The ladies of Longbourn had no notion that he was to come at all, as Mr. Bennet had retained the information to himself, intending to spring it upon his wife at the last reasonable moment to entertain himself. As it happened the effect upon Mrs. Bennet of suddenly having this stranger appear, who was to inherit the house after his decease, was all that Mr. Bennet had hoped for, and to be honest more.
She panicked.
She accused Mr. Bennet of bringing his cousin here because he suffered from a fatal illness that he just didn’t wish to tell her about, so that his final joke would be his death.
She became immediately delighted with Mr. Collins once he conveyed to her the important information that he was here to bring peace — and implied to her that even more significant point that he hoped the method of peacemaking would be by marrying one of her daughters, famed for their exquisite and lovely appearance.
She then descended upon the cook and Mrs. Hill to order them to engage in every possible exertion to make the evening meal worthy of their beloved cousin, the heir of the house.
She saw him enamored of Jane, and had a minute’s anxiety because Jane had been intended by her to catch the greater prey formed by Mr. Bingley’s larger fortune.
She implied to Mr. Collins then in a conversation while he examined the marble fireplace and stirred up the fire with the long poker that while his Cousin Jane was likely soon to be engaged, her next daughter was nearly her equal in beauty, and that Cousin Elizabeth was very compliant, very fit to pay regular attendance to Lady Catherine (a figure about whom Mrs. Bennet had already been given ample information), and even more perfectly fit for the position of a clergyman’s wife — if only Mrs. Bennet could find such a man to court Elizabeth.
She then worked herself into nearly a frenzy in frustration that Elizabeth was away from the house on one of her always ill-timed and ill-considered rambles. Did that girl havenoconsideration for her mother’s nerves?
Finally when Elizabeth arrived back, she was wholly unfit to be seen — an unsightly scraped injury on her hand, the knee of her dress dirty and nearly torn through, and a general air of… happy incompliance.
Mrs. Bennet was a woman with a difficult life, and seldom had she faced such a trying and difficult day. But she rose to every difficulty, to every challenge, and to every test that could be conjured forth by the daily travails of the wife of a modest country gentleman.
This admirable woman successfully pressed Elizabeth upstairs and into her room without being seen (she hoped) by Mr. Collins. She then made her bemused daughter change into one of her best day dresses, a piece of clothing which was both modestly cut, because Mr. Collins was a clergyman, and yet with fabric that clung to Elizabeth’s cleavage and female curves, because beneath his white clerical collar, Mr. Collins was a man, with such desires as every man (or so Mrs. Bennet hoped).
For her part Elizabeth’s first meeting with her cousin, after being primped, beribboned and redressed, was not propitious.
A man of medium height whose neck bulged out over the white clerical collar. His clothes were too small for his frame, and colored black on black, while his face was a pasty white. It made Mr. Collins look like a severely overweight ghost.
“Dear cousin.” He took her hand and bent over to wetly kiss it after they were introduced in the drawing room. “My dear cousin, it is a delight to meet you.”
He studied her critically with his slightly protruding eyes. “You are lovely, such ivory skin, like a porcelain from China — perhaps too tanned. But it is proper for a woman to walk out often to visit the cottagers and poor families of the parish.”
Elizabeth twisted her mouth at that way of phrasing it. She was rather offended, in truth.
“You are nearly as lovely as your sister, who I have been informed—” He turned his eyes and hands heavenward and sighed with loss. “—is likely to soon enter into an attachment with one of your neighbors.” He continued without giving her any chance to speak. “You will be a graceful and lovely ornament for the house that you will be mistress of after you have married.”
“Uhhhh… my kindest, uh, I thank you kindly for that compliment. But—”
“However, Cousin Elizabeth, it is incumbent upon me to advise you upon a matter in which you have erred. I would not speak so soon after we have met, except that I am a clergyman, and it is my role and duty to advise any person in the land within whom I espy a need of correction. Furthermore, attached to my general right to offer humble and benevolent criticism to all as a clergyman, there is that more particular interest I have as your cousin in your welfare, and in your proper behavior. As lovely and angelic as you are, you will listen and learn about your mistake, and correct it with delight.”
He paused now, as though he expected Elizabeth to exclaim with delight on the opportunity to be corrected.
Elizabeth opened and closed her mouth several times. What sort of man began an acquaintance in such a way?
“I confess,” Elizabeth said at last, “that I have no notion what might be the sequel to such a speech as you have already made.”
“Lovely, elegant, dissembling cousin! Of course you are innocent of any awareness of your fault.” He pursed his lips together. “My dear cousin, I espied you returning from the drawing room window, where I sat next to your excellent glass — though of a wholly inferior quality to that which was used to cover all the windows at Rosings Park, at a price of many thousands of pounds. You were alone in the company of a gentleman.”
“Now that sentence does not parse,” replied Elizabeth, her mouth turning up mischievously in amusement. “I was either alone,orI was in the company of a gentleman.”
Mr. Collins severely shook his head slowly, like a funeral dirge, looking at her with mournful eyes, as though he could smell in her words the death of all female manners and modesty in England. “My dear cousin, your levity is misjudged. Why Lady Catherine will scold any young lady who she sees standing in conversation with an unrelated man — no matter the situation. I have already spoken to your honored father this day upon the grave unwisdom of allowing a woman to walk about unescorted by a trusted servant.”
What an oddly astonishing man.
Elizabeth could not quite decide whether to laugh openly at him, make the effort to keep her countenance and smile politely, or subtly cut him.
It was quite an astonishing thing to be criticized for — that a woman should not walk with a man, ever, might be written in an etiquette manual authored by a woman of seventy, or in a sermon written by a vicar with far more certainty about how societyoughtto function, than how itdid. But that had little connection to how peopleactuallybehaved.
Certainly a woman ought to show a great concern for her reputation, and be cautious in showing too much favor to a man who had not offered to marry her — but simply walking outdoors with a man on a well frequented road was in no way disreputable, nor a matter that anyone of any sense would criticize. Very few people acted as though it was. Mr. Collins and this woman he cited as his authority seemed to live in an imaginary society, one better fitted for the pages of a novel, than the sort of place in which actual humans might live.
“Who is this Lady Catherine who dispenses her advice so… frankly?” Elizabeth asked after due consideration.
