, perhaps, is less empty-headed than some. Perhaps you are better off without her?”
“I should not say so,” I said, with some dignity, and, I felt, gallantry. “Though I own that I do not understand her.”
“I should think not! For how could an educated man such as yourself understand a girl such as Lizzie?”
I had the strongest feeling he was somehow laughing at me, though I could not see how and what he said was, I could see, a fair point.
“I flatter myself that I try to understand the thoughts and the concerns of my flock,” I said.
“For such understanding is part of the duty of a clergyman. I therefore make many observations of their behaviour, and some of them are young ladies with little formal education. I could name Miss Polkington and her sisters, for example. I realise you are not personally acquainted with these ladies, but I can assure you that there are many similarities between them and your own daughters, and I think I understand them quite well.”
“Ah, sir, you may depend upon it that where girls are concerned you do not truly understand them, but merely think you do.” He was half laughing in a sly sort of way that I thought most inappropriate under the circumstances.
I tried to understand his joke, but humour is often bewildering to me.
It so often seems to consist of pointing out something the jester believes is obvious, which does not seem at all obvious to me.
Or it consists of crowing over the misfortunes of another.
I will never, for the life of me, understand why seeing a man slip and fall in the mud should be the stuff of merriment.
So, I could not cap his joke, yet I must say something, for such were the rules of conversation.
Eventually, I decided it would be best merely to restate my purpose at Longbourn, in case it had slipped his mind.
“Well, sir, I came here to try to make amends to your daughters, due to the entail which means I will likely be the means of doing them injury one day. Of course, one could argue that I am not the means. The means is the law. But I am the result of that law personified and therefore I felt it was only right that I should extend the olive branch and do my best to?—”
“Yes, yes, yes, Mr Collins. I am aware of all that, for you put it in your letter. Let us not speak of it any longer, for I suspect the disappointments in this matter have been many and experienced on all sides, and I do not believe it is good for the constitution to dwell overmuch upon such matters.”
He was capricious indeed to raise a topic and then say he did not wish to speak of it. But perhaps I was the one who had erred. Perhaps he had wished to glean fresh information on the matter, and here I was, being Obvious Collins again.
“As you wish, sir.” I said, humbly. “I only spoke of the matter because it appeared that you wished to. For myself I would be glad to let it alone.”
“Very well, then Mr Collins.” He cast me a look that, oddly, I felt was not unkind, and murmured, almost to himself. “After all, you are very young.”
I felt I should correct him upon that matter, for I was five-and-twenty, but he had returned to his folio and to speak now would be to interrupt him.
I picked up a book of sermons and let my gaze drift unseeing across the lines of text and dreamed of Jem, and of the summer’s day he had first led me to the pool, and I tried to imagine next summer, with everything just as it had been—myself unmarried, Jem and I free to spend time together.
If only I could push the image of Lady Catherine’s frowning eyebrows out of my idyll.
Surely, she would understand that I had been disappointed in love and must spend some time mending my heart and waiting for the young lady to experience a change in hers.
It was a scenario that seemed perfectly sensible, and quite the sort of situation that occurred often in life.
At luncheon I found myself seated between Miss Kitty and Miss Lucas. To my relief, Kitty was taken up with her sister Lydia, but Miss Lucas asked several intelligent questions about Hunsford.
I would have enjoyed the conversation more had I not been so preoccupied with thoughts of Lady Catherine’s displeasure at my failure.
Yet, after all, I had proposed, and I had been refused and Lady Catherine could not object to my retreating for a time to lick my wounds before starting the search for a new young lady.
Surely her displeasure would be with the situation and not with me?
After lunch, the walk to Meryton was proposed by Lydia and Kitty.
Miss Lucas appealed to me again to join them, and since it was not raining, I felt able to oblige.
On the way, Miss Lucas dawdled somewhat, which was not like her, and we kept falling behind the two younger girls.
I had to keep exhorting her to hurry for it would not have been fitting to allow two young females to go on unescorted when I was present.
We did not linger long in Meryton, for we discovered that most of the militia officers were gone off on some manoeuvre, and after the girls had made their duty to their aunt and visited a milliner’s establishment to look at ribbons, we set off home.
Miss Lucas again seemed to walk more slowly than usual.
I enquired if she was tired and she said she was, a little, though generally she believed herself a very energetic person.
Kitty and Lydia were, by now, distant figures, arm in arm in the lane ahead.
They could come to little harm on the way home and I shortened my stride to match that of Miss Lucas.
She was asking if we had such-and-such a plant in the vicinity of Hunsford, whether fumitory or vetch grew in our hedgerows, and if we had much eglantine.
I answered with alacrity for it pleased me to speak of plants.
She moved onto apples and asked whether I had a certain variety of cooking apple that did well in the Longbourn orchard and which was excellent for pies and dumplings.
So my head was full of apples when she asked, “Do you like children, Mr Collins?”
I shrugged. “I cannot answer, for children are as diverse in their characters and manners as the members of any large grouping of humanity. If they are gentle and kind then I suppose I must like them, but if they are thoughtless and cruel then I do not.”
Her eyebrows rose and I realised, with a sinking heart, that Trafford would have answered quite differently, with a hearty, “of course!” and something about blessings.
“Of course,” I stammered, endeavouring to get back onto firm ground. “We must be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.”
“Yes,” she said slowly, but something had sparked in her eyes and she was looking at me closely. She smiled. “I do believe you are an honest man, Mr Collins, to answer me as you have.”
“No, no,” I said, alarmed. “I mean, of course I flatter myself that I am honest. Indeed, it is my duty. But what I mean is that I abide by the teachings of the church.”
“Of course, sir.”
“Do you like children, Miss Lucas?” I asked a little wildly, for I felt I had erred in the conversation.
She smiled. “I find them easier to forgive than adults, in any case, for if they are thoughtless, it is only because they know no better.”