Page 27 of A Most Favourable Match

Darcy looked at her in surprise, an answer dying on his lips. With Georgiana’s unanticipated reaction, the scene at the garden party came back to Darcy yet again, this time played in a slightly different and rather fantastic way.

Do you detest marriage in general, Mr Darcy? Or only the match between your friend and my sister?

His imagined self stepped forward in this version of the scene, entering into conversation rather than confrontation with his comely assailant.

I do not detest marriage at all, Miss Elizabeth. On the contrary, I ask you to do the honour of accepting my hand…

Darcy’s mind told him that such daydreams were undignified and ridiculous. His heart, however, was not convinced.

“You are a most generous sister,” he remarked, rising to his feet and turning towards the window, closing his eyes as he fought to banish the tremor that passed through him as his dream-self raised Elizabeth Bennet’s hand to his lips.

Chapter 11

“How fortunate you are in your patroness, Mr Collins,” Mr Bennet told his cousin. The author of the curious letter they had received had, upon his arrival, proved to be a rather strained-looking young man in a clerical collar and ill-fitting suit, his face always damp with nervous sweat. “It seems there is nothing in which Lady Catherine does not take an interest. The storage of clothing, the ordering of meat, the emptying of chamber pots…”

Kitty giggled and then turned this into a cough, under a warning glance from Jane.

“Chamber pots? I do not think I mentioned…”

“Oh? I thought you did, Mr Collins,” said Mr Bennet innocently. “Never mind. Lady Catherine’s curiosity and gifts of organisation are evidently so ample and wide-reaching that I have over-extended myself in trying to encompass them.”

Despite herself, Elizabeth smiled as she met her father’s eye. It was a little cruel of him to tease Mr Collins so, but the pompous young clergyman made himself so absurd that he seemed to invite ridicule. Afterseven days of his company, the Bennet family’s tolerance and politeness had been stretched as far as they might be before breaking.

“Indeed, her Ladyship is most accomplished, most condescending,” marvelled Mr Collins, mopping at his brow with a handkerchief as he returned to familiar territory. “Never could I praise her enough for the interest she has shown in my humble rectory and personal affairs! The shelves in the second spare bedroom are a case in point…”

Lydia yawned and laid her head down on her hands at the parlour table, as if to go to sleep. Mrs Bennet was already snoring lightly on the sofa, having nodded off half an hour ago when Mr Collins had insisted on reading Fordyce’s Sermons after luncheon. With such an example from their mother, Elizabeth felt she could scarcely reprimand Lydia’s attitude.

After a week in Hertfordshire, Mr Collins had found little favour with anyone but Mary, and perhaps to some extent Mr Bennet, if only as an object of amusement.

“Yes, do tell us more about the shelves, Mr Collins. We can never hear enough of shelves, can we, Lizzy?” her father urged, only too willing to encourage their guest into ever greater heights of absurdity.

Elizabeth did not reply and smothered a sigh. This teasing of Mr Collins was not as bad as teasing their mother, for he seemed to feel it less. Still, there was always something diminishing and undignified in the spectacle of a greater mind tormenting a lesser.

“There are four shelves fitted, all at differing heights and spacing to accommodate the greatest variety and order of clothing, whether for male or female guests…”

With a kind of abject eagerness, Mr Collins was on his feet, illustrating the shelves he described with movements of his hands while Mr Bennet feigned deep interest.

While tempted to invite Jane to go for a walk, Elizabeth knew this would run the risk of Mr Collins deciding to join them. They would then likely be exposed to the same ridiculous conversation, but less diluted by the presence of others.

“How fascinating, Mr Collins,” Mr Bennet goaded him on again. “Do tell us more. My wife and daughters are all agog.”

Did Mr Collins really not notice that Mrs Bennet was asleep, Lydia close to following her, Kitty staring out of the window, and Jane and Elizabeth only listening with forced politeness? Apparently not.

“The shelves themselves are constructed of oak and laced with oil of cedar to repel moths…”

Not for the first time, Elizabeth regarded him with veiled bafflement. If Mr Collins really had come to Longbourn hoping to win a wife, he had a peculiar way of going about it with such dull, one-sided conversation and lack of attention to his audience. He ran the risk of even alienating Mary, who suffered from similar conversational complaints to Mr Collins, although to a lesser extent.

Mrs Bennet’s attempts to push the clergyman toward her younger daughters had not met with any real success so far. Lydia and Kitty’s exuberant and undisciplined tempers seemed rather to frighten than attract Mr Collins, although he had pronounced both girls very pretty on his arrival, much to their disgust.

From Elizabeth’s perspective, Mary still seemed the best and most willing match, but Mr Collins seemed not to perceive it. Despite Jane’s engagement and Mrs Bennet’s insinuations about Elizabeth’s prospects with a rich gentleman from London (which she made less effort to rebut when in Mr Collins’ presence), Mr Collins seemed to prefer their company to that of their younger sisters.

Elizabeth supposed Mary’s deliberate plainness might put him off, rejecting as she did all means of dressing, hair arrangement or adornment that might have made her as charming as her sisters. Still, Mr Collins must be foolish indeed if he could not perceive the fundamental compatibility of Mary’s character. Charlotte Lucas sometimes declared that all men were fools before beauty, and her cousin’s obliviousness made Elizabeth wonder if it might be true.

With an abrupt snort, Mrs Bennet came awake again, sitting bolt upright on the sofa and rubbing her bleary eyes. “Dear me,” she said, her loud yawn cutting across Mr Collins’ endless monologue on Lady Catherine and the shelves in the rectory’s second spare bedroom. “I must have dropped off for a moment. What were we talking about?”

After a moment’s astonishment at such peculiarbehaviour, Mr Collins stepped forward with a slight bow to his hostess. “I was just telling Mr Bennet of Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s unparalleled kindnesses and excellent judgement in the matter of cupboard shelving…”

“No, no, Mr Collins,” objected Mrs Bennet, more disoriented by sleep than intending to be rude, but managing nonetheless. “Jane, you said that you’d received another letter from Lord Grantchester. I remember now. I meant to ask whether there was any news of his next visit to Hertfordshire.”