The book with which it all began: A Pride and Prejudice Variation

by Nicky Roth

  Thoughtfully Elizabeth gazed at the man before her. What an enigma he was!

  “Yes, there is Mrs. Gardiner, who is my aunt.”

  “The one who is living in Gracechurch Street?”

  She was all astonishment. How odd he should remember her aunt’s and uncle’s address.

  “Yes, the very one. She can be trusted, and if you give her an indication of what our correspondence is about will not refuse her help, I am sure.”

  “Very well then. Are you prepared for whatever might be lurking behind this door?”

  Again she nodded and Darcy turned the key, yet feeling everything but prepared.

  As he stepped out into the hallway only the sound of distant music reached her ears. The door closed and a moment later there were three light taps, sounding clearly in her ears nonetheless.

  They had gotten out of this unscathed. What a miracle!

  Slipping out of the room herself she followed the sounds of the ball room and went in search for Jane, the only person whom she could bear to face at this moment. Little was she surprised to find her dearest sister engaged in a conversation with Miss Bingley. Caroline Bingley smiled and spoke animatedly, but her smile did not reach her eyes and as Elizabeth drew nearer she could hear the topic was chosen carefully to belittle each and every one of their neighbourhood and friends.

  “You know, dearest Jane, this is nothing in comparison to a private ball in London, but I could convince Charles that it was hardly necessary to have anything more than people around here would expect of such an event, which is but little judging by the assembly in Meryton we had the pleasure of attending. After all there are very few really elegant people around here, and as it is everybody seems quite impressed by our arrangements.”

  Had she called their neighbours ‘country bumpkins’, her meaning could not have been clearer.

  “Oh, Miss Eliza, I have been wondering where you went to.” Caroline carried on as soon as she had spotted her.

  “I fear I have a slight headache. I went to sit down for a while in a more quiet part of the house.”

  This was not even a lie. The increasingly bad air in the ball room had given her a headache indeed within minutes of re-entering it.

  “A headache? How very unfortunate! But why did you not say so, Cousin Elizabeth?”

  In an instant Mr. Collins was by her side having just finished dancing with Lydia as he had not had the chance to do so previously. But his honour had absolutely not permitted, to not dance at least once with all of his fair cousins. Behind him his unwilling partner rubbed her chins demonstratively, only refraining from sticking out her tongue at her cousin’s back at seeing her sisters watched her with a certain kind of foreboding sternness.

  To Elizabeth’s great surprise Mr. Collins gently took her by her arm and led her over to a seat beside an opened window, the curtains billowing in the late autumn breeze.

  “There, I hope you will feel better. Would you like me to get you something to drink?”

  Accepting his offer he hurried off. Odd, these were the first few sentences he had spoken without referring to Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Watching him cross the room, Elizabeth saw him addressing Charlotte Lucas as he passed her. Her friend smiled, then nodded and came towards her.

  “Mr. Collins said you do not feel too well?”

  “Oh Charlotte it is nothing but a slight headache. I tried to relieve it but then thought I might be missed and returned. You need not worry.”

  “But worry I did. You know shortly after you have excused yourself Mr. Darcy left the table as well and has not been seen since. I was wondering if you had met with him, perhaps. Have you?”

  Staring at her friend she felt yet another blush rise to her cheeks.

  “Charlotte, what are you implying?” Elizabeth cried out with no small amount of distress.

  “Oh Lizzy, you really must feel unwell if you cannot see that I am teasing you. You of all people, who so much likes to tease herself.”

  “I am sorry, but you are right. I seem to feel more unwell than I had initially thought. Hopefully the ball will end soon so I can go home and lie down. I am quite exhausted.”

  She chanced at the candles which were now nearly burned down and as the music ended and the dancers had bowed to one another, Caroline Bingley announced the end of the ball in as polite a manner as she could bring herself to adapt.

  The Bennet’s were the last of all the guests to leave, as somehow Mrs. Bennet had managed to delay the arrival of their carriage by a full fifteen minutes. But at long last they had reached Longbourn House and soon all of them had gone to bed.

  As often was their habit Elizabeth and Jane shared their room, though each of them had their own little chamber. But till now, no matter how tired they had been after such an event, they still had chatted on for some minutes about their most delightful experiences.

  Tonight however it was only Jane who had such to share.

  ‘Not that my half hour encounter with Mr. Darcy was an unpleasant one, but it needs too much explaining for so early an hour.’ Elizabeth thought to herself, while listening to Jane’s humble hopes regarding her future.

  “Mother said she would not be surprised if Mr. Bingley were to call later in the day. But I cannot believe it, it is too soon. Too much besides.”

  “My dearest Jane, you are too modest. He is so violently in love with you, I am most surprised he did not declare his intentions at the ball already.”

  Then something Mr. Darcy had said came to mind.

  “But you might be right in assuming he will not come today, as Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy are to leave for London on the morrow.”

  This thoughtlessly spoken information puzzled Jane, but at last too tired to carry on with their conversation she did not enquire any further and soon was asleep.

  The sun rose to a frosty November morning, turned into an equally frosty November day and only in the early afternoon did the household began to stir again, Elizabeth and Jane being the first to rise alongside their cousin and father.

  It was on a reflective walk through the small park of Longbourn that thus Elizabeth met with Mr. Collins. Walking silently by her side he eventually addressed her, his words obviously practised beforehand.

  “Cousin Elizabeth, you cannot, I am sure, be unaware of the great attention I have shown towards you off late and neither of the great admiration I hold for you. When I have come here it was on the demand of my noble patroness Lady Catherine de Bourgh, that I shall find a wife and marry as soon as propriety allows.” Mr. Collins began, a silly self-assured smile on his face. “ Thus my plight cannot come as surprise to you, I am sure. But almost from the moment of my arrival I have singled you out as the future companion of my life. I am of course aware of your meagre prospects and that you will bring nothing into the marriage apart from a few hundred Pounds, but as this has been said now I will keep silent on this subject from now on and thus ask you for your fair hand in marriage.”

  Chapter 4

  His offer had come as no surprise there he was right, but still Elizabeth had hoped it would not come at all to the last. As it seemed though, after her lucky escape the previous night, luck was no longer on her side.

  Bracing herself for what was to come she stopped to face him, her mind reeling with indignation, pity, disgust and amusement. She would be firm, she would be honest, but she also would try to be kind in her rejection of him.

  “Mr. Collins, I thank you for your offer, but alas I have to decline it. I cannot possibly marry you. You might admire me at present, but you hold no real affection for me and neither do I for you. As it is my firmest belief however, that a marriage without affection or at least a lasting regard for one another is but a miserable one, I cannot answer you any differently. My answer is ‘No’!”

  Collins stared at her in apparent astonishment. His mouth opened and closed several times as if he were a fish out of water, but at last a broad smile spread across his face and lit up his watery blue eyes, makin
g them shine in an almost endearing manner.

  “I thank you, Cousin Elizabeth. I thank you so much!”

  Taking her hand he bowed over it and kissed it, leaving his cousin utterly confused. The man seemed so overjoyed by her rejection she could not but wonder about it. Had he even heard what she had said? And if so, did he register what she had told him? After all he was not the cleverest of men.

  “Mr. Collins, you do realise I have refused you, do you not?”

  He looked up from her hand which he still held, his own hands surprisingly warm and smooth. He was still beaming at her as if what she had said was the most wonderful thing in the world to him.

  “Yes, my dearest cousin I have heard you perfectly well, and I have also registered what it was you have just told me. You have rejected my offer of marriage. And it is this which makes me such a happy man.”

  “My refusal makes you happy?”

  Elizabeth’s astonishment could not have been greater had he grown a second head. His reaction to her decline was indeed most peculiar.

  “You are right of course, that while I admire your wit and beauty, that I do not love you for my heart belongs to another, Cousin Elizabeth.”

  She gaped at him in a most unladylike manner, then smiled till her smile turned into a laugh.

  “You love another?!”

  He merely nodded and never before had she liked Mr. Collins as much as she did now. All his pompousness had left him and instead there stood a humble man with an open and happy smile on his round, clean shaven face. A face that held little attraction to Elizabeth, but which at this instance still grew on her. For the second time within four and twenty hours a man she had thought to have made out completely, had surprised her, had shown her that perhaps she judged to rashly. And after all there still was the as yet unresolved issue over Lieutenant George Wickham.

  One question came to mind however: “But if you love another, then why Mr. Collins did you ask for MY hand in marriage.”

  Sighing theatrically he led her to a small bench underneath a tree and bid her to sit down next to him. Taking off his hat and running his fingers through his hair thoughtfully he began explaining: “It was on Lady Catherine’s recommendation I should seek a wife from amongst my fair cousins. She is very attentive to all kinds of things and I am most fortunate in her patronage, but I have found lately that a heart cannot be ruled by anybody. Not by me, not by you, and certainly not by Lady Catherine on demand.”

  Here Elizabeth had to chuckle.

  “Yes, I know you think me silly and perhaps I am, but I am not blind, Cousin Elizabeth. I know my noble patroness can have a rather pedantic and overbearing air about her and yet, at the same time she is kind and attentive to each and everyone around her and most generous in everything she does. It is the way she is and I appreciate her for it. She has little else to occupy herself with and as it is, I am of the deepest conviction that she deserves my praise to the fullest and I have no objection to give it freely and plentiful. But alas, I admittedly dreaded facing her having to admit that I explicitly went against her wishes. Now that you have refused me, what can she possibly have to say?”

  “So I can be the scapegoat?” she teased.

  “It is not as if it will be likely that you should meet her. At least not any time soon, I should imagine.” he answered good naturedly.

  They conversed a while longer till at last Mr. Collins excused himself and left, venturing towards the street but not without taking the single white rose with him which alone had survived the frost of the increasingly cold nights. Elizabeth wondered where he might be going, but her heart was too full of joy to be much intrigued by it.

  As she entered the house however, her mother in a flurry of excitement ran towards her, embracing her and kissing her.

  “Oh my child, my child! I knew you would save the family from certain ruin. And look how happy you are.”

  It took Elizabeth the blink of an eye before she knew what Mrs. Bennet was on about. Of course she had known about Mr. Collins’ intentions, but obviously not about his designs. It was several minutes till at last Elizabeth had a chance to speak as her mother chattered on and on, going from wedding clothes to imagining how the parsonage at Hunsford would look like, how Lady Catherine and if the roads were awful to travel, till returning to the topic of her daughters trousseau and the wedding clothes again.

  “Mama!” Elizabeth at last cried out in alarm. “Mama, I am not going to marry Mr. Collins and he does not wish to marry me either.”

  “What nonsense!” her mother reproached her. “Of course he wants to marry you, he has said so himself. He has asked where you were as he had a very important question he would like to ask you and of course this can only mean one thing.”

  Her mother went on like this for a good half hour, before Elizabeth was relieved by the appearance of her father.

  “Mrs. Bennet, for heavens sake what is the matter?”

  “Lizzy has refused to marry Mr. Collins!”

  “Has she, now?” Mr. Bennet, oblivious of what had been going on looked slightly confused at this declaration.

  “Yes, and I insist that you make her marry him!” his wife went on.

  “And pray, where is Mr. Collins? He seems conspicuously absent.”

  As if she had only become aware of this now, Mrs. Bennet frantically began looking about her, then called out for him on the top of her voice before she hurried through every room of the house in search of the absent man.

  “Come here, Lizzy!” Mr. Bennet beckoned his daughter, and opening the library door bid her to sit down in front of his desk.

  “From your expression I can see that something of the sort has occurred, so would you kindly inform me what exactly?”

  Elizabeth began to lay out the most extraordinary events of the last two hours and with a sarcastic smirk Mr. Bennet nodded his approval.

  “I would have never forgiven you had you accepted this man, Lizzy. There is yet another thing, I would like to ask you about. I have spend half the night and pretty much all of today in contemplation about it, but could not bring myself to come to a conclusion as I fear I may not like it very much.”

  Taking off his glasses and rubbing his face his expression turned more serious than it had before, the wry smile which only moments ago had graced his lips, gone. With something akin to alarm Elizabeth watched the change in her father, knowing that the question would not be a pleasant one.

  “Last night I have noticed that you left the supper table.”

  She nodded for him to continue.

  “Shortly after Mr. Darcy also left.”

  “I would not know.”

  “Would you not? As it was I also happened to leave supper and incidentally saw you slip into a vacated room. However, on my way back I met Sir William and exchanged a few words with him. But I am sure that while I did so, I saw Mr. Darcy enter the same room you had entered.”

  Chapter 5

  Elizabeth did not know what to answer or even where to look. Lie to her father she could not, but to tell him the truth would be equally impossible. But before she could find a solution to her dilemma, her father with an expression of deepest woe, carried on.

  “When Sir William Lucas left me I thought I might just as well have a look, lest I might have been imagining things. I went to enter the room likewise but found it to be locked.”

  His gaze now was scrutinizing, and still Elizabeth could not bring herself to confide in her father. Nothing untoward had happened, unless the book she had read counted as such. Pictures of it came to mind, pictures which had followed her into her dreams. Dreams that had been so vivid, she blushed at the remembrance of them. Though she had hardly ever touched a man’s bare skin, her imagination had run wild and she realised with some mortification what man she had imagined to be with in her sleep. Now she blushed under the intense stare of her father as if he could read her mind. A father she suddenly realised, who must have committed the very same act at least five times to have
produced his five daughters. The thought was somewhat disturbing, but not as disturbing as the information which followed.

  “Of course I went in search of you in the hopes of having missed your exiting the room. But I could not find you anywhere.”

  There was a decided tint of reproach in Mr. Bennet’s voice and the ensuing silence hung heavy between them.

  “Now my child, what have you to say to this?” Mr. Bennet spoke not unkindly, yet in a way which showed he would not tolerate any obstinacy.

  “I do not quite know where to begin, father.” Elizabeth stammered, uncertain how to put her words. “I sought nothing but a bit of peace and quiet and...”

  “And found ruin?”

  “Father!”

  “You cannot tell me Mr. Darcy is too much of a gentleman that he would not make any advances on you. Not behind a locked door. He also was not quite sober, if I remember correctly, his stance was off and his gait was staggering.”

  “As you are well aware, Mr. Darcy finds me merely tolerable. But I do admit that I consider him a close acquaintance.”

  “A friend?”

  “Almost, perhaps.”

  Mr. Bennet’s gaze became even more intense at this confession. What his feelings were at this point was hard to make out. Pinching the bridge of his nose he sighed, at a momentary loss for words. When the silence became too much to bear, Elizabeth carried on, anger rising within her.

  “Mr. Darcy has not taken a flyer[2] with me, if that is what...”

  The words had not left her lips when she realised her mistake. Her hands flew up to her mouth in an attempt to keep any more carelessly spoken words from escaping her. Her father however, with an expression of complete shock had jumped to his feet so quickly he almost lost his footing. Darn this stupid book! Darn her perceptibility! Why, oh why did this euphemism had to slip from her mouth? Before last night she had never known it and yet it had got stuck in her mind.