Chapter Nineteen
A Different Refusal
Mr. Collins proposed to Elizabeth on a damp Monday morning.
This too happened again.
Elizabeth almost pitied him.
Almost.
He began with Lady Catherine. Continued with duty. Added her modest portion. Mentioned the entail. Assured her that he had selected her with due consideration and that his patroness had recommended a lady of active usefulness who was not brought up too high.
Elizabeth listened.
In her first life she had grown increasingly angry with every sentence. Now she heard something else beneath the absurdity: a man who had built his entire understanding of marriage from duty, hierarchy, and instruction because he possessed little instinct for intimacy of his own.
It did not make him appealing.
It made him more human.
At an appropriate pause she said, "No."
Mr. Collins smiled.
Elizabeth sighed.
"Mr. Collins, I understand that you believe young ladies refuse men whom they intend eventually to accept. I do not."
His smile faltered. "My dear cousin, modesty--"
"Is not what is happening. I am refusing you."
"But Lady Catherine--"
"Is not marrying me."
He blinked.
Elizabeth almost smiled. "Nor are you."
When Mrs. Bennet learned what had happened, she reacted terribly.
That did not change.
"You will be turned out!" she cried, following Elizabeth through the morning room. "You will have nothing! Your father will die and Mr. Collins will take Longbourn and we shall all be in the hedgerows!"
Mr. Bennet looked up from his book. "Not immediately, I hope."
Mrs. Bennet rounded on him. "This is your fault. You encourage her to laugh at everything!"
In another life Elizabeth would have rolled her eyes, appealed to her father, and allowed the quarrel to become another private joke between them.
Now she saw fear.
Real fear beneath the foolish language.
Mrs. Bennet had spent twenty years waking beside an entail she could not alter. Every daughter represented love and vulnerability in equal measure.
Elizabeth crossed the room and took her mother's hands. "Mama."
Mrs. Bennet stared. "Do not 'Mama' me."
"I know why you are frightened."
The anger faltered. "No, you do not."
"Longbourn. Five daughters. No son. Papa's income ends with him and the estate passes to Mr. Collins. I know."
Mrs. Bennet's face crumpled. "Then how can you--"
"Because marrying Mr. Collins would secure only me."
Silence.
Elizabeth kept hold of her hands. "And I would be unhappy."
Mrs. Bennet looked away.
"I need you to care about that too," Elizabeth said softly.
Her mother began crying harder.
Mr. Bennet's humor vanished.
After a long moment Mrs. Bennet sniffed, "You are impossible."
"Yes."
"I am not speaking to you."
"All right."
"For a week."
"Very well."
Mrs. Bennet lasted twenty minutes.
It was progress.
Mr. Collins, wounded by Elizabeth's refusal and baffled by Mrs. Bennet's failure to compel her, turned his attention toward Mary.
Mary surprised everyone.
He approached her in the shrubbery after luncheon and began speaking of the honor of becoming mistress of Hunsford Parsonage. Mary listened with growing alarm.
When he reached Lady Catherine for the second time, Mary held up one hand.
"Mr. Collins, I beg your pardon, but are you asking me to marry you?"
He looked pleased by her understanding. "My dear cousin--"
"Then no."
Mr. Collins stared.
Mary pushed her spectacles higher upon her nose. "I do not believe admiration of Lady Catherine constitutes sufficient compatibility for marriage."
Elizabeth, watching from a window, nearly applauded.
Mr. Collins left Longbourn two days later deeply offended by the entire Bennet family.
Mr. Bennet laughed.
Elizabeth did not join him.
He noticed.
His smile faded.