A glance at the church clock in Potters Bar showed Mrs Elizabeth Collins that their pace was nothing to boast of. They would arrive in Hunsford well after midnight. While it might spare her the mortifications of a 'proper' wedding night, it would likely have her first meeting with her staff when she was bad-tempered. She had no idea if that was good or not, but all things considered, she could not possibly have endured the wedding breakfast, so her choices were limited. Of course, it might have been possible for Mr Collins to engage something other than the slowest cart in England, or {gasp} an inn; but the die was cast so there was little point in whining about it (amusing as the exercise might be).
Mr Collins had been commenting on the passing scenery with verbosity somewhere between annoying and maddening. She paid little attention except for one specific phrase she wanted to get well under control. She was a believer in the well-known saying, begin as you mean to go on. She did not want to imitate her parents' marriage, which had been acrimonious as long as she could remember. That meant she had to get control of everything straightaway. By that, she meant she needed to quickly come to dominate her home, her poultry, her servants, her husband, and her patroness. It was only common sense, and everyone knew the best treatment for rot of any kind was to prevent the establishment of even a tiny little bit. In the case of mould or similar household effects, that meant attacking cleaning with military zeal at the first sign of trouble.
She was certain the same applied to husbands.
She looked directly at him and said casually, "Mr Collins, that is your fourteenth reference to Lady Catherine since we left Meryton, and nineteenth today. You should curtail yourself before you exceed your quota."
She rather enjoyed seeing him gape at her in astonishment, and briefly wondered if that was how her own mother's near-constant sniping at her father began. She knew she would have to give that one some thought. She had always disdained her mother and esteemed her father, but the events of the week left her believing she had it exactly backwards.
"What do you mean, QUOTA," he snapped in obvious anger, his colour rising, and his mouth working in ways best not described.
"Exactly what I said! You are contractually limited to thirty references to Lady Catherine per day. Referencing a specific wish or policy of hers counts as one, as obviously does use of her name. You are two-thirds through today's quota, and we are not even two hours from Meryton."
Once again, Collins stared at her in complete stupefaction. "What do you mean? You swore to obey me not two hours ago, and now you are attempting to add new conditions? You must think me quite the rube, but I assure you I am not. Where did that ridiculous figure, or even that concept, come from?"
"From our marriage contract," she replied nonchalantly.
"MARRIAGE CONTRACT," he squeaked stupidly. "What do you mean?"
"It is self-explanatory."
"Explain it anyway!"
With a sigh, Mrs Collins removed a thick sheaf of papers from a dispatch case, flipped it to the last page, showed it to her newly minted husband, and asked, "Is this your signature?"
He looked carefully and frowned fit for Lydia in a temper. "It is."
She flipped to a page in the middle, moved to a particular heading with her index finger, and read aloud.
38.2 Patroness References
[Husband] is limited to thirty references to his noble patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, per calendar day, including any form of the lady's name, or any of the following, which are defined as secondary references —
She stopped reading. "The next three paragraphs simply define what counts as a secondary reference. You can simplify it with the guideline that if you are thinking about the lady when you speak, you are probably referencing her. As you agreed, you are two-thirds through your quota for the day."
He seemed to get quite angry and snapped, "I agreed to no such thing!"
She frowned, "That would imply that Mr Philips forged your signature—a very serious charge. Forgery is a capital offense in England, as is giving false witness! Are you prepared to accept the consequences of such an accusation?"
Flustered, he paled and spit out angrily, "Of course not. He simply spoke to me about how a husband should act towards his wife, and I took it as suggestions."
"You took the words of a solicitor as kindly-meant advice? On the most important contract of your life? Seriously? That is like taking the word of a wolf about the best way to protect your poultry!" she squeaked in mock indignation.
"Well, since he was speaking of terms that are never in a marriage contract —"
"You are telling me you signed the contracts without even reading them?"
He got another mulish look, and she sighed in frustration. "Good Lord, you did!"
"He seemed trustworthy and there were a lot of… complicated clauses… jointures, pin money, allowances, assets …"
Elizabeth was actually quite pleased with the situation, but obviously was not about to give up her advantage.
"I heard Mr Philips tell you that he was acting as my solicitor, and most assuredly not my uncle, which would be silly since I had my father to theoretically look after my interests. Are you seriously telling me you did not even glance at the final result."
He still looked mulish, and somewhat intimidated, which she considered a good sign.
He finally perked up and said, "I doubt these contract clauses are valid or enforceable. I shall ask Lady Catherine to comment on them."
"That is twenty references! Are you certain you wish to expose yourself to the ridicule of telling your patroness you signed a document without even reading it, let alone understanding. I doubt that will end well. Just the fact that you seem to be at odds with your wife a day after your wedding will not look good. No, I think it best to keep our marriage in our own home where it belongs. It is none of Lady Catherine's business, and I, for one, will allow no interference.
"What do you suggest?" he snapped churlishly.
She sighed as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders. "Adopt the better late than never school of thought. You do not appear to have a copy of the contract, so this clean copy is for you. I have a second for myself, and Mr Philips filed a copy with the Chancery Court. We should just sit down and go over it line by line—something you should have done before you signed it. Consider that lesson one!"
"How many lessons are there?" he asked peevishly.
"As many as it takes. We both are practically as ignorant as lambs, but I think you must agree that working towards a good marriage is better than constantly being at odds."
He frowned, but at least nodded more or less agreeably and kept his mouth shut, which she considered progress.
She said, "We obviously should go through the contract, paying particular attention to the 'penalties' sections that outline my potential remedies for non-compliance. Before we begin, though, should I explain how this came to be?"
"If you must."
She accepted his churlishness, and since it was about one-third the strength of Lydia's, and even Mary could best her husband in bile quite handily, she thought herself well up to dealing with him.
"English law gives women very little control over their lives and homes once they say the wedding vows. Frankly, any woman of sense thinks the system barbaric, but there is naught we can do about it. Are you with me so far?"
He nodded, and while she suspected he was learning a very different lesson than she was teaching, she had little difficulty believing she would bring him around sooner or later.
She continued, "History is replete with women who have been abused by their husbands while the law looks on indifferently, by wives cut out of their husband's wills, by wives who have done all they can possibly do, only to be pushed aside by the caprice of men. You need only look at my own mother, little though I wish to discuss her. At eighteen, she married the heir to an estate with not the slightest idea of what an entail was. She subsequently delivered five babes who lived to adulthood without a single miscarriage or childhood death—a feat rarely accomplished. It is FAR more than anyone could reasonably ask, and yet she will lose her home because she lost the coin flip on sex five times in a row. That is something uncommon, but not supernatural, and certainly not her fault."
"I suppose," he grumbled angrily.
The mistress continued relentlessly. "Not to put too fine a point on it, but my mother bested your precious Lady Catherine by four births, and all of us have been robust and healthy nearly every day of our lives. No Bennet has been prevented from gaining any accomplishment from any cause save indolence. Mrs Bennet also subsequently bested you in bringing about this marriage via compromise. And yet Lady Catherine gets to remain de-facto mistress of Rosings, while my mother will starve in the hedgerows. Does that seem fair to you?"
"No," he grudgingly admitted, though whether it was because he agreed, or he was intimidated by his new wife who was not the least bit complying was anybody's guess.
"The difference between the two has nothing to do with Lady Catherine's noble birth nor her character. The only real difference is the marriage contract. Lady Catherine's father negotiated a better contract. It is as simple as that, and so I do not plan to repeat my grandfather's mistake. I do not even plan to repeat my parents' mistakes, but that is another matter. This contract is my only protection, and you can bet your life that I took every opportunity to protect myself that I could work out. As I said, my uncle continues to represent the former Elizabeth Bennet! Even after Elizabeth Bennet is no longer a legal entity, he still represents me."
Apparently sensing a chink in her armour, he bombastically asserted, "As you alluded yourself, at common law, husband and wife are one person, and that person is the man. On marriage a wife became a "feme covert," that is, a woman under the protection of her husband. It is in my power and my purview to manage the affairs of the couple."
"In the law, that is true," she said, and scowled when he beamed in his perceived power. "That said, it is overly simplified. The power is in the hands of men! If a woman is so foolish as to marry without proper protection of her assets, she is likely to lose them, never to be recovered. That is the main reason elopements and compromises are so blisteringly stupid. A woman puts herself entirely in the power of some rake with no protection whatsoever."
"Everyone knows that!" he sneered pedantically.
"Yes, everyone knows that—except, of course, for the muttonheads who go along. However —"
She paused dramatically to ensure he was listening.
"The marriage contract is enforced honour. It lists the things the husband is obliged to do or prevented from doing, by contract or by law. In effect, it takes some the power for certain items outside the purview of the marriage, where it should rightly belong but does not due to centuries of perfidy by men, into the realm of other men! For example, when Miss de Bourgh weds, she comes with some sort of enormous dowry, perhaps even Rosings itself. How do you think her guardian will keep a fortune-hunting-gambler from betting the whole thing on a cockroach race?"
He looked flummoxed.
"Because the marriage contract protects the things her guardian considers important. That is why contracts are negotiated! Normally, the contracts only include the obvious things: Jointure, Pin Money, Dowry, Asset Division, Provisions for Children past and present, Widowhood, Settlements… that sort of thing. I simply expanded the list to include all the things necessary to make my life liveable."
"You think so little of me as to believe me weak enough to be compelled by a piece of paper?" he blustered.
"IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT I THINK!" she matched shout for shout—and then some.
She continued in a more reasonable tone (slightly). "The most honourable and amiable-seeming man I ever met romanced my sister for six weeks and then abandoned her without a word, basically kicking her to the curb without a backward glance. What can she do about it—NOTHING! My own father abandoned me for his own peace and convenience. What can I do about it—NOTHING!"
He looked like he did not know about Bingley's abandonment, and probably wished he did so he would have had a crack at Jane, but Elizabeth was having none of it.
"You, on the other hand, refused to listen to my very simple, direct, and honest statement that I did not wish to marry you. After that, my mother forced my hand with either your participation or your ignorance. You had ONE chance to prove your honour definitively, and you failed, sir," she snapped, finding herself breathing hard and her chest pounding.
He glowered at her, while she suspected he was repenting his decision to attach himself to the fiery one instead of the pious one.
She continued, "I do not plan to relitigate that for the rest of our lives. Past is past, except when past is prologue. We are married until one of us dies. I set my dogs onto protecting my assets, and they will continue to do so. Read the contract and be aware that my Uncle Philips can make your life very unpleasant and very expensive without ever leaving his office. You should also note I have already paid him enough to do that if it comes down to it."
He looked startled, but Elizabeth thought that just like most bullies, he would relent until he thought he was stronger. She did not actually know that he was a bully in the first place, and imagined she would learn eventually, but it was best to be prepared for all contingencies.
For the moment, though, she was satisfied with their minimal progress.
"Let us not fight about it, sir. We can go through the contract together and do the discussion you should have done before signing it."
He grumbled in ill humour, but she just gave him his copy and picked up hers.
"We need not go through it in order. Let us pick a few that are more urgent than others, and we can do the rest at our leisure. We have at least eight more hours."
"All right."
"Turn to page six," she said, then started reading a relevant section.
21 Personal Hygiene
…
21.5 Bathing
[Husband] is to bathe at least once per fortnight under all conditions. A bath is defined as …
21.2
[Husband] is required to bathe, wash his teeth, and comb his tongue and hair within eight hours of marital relations.
Colins gasped and looked like he would jump out the door and kill himself given half a chance but said nothing—much to Elizabeth's surprise.
Mrs Collins blushed but did not relent. "I obviously have no experience whatsoever in such matters, but I refuse to share a bed with someone who is not squeaky clean. Call me fastidious if you like, but on this point I will not relent."
Collins was still blushing, so Elizabeth took some pity on him. She was nowhere near as ignorant as she had been a few weeks earlier, but she still had never so much as touched the ungloved hand of a man, let alone shared a bed, and she was determined to make it as not-unpleasant as possible. Based on quite a number of interviews with very knowledgeable women, that seemed the best she could hope for.
She said, "This may seem harsh, Mr Collins, but let me assure you that I do not intend for us to be antagonists our entire lives. I have seen how that ends and do not care for it. All I do now is in an effort to ensure we have a good marriage. As difficult as it may be to imagine right now, I do believe if we both put our full efforts into making each other happy that we can succeed. We can find contentment, but I cannot do it alone."
Collins thought for quite some time, and eventually seemed like he would need even more room for cogitation.
He simply said, "Perhaps I will take the time to read this now and write down any questions."
"Probably for the best."
Mrs Collins was not at all convinced she had won the war, but she had certainly won that battle.