Page 37 of Saving Jane
“Do you find Mr Blackstone to be a learned man?” asked Mr Gardiner.
“Indeed,” Mr Collins replied. “The vicar has dedicated himself to ensuring that the young ladies...”
Choosing to ignore the pompous rhetoric, Elizabeth turned to Jane and once again asked about the tenants, fall ploughing and their food stores for winter. Eventually her attention was captured by Mr Collins when the man began speaking of his patroness to Mr Gardiner.
"I have never in my life witnessed such behaviour in a person of rank; Lady Catherine is affable and condescending with her approval of the discourses which I have already had the honour of preaching before her. She asked me several times to dine at Rosings, and sent for me only the Saturday before, to make up her whist table in the evening. Lady Catherine was reckoned proud by many people I know but I have never seen anything but affability in her. She always speaks to me as she would to any other gentleman.”
Before anyone else at the table could comment, Mr Collins continued his narrative on the beneficence of his patron. “It was only the third day after my arrival at Hunsford when Lady Catherine condescended to advise me to marry as soon as I could. She paid a visit in my humble parsonage, and she had many suggestions for alterations that I should make. Her close attention to my home was most gratifying. She even suggested that I install shelves in the closet above stairs."
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It was late in the day when Elizabeth was able to speak to her father in his study. They talked of the two new books she brought from London, the wood cut and stacked for winter, and the tasks for the tenants to complete over the winter. Finally, Elizabeth asked her father for his opinion of Mr Collins.
“Why do you ask, Lizzy? He will only be here for another week or so,” Mr Bennet answered. “Once he returns to his parsonage, we shall be free of him until next summer when he comes to marry Jane.”
“But what of the future, Papa? I fear the man is a fool and he will ruin Longbourn.”
Mr Bennet frowned and turned back to his book. “He is my heir that cannot be denied.”
“Jane will be miserable when she is married to him.”
Mrs Bennet entered her husband’s study at that moment and fussed, “Lizzy, you do carry on. Mr Collins will not ruin the estate that your father has ignored for the last twenty years.”
“Indeed Mrs Bennet,” Mr Bennet asks. “Have you been denied pen money or new gowns at any time?”
“I cannot entertain as often as I wish...”
“Mrs Bennet, I am appalled,” Mr Bennet replied.
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On Saturday, Mr Collins imposed upon Mr and Mrs Bennet to extend an invitation to Mr Blackstone to attend supper at Longbourn the following day.
“Sir, I have been in residence at Longbourn for almost a week complete and we have not had the vicar to tea or to supper–a most grievous oversight for which my patroness Lady Catherine would rightly admonish us both. It is the place of the patron to have the vicar at his table regularly to discuss the serious issues of the neighbourhood.”
“I am not pleased with Mr Blackstone and his moralizing continuously from the pulpit,” Mr Bennet explained. “He continues to allude to my youngest daughter’s removal from the community. How is my wife to ever recover if every Sunday, Mr Blackstone makes mention of it for all to hear?”
“Until Mr Blackstone sees reform within the flock of his church, it is his duty to remind all of the families that such an injurious step by a young woman will pull her entire family into a disreputable state.”
“Disreputable?” Mr Bennet shouted. “Mr Collins, I remind you that I married my daughter by common license to a tradesman in Bath. She is a properly married woman now and removed from the neighbourhood. Does Mr Blackstone make mention of Mrs Taylor and how she came to be married so quickly this fall? No, he overlooks her sins and only recounts the ones in my household.”
“Mr Bennet, as I mentioned earlier, the fall of your youngest daughter into sin must brush our entire family with society’s scorn for a time. Indeed, the death of your daughter would have been a greater blessing than the hastily patchedup marriage.”
“My poor Lydia dead?” cried Mrs Bennet. Mr and Mrs Gardiner were too appalled to respond, and Mr Bennet motioned for Elizabeth to remain silent.
“Mr Collins, I wonder how you can partake of our meals and tea, our air and conversation if the Bennet family is so terribly bad?” he asked his cousin with a gleam in his eye.
“Cousin, as your heir and future protector of the various Miss Bennets, I feel it incumbent upon me to make my opinions known. The vagaries of life are such that we know not when circumstances may change.”
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On Sunday following the sparsely attended services at Longbourn Chapel, Mr Bennet issued a curt invitation to Mr Blackstone to join the family for supper that evening. Mr and Mrs Gardiner were behind Mr Collins in the family grouping and thus were fully separated from the Bennet family as Mr Collins and Mr Blackstone seemed to enjoy each other’s conversation at the chapel door.
While the parson and the vicar compared stories and sermons, Mr Gardiner whispered to his wife, “My dear, have you noticed that everyone else has departed through the doorway at the side of the chapel? We may still be here Christmas Day a full ten days hence!”
Irritated at the thoughtlessness of two inflated egos from the pulpit, Mrs Gardiner whispered back, “Perhaps we can use the superciliousness of Mr Blackstone and Mr Collins to rid ourselves of the parson before Friday.”
When the two men continued to ignore the Gardiners, Mr Gardiner stepped forward and said, “I do beg your pardon Mr Blackstone, Mr Collins, but I must take my wife back to Longbourn–it will not do for her to grow overly cold.”
