Page 55 of A November to Remember

“Fair enough,” the colonel said, assessing a crumpet.

Mrs Bennet sniffed, fractionally comforted. “That is a relief. But there is a far worse relative we cannot hide, and he is arriving on the eighteenth.”

“A murderer?” the colonel asked hopefully, pausing his chewing.

“Worse.” Mrs Bennet spat the word as if it were sour milk. “The heir. Mr Collins. He is the cousin who is to inherit Longbourn when Mr Bennet dies, leaving us all to starve in the hedgerows.”

“A dreadful man,” Mrs Philips confirmed, nodding grimly. “He wrote a letter of such sycophancy that Mr Bennet read it aloud many times just to marvel at the absurdity of it. He is a clergyman.”

“I remember you reciting parts of it. An admirable performance, by the by. But a clergyman is respectable. Surely, he can be managed,” Lord Keathley said.

“My sister did not include everything when she recited it, my lord. The man speaks of the Kentish shrubbery and the Kentish chimneys, and boasts incessantly of his patroness, who dictates the dimensions of his poultry shed,” Mrs Bennet continued, her voice rising in pitch. “A grand widow in Kent. At Rosings Park. He says she dictates how many chickens her tenants may keep and advises them on their winter petticoats!”

The viscount’s teacup froze halfway to his lips.

The colonel stopped chewing.

“Rosings Park?” Lord Keathley repeated, his voice sounding very thin, as if the air had been sucked out of the floral parlour.

“Yes,” Mrs Bennet confirmed. “A Lady Catherine de Bourgh.”

The colonel coughed violently, his face turning a shade of plum, pounding a fist against his chest.

“Aunt Catherine,” he wheezed, spraying a small shower of scone crumbs on the tea table.

Mrs Bennet dropped her fan. “Aunt?”

“She is our aunt,” the viscount whispered, his languor vanishing. “Darcy’s aunt as well. The woman is a monster. A meddlesome force who eats joy for breakfast and drinks the blood of the innocent.”

“She once reduced my man to tears because she disliked the cut of his whiskers,” the colonel rasped, reaching desperately for the milk jug. “She told me I was too tall and I should stoop. She hates tall people.”

“She is the reason Darcy is so stiff!” the viscount exclaimed, his eyes wide with terror. “If your Mr Collins is a disciple of Aunt Catherine, we are in unfathomable peril. The woman has been trying to force Darcy to marry her own sickly daughter, Anne, since they were in the cradle. If she catches a whiff of a muddy rosebush in Hertfordshire, she will ride up here on a broomstick and burn Longbourn to the ground!”

Mrs Bennet’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. “But wait! There is more! Mr Collins wrote he was coming to offer an olive branch to our family. He intends to choose a wife from among my daughters to make amends for the entail, I am certain!”

“He cannot have Miss Bennet,” Lord Keathley said at once, slamming a hand onto the armrest. “I forbid it. For Bingley’s sake, of course.”

“He absolutely cannot have Miss Elizabeth,” his brother added, recovering his breath. “Darcy will brood until the sun goes out, and he is miserable when it is raining.”

“And he certainly cannot have Lydia or Kitty, for they would push him into a duck pond,” Mrs Philips reasoned. “Mary might take him. She reads a great deal, and two pompous windbags in one house might cause the roof to cave in, but it would save the entail.”

“Absolutely not!” the colonel roared, his voice echoing off the parlour walls with parade-ground volume. “Miss Mary shall not have him! I forbid it! She is a woman of profound philosophical depth. She requires a man who appreciates Seneca. And beef. Not a sycophantic rector!”

Mrs Bennet lowered her fan, a triumphant smile spreading across her face. Hooked him, she thought.

“Who else is there?” the viscount demanded, glancing wildly around the room as if a spare spinster might be hiding behind the curtains. “Is there anyone in the village who requires a husband, a parsonage, and a loud patroness?”

Mrs Philips tapped her chin. “Well... there is Charlotte Lucas.”

The viscount blinked. “The sensible friend? The one who did not laugh at Mrs Long’s poultry coiffure at the lodge?”

“She is seven-and-twenty,” Mrs Bennet explained, her eyes narrowing as a new scheme assembled itself in her mind. “She is plain, she has no fortune to speak of, and Sir William is eager to get her off his hands. And she is wonderfully practical.”

“She could manage him,” Mrs Philips agreed. “She manages Sir William very well, and he believes his pigs require velvet collars.”

The viscount stood up, running a hand through his carefully styled hair. “Ladies. The stakes have just breached the firmament. If Aunt Catherine’s clergyman wanders into Netherfield and spots Darcy making sheep’s eyes at Miss Elizabeth, the game is lost. We must throw Miss Lucas at his head the moment his boots touch the gravel.”

“Ah, another wedding!” Mrs Bennet clutched the sofa cushions in a paroxysm of utter bliss. “Jane to Mr Bingley, Lizzy to Mr Darcy, and Charlotte Lucas to the horrible Mr Collins! It is perfect! The wedding cake would have to be five tiers high!”