Chapter 11 A Test of Fire

If Elizabeth thought she would find respite at home, she was sadly mistaken. Instead of the leisurely, buffet style meal her family often enjoyed in the afternoon, not sitting down all together as her father rarely left his study on days he did not have to be out on the estate somewhere, their mother planned an altogether formal affair.

“Girls, you are returned, see Mr. Collins, I told you they would not be long,” Mrs. Bennet said, greeting her eldest daughters, then spying Mr. Bingley, her voice hitched another half octave higher in tone. “And Mr. Bingley! What a pleasant surprise, sir, may I trouble you to stay for luncheon?”

Elizabeth blushed at her mother’s assumption that Mr. Bingley would wish to eat with the women. Mr. Collins was one thing, the man was their cousin and staying in the home. But to invite Mr. Bingley simply showed how uncouth and unsophisticated she was.

“Thank you, very much, but is Mr. Bennet in? I should very much like an interview with him, if it pleases you. We traveled the the farms, and I,” he said, looking down at the mud and dirt from the morning’s work that marred his boots and breeches, “I believe I should do better off with him.”

Mrs. Bennet suddenly looked at her daughters and realized they too, looked a-fright.

“Yes, certainly, I shall send a tray and ale to his study.”

As Mr. Bingley reached down to formally kiss Jane’s hand, Mrs. Bennet’s eyes widened. He offered his signature lop-sided grin and then walked down the great hall to the study that was tucked so unobtrusively away on the first floor.

“Mama, taking the baskets to the tenants has fatigued me,” Elizabeth began, trying to say she was too tired to eat downstairs. It was not even a lie, her body ached with pain and she desperately wanted to sleep.

“You may go upstairs to freshen yourself, and you, too, Jane dear, but then I expect you to come back down and eat in the dining room. Your days of being waited on hand-and-foot are over, Miss Lizzy. Did you really not think about how poor Mr. Collins might feel at being excluded this morning from your activity?” Mrs. Bennet scolded.

“But why should he have delivered baskets to tenants?” Elizabeth asked, pausing in her goal of reaching her room above stairs.

Mrs. Bennet swished her skirts with her hands, bristling at her daughter’s stupidity.

“He is to inherit, and you could do very well for yourself as well if you would simply pay attention. I swear, your Father talks so much about your wits, but sometimes I don’t understand what passes through that head of yours!” she exclaimed, turning away to plaster a false smile on her face and see about sending a tray to her husband’s study.

Jane placed a comforting hand on Elizabeth’s arm. “She worries for you, she believes that Mr. Bingley and I will marry, and it is a great honor, Lizzy, that she believes you might one day replace her.”

Elizabeth’s mouth melted into a frown matching the rest of her face’s expression of abject horror and disgust. “Me marry Mr. Collins?” she whispered, hoarsely. “There is no home in all of Britain that I could love so much as to tolerate that man’s appalling manners and poor hygiene for all of eternity.”

Believing the subject matter closed, Jane hurried them in complying with their mother’s wishes. For a few moments, Elizabeth considered defying her mother’s commands, but with her new freedom from her convalescence, she did not wish to curry her mother’s interest in making her suffer.

At twenty years of age, gone were the days where she might be restricted to the house or her rooms for disobedience. But that didn’t mean that her mother could not find other ways to make her displeasure known, namely by hounding Elizabeth with constant companionship and a never-ceasing vitriol of her thoughts on every matter. Even she was catching herself falling into the ways of her father: the best way to deal with Mrs. Bennet’s desires and passions that conflicted with her own was to humor the woman until her interest in the matter waned or found a new employment.

By the time Jane and Elizabeth reached the dining room, their younger sisters had all been excused for finishing their meal.

“Jane, dear, do sit by me,” their mother instructed so that Elizabeth was forced, once again to sit next to Mr. Collins. But Elizabeth decided to use her wits that her mother had earlier insulted. She sat next to Jane, earning a look of disapproval from her mother.

“Are you settling in well, Mr. Collins?” Jane asked their guest, in an attempt to smooth over the palpable discomfort in the room.

“Very well! The room I have been appointed holds a lovely view of the pond and the stables. I noticed that Mr. Bingley escorted your wagon back, but did not see his friend, Mr. Darcy,” Mr. Collins stated.

Elizabeth sliced a piece of cheese to go with her bite of cold meat. “He wished to make purchases in the village,” she explained, flatly.

“Ah, gifts I’m sure for his sister, and perhaps Miss de Bourgh,” Mr. Collins speculated, earning a nodding approval from Mrs. Bennet.

Elizabeth gagged at the mere mention of the woman Mr. Darcy was supposedly betrothed to marry. Hearing Mr. Collins speak so openly about the arrangement, she could not agree with Jane’s assessment that believed the good in every one. Fighting back tears of anger, everything suddenly fell into place.

Mr. Darcy could not worry about being forced to marry her, a lowly squire’s daughter, when he was already promised to another. Not that their father held any advantage over Mr. Darcy to compel him to take such steps. The man was good and kind in a way the Church instructed all men and women of nobler birth to be, just so few lived up to the charge.

Closing her eyes lest she begin to bawl, Elizabeth told herself over and over again that Mr. Darcy was a good man for all that he had done. This way, she silenced the voice in her mind that blamed him, unequivocally, for her the new pain of a broken heart.

Mrs. Bennet, spying Elizabeth closing her eyes and worried her daughter might make another attempt at swooning, prodded Mr. Collins along.

“What were you telling me about Lady Catherine just a few moments ago?”

Mr. Collins appeared perplexed as he had been fascinated by staring at his Cousin Elizabeth to no avail. As much as he had liked the beauty of the eldest Bennet daughter upon entering the home, he could never say that the spirit and vivaciousness of the next in age was beguiling. In his opinion, Elizabeth Bennet was more lovely and lively than he had ever hoped to make in a match.

“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Bennet. I cannot recall,” he said, earning a small giggle from Cousin Jane, who elbowed her sister next to her. Mr. Collins frowned. Indeed, perhaps he had been lucky to arrive when he had, the eldest Bennet daughter was quite forward in her interactions with Mr. Bingley and while she appeared sweet and kind, her underhanded disrespect of him was something he could never abide.

Mrs. Bennet spoke louder as though that would help his recollection. “About how long you can visit us, this time?”

Suddenly, Mr. Collins understood what he was meant to convey. “I have enjoyed speaking to your mother, Cousin Elizabeth, and I hope you will forgive my forwardness, but as my patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh advised me to spend not greater than a fortnight from my flock, I had thought to expand on my declaration last night. I believe that . . .”

Elizabeth had ceased to listen to the parson and elbowed her sister back, annoyed she had interrupted her daydreaming. But when Elizabeth angrily glared at her sister next to her, her sister’s mouth hanging open in a stupor gave Elizabeth her first clue that something dreadful was transpiring.

“Almost as soon as I enter the house I singled you out as the companion of my future life. But before I am run away with by my feelings on the subject, perhaps it will be advisable for me to state my reasons for marrying—and moreover for coming into Hertfordshire with a design of selecting a wife, as I certainly did.”

“Jane,” Elizabeth whispered, but Mr. Collins continued, undeterred.

“My reasons for marrying are, first, that I think it’s a right thing for every clergyman in easy circumstances (like myself) to set the example of matrimony in his parish. Secondly that I am convinced it will add very greatly to my happiness; and thirdly—which perhaps I got to have mentioned earlier, that it is the particular advice and recommendation of the very noble lady whom I have the honor of calling patroness. Twice as she condescended to give me her opinion, (unasked too!) On the subject; and it was but the very Saturday night before I left Hunsford, between our pools at quadrille, while Mrs. Jenkinson was arranging Miss De Bourgh’s foot-stool—“

Elizabeth cringed as she could not believe what was happening. Somewhere in this diatribe, her cousin was going to ask her to marry him. And even if she didn’t object on the many other grounds she reasonably held, such as his lack of physical or gentlemanly merits, or that she did not know the man at all despite his relation status, there was no possible way she could marry him. He would never consent to living at Longbourn until her father died, and she certainly could never show her face to this Lady Catherine de Bourgh and her daughter, feeling as she did about their relation and intended, Mr. Darcy.

“And now nothing remains for me but to assure you in the most animated language of the violence of my affection. To fortune I am perfectly indifferent, and shall make no demand of that nature on your father, since I am well aware that it could not be complied with—”

“You forget yourself, sir, I have given no answer,” Elizabeth said, seething, wondering if this was what her father had spoken to Mr. Collins about the previous night, her lack of dowry? Had he laughed when Collins squirmed, learning he would receive nothing to take a daughter off Mr. Bennet’s hands? And thinking about the morning, had her father designed for her to tour the farms, in hope that she would feel nostalgia or some kind of affinity for the land she had grown up on, tended to, and loved?

“Lizzy, do not be hasty,” her mother warned, earning a flash of her daughter’s angry gaze, before she turned back directly to Mr. Collins.

Elizabeth pushed her chair back with little effort, fueled by the wrath of being manipulated by all. “I am very sensible to the honor of his proposal, but it is impossible for me to do otherwise than decline it.”

She started to walk away, but her mother grasped her arm.

“Patience, Mr. Collins, this is a usual antic of a young lady overcome by such an overture,” she tried to say as Elizabeth wrestled with her mother’s grip.

Mr. Collins nodded. “Yes, I have heard that some ladies reject the addresses of the man they secretly mean to accept, when he first applies for their favor as means to test the earnestness of their suitor in making such an address again.”

Finally free of her mother, Elizabeth stood out of her reach by the door, practically shouting.

“I am not one of those ladies! I am perfectly serious in my refusal. You could not make me happy, and I am convinced I am the last woman in the world who would make you so. Nay, were your friend Lady Catherine to know me, I am persuaded she would fine me in every respect ill qualified for the situation!” she finished, finally allowing the tears over the loss of Mr. Darcy to flow freely. 

Elizabeth ran out of the dining room just as the raised voices attracted the notice of Mr. Bingley and her father. They entered the dining room and her mother dived into hysterics.

“Mr. Bennet! Lizzy does not know her own interest! For she vows she will not have him,” she said, pointing at the embarrassed Mr. Collins, “and if you do not make haste he will change his mind and not have her.”

Mr. Bennet watched his daughter disappear up stairs and found himself mildly amused.

“Is this true, sir? You have propose marriage to one of my daughters, professing to be affected and in love with her, but now find your resolve waining?” he asked, placing the burden of steadfastness upon the male suitor in question.

Mr. Collins stumbled over his words as Mr. Bingley walked carefully around Mrs. Bennet to stand near to Jane. “She refused me, sir. I was plain spoken and honest of my feelings and beliefs about why I thought we would suit. She disagrees, and showed a hasty temper, I might also add, that if this is a common defect of hers, I agree with her that she could not contribute much to my felicity.”

“Lizzy is only headstrong in such matters as these. In every thing else she is a good natured girl as ever lived,” Mrs. Bennet tried to placate Mr. Collins.

“Ha!” Mr. Bennet scoffed, tucking his hands behind his back. He began to walk out of the dining room, but his wife gave him chase, catching him in the vestibule.

“Mr. Bennet you must make Lizzy marry Mr. Collins! Tell her you insist upon her marrying him!” Mrs. Bennet said, pointing at their daughter who returned with her cloak affixed around her shoulders and another degradation in her hands, a walking cane.

“Tell her!” Mrs. Bennet begged.

Mr. Bennet raised an eyebrow at his grown daughter, dressed for another adventure outdoors. He had seen Elizabeth angry enough times to know she struggled with a temper not unlike her mother’s, only she sought control over the outbursts through activity.

“Where do you plan to go, my daughter?”

Elizabeth refused to meet his eye. “To see Father Graham.”

Mr. Bennet turned to his wife. “See, my dear, you drive our second eldest to seek a nunnery, are you yet satisfied?”

Mrs. Bennet fumed as her husband angered her. He approached Elizabeth and gave a small peck upon her cheek. “I shall send the carriage to collect you in an hour’s time,” he offered.

Elizabeth nodded and left he chaos and confusion of her home behind. The temperature had begun a turn for the cold, with the wind whipping up to occasional blusters. But she didn’t mind. She could not trek to her usual haunt up on Oakham Mount, but visiting the local parish, that lay just one mile away on the outskirts of Meryton was a suitable distance for her to walk. 

She stabbed the ground with ferocity with each step with her walking cane, understanding now why gentlemen made them an accessory of fashion. Believing her future to be a spinster old auntie, likely in Jane’s household, or perhaps with her mother, Heaven forbid, she chuckled at the idea of adopting the use of one at the earliest age possible. Canes were a perfectly adequate, comforting object when one needed to stew on one’s feelings.