Mr Collins is afraid
Sometimes he thinks he has always been afraid. His earliest memory is Ma in a box, her face all waxy with a linen frill round it. Auntie Collins, father's sister, had said he had to kiss it and he'd screamed and screamed until they'd carried him out. Father had leathered him for that.
He'd been afraid of father for as long as his could remember, and of all the maids they'd ever had, sharp tongued and hard handed. Father said they were gentry but they lived cheaper and colder and nastier than anyone he knew, even the shop keepers and Mr Hopkins the blacksmith. Mr Hopkins was one of the few people who was always kind to him, let him sit in the forge on cold winter afternoons. Father was so angry when he found out and Little Willy Collins didn't understand what he was doing wrong and no one would explain it to him.
He'd been afraid at school. He'd been sent away so young and all the boys seemed huge. They laughed at his clothes and the darns and the fact that the heels on his boots weren't the same colour. He'd tried so hard to understand but it seemed to take him longer than everyone else and he didn't dare ask questions because they laughed at him if he were lucky or beat him if he wasn't. He'd sat up night after night, doing his prep over and over again in a desperate attempt to fade into the background.
School was terrifying but it was better than going home, with father glowering at the end of the table and telling him he'd never amount to anything. They were gentry and he needed a gentleman's career and for three horrifying weeks it seemed he was going to be sent into the Navy. But the Captain said he needed money for uniforms and equipment and father refused to pay.
Then Auntie Collins husband, for she was Mrs Gresham now, said he could go to Oxford and be a clergyman and although it sounded difficult and meant talking to lots of people, at least he wouldn't be sent to war. Mr Gresham doesn't like him, Willy Collins is fairly sure Mr Gresham despises him, but he isn't cruel and he wants to preserve the family credit so he pays for Willy's lodgings and fees and Auntie Gresham takes him to a tailor and buys him two suits of clothes and argues father into paying for a pair of boots a year. When he gets to Oxford he sees how old-fashioned and ill-fitting they are, but they're better than he's ever had, so he does his best to be grateful.
The University is just as bewildering as everywhere else. He sees the lordly men, loud confident voices and money to burn. They laugh at him too, when they notice him, but if he's careful he can avoid them so, all it all, it could be a lot worse. His tutor calls him a blockhead and he knows there's something wrong with his manners but he can't work out what and no one will tell him. So he tries to be humble and inoffensive and that almost works.
In his last year he realises that he needs to find a parish, hopefully as far away from father as possible. He applies for a few curacies but soon realises that the vicars he meets do not like him either. He reads books on conduct and manners but they don't seem to help. He starts to panic until suddenly rescue arrives from an unexpected quarter.
His New Testament Greek class is mostly men aiming for the church but there are one or two of the lordly men attending out of interest. One of them is the Earl of Matlock's heir, Viscount Summerbridge. Studying the Bible hasn't made him noticeably kinder but one day, as Mr Collins stumbles his way through the Epistle to the Hebrews, anxiously deferring to more confident men, the Viscount leans over. "Hey Collins," he says. "You looking for a parish?"
He admits he is.
"My Aunt's looking for a man for her family living. She's a dreadful old harridan but she'll keep you right if you're interested."
He is more than interested. No more trudging around parishes, trying to make himself a desirable curate, constantly and uneasily conscious that he's doing everything all wrong and that even the most charitable clergymen don't want him.
And Lady Catherine is a godsend. She doesn't seem to notice his manner. She tells him what to think and it all makes such good sense he doesn't have to worry any more. And in the Church there is the lectionary telling him what do to through the liturgical year and books of sermons he can read from. He has more money than he's ever seen in his life because Lady Catherine browbeats the local farmers, who are all her tenants, into paying their tithes.
For the first time in his life he feels as though he is no longer carrying a heavy weight, especially when he gets word father has died. He buys a dozen new shirts in cambric. He orders the best leaf tea and tells his servant Mrs Tompkins that he wants Spring lamb and onions for dinner, instead of the stewed scrag end of neck that was his usual fare. He ventures into a few extempore additions to his sermons and Lady Catherine either doesn't notice or approves. He is invited to dinner at Rosings and, in an incautious moment, informs here that he is heir to an estate in Hertfordshire under an entail or possibly a settlement. He has never quite understood which.
Then, horribly, Lady Catherine tells him he must marry. It feels like a whim. A cruelty. Why did things have to change? But Lady Catherine insists and packs him off to his cousin Bennet's house to marry one of his daughters.
He does not want to go. He does not talk to young ladies, he doesn't know how to talk to young ladies. The Gentleman's Guide to Modern Manners seems to show the way and he tries to be confident in its precepts but, as Mr Collins climbs unwillingly into the stage coach, Mr Collins is afraid.