Twelve
Longbourn
Elizabeth
Dinner at Longbourn was as lively an affair as breakfast, for it was the one meal at which the whole family gathered with leisure enough to recount the events of the day.
Rain had fallen almost without interruption for the last two days, depriving Elizabeth of her usual walks and, with them, any opportunity of seeing Mr. Darcy.
Three days had now passed since they had last met upon Oakham Mount.
Though the rain had at last ceased that morning, the ground remained too sodden, and the sky too uncertain, for venturing far from the house.
She could only hope that the morrow would prove fairer, and that she might once again find herself upon the ridge in his company.
Lydia, who had found the confinement of the weather almost insupportable, was endeavouring to make up for lost time by talking enough for the whole household.
"Mrs. Hill says a new regiment has come to Meryton," Lydia declared with great animation. "She heard it from the butcher's boy this morning. I vow there must be at least a dozen handsome officers amongst them."
"And if there are not," Kitty replied with equal enthusiasm, "Lydia will discover them handsome all the same."
"I shall judge for myself," Lydia answered. "Perhaps we may go into Meryton tomorrow."
Mrs. Bennet was already smiling at the prospect when Mr. Bennet, who had thus far allowed the conversation to proceed without interference, laid down his knife and fork.
"I have received a letter this afternoon," he said, "which I believe will interest you all rather more than Lydia's officers, however handsome they may prove upon inspection."
The announcement succeeded at once in commanding every eye at the table.
Mr. Bennet reached into the pocket of his coat and withdrew a letter, unfolding it with a deliberation Elizabeth recognised from long experience.
Whenever her father possessed news he particularly enjoyed imparting, he never hurried to the telling of it.
"It comes from my cousin, Mr. Collins," he continued.
"The letter is dated more than a fortnight ago, though it has only reached us this evening.
From what I gather, the mail coach carrying the Kent post met with some accident upon the road, and these last days of heavy rain have delayed everything besides.
My cousin's intentions, therefore, have travelled considerably longer than he ever intended. "
"My goodness!" Mrs. Bennet exclaimed, setting down her fork with undisguised alarm. "That dreadful man who is to have Longbourn the moment you are in your grave, Mr. Bennet? What can he possibly want, writing to us now, when he has never troubled himself to do so before?"
Elizabeth's thoughts of Oakham Mount vanished at once.
The name Collins was not one often spoken in the house, yet neither was it unfamiliar.
Since childhood, she and her sisters had understood perfectly what the entail upon Longbourn meant, and that one day the estate must pass to the distant cousin none of them had ever met.
Even Lydia and Kitty abandoned all discussion of officers to listen.
"He writes," said Mr. Bennet, "to inform me that he intends to visit us, and that, by his own reckoning, he should arrive tomorrow. Whether he still intends to do so, I cannot say, for the delay of his letter has left me no opportunity of replying that we shall be happy to receive him."
"Tomorrow!" cried Mrs. Bennet. "Tomorrow, Mr. Bennet? And you choose to tell me only now, when there is scarcely time to prepare the house? Really, I never heard of such a thing. What can the man have been thinking?"
"I imagine he intended to give us rather more notice than this," said Mr. Bennet calmly, returning to his dinner.
"The accident to the mail coach and the weather have conspired against him as much as against us.
I therefore find myself as much a victim of circumstance as you, though I confess I bear it with rather greater composure. "
"I am sure I cannot conceive why he should come at all," Mrs. Bennet declared. "Unless it is to inspect the house he expects one day to call his own."
"I rather suspect his object is a little more particular than that."
Elizabeth grimaced. There was a familiar expression about her father's mouth, one she knew exceedingly well. He had already reached the conclusion of the matter and was merely amusing himself by delaying everyone else's arrival at it.
"He writes," Mr. Bennet continued, "that having lately obtained a comfortable living and an income sufficient for his wants, he now considers it his duty to set an example of matrimony within his parish.
He adds that he cannot but reflect upon the peculiar circumstances of our own family in that respect, and hopes, by his visit, to make every possible amends for what he repeatedly calls the unfortunate entailment. "
Jane regarded him with mild perplexity.
Elizabeth, however, required no further explanation. Two years earlier, Miss Ruth, the daughter of a neighbouring family, had married her cousin solely because of an entail. There was scarcely any other means by which such a circumstance could be amended.
"He intends to marry one of us," she said.
"I believe that is very much his intention, Lizzy," replied Mr. Bennet. "Though he has employed nearly an entire page to arrive at so simple a conclusion, and with such industry that I cannot but admire it. I have seldom read anything so wonderfully laborious."
"What is it that you find so amusing, Papa?" Elizabeth asked, though she suspected, from the look upon his face, that he had not yet exhausted the entertainment to be found in his cousin's letter.
"Well," said Mr. Bennet, "Mr. Collins scarcely reaches the second paragraph before every sentiment he expresses is measured against the wisdom and benevolence of his patroness. I believe I have never encountered so much gratitude bestowed upon one lady in so little space."
He tapped the folded letter thoughtfully against the table.
"He keeps mentioning a Lady Catherine de Bourgh, of Rosings, for whom he appears to entertain the highest reverence.
He mentions her no fewer than four times in as many paragraphs, and each mention exceeds the last in admiration.
If the remainder of his conversation bears any resemblance to his correspondence, I anticipate a very agreeable fortnight. "
Elizabeth felt an unexpected flutter beneath her ribs. Her pulse quickened before she could account for it
Lady Catherine de Bourgh of Rosings?
That was the very name Mr. Darcy had spoken upon Oakham Mount only a few mornings past. It was his aunt, the lady who had wished him to marry her cousin Anne, and who had scarcely spoken to him since he declined her.
She very nearly exclaimed it aloud before she caught herself.
To explain how she came by such knowledge would require confessing that she had spent the better part of the last fortnight walking almost daily with Mr. Darcy, conversing with him upon subjects infinitely more personal than any member of her family could imagine.
She had no wish to invite such astonishment.
Instead, she lowered her eyes to her plate and occupied herself with her dinner, though her thoughts had wandered far from it.
How extraordinary that her father's absurd cousin should prove connected, however distantly, to Mr. Darcy's family. The world was forever shrinking in upon itself in the most unexpected ways.
Mrs. Bennet, meanwhile, had no leisure for contemplating such coincidences.
"Mrs. Hill!" she called, before the housekeeper had quite entered the dining parlour in answer to the bell.
"We are to have a guest tomorrow. Mr. Collins, Mr. Bennet's cousin.
We shall require the blue chamber to be aired at once, and there must be something particularly good for lunch.
We cannot have the gentleman think us indifferent to his comfort. "
Mrs. Hill assured her everything would be attended to before withdrawing once more.
"I wonder what sort of man he is," Kitty said.
"I hope he is handsome," Lydia declared. "If he is to stay a fortnight, I should like him to be tolerable to look at."
"I hope he is sensible," Mary observed. "A clergyman ought to possess a cultivated understanding."
"I should be content if he possesses ordinary civility," Mrs. Bennet replied. "Though I own I shall like him infinitely better if he has forgotten every word of that wretched entail."
Mr. Bennet smiled over the rim of his glass.
"I fear, my dear, his memory is unlikely to prove so accommodating."
The conversation soon dissolved into speculation, each member of the family forming a different picture of the cousin who was expected on the morrow.
Elizabeth listened with only half her attention.
Despite the absurdity of the circumstances, she found herself curious to meet the gentleman whose letter had afforded her father so much amusement.
More than that, she wondered whether the weather would permit one last walk to Oakham Mount before Mr. Collins's arrival.
She could not help wishing to tell Mr. Darcy of the curious connection she had discovered, and hear what he might have to say of the clergyman who spoke of Lady Catherine de Bourgh with such boundless admiration.
It would be the second unexpected link she had discovered between them, the first having come in Mrs. Gardiner's letter, which had confirmed that her aunt had known both the late Mr. Darcy and his son during her years in Lambton.
~
8th November, 1811
Elizabeth
Much to Elizabeth's surprise, Mrs. Bennet was awake before anyone else in the house.
She, who seldom rose before the rest of the family, now moved from room to room with such purpose that one might have imagined a prince expected instead of a country clergyman.
Every chamber was inspected, every servant directed anew, and every imagined deficiency corrected before breakfast had properly concluded.