Implacable Resentment

by Jann Rowland

  “Perhaps you should introduce me to the servants, Mr. Collins,” said Elizabeth, not wishing to allow him to become lost in the raptures of lauding his patroness.

  “Of course, my dear.”

  The servants, which consisted of a pair of maids, a manservant, and the cook—the last of whom was a woman of the village employed to come to the parsonage and prepare Mr. Collins’s meals—all welcomed their new mistress, and though Elizabeth could not call her mood the best, she attempted to be kind to them. Having the servants’ support could only be beneficial, and she did not wish to antagonize them.

  When the introductions were out of the way, Mr. Collins dismissed the servants to go about their various tasks, instructing the cook to have the dinner meal delivered to the table within the next hour. He then proceeded to lead Elizabeth into the house, taking the opportunity to display his house with all the silliness she had come to expect of him. Just as he had exclaimed over every item that his eyes fell across at Longbourn, so he described in minute detail every chair, couch, and book which they came upon, clearly trying to impress her with the comfort of his situation. Elizabeth, of course, could only gape at the insensitivity of his actions.

  “Mr. Collins, should we not prepare for dinner?” asked Elizabeth once his effusions had sapped her patience to the point where she could not remain silent any longer.

  Gaping at her as if astonished by the fact that she would interrupt his monologue, his ruddy face began to take on a scowl, so Elizabeth again spoke up:

  “You did request dinner for an hour after our arrival, did you not? By my count, we are rapidly approaching that time.”

  “Of course, you are correct, my dear,” said Mr. Collins. “How clever of you to remember.”

  “In that case, I shall retire to my room and change,” said Elizabeth. With a swirl of her skirts, she turned and left him, catching a glimpse of his surprise that she would summarily dismiss him.

  Finding that her belongings had been placed in the master’s room, Elizabeth immediately commissioned the manservant to move them to the next bedchamber, which the man did without comment, though his eyes bespoke his surprise. Elizabeth ignored it; she wished for the servants’ good will, but she would obtain that by treating them with kindness and respect. If she could induce their loyalty, perhaps she could also induce them to refrain from gossip.

  Though Elizabeth thought to simply refuse to go to dinner with the man, she knew that until she was able to extricate herself from his house, she would have to continue to act in a cordial manner. Thus, with the help of one of the maids, she removed her gray dress and changed into a plain evening gown, cursing Mr. Collins for having blathered on so long that she had no time to bathe the dust of the road from her body.

  “Would you like your hair done up again?” asked the maid who was assisting her.

  Elizabeth regarded herself in the looking glass, and after deciding that she was presentable—and that she had no wish to appear to best advantage in front of the man with whom she would be dining—she declined. “It shall do.”

  Though the maid appeared perplexed, she made no comment. “Shall you require my services afterward?”

  Turning, Elizabeth smiled at the girl, who appeared only a few years older than she was. “I am sorry, but I do not remember your name?”

  “Jessica, madam.”

  “Thank you, Jessica. I appreciate your assistance. Would it be possible for bath water to be drawn so that I may wash after dinner?”

  The maid smiled. “I believe so, Mrs. Collins. I will inform Tom, the manservant. It will be ready by the time you have returned.”

  “Thank you, Jessica,” said Elizabeth, grasping the girl’s hands in thanks. It was irksome to be addressed with the odious man’s name, but Elizabeth decided that she would not ask be addressed otherwise. If she was able to escape, there would be enough gossip as it was. She did not wish to increase it by asking the girl to call her by name.

  Mr. Collins was waiting in the dining parlor, and he greeted her in his typical way when she arrived:

  “Mrs. Collins, you are indeed a vision of loveliness tonight. I count myself the most fortunate of men, for I believe that Lady Catherine herself would pronounce you more than handsome enough to adorn the arm of her parson. I welcome you to dinner on the first night of our married lives.” Mr. Collins bowed low.

  “But before we begin, I have a matter I would discuss with you.” Mr. Collins paused and looked at her with an expression which was unusually grave. “I noted that your belongings had been moved from our bedchamber into one of the guest chambers. Surely you do not mean to sleep in separate beds.”

  “Is that not what is normally done, Mr. Collins?” asked Elizabeth. “You are aware that most gentlemen sleep in different chambers from their wives. I assumed you would want to be fashionable since you will eventually join the ranks of landed gentlemen.”

  It was several moments before Mr. Collins’s confusion and displeasure changed to pensiveness. “Indeed, I had not considered the matter. Of course, you are correct. And I suppose that, having lived in your own room for many years, you would be eager to retain your own chamber. How intelligent of you to have thought of it!”

  “Thank you, Mr. Collins,” said Elizabeth, ruthlessly suppressing any show of amusement.

  “I suppose it shall not be any great impediment. After all, the doors to our respective chambers are a matter of a few feet apart. The distance is negligible!”

  “A happy thought, indeed,” murmured Elizabeth.

  With a great show of solicitousness, Mr. Collins pulled her chair out and saw her seated before taking his own seat, all the while a vacuous grin of anticipation engraved upon his face.

  At his signal, the servant brought in the meal, and the two began to dine.

  To be more correct, Mr. Collins began to stuff food in his mouth as was his wont, while Elizabeth, nervous and wondering how she could avoid her married duties, was able to eat only a few bites.

  “This is a banquet fit for a king!” enthused Mr. Collins as he savored each morsel. “I must thank Lady Catherine on the morrow for insisting upon just what the menu would consist of this night.”

  Elizabeth shook her head with a grim frown upon her face which she ensured was unseen by the parson. She might not have bothered, for all the attention the man was paying her.

  “And her ladyship also suggested this particular vintage of wine,” continued the parson as he grasped the bottle sitting on the table and presented it for her to look at. “She was most insistent that this particular vintage would be helpful in setting the mood for our activities later tonight. ‘Mr. Collins,’ said she, ‘you must be very solicitous of your wife on your first night with her. The proper vintage will allow her to relax and ease her worries of the unknown. As the daughter of a gentleman, she will have been given little instruction of what passes between man and woman once they are joined in holy matrimony.’”

  It was true that the parson delivered her ladyship’s words in his typical pompous manner, but Elizabeth thought that his patroness’s words actually appeared to contain a modicum of sense for once. As a sheltered young woman, Elizabeth had only a basic understanding of the marriage act, and she imagined she would be nervous even if this was a true marriage with a man she trusted and loved.

  But these thoughts passed through her mind in moments, as her attention was caught by the bottle of wine which Mr. Collins was brandishing as if it was a spear. The liquid eddied about in the bottle, its deep red color seeming almost the color of blood to Elizabeth in her heightened sense of alarm. But it also seemed to represent her salvation on that night.

  For the next hour as they ate, Mr. Collins kept up a steady monologue about anything which came to his mind. As always, his comments centered heavily on his patroness, but he also spoke concerning his situation, the people Elizabeth would meet, and the happy situation of the parsonage, interspersing all this with his expectations of how she would come to appreciate
her position and be of use to the people whose welfare he oversaw.

  Elizabeth was not as annoyed by the sound of his voice as she normally would be, for as Mr. Collins droned on, he consumed vast amounts of food and, with it, the wine in the bottle. He never noticed that Elizabeth did not drink a drop of the liquid. He also did not notice that whenever the amount in his glass ebbed, Elizabeth would refill it, making certain to ensure that he was never without a steady supply of the red liquid.

  Though she would not have thought it possible, either Mr. Collins was less able to hold his drink than she would have thought, or the vintage he had procured was far more potent than Elizabeth would have suspected. For as he ate, his words slowed and slurred, and in the end, his head dropped to the table. Before long, a loud snore rent the air and assaulted her ears.

  Rising from her seat, Elizabeth considered the man, wondering if she should have the manservant haul him off to his bed or leave him there to snore beside the remains of his beef and potatoes. And though she would rather do nothing at all, she decided that it would not do for a new wife to show so little consideration for her husband.

  But she would not help him herself. He deserved no such consideration from her. So she left him there, returning to her room and the bath which awaited her, grateful that she had been successful in putting the man off. Now she had only to figure out how to do it until she was able to make her escape.

  Chapter XVII

  The next morning, Elizabeth stirred from her sleep after a fitful night to hear the chatting of birds and the blowing of the breeze outside the window of the bedroom. The house was quiet and still, and though she was well aware of where she was the instant she awoke, she could almost imagine that she was back in her uncle’s house and that at any moment her aunt would enter the room and lovingly awake her from her slumber. Would that it was true and not simply fantasy.

  With these pleasant thoughts, she opened her eyes, noting that it was still early. Due to the lateness of the season, the sun had not yet arisen, though its rays had begun to lighten the late gray November sky. As the sky lightened, Elizabeth considered her situation. The previous evening, she had been able to manage Collins with almost laughable ease, but she knew it would not always be so. The man was a fool, but though he might be convinced of her eagerness in the confines of his own small mind, Elizabeth knew the longer she demurred, the more suspicious he would become. While she was by no means bereft of thoughts on how to avoid the man, not much time would pass before she would either have to leave or affect an annulment.

  Much, she decided, depended on Mr. Darcy, the man who should even now be in the business of courting her. Elizabeth was almost certain Mr. Darcy would follow her to Kent. She based this belief on her certainty that he was not only in love with her, but that he would also not take kindly to being defeated by a man such as Collins. Male bravado could be a powerful ally for her. And though Elizabeth truly felt that Mr. Darcy was the man with whom she would be happy spending the rest of her life, she was not ungrateful for the thought that defeating her father’s scheming might be a prime motivating factor in Mr. Darcy’s actions.

  If Mr. Darcy eschewed any further contact, then she would need to move on her own. She was confident that she could obtain an annulment when the full facts of her father’s actions became known, but the trouble would be in gaining an audience before someone who would be able to take the steps that she, as a woman, could not. She had an idea or two about how to do this, and if Mr. Darcy did not come soon, then she would put them into motion without him.

  Such actions would not be necessary, she decided as she threw back the counterpane and sat up in her bed. She was certain he would come. The thought of how she had last seen him, his hair blowing in the wind as he stood beside his large stallion and watched her as she returned to Longbourn—that look was not one which a man gave to a woman in whom he had a merely slight inclination. Mr. Darcy would come. Elizabeth would only be required to maintain her patience until he was able to arrive.

  Sighing with regret at her predicament, Elizabeth rose and dressed herself, tying her hair back in a simple knot. She decided to go outside to take a quick walk through the park around the house. Though the sun had not risen over the horizon and the air was a little cool from the wind, Elizabeth found herself invigorated by the exercise and determined that she would do this every morning, if only to allow her some time away from the detested parson.

  Finally, as the sun broke over the line of trees to the west, Elizabeth stood and faced it, watching its rise. The magnificent sight of the rise of the fiery orb as it cast its rays upon the land below like a lover’s kiss inspired her, and for a brief moment it helped her to forget her current situation and enjoy the varied wonders of nature.

  It was much later by the time Elizabeth made her way inside, as she had found a bench and sat gazing at her surroundings for some time in wonder. She had to acknowledge Mr. Collins lived in a beautiful locale.

  When she finally returned to the house, it was to a sight which was so comical that she had to put a hand in front of her mouth to stifle a snicker from escaping. There, in the entrance, stood the heavyset form of her husband.

  Mr. Collins was obviously not well that morning, as his bloodshot eyes, the wet cloth he held to his forehead, and his frequent moans of pain would attest. Elizabeth felt not one iota of sympathy for the man; he had received much less than he deserved, she was certain.

  “Mrs. Collins,” said he as soon as he espied her entering the house, “I must . . . That is to say, I feel ashamed . . . I cannot apologize enough for my behavior last night, madam.”

  “In what way, Mr. Collins?” said Elizabeth as she took off her gloves and handed her pelisse to one of the maids who attended her.

  “Why, for neglecting you!” cried the parson, though he immediately moaned due to the pain which the outburst had caused in his throbbing head.

  “Perhaps we should take this to a more private setting,” suggested Elizabeth. Without waiting for a reply, she turned and began to walk toward the dining room, where she was followed by Mr. Collins’s muted words: “Indeed, you are correct, my dear.”

  Privately, Elizabeth could not imagine that such a dullard as William Collins could possibly exist, and she might never have believed it had she not had the proof of the man shuffling behind her.

  Upon entering the dining room, Elizabeth took her seat and began to spoon breakfast items on her plate, noting with distaste that Mr. Collins apparently preferred the same type of heavy breakfast foods as her family. Shaking her head, Elizabeth made a note to herself to speak with the cook to order some of the lighter fare that was her preference. She was, at least for now, mistress of the parsonage, and she saw no reason why she should have to suffer through the kind of meals which made William Collins so rotund.

  At the head of the table, her husband eased into his chair, wincing at the movement and the sound of her utensils clinking against the dishes. It was only after a moment’s consideration that Elizabeth refrained from deliberately making more of a racket, deciding that she had already compromised enough of her principles. She would not be deliberately cruel, regardless of how much the man in question deserved it.

  “As I was saying,” said Mr. Collins, pressing the wet cloth tightly onto his forehead, “I must apologize for the manner in which I over-imbibed last night. At the time, I had no idea how much wine I was consuming, I assure you.”

  “You did not?” asked Elizabeth, though inwardly she was laughing at the man’s absurdity.

  “I assure you, no. I have often found that the pleasure one feels at the moment of imbibing can in no way compensate for the effects one is subjected to afterward. Furthermore, Lady Catherine herself has seen fit to instruct me on the matter. In her usual condescending way, she explained that over-indulgence is for the lower masses, stating that those of us who inhabit a higher plane must of a necessity behave in such a manner as to display our superiority. If we do not, then we are no bett
er than those over whom we have authority. I have never before behaved in such a manner, I must assure you in a most animated fashion.”

  Those words confirmed all of Elizabeth’s suspicions. Lady Catherine was a nosy busybody who considered herself to be above all others. Elizabeth already knew exactly what manner of woman she would be introduced to, and she suspected that she would be meeting the woman before much time had passed.

  “But what I most regret, my dear Elizabeth,” continued Mr. Collins, “is that I have disappointed you. I certainly never imagined that my wedding night would proceed in such a fashion, and I am certain that you are of like mind. I must give you my most abject apology for offending and upsetting your delicate sensibilities.”

  Elizabeth stifled a giggle into her hand and turned to Mr. Collins. “I am not at all offended, sir, nor am I disappointed. The wedding night proceeded in a most agreeable fashion, as I am both rested and comfortable.”

  “You are universally charming!” cried Mr. Collins, reaching out for her hand and, grasping it clumsily, depositing a sloppy kiss on its back.

  Elizabeth glared at him and snatched her hand away, rubbing at it with her handkerchief.

  “I promise you that I shall not behave thus in the future.” A smile of anticipation came over the man’s face. “In fact, since I believe that I shall be recovered by this evening, we may start anew as soon as may be.”

  Watching him coolly, Elizabeth replied, “There is no need to concern yourself with me, Mr. Collins. I assure you that I am quite content.

  “In fact, I have heard that wine is very beneficial. Perhaps you should take to drinking it every night with dinner for the purpose of improving your health.”

  Though Mr. Collins was clearly perplexed by her observation, he shook his head, producing another wince which was calmed by his damp cloth. “I assure you that I have no desire to do so. Not only am I bound to do as my patroness instructs, I am also greatly anticipating our connubial bliss. I am certain we shall be very happy together.”