The arrival of Mr. Collins, though initially dreaded by Mama, who’d determined to thoroughly dislike the man on behalf of us poor and unfortunate females, had conversely been anticipated to some small degree by our father, who, in having every expectation of finding his nephew an individual of weak understanding and meager scholarship, had hoped to derive some amusement from his stay at Longbourn. Soon after Mr. Collins’s arrival, however, Papa began to despair of his original assurance of pleasure, and Mama, who’d always been inclined to think things settled at the very first indication of victory, joyously admitted to herself the probable hope that Longbourn would, after all, remain the property of at least one of her daughters, even after our father’s passing, by the happy means of marriage. And what with Mr. Bingley’s continuing attentions towards Jane, Mama was in extraordinarily bright spirits on the third day of Mr. Collins’s stay, for she had every reason to be confident in the prospect of marrying off at least one of her children before the conclusion of the year and, with any luck, a second by the beginning of the next.
As for Papa, I’m sure that Mr. Collins hadn’t intended any offense in following his host to the library after both breakfast and lunch and enthralling my father with firsthand accounts of the grandeur of Rosings. He could not have known the insult he paid Mr. Bennet in overtaking his second-best armchair and clumsily handling the largest and heaviest tome that Longbourn’s small library offered. According to my father, our cousin made a truly convincing pretense of studying this thousand-page historical treatise and even recited out loud passages that, he claimed, resonated with the sensitive chords of his literary soul. Upon Mr. Collins’s insistence that he would complete the entire history of the rise and fall of the Roman Empire before his departure from Longbourn next Saturday, Papa had no recourse left but to remain in his bedroom with enough books to last out most of his waking hours.
For me, Mr. Collins remained a diverting and welcome curiosity. I was able to extract some comfort in the discovery of a character who seemed relegated, like myself, to living as an outsider.
It was in a scholarly attitude that I found Mr. Collins in Papa’s library a second time, with the aforementioned title draped like an unwieldy blanket across his lap. Hunched over the yellowing pages, he appeared to be studying for some duration a single sentence and, on closer inspection, a single word, for his index finger remained motionless, until his head fell so much forward that he tumbled out of his seat, and I realized from his dazed expression that he must have been asleep for some time. Determined to keep from laughing, I committed myself at once to helping Mr. Collins up from the carpet, and with a grateful if not somewhat abashed acknowledgment of my assistance, he asked if I wouldn’t take a seat and hear the impressive progress he’d been making with the book.
“I was just reflecting,” Mr. Collins began, and the tip of his index finger alighted gently across the rounded point of his chin, “on the number of military highways which stemmed from Rome at its peak—no less than twenty-nine, if it can be believed, and tens of thousands of miles of these roads were said to be stone-paved, some of which to this day remain intact.”
I remarked that this was indeed incredible, and Mr. Collins continued with renewed confidence: “Yes, I flatter myself in being a great student of history, and in this, Lady Catherine and I are once more perfectly aligned in our interests, for she is a firm believer that one should be able to extract from the historical annals lessons both moral and political to be applied to the rigors of daily life. Observe, for instance, the decadence of the French philosophers, and the unthinkable chaos which the indulgence of those persons ultimately led to.”
I supposed what he said was true, and seeing that I comprehended his meaning, he began to stare at me with a certain thoughtfulness. I returned his look with curiosity, and in observing that I had become aware of him, he promptly turned away and made as if to continue reading his book, his eyes flitting from one corner of the page to another like a pair of unsettled flies. “I find it fascinating,” he continued in a measured voice, “that where Caesar and Caligula had both failed in their conquest of Britain, a half-deaf man with a limp should succeed instead…and riding on an elephant, too! How extraordinary, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Claudius,” I said.
“Yes,” Mr. Collins replied, his cheeks flushing. He gripped the edges of his book and, raising his head to peer at me again, said suddenly, “I’m afraid my young cousins don’t think very much of me, do they? You may be honest with me.”
I could barely keep from rolling my eyes. “Lydia and Kitty see, hear, and know nothing except the comings and goings of the officers,” I said. “For my part and for my family’s, I am certainly sorry for their behavior, but rest assured it is no poor reflection of you. They would not see a perfectly sensible man standing in front of them, if he were not also dressed in regimentals with his sword drawn.”
“I don’t mean just your two younger sisters,” Mr. Collins said, hesitating. “I’m certain I have caught my cousin Elizabeth laughing at me on at least two separate occasions at the dinner table.”
I sensed here a fine opportunity to put Mr. Collins off the idea of marriage to my sister, if indeed he had entertained such a notion in the first place. “Lizzy can be a little facetious at times,” I began carefully, not wishing to bungle my chance, “but I’m sure she did not mean to laugh at you. I feel obliged to tell you, however, that she takes a great deal after my father, whose continued indulgence has encouraged a bit of a stubborn streak. This may also explain her penchant for being less inclined to listen to the advice of others, since she has always possessed a confident assurance of her own mind.” I hastily added, feeling a flash of guilt, “Though Lizzy is wonderfully adept in all manner of debate, being wittier and quicker on her feet than the rest of us.”
“Well!” Mr. Collins cried. To my satisfaction, he appeared somewhat shocked at this revelation. “Though I am grieved to hear this, I cannot but feel sorry, too, for I may tell you in all sincerity that Lady Catherine’s suggestions on a wide range of affairs, both in the running of domestic households and in the dealings of entire countries, have been sought after on numerous occasions by her friends and that she, depending on the season, is sometimes so much in demand that I have had to remind her ladyship not to be too overwrought by the need society has of her. I feel sorry for anyone who cannot think fit to benefit from her wisdom.”
“Lady Catherine seems an extraordinary person by your description,” I commented, grateful for any opening to steer the conversation away from Lizzy and further endear myself to him. “One point, which I’ve always been curious to learn, Mr. Collins, is how you made her acquaintance.”
I had assumed that even the smallest mention of his benefactress would have rendered any further incentive for conversation wholly unnecessary, so I was surprised when Mr. Collins did not immediately answer. Instead, he leaned his diminutive body deeper against the back of his chair and seemed to consider how to reply. The several seconds of silence generated enough discomfort that I felt compelled to apologize for creating any offense by my question, however involuntarily. In hearing my voice, he started a little in his seat and waved my concerns away with one hand while the other gripped the arm of the chair. He then shrugged and said he had not recalled the instance of their first and most fortuitous meeting for some time now and that though it was a pleasant memory, the events preceding it remained considerably less agreeable for him to remember.
“I’d like to tell you the story,” he began, and in his voice, there was an uncharacteristically solemn tone, “though I’d consider it a great favor if you didn’t share what I am about to say with anyone else, not even with your own sisters.”
I quickly assured him of my discretion, and staring into the flames of the library’s hearth, he continued: “My father, who you may have heard tell of from your own father, was an illiterate and miserly man given to drink, and if I’d been so unlucky as to remain under his guidance, I shudder to think where I’d be now. By luck, a relation of mine on my mother’s side who visited on the unhappy occasion of her passing took pity on my situation and, observing quickly that should I stay forever with my father I would suffer greatly, decided to bestow upon me some money and secured, through a connection of his, entrance for me into one of the universities. Having no few children of his own, he could not give me as much money as he wished, but he was convinced by what he had seen of me that I would profit by a good education. Shortly after our first few meetings, my relation died—he’d been ill for some time with a poor heart, and I am unashamed to say that I grieved his death with more sincerity and more tears than ever I did for my own father when he died, God rest his soul. Though what he had parted with in his lifetime was already mine and could not be withdrawn from my possession, I was informed by the remaining members of his family, in no uncertain terms, that I should expect no more gifts from them and that I’d gained too much already by his kindness and charity. The money he’d given me—amounting to some two hundred pounds—as great a sum as others might consider it, given our brief acquaintance, was by no means sufficient to pay my way through university, but in writing a letter to the connection of my relation’s at the college, I was happily informed that my admission still stood. I would enter that most revered institution as a student of, as it was described to me in the letter, ‘comparatively modest ranking,’ that is, as a servitor, who would receive, I was told, as rigorous and comprehensive an education as any of his classmates but must work some light tasks in addition to his studies to pay for his room and board and instruction.”
I knew that my uncle, Mr. Collins’s father, had died only the previous year. Owing to the rift which existed between them, Papa never spoke of his younger brother, though I’d heard from Mama that he was a brutal man and had beaten his wife so terribly on one occasion as to induce a miscarriage. Two of my uncle’s children had died in their infancy; I remember it clearly because Mama had said it was a blessing, and in my innocence at the time, I couldn’t understand how the death of babes could be termed anything but a tragedy. From my seat, I observed Mr. Collins’s hands, the way they alighted upon his forehead to massage the corners at right angles. They were as fine as a musician’s hands, his fingers like delicate white reeds tinged at the ends with soft dashes of pink.
He wetted his lips before continuing. “The prospect of light labor didn’t concern me, as I’d been accustomed for most of my life to working hard and learning with few resources at my disposal. Soon after my arrival, I was assigned to wait upon a group of four students of higher ranking, known as noblemen commoners, to shine their shoes and make their beds, to sweep their rooms, to run menial errands for them, and to serve them as though they were my lords and masters and I’d entered not an institution of higher learning as a student but a private estate as a housekeeper or butler. I received no wages for my services and slept with the other servitors in a dirty room that was too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. Two of the four men I looked after, one the second son of an earl and the other the eldest son of a baroness, gave me their assignments to complete while they whored and drank and gambled with their families’ money. And it was in this way, not by attending lectures, that I received the vast part of my education. These men also entrusted me with their secrets and various tales of indiscretions and, provided no one of any importance or rank was near enough to see, would often enter into conversation with me so that I naïvely came to believe they considered me less a servant than a true friend.”
I listened to his every word, enthralled. It was as though the narrator of one of my novels had materialized in flesh and blood from the pages and was speaking exclusively to me—his sole reader and confidante. Before my eyes, a physical transformation seemed to occur. His figure, previously small and prancing, became enlarged by the glow of the fire. The gravity of his voice, coupled with his eloquence, rendered him nearly handsome. His brow darkened, as the complexions of all heroes were wont to do before the hour of their greatest trials, and my heart quickened.
“I learned otherwise one evening approaching the conclusion of my second year,” Mr. Collins continued. “The two men I mentioned—Master Spencer and Master Randolph, I called them—came to me very late in the night and told me that in return for the services and loyalty I’d paid them, they would invite me to a private costume ball to be hosted in one of the college’s dining rooms. I felt bound to tell them, of course, that I did not possess a costume, nor did I have money to commission one, and, smiling, they said they would purchase one expressly for me, along with shoes and a wig, so that I did not have to worry about my clothes. They said that as my face would be heavily made up, no one would know a servitor had entered their ranks and that they would vouch for me by telling everyone I was a visiting relation.”
“And do you mean to say you believed them?” I asked, incredulous.
“Not entirely,” he replied, and he shielded one half of his face, as though an invisible hand had struck him. “My friends, for that is what I considered them, brought me my costume a few days later. As soon as I saw the nature of the garment and the accessories they’d obtained, I confess I would have gladly forgone the honor of their invitation, though by then it was too late. I was to dress as a French nobleman, and a more exaggerated interpretation of that character could not be found in the best satirical cartoons of the day. They had prepared for me a long white wig and silk stockings and buckled shoes and helped me to draw several large moles on my powdered face, which, they said, would prevent anyone from recognizing me and add some humorous authenticity to my appearance. Observing me fully dressed, they left me with many compliments and went to go prepare themselves. Neither of them would reveal what their own costumes were, but they assured me that they would appear just as foolish as I did and that I wouldn’t be able to keep from laughing when I saw them. Shortly before the party, a letter appeared under my door, instructing me to meet Master Spencer and Master Randolph at the entrance of a certain dining room—you see, previously, we’d agreed to go together. As I’d no wish to keep them waiting, and thinking that something must have happened to prompt them to leave without me, I proceeded at once to the location they’d specified in their letter, with my wig on and my makeup in place, only to discover upon my hurried arrival that everyone had already been seated at the table and that, far from being a costume ball, the affair appeared no more than a typical dinner of several noblemen commoners and a few gentlemen commoners who were lucky enough to be counted among their acquaintance. Neither of my so-called friends were in fancy dress, and on spotting me in the doorway, they clapped their hands, roared as loud as twin lions with laughter, and bid everyone in the room to look at who had come.”
“How horrible! How you must have felt!” I cried out, unable to suppress my indignation any longer. Indeed, my pity for him was so great in this moment that if he had asked me then and there to marry him, I might have been prevailed upon to accept his hand.
Turning away from the fire to meet my gaze, Mr. Collins continued: “I wish I could describe to you, dear cousin, how deep and terrible was my mortification, but there are no words. I had no time to consider my friends’ betrayal, and being too humiliated to summon even the most primitive faculty of speech, I scarcely heard the sarcastic compliments of the young man who sat at the head of the table and who, when I didn’t immediately answer his address to me, bid me sharply to speak up. I later found out that he was the eldest son of a marquis and very soon expected to inherit both his father’s estate and title. All my better feelings implored me to run, to leave these dreadful people behind and salvage what little remained of my pride and honor—but something, a small voice barely discernible between the raucous pounding of the table and the wild beating of my heart, froze me to the spot of ground I stood on. Hardly conscious of my own actions, I found myself bowing to this young man and smiling behind a film of tears. I replied in a voice half-breaking that it was very kind of him to admire my costume, which induced, of course, more laughter and applause from the table and pleased both Master Spencer and Master Randolph, who were glad to find me a willing player in their cruel game. As there were eight of them and only one of me, I hadn’t the luxury to consider my situation until all four courses were served, the plates and leftovers cleared, and wine poured and poured again for all members of the party. It was well past one in the morning when I returned my wig and costume to their procurers. Finding them alone, I took care not to bring up what had just taken place at dinner and offered no accusations or indications of my disappointment. In a few short words, I expressed my gratitude for their having invited me—nothing overflowing, mind you, for I didn’t want to give the impression that I was mocking them—and left.
“Though I could never forget, much less forgive, the trick they played on me, I remained in their good graces for the next two years and was, in this time, appointed by the provost to become a Bible clerk, for which service I received a small annual stipend. My other duties, of cleaning and looking after the rooms of the four men, remained largely unchanged, and it was in this way that I stumbled one evening across an opened letter. The note was from an acquaintance of Master Randolph’s who’d set his sights on entering the church, and in it, he mentioned a vacancy at the Hunsford parsonage, near Rosings Park, where a noblewoman and her daughter resided, a Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Miss Anne de Bourgh of extensive property and even greater fortune. As Lady Catherine and her late husband were well acquainted with Master Randolph’s family, this acquaintance now begged his friend to put in a good word for him in the attainment of this vacancy. I saw my opportunity and at once acted on it. Losing no time, I spoke with Master Randolph in confidence, and though he was at first enraged by my confession that I’d read his private correspondence, I had only to remind him of one or two indiscretions which he’d divulged to me in the past, before he quickly changed his mind. Taking up his pen, he wrote by my dictation a letter to Lady Catherine on my behalf, which I watched him sign and seal with his signet ring and which I took immediately from him to post. Not long afterwards, he received a short but encouraging reply from that great person, who thanked him for the introduction, and I was promptly summoned to visit Lady Catherine at Rosings Park, where she could ascertain my worthiness for herself. Satisfied by what she saw, she discussed the appointment with her daughter, who echoed her feelings, and I assumed my position as the rector of Hunsford parsonage no less than two months later.”
Mr. Collins released a sigh whose heaviness filled the room, and for some moments, both of us sat staring at our feet. I wished desperately for something to say—and, indeed, he seemed to wait for me to make a reply—but my thoughts ran wild, and nothing cohesive emerged. Had my sense of propriety not been so strong, I might have given vent to my admiration and confounded both him and myself in doing so, but, fortunately, I said nothing and offered only the inviting silence of a captivated audience. Turning back to the fire, he closed his book and swept his fingers over the dusty cover, leaving a clean black trail on the leather. He seemed to me a new man; I could look upon him now with full comprehension of his speech and feelings and motivations. Where there’d been from the first a dramatic and exaggerated obsequiousness, even a laughable servility, at any mention of those persons whose private fortunes entitled them to conduct their affairs many levels above the rest of us, I perceived that this flattery, this mood that was always obliging, humble, and grateful, was merely the means with which he had secured his aims. Mr. Collins knew better than any of us that neither pride nor honor could feed or clothe him; a good word from the eldest son of a baroness…that, of course, was an entirely different matter.
“To be sure, it was a painful time, but I’ve no regrets,” Mr. Collins said, shrugging. “It is only through the trials of life that one attains a kind of wisdom. Because I was poor, others believed I should remain as poor as my father had been before me, but I did not think this should be my lot in life. And because I smiled and simpered while sweeping the floors of my superiors’ rooms, they probably thought I was unable to differentiate between cleaning for them and attending class or being permitted to access the library, which none of the servitors, including myself, were ever allowed to do. Perhaps they believed that when they sent me into town to run errands for them, I considered the exercise as educational for my soul as the recitation of Homer or Virgil, but it is good they believed this, for they let down their guard and then…” Mr. Collins smiled. “And then there might not be any going back for them, if there was something very important that they could one day do for me. So you see, dear cousin, the lesson to be learned from this is that one should never settle in life for what others may think is best and right for you. There is always the larger and more delicious fruit hanging from a higher branch, just out of your grasp, and which might easily be yours, if someone would only lend you the ladder to reach it. And the ladder is what will make all the difference.”
The determination which had entered his face as he’d concluded his story emboldened me to speak. I, too, had been humiliated, and in our shared experience, we were kindred spirits. I wished him to know this, and I’d already leaned forward in my chair, prepared to launch into the unhappy memory which had risen to the forefront of my thoughts, when something stopped me. I opened my mouth, but the words would not come. It was different for him—he had proven himself, turned his circumstances to his advantage, but I’d remained exactly where I was, despite my hardships. I remained unchanged. Perhaps it was best to say nothing, I thought, and I looked bashfully away from him, even as my mind traveled back to that fine-weathered afternoon in May, many months ago, which had ended so miserably.
Earlier this year, the youngest child and only son of Sir William Lucas had accompanied his two sisters, Charlotte and Maria, on their walk to Longbourn. Charlotte, who was twenty-seven and still unmarried, had been in the habit of visiting us often and was considered the particular friend of Lizzy, whom she admired greatly for much the same reasons everyone else did.
In Hertfordshire, she was thought by her general acquaintance to be a practical young woman of sound intelligence—in other words, the “good sort of girl” a mother can count on to sit obediently for as long as she is told and to never get into any kind of trouble.
In spite of her respectability and the fair prospect she had of making a good marriage, owing to the comfortable fortune her knighted father had acquired in trade, she remained an unexceptional human being with an appearance so forgetful that her frequent attendance of balls and dinners had never succeeded in generating any stories of which she had played a larger role than the report that “the eldest Miss Lucas was also in attendance.” Except for Mama, no one considered Charlotte to be especially plain, but the consensus was, among the females of the neighborhood, that her face was too long, the space between her eyes too wide, and her mouth too big for her face. By way of consolation, the same females added that there was a fleeting kind of prettiness to be detected whenever she smiled while tipping her head at a certain angle, like a piece of glass that will at rare moments catch the light of the sun. Her sister, Maria, was an even less noteworthy person than herself, and there is little to be said about her other than that she was fond of dancing, sported many lavender and pink frocks at balls (these being her favorite colors), and was as well pleased with her father’s knighthood as, no doubt, he was himself. As for their young brother, Thomas, who plays a central role in this story, he had always been of a romantic disposition and entertained very grand designs of one day making something of his life, though he hadn’t yet determined at seventeen years old what this would be. For as long as anyone could remember, he’d also been in love with Jane.
This itself was not surprising, as Jane had always had her share of admirers. But I imagine the chivalric strength of his affections, when mingled with the fevered and self-tormenting behaviors symptomatic of first love, must have caused him no shortage of private suffering. No subject could be too trivial, no observation too irrelevant, if it afforded young Thomas Lucas an opportunity to exchange a few words with his beloved. The rare and joyous occasions in which Thomas could share with Jane his thoughts on a week-long succession of rain or his preferment of ragout to a plain dish were sufficient to elevate him to the very heights of paradise.
On this visit, Thomas was in particularly lively spirits, and as the afternoon boasted sunlight and warm breezes, our group walked together along the gravel path to the copse where Papa had conveniently installed a few stone benches. Mrs. Hill brought us raspberry shrubs, and as we sipped our cool drinks, Thomas, who had been shyly glancing at Jane, suddenly declared that he had an idea. He guzzled the remainder of his drink and ran off in the direction of the garden before any of us could delay him with questions. Nearly a quarter of an hour later, he returned with his arms full of flowers and his boots coated in dust. He was out of breath, but this did not deter him from speaking—primarily to Jane—of the diversion he had in store for us.
“I have here collected seven samples of flowers from Mrs. Bennet’s garden, which I think best represent each of you,” Thomas said, briefly exhibiting the bouquet to all of us. A few of his audience seemed very pleased by this entertainment and accordingly voiced their approval with the delighted coos which females are especially prone to in the company of men. “And I will now distribute the flowers that I have matched to each of you with some words of commentary as I do so,” he continued. Some fool among us began to clap her hands and laugh, which compelled the rest of us to follow suit.
“I’m not sure Mama would approve of having her garden ransacked for the sake of an idle game,” I said, frowning in the direction of the flowers he clutched.
“Oh, do shut up, Mary,” Lydia replied. “Will you never tire of ruining other people’s fun? I want to know what flower I am, and the rest of us do, too.”
As no one ventured to disagree with this sentiment, our performer felt confident enough to proceed. He stopped in front of Jane, his face and neck flushing a brilliant shade of scarlet, and tentatively passed her three peonies in full bloom. “The most beautiful flower in the garden,” he said, his voice wavering, “for the most beautiful girl in the country.” Jane, too, reddened and, in a voice barely audible to the rest of us, whispered her thanks. To my right, I heard Maria utter a small “Oh Lord” in the ear of her sister.
Next, Thomas presented a large cluster of lilacs to Lizzy and said the flower had reminded him of how her many virtues succeeded in making up the loveliness of her entire person, just as the lilac’s tiny blossoms composed the splendor of the whole. Lizzy was visibly gratified by this and smiled more conceitedly than was her custom, which is not surprising, given that most females who have just been told by a man that they are perfection feel very pleased with themselves, even if they don’t think anything special of the man himself. Lydia and Kitty both received small bouquets of sweetbriar, accompanied by a few pretty words extolling their youth and levity, which at first perfectly charmed and contented them. But then Lydia asked why she hadn’t received a different flower than Kitty and Thomas was forced to admit to the difficulty he always had with telling them apart. This, of course, diminished Lydia’s original enthusiasm for the game. Tossing her sweetbriar roses aside, she protested that this could not be so, as she was the tallest of any of her sisters even if she was the youngest, and said anyone who should mistake her for Kitty must be a “dumb and disagreeable simpleton with glass eyes and a hollow skull.”
Thomas, who had never shown interest in either girl and undoubtedly thought the two as silly and empty-headed as the rest of us did, ignored Lydia’s comment and moved on to his own sisters. For Charlotte, he gifted two long strands of mignonettes and, unable to keep from laughing, said he had selected this particular flower for his eldest sister because she smelled much better than she looked. Charlotte, who fortunately was good-humored, laughed with the rest of us and only chided her brother in a teasing sort of way for being unkind to his own flesh and blood. Towards Maria, he was comparatively more gracious and had picked for her as many shades of sweet William as our garden offered. “Because you are your father’s daughter,” he said, “and would sooner forget your own name than Sir William’s knighthood.” This account was followed by more appreciative laughter. Maria, turning as pink as her flowers, confessed that she did occasionally talk too much about her father’s title but, as she had no wish to appear ridiculous in front of others, wouldn’t mention the subject in the future.
“How shall I serve thee, Mary?” Thomas asked, finally turning to where I sat at the end of the bench. “What flower could I present to Miss Mary Bennet that would not pale and shrivel in the glory of her visage, that would in its properties encompass the breadth of her blinding beauty?” Receiving no reply but the suppressed giggles of his amused audience, he revealed the final flower in his hands, which I accepted and studied for some moments before crumpling in my fist.
“This is not a flower,” I said. “This is a weed. I dug out several like it just this morning.”
“You missed that one,” Thomas replied, bouncing on his heels.
“That may be so,” I said, “but aren’t you going to recite a poem to me now? ‘Ode to Bindweed’ or something equally ridiculous?”
“Nothing so grand,” he said. “Just that if the world is a garden, then the less weeds there are, the better. They choke the beauty of the flowers and thrive at the expense of others.”
“I’m afraid I don’t quite grasp the comparison,” I replied, goading him. “Come on, quickly now. Tell me how I’m like a weed, Thomas, and choke the beauty of the flowers.”
He looked and sounded a little bored as he answered: “The fewer Mary Bennets there are in the world, the better. They add no beauty to their surroundings and will all grow up to be ugly old maids, living on the charity of their families.”
Everyone reacted quite as I’d predicted they would. Jane gasped. Lizzy and Charlotte appeared too stunned to speak. Maria squirmed in her seat and looked yearningly towards the hedgerow, and Lydia and Kitty turned so red from noiseless laughing, I wondered they didn’t rise and applaud him.
I stood. Being quite tall for his age, Thomas loomed over me, but I was too angry to care. “What have I ever done to you, Thomas Lucas, to deserve this?” I asked, nearly choking on the rage that rose like smoke from the pit of my stomach.
“A joke, Mary,” he said, turning pale but endeavoring to laugh all the same, and raised his hands in mock surrender. “It was only meant to be a joke. I was quite mean to Charlotte just now as well, wasn’t I? And to Maria, too.”
“Then I’ll also make a joke and see if you are able to laugh at it,” I replied, staring hard into his eyes. “I will treat you as fairly as you chose to treat me. This, Thomas,” I said, gesturing at the land around me, “is my garden, and you are the weed that will be cast out. You will look no more upon any of the flowers here. Now get out. I never want to see you again. GET OUT!”
Charlotte announced they should leave, and Thomas—with one last forlorn look at Jane that, under any other circumstance, would have sufficiently moved me to welcome him back into the fold—straggled after his sisters. Just before he disappeared from view, he suddenly stopped, his shoulders began to shudder, and we watched in uncomfortable silence as Charlotte and Maria were forced to guide their brother, one on each side of him, for the remainder of the walk to Lucas Lodge.
Charlotte visited the next day and found me squatting in Mama’s garden with a trowel and a basketful of weeds.
“Oh, Mary” were the first words she exhaled.
“You’ve come to tell me that Thomas is very sorry for how he behaved to me, haven’t you,” I said, tossing another weed over my shoulder and not looking at her.
“You know Thomas will say and do anything to impress Jane,” Charlotte pleaded. “He’s at such an awkward age.”
“Which, I suppose, makes everything he says and does excusable,” I replied.
“Now, you know that isn’t true. Maria and I are thoroughly ashamed of him, and being unmarried myself, Mary, I feel the insult of his words deeply.”
“I’ve been thinking, Charlotte….” I threw down my trowel and stood. “I’ve been thinking it is unfair that there should be no recourse for a woman to take in this world should she find herself singularly unsuited to marriage. It doesn’t matter for Thomas that he bears an uncanny resemblance to a monkey, because he is a man. And thanks to your father’s connections, Thomas will attend university and take up either law or a position in the church. One day, he might even become a famous barrister or a bishop, and neither of these occupations will ever discriminate against him because he resembles a hooting chimpanzee. Do you comprehend how unjust that is? If I could only seek some useful employment…but to be employed in any capacity is considered an insult to our sex.”
Though I didn’t think I’d said anything funny, Charlotte began to laugh. “I daren’t ask what kind of employment you have in mind.”
“I sometimes envision myself working in a little bookshop, collecting money from customers and wrapping beautiful books in large sheets of brown paper….”
“You’d grow tired of it after the first day.”
“I wouldn’t, Charlotte. I wouldn’t, because it was my choice. Not something that was foisted upon me, but a situation I entered into of my own free will. It angers me that Thomas will eventually be able to make something of himself, and I can’t!”
“But you can, dear Mary,” she entreated, squeezing my hand. “You can, and you will. Through marriage.”
I did not reply, and my expression must have indicated to Charlotte that further discussion on the matter was useless, for she soon sought the company of Lizzy, while I returned to the house. A view from a window caught my attention, and I looked out towards the lonely fields and the thin, uneven line of the horizon. I listened to the heaving lamentations of the cows, the unsettled cries of sheep, the scuttling of plump, edible birds being ushered from one confinement to the next, never knowing in the short span of their lives much more of the world than the few square feet of muddy earth they were born into. I felt their stupidity and the fog that effectively dimmed their minds to everything but the bottomless emptiness of their own stomachs. My own existence did not seem so very different from theirs.
Though I treated Thomas with civility on every one of the occasions in which he visited Longbourn thereafter, a divide persisted between us that prevented either party from feeling totally at ease in the other’s company. In laying bare to my sisters and friends the most vulnerable part of my soul, he had bestowed upon my private fears a certain inescapable reality. To run from it would be akin to covering one’s eyes like a child, and to face it would be an acknowledgment of everything I had ever despaired of—my plainness, my unformed education and so-called accomplishments, and my predestined dependence on the good fortunes of my sisters. I couldn’t witness his happy manners in front of others without also remembering the many hours I’d spent after the incident crying noisily into a book, unable to read a single page. The racket of my tears had eventually summoned Jane and Lizzy upstairs to my room, and they’d embraced me with consolations uttered softly into the top of my head.
“Our poor Mary,” Jane had sighed.
“What an unfeeling ass Thomas Lucas is,” Lizzy had said, squeezing my shoulder. “In fact, what asses all men can be when the mood takes them!”
A FAINT KNOCKING at the door interrupted my reverie, and Mrs. Hill entered without waiting to be summoned. She looked with some wonder from Mr. Collins to myself, then back again. Her eyes glittered with poorly disguised pleasure at the discovery of her young mistress sitting alone with a male houseguest. With less decorum than was her custom, Mrs. Hill managed to utter the following few short words without entirely abandoning herself to baser feelings. “Mary,” she said, having turned by now quite pink, “you’re wanted upstairs.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Hill,” I replied stiffly. “Please tell Mama I’ll be up directly.” No sooner had Mrs. Hill departed from the room than we heard a peal of gleeful chortling from the far end of the hall. I turned to Mr. Collins, who, having no concern for Longbourn’s housekeeper, had resumed his study of stone-paved Roman highways and handicapped emperors straddling the backs of elephants.
Looking discreetly at him, I thought again of his story. It is an unfortunate aspect of our society that the people whose conditions in life are the most enviable, and whose wealth and power we would most willingly emulate, should also be some of the most disagreeable, arrogant, and unsympathetic characters whom the good Lord ever determined to create in His own likeness; that while there is much to admire in their possessions and various titles and the exorbitant amounts they pay each year in taxes and death duties to the Crown, they are rendered no less reprehensible by the comfort and opulence of their upbringings. This nation’s peerage had been cruel to Mr. Collins, had belittled him and toyed with him, as though he were a plaything installed within their lives solely for their amusement. Yet a great paradox remains, which is that while Mr. Collins may have secretly hated his tormentors, he would undoubtedly have relinquished his own identity and principles at the very first opportunity in exchange for a life lived in hedonistic albeit respectable idleness as one of England’s esteemed nobility. I think he would have savored, too, with no little pleasure, the chance to turn his nose up at a beggar and her family of starving children in an alleyway or to thoroughly whip a servant who did not brush his hat and coat with appropriate deference.
Mr. Collins had faults—glaring ones that, in the eyes of other females, might have rendered him so ridiculous that the prospect of being married to such a man would have driven many to pledge their virtues to the nearest nunnery. But something in his unabashed eagerness to impress his betters, in his capacity to serenely anguish behind a mask of solicitude while others laughed at him—I confess that something in these peculiar qualities stirred in me a small but fervent admiration I couldn’t quite ignore, and I considered to myself whether I might have a reasonable chance of happiness in being married to the rector of Hunsford parsonage and entrusting my respectability and future well-being to a man who, though not as handsome as Mr. Bingley, not as rich as Mr. Darcy, and not as well-read as Papa, was also not entirely without his own hidden depths and the various miniature tragedies which lend to all our lives a little more color than otherwise would be the case. In him, I identified the same yearning to prove one’s detractors wrong. If the dream of gainful employment were to be denied me, perhaps I could content myself with helping another realize his ambitions. Perhaps, if there really existed no other means for a woman to attain success and purpose in the world, I could settle for marriage. Perhaps it wouldn’t be settling.
I rose to leave; however, feeling a small flutter in my chest upon seeing him crook his left eyebrow at an item of note in his book, I could no longer subdue the emotion which rose to the top of my throat and filled my mouth. I spat out his name with more violence than I’d intended, and like a pupil unexpectedly called upon by his instructor, he snapped to attention and stared at me. Embarrassed, I pretended to cough and, after dislodging the nonexistent irritant from my throat, spoke with as much belated dignity as I could muster. “Mr. Collins,” I said. “I’m afraid Mama has asked me to attend her upstairs.”
“Yes,” he answered. “Yes, I heard Mrs. Hill tell you so just now.”
“I just wanted to say,” I went on, faltering like an idiot. “I just wanted to say that you mustn’t take too much to heart what my sisters think of you because I think…” Again I hesitated and, like the apprentice milliner in Meryton, I focused with passionate intensity on the bottom half of his left earlobe before proceeding. “I think…that is, I don’t think you’re silly at all. I think you’re actually the most respectable and good sort of man to come into our neighborhood for a very long time. And I wanted to tell you, too, how grateful I am that you have entrusted me with the history of your acquaintance with Lady Catherine. You may be assured of my secrecy and that I will tell none of my sisters—”
“Dear cousin,” Mr. Collins cried, fortunately interrupting me just as I was in danger of dithering, “while I don’t doubt for a moment your sincerity, I wish you wouldn’t trouble yourself with these trifling concerns. Almost as soon as I entered the house, I singled you out as the one among all your family nearest in sensibility and thinking to myself. We are, I think, fated to be extraordinarily good friends, and my heart exalts at the joy of finding any true companion in this sometimes dark and confusing world with whom I may share the private thoughts and concerns of my soul.” He then stood and, removing an object from his inner breast pocket, gently took my wrist and folded my fingers around the flat parcel. “I’d meant to give this to you sooner,” he said, patting my hand in an avuncular manner, “but there was never any opportunity. These were, as it happens, the so-called letters I was working on when I excused myself from you and your family’s company early yesterday evening.”
I hadn’t sense enough to ask what the package contained. Murmuring my thanks with my eyes still pinned to the fleshy pink of his earlobe, I left the room, unsure whether my legs would take me as far as the door without giving way. I thought of looking back and smiling at him, but at the last moment, my courage failed me. As soon as I was out of sight of the library, I ran up the stairs, giggling to myself like a lunatic, his present tucked away in a pocket of my dress. On the landing, I heard the familiar, tinny laughter of not one but two voices, which, despite being of slightly different pitch, managed to complement each other in raucous harmony. They belonged, of course, to Mama and Aunt Philips, who must have come to the house while I was in the library with Mr. Collins. My feet skipped a little as I proceeded in the direction of the noise. The sensation of his thumb gliding gently across my wrist had stunned me into the most blissful of stupors.