“The person of whom I speak,” Mr. Bennet continued, quite imperturbable, “is a gentleman and a stranger, whom I have never seen in the whole course of my life.”
Now even Darcy was confused. Elizabeth stared at her father. “A stranger?”
“Entirely so.”
Mrs. Bennet gasped. “A stranger? To dine? At Longbourn? Without so much as a card left beforehand? Mr. Bennet, you cannot mean it.”
“I do, indeed. About a month ago, I received a letter from my cousin, Mr. Collins. It is he who is to dine with us, as he will be visiting us for a week complete from his living in Surrey.”
A stunned silence followed.
“Mr. Collins?” Jane echoed softly.
“The same,” said Mr. Bennet. “He has recently taken orders and is now established in a respectable living. He expresses a strong desire to mend the breach between our branches of the family. I thought it charitable to indulge him.”
Mrs. Bennet pressed her hand to her chest. “Your cousin? The heir?”
“The very one who will, upon my demise, turn you all into wanderers among the hedgerows,” Mr. Bennet said mildly.
This broke the spell.
“Mr. Bennet!” Mrs. Bennet cried. “How can you speak so of such dreadful things? And he is coming here? To stay? For a week?”
“For a week complete,” Mr. Bennet repeated with satisfaction. “We shall have ample opportunity to grow intimate.”
Lydia clapped her hands. “Oh! Perhaps he is handsome.”
Mary sat up straighter. “A clergyman,” she murmured approvingly. “That is most edifying.”
Elizabeth felt a curious mixture of irritation and dread. “And you did not think to mention this before today?”
“My dear,” her father replied dryly, “had I announced it sooner, your mother would have expired of anticipation.”
Mrs. Bennet looked as though she might yet do so.
Darcy, who had been standing very still, glanced from Elizabeth to Mr. Bennet and back again, piecing together the implications. The heir. The entail. The precarious future of the Bennet ladies.
Elizabeth caught his eye and lifted her brows ever so slightly, as if to say,You see now why I wished to remain with you.
Mr. Bennet folded his hands once more. “I trust you will all exert yourselves to be agreeable. It would not do to frighten away the man who stands ready to inherit your home.”
The room erupted at once into exclamations—Mrs. Bennet lamenting, Lydia speculating, Mary moralizing. Elizabeth turned slowly toward her father and fixed him with a reproachful look.
He merely chuckled at the rising storm.
“My dear,” he said loudly over the din, “pray do not exhaust yourself. There is another item that may interest you.”
Mrs. Bennet whirled.
“What could be more important than the man who will send us to the hedgerows upon your death?”
Mr. Bennet lifted one brow.
“Mr. Darcy has requested permission to pay his addresses to your daughter Elizabeth. I have given it.”
For a moment — a blessed, stunned moment — there was silence.
Then—
