It was another week until Jane was well enough to return home, and some days after that before she was allowed downstairs. Mrs Bennet showed no remorse for what had happened, meeting Elizabeth’s reproachful looks with an indignant assertion that Jane would thank her once she was married. She was sure it could not be long before Mr Bingley made his declaration. It was therefore not surprising that, when one morning at breakfast, Mr Bennet announced that he hoped she had ordered a good dinner for that night, since he expected the arrival of a guest, Mrs Bennet’s mind leapt immediately to the possibility – the very exciting possibility – of its being Mr Bingley; but her husband immediately corrected her.
‘I am sorry to disappoint you, my dear. It is not he, but another young man who will grace us with his presence later today. I speak of my cousin Mr Collins, who, when I am dead, may turn you all out of this house as soon as he pleases.’
As Mr Bennet had intended, his words provoked general astonishment and surprise. Everyone spoke at once, deluging him with questions until he was obliged to hold up his hand and ask for quiet. Only then, and at a pace of his own choosing, did he reveal the story behind their unexpected visitor’s impending arrival. It appeared that a month earlier, Mr Bennet had received a letter from his cousin proposing himself as a guest.
‘About a fortnight ago, I answered it, for I thought that it required early attention. Should you like to hear what it says?’
He put on his glasses and with a flourish extracted the letter from a pocket of his coat. It covered many pages, and Mr Bennet read it in a manner as slow and pompous as the language in which it was written. Mr Collins began by regretting the breach which had for so long subsisted between Mr Bennet and his father. However, now that his revered parent was no more, he thought it incumbent upon him, if it lay within his poor powers, to heal the hurt inflicted by this quarrel. His recent ordination had made him feel the desirability of a reconciliation even more strongly.
‘He observes,’ continued Mr Bennet, ‘that “as a clergyman I feel it my duty to promote the blessings of peace in all families within my influence”. He goes on – and I think this will be of particular interest to you, my dear – “that on these grounds I flatter myself that my present overtures of goodwill are highly commendable, and the circumstances of my being next in the entail of the Longbourn estate will be kindly overlooked on your part, and not lead you to reject the offered olive branch”.’
Mrs Bennet threw down her napkin, scattering breadcrumbs from her plate.
‘I think it very impertinent of him to write to you at all, and very hypocritical.’
‘I fear you are too unkind to him. He acknowledges his sin just as fully as you could wish. He says he is “concerned at being the means of injuring your amiable daughters” and indeed “begs leave to apologise for it”. Indeed, he professes his “readiness to make them every possible amends – but of this hereafter”.
‘What can he mean by that?’ asked Mrs Bennet, a little mollified now. ‘I shall not discourage him if he means to do something material for the girls.’
‘There is more – much more, as it happens, but nothing further on that point. He tells us a great deal about his good fortune in securing a valuable living in Kent, and of his indebtedness to “the bounty and beneficence” of his worthy patroness, “the Right Honourable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, widow of Sir Lewis de Bourgh”. Towards this lady, he informs us, it will always be his endeavour “to demean myself with grateful respect”.’
He folded up the letter and tapped it on the table.
‘We may expect this peacemaking gentleman at four o’clock today. I very much look forward to making his acquaintance.’
‘He must be an oddity, I think,’ declared Elizabeth. ‘I cannot make him out. Can he be a sensible man, sir?’
‘No, my dear, I do not think he can. There is a mixture of servility and self-importance in his letter which promises very well. I am impatient to see him.’
Mr Bennet looked around the table with genuine anticipation, and Mary felt a twinge of sympathy for the hapless Mr Collins. His intentions seemed to her honourable, if perhaps not very happily conveyed.
‘In point of composition,’ she suggested, ‘his letter does not seem entirely defective. The idea of the olive branch, perhaps, is not wholly new, yet I think it is well expressed.’
Her words made no impact at all. The conversation had grown loud again, as the probable motives for Mr Collins’s visit were enthusiastically debated, not, on the whole, much to his credit.
‘He appears to mean nothing but good in coming here,’ she continued, raising her voice against the hubbub. ‘Is it right to condemn him before we have even met him?’
No one listened. After a while, Mary stood up, pushed her chair back neatly into place, made a respectful nod to her parents, and left the table. As she walked down the hall, she could still hear the family talking. She thought it probable that no one had even noticed her absence.
Later that afternoon, the object of all this discussion arrived, exactly on time. He was a tall, heavy-looking young man in his mid-twenties, with a solemn and stately air. His voice was rather louder and his manners stiffer and more formal than a family drawing room required. But the more he spoke, the more he pleased his hosts. Mrs Bennet was delighted to be addressed with all the respectful consideration she felt was her due; while her husband was equally gratified to find their visitor in every way as ridiculous as he had hoped.
Mr Collins’s compliments to his fair cousins – his pleasure at discovering their good looks far exceeded even the most enthusiastic reports, his conviction they must expect to be very quickly and advantageously disposed of in marriage – were not much to the taste of those to whom they were addressed. They were, however, music to their mother’s ears, though she could not resist observing it was very unfortunate they should have no proper portions to bring with them to their husbands, ‘things being settled so oddly’.
‘You allude, perhaps,’ murmured Mr Collins, ‘to the entail of this estate?’
‘Yes, sir. It is a very vexing situation.’
‘I could say much on the subject,’ he observed, grinning at his cousins with a particularly arch and irritating smirk, ‘but I am cautious of appearing forward and precipitate. But I can assure the young ladies I come prepared to admire them! At present, I will not say any more, but perhaps when we are better acquainted …’
Jane and Elizabeth looked sternly away, while Kitty and Lydia did not try to hide their boredom. Only Mary looked at him with curiosity. It could not be denied that he did not make a very impressive figure. He had none of the swagger of the officers Kitty and Lydia so admired, nor the cheerful warmth of Mr Bingley. And he certainly possessed nothing of Mr Darcy’s natural gravity, the authority and assurance that commanded deference wherever he appeared. As she watched him talking to her mother, admiring the disposition of the rooms, the elegance of the furniture, and the colour of the curtains, it was hard not to find him foolish. Everything delighted him; he seemed not to understand where appreciation ended and flattery began. Yet, for all his obsequiousness, he frequently failed to please. He seemed not to notice that Mrs Bennet did not like to hear her sofas compared to those which his esteemed patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, had placed in her second-best morning room. He would do better, Mary thought, to say less and think more; but as he rambled on, she understood that would never happen. He would always condemn himself out of his own mouth, and would do so in complete ignorance of the poor impression he made. She began to feel apprehensive on his behalf about how he would fare at dinner. Mr Collins offered her father such a tempting opportunity for exercising his wit that she could not imagine any circumstances in which he would forgo it.