Page 7 of Collins Takes Charge

“In future when I summon you, you will attend me with immediacy,” Lady Catherine clarified.

“If I am able to, I will do so,” William returned calmly.

As she was wont to do, Lady Catherine only heard what she expected to hear, which was the second half of the sentence. “I have written the points to be covered in this week’s sermon so that we may counteract the drivel that Mr Keating delivered to the peasants this Sunday past.” She picked up a sheet of paper and held it out for her parson to take.

On perusing the paper, William noted that it was full of nonsensical things about how everyone had to pay homage to Lady Catherine, how those of elevated rank were always right, knew best about everything, and had the right to order the lives of those below them.

“Firstly, Lady Catherine, Mr Keating’s sermon was doctrinally accurate. He took lessons directly from the Holy Bible,” William disagreed. “You are not saying that the word of God is wrong, are you? If you were, it would be very serious and be counted as blasphemy,” William stated seriously. “That would lead to an appearance before the ecclesiastical court, and I am sure that is not what you want, is it?” He paused to allow the import of his words to sink in. “Further, according to canon law, I am allowed to listen to parishioner suggestions regarding content for sermons, but in the end, the sermon must be rooted in a lesson from the Bible. I am afraid that I am not permitted to use your suggestions as written on this paper.” William handed the page back to the reeling woman.

Watching from the side, Anne de Bourgh was silently rejoicing. Mother had inadvertently preferred exactly the right man to the living. She was overjoyed to have her suspicion she had formed when she had seen him speak to her mother and reject her nonsense, confirmed. Anne knew she needed to be careful, but she had a feeling that Mr Collins would assist her in ending Mother’s tyranny.

For her part, Lady Catherine was in a stupor. Blasphemy! Court! Treason! She had been determined to put this lowly clergyman in his place, but instead she felt real fear for the first time since she was a young girl. How could this be? What was happening? How did she lose control of her new parson at all, or so very quickly? She could not grasp what was occurring. For some time, Lady Catherine sat on her throne and stared straight ahead, unsure of how to proceed. Eventually, with the page she had written in her hand, she waved the confounding man away. She would know how to act the next time she saw him.

She was too deep in thought to see her parson leave the drawing room after a normal bow.

Catherine Bertha de Bourgh née Fitzwilliam always got what she wanted! It had been so since she could remember. As the eldest of three Fitzwilliam children—Reggie was two years younger than her, and Anne was six years her junior—she was the wisest, and as such, she made sure her younger siblings always listened to her.

If Lady Catherine were being honest with herself, she would have owned that her brother and sister listened to her, nodded occasionally, and then ignored her words. Also, she would have admitted that as they got older, they stopped listening to her pronouncements all together. In fact, when she railed against Reggie marrying the titled but poor Lady Elaine Scott—she only had a dowry of five thousand pounds—both her late father and Reggie himself had ignored her words. When Anne was being courted by the fabulously wealthy Robert Darcy in her first season while Lady Catherine was in her seventh, Catherine had protested vociferously about Mr Darcy being a mere mister without a title. Again, she had been ignored by Father and Anne herself. Anne had married, and Catherine had been left fuming.

She had accepted Sir Lewis de Bourgh, a lowly knight, to save face. At least he had a title, and although he was not as wealthy as her brother-in-law, he had enough wealth to satisfy her needs. By the time Reggie’s wife had delivered two sons, weak Anne managed to deliver one. He was named Fitzwilliam.

Three years later, Catherine had birthed her daughter, who she named Anne in order to get her sister to engage their children. Anne Darcy had refused her every entreaty.

When her sister passed away not long after she delivered her daughter, Georgiana, Catherine had tried to convince Robert Darcy she and his late wife had agreed to engage his son and her daughter. He had known the truth and rejected her request to sign a betrothal contract. Five years ago, Robert Darcy had been taken; and Catherine had made all speed to Pemberley.

She had been certain that Fitzwilliam—she refused to call him a plebian name like William, as the rest of her family, ignoring the fact there had been kings of England with that name—would be too overcome with grief to gainsay her.

Her brother, now the Earl of Matlock, had been there, and that damned Robert Darcy had left a letter for both her brother and his son refuting her claims. If that were not bad enough, he had codified his refusal to engage his son to her daughter in his will. She had been thrown out of Pemberley like some commoner when she had tried to order Georgiana to return to Kent with her.

Now she only saw Fitzwilliam and Richard—he never came without his cousin, so she could never claim compromise—for about a fortnight around Easter each year when Fitzwilliam came to, in his words, ‘fix her errors in estate management’. What folderol; Lady Catherine Bertha de Bourgh did not make errors!

The problem was no matter what she had told her daughter, Catherine was aware that come the thirteenth day of September this year, Anne would be five and twenty, and according to her useless husband’s will, Rosings Park would belong to her. It was not to be borne!

And now if all that was not bad enough, her parson would not obey her blindly. How was she to have him help her do everything, including making entries in the register, to make it seem that Fitzwilliam and Anne were married, if he would not cooperate?

She would not lose Rosings Park, of that Lady Catherine was certain.

Chapter 3

Lady Catherine de Bourgh, née Fitzwilliam, was facing consternation at every turn. Mr Collins had not come to receive instruction from her every day as she had told him he was expected to do. Rather than wait on her and take her expert advice, the man wasted his time visiting the parishioners. It was not to be borne! She was the daughter of an earl and the sister to the current Earl of Matlock. What was the world coming to when her new rector did not pay her the deference she believed she was owed?

If that was not bad enough, this past Sunday, the first one at which Mr Collins had delivered the sermon, he had not used a single line of what she had written out so clearly for him to incorporate into the lesson—she ignored the inconvenient fact he had refused to take the page with her instructions from her. Instead, he had preached about the so-called parable of the good Samaritan and emphasised how all God’s mortal sons and daughters had an obligation to assist those who were weaker and in trouble.

The peasants in the church had all looked on with approbation. Of course they would. They were poor, as God had ordained that they should be due to their being the lowest of the low. Also, it was because of their own laziness they could not provide adequately for their families, and the parson spouting drivel about helping one another only meant they would do less. Lady Catherine had refused all entreaties to repair tenant hovels or assist them when they believed they were in need. Doing so would only make them lazier. Rather, when she became aware of a need, she would scold the tenant for causing the problems. When they were sick because of leaking roofs or cracked windows and walls in their hovels, she lectured them on trying to pull the wool over her eyes so that they did not have to work in the manner she demanded.

Besides, she needed the funds to buy more artwork and decorations for her house. Everything in her house was designed to highlight her rank and wealth with the intention of intimidating anyone who called on her so that she would always have the upper hand. That was far more important than wasting money on some peasant’s hovel and family.

The man was nothing like she had believed he would be when she deigned to award him the living. As punishment to Mr Collins, she refused to invite him to Rosings Park for the after-services meal and to bask in the glory of her presence.

She would set things to rights on Monday. Mr Collins would come see her, and she would give him one chance to fall into line, or she would know how to act.

At the same time that her mother was lamenting the way Mr Collins comported himself, Anne de Bourgh was rejoicing. Somehow the new parson had fooled her mother into preferring him to the living. Since he had been installed at the Hunsford parsonage and took over the duties from the curate, it had been obvious that this man was no sycophant. At the first service Mr Collins had attended at St Cuthbert’s, the one Mr Keating had conducted, Anne had seen the possibility that the new parson would not kowtow to her mother. She had not been sure until he had come to the house this Monday past. Mother had blustered—as she was wont to do—and Mr Collins had not been intimidated at all.

His not appearing before her mother each day as he had been ordered to do, culminating in his sermon this very Sabbath, had shown Anne that Mr Collins was in fact the man she had hoped would be able to stand up to Mother and assist her to communicate with Uncle Reggie. The late Mr Belvedere had been willing to help her, but before she could get him a letter to post for her, the poor man had gone to his heavenly reward. Knowing that Lady Catherine would be the one to appoint the next clergyman had left Anne without hope. That hope was now renewed.

She had to be careful when she wrote the letter she wanted to pass to Mr Collins because both Mrs Jenkinson, her companion, and her lady’s maid reported everything Anne did, or did not do, to Lady Catherine.

Thankfully, Anne had learnt some years ago to deposit the ‘cordial’ she was given to drink into her chamber pot. At times, she would use a poor unsuspecting potted plant. It was clear that she was being dosed with laudanum to keep her looking listless and sickly. Since that first time Mrs Jenkinson had attempted to administer the vile concoction, when she had tasted the bitterness of the drink, Anne had resolved never to imbibe the so called cordial. It was prepared by the apothecary from Hunsford who would do anything Mother commanded of him.