Chapter Two Barely Tolerable
MORNING brOUGHT RAIN to Longbourn, along with a breakfast table crowded by six women, one newspaper, and enough discussion of Netherfield to make Elizabeth suspect that Mr Bingley had leased the estate solely to provide her mother with gossip.
Mrs Bennet had advanced her plotting from two dances to a wedding before Hill even brought in the toast. By the time Jane accepted a second cup of tea, the imagined marriage had produced three sons, two daughters, and a fiercely disputed preference among the children for their maternal grandmother.
Jane bore these developments with lowered eyes and a careful application of raspberry preserve.
Mrs Bennet placed her cup into its saucer hard enough to endanger both.
“He danced with you twice. Twice, Jane, when several young ladies received no invitation from him at all. Everybody remarked on it. Lady Lucas could scarcely contain her envy, although she pretended to be pleased because Charlotte danced with one of the officers.”
Jane concentrated on the crust of her toast. “Lady Lucas seemed perfectly pleased, Mamma. Mr Bingley was attentive to many ladies.”
Mrs Bennet turned towards Kitty and Lydia, gathering witnesses for the prosecution. “He was civil to many ladies, but he admired you. Did he not admire her?”
Lydia abandoned a prolonged attempt to balance a silver spoon on her index finger. “He smiled at Jane for nearly the entire evening.”
Kitty reached for the butter. “He smiles at everyone. And he has a great number of teeth.”
Mrs Bennet dismissed this dental observation by looking back at Jane. “A cheerful disposition is an excellent quality in a husband, particularly when accompanied by five thousand a year.”
Jane’s cheeks deepened in colour. Elizabeth allowed her sister another moment of attempted concealment before reaching for the toast rack.
“You may admit that you liked him, Jane. Mamma has already married you, populated the nursery, and decided which child will inherit your disposition. Your own opinion can do no additional damage at this juncture.”
Jane’s lips curved, although she kept her eyes firmly on her plate. “I thought Mr Bingley very agreeable. He is lively, considerate, and easy in his manners.”
Mrs Bennet pressed one hand to her breast as if receiving a divine revelation. “She likes him!”
Jane stared at her tea. “I have admitted as much, Mamma.”
Mrs Bennet turned to the head of the table. “She likes him, Mr Bennet.”
Mr Bennet lowered one corner of his newspaper, revealing a single, weary eye. “Then I am relieved that you informed me. I might otherwise have mistaken Jane’s praise for an aversion.”
Mary folded her hands, arranging her features into a mask of pious doom. “First impressions are frequently produced by vanity rather than reason. A pleasing manner may conceal ruinous deficiencies that sustained acquaintance will inevitably expose.”
Lydia reclaimed her spoon with a clatter. “Mr Bingley has no deficiencies.”
Mary did not blink. “You spoke to him once.”
Lydia tossed her head, her curls bouncing. “He danced every dance, which is far more useful than speaking.”
Elizabeth hid her amusement behind her cup.
Jane’s confession had required significant encouragement, yet the pleasure beneath her composure could not be mistaken.
Mr Bingley had distinguished her without embarrassing her, listened whenever she spoke, and was delighted by every answer.
His occasional distraction had been peculiar, particularly when he had stared at her throat before abruptly retreating, but an excess of admiration was preferable to the condition afflicting his friend.
Mr Darcy had stood against the wall like a granite monument erected to disapproval. He had offered the room nothing beyond his towering height, his vast fortune, and the clear conviction that neither required any assistance from good manners.
Elizabeth returned her cup to its saucer with a clink. “Mr Bingley possesses one glaring defect: he values Mr Darcy’s judgement.”
Kitty leaned forward, her eyes bright with gossip. “Tell Papa what Mr Darcy said of you.”
Mrs Bennet reached for the butter and attacked it with a knife.
“I heard quite enough about Mr Darcy last night. The proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, refusing to dance when ladies were sitting down. Ten thousand a year cannot excuse everything, although it might excuse a great deal if properly applied to a more cheerful countenance.”
Mr Bennet folded his newspaper and granted Elizabeth his full attention. “You have acquired intelligence that may alter my assessment of the gentleman. After your mother’s reports, I had considered him unsociable, but I am prepared to discover that he is also foolish.”
Elizabeth recounted the exchange, preserving Mr Bingley’s puppy-like encouragement, Mr Darcy’s leaden refusal, and the final judgement that she was tolerable but insufficiently handsome to tempt him.
Lydia shrieked with laughter before Elizabeth even concluded, while Kitty repeated the word tolerable under her breath and examined her sister in exaggerated, theatrical concern.
Mr Bennet removed his spectacles and polished them with his handkerchief. “His error is now apparent. A sensible man would have called you handsome enough to tempt him, danced once, and then escaped into the night before you began speaking.”
Elizabeth attempted a look of severe filial disapproval but achieved very little. “Papa.”
Mr Bennet raised a hand. “I offer valuable instruction. Mr Darcy has ten thousand a year and no conversational imagination. He must therefore rely on stony silence to preserve the illusion of his own superiority.”
Elizabeth spread butter across her toast. “That was precisely my conclusion. His pride might have been forgiven if he had insulted me with some originality. Tolerable is not merely rude; it is dull. A gentleman in possession of such consequence ought to manage a much better offence.”
Jane lifted her eyes at last, ever the defensive shield for humanity. “Perhaps he did not intend you to hear him.”
Elizabeth took a bite. “Then his manners are careless in addition to being unpleasant.”
Jane frowned slightly. “Mr Bingley clearly thinks well of him, and Mr Bingley does not appear unkind or foolish. There may be more to Mr Darcy than we observed.”
Elizabeth regarded her sister’s earnest expression and softened her answer. “There must be more, for we observed very little beyond a dark coat and a stubborn refusal to enjoy himself. I shall reconsider him on receiving evidence that he has earned the exertion.”
Mr Bennet drew a letter from under the newspaper. “Before Lizzy undertakes the heroic reform of Derbyshire’s most reluctant dancer, we have another gentleman requiring the family’s attention.”
Mrs Bennet paused with the butter knife suspended in mid-air. “What gentleman?”
Mr Bennet smiled grimly. “One whose interest in Longbourn exceeds Mr Darcy’s by several thousand acres.”
The seal had already been broken. Mr Bennet opened the letter and surveyed the first page, a cynical satisfaction gathering around his mouth.
Mrs Bennet’s colour altered to a shade of panic. “It is not from that dreadful man.”
Mr Bennet adjusted his spectacles. “It is, my dear; from my cousin, Mr Collins, who will inherit this estate upon my death and has discovered that Christian benevolence requires him to visit us while I am still using it.”
Mary straightened her spine. Kitty and Lydia exchanged bewildered glances, while Jane set down her cup.
Elizabeth had heard Mr Collins discussed often enough to understand the legal entail and her mother’s hatred of any man inconsiderate enough to benefit from it, but she knew nothing of his actual character.
Mr Bennet continued through the letter, pausing over its most elaborate passages.
Mr Collins regretted the disagreement between their late fathers, had recently received ordination, and considered it his sacred duty to heal the breach between their families.
His noble patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, approved of humility and of reconciliation with those whose property he would eventually inherit.
He therefore proposed to arrive at Longbourn in three weeks and remain long enough to demonstrate the sincerity of his intentions.
Mrs Bennet sank back in her chair, as though she had been struck. “He is coming here?”
Mr Bennet nodded slowly. “He has supplied the day, the hour, and enough moral justification to sustain a full military invasion.”
Elizabeth accepted the letter when her father offered it and examined the dense, reverent lines. Mr Collins had managed to apologise, congratulate himself, and worship Lady Catherine all within the opening paragraph, an efficiency of sycophancy that Elizabeth found worthy of admiration.
She returned the pages to her father. “Mr Darcy may soon lose his distinction as the most disagreeable man of our acquaintance.”
Mr Bennet restored his spectacles to his nose. “I confess that I have great hopes of Mr Collins. The man appears to be a marvel of absurdity.”
Mr Collins’s letter provided Longbourn with several days of frantic speculation, but even the looming prospect of an unknown cousin arriving to count the furniture could not displace Netherfield from Mrs Bennet’s mind.
She discovered reasons to discuss Mr Bingley at breakfast, during formal calls, and whenever Jane entered a room wearing a colour he had vaguely admired at the assembly.
The gentleman himself encouraged her expectations by calling at Longbourn before the week ended.
His sisters accompanied him, as did Mr Darcy, whose formidable presence Mrs Bennet received with a civility too elaborate to contain any actual warmth.
Mr Bingley bounded into the drawing room eager to greet everybody, while Mr Darcy bowed, accepted the chair farthest from the company, and settled into silence before anyone could impose a conversation on him.