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It is a truth tacitly acknowledged that a man’s profession might not correspond to his innate ability.
And it cannot be said that William Collins was preordained to be a clergyman. His sermons, though lengthy and sometimes delivered with animation, did little to move its listeners’ souls toward grace. His moral judgments revealed little comprehension of the subtleties of human society. Given his fondness for cards and dancing—albeit only in impeccable company—even his rectitude might be called into question.
But Mr. Collins was nothing if not brimming with activity, and he had not the need of deep contemplation on any course of action. His noble patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, knew the right way for him to act in all circumstances. He need simply obey, and he did without fail.
He had a further advantage in his choice of wife, the former Charlotte Lucas of Hertfordshire, who matched him in industry and outmatched him in perspicacity. It was she who often compensated for his defects in pastoral care. It became generally known in the parish that, if you were content to receive advice in the form of dictums or platitudes, consult the Reverend Collins, but if you truly sought insight, whisper to his wife.
She was not romantic, and she never was, as she had once confessed to a friend. She asked only a comfortable home, and now that she had secured one, she was intent on doing nothing to risk her relative good fortune.
Lady Lucas had always involved her in the running of Lucas Lodge, and she managed her own household with great efficiency, and hardly less pleasure. The maintaining of things, the mending, the stretching of ingredients to make meals at little expense, the management of her cook and housemaid, these were not empty tasks to her. They were the workings of life.
She did not respect her husband, an unspoken truth that at times pricked her conscience. But his want of understanding made it an easy thing to conceal, and his position and his general amiability made life more than tolerable—especially when she could redirect his attention to the garden or one of Lady Catherine’s orders before slipping away to some task she preferred.
When one March afternoon she saw him pace about it in a furor, however, she felt moved to intervene.
“What is the matter, my love?”
“It is a most appalling thing. How a man can act in such a way and show his face among decent people, I shall never know.”
“Who, Mr. Collins?”
He looked this way and that before ushering her into the doorway of the parsonage.
“I can scarcely believe it. The coachman’s son—a gamester!”
Mrs. Collins was indeed surprised, and for once interested to hear Mr. Collins tell all. It seemed young Henry Hewitt, who worked in the stables at Rosings Park, had involved himself in a series of games of faro, for which the stakes were startlingly high and for which he had used money that he had gained from his father under false pretences. There was much drinking and rowdiness at these games, and young Hewitt emerged from them with a decided reversal of fortune.
“I should not be surprised if old Hewitt were to disown him,” she mused.
“One would think, dear Charlotte! One would think. But there is a part of this sorry tale that appears to have lessened what ought to be his father’s severest opprobrium.”
“What is it?”
Mr. Collins squinted. “It seems that he won.”
Won the entire pot, in fact: some £900. Charlotte blinked in surprise at the sum. In any case, it was enough for young Hewitt to compensate his father with interest, procure a small trinket for his sister, and buy himself a commission in the foot guards.
“To think that wastrel is now in uniform, and will dare to command respect! To think his father actually takes pride in his son’s transgressions.” Mr. Collins huffed. “It is insupportable.”
His wife tilted her mouth in consideration. “At least he is now set to engage in honest labor.”
Mr. Collins blanched. “My dear Charlotte, you dare suggest this sorry tale has redeeming qualities? You dare defend such a man?”
“I merely ask that we–”
“I am sorry to say, but your reaction, which is not what it ought to be, has made me doubt your judgment.”
“I”—Charlotte checked herself. Though she bristled at having her judgment questioned, this was not, perhaps, a worthwhile marital skirmish. “You may be right, dear husband. I shall consider the matter further.”
“What is there to consider?”
A great deal, she determined. It preoccupied her thoughts for the remainder of the day.
Some in this world could not afford to consider themselves above all forms of wagers. The greater part of womankind, for one. For what was choosing a mate but a game of chance? She told her friend once, her voice weighted with assured authority, that it was the only force that determined the degree of one’s marital happiness. It was thus better to know as little as possible the defects of your partner in life.
That was why, at 27 and with a dwindling pile of chips that shrank with each passing year, she cashed in for a meager sum.
How confidently she had explained her motives. How sound was her choice. How good for all involved. But the fact that she had not voiced regrets or reservations did not mean none existed, nor had they been banished from her mind after many months of marriage.
Returning to the pressing matter of the day, she decided she did owe it to Mr. Collins to consider why young Hewitt might deserve censure. But that consideration only enforced her belief of her own correctness. Knowing what she did of him–his shy, conscientious manner–she doubted he had let his life take a sudden turn toward dissipation. Rather, he saw a chance at improving his lot, and he took it. He had certainly made more wholesome use of his winnings than those who partook in genteel parlor matches of whist and cassino.
The Collins' disagreement made supper a quiet business, with Mr. Collins twitching his face in consternation and avoiding her gaze.
But it may also have been that restless mental state that made him approach her that night.
“Charlotte, my dearest, I do not wish to importune you…” he trailed off.
His hand rested on her shoulder; she put her own on top of it.
“My love, you need not call it importuning. I do not consider it such.”
She had become a master of expedient misdirection when it came to the more unpleasant parts of life as Mrs. William Collins. Unexpectedly, though, this was not one of them–at least not to the fearful extent depicted in her mother’s description of the act.
Mr. Collins considered himself expert in many things, and where his knowledge was deficient he need only consult Lady Catherine to compensate. But he at least knew enough of himself on this subject to know that he knew nothing, and that he would rather know his soul to be damned than consult his noble patroness on the matter. So he confessed as much to his bride, who received his anxieties with compassion.
He was no brute, and he wished to please, though it was more often than not that poor Charlotte felt compelled to show more pleasure even than she felt.
At the next morning’s breakfast, the maid presented Mr. Collins with a letter from Longbourn.
“Hm!” He looked up from his letter. “The eldest Miss Bennet is to be married.”
His wife’s face brightened. “Is that so?”
“To a Mr.— oh, what was it? Bingham or something.”
“Bingley.”
“I suppose it was about time.” He folded the letter. “Her mother had said she had formed a strong attachment to another when I sojourned at Longbourn, but after many months without activity I began to wonder if the claim had any whiff of deception, and that she had perhaps intended me for any but the eldest Miss Bennet.”
Mrs. Collins raised an eyebrow. “I daresay any stratagem devised by Mrs. Bennet would be as transparent as a shop window.”
Mr. Collins looked surprised. “That is uncharitable of you, Charlotte.”
“You were the one to talk of deception, my love,” she replied serenely.
He frowned and then sighed, masking a brief sulky grimace with the forced geniality he had become so practiced at.
“I have no answer. As usual, my clever wife, I am at your mercy. I shall say no more.”
How it secretly thrilled Charlotte to hear those words.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It was a relief to hear that Jane Bennet would be so well-settled. The Bennet family, with five daughters, an entailed estate, and no money put away for dowries, was wholly dependent on their children's good fortune in marriage. This seemed to be imperiled by the Bennets' want of public decorum and then rendered a lost cause entirely after the youngest let herself be seduced by an infamous rogue. Charlotte hoped her mother would heed that example and not let the younger Lucases expose themselves in such a fashion. Still, Charles Bingley’s admirable constancy appeared to lessen the blow to the Bennets’ reputation: All word she received from Hertfordshire now was of what a beautiful bride Jane would make and how it was all as it ought to be. Everyone in and around Meryton spoke as if they had always been certain.
Perhaps, then, there was still a chance for Elizabeth.
Elizabeth, from whom Charlotte had not received a letter in months.
It was a worry that from time to time unsettled her normally composed mind: Why had her friend ceased corresponding?
Was it because of her betrayal?
To be sure, Charlotte did not intend what she said to have such a dire effect. It was only an attempt to remedy Mr. Collins’s profound and interminably expressed confusion, which manifested when word of Lydia Bennet’s elopement reached Huntsford. Charlotte gently pointed out the danger Mrs. Bennet allowed in permitting all her daughters to be out in society at once, and by letting Lydia go to Brighton with such inattentive supervision. Surely, she implored her husband, he must have seen how wild the younger Bennets ran about the house when he stayed at Longbourn.
This in Mr. Collins produced something of a visible epiphany, and he rushed to his writing-desk. And no sooner had he risen did he set off to Rosings.
Mrs. Collins was not meddlesome by nature, nor was she cursed with an excessively tender heart. There were consequences to ill behavior, and it was no use weeping over their inevitable arrival.
Still, when she went to replace Mr. Collins’ sealing wax and caught a glimpse of the unfinished letter, a single sentence leapt out at her:
And it is the more to be lamented, because there is reason to suppose, as my dear Charlotte informs me, that this licentiousness of behaviour in your daughter has proceeded from a faulty degree of indulgence.
It was no falsehood, nor misrepresentation of what she had related. And as much as she wished she could strike the phrase or prevent the letter’s passage to Longbourn, she feared there was no way to do so without being discovered. The message would reach its recipient and, she was no less sure, that gentleman’s second-eldest child, who had his closest confidence.
Eliza would know. And she would suffer further injury, thanks to her friend at Huntsford, who ought to be a source of support.
She was pragmatic enough to know that defending the family would not reflect well on her own household’s reputation. Just as plainly, though, her silence would give her friend good reason to lose all affection for her, and that such a severance might be called justice.
That knowledge was a cause of distress to Charlotte, but a quiet one, most prominent in the still moments of the day. And when the Collinses dined at Rosings, that one garden weed in her life was surely no match for the great stormy gust that was Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
“It is insupportable!” the esteemed mistress of Rosings exclaimed upon her guests’ arrival. “My nephew ought to be here! What keeps him from his aunt?”
“Business in the North,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said apologetically. “But look, here is your niece.”
This seemed to placate Her Ladyship, who greeted Miss Georgiana Darcy with extreme partiality. Miss Darcy received her attentions with polite deference, but not any measure of ease. Her anxiety only appeared to increase as the night unfolded. When Lady Catherine commanded her to give a performance on the pianoforte, she looked rather as if she were being marched to the gallows. And before the Collinses were to depart, Mrs. Collins found herself taken aside by Colonel Fitzwilliam, who had a request.
Georgiana, he revealed, was afflicted with some form of melancholy. At moments, she wept on the ride to Kent and would not reveal why.
“She has reached an age where there are topics one might not wish to discuss with a male guardian. Would you be so good as to speak with her?”
“Me? My dear colonel, I–”
“I do not need to know the particular details if she does not wish to disclose it. I simply fear that she does not disclose her troubles to anyone, which if true would undoubtedly increase her distress. If I could just have your assurances that it is not something which poses a risk to her health, I would consider it a great service.”
Charlotte agreed. The next morning, she had a servant give a note to Miss Darcy, inviting her to tea at Huntsford that afternoon. She knew Mr. Collins would then be in town on his mission to find the exact garden rake Lady Catherine insisted he must have, lest it all go fallow, a mission that would likely last many hours. She specified that the message’s delivery not occur within the sight of Lady Catherine.
An hour after Mr. Collins’ departure, a flushed Georgiana arrived on foot–her only hope to escape Lady Catherine’s detection. Charlotte welcomed her in offered her some tea and seed cake. Charlotte started with more general inquiries about her health and her journey so as to not make it look as if she were subjecting her young guest to an inquisition. Yet when the conversation closed in on her evident distress, she quietly recoiled.
“Oh no. Please, Mrs. Collins, I couldn't.”
“Are you quite sure?”
Georgiana’s voice started to waver. “I appreciate your concern, but it is all for naught.”
“Your cousin, Colonel Fitzwilliam, is concerned it may be a matter of the heart. And that you consider his counsel useless, and might do yourself an injury over it. “
“Oh, no!” Georgiana interjected. “It is not that. Not quite, in any case.”
Charlotte clasped her hand over hers. “I promise to keep your disclosures in the strictest confidence. I shan’t tell a soul.”
Georgiana appeared to consider the matter with no little reluctance. “Not even Mr. Collins?”
“
Especially
not Mr. Collins,” Charlotte was moved to reply.
The statement startled the wide-eyed girl, but the irreverent frankness with which Charlotte spoke also visibly reassured her that perhaps all would not go to pieces if she were equally direct.
She took a long, slow sip of tea before shutting her eyes and trying to compose her thoughts.
“Mrs. Collins, my distress does concern matters of the heart, but not my own. I fear for my brother.”
“What concern of his could so preoccupy you?” Charlotte refilled her teacup.
“He has fallen in love, but it is a hopeless case. The lady’s family was recently tainted by scandal. He acted to force a resolution that lessened its severity, and yet he is determined that she never know.”
Charlotte observed her young guest’s growing distress.
“He is immovable,” she continued. “He thinks there is no honor in the sacrifice if it instills a sense of obligation in her. His scruples would not have it otherwise. So he says nothing. And I fear will say nothing, nor even renew his attentions to her, for the rest of his life.”
“I cannot imagine that to be so,” said Charlotte. “Your brother has too much sense to subject himself to such torment.”
“And yet circumstances aid his silence,” Georgiana explained. “You see, she lives so far away that there is no chance of regular intercourse between them, except when he travels south to see Mr. Bingley.”
At once, Charlotte’s face froze.
The contours of her story complemented those of one that was painfully dear to her. She silently rebuked herself for only just realizing it.
“In Hertfordshire?”
Her young guest was taken aback. “Why, yes. How did you know?”
Charlotte took a breath. “Upon my word, Georgiana, I know Mr. Bingley. I spent all my youth in Hertfordshire, quite near to where he settled. Were you aware?”
Georgiana confessed she hadn’t been.
“I even think I know the lady of whom you speak.”
“You do?” Georgiana was now fully alarmed. “Oh my. I wish I had not spoken of it.”
Charlotte smiled. “Be easy, my dear. You may rest assured, I will stand by my offer of confidence. But I must warn you, I have doubts that this will resolve happily.”
Georgiana’s countenance grew gloomy. “I feared as much.”
“Her family is”—she was suddenly aware that she stood on the brink of defaming them yet again, and so made some quick mental revisions. “You see, I believe her family is not disposed to think well of him. And what is more, neither is she.”
Georgiana tilted her head. “Why, she seemed quite pleased with him when she dined with us at Pemberley.”
Those words were spoken with the most unimpeachable innocence, but they made the
imperturbable Mrs. William Collins lose hold of her teacup.
Her young companion let out a cry of dismay and knelt to help her clean the spillage.
Charlotte applied to her with no little urgency. “Eliza… dined at Pemberley?”
“Indeed, last August”
“Eliza—Bennet?
“To be sure,” said Georgiana, with a mild irritation and the embarrassment of already revealing more than she intended.
Charlotte struggled to reckon with this intelligence. “Who accompanied her? She could not have arrived alone.”
“Her Aunt and Uncle Gardiner.”
Another mishap: Charlotte slipped on a slick patch of floor.
“Please be careful, Mrs. Collins. You will injure yourself!” Georgiana exclaimed.
Poor Charlotte steadied herself on one arm while she struggled to give voice to thoughts that seemed to her utterly absurd. “Mr. Darcy… invited… a Cheapside attorney...to dine… at Pemberley?”
“I confess, it is not our usual sort of company, but they seemed very agreeable. Mr. Gardiner and my brother are both fond of trout fishing.”
Charlotte would not be less disoriented upon hearing Mr. Darcy and company were both fond of netting purses atop saddled donkeys.
It was now Georgiana’s turn to console. “I believe I understand your confusion. Mrs. Reynolds says my brother is thought proud and diffident when he is from home. But his manners are easier at Pemberley.”
“I am still yet to be convinced we are speaking of one and the same person.”
“To be sure, we are. I would not deceive you. But oh, Mrs. Collins, what can be done?”
Charlotte lost herself in deep contemplation for a second or two. Then she spoke.
“You should trust that your brother knows his own mind, Georgiana. Do you?”
“Of course.”
“But it would not hurt to remind him of your pleasure at meeting her now and then. You are very dear to him, and he will listen to you.”
Georgiana looked surprised. “You believe there’s a chance this will all end well?”
“Stranger things have happened,” said Charlotte, who inwardly swatted away a buzzing midge of a thought that her own marriage might be one of them.
A furtive smile colored Georgiana’s face. “I should dearly like to call Miss Bennet my sister–I haven’t any, you see, and her visit confirmed every word of praise my brother conveyed to me. If you think there is hope, then I shall try not to despair.”
“Good. I believe it is always best to–”
But a sudden lurch of her stomach forced Charlotte to be silent. She pressed three fingers to her mouth.
Georgiana reproached herself. “Oh dear. And here I am, made insensible by my own unhappiness. Are you ill?”
“You needn’t worry.” Charlotte said once she had regained command of herself.
“Forgive me, Mrs. Collins. I do not wish to be officious in my concern, but you did appear unwell at dinner, too.”
Charlotte winced. “Was I so very conspicuous?”
“I am not sure. My eyes are simply given to wandering around the table when others are engaged in conversation I could never hope to join. But
are
you ill, Mrs. Collins?
“Please do not trouble yourself. I beg you to understand, this is all in the normal course of things.”
She wondered if Georgiana were yet worldly enough to comprehend. Her lips parted slightly, which suggested she did.
“Do you mean…?”
Charlotte smiled and confirmed her suspicion.
Georgiana’s spirit was now light. She took Charlotte’s hands. “Oh, how wonderful! I know you shall make the best of mothers, Mrs. Collins. I will pray for your health.”
“You are very kind. But remember, as for what you revealed to me, trust in providence.”
Georgiana agreed and made her farewell.
There was much to do. As ever, Charlotte had a household to run, and she had not yet told her husband she was expecting an addition to the family. By rights, this was what should have been at the fore of her mind. But not that night. No, that night was spent contemplating the day’s discoveries. She turned the remaining mysteries of Mr. Darcy’s actions over in her mind–did he lay out the prodigious sum that was rumored to have compelled George Wickham to marry? And she wondered what they might mean for one still dear to her.
“What a fine thing it would be,” she murmured aloud.
Mr. Collins overheard and inquired what she meant. Shaken out of her reverie, Charlotte recollected herself and said what a fine thing it would be to take Lady Catherine’s advice and purchase an apricot tree.