At first, Mary had the library entirely to herself. She arrived in the middle of the morning, established herself in her place, and did not leave it until required to dress for dinner. Soon, she became used to her solitude, and even began to relish it. She was therefore caught completely by surprise when one afternoon Mr Collins burst in unannounced, carrying a large sheaf of papers with the evident intention of working there himself. He had thrown his bundle onto the desk and had sat down heavily in her father’s old chair before he noticed Mary at the far end of the room.
‘My dear Miss Bennet! I did not know you were here! I cannot apologise enough for my unmannerly intrusion. I will withdraw immediately.’
Mary stood up, embarrassed.
‘No, sir, it is I who am at fault. This is your room and I am a sad trespasser in it. Mrs Collins gave me to understand it would not be required by you for some time. I should never have settled myself here if I had known you had business to attend to.’
More mutual apologies were offered and declined; and eventually it was decided that Mary should remain where she was, and that her presence should not in the least bother Mr Collins or incommode him in any way, and he would hold himself in readiness to depart at the least hint from her that she wished him gone. As Mary had no desire to expel him from his own study, soon no more was heard but the scratching of his pen and the turning of her pages, until Mr Collins excused himself and bid her a polite farewell.
When Mary herself eventually gathered up her books and left to go and dress, she met Charlotte in the hall.
‘I am so sorry to hear your studies were broken in upon by Mr Collins earlier today. I know he is very sorry to have disturbed you. Shall I ask him to work elsewhere? He could use the little parlour, no one goes there in the afternoons.’
‘Please do not do so on my behalf, it is his library, after all. But perhaps if my presence does not annoy him, I could continue to study at the far end of the room? I have all my books laid out and am comfortably established there. I promise I will do nothing to irritate him.’
‘I doubt very much whether any irritation or annoyance would come from you,’ replied Charlotte briskly. ‘I’m sure that scheme will work very well. I shall suggest to Mr Collins that you become joint occupants of the library, each with your own well-defined and separate territories. It is a plan I find answers admirably in many circumstances, so I see no reason why it should not do so in this case.’
Upstairs in her room, as Mrs Hill did her hair, Mary’s thoughts wandered back to Charlotte’s words. The calming rhythm of the brush and the companionable silence that surrounded them encouraged her to ask a question directly which she might otherwise have hesitated to broach at all.
‘Mrs Hill, do you think that Mr and Mrs Collins are well matched?’
Still brushing, Mrs Hill considered.
‘As well as most, I’d say. They don’t argue and there’s never any trouble between them.’
‘Yes, but do they like each other? Do they enjoy each other’s company?’
‘I can tell you’ve never been married, Miss Mary. They’ve been together for a few years. You can’t expect them to behave like young lovers.’
That was not what Mary had seen at Pemberley. Lizzy and Mr Darcy’s wedding had taken place not long after that of Mr and Mrs Collins, but time had done nothing to dampen the strength of the affection they felt for each other. Even Mary, with no experience of the workings of the heart, could not fail to recognise the pleasure they took in each other’s company. No one’s presence delighted her husband more than Lizzy’s; and her face lit up with happiness every time he entered the room. But things were very different at Longbourn. Here, Mary had seen no loving glances exchanged, no cheerful contentment, no desire to spend as much time as possible with each other. On the contrary; it struck Mary that while the Darcys were rarely apart, Mr and Mrs Collins were hardly ever together. Of course, it could not be denied that Charlotte had much to occupy her. There was her boy to look after and her household to manage, with far less assistance than Lizzy could call upon. And once those duties were fulfilled, the improvements to the house absorbed what little leisure remained to her. It seemed there was always something that demanded Charlotte’s attention, calling her away from her husband, preventing her from accompanying him on outings or sharing any small pleasures with him.
Then there was the little arbour, which took up so many of Mr Collins’s spare hours. Mary had begun to wonder whether Charlotte had requested its construction with the sole intention of its absorbing her husband’s energies, and putting as much distance as possible between himself and her. This was an ungenerous thought, and Mary sought to repress it. But the more she saw how their lives were ordered, the harder it was to ignore the possibility that Charlotte had deliberately arranged her time so that she spent as little of it as possible in the company of her husband.
In the mirror, Mary watched as Mrs Hill secured her neat bun into place.
‘They seem to be apart for much of the day.’
‘Well, there are many different ways to make a marriage work. And if that’s the one they’ve chosen, it’s not up to any of us to ask why.’
‘But what if one of them didn’t choose it?’
Mrs Hill sighed.
‘Then they won’t be the first to have found matrimony not quite what they’d expected, and they’ll have to make the best of it. There you are, Miss Mary, you’re quite done.’
At dinner, Mary felt ashamed of herself as she watched Charlotte minister efficiently to Mr Collins’s every need. Her curiosity seemed poor recompense for Charlotte’s hospitality; surely it was ungrateful, distasteful even, to speculate about the private concerns of her hosts in this way. But the more she observed them together, the more she was convinced of the gulf that lay between them; and also, and perhaps more surprisingly, that for all her polite attentions, it was Charlotte who was the architect of it. Behind her mild, compliant demeanour, she was entirely self-contained. Nothing Mr Collins said or did touched her; her feelings were locked up and battened down, in every way inaccessible to her husband. As Mary stole a glance at Mr Collins’s resigned expression, she realised that he knew this; and that the unhappiness she sensed in him was the result of this knowledge.
Mary could not sleep that night, disturbed by what she had seen. When she first arrived at Longbourn, she had assumed the success of the Collins marriage could be judged by Charlotte’s sentiments alone. It had not occurred to her to consider Mr Collins’s feelings in the matter. He had achieved his ambition of finding a respectable woman willing to marry him – surely that was enough? What more could he have hoped for? It was not possible he had expected love? Mary had not considered him capable of deep emotion; but she saw now she had been mistaken. Charlotte had made whatever accommodations had been necessary to resign herself to a marriage of convenience and, superficially at least, was content. It was her husband who was left miserable in an arrangement of his own making.