Chapter 2
TWO
“My dear,” Mrs Bennet addressed her husband, for at least the fifth time of the day. “Why did you tell me, especially, to order a good dinner? There was not a bit of fish to be got today. Who are we expecting? I wish you would not tease me so.”
Elizabeth, along with her sisters, was curious as well; it was one of her father’s usual jokes, to warn of an expected party without revealing the particulars.
Yet, he did not seem in a good humour regarding his little mockery, as was customary for him, and it was not his habit to draw out the tease quite so long.
If she had to guess, she would say that whomever this guest or guests might be, her father did not look forward to their arrival.
“’Tis no one we have ever hosted,” Mr Bennet muttered.
“Oh! Could it be Mr Bingley and his great friend, Mr Collins?” his wife asked hopefully.
Elizabeth immediately felt all the dread of this notion.
She had just spent several days in the company of these two gentlemen at Mr Bingley’s house, Netherfield, whilst caring for her sister, Jane, who had taken ill during a visit.
Mr Bingley was good natured, handsome, and well on his way to falling in love with Jane. Mr Collins was something else entirely.
Mr William Collins was tremendously wealthy, to be sure—he boasted of having ten thousand a year, and Mrs Hurst and Miss Bingley, Mr Bingley’s sisters, spoke a great deal on the topic of Mr Collins’s vast estate, an apparently marvellous place called Pemberley in Derbyshire.
He was the nephew of an earl, with the bluest of blue blood.
However, he was the least sensible person Elizabeth had ever had the misfortune to meet.
Miss Bingley obviously wanted him, and best of luck to her!
However, while he seemed to enjoy her fawning, he had paid far too much attention to Elizabeth.
Just the memory of him in the library, blathering on and on while she had been trying without success to read through one measly page, made her want to toss her novel at him.
Providentially, Mrs Bennet had no idea of his interest, or she would have already begun wedding plans—as she was for poor Jane regarding Mr Bingley.
“If only,” Mr Bennet muttered. “I could then at least be assured of an amusing evening of listening to Mr Collins’s anecdotes involving every member of royalty he has ever entertained while Mr Bingley tries desperately to change the subject.
No, it is a person I have never met in my entire life. I knew his father only slightly.”
“Truly, Papa?” Lydia asked. “Oh, you must tell us!” Her sisters added their voices to Lydia’s in a sudden, excited clamour.
“Silence!” he roared, in a voice so unusually sharp that they all gaped at him. “Unless you can cease your squawking, I will say nothing more until our visitor shows his face.”
For a few moments, no one said a word. Lydia, though, was not one to surrender easily.
“Oh, Papa, please? I cannot stand mysteries.”
Mr Bennet sighed. “About a month ago I received this letter,” he said, withdrawing a folded sheet from an inner coat pocket, “and about a fortnight ago I answered it, for I thought it a case of some delicacy, and requiring my earliest attention,” he said, his voice full of sarcasm and none of the good humour which usually accompanied his wit.
“It is from my cousin, Mr Darcy, who, when I am dead, may turn you all out of this house as soon as he pleases. He is to arrive at four o’clock today. ”
Mrs Bennet turned white with fury—for no matter the efforts her eldest daughters made to explain to her the entail upon Longbourn, she refused to understand it or admit its legitimacy.
“Let me read to you a few of the good vicar Darcy’s more conscientious sentiments,” Mr Bennet said, clearing his throat; he began speaking in his most lordly tones, as though he were a magistrate with an official summons.
“I find I cannot exclude your daughters from my notice, at least those of marriageable age, without a cursory assessment. I require a wife, the parish requires a Godly woman to join with me in the administration of my duties to the Church of England, and … Longbourn will require a mistress…
“‘Let it be clear: I am ever conscious of the circumstance of my being next in the entail of Longbourn estate… that your offspring stand to lose... Nonetheless, I comprehend a great deal in my idea of the accomplished woman who will become my wife. I mean to grant them due and fair consideration, but I do not intend to slacken my standards one whit.’”
“The nerve of him!” cried Elizabeth. “He may grant his consideration to the cows on Longbourn’s pasturelands, for all I care!”
However, during the reading, Mrs Bennet’s sentiments had undergone a material adjustment. “Lizzy, there is some sense in what he says about marrying one of you girls; and if he is disposed to make any one of you amends, I shall not be the person to discourage him.”
“He must be an oddity in his own parish, with such arrogance as he obviously possesses,” Elizabeth said angrily.
“Doubtless that is why he failed to procure a wife from amongst his congregation,” her father agreed.
“In point of composition,” said Mary thoughtfully, “his letter does not seem defective, but forthright, acknowledging the awkwardness of the situation, as well as his intent to remedy it, if possible.”
“His ‘remedy’ can mean nothing to me,” Lydia declared. “I would never marry a fusty old vicar.”
“Neither would I!” Kitty exclaimed.
“None of you three are old enough to marry anyone,” Mr Bennet said sharply.
Elizabeth was about to add her disapproval of such a man even thinking of marrying any of them, when she caught sight of Jane’s face. She had turned pale as a ghost. Since she had been ill so recently, Elizabeth went to her side immediately.
“Jane,” she murmured, not wanting to draw attention to her sister—who would not want Mama making a fuss. “Come, sit.”
Her sister seemed to start, suddenly. “Oh…oh, no, Lizzy. I am well, I promise you. Mama, what will you serve for dinner?” She asked the question deliberately, Elizabeth could tell, to turn the subject from marrying arrogant vicars.
However, as soon as her distraction was completed, and all attention was fixed elsewhere, she saw Jane move towards the stairs.