Page 14 of Fortuitous Encounters

Note: This is my most recent work, written in 2026, not previously published.

The Longbourn Chaos

Elizabeth felt herself completely taken in. She had fully proposed being engaged by Mr Wickham for those very dances; and to have Mr Collins instead! Her liveliness had never been worse timed. There was no help for it, however. Mr Wickham’s happiness and her own were perforce delayed a little longer, and Mr Collins’s proposal accepted with as good a grace as she could. She was not the better pleased with his gallantry from the idea it suggested of something more. It now first struck her, that she was selected from among her sisters as worthy of being mistress of Hunsford Parsonage, and of assisting to form a quadrille table at Rosings, in the absence of more eligible visitors. The idea soon reached to conviction, as she observed his increasing civilities toward herself, and heard his frequent attempt at a compliment on her wit and vivacity; and though more astonished than gratified herself by this effect of her charms, it was not long before her mother gave her to understand that the probability of their marriage was extremely agreeable to her. Elizabeth, however, did not choose to take the hint, being well aware that a serious dispute must be the consequence of any reply. Mr Collins might never make the offer, and till he did, it was useless to quarrel about him.

P&P Ch 17

~

Elizabeth Bennet was frustrated beyond all measure.

The general silliness she endured before a local assembly was as nothing compared to what Longbourn suffered while preparing for a private ball. Given how much Miss Bingley felt her superiority, the entertainment would either be the greatest triumph in decades or the most abject failure. Ordinariness was not something she could abide.

The frustrations were doubled and trebled by the attentions of her odious cousin, Mr Collins. It now seemed clear that Mrs Bennet claimed Jane was unavailable by prematurely predicting a match with Mr Bingley, or using some other excuse to imply that, heir or not, he was not worthy of her most beautiful daughter; but on the other hand, her most disobliging and annoying offspring had no such encumbrance.

The not-particularly-bright clergyman—under orders from the great-and-wonderful-and-benevolent Lady Catherine de Bourgh, to wed one of his cousins chosen at random within a fortnight—set his course accordingly. He thought Elizabeth his for the asking, whilst she desperately tried to work out a way to politely let him know he had another think coming.

Having six ladies and two gentlemen stuffed into the Bennet coach was far from ideal; and that was even before her rather churlish assessment that a more accurate description would be two ladies, two women, two men, and two spoilt children.

If Mr Collins were a gentleman, he would have volunteered to ride. Given his equestrian skills, that would likely have ended in an early solution to the problem of entail. At the very least, any gentleman worth his salt would have sat with the coachman. Alas, the cleric was not a man to pass up the chance to be stuffed in a coach cheek by jowl with such a bevy of beauties.

Things progressed about as one would expect for the first mile; Lydia, Kitty, and Mrs Bennet ceaselessly complaining, Mary moralising, Jane alternating between smiling complacently and looking agitatedly at her sister stuck next to their odious cousin, Mr Bennet looking on in amusement, and Elizabeth seething.

As they passed Meryton, things took a decidedly unpleasant turn, and Elizabeth was having none of it.

“Mr Collins! Remove your hand forthwith!” she snapped, and when he did not remove said appendage from her knee with sufficient alacrity, she smacked it sharply with her fan, lamenting its lack of sharp edges or protruding nails.

He cried out like a baby, while she seethed. “I expect better of a clergyman, and I strongly doubt Lady Catherine would approve of you manhandling a woman. You might eventually be a gentleman, so you should start behaving like one! Keep your hands to yourself!”

“My apologies, cousin,” he replied in the oily voice she had grown to detest, “my hand slipped.”

“If it slips again, I shall not be responsible for your fingers,” she snapped.

“Once again, I apologise; but, given our future, perhaps it is not quite so objectionable. Mayhap the lady doth protest too much.”

Jane gasped at his effrontery, while Lydia laughed aloud, and Kitty followed as usual. “La, Lizzy, that should be exciting.”

Elizabeth seethed and spoke emphatically while brandishing her fan like a club. “We have no potential future, save that of distant cousins!”

“Oh, I doubt that. I am fully convinced otherwise,” he blathered on, unaware of the impropriety of the topic, let alone his entirely baseless assertions.

“Do not doubt it!” she snapped. “You are, at this very moment, the closest you will ever be to me, and your hand will never touch my person again without damage.”

“Your modesty is most becoming,” he sneered with a sickening laugh.

She looked to her father, who viewed the altercation with obvious amusement.

“Do you plan to say something about this raging impropriety, sir?” she seethed.

“Do not be so missish, Miss Lizzy Bennet,” Mrs Bennet chimed in before Mr Bennet could speak. “Mr Collins has paid you particular attention, and I demand that you treat him with the proper courtesy and respect. You are lucky to have his approbation!”

“I am giving him all the courtesy and respect he has earned! In fact, my forbearance to date has been legendary, but it has limits.”

Moving her intense focus to the patriarch, she snapped, “Father—have you nothing to add, or is this just another amusing incident to you?”

“I agree with your mother for once, Elizabeth. This is no time to be missish. I doubt his movement was deliberate, and he has done naught but state his aspirations, which have not been all that subtle anyway.”

“And you encourage this?” she squeaked in extreme agitation.