Posted on Thursday, 23 May 2002
As Heather Lynn's Mr. Darcy so eloquently pointed out (before he actually PROPOSED, Alicia!) he had written a letter to Mr. Collins in which Lizzy begged him for a meeting in London. Now what did Mr. Collins do upon receiving such a message?
Well, naturally he went to London to meet his fairest cousin (and from his point of view future wife) Elizabeth. Sitting in his carriage he happily anticipated the secret meeting with her and with even more happiness he indulged in fantasies how life would be once he had brought her with him to Hunsford Parsonage. How awed she would be when he showed her the chimneypiece and the grand staircase of Rosings and its impressing front with all its 64 windows. Mr. Collins sighed dreamily.
All of the sudden a feeling of dread overcame him. His spooky sixth sense told him that just at that precise moment something happened that would change the life of the woman he most esteemed forever. Instantly he ordered the coachman to turn and urged him to move faster. (The authoress chooses not to insert a rude remark about Mr. Collins and wrong ways.)
A quarter of an hour later the carriage passed by a large field of pumpkins, wherein sat a woman. Mr. Collins stared hard. Didn't he know the lady? Yes, that was beyond a doubt Ms Caroline Bingley. What was she doing in that field? And why was she embracing a pumpkin? Mr. Collins leaned out of the window to call out to her but his carriage moved too fast and she was already out of sight.
My fair readers may wonder as much as Mr. Collins what exactly Caroline Bingley was doing in that field. So, we will abandon Mr. Collins for some miles which where rather uneventful except for an hold-up, three very mad sheep who tried to stampede over the carriage and a major carriage crash involving a horse, a cow, a dog, four carriages and a very confused farmer. As a matter of fact, the crash happened before Mr. Collins arrived there. Our heroic clergyman was caught in the traffic jam that ensued it.
So we will be at leisure to have a look at Ms Bingley.
As Mr. Collins had rightly seen with the eagle eyes he so proudly called his Ms Bingley was sitting in a field embracing one pumpkin. Knowing the moment her Darcy-Radar (spooky sixth sense she has) went blank that Mr. Darcy had betrayed her and was lost forever she immediately stopped the carriage. At least she had the fortune to be passing by that pumpkin field. Those wonderful vegetables would be able to console her in her grief. Caroline Bingley loved pumpkins. She had always thought the orange colour of them extremely beautiful and highly fashionable. Pumpkins had the effect of making her feel at ease with the world. (So now you know the real reason why she despised Hertfordshire: Not a single pumpkin to be seen in that savage country!) Gently caressing the one she embraced, she said:
"You are the only friends I have in the world. You will never deceive me. Make false promises. Betray me. How could he do that? We had a secret understanding! I was to be Mistress of Pemberley! (Authoress chooses to insert rude remark here: "Mistress or distress?") I let him have all the time of the world and now he abandoned me for some pretentious upstart with fine eyes! Men are all cruel, unfeeling creatures! Only pumpkins are worth knowing."
As Ms Bingley has seemingly to impart with nothing of consequence we may now turn back to Mr. Collins. I will only venture to say that Ms Bingley stayed another three and a half hours in that field caressing and speaking to the pumpkins. As the authoress has pity for her (don't worry; it'll pass) she decides that a young man of large fortune from oh lets say Oxfordshire came along. He immediately fell in love with her because she was such a delightful and caring girl, being so close to nature and all. He proposed on the spot, restored Caroline's belief in men, secured her approval by telling her that he had seven thousand a year and they lived happily ever after growing pumpkins on his large estate in Oxfordshire.
Now back to Mr. Collins!
The traffic jam had cleared and the clergyman had come far by now. In fact, he had almost reached his destination. Some other quite uneventful miles further - that is uneventful except for that not at all rotten tree that inexplicably decided to fall down and nearly smashed the carriage - the vehicle stopped. Mr. Collins agilely fell out and ran into the house to comfort the sun around which his life evolved. Panting he came into the drawing room. (The authoress mentally berates herself as she should have said 'one of the drawing rooms' for the lady in question possessed several. Yes, my fair readers, the lady is none other than the ... )
"Most honourable Lady *pant, pant* DeBourgh *bow, pant, pant*, I came as soon *pant* as I was *pant* able to."
Little explanation:
Lady Catherine DeBourgh was in possession of some spooky sixth sense, too. The authoress knows that there are quite a lot of people with that in her story, but she doesn't care. Even Mr. Darcy had one. And it sent shivers of warning ('Lady-Cat-alert!') down his spine. But maybe that were only shivers of pleasure as one Elizabeth Bennet (soon Elizabeth Darcy, because he had proposed to her, Alicia! *grim look*) clung passionately to his lips at that time.
However. Lady Catherine had one spooky sixth sense and it had gone on 'Darcy-is-proposing-alert' some hours ago. As she very well knew that Darcy did not propose to her daughter because Anne had been ill and in her room all day and Darcy was nowhere near Rosings at the moment she was extremely put out. It was very lucky that Mr. Collins had arrived so that she could relieve her feelings a little. Lady Catherine scolded him for some time until she felt better and then dismissed him. Mr. Collins was very happy that he had been of some use to his venerable patroness.
BTW, as Anne has been mentioned, we may as well learn of the lady's whereabouts because she was by no means in her room. Well, she had been in her room that morning but only long enough to clad herself in some shockingly unladylike garments. Afterwards she had crept down the servants' staircase, left Rosings by a little, generally unnoticed door and met her friends in the woods. Unsavory and wild characters that were ... er ... Well, no, not really. As a matter of fact, they were all young gentle folk but they liked to disguise themselves as unsavory and wild characters. When they met they did usually hang out together, talked a lot about rebelling against the stuffy generation their parents belonged to and abused people who would come along the road. Afterwards they would sneak home because they dared not to meet the eyes of their parents as shockingly clad as they were.
When Mr. Collins visited Rosings the next day he met a Lady Metcalfe and a certain Ms Pope who had called on Lady Catherine. To own the truth he had met the ladies before because they had been caught in the same traffic jam as he had and they had conversed nicely there and then. Lady Metcalfe praised Ms Pope into the skies:
"She is treasure," she said. "Lady Catherine, you have given me a treasure."
Lady Catherine smiled condescendingly: "Yes, she is a treasure indeed."
Mr. Collins saw the look of approval on her ladyship's face and immediately knew what to do. Three days later he proposed to Ms Pope and as she was not very bright she accepted him and they lived ... er ... well ... they lived.
Always soliciting the good opinion of the grand Lady Catherine DeBourgh, naturally.