by Jann Rowland
It was a mere three days later when Mrs. Bennet was teaching Eleanor that Elizabeth stepped into the room and observed them. As was her wont, Mrs. Bennet stopped her instruction and smiled at her daughter, but she was painfully aware of the fact that her daughter did not return the expression in any way.
“Eleanor,” called Elizabeth as she approached them, “I believe James and Henry are playing in the park. Would you like to join them?”
Mrs. Bennet’s sense of betrayal was keen when the child heaved a sigh of relief and, after curtseying hastily, scampered from the room to find her brothers. It was always this way—with some small words, Elizabeth would undo all of Mrs. Bennet’s hard work. She would never succeed in teaching her granddaughter all she needed to know. It was vexing!
The couch beside her moved, and Mrs. Bennet looked up to see Elizabeth had taken a seat. Mrs. Bennet was about to smile when she noticed the stern expression upon her daughter’s face. The beginnings of that smile then began to drain away, to be replaced with apprehension. Whatever could be displeasing Elizabeth now?
“Mama, I understand that you have been speaking with Eleanor much of late,” said Elizabeth without preamble. “May I ask what you have been discussing?”
Though she truly believed she needed to teach Eleanor better manners, Mrs. Bennet knew that to tell Elizabeth of her intentions would be a mistake. She therefore attempted to prevaricate:
“I have been listening to her tell me of her lessons. She is such a delightful and intelligent child, and I am enjoying her descriptions very much, I assure you.”
“She is very intelligent indeed,” responded Elizabeth. “But do all of these . . . discussions require the entirety of an afternoon to complete? Eleanor is a young child, and she should not be kept in the house for the whole day. She should have time to play and behave as a child.”
A squeal from outside punctuated Elizabeth’s words as Eleanor ran past the window, chasing her elder brothers. Mrs. Bennet did not like the manner in which this discussion was progressing, but there was nothing to be done about it.
“Perhaps not, but the little dear has so much to say that there is no stopping her once she begins.”
An elegant eyebrow rose at this assertion, and Mrs. Bennet felt her heart sink to the pit of her stomach.
“Mother,” said Elizabeth, her voice hard and unyielding, “I beg you not to think that I am witless. It is clear to me, both from my own observation and from what I have been told by our governess, that you have been attempting to . . . instruct Eleanor on what you consider to be ‘proper behavior.’”
“Well, it appears that I must do so since you . . .” Mrs. Bennet trailed off. She had been about to say, “Since you have filled her head with such romantic nonsense,” but she caught herself in time. Surely such a bold statement of censure would not be received with any cordial feelings by her most stubborn daughter. Instead, Mrs. Bennet said, “Since you have been so busy since arriving at Longbourn, it is only right that I should take on the task of seeing to your daughter’s education and proper comportment.”
A faint smile met Mrs. Bennet’s declaration, and she had the immediate sense that she had not fooled her daughter in the slightest with her prevarication. “There is nothing wrong with Eleanor’s comportment, Mother,” was Elizabeth’s response. “In any case, I am not so busy that I cannot teach my daughter how to act. Your attempts are admirable and appreciated but unnecessary. I will kindly ask you to cease.”
“Elizabeth!” wailed Mrs. Bennet, throwing all caution to the wind. “You surely must see that Eleanor requires guidance so that she may one day attract a husband. Since I have had very great success with most of my daughters, I feel that I am more than up to the task.”
“I am certain you feel that you are, but your assistance is not required. I will not allow you to make my daughter into the image of Lydia. Please desist.”
“What is wrong with my Lydia?” demanded Mrs. Bennet. She was becoming exceedingly cross with Elizabeth, and her crossness overrode her caution. “Lydia has caught herself a handsome husband—much more handsome than yours, I might add.”
Elizabeth was silent for some minutes, though her gaze was equal parts blazing anger and frosty displeasure. It was into this scene that Mr. Collins entered, and Mrs. Bennet felt a surge of relief that he had not entered only a few moments earlier—it would not do to offend the master of the estate, after all. Seeing his wife and mother-in-law in the room and exercising his customary lack of discernment, Mr. Collins began a long speech concerning his appreciation for the felicity and confidence subsisting between mother and daughter and his joy at finally being at Longbourn, where he and his family might enjoy the benefit of their estate and their position as one of the foremost families in the district. Mrs. Bennet did not truly listen to him, and she had the distinct impression that Elizabeth was paying him no more heed than she.
However, Elizabeth did not allow him to continue for long. “Mr. Collins,” said she, interrupting him in mid-sentence. “Should you not visit the parson of Longbourn church? I believe you have much wisdom which you could impart to him.”
Mr. Collins blinked once before he began to bow his way from the room. “You are quite right, my dear. I should have thought of that ere now, for though I am no longer an active member of the clergy, it would behoove me to ensure that the chapel and living is run in a manner which is beneficial not only to ourselves, but also to those of the parish. For as the late honorable Lady Catherine de Bourgh said, ‘You must involve yourself in the doings of your parish when you become a gentleman, Mr. Collins, for there is nothing worse than—’”
“Then we shall expect your return by the supper hour,” interrupted Elizabeth.
Cut off in the middle of his soliloquy, Mr. Collins bowed yet again before quitting the room in what Mrs. Bennet considered to be almost unseemly haste. Elizabeth, however, did not even once glance in his direction, and her disapproving glare did not wane.
“Perhaps your words regarding the relative handsomeness of our respective husbands are true, Mama,” said Elizabeth. “I could not say, not having ever met the man Lydia imprudently married. However, I believe that as I did not have any input into exactly who I married, I cannot be held accountable for choosing someone who did not meet your standards of comeliness. Moreover, given the manner in which Lydia ‘caught’ her husband, I cannot consider your efforts in that respect to be a success.”
“Whatever can you mean?” demanded Mrs. Bennet. “She is married—is that not what matters?”
“Not considering the fact that she disappeared, eloped with a man, and spent almost a week living with him unmarried before they finally found time to say their vows. Our family’s reputation suffered because of Lydia’s folly, but as she and her husband have been posted far from Hertfordshire, she has never had to put up with the consequences of her actions. We, her family, have had the great benefit of attempting to minimize the damage of Lydia’s imprudent and irresponsible behavior.
“And it is only by the greatest of fortune that Kitty was willing to be molded into displaying more proper behavior than Lydia. In that respect, the efforts put forth by both Jane and myself on Kitty’s behalf have, thankfully, been successful. If I had been given the opportunity, I would have taken Lydia to live at Hunsford, and I would have corrected her behavior myself. Unfortunately, Mr. Collins waxed eloquent on the behavior of your youngest, and Lady Catherine, fearing that Lydia would be of no credit to her parson or herself, refused to allow us to invite her to stay with us. Mr. Collins, as you are aware, was in no way capable of gainsaying his patroness, so Lydia was banned from our home. At least I was able to help Kitty.”
Mrs. Bennet was horror-struck. Had the great lady truly thought so ill of her youngest and most vivacious daughter?
“And you could not be troubled to defend your own sister?” Mrs. Bennet fairly shrieked.
“Do you truly think that I had any influence over my husband?” demanded Elizabeth. “
You are well aware of the reverence in which he held his late patroness. With her most excellent and condescending—and, may I say, ubiquitous—patronage and advice, why would you think, even for a moment, that he would give any credence to the words of the woman he married?”
Mrs. Bennet was able to detect the heavy sarcasm in her daughter’s voice as she spoke of her husband and his patroness.
“Regardless, Mother, I will not allow you to fill Eleanor’s head with frivolities and plans for catching a husband, not to mention those other nonsensical matters which you deem necessary for a young woman. She is a spirited yet sensible child, and she needs to be treated as such. I will not allow you to attempt to turn her into another Lydia.
“And I warn you, Mother, that if I ever hear the words ‘redcoat’ and ‘suitable husband’ issue from your mouth in the same sentence, I shall pack you off to the dowager cottage quicker than you can say ‘five thousand a year!’”
Now, that was a threat which made Mrs. Bennet sit up and take notice. The dowager cottage was a dingy little house with no more than three bedrooms, a tiny dining room with insufficient space to entertain, and the most dreadfully small sitting room on God’s green earth. Living there would be no less than a punishment!
“I wonder that Mr. Collins has put up with your impertinence all these years!” blurted Mrs. Bennet, without even thinking about the consequences of her words.
Elizabeth smiled most unpleasantly, tapping at her chin in thought. “I believe it is time you understood certain things,” said she at length. “Yes, I believe it is high time.”
Standing, Elizabeth went to the door of the sitting room and, after exchanging words with the housekeeper to the effect that she was not to be disturbed, closed the door firmly. When she returned, however, she did not sit beside her mother on the couch, as she had done before; instead, she chose to sit nearby in the high-backed chair. She leaned back in the chair, almost appearing to be a monarch sitting on her throne in judgment.
Mrs. Bennet began to feel uncomfortable as the silence stretched on, and she gained a sensation akin to that of a hare which had suddenly realized that the fox had determined that it should be its next meal.
Just when the silence was becoming unbearable, Elizabeth spoke. And though Elizabeth’s voice was quiet, her words alarmed Mrs. Bennet more and more the longer she continued to speak.
“You see, Mother, you do not seem to understand that I am now in charge and that your fate rests in my hands. And I assure you that I am not in the humor to be generous, considering the situation into which you have pushed me.”
“Indeed, I have pushed you!” cried Mrs. Bennet. “Without me, you would not be in this comfortable situation, and we would have been removed from our home!”
“A situation it is, but a comfortable one it is not,” was Elizabeth’s sardonic reply.
Mrs. Bennet could hardly understand to what her daughter was referring. Did she not wish to be married? Could she not understand the kind of life which would have awaited her if she had not married? Was she so deficient as to not understand that she really could not have expected much better than to be the mistress of Longbourn? She was not Jane, after all!
“You appear to have no comprehension of what I speak, Mother, so perhaps it would be of benefit to remind you of our history. For you see, I had no desire whatsoever to marry Mr. Collins, which should come as no surprise to you, considering my refusal of his suit and the subsequent uproar which resulted. Mr. Collins and I do not suit, you see, for I fancy myself to be quite intelligent and sensible, whereas Mr. Collins is stupid and vexing. Given the similar union to which I was a daily witness, I had no desire to enter into so unequal a marriage.”
To Mrs. Bennet, Elizabeth’s words sounded suspiciously like a censure of her own marriage with her departed husband, but Elizabeth did not allow her any time to think on the matter.
“But you pushed and badgered me, screeching and moaning and wailing as if the sky had fallen, even after I refused him for the fifth time. And finally, though I would have preferred to have done anything else in the world, I agreed to do my duty and save the family. Why it should have fallen to me rather than my parents, who were responsible for us all, I do not know. I suppose I shall have to attribute it to my father’s lack of willingness to bestir himself from his library and my mother’s lack of anything resembling sense.
“Therefore,” continued Elizabeth over Mrs. Bennet’s offended protestations, “I was married and joined my husband in Kent. And I must tell you, Mother, that those first five years of my marriage were the most miserable years of my life. On the one hand, I had my sycophantic twit of a husband, who listened to nothing I said and considered the words of his shrewish and meddling old crone of a patroness to be the very words of God. On the other, I had the patroness herself, ‘advising’ me on everything from the proper amount of poultry to purchase to how the furniture in my home was to be situated. And nothing was beneath her notice, I assure you. There is a reason why Mr. Collins and I were able to create three children in the first five years of our marriage, though there have curiously not been any since.”
Mrs. Bennet was almost feeling ill. Lady Catherine having an interest in such things could not have boded well for a marriage. Once Mrs. Bennet had given up hope for a son, barring her husband from her bedchamber had been one of her first actions, and she had never been so relieved as when she was able to forego her wifely duties. And Mr. Bennet had not seemed unhappy to be relieved of his duties either.
“But do you know what happened then?” demanded Elizabeth.
When Mrs. Bennet shook her head, Elizabeth continued. “A miracle happened, Mama. Lady Catherine de Bourgh, the meddlesome and overbearing witch and bane of my existence, had the decency to die. As far as I am able to determine, it was the only decent thing she did throughout the entirety of her life!”
“Elizabeth!” yelped Mrs. Bennet. “How dare you speak in such a glib manner of the departed?”
“I am certain that Lady Catherine does not care. She was the kind of lady who knew everything but understood very little, and I do not doubt that anything that I, a mere parson’s wife, said would be of no consequence to her.
“So, as I was saying, Lady Catherine died, and I discovered a peculiar thing about my husband. You see, Mr. Collins was raised by a miserly man who kept him very firmly under his control, and once Mr. Collins left his home to make his own way in the world, he unconsciously searched for others who would tell him what to do. Lady Catherine was only the latest in his quest to find someone to direct him. In fact, my husband is emotionally incapable of making decisions for himself; indeed, he requires constant guidance from others if he is to make even the simplest of choices.
“And this is where I found my salvation. For I must tell you, Mama, that there were many times in the early years of my marriage when I considered the relative benefits of drowning my husband in his own porridge as opposed to continuing to spend my life in such demeaning circumstances. My children were my only salvation during those years; I am convinced that I should otherwise have gone mad.
“But when Lady Catherine left this world, everything changed. Suddenly, Mr. Collins was adrift without a rudder, and once I perceived his needs, I provided that rudder. I was quick to insert myself as someone whom he could rely upon to tell him what to do, and my life was changed, for though I was still married to an imbecile, at least he was not demeaning me constantly based on the advice of his equally imbecilic patroness.”
Mrs. Bennet felt the icy fingers of a winter gale pass through her as she listened to her daughter. Elizabeth had been distant since her arrival, but now she was behaving in a downright unfriendly manner, and her claim of controlling Mr. Collins was beginning to make a certain sense, given the way the man behaved around his wife.
“Mr. Collins listens to me for everything, Mama,” continued Elizabeth. “I have become the new Lady Catherine in his life, and he does whatever I tell him. Therefore, I run Longbou
rn and have control of the estate. Whatever suggestions I give to Mr. Collins are expediently carried out, I assure you.”
“But what shall the families of the neighborhood say?” fretted Mrs. Bennet. “It is most improper for a woman to run an estate. You shall be censured for such behavior.”
“I think you give a little too much credence to such things, Mama. Lady Catherine herself controlled Rosings for many years, and there are other women who manage their own estates, either because they have not married, or because their own husbands have departed from this world.”
“But those ladies you mentioned have all lost their husbands or at least have not had a husband to rely upon. Of course they must manage their estates. You have a husband!”
“Do not concern yourself, Mama,” said Elizabeth with a wave of her hand. “No one shall even suspect that I am making the decisions. Mr. Collins believes that my suggestions are merely that, though he carries them out with alacrity regardless. I allow him to continue to repeat whatever Lady Catherine says, as it gives him comfort, but when I give him advice, he is often known to expound upon how thoughtful I am and how Lady Catherine would have said exactly the same thing. It is quite nauseating, really, when you consider how much I despised Lady Catherine and how diametrically opposed our opinions were on just about any subject. Still, Mr. Collins wishes to revere Lady Catherine, and other than having to listen to him prattle on about her, I find it really does not affect me, so I allow it. It is not as though I wish him to repeat whatever I say almost verbatim in any case—let Lady Catherine have that privilege.
