"Such doings discomposed Mr Bennet exceedingly."
Today’s chapter begins with Collins’s origin story - raised by the “illiterate and miserly” man Mr Bennet would quarrel with over the years, making him humble, or so Austen claims, despite depriving him of much education. Chance led him to Lady Catherine’s doorstep as a Rector and made him the mix of “pride and obsequiousness, self-importance and humility” that he is today. This juxtaposition of “pride” and “humility” suggests quite the storm of emotions guiding Collins, as those don’t tend to work together well.
We learn a whole paragraph before Mrs Bennet that his real motivation for visiting Longbourn was to choose one of the girls to marry as he now possessed the “good house and very sufficient income” you needed to get married back then. He thought this was an excellent way to make amends to their father for inheriting the family’s property - when Mr Bennet dies, now his estate can be passed to whichever one of his daughters the Reverend happens to marry. So much better than, say, passing the deed onto Mrs Bennet to do what she pleases, as well as ensuring all of the girls have somewhere to live regardless of their personal merit to him, I’m sure.
As the book says, “Mr Collins was not a sensible man”.
Less sensible, apparently, is Mrs Bennet, who takes this news with delight. Not only will she be able to partially succeed at her life’s sole mission (marrying her daughters off), she’ll also get the chance to rely on them having a happy marriage in order to live in her own home as a guest. Lucky her! (Of course, I say this with no knowledge on Regency Era inheritance practices, but that doesn’t mean those practices should have been there in the first place, whatever they are.)
Although “Miss Bennet” (apparently Jane) was the first to catch his eye, Collins easily switches his romantic interest to Elizabeth when Mrs Bennet hints at her possible engagement with Mr Bingley. It’s that easy for him to pick and choose which young girl deserves to inherit her home through a marriage to him. The eagle-eyed among you will note that the girls don’t appear to have much of a say in all of this. Those of you beyond hope will say it’s simply a story about getting married and that any analysis is overthinking it.
The next day, the sisters (except for Mary) go on a walk to Merryton and Collins joins them at Mrs Bennet’s prompting. Mr Bennet is far from sad to see Collins leave him in the library in peace for a little bit, having been bombarding the man with questions while making a show of trying to read a large book.
As they reach Merryton, one of the military men Kitty and Lydia are so enamoured with, Mr Denny, catches the girls’ eyes and introduces them all to his friend Mr Wickham, a new recruit to their corps. And with that, Collins has two rivals to the affections of the Bennet sisters, or to Kitty and Lydia’s affections at least. No sooner do they start talking that Messrs Darcy and Bingley veer around the corner on horses. At this rate, Collins would be lucky to settle for Mary by the time they get back home.
However, as Darcy does his best to avoid embarrassing himself with a long look at Lizzy, he notices Mr Wickham and they both change colour - one a pale white and the other a flushed red. They try to brush it off with a formal cap-doffing, but their mutual history is obvious. (Again, I know Pride and Prejudice is not the book to go to for accounts of the sordid adventures bachelors had in their youth, but I do hope Austen doesn’t leave us at “it was impossible not to long to know.”)
The gentlemen part ways with the ladies (and Collins) and they head to their aunt Mrs Phillips’ house for a surprise visit, as Kitty and Lydia had originally planned. She receives her beloved nieces and their strange, apologetic man warmly, but all she can tell them about the enigmatic Mr Wickham is that he was in the area “to have a lieutenant's commission in the ---shire”. It actually says “---shire”. I think this is Austen’s way of keeping her book out of a specific place and time, much like how so many classics are set in the year 17-- or 17??, but considering she went to the trouble of naming so many places already, she may as well have grouped them under a unifying Shire.
They spend the rest of the visit playing games and enduring another instance of Collins apologising profusely for something that isn’t an issue (this time it’s leaving the room). Elizabeth tries to tell Jane what she thought she saw happen between Darcy and Wickham, to no avail. They go home with the invitation to return the following evening, presumably for some kind of party. Another fine day ends with the Bennet matriarch pleased at report that only his dear, dear Lady Catherine could exceed Phillips’s elegance.
Thoughts
- Every time “Miss Bennet” is mentioned in the book, it’s Jane. Is there something about being on the cusp of engagement that makes you a real woman?
- Oh, to live in the ---shire countryside back in the ??ies!
- Although I joked about it earlier, I would not be surprised if Collins ends up marrying Mary, since all of the others seem quite paired up.
- Yes, I did forget to put a quote in the last chapter originally and yes, I did decide to just leave it as it was for prosperity.
