Bad Austen (25 page)

“Oh, isn’t it lovely?” said Hermione. Ron frowned.
It might be
, he thought,
once I get a hold of those choice meats and cheeses
. Ron and Hermione made their way through the arriving guests and into the great hall. Ron grabbed two glasses of champagne, swallowed the first in one gulp and poured his dance tonic into the second. He was just about to put the second to his lips and swallow when Hermione gasped and grabbed his arm, “Oh, Ron! It’s Elizabeth Bennet! See? In the ivory gown? And look! Mr. Darcy is applying for her hand to dance. See how she’s caught off-guard by his request and says yes without really thinking it through?”

“Uh huh. That’s nice,” said Ron, stepping in front of a servant passing with an hors d’oeuvres tray. Ron put his full glass in the middle of the tray and proceeded to gobble up the sweets surrounding it. The attendant stood holding the tray, waiting, eyes bulging, for Ron to pause for breath; the poor man had never seen anyone take such liberties with the meats and cheeses.

“Oh look! Here comes Mr. Darcy!” said Hermione. Fitzwilliam Darcy glided toward them, and seeing the full glass of champagne on the now-empty hors d’oeuvres tray, he promptly picked it up and drank it down. Ron frowned and Gulped.?

“Let’s go,” said Hermione. “The dance will be starting soon, and I want to be as near to Lizzie and Darcy as possible.” The dancers took their places on the floor in two long lines across from each other. Ron stood next to Darcy, the man himself, who appeared to be no worse for wear from consuming the tonic.
That’s good
, thought Ron.
I didn’t want to drink that stuff anyway. That witch may have given me a dud for all I know
.

No sooner had Ron finished this thought than the musicians began playing and Mr. Darcy skidded across the floor on his knees, turned a somersault, and spun on his head. No one else moved. Jaws dropped wide as Mr. Darcy grabbed his partner around the waist and spun the unsuspecting damsel across the floor with a flourish and pomp unlike anything Hertfordshire had as yet seen. Ron watched in shock. Hermione’s eyes bulged. Stealthily, she withdrew her wand from her handbag, preparing to fix the situation when most unexpectedly Darcy threw Elizabeth into a low dip, and the crowd applauded uproariously. The dancing partners blushed and bowed and then withdrew from each other.

“Lizzie, what have you done to poor Mr. Darcy?” asked Charlotte Lucas.

“I have no idea,” replied Lizzie, who looked after Mr. Darcy with more earnest intrigue than the story should have allowed at this point.

Hermione turned a suspicious eye on Ron. “What did you do?” she asked.

“Nothing. Honestly. You know, there’s really no accounting for how English gentry will behave.”

“Yes,” grinned Hermione, brushing away the last stray bits of meat and cheese crumbs from Ron’s lapel. “No accounting, indeed.”

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Elizabeth invited Charlotte on a walk around her family’s estate.

“Elizabeth, you mustn’t scold me,” Charlotte whined. “I am twenty-seven and fear spinsterhood.”

“Oh, my dear,” Elizabeth replied, “how could you marry Mr. Collins? Never has a man possessed such a countenance. His jowls grew as a scaffold to sustain his overly large, square, turned-up nose, and the jowls continue in the endeavor.”

“I must remind you,” Charlotte said, “he owns your family’s estate; it is legally his as your eldest male cousin. You choose to insult him; though, he has no inclination to greedily turn the seven of you out in the streets. He only wishes to provide and care for you. In return …” Charlotte’s voice trailed off.

“My reason for alarm is sound, I assure you. His demeanor makes my blood run cold. When he came to our house a month ago, he ate nothing. He talked with pomposity through the dinner, and he stared at each and every one of my sister’s necks,” elizabeth said.

“Necks or necklines?” Charlotte questioned.

“Oh, I respect him as a minister. I must say I meant necks, not bodices.”

“Odd,” Charlotte said, crossing her arms over her chest. “He was drawn to my general neck area the other night, and his demeanor changed.”

“When?” Elizabeth asked.

Charlotte scurried along with Elizabeth’s long strides and spoke between gasps. “Let me remember. Yes, the moon was large and low; it was the night of the full harvest moon. He began to inhale around my neck, not like a man enjoying a scent, but like a dog hungering after meat. When I questioned him, he claimed to be fasting, and the lack of food had made him lightheaded.”

“How long does he fast?” Charlotte continued. “In his whole life, and even as a child, have you seen your cousin eat?”

“No,” Elizabeth stated. “No, now that I think of it, I haven’t. Never have I thought much on the matter—why he makes me feel as he does. Neither have I seen him eat nor has my father allowed him access our pigs. Recently, when he came to dine, Father directed our servants on the matter saying it wouldn’t be wise to allow Mr. Collins in the barn.”

Charlotte and Elizabeth had arrived at the barn. Leaning on the fence rails, they both considered the pigs in the pen. Charlotte said, “What harm could he do the pigs?”

“I recall when we were children and Mr. Collins was not yet in knickers, Mr. Collins and his father, my uncle, came to visit. My father found one of our suckling piglets dead, and Father blamed my cousin. It was the last time they visited during my uncle’s life.”

“How could a very young child battle a 350-pound sow to gain access to a piglet? The sows are fierce when protecting their young,” Charlotte said.

With the sun waning, Elizabeth shivered a bit, and after suggesting they return home to the hearth, she said, “Charlotte, I know the wedding is three months away. Please come and stay with us for a time before the wedding. Mr. Collins is generous in his visitations throughout the rectory. We expect to see him often, and if you stayed here, he could call on you in an appropriate manner without raising gossip.”

Charlotte accepted the invitation to stay with Elizabeth Bennet and her family. Soon after her arrival, a screech wafted from the barn. Mr. Bennet remarked, “Sounds as if a servant discovered something amiss.”

Mr. Bennet threw a cape about his shoulders and had almost arrived at the barn with Elizabeth and Charlotte scurrying behind, working against the wind to both sprint and tie bonnet strings in the same moments.

The servant woman ran from the pigpens and shouted to Mr. Bennet, “Oh, dear sir, what sort of minister is Mr. Collins? Has Lady Catherine misunderstood the man’s calling?”

On the ground, in the pen, a dead piglet lay. The sow rested while feeding her young, and amidst the piglets Mr. Collins lay. He drank heartily, attached to one teat. He raised one finger, dripping in mud, to direct whoever stood behind him to wait, for he showed no inclination to rise and bow properly.

Charlotte fainted, and fortunately, Mr. Bennet caught her. Mr. Bennet shook his head as he murmured to Elizabeth, “This I have feared for years. Mr. Collins longs for a child, and I fear if he has his way, the child will have nothing to eat. His mother did her best, giving him suck for years and hiring wet nurses thereafter. Now, his diseased desires have brought him again to this.”

Elizabeth watched Mr. Collins’s legs twitch with delight in the mud. “I am not unashamed,” she exclaimed.

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The next day, Mrs. Bennet spent the remainder of the day soundly in bed. Her remonstrations kept the servants too busy to attend to truly important matters. Elizabeth knew dinner would include but one course. They would probably eat common meat pie—it being all the kitchen staff could manage between their fanning and fawning over her mother.

Near dinnertime, Mrs. Bennet called for Elizabeth and Charlotte. Charlotte looked earnestly concerned, for she did not know there was no need for worry. Elizabeth, well aware her mother’s nervous fits could easily be cured by a turn in events, sat at the bedside and dutifully patted her mother’s hand.

Mrs. Bennet adjusted her bed cap down to cover any stray hairs. “Oh, my dear Charlotte, I am sure this news concerning your fiance has provided you with quite a shock. This event has torn my nerves apart.”

Mr. Bennet had joined the trio, feigning distress for his wife. “It is my concern, my dear, that one of these days when your nerves are torn apart, they may not rejoin. Over twenty years, I have been distressed to see the puzzling apart of your nerves. I await the parlor trick to see a whole nervous system functioning once again.”

Elizabeth said, “Father, teasing Mother now is not sane.” She turned toward Charlotte and said, “Shall we focus on matters of greater weight? Surely, you will not marry Mr. Collins after learning he is discontent to break bread in the natural sense.”

Mrs. Bennet sat upright for the first time that day. “oh, but the wedding must go on. Should my dear nephew’s instability be publically canvassed, all might be lost. Think of it. our Lady Catherine will take the pulpit from him. His Majesty would hear of the dishonor, and our family would lose our estates. I beg you, Charlotte; do you wish us to be without hearth and home?”