A strange malaise had been gripping her lately and she couldn't seem to shake it. She knew that her lowered spirits were due in part because she no longer had her dear friend Charlotte Lucas to confide in and Jane would be leaving for London on the morrow for a few weeks with their Aunt and Uncle Gardiner. The days approaching the Christmas holidays would hold no pleasure for her. Not even the expected arrival of the militia near Meryton could raise her interest. That was left to her youngest sisters who spoke of nothing but red coats and officers. It didn't help her mood that her mother encouraged them in discussions that bordered on the obscene.
Disgusted with the direction of her thoughts, Elizabeth finally threw off the covers and dressed quickly. She slipped out the back door and ran towards the gate to their estate fearing at any moment that her mother would spy her and call her back. Winter was fast approaching and it was only a question of time before her walks down the familiar lanes would be severely curtailed and she was loathe to let one opportunity to pass.
The icy air hurried her steps down the road towards Meryton thinking forward to the evening's festivities. Mercifully, though they dined with four and twenty families, they didn't do it all at once so their party wouldn't be too large. All told, there would be twenty relatives and friends sharing a sumptuous feast of seven courses which would take at least three hours to consume. Elizabeth had pleaded with her mother to limit the dinner to four courses but as usual was ignored. Mrs. Bennet took great pride in never stinting in her hospitality or in clothing her five daughters in the finest fabrics. Elizabeth, just the evening before had been presented with a new gown in the softest silk the color of spring lilacs with ribbons and slippers to match. It was too extravagant an expenditure and her pleasure was laced with guilt, adding to her disquiet.
As long as she could remember at least once a day the household was reminded that the estate was entailed away from the female line. When her father passed away not only would they lose the only home they'd ever known but would be forced to live on the interest of her mother's marriage settlement, a mere five thousand pounds. Compared to the twenty five hundred pound income that they now enjoyed they would be living at a poverty level. How would a very silly woman and her five daughters survive on two hundred pounds a year interest was an ever constant source of despair for her mother but she refused to rein in her expenses. And lately this refusal to prepare for the future had begun to leave it's mark on Elizabeth. Two months earlier she had come face to face with the fate awaiting a genteel but impoverished gentlewoman.
Her pace slowed and finally stopped as she approached the turnoff to Lucas Lodge thinking of her dearest friend Charlotte Lucas, who was now far away from her family in service as a governess in far off Norfolk. Clever, intelligent but very plain and poor Charlotte was now relegated to the humiliation of tending to the needs of children not her own. Elizabeth felt her anger and frustration rising as sharply as it had the day she had bid her friend farewell and watched her carriage begin a journey which would carry her half a country away never knowing if she'd ever see Charlotte again. Life was so unfair to women in England. So many rules imposed upon them by males. As the daughter of a knight, it would bring shame to the family if Charlotte rented a room in London and took a job in trade but it was perfectly acceptable to be sent to live in a family of strangers as a paid servant. The more she saw of life and a woman's place in it's structure, she could not see herself ever connecting with a man who could so subjugate her and take away her right to think. Recently she had begun to think of herself as growing old and alone with a dozen cats to keep her company. The thought gave her no pleasure.
She managed a wry smile at the silliness of her musings and turned back towards Longbourn, now chilled to the bone. She moved quickly as if to escape the memories of the past when life seemed so simple and uncomplicated...when she was still a child. She would not be sad on this day. She would wear her beautiful gown and smile and be gracious to her friends. She would pace herself through seven courses of rich food and try not to explode. And most of all, she must appear in high spirits for Jane's sake. She knew her sister sensed something wrong though Elizabeth steadfastly denied it. She would not have Jane feeling anxious thereby destroying her pleasure in the next few weeks. Indeed, it was Elizabeth's fondest wish that Jane might meet with a gentleman who would look beyond her lack of dowry and see her for the lovely woman she was. In a few short months Jane herself would be celebrating a birthday. She would be two and twenty years old and by her mother's standards beginning to dry on the vine.
By afternoon her spirits had rebounded somewhat due to the pleasure of spending time with her Aunt and Uncle Gardiner. Next to her father and sister Jane, the Gardiners were her favorite people. They, more than their parents had molded both Elizabeth and Jane into the young ladies they'd become. More by exposure than instruction they had learned the ways of gentlewomen and never feared that they would ever appear as less despite their lack of title or dowry.
The evening began happily enough as an occasion full of light-hearted gaiety. The gifts of books from her Aunt and Uncle Gardiner were much appreciated, the beautifully embroidered handkerchiefs from Jane were delightful, the slippers from Mary were just the right shade of fresh-cut lemons. The five pound note from her father was a wonderful surprise and though the box of sweets given by her two youngest sisters was consumed by them before the evening was half over, it was the thought that counted. On this day she refused to condemn Kitty and Lydia as two of the silliest and most selfish young women in Hertfordshire.
The dinner was a splendid affair much enjoyed by all and the sherry trifle pronounced as perfectly blended as a sherry trifle could be. When the ladies returned to the drawing room to await the men she was happy to hear that as the guest of honor she would be relieved of the onerous duty of serving coffee to her guests.
She moved about the room once more thanking her guests for their lovely gifts of ribbons, laces and scarves half-listening to the ladies of Hertfordshire discuss the latest fashions, the girls discussing the arrival of the militia, and the men waxing poetic about the prowess of their hunting dogs. The only sense she heard for the rest of the evening was from her father and the Gardiners and her darling sister, Jane. The morning which had started with less than great promise had descended into boredom and distraction and she could not account for these low spirits. All she did know was that she wanted nothing more than for the guests to be gone so she could seek the solitude of her own room.
The following day Jane left with the Gardiners for their London home. There she would spend the next several weeks and not return until shortly before Christmas. Before the carriage was even out of her sight Elizabeth missed her sister sorely. She now would not hear a moment of sense except from her father who spent most of his time locked away in his study with his beloved books.
Elizabeth would not admit even to herself that the event of her twentieth birthday had marked the beginning of a depression that colored her every waking moment. It took all her strength to pretend that all was right in her world when it wasn't. In her imaginings her restlessness took the form of a living entity which threatened to suck the last breath from her body. She continued taking her long walks each day desperately hoping to cast off her feelings of disquiet but took little pleasure in her meanderings. Not even the silliness of her three younger sisters could get a rise out of her beyond the usual resignation. Even her father's satiric humor seemed rather cruel at times.
During breakfast three weeks after her party Mr. Bennet said to his wife, "I hope, my dear, that you have ordered a particularly good dinner for tonight because I have reason to expect an addition to our family party."
"Who do you mean, my dear?"
"The person of whom I speak is a gentleman, and a stranger."
Mrs. Bennet's eyes sparkled. "A gentleman and a stranger! Is he single or married?"
"Quite single, my dear, and heir to a very nice estate."
By the twinkle in her father's eye, Elizabeth suspected that he was having a bit of fun at her mother's expense and waited silently for the ax to fall.
Mrs. Bennet's excitement grew. "How wonderful for our girls."
"How so? How can it affect them?"
"My dear Mr. Bennet," replied his wife, "how can you be so tiresome! You must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them"
"You would have him marry one of our daughters before you even lay eyes on this stranger? Before you even know his name? I declare Mrs. Bennet that this eagerness shows little regard for our five daughters though I will admit that our offspring have little to recommend them. They are all silly and ignorant like other girls though I own that my Lizzie has a quickness that I admire." He smiled at Elizabeth who returned it with some difficulty.
"Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such a way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion for my poor nerves."
At the mention of her nerves, Mr. Bennet gave up the game and finally explained to his family that their visitor would be none other than an estranged cousin who would one day inherit Longbourn by way of an entailment to the male line. "His name is William Collins and he is the pastor of Hunsford village in Kent."
Mrs. Bennet's reaction to this news was bitter and loud. This man had the power to throw her family out of their home to starve in the hedgerows upon Mr. Bennet's demise and she would not have him in her house The two youngest girls reacted with disgust and accused their father of cruelty for getting their hopes up. They had no interest in connecting themselves with a simple parson, not with the militia due to arrive in town within a fortnight. Mary, the middle girl, grew thoughtful and Elizabeth had no thought on the subject at all.
Once Mr. Bennet explained that Mr. Collins was coming to see them because he was in need of a wife, Mrs. Bennet calmed down and went to the kitchen and instructed the cook to go to market and create a feast befitting a future son-in-law.
Life in the Bennet household had never been one of quiet and repose, conducive to deep thought. The constant squabbling between her two youngest sisters and the hours of practice by Mary on the pianoforte left Elizabeth's ears ringing and her nerves on edge. Then there was her mother with her high-pitched whining about her fate in life. She had given birth to five daughters when just one son would have suited her fine. There was the usual teasing by Mr. Bennet which invariably sent Mrs. Bennet into feigned hysterics due to her nerves. And so it went until that momentous day when their cousin William Collins left his humble abode at Hunsford Parsonage in Kent and landed on their doorstep in want of a wife. In later days Elizabeth would look back on the those pre-visitor days as golden for once their cousin arrived to take up residence with them for a fortnight, life at Longbourn slipped sideways.
During the first course of a splendid three course meal prepared especially for their visitor William Collins proved to be lacking in any intellectual acuity. He was a dullard of the first rank. When he described in glowing terms how his humble abode was separated only by a narrow lane from his esteemed patroness, even Lydia, the youngest and silliness Bennet sister, rolled her eyes. When he went on to tell his hosts that he had counted one hundred and sixty-five windows in that august residence before losing count, Kitty went into a spasm of coughing. William Collins proved to be a man who possessed that delicate balance of humility and pomposity with a generous dose of stupidity thrown in for good measure.
The day after his arrival he made it clear that he indeed was in want of a wife. His patroness, Lady Catherine De Bourgh demanded it. Fortunately for Jane, she was in London visiting with her Aunt and Uncle Gardiner and so was out of the reach of Mr. Collins. Lizzie, who was next in age and beauty was elected but declined. Once the dust had settled with this refusal, it fell to Mary to save the family from starving in the hedgerows when Mr. Bennet went to a better place. To the shock and chagrin of Elizabeth, Mary accepted his offer of marriage with alacrity and satisfaction.
Elizabeth neither liked nor disliked her sister Mary and the feeling was mutual. They had absolutely nothing in common. Where Lizzie was well read and found the art of learning a joy and could never have enough of it, Mary was mired in the moralizing of Fordyces's Sermons. The very idea that a woman should subjugate herself to male preferences was bad enough but to encourage feminine mannerliness of speech, action, and appearance over substantive development of ideas was horrific and had no place in Lizzie's world. Lizzie could not remember a conversation with Mary that hadn't ended with a homily which more times than not was a non sequitur. It was Lizzie's contention that each night Mary memorized a moral, then waited with baited breath for an appropriate moment to drop said moral with, too often, a patronizing glance. Mr. Bennet would continue to chew his meat, Mrs. Bennet would blink rapidly, Kitty would cough and Lydia would snort and either Jane or Elizabeth would offer a "thank you, Mary". This seemed a satisfactory reception to the offering and pleased Mary who mercifully once more would lapse into silence. It never occurred to her middle sister that she seldom made sense.
That her sister would accept this man finally broke the shell Elizabeth had been erecting around herself. She begged and pleaded with Mary to reconsider but every argument she offered went unheeded. Indeed, to Elizabeth's way of thinking Mary's reaction to Lizzie's pleas was extraordinary. She was neither amused nor angry but showed only mild confusion. "My dear sister, can't you see the pleasure I will be giving to my family? Mother need never fear losing a roof over her head. No matter what happens now, our family will be safe. And if I'm fortunate to have a son, all our family will be secure perhaps for generations."
Elizabeth blanched at the thought of her sister giving birth to a child sired by William Collins. As a modest young lady of her times she knew very little of what took place between husband and wife but she was quite sure it would be an unpleasant affair if the man was plump, neglectful of hygiene and downright stupid.
But Mary would marry him and leave Longbourn and make her home in Kent and Elizabeth knew with a certainty that their lives would never be the same.