Page 17 of Such Low Connections

“Dear me…Indeed…” muttered Mr Bennet, again drawing the eyes of the ladies, but without clarifying either the purpose or meaning of his words.

“Mrs Hurst and Miss Bingley dress every day as though they were going out to call on a duchess,” Elizabeth then said, intending to lead her mother down roads that would not distress Jane. “Silks, satins, brocade and feathers for family suppers. If I could draw, I would have sketched them for you, Mother.”

“Really? How fine,” Mrs Bennet sighed longingly. “I do like to dress well for supper myself, but what is the point when there is no one to appreciate it?”

She glared at her husband, although her crossness seemed wasted on him.

“That is how I feel,” Elizabeth said with a smile. “They dress for the appreciation of people who are not present. Perhaps Miss Bingley has other aims, too.”

“So she should,” responded Mrs Bennet approvingly, “as a handsome young woman with no husband yet. When Miss Bingley meets a suitor, she will be there in her silk evening dress with her hair nicely done, making refined conversation. Gentlemen will be more likely to come across you for the first time, Lizzy, in mud to your knees and with your hair in knots. What then, I ask you?”

“Gentlemen are not always swayed by the latest fashions and sophisticated manners of speech,” Elizabeth observed with a smile to herself as she thought of Caroline Bingley trying so hard, and with such futility, to endear herself to Fitzwilliam Darcy. “Nor is every gentleman of fortune looking for a wife, whatever you believe, Mother.”

“You’re thinking of that unpleasant Mr Darcy, aren’t you?” guessed her mother with one of her strange leaps of intuition, if not understanding. “Well, if he slighted you or Miss Bingley at Netherfield, it is likely for the best, considering everything people are saying of him. I dare say he hasn’t the nerve to ask a lady for her hand with such a shadow over his name…”

At this point, Mr Bennet folded his letter away with an ostentatious crackling of paper, and looked at his wife and eldest daughters over the top of his silver-rimmed spectacles.

“Before you return to the intolerable subject of Lady Lucas and Mrs King’s impossible powers of prognostication, my dear, I have some more mundane news to share,” he announced lugubriously.

“What is it, Father?” Jane asked anxiously, seeing the unhappy expression on his face. “Has something happened?”

“Not yet, although I know your mother looks forward often enough to the day when it will,” Mr Bennet sighed regretfully, drawing further worried looks from both Jane and Mrs Bennet.

Elizabeth, however, could see that he was only at his usual tricks and looked back at him steadily.

“Who was your letter from, Father?” she asked directly, and he smiled at her more naturally, pleased that at least one family member had the wit to discover him in his game.

“It is from my cousin Collins, who, as Mrs Bennet is so fond of saying, could turn you all out of here when I am dead.”

“Yes, yes, but what does he say?” demanded his wife, wringing her handkerchief and biting her lip at the very mention of this stranger who was so inextricably tied to her family and future. “What does Mr Collins say? Does he speak of the entail? Or his future intentions?”

“Well, you may ask him for yourself, dear Mrs Bennet, whether you might sleep a night or two in the barn after my demise. He is coming here to Longbourn next Tuesday!”

With a loud squawk of astonishment, horror, and anticipation, Mrs Bennet leapt to her feet and hurried away, shouting for Mrs Hill to immediately begin preparations for their guest.

“Dear me,” Mr Bennet said again as he watched his wife’s retreating back, his eyes only twinkling in the amused disapproval of Elizabeth’s expression. “I hope Mr Collins will prove sufficiently entertaining to warrant such fuss.”

Chapter 6

“No! I shall not have such calumny under my roof, Caroline! How dare you even say the words aloud to me?”

Walking down the passageway towards the drawing room of Netherfield, Darcy stopped abruptly. Charles Bingley was normally the most mild-mannered of men. Never before had he heard his friend sound so thunderous.

But then, whatever was happening within must be a family dispute. It was not intended for his ears, and he would do best to act as though he had heard nothing. Darcy walked by the door, intending to continue on to the boot room to establish whether his riding boots had yet been cleaned.

“Be reasonable, Brother,” put in Louisa Hurst. “We only wish you to ask Mr Darcy a simple question, in confidence.”

On hearing his name, Darcy stopped and retraced his steps.

“Do not think of repeating what Caroline just said to me, Louisa,” Bingley warned his other sister. “I had hoped that you would have more sense of propriety and hospitality than to suggest I throw vague and spurious accusations at a friend who is also my guest.”

“Vague and spurious? Look, here, you can see exactly what is being said in London with your own eyes,” Mrs Hurst insisted. “We can have no idea how well-founded this rumour is until you put it to Mr Darcy.”

Now feeling more than justified in making his entrance, Darcy swung open the door without warning or hesitation, finding Louisa Hurst frozen in the act of trying to foist a letter onto her angry and unwilling brother while Caroline Bingley stood by with folded arms and a sulky expression on her face.

“What is to do?” Darcy demanded, not minded to prevaricate or disguise his concern. “I heard my name.”

Charles Bingley took advantage of Mrs Hurst’s paralysis to seize the letter from her hand and toss it straight into the fireplace, then using a poker to thrust it into the fiercest of the flames.