Chapter XX
The walk home along Longbourn Lane had been silent—on Lizzy's part. Collins huffed, puffed, and, if he been a Roman priest, pontificated. He filled every moment until they passed beneath the house's portico with his exhortations and admonitions about the preordained separation of the classes. Mr. Collins, though, seemed unmoved by the fact that William Smith, servant or not, was handsome in a Corinthian sort of way and could pose a danger to Elizabeth's virtue. On the contrary, each sentence that dribbled from Collins' lips reinforced Lizzy's understanding that his concern rose from Smith's apparent station.
Elizabeth expected a certain amount of outrage, to be sure. She had spent her adolescent years listening to her younger sister preach about the fragility of a woman's reputation. Lizzy's touching of a man unrelated to her and so far beneath her station was a violation of propriety. Even her easy-going father would raise a bushy eyebrow and purse his lips in displeasure when he heard of this.
By the time he entered his third iteration of the same argument, an idea had firmed in her cousin's mind. Collins, it appeared, was far more fearful of his patroness' reaction should she discover that a Bennet girl was coddling a servant rather than ordering that man to do her bidding.
To her shame, Lizzy had done just that when Collins had accosted them behind the Dower House; she shifted from caring friend to imperious lady. Elizabeth barely had a moment to roll her eyes at the sound of the Vicar of Hunsford's voice and minutely shake her head at Smith. She prayed that he understood that she was doing that which she must rather than assuming that she was fickle female.
"Smith! That bucket is a valuable piece of household equipment! You had best hope that it is undamaged," she snapped in her best Mistress' tone, "I tried to prevent you from completing your pitch, but you mulishly refused to heed me."
As she had lambasted Smith, she was aghast at the purple and yellow bruises discoloring his entire face. These, however, led her to include another layer meant for a pair of attentive ears.
"I realize that you must be more addled by Cato's hoof than I first thought. What simpleton forgets that you have to hold the bail when you want to throw slops out into the yard?" Elizabeth concluded.
Smith had had the acuity to apprehend her game and the grace to slide into his role without complaint. As Lizzy watched, his shoulders slumped, his eyes became slightly unfocused, and he stubbed his toe in the turf: the very picture of a shamed footman. That William was able to play the part as well as he did had argued that he had been on the receiving end of more than one performance of this nature. This observation added another facet to her understanding that there was more to the diamond-in-the-rough convict known as Smith than met the eye.
The tall man had scuttled across the yard, collected the pail, and escaped back into the Dower House, a soft "By your leave" delivered first to Miss Bennet and then to Mr. Collins.
Lizzy had breathed a sigh of relief and hoped that out-of-sight-out-of-mind would allow Mr. Collins to forget Smith. She had left the parson standing in the yard and dashed through the kitchen door "to retrieve her pelisse." Smith was nowhere to be found although Mrs. Hill looked up at the ceiling silently reporting that the patient had retreated to his chamber.
Yet, after Lizzy had left the kitchen to pass down the hallway to the parlor, she overheard something curious: a smattering of words, dust motes swirling between Campbell and Fitzwilliam that dropped another piece of the puzzle that was William Smith onto the metaphorical table stretching out before her. But as this oddly-shaped fragment was neither an edge nor a part of something clearly identifiable, Elizabeth had nary a clue about how it fit into the greater picture.
Campbell's brogue rumbled from the small study, its door cracked open an inch or so, "…reminds me o' his father…stubborn…"
Fitzwilliam's response was equally cryptic in its tempting partial nature, "…moody…brown stud…always helping others…forever looking out of win…"
She resolved to think upon this exchange when she was once again at her leisure.
That had not been possible given the urgent need to evacuate Mr. Collins from the immediate vicinity.
Lizzy had feared that once the image of Miss Elizabeth holding a servant's arm had become an idée fixe, Collins' limited mental abilities could not easily release it. She had hoped that he would recall only her last interaction with Smith. Unfortunately, like the already set aspic mold, adding more gelatine—or impressions, in this case—resulted only in overflowing and not replacement. Instead, the standing water that was the smallish pond of William Collins' mind did as Elizabeth had worried and allowed Mr. Blake's reptiles of the mind to breed unchecked.
While Collins awaited Lizzy's return, he had mulled over what he had seen. As he had pondered, his choler rose in righteous indignation.
Hence the walk back to Longbourn was made all the longer for Miss Elizabeth because of Collins' sermonizing.
Lizzy fairly flew through Longbourn's front door, her pelisse and bonnet fluttering behind her to be collected by Sarah. However, Elizabeth's dash to leave Collins' word fog behind was brought up short by Papa's voice rumbling through the library's open doorway.
Slipping between door and jamb, Lizzy came around her father's worktable, casting apprehensive looks over her shoulder.
Thomas Bennet chuckled. He had heard Collins' hectoring his daughter as they approached the house. He, too, had been hiding from his unctuous cousin.
"Based upon your demeanor, my dear girl, am I to assume that your return trip from the Dower House was less satisfying than your visit?" he genially quizzed.
Lizzy whispered, "I am trying to avoid our cousin. He is taken with the idea that I have improper feelings for Mr. Smith. Mr. Collins discovered us behind the house after Smith became upset over what I know not. I was seeking to offer him some comfort. I had grasped him by the arm to softly cool his anxiety."
"After our cousin came upon us, I fear that I had to act the entitled shrew in an attempt to divert him. I was unable to console Mr. Smith after he ran from our company, the image of a chastised servant. Like one of Sir William's collies, I needed to herd Mr. Collins here lest he becomes more curious about William's situation. Our cousin, though, is convinced that he served as my shepherd," Lizzy snorted.
Bennet's face darkened—both because of Collins' sighting of Smith and Elizabeth's use of Smith's Christian name—before he responded, "I will deal with Collins if he importunes me about this situation.
"However, your words concern me greatly. You said that you sought to console and comfort Mr. Smith. Do you realize how that would sound to someone who is unacquainted with you, Lizzy? You could ruin our family for you could not possibly be forced into marriage to relieve the compromise.
"You must be careful around our guest. I, too, have been forced to tread carefully and have been unable to learn more about Smith's crimes. I fear that Soames and his men would sniff out our deception if I am too forward. All I know for certain is that the man is not a murderer, for he surely would have swung if that had been the case.
"You, of all my girls, have never concerned me with her behavior. While you are impertinent, you have never endangered your reputation. At times I have feared for your safety given how ready you are to launch yourself cross-country on your solitary treks. But, thank God, you have escaped unsullied by any man who might seek to take your virtue.
"Do not force me to circumscribe your freedom with a footman or a companion."
Then he settled and added, "Elizabeth, I trust you to know the limits of proper behavior. But for the fact that it would be unnecessary, I would order you to avoid becoming too familiar with Smith. You are not Lydia: someone who has been known to trim her sails a bit too tightly. I count my blessings each day when James returns with the post, and there is no correspondence from Colonel Forster in Brighton.
"Speaking of the post, I have," he said slyly as his hand crept to a stack of letters, "something for you. Ah, yes, here it is. If I am not mistaken, this spoiled direction is in Jane's hand."
Lizzy greedily grabbed the wrinkled missive. She noticed that the address was smudged, and the ink had run. Clearly, someone had dropped the note in a puddle. There were residual mud stains on the folded stationery that had been scraped away by some enterprising soul.
Breaking the seal, she did her best to decipher Jane's message.
Sharing what she would with her father, "Jane writes from Northamptonshire, from Papplewick Hall, where she and the Gardiners spent a few days in the company of Aunt Maddie's cousin, Miss Fountayne.
"Ummm…oh my goodness! Papa, this letter was written over two weeks ago! The Gardiners were to return to Town after their stay with Miss Fountayne. Then they were going to spend several days doing make-and-mend after their trip. Aunt Maddie, good mama that she is, has missed the children."
She mumbled through a few more passages before exclaiming, "Oh, Papa! Jane is coming home…today! My uncle has some commitments in Town later this week which he cannot break. Jane says that for the Gardiners to escort her here, it must be today so that they can return to Town in the morning!
"Oh, I must tell Mama so that she can adjust plans with Cook and have Sarah prepare the guest bedchamber for Aunt and Uncle. Janie could be walking through the door at any moment!"
Mr. Collins was nearly bowled over by a muslin-clad blur dashing from the library as he tried to enter.
"Yes, Mr. Collins, I have been expecting your visit," was all that Elizabeth heard as she hurried across the hallway to apprise her mother of the impending arrival of Longbourn's eldest child.