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Horseshoe

Darcy

It all started with a horseshoe. Well, truth be told, only the latter half of the story started that way, as it had been going on for a year before that day I found myself cursing my steed. In general, I tend to think better of my horse than of most people. It is not that I dislike the company of friends and relatives, mind you; I just prefer my horse. It never argues, or at least when it does, it is always in absolute terms. There is nothing subtle about a horse. There are no delicate, half-disguised jibes or innuendos. A beast is completely devoid of flirtatious and insincere flattery. It never indulges in fluttering eyelashes, shameless boasting, brandy theft, displays of entirely too much décolletage, or attempts to entrap, compromise, or cheat me. It never hints that it needs money or introductions in society. It wants only good food, a clean stall, a hard ride now and again, and the occasional brushing or carrot. It refrains from subtle (or not-so-subtle) hints about matrimony. It either takes me where I wish to go, or dumps me unceremoniously on the ground. Everything about a horse is all or nothing.

It was Friday, the twenty-seventh of November of the year twelve, and I had endured a trying year with one difficulty after another. I missed my annual Easter trip to Rosings due to flooding at Pemberley, and most of the season in town due to problems in Derbyshire. I would have happily dispensed with the visit altogether, but I was finally worn down by the ceaseless nagging of my aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, lately joined by my Uncle Matlock. Duty must at last prevailed over preference.

Missing the Easter visit was very much to my satisfaction, as I knew my aunt’s parson was related to the Bennets, and I had no desire to hear any more of their doings. My sojourn in Hertfordshire a year earlier had ended badly, with the entire Netherfield party departing abruptly. I heard nothing of the people I met there in the succeeding year, nor did I make any effort to. I was unsatisfied with the way the visit ended, but unwilling to reopen the matter. I was rarely in company with Bingley, but when I was, he still seemed affected. Of course, not keeping company with Bingley had the supreme benefit of removing me from the disagreeable company of his sisters, but I did miss my friend.

Thus, I found myself riding to Rosings on a cold November day in too poor a humour to take the carriage. A bad horseshoe left me leading my steed the last mile to Hunsford, not overly enamoured with the beast, though the situation was not his fault.

After leaving him with the farrier, I decided to walk the rest of the way. I was already more than two hours beyond the time my aunt arbitrarily appointed for my arrival, but another mile on foot might put me under good enough regulation to withstand her assault. There would inevitably be numerous complaints and renewed hints about matrimony with my cousin Anne, who frankly would have married the most repulsive man in Kent before me.

As I approached the parsonage, I recalled with some alarm the obsequious parson who introduced himself at the Netherfield ball. He seemed like just the sort of man to hide in a front parlour watching for gentlemen to accost. I had no desire to have him fawning over me, or worse yet, telling me anything related to his cousins in Hertfordshire. A shortcut behind the parsonage seemed an eminently sensible course.

Whilst I could easily avoid the parson for the moment, avoiding his cousin was another matter entirely. I thought she would be well gone from my mind by then, but alas, exactly a year and a day from the last time I saw her at the Netherfield ball, it was not to be. She still haunted me. The entertainments I attended in town were tainted by some lack. The ladies seemed insipid, the gentlemen boorish, the musicians flat, the company disagreeable.

Worse yet, I occasionally thought I was going mad. I sometimes dreamed I heard her voice calling me seductively. I even occasionally imagined I heard the voices of her flirtatious sisters, only a step away from ruining the whole family; or the high-pitched screeching of her mother, as bad a mercenary as I have ever seen; or the low rumble of her father, ridiculing his family as it destroyed itself. I will not even trouble you with a description of my dreams.

I had just gained the hidden corner of the parsonage when I had the oddest hallucination of all. It was the voice of her father, but without the ridiculing chuckle he always seemed to employ. This was her father with a hard edge, and it took me a moment to realise it was real. The man himself was standing next to a carriage I had not noticed in the drive.

I stopped abruptly, though I had a sinking suspicion I would regret it. What was I to do, eavesdrop on a private conversation? However, I found I could not help myself, so I remained out of sight behind the corner of the parsonage.

Mr Bennet looked considerably different from how I remembered him from Hertfordshire, as if the past year aged him a decade instead of a year. What could possibly have wrought such a change?

His voice had no warmth whatsoever and was frightening in its intensity.

“I must speak with you, Elizabeth! Why have you ignored my letters?”

“Do not call me that ever again! I am Mrs Collins to you!”

There was venom enough in her voice to kill a horse, but it was the name that struck me hardest: Mrs Collins! Elizabeth Bennet had married my aunt’s idiot parson!

“You forced that name on me, so you will use it and no other… Bennet!”

“Have you no respect for your father?”

“I have neither father nor mother. State your business and be gone!”

How had the world come to this? Missing my own parents terribly, I could not comprehend the horror of coming to loathe one’s parents enough to disown them; yet clearly, she had.

“Very well, Mrs Collins! We have important matters to discuss, so let us go inside.”

“No, Bennet,” she snapped even more harshly. “While I breathe, neither you nor your wife shall ever cross the threshold of my home. If you have something to say, do so here and now, or begone. My patience is at an end.”

She had apparently lost all respect for the man, and I was beginning to understand why. The indolent patriarch seemed to have been replaced with something almost malevolent.

“Very well, Mrs Collins! You have not responded to my letters of the last six months, or the last year for that matter. I sent them express to emphasise their importance and save you the postage, as I assumed you would refuse to pay.”

“I must say, I enjoyed the letters immensely,” she said with arch sweetness. “The wax gives off such a pretty blue smoke when they burn, but I wish you would desist from sending them. I have no intention of ever reading anything from you, and they do not produce enough heat to be of any practical value. If you want to send something to burn, I prefer coal.”

I remembered the playful sweetness she habitually teased with. This was something altogether different. The hostility from Miss Bennet—nay, Mrs Collins—was unmistakable. I knew perfectly well I should not be listening, but having heard the start of the conversation, my sanity demanded I hear the rest.

“I have heard rumours that your husband’s health is not the best, Mrs Collins.”

She gave a mocking, half-laughing reply that did not speak well for her state of mind.

“Mr Collins’ health is as he deserves. He caught a fever three months ago. It thoroughly ravaged his mind, which shall never return, apparently, not that it was anything to boast of in the first place. The great and wonderful and condescending Lady Catherine would like him dead and gone so she can transfer the living to another mindless sycophant. She brought in three physicians, and they all agree he will most likely never leave his bed and will survive no more than another year or two with reasonable care. I hope you are satisfied. The entail will be broken. Go back to Longbourn and leave me to my own misery.”