Mary B

by Katherine J. Chen

  Perhaps this is why I prefer reading to any other activity. When one reads, one is forced to look down at the words, and the imperfections of the face become less noticeable due to the angle of one’s head. More so, the act of reading is a silent rebellion. To read in the presence of company is a most convenient excuse for not partaking in conversation. The book is a better tool than the piano in this regard. If you play and sing, then visitors are expected to listen, to applaud, and to compliment you on your so-called accomplishments. But if you are sitting behind your sisters and occupied with a book, it is as if to say to the guest, “I would rather spend time with the litigious husbands, gamblers, and spendthrifts of this novel than with you, dear sir, even if you had no interest in wooing me in the first place.”

  I remember these things and share them so others will know there lived a passionate spirit behind my oftentimes taciturn exterior. I, too, hoped quietly for romance and also for marriage as much as any of my sisters did. However, the discrepancies of nature, which would give blessings to some and none to others, had reduced me to the pitiable role of a living corpse. For my whole life, I had been adequately clothed and fed. I enjoyed my family’s protection. But I remained largely ignored, even to the point of being forgotten.

  * * *

  —

  MR. WILLIAM COLLINS arrived at Longbourn precisely a week after my nineteenth birthday. It was a fine afternoon in the middle of November, and his modest curricle was fortunately spotted from a distance by one of the household, providing us with ample time to prepare ourselves for the occasion of receiving him. By the time the horses reached Longbourn, we had been arranged for some minutes in a neat and elegant formation on the drive. The effect of this sight was not lost on our esteemed guest and, mindful of the honor paid to him, he returned our efforts with many delighted flourishes of his wide-brimmed hat as he traveled up the path to the house. With a boyish jump that belied his twenty-five years of age, he alighted from his seat and paid us the final obeisance of a very low bow, the formality of which would have been acceptable for the veneration of kings and princes but seemed wholly out of place to a country family of respectable, albeit modest, means. Papa’s gracious welcome gave my cousin sufficient courage to greet the female members of the household with a bashful smile. And to Mama he expressed particular deference by showering her with so many compliments and inquiries after her health that she seemed to forget, however temporarily, that our visitor would inherit her husband’s estate after his death, thus rendering us women homeless. As my father had no sons and as Longbourn could be passed only along the male line, Mr. Collins was, by law, heir presumptive of our childhood home.

  Mr. Collins walked with a light step and, upon being escorted by my parents into the hall, praised the upkeep of the furnishings and the fine, though appropriately humble, taste we exhibited in the decoration of our rooms. As he proved profuse in his admiration and would brook no interruption to his stopping and making an observation of every small feature that seemed to evidence Mama’s superior running of the household, nearly half an hour had passed before we finally gathered in the drawing room to take tea, which by then had to be brewed again for turning cold. On crossing the threshold of that room, he found his attention instantly arrested by a porcelain shepherdess on the mantelpiece. The sight of it appeared to move him deeply, and cradling the piece in his hands, he exclaimed what a happy coincidence it was that his own benefactress, the great lady responsible for his recent installment as the clergyman of Hunsford parsonage, possessed one very similar to it, though hers, if he remembered correctly, was larger and had been purchased at auction for nearly fifty pounds, numbering only one of many items of value that constituted her impressive estate. We listened with appropriate deference, and our guest, pleased at finding a willing audience, was quick to follow up this account with the number of times he’d already been invited to take refreshment in the company of Lady Catherine and her daughter at Rosings Park. Having by this time fully recovered from my cousin’s initial charms, Mama replied that it was very well for some people to enjoy all the luck while others could be destitute of good fortune their whole lives, as she knew firsthand.

  “But that cannot be so, madam,” Mr. Collins said with feeling, pressing a hand to his heart. “You have not only this lovely and most comfortable house but also boast among your children the most graceful women as man has ever laid eyes on. I’ve heard much of their beauty, and I can tell you, as an impartial witness, that none of the rumors have been exaggerated.” Whereupon he bowed in her direction with his hand still pressed to his chest.

  “I would,” Mama replied, fingering the lace on her collar, “open my arms to anyone who might show kindness to myself or my daughters. They are all sensible girls with talent and beauty enough between them to deserve good marriages, and let us hope this is the case. I would like nothing better than to see my daughters settled and happy with homes of their own, though if this should fail to occur before a certain event takes place…” Here, she turned and looked to Mr. Bennet, who had just finished pouring himself another cup of tea and was pointedly gazing out the window. Seeing there was no comfort to be had from those quarters, she blinked with watery eyes at our guest. “I don’t know whose charity we could then rely upon, Mr. Collins. You witness my predicament and how it affects me. My daughters—bless them—find me in this state every day, but there is little they can do to help, being so miserably situated themselves and with no estimable wealth of their own.”

  Mr. Collins colored. His ears turned as pink as Mama’s eyes, and it was fully a minute before he could bring himself to speak. Replacing his hand upon his heart, he cleared his throat and endeavored his most sympathetic expression. “My dear Mrs. Bennet,” he began, “being a clergyman and having been blessed with the occupation of a post that requires me to set an example for the members of a small but prosperous community, I am by nature and by habit more sympathetic to the troubles of my fellow men than most.” Taking a moment to sip his tea, he then continued: “Therefore, in seeing you grieved, I cannot help but be stirred to pity in light of your and your daughters’ situation, of which I am bound by law to play a most awkward part. And while, madam, I have no doubt that all of your daughters will make suitable marriages and that, in their leaving this home to run their own, you will thereby have not one or two but five different homes in which to settle and live at your choosing in your old age, you may be assured that I will do everything in my power to safeguard the welfare of both you and my fair cousins upon the passing of your husband, the event of which I do not think will occur for many more years, as happily for all of us, Mr. Bennet looks to be the very picture of good health.” And smiling pleasantly, he asked if Mrs. Bennet wouldn’t be the first to agree with this, while bowing with practiced grace.

  My mother, however, wasn’t in the custom of listening to, much less answering, any parts of a conversation that did not interest her and replied accordingly to only the sections of Mr. Collins’s speech that gave her the most reason for joy. “Sir, you are most kind,” she answered gratefully and folded her handkerchief for the next time it should be used.

  Mr. Collins resumed his seat, which, being opposite my own, permitted me to observe his appearance from a close distance. He was not handsome, but in his face there was something more interesting than mere attractiveness. As he gave lively attention to Mama’s description of the neighborhood and the succession of dinner parties, balls, and other engagements that monthly filled our calendars, every aspect of his countenance played a distinct role in the expression of delight and amazement. His eyes sparkled obligingly. His cheeks, full and round when he smiled, gleamed like two wax apples. And upon hearing that we dined with no less than four and twenty families a year, he lifted his brow to such heights it seemed to contort the entire shape of his face. He conveyed wonder that we could spare the time and the energy to fulfill all the invitations we received, and Mama assured him that
our lives, though by no means capable of matching the level of idleness which was the privilege of the truly wealthy, were certainly ones of active leisure. As the hour grew late, we were soon called to dinner, and over cups of wine and crowded platters of venison, pork, and pheasant, Mr. Collins shared select accounts of his interactions with Lady Catherine de Bourgh as evidenced the latter’s beneficence. I noticed, in recounting these impressive stories, that he seemed particularly keen on attracting the attention of the eldest Miss Bennet.

  “And what do you think was served at dinner the next evening?” he asked, pausing for dramatic effect and resting his eyes on Jane. “Onion soup!” he answered himself. “Onion soup!” he repeated when none of us said anything. “All because the previous afternoon at tea I had happened to mention to her ladyship a preference for the dish, which she, too, professed to favor. Does not this small gesture indicate to you an unparalleled greatness of character?” But in finding no admiration in the gaze of his first choice, he turned in sequence to Lizzy. And finding even less to be had there, he turned at last to me. Our eyes met, and I blushed. Encouraged by this, he helped himself to another serving of potatoes, seemingly forgetting that not two minutes ago he had replenished his plate from the same dish and hadn’t yet touched any of that portion. Seeing this filled me with pleasure, and I consumed the rest of my meal with more than usual relish.

  “This is truly excellent,” Mr. Collins said, working diligently with his fork at the mound of potatoes that overwhelmed every other food on his plate. “There is nothing, in my mind, quite like the potato. It is a vegetable, yet it fills the stomach as adequately as any meat and involves none of the aggravation of picking out bones, which the eating of fowl often requires. Besides, I do not think I have ever tasted a bad potato, though the same, alas, could not be said for the many dishes of meat I’ve sampled at various tables, which were indigestible for being too tough for my palate.” Seeing Mama redden at this last comment, our guest lost no time in adding that there had only ever been, in his life, two tables at which he could partake of and enjoy all the dishes prepared, and these were at Rosings Park and at Longbourn, which must boast two of the very best cooks in England, despite the grandeur of the former and the modesty of the latter. As no one ventured to either agree or contradict Mr. Collins in his opinion of potatoes as a laudable vegetable, he continued on the same subject by relating the particulars of a discussion he had overheard while dining on one occasion at Rosings Park. “Lady Catherine,” he began by way of explanation, “dedicates herself to all matters with equal energy and rigor, regardless of how large or small these problems may be and what level of person they may affect. Owing to her superior breeding, she also possesses unequaled taste in all things, not least of which is what and how food should be served. I will share her thoughts on the preparation of potatoes in case the knowledge she owns on the subject may also benefit this household, and this is that the peeling of potatoes should always occur before boiling and not after. I know that some would boil the potato first and, in softening the vegetable, peel the skin off afterwards with either their nails or a rough cloth, but I have it on the very best authority that this should not be done and that the potato should be pared of its skin before entering the water.”

  “Well, Mrs. Bennet,” Papa replied, spearing the last chunk of potato on his plate with his fork, “you may impart this wisdom to our cook at your earliest convenience, though before you do, it may be wise to ask if, in the preparation of this dish, she had taken the trouble of paring the vegetables before boiling them or whether, in a desire to skirt her responsibilities, she had peeled them only afterwards. If the latter, you have my permission to reprimand her thoroughly.”

  Mr. Collins did not know what to make of Mr. Bennet’s comment. In later conversations, he owned to me that prior to writing the letter in which he begged Papa for the privilege of visiting Longbourn, he’d heard his uncle was a well-read though eccentric character. And perhaps wary that Mr. Bennet was at present exhibiting the wit he was reputed for at his expense, Mr. Collins deemed it unsafe to instruct us any further on the subject. Still, in raising another piece of potato to his mouth, he couldn’t help but search the table for any indication that the knowledge he’d divulged had been well received. Our eyes met again, and this time, I ventured a small smile. He hesitatingly returned it before resuming the hearty ingestion of the food and drink before him.

  Dinner was soon over. After losing two consecutive games of backgammon to Lizzy and having to abort a highly unpopular reading, Mr. Collins indulged in a polite though audible yawn and professed himself tired from his journey. He wondered therefore if his host or one of the servants would be so kind as to show him to his room and apologized that he hadn’t the stamina to entertain his fair cousins for a longer interval on this first night of his visit. He concluded with the promise of endeavoring to do better in the future, of his joy in being united with a family that in all respects worthy of commendation far exceeded his expectations, and of his hope that the nature of our relations would be considerably strengthened by the time he was called back to Hunsford the following Saturday. Papa volunteered to take Mr. Collins upstairs, and the latter parted from us with a bow that, in the extremity of its depth and duration, left no one in any doubt of his deeply felt gratitude.

  No sooner had Mr. Collins left the room, however, than Lydia declared her opinion of our new acquaintance. “Lord,” she said with some bitterness, “I thought he’d never leave. What a laugh Denny will have when I tell him about our guest and how he tried to read Fordyce’s Sermons to us before going to bed.” Jane shushed her, and for some minutes longer, we listened to the pleasant burble of praise that emanated from the direction of the staircase until, rising higher and higher, it could be heard no more.

  “What an unfortunate choice of text,” Lizzy exclaimed. “If all Papa’s relations are like Mr. Collins, it’s a wonder madness doesn’t run in our family.”

  “Now, girls…” Mama chided.

  “And though he must be a learned man to have attained his position,” Lizzy continued, interrupting our mother, “he shows no trace of intellect in any of his thoughts. What can his sermons be like?”

  “As rambling and dull as any other sermon, I suppose,” Lydia snorted.

  “I’m sure he means well,” Jane offered.

  Kitty stood up and began flouncing her dress at us. “Lady Catherine!” she cried. “Oh, Lady Catherine! How tall you are! How fine you are! How ugly you look this morning, Lady Catherine! May I give you a hand?” And she bowed until her head reached her ankles, which sent the whole room, even Jane, into fits of laughter.

  “This is most unkind of all of you,” I protested. “You seem to forget that Mr. Collins is our guest, and I, for one, think he is…he is…”

  “Yes, Mary?” Jane asked kindly.

  “I think he’s very nice!” I declared, standing up myself.

  In a whiny pitch Lydia and Kitty mocked in unison: “I think he’s very nice! I think he’s very nice!”

  Then Lydia said, clasping her hands together and swooning, “Oh, Mr. Collins, how long I have waited for you in my ivory tower!”

  And Kitty replied, “Shall we read together another passage from the Bible before going upstairs, Mr. Collins?”

  And Lydia, making as if to kiss the air, added, “Won’t you permit me to have your children, my dear clergyman?”

  This proved too much for Mama’s patience, and Lydia was rebuked and silenced accordingly, though no one could mistake the smile that played upon our parent’s lips.

  The next day, having risen earlier than any of my sisters, I went downstairs alone. I was a frequent visitor to my father’s library, and in approaching it, I thought I heard a sneeze from within. That small, crowded, and dusty section of the house provided the altar at which my father worshipped daily, and his studies often engrossed him so that nothing, not even the gentle urgin
gs of Lizzy, could persuade him to join us at the dinner table. I have seen him transfixed by texts of such marginal influence and limited readership as would bore the most learned scholars of this world to distraction. In the preferment of his books to his daughters, he was always unabashedly vocal. Given the opportunity, he could explain with conviction the manifold advantages of reading Andersen’s exhaustive treatise on the migratory patterns of the common house sparrow to sitting with his family and inevitably embarking on one of three subjects which never lost popularity with his wife and children, these being first and foremost marriage; second, the entailment of Longbourn, which meant that our estate would pass directly to our cousin due to Papa’s having no male heir; and third, his own death. Owing largely to Mama’s indifference to reading and the aversion she showed to being in the company of books when they were being so engaged, the library remained the only room in the whole house upon which Papa could depend for quietude. In her mind, reading could lead to nothing of material value, and she did not, for her part, see much usefulness in knowing about things that fell outside the concerns of daily life.

  I confess I sometimes visited my father’s library, not because I’d already exhausted the books I had borrowed, but because I hoped to endear myself to him. I admired his monastic devotion to reading, his talent for reciting long quotations by heart, his eloquence at public gatherings. My own childlike logic determined that if I appeared enough times in front of him with my books, he would eventually bring me into his confidence, and then we could discourse for hours upon subjects which were quite beyond the understanding of my mother and sisters. But this never happened. What dialogue we might have exchanged on the early comedies of Shakespeare or the works of “Glorious John” were only ever the product of my overactive imagination. We rarely spoke, and my attempts to catch his eye while dawdling listlessly in front of his favorite historical tomes prompted at the very best a polite inquiry as to what title I was looking for and, at all other times, complete silence. He reserved his better self for Lizzy, and she remained the only one of the family whom he invited to his study in the evenings, though, in truth, she did not read nearly as much as I did and was often prone to skimming.