“...and considering Mr. Collins’s character, connections, and
situation in life, I am convinced that my chance of happiness
with him is as fair as most people can boast on entering the
marriage state.”
Poor Charlotte—it was melancholy to leave her to such
society—But she had chosen it with her eyes open.
“Mrs. Collins?”
“Mrs. Collins? Mrs. Collins!”
As his voice rose, Mr. Collins struggled to his feet. The letter he was reading slid through his hands and he snatched at it as it fell to the floor. His chair tipped over behind him unnoticed.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that to be heir to an estate is eminently less satisfying than to be in possession of that estate. Mr.William Collins, the Rector of Hunsford, had lived with his expectations throughout a good part of his lifetime. At first, the expectations had been those of his father, and had arisen once it became apparent that Mr. Bennet, the owner of Longbourn (the estate which was entailed on the older Mr. Collins), and the father of five daughters, was unlikely to be presented with a son by his wife. The senior Mr. Collins, an illiterate and miserly man, had inherited a quarrel with the Bennet branch of the family, which he continued to enjoy, gloating on occasion to his son over the fact that the quarrel would be finally resolved on the day the Longbourn estate became his. “An eye for an eye!” snarled the father. “So perish the ungodly!” (Young Mr. Collins had no idea of the cause of the rift or what, if anything, made these quotations appropriate.)
The son, raised in subjection and humility, had as a means of escape chosen the Church as his career, spurred on perhaps by his father’s quotations from the Scriptures. Shortly after his ordination, he had by a most fortunate chance been recommended to Lady Catherine de Bourgh at a time when the living of Hunsford, which was in her gift, was vacant. The respect he felt for her high rank, and his veneration (nay, near adoration) of her as his patroness, had filled the shell of his personality left empty by his father’s constant belittlement and, as a result of her approbation, he had arrived at a very good opinion of himself, of his authority as a clergyman, and of his right as a rector. He became a curious (to some people insufferable) mixture of pride and obsequiousness, self-importance and humility.
Lady Catherine, for her part, found him exactly to suit her requirements.Veneration (nay, near adoration) she felt to be her due.
On his father’s death, when Mr. Collins in his turn became heir to Longbourn, he began to feel a certain curiosity regarding those five cousins he had never seen, the daughters of Mr. Bennet. The father’s contempt for the son had taught him in his youth to feel unworthy; the sudden boosting of his self-esteem by his early success in obtaining an excellent living drove those feelings underground; they emerged afresh as a feeling of guilt towards his cousins, mixed with a strong and somewhat prurient interest in them as females (his mother had died shortly after his birth and there had been little exposure to the gentle sex in his life). To assuage this guilt, he sought a reconciliation by letter with Mr. Bennet, telling himself it was his duty as a clergyman, but he had another aim: he had a wife in view. His father’s effect on Mr. Collins was such that, even after the father’s death, the son felt uncomfortable about seeking a reconciliation. He bent over backwards to conciliate both Mr. Bennet and his dead father’s shade. He wrote as follows:
“The disagreement subsisting between yourself and my late honoured father, always gave me much uneasiness, and since I have had the misfortune to lose him, I have frequently wished to heal the breach; but for some time I was kept back by my own doubts, fearing lest it might seem disrespectful to his memory for me to be on good terms with any one, with whom it had always pleased him to be at variance.”
Thus advancing and retreating as if taking part in a country dance, Mr. Collins moved towards his goal. It was Mr. Collins’s misfortune that when he visited Longbourn for a reconciliatory visit, of the two cousins he settled on in turn as a likely wife, first Jane, then Elizabeth, Jane was being courted by another man, and Elizabeth was of a degree of intelligence and a turn of humor that prevented her taking his offer seriously. Mary Bennet might well have been receptive to his suit but was not given the chance. As it was, Charlotte Lucas, daughter of Sir William Lucas, and close friend of Elizabeth Bennet, knowing herself to have little chance of marriage otherwise, threw herself in his way. Affronted and humiliated by Elizabeth’s refusal, Mr. Collins had not questioned his own good fortune in finding Charlotte Lucas conveniently on his doorstep, so to speak. Like the Hunsford living, she had dropped into his hands; he accepted this gift from the gods and they were married as soon as conveniently possible.
Mr. Collins might well have allowed his resentment toward Elizabeth Bennet to congeal into a new breach with the Bennet family, but this his wife would not permit. And Elizabeth’s marriage to Mr. Darcy, wealthy nephew of Lady Catherine, had confirmed to him that it would be best to be on good terms with the Bennets. At the time of the marriage, Mr. Bennet wrote to Mr. Collins as follows:
“Console Lady Catherine as well as you can. But, if I were you, I would stand by the nephew. He has more to give.”
Mr. Collins deplored what he had often felt was a certain flippancy in Mr. Bennet’s tone but, on due consideration, he felt the advice to be sound. He therefore, over the years, continued to bow down to Lady Catherine, while taking comfort in the knowledge that his wife was in regular correspondence with her dear friend, Mrs. Darcy.
When finally, twelve years later, the news reached him that the estate was his, he reacted with what can only be termed high glee. “Mrs. Collins? Mrs. Collins? Longbourn is mine at last! Mrs. Collins!”
Mr. Collins was in fact so excited by the letter still clutched in his hands that he called out at the top of his voice (a voice trained by regular pontificating in the pulpit), forgetting that he was alone. Realizing this, and feeling somewhat foolish, he made haste to emerge from his study at the front of the house and go in search of his wife. The time was mid-morning, and Mrs. Collins, the former Charlotte Lucas, was hard to find. There were so many places that she might be in the execution of her housewifely duties: in the schoolroom with her older children, in the nursery with the youngest, in the kitchen instructing her cook, or with the poultry maid, inquiring why the hens were not laying, to name only a few.
“Mrs. Collins! Mrs. Collins?”
Mr. Collins continued to call in a loud and nasal voice (he suffered from chronic catarrh). His cheeks were blotched and the tip of his nose was red with excitement; his neck-bands were quite out of control.When he moved, he pranced; when he stood still, he rocked from toe to heel. Dorcas, the parlor maid, came running out of the parlor, her feather duster in hand, and stared at him open-mouthed; Ezekiel, the gardener, poked his shock of white hair through the open front door, bringing with him a pungent smell of manure; and Ellen, the cook, emerged from the kitchen armed with a sticky wooden spoon, ready to repel an invasion of gypsies.
Down the staircase, quiet and composed, came Charlotte Collins, holding her youngest daughter, Eliza, by the hand. “My dear Mr. Collins,” she said. “Whatever can be the matter? Are the pigs in the garden yet again?”
Under her calm gaze, Mr. Collins stopped his fidgeting and tried to straighten his cravat. But he could not hold back his news without exploding.
“Mrs. Collins, the most delightful news. Longbourn is ours at last!”
There could be only one explanation.
“Oh, Mr. Collins,” said Charlotte. “Has Mr. Bennet died? Dear me, so very sad for Mrs. Bennet and the family. And my poor Elizabeth, how she will be grieved.”
Feeling her quiet reproof, Mr. Collins flushed. He endeavored to control his elation and put on a more respectful expression. It was his duty, after all, to mourn for his cousin, however much his instincts urged him to wave his arms and caper.
Fifteen years of marriage had changed them both. Mr. Collins was a pear-shaped man, with a tonsure of pink scalp surrounded by thinning hair. His figure, like his brain, was layered with suet, and his self-esteem had grown with his waistline. Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s continued patronage (until her death two years previously) had made him sufficiently prosperous; despite the arrival over the years of five children, the Collinses lived comfortably. But always at the back of his mind and the forefront of his dreams had been his prospects: he was heir to the estate of Longbourn. He would inherit on the death of Mr. Bennet, father of Charlotte’s dear friend Elizabeth, married some twelve years to Mr. Darcy of Pemberley, nephew to Lady Catherine. As each year was added to Mr. Bennet’s age, so did Mr. Collins’s longing increase.
And now Mr. Bennet was dead.
Charlotte Collins, forty-two, and the mother of five living children, was also fuller in the figure than when she and Elizabeth Bennet sat out together at assemblies. The tight lacing that accompanied the present fashion for full-skirted gowns constricted her waist and emphasized her matronly bust and hips. Under the muslin cap, the wings of sleek brown hair worn over her ears were lightly touched with silver.The hair was twisted into a large braided knot at the back of her head in a variation of a style becoming fashionable in imitation of the young Queen Victoria, newly come to the throne; Charlotte did not aspire to ringlets. The lines on her face showed that pain and worry had not been strangers; but it was a calm face, and a decided one. Her eyes showed patience, and her lips closed firmly together (as if there were much she did not say); her chin was tucked back with resolution. She had, in the words of the old saying, “made her bed” when she chose to marry Mr. Collins, and she had slept in it for fifteen uphill years. It had not been a bed of roses, but Charlotte was not one to repine. She endured her thorns as best she could, and cultivated her flowers. She governed her small kingdom efficiently and well, and found enjoyment still in many things. Her smile, as she tended her children and went about her housewifely duties, was infrequent but sweet. And her laugh, when she played with her smallest daughter, Eliza, was still young.
And here it is necessary, dear Reader, that I offer you some account of the main events of Charlotte’s life since her marriage. Her first child, a large boy, was born a year after her marriage (a ‘young olive-branch,’ as Mr. Collins called him, when writing to Mr. Bennet). The boy was christened William Rosings Collins, a combination of what Mr. Collins felt was his due and of homage to Lady Catherine. Even at birth, he was the type of baby that can best be described as aggressively legitimate. In both face and form he resembled his father and, as he grew, the resemblance became still more pronounced. Mr. Collins was noisily proud of him.William became a heavy, non-athletic boy of limited intelligence but good conceit, assertive at the dinner table, timid away from it. His father, naturally, intended him for the Church.
Charlotte’s next child, born two years later, was also a boy ( Jonathan Lucas Collins), but he came from a different mold. He was slight in stature and not handsome, but he inherited his grandfather Lucas’s social nature and his mother’s intelligence. Jonathan was a merry soul, loving to his mother and friendly to all the world. (William, of course, was inclined to bully him.) Charlotte was too wise to favor Jonathan, but her eyes smiled when she looked at him.
The following year, Charlotte miscarried.
Two girls came next, Catherine and Anne Maria, two years apart. They were a dull and dutiful duo, with their mother’s coloring and their father’s brains. Catherine, in looks, was considered a fine girl; Anne (compared with her sister) was musical. Then came another miscarriage. Charlotte was low in health and spirits for some time, but her fifth living child, another girl, christened Elizabeth Jane, was a changeling. She was born prematurely after a difficult pregnancy and reared with a quiet desperation by Charlotte that withstood her husband’s petty importunities and Lady Catherine’s recommendation to put the sickly baby out with a good wet-nurse and stop neglecting her parish duties (by which she meant dining at Rosings on command).
Elizabeth Jane, known at home as Little Eliza, grew to delight her mother’s heart. From some errant gene (from the Bennet connection, shall we say?), Eliza developed an impish sense of humor. She was small and in looks resembled her mother, gray-eyed and brown-haired, in no way striking. But her love of life illuminated her face; she drew the eye. As soon as she could walk, she tried to dance. Catty and Annie, as her sisters were known, united in trying to suppress her, but in vain.William ignored her, but Jonathan was her protector and her friend.
Two more babies, boys, followed with the passing of time, a year apart. Both died within the year, of the flux. Charlotte had no more children.
Lady Catherine de Bourgh succumbed to a stroke, brought on by excessive self-esteem and a carefully hidden fondness for port wine (taken, of course, medicinally). She spent six months in bed before she died, unable to walk and barely able to talk, imposing her will on her house with constant thumps on the floor of a stout, silver-topped walking stick that had belonged to her late husband.When too frustrated, she was inclined to strike out at the nearest body, in a way reminiscent, if she had but known, of Mr. Collins’s late father. At her death, Rosings, her estate, passed under the family trust to her daughter, Anne.
Shortly after her mother’s death, Anne married. She was then in her late thirties. Her husband was a former Archdeacon of Marchester (he resigned the post on his marriage), and also a noted organist. He was a man considerably her senior, long known to the de Bourghs. Anne retained the de Bourgh name, and the Venerable Mr. Crabapple acted as prince consort to his pale, delicate, middle-aged lady. Never having been beautiful, disappointed in the failure of her mother’s scheme to marry her to her handsome cousin, Mr. Darcy, Anne de Bourgh took to piety and won herself a husband through good works and Church attendance. His fondness for the architecture of Rosings was also a factor. Mr. Crabapple won Miss de Bourgh by his kind and fatherly demeanor (in such contrast to the well-meaning but smothering tyranny of her mother), and his masterly organ-playing. An instrument was installed at Rosings, and the rooms rang with the strains of Bach and Handel. The housekeeper, Mrs. Jenkinson, formerly Anne de Bourgh’s companion (in whose sitting-room long before Elizabeth Bennet had been bidden to practice), kept her door firmly closed.
Rosings thereafter hosted a steady stream of bishops, missionaries, deans, rural deans, rectors, vicars, and aspiring curates, together with their wives and offspring. All this was not to Mr. Collins’s liking. He felt continually over-watched, his sermons criticized, and his habits weighed in the balance.
But Mr. Bennet was dead at last, and his estate, entailed as it was (to Mrs. Bennet’s oft-voiced disgust), passed to Mr. Collins.
Mr. Bennet had died quietly of heart failure, one summer evening, alone in the library he loved.When he was found, his fingers were still caught between the pages of a book. While his heir gloated, Mrs. Bennet indulged in strong hysterics, and his daughters mourned.
Mr. Collins was agog to make the move to Longbourn. Now he could escape from the Anglican backbiting and religious infighting of his Rosings neighbors, give up his parish duties, and live the life of a country gentleman, for which he felt eminently suited. He began to talk casually of huntin’, shootin’, and fishin’. He considered for at least a week buying a sporting dog, though dogs of all kinds brought on violent attacks of sneezing; he would never have one in the house, though Jonathan and Eliza begged. Charlotte, with a tact born of her affection for Elizabeth Darcy, curbed her husband’s impatience to move to Longbourn.
“My dear Mr. Collins, this will not do. Think of Mrs. Bennet’s distress if we descend upon her with her husband barely in his grave. You, with your natural kindness and condescension, will be the first to understand her feelings and I know, in your generosity, you will give her time to plan her future life.”
Her method of dealing with Mr. Collins was always to ascribe to him the principles and virtues she wished he possessed. By tactics such as this, she could often persuade and guide him to a high standard of public behavior.
How was Mrs. Bennet to be settled? That was the question. Mary and Kitty, who had lived together in Meryton since the death of Kitty’s clergyman husband, Theodore Philpott, only two years after their marriage, conferred over their teacups with Mrs. Philips, who was also now a widow and in very comfortable circumstances. Mr. Philips’s business affairs had prospered (his specialty was conveyancing) and, when he died, of apoplexy, he was a warm man. Mary Bennet had married her Uncle Philips’s senior clerk, a kind but homely man of the name of Shrubsole, and Mr. Shrubsole had taken over much of Mr. Phillips’s clientele on his death and was making a comfortable living.
Letters circulated between the Meryton contingent and the sisters whose homes were farther away. Mrs. Bennet had always planned to live with her favorite daughter, Lydia, but this was not to be.
“La, Mama,” said Lydia, shrugging a plump and careless shoulder, “That would not be at all the thing. You know my dear Wickham and me are always on the move. You would find it prodigious unpleasant.”
Captain Wickham was at that time stationed in Bristol. Mrs. Bennet was reluctant to accept this dictum, but a short visit to Lydia in her latest Bristol lodgings with her six children (one teething), her constantly changing servants and nursery maids, the visits from the bailiff, and her often-absent husband, changed her mind. Jane Bingley and Elizabeth Darcy conferred anxiously with Aunt Gardiner on the degree of their duty to their mother, but luckily Mrs. Philips came to her sister’s rescue, inviting Mrs. Bennet to share her home in Meryton.
The partnership throve. The two widows (their caps a miracle of black lace) gave whist and loo parties for their numerous acquaintance (a goodly number of widowers and rackety retired army officers among them) and enjoyed themselves hugely. Mrs. Bennet found her new way of life so much to her liking that she almost forgot to resent the Collinses. Mary and Kitty were within easy reach and were frequent visitors, Lydia and Wickham came when no one else would have them, and Jane and Elizabeth sometimes broke a journey in order to spend a night. The only time Mrs. Bennet became conscious of her nerves was when her grandchildren stayed too long.
Once this move was made, the way was open for Mr. and Mrs. Collins and their family to move to Longbourn. It was a fateful day. Despite a light drizzle,Mr. Collins paced his new possession foot by foot, outdoors and indoors, rejoicing in every shrub and tree in the grounds, and every handsome piece of furniture and elegant drapery in the house. He had, in the past, enjoyed criticizing Mrs. Bennet for her extravagance and love of show; now he felt there was nothing that was not due to his own consequence. The one fly in his ointment was the marked absence of books in the library, which had been established by Mr. Bennet; the books had been his own to do with as he willed, and he had chosen to leave them to his favorite daughter, Elizabeth. They now rounded out the already splendid library at Pemberley. Mr. Collins seldom read and had no interest in literature, but this did not prevent him from feeling disgruntled every time he eyed the empty shelves.
Eliza Collins was four years old when the move to Longbourn was made, and she grew up on terms of friendly intimacy with the families of Mary Shrubsole, née Bennet, and such of Charlotte’s brothers and sisters, now married, who lived nearby. By the time she was seventeen, she was lively, loving, imaginative, and amusing. She would never be a beauty, but only strangers commented on her lack of inches and pointed little face. Her father was uncomfortable with her; he preferred his eldest son, recently made Vicar of Highbury and married to a Miss Eugenia Elton, and his elder daughters, who were prim, plump, and self-righteous.
But Charlotte rejoiced in her changeling.