Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 13

“I hope, my dear,” said Mr. Ben­net to his wife, as they were at break­fast the next morn­ing, “that you have or­dered a good din­ner to-​day, be­cause I have rea­son to ex­pect an ad­di­tion to our fam­ily par­ty.”

“Who do you mean, my dear? I know of no­body that is com­ing, I am sure, un­less Char­lotte Lu­cas should hap­pen to call in–and I hope MY din­ners are good enough for her. I do not be­lieve she of­ten sees such at home.”

“The per­son of whom I speak is a gen­tle­man, and a stranger.”

Mrs. Ben­net’s eyes sparkled. “A gen­tle­man and a stranger! It is Mr. Bin­gley, I am sure! Well, I am sure I shall be ex­treme­ly glad to see Mr. Bin­gley. But–good Lord! how un­lucky! There is not a bit of fish to be got to-​day. Ly­dia, my love, ring the bell–I must speak to Hill this mo­ment.”

“It is NOT Mr. Bin­gley,” said her hus­band; “it is a per­son whom I nev­er saw in the whole course of my life.”

This roused a gen­er­al as­ton­ish­ment; and he had the plea­sure of be­ing ea­ger­ly ques­tioned by his wife and his five daugh­ters at once.

Af­ter amus­ing him­self some time with their cu­rios­ity, he thus ex­plained:

“About a month ago I re­ceived this let­ter; and about a fort­night ago I an­swered it, for I thought it a case of some del­ica­cy, and re­quir­ing ear­ly at­ten­tion. It is from my cousin, Mr. Collins, who, when I am dead, may turn you all out of this house as soon as he pleas­es.”

“Oh! my dear,” cried his wife, “I can­not bear to hear that men­tioned. Pray do not talk of that odi­ous man. I do think it is the hard­est thing in the world, that your es­tate should be en­tailed away from your own chil­dren; and I am sure, if I had been you, I should have tried long ago to do some­thing or oth­er about it.”

Jane and Eliz­abeth tried to ex­plain to her the na­ture of an en­tail. They had of­ten at­tempt­ed to do it be­fore, but it was a sub­ject on which Mrs. Ben­net was be­yond the reach of rea­son, and she con­tin­ued to rail bit­ter­ly against the cru­el­ty of set­tling an es­tate away from a fam­ily of five daugh­ters, in favour of a man whom no­body cared any­thing about.

“It cer­tain­ly is a most in­iq­ui­tous af­fair,” said Mr. Ben­net, “and noth­ing can clear Mr. Collins from the guilt of in­her­it­ing Long­bourn. But if you will lis­ten to his let­ter, you may per­haps be a lit­tle soft­ened by his man­ner of ex­press­ing him­self.”

“No, that I am sure I shall not; and I think it is very im­per­ti­nent of him to write to you at all, and very hyp­ocrit­ical. I hate such false friends. Why could he not keep on quar­rel­ing with you, as his fa­ther did be­fore him?”

“Why, in­deed; he does seem to have had some fil­ial scru­ples on that head, as you will hear.”

“Hunsford, near West­er­ham, Kent, 15th Oc­to­ber.

“Dear Sir,–

“The dis­agree­ment sub­sist­ing be­tween your­self and my late hon­oured fa­ther al­ways gave me much un­easi­ness, and since I have had the mis­for­tune to lose him, I have fre­quent­ly wished to heal the breach; but for some time I was kept back by my own doubts, fear­ing lest it might seem dis­re­spect­ful to his mem­ory for me to be on good terms with any­one with whom it had al­ways pleased him to be at vari­ance.–’There, Mrs. Ben­net.’–My mind, how­ev­er, is now made up on the sub­ject, for hav­ing re­ceived or­di­na­tion at East­er, I have been so for­tu­nate as to be dis­tin­guished by the pa­tron­age of the Right Hon­ourable La­dy Cather­ine de Bourgh, wid­ow of Sir Lewis de Bourgh, whose boun­ty and benef­icence has pre­ferred me to the valu­able rec­to­ry of this parish, where it shall be my earnest en­deav­our to de­mean my­self with grate­ful re­spect to­wards her la­dy­ship, and be ev­er ready to per­form those rites and cer­emonies which are in­sti­tut­ed by the Church of Eng­land. As a cler­gy­man, more­over, I feel it my du­ty to pro­mote and es­tab­lish the bless­ing of peace in all fam­ilies with­in in the reach of my in­flu­ence; and on these grounds I flat­ter my­self that my present over­tures are high­ly com­mend­able, and that the cir­cum­stance of my be­ing next in the en­tail of Long­bourn es­tate will be kind­ly over­looked on your side, and not lead you to re­ject the of­fered olive-​branch. I can­not be oth­er­wise than con­cerned at be­ing the means of in­jur­ing your ami­able daugh­ters, and beg leave to apol­ogise for it, as well as to as­sure you of my readi­ness to make them ev­ery pos­si­ble amends–but of this here­after. If you should have no ob­jec­tion to re­ceive me in­to your house, I pro­pose my­self the sat­is­fac­tion of wait­ing on you and your fam­ily, Mon­day, Novem­ber 18th, by four o’clock, and shall prob­ably tres­pass on your hos­pi­tal­ity till the Sat­ur­day se’en­night fol­low­ing, which I can do with­out any in­con­ve­nience, as La­dy Cather­ine is far from ob­ject­ing to my oc­ca­sion­al ab­sence on a Sun­day, pro­vid­ed that some oth­er cler­gy­man is en­gaged to do the du­ty of the day.–I re­main, dear sir, with re­spect­ful com­pli­ments to your la­dy and daugh­ters, your well-​wish­er and friend,

“WILLIAM COLLINS”

“At four o’clock, there­fore, we may ex­pect this peace-​mak­ing gen­tle­man,” said Mr. Ben­net, as he fold­ed up the let­ter. “He seems to be a most con­sci­en­tious and po­lite young man, up­on my word, and I doubt not will prove a valu­able ac­quain­tance, es­pe­cial­ly if La­dy Cather­ine should be so in­dul­gent as to let him come to us again.”

“There is some sense in what he says about the girls, how­ev­er, and if he is dis­posed to make them any amends, I shall not be the per­son to dis­cour­age him.”

“Though it is dif­fi­cult,” said Jane, “to guess in what way he can mean to make us the atone­ment he thinks our due, the wish is cer­tain­ly to his cred­it.”

Eliz­abeth was chiefly struck by his ex­traor­di­nary def­er­ence for La­dy Cather­ine, and his kind in­ten­tion of chris­ten­ing, mar­ry­ing, and bury­ing his parish­ioners when­ev­er it were re­quired.

“He must be an odd­ity, I think,” said she. “I can­not make him out.–There is some­thing very pompous in his style.–And what can he mean by apol­ogis­ing for be­ing next in the en­tail?–We can­not sup­pose he would help it if he could.–Could he be a sen­si­ble man, sir?”

“No, my dear, I think not. I have great hopes of find­ing him quite the re­verse. There is a mix­ture of ser­vil­ity and self-​im­por­tance in his let­ter, which promis­es well. I am im­pa­tient to see him.”

“In point of com­po­si­tion,” said Mary, “the let­ter does not seem de­fec­tive. The idea of the olive-​branch per­haps is not whol­ly new, yet I think it is well ex­pressed.”

To Cather­ine and Ly­dia, nei­ther the let­ter nor its writ­er were in any de­gree in­ter­est­ing. It was next to im­pos­si­ble that their cousin should come in a scar­let coat, and it was now some weeks since they had re­ceived plea­sure from the so­ci­ety of a man in any oth­er colour. As for their moth­er, Mr. Collins’s let­ter had done away much of her ill-​will, and she was prepar­ing to see him with a de­gree of com­po­sure which as­ton­ished her hus­band and daugh­ters.

Mr. Collins was punc­tu­al to his time, and was re­ceived with great po­lite­ness by the whole fam­ily. Mr. Ben­net in­deed said lit­tle; but the ladies were ready enough to talk, and Mr. Collins seemed nei­ther in need of en­cour­age­ment, nor in­clined to be silent him­self. He was a tall, heavy-​look­ing young man of five-​and-​twen­ty. His air was grave and state­ly, and his man­ners were very for­mal. He had not been long seat­ed be­fore he com­pli­ment­ed Mrs. Ben­net on hav­ing so fine a fam­ily of daugh­ters; said he had heard much of their beau­ty, but that in this in­stance fame had fall­en short of the truth; and added, that he did not doubt her see­ing them all in due time dis­posed of in mar­riage. This gal­lantry was not much to the taste of some of his hear­ers; but Mrs. Ben­net, who quar­reled with no com­pli­ments, an­swered most read­ily.

“You are very kind, I am sure; and I wish with all my heart it may prove so, for else they will be des­ti­tute enough. Things are set­tled so odd­ly.”

“You al­lude, per­haps, to the en­tail of this es­tate.”

“Ah! sir, I do in­deed. It is a grievous af­fair to my poor girls, you must con­fess. Not that I mean to find fault with YOU, for such things I know are all chance in this world. There is no know­ing how es­tates will go when once they come to be en­tailed.”

“I am very sen­si­ble, madam, of the hard­ship to my fair cousins, and could say much on the sub­ject, but that I am cau­tious of ap­pear­ing for­ward and pre­cip­itate. But I can as­sure the young ladies that I come pre­pared to ad­mire them. At present I will not say more; but, per­haps, when we are bet­ter ac­quaint­ed–“

He was in­ter­rupt­ed by a sum­mons to din­ner; and the girls smiled on each oth­er. They were not the on­ly ob­jects of Mr. Collins’s ad­mi­ra­tion. The hall, the din­ing-​room, and all its fur­ni­ture, were ex­am­ined and praised; and his com­men­da­tion of ev­ery­thing would have touched Mrs. Ben­net’s heart, but for the mor­ti­fy­ing sup­po­si­tion of his view­ing it all as his own fu­ture prop­er­ty. The din­ner too in its turn was high­ly ad­mired; and he begged to know to which of his fair cousins the ex­cel­len­cy of its cook­ing was ow­ing. But he was set right there by Mrs. Ben­net, who as­sured him with some as­per­ity that they were very well able to keep a good cook, and that her daugh­ters had noth­ing to do in the kitchen. He begged par­don for hav­ing dis­pleased her. In a soft­ened tone she de­clared her­self not at all of­fend­ed; but he con­tin­ued to apol­ogise for about a quar­ter of an hour.