Fearful Symmetry: A Pride & Prejudice Variation by Caress Gailie Ruth

Author:Caress, Gailie Ruth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quills & Quartos Publishing
Published: 2021-03-08T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

In the music room, Elizabeth’s nerves were in an awful state. She dreaded the coming interview, and her vexation had grown as the clock behind her continued to tick away without the appearance of her would-be suitor. She had just risen from her chair to run from the room when Mr Collins at last appeared in the doorway and blocked her only means of escape.

He gestured for her to be seated with a sweep of his hand. “My dear cousin,” he began solemnly, “my attentions to you of late have been too marked to be mistaken, but I have just learned that there has been some mistake! Let me begin by recounting to you my reasons for coming into Hertfordshire with the design of selecting a wife, as I certainly did. It may be advisable for me to begin with my reasons for seeking marriage.”

“Mr Collins, there is no—”

His face clouded at this interruption, and Elizabeth at once went silent at his unexpectedly forbidding expression.

He continued with grave dignity. “Though my reasons for wishing to marry are several, one most pertinent today is that it is the particular advice and recommendation of the very noble lady whom I have the honour of calling patroness. Twice she has condescended to give me her opinion on this subject, and it was the very Saturday night before I left Hunsford when she said, ‘Mr Collins, you must marry. A clergyman like you must marry. Choose properly, choose a gentlewoman for my sake and for your own. Let her be an active, useful sort of person, not brought up too high, but able to make a small income go a good way. This is my advice. Find such a woman as soon as you can, bring her to Hunsford, and I shall visit her.’

“So, desirous of meeting her requirements and also of healing the breach created by the entail of Longbourn, I left Kent to seek a wife among the daughters of your household. Blinded by your charms almost at our earliest introduction, I singled you out as the companion of my future life. Although I had little occasion to observe the workings of your mind and character, I began to fancy that your vivacity would be acceptable to my patroness, especially when tempered with the silence and respect that her ladyship’s rank would inevitably excite.”

Mr Collins’s face took on a look of pained thoughtfulness. “I now unhappily discover myself to be mistaken, for only just now, I was given advice from the highest authority at hand regarding this matter—the advice of a gentleman who has, in sharing a house and neighbourhood with you, been of your acquaintance above several weeks and whose powers of observation must indeed be considerable, given the greatness of mind, which his lineage has bestowed upon him.”

Elizabeth wondered, supposed, and was silent.

“Mr Darcy, who is Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s most valued nephew, spoke to me himself just moments before I entered this room, and he acquainted me

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