Uncommonly Intelligent Chapter 30: Anno Mundi, a pride and prejudice fanfic

Author's Note: One of these days, I will learn that my writing is not going to get any faster, and my chapters are not going to stop growing far beyond my original concept. And to not promise anything the week of the NCAA basketball finals and the Masters Tournament. And now with classes in session again, I feel hesitant to even predict that I will be able to get one or two chapters a month posted, but that will be my goal. Thank you again for your patience.

Chapter 30 - Anno Mundi

Longbourn, Hertfordshire, October 22, 1811

The Bennet women were chatting in the parlor when Mr. Collins descended the stairs still dressed all in black, and Lizzy wondered whether that was the only color he ever wore. As he came closer and bowed, however, the dust on his clothes and the odor they emitted made it clear that he had not changed.

Lydia and Kitty quickly begged to be excused, citing some vague duties related to their classroom. After following Lydia closely with his eyes as she left, Mr. Collins turned to Jane and beamed at her. Observing this, Mrs. Bennet abruptly stood and said, "Jane, dear, I need you to help me with the preparations for dinner tonight." Looking pointedly at Mr. Collins, she added, "It will be good practice for when you are married to Mr. Bingley, for I do not expect it to be many days until he proposes."

Lizzy and Mary suppressed gasps, and Jane blushed deeply, while Mr. Collins' smile disappeared as he said, "Miss Bennet is in a courtship?"

"Perhaps not formally, but everyone knows that Mr. Bingley has been too marked in his attentions not to propose," answered Mrs. Bennet. "You shall meet him tomorrow, for we have invited his party to dinner. Come, Jane." And with that, she exited the room without a backward glance, leaving Jane no choice but to follow.

That left only Lizzy and Mary with Mr. Collins. In the awkward silence that followed, Lizzy decided that she might as well see whether there might be more to Mr. Collins than was apparent. She was about to speak when Mary surprised her by saying, "Mr. Collins, would you care for tea and sandwiches now?"

Mr. Collins' smile returned as he magnanimously agreed to be served, and Mary left to see to it. Lizzy expected that she had seen the last of her, but to her surprise, Mary did not use the opportunity to escape, but returned shortly with Mrs. Hill and a footman who helped set up the trays.

After they were served, Lizzy gamely began trying to find a topic of conversation, but Collins seemed to have no opinions on literature, art, or music. She was momentarily hopeful when he expressed some very strong opinions on the conduct of the war, but it soon became obvious that he could not support them except to say that he had heard Lady Catherine de Bourgh's wise monologues on the subject.

Finally, Lizzy played her last card, namely religion. Surely a man who had taken orders would have some knowledge of that field.

"Tell me, Mr. Collins, was it a coincidence, or did you deliberately choose this auspicious date for your arrival?"

Mr. Collins looked at her blankly. "Er, auspicious date?"

"Why, it is the birthday of the world! What could be more auspicious?" asked Lizzy.

"I do not have the pleasure of understanding you," he said, as if there were any doubt.

"I refer to the date of creation, 4004 BC." At the uncertain look on Mr. Collins' face, Lizzy was about to retrieve the Bible from her father's study, but noting Mr. Collins' greasy fingers, said, "I assume you brought your Bible with you?"

"Of course."

"Perhaps it would be best if you retrieve it, so you can be certain that I am not referencing a defective copy."

Mr. Collins was happy to do so. As he clomped up the stairs, Lizzy hastened to her father's study and warned him to hide his most valuable books, and particularly the Gutenberg Bible, lest Collins soil them with his dirty hands. She threw him a quick smile and was back in the parlor as if she had never moved by the time Mr. Collins returned with his Bible. As she expected, it was the 1769 Oxford edition of the King James Version, the official Bible of the Church of England.

"If you turn to the first chapter of Genesis," Lizzy said, "you will see the date of Creation in the margin, and indeed the dates of all significant events are in the margins throughout the Bible."

Collins turned to the indicated page, and as Lizzy had said, he saw even before the chapter heading, "Year before the common Year of CHRIST - 4004", and now vaguely remembered that he had seen it before. But he saw no month or day, and informed Elizabeth of this.

"Yes, sir, I am aware, but it is well known that the dates in the margins come from the book The Annals of the World by Archbishop Ussher*, and in that book, he says that the beginning of time was the evening preceding the 23rd day of October, 4004 BC." She smiled at him. "While it is late afternoon here at Longbourn, I believe that it is well into evening in the vicinity of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, which we are told was the location of the Garden of Eden. In other words, time began 5,815 years before your arrival here, almost to the minute."

Collins gaped at her.

Lizzy continued blithely, "Of course, others have calculated the beginning of the world differently. The Jewish calendar begins with the creation of the world, and it reckons that the current year, which began on the 18th of September this year, is 5572. That would mean that the world began 3761 years before our Year One. I believe that October 6th was the first day of that year. They use a lunar calendar, you see, so that the date of their new year varies, just as Easter does for us."

Collins sniffed disdainfully. "What would the Jews know about it?"

Lizzy did her best to conceal her shock. She had not expected much of Collins, but that he seemed unaware that the Old Testament was Jewish scripture was incredible. Still, she recovered and said, "As you say, sir. But another Christian perspective is the Byzantine calendar. It was used by the Eastern Church for over a thousand years, until 1728. It reckoned the beginning of the world to be September 1st, 5509 BC."

"Papists!" sneered Collins.*

Losing her patience with him, Lizzy said, "In fact, Mr. Collins, the Eastern Church broke with the pope nearly 500 years before the English Church did."

Collins' face turned decidedly reddish, and it did not improve his appearance. Mary gave Lizzy a pleading look, not wanting her to completely lose her temper. But all were granted a reprieve as they heard a conveyance in the gravel of the front path. Mary rose to look out the window and reported, "It is our aunt and uncle Philips."

Mr. Philips did not have a carriage, but he did have a gig, which was more than sufficient for his needs, since he lived in Meryton and rarely had occasion to travel more than a few miles from his home.

Lizzy said, "But it is scarcely four o'clock! We were not expecting him until after five."

Her confusion was short-lived, for her aunt Alice bustled into the parlor and said, "Oh girls, wait until you hear! The militia has arrived! I could not wait a moment to bring you the news, and as your uncle had no clients scheduled for this afternoon, he agreed to close the office early and come…" she trailed off as she finally noticed Collins.

"Oh! You must be Mr. Collins!"

As Collins rose, Lizzy said, "Mr. Collins, may I present my aunt, Mrs. Philips."

Collins bowed and said, "I am most pleased to meet you, Mrs. Philips. I take it you are the esteemed sister of my esteemed cousin's esteemed wife?"

Under the noise of other people approaching the parlor, Mary whispered to Lizzy, "His vocabulary seems more limited when he speaks than when he composes a letter."

Mrs. Philips curtsied to Collins in return. "Indeed, sir. My husband is Meryton's solicitor," she said with some pride. As if on cue, Mr. Philips entered the room, accompanied by Mr. Bennet. Only a moment later, Mrs. Bennet came rushing in, followed more sedately by Jane, and finally Kitty and Lydia.

Lizzy happily yielded to her father for the introduction of Mr. Philips to Collins, and once that was accomplished, Mrs. Philips resumed with enthusiasm, "Fanny! You will never guess! The militia has arrived! They marched right under my window!"

Mrs. Philips had expected shouts of glee from at least Mrs. Bennet and her two youngest daughters, but for some reason, they seemed pleased to hear the news, but not overly excited. Strange, she thought, they were quite excited about it a few weeks ago, when we first heard they were coming. She was unaware that Kitty and Lydia now knew that their pin money was more than the yearly salary of most of the soldiers, and that Mrs. Bennet's exceeded even the officer's salaries, other than Colonel Forster himself.

Mrs. Bennet asked, "And what was your impression of them?"

"Oh! Some of them looked very fine indeed! The officers were so handsome in their red coats! But I will own that some of the regular soldiers were rather forbidding. There were more than a few whom I would not wish to meet on a dark street."

Mr. Bennet frowned at this and said, "Girls, remember that these are men who will be gone in a few months, so they have no need to care overmuch for their reputations, nor about keeping their promises. Be certain that you follow the rules we discussed earlier."

Mrs. Bennet saw no reason to keep to her original late-dinner schedule now that her sister and brother-in-law had arrived an hour early, so she suggested that the men retire to Mr. Bennet's study for drinks, while her sister accompany her to her room, where they could talk while she dressed for dinner. Excepting Mr. Bennet, everyone was pleased with this relocation of Mr. Collins, especially her daughters.

Fanny dressed with care, for she was still having flutterings about the way her husband had looked at her in his study a few hours earlier. The revelations of the past few weeks - of how diligently Mr. Bennet had saved for their future - had quite overwhelmed her, with the result of a new respect and affection for her husband. She found that she would not be at all averse to a renewal of their long-dormant marital relations. And who knew? Yes, the doctor had told her long ago that she would have no more children, and no, she had not had her courses for three months, making it probable that Lizzy was correct that she was going through the change. But stranger things had happened. Would it not be a great joke if, just when she had finally stopped dreading the entail, she bore an heir after all?

She decided to wear one of her best gowns, the one with gold threads woven into the bodice, and she spent more time on her hair than usual, with a complicated but flattering braid. And for the first time in several years, she wore the pearls that Mr. Bennet had bought for her when they were first married, when he was still head over heels in love with her. She hoped that he might feel some of that emotion again. She also wished to make certain that Mr. Collins was aware that he would be marrying up if he were somehow able to successfully woo one of her daughters.

It was all worth it when the men entered the dining room and Mr. Bennet's eyes widened as he looked at her. She smiled at him rather shyly for a matron with five grown children, and he smiled back, and said with a husky voice, "You look especially lovely tonight, my dear."

It was fortunate that the Philipses had been invited, for Mr. Collins was an extremely dull dinner companion. While there were some attempts to engage him in conversation at first, they were not maintained when it became clear that he saw no need to swallow his food before speaking. The conversation about the soldiers and other gossip went on around him, while he busily ate enough for two men. Mrs. Philips said that she was agreeable to hosting a card party the following evening if the girls wanted to meet the officers, but was told that the Netherfield party had been invited to dinner at Longbourn that day. They all agreed that the day after that would be ideal for a card party.

After the Philipses took their leave, Mr. Collins offered to read to his cousins, and there was no way to politely decline. Lizzy tried to think of a book that could be sacrificed on the altar of his greasy hands, but there was no need, for Mr. Collins had come prepared.

He produced a volume of Fordyce's Sermons to Young Women, and managed to offend Mrs. Bennet within the first minute.

"Sermon 1," he began. "First Timothy 2, 8-10: 'I will - that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shame-facedness and sobriety; not with broidered hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array, but (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works."

Mrs. Bennet gasped, quite sure that she was being reprimanded for her fine dress and pearls. Lydia, incensed on her mother's behalf, asked, "Tell me, Mr. Collins, does the Right Honorable Lady Catherine de Bourgh dress so drably, then?"

Collins turned red, and said, "Perhaps the good Fordyce ended his quotation from First Timothy too early, for it continues, "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence."

"La," said Lydia, "I would like to have seen someone say that to Queen Elizabeth." She rose and said, "Kitty, with all the commotion this afternoon, we have not prepared the tenant baskets for tomorrow. Let us remedy that now." Kitty eagerly agreed, and the two girls gave a quick curtsy and left the room.

Collins was now so red that Elizabeth feared what might happen next, for she did not know the man well enough to predict whether he might become violent. She attempted to defuse the situation. "Our apologies, Mr. Collins, Lydia is full young, and often does not think before she speaks. Please continue with your reading."

Somewhat placated, Collins nevertheless declined, and said, "I thank you, Miss Elizabeth, but I find myself fatigued by my journey today. I believe I shall retire early."

No one tried to dissuade him.

Later that night, the Bennet sisters all gathered in Jane's room. This was not an unusual occurrence, for they had got in the habit of the older girls discussing the parties and balls they attended to the rapt attention of Kitty and Lydia before they were out, and later this evolved into regular discussions of anything notable in the news and gossip of the area, as well as problems or plans. The plans for Kitty and Lydia teaching school this winter were hatched in such a gaggle. This particular evening, not only was there plenty of news and observations to talk about, but it was more fun with three beds in Jane's room.

Naturally, the first order of business was Mr. Collins. Because the walls were thin, and also because their routines of French and Italian nights would be disrupted while Collins was a guest, they spoke in Italian.

Lizzy explained what she had seen, and while stressing that she could not be sure with a new acquaintance, their father thought it best to take no chances. Her sisters, who had never known her to be far wrong about anything for as long as they could remember, were happy to agree.

Lizzy then said, "And do pay attention to what papa said about the rules with the soldiers. His point that they would all be gone in a few months is very important. It is us, not they, who will have to live with the consequences of any impropriety."

She thought a moment, then said, "And it is not just the danger of being caught alone. Even in a crowded room, a man may importune a woman to the point that she is very uncomfortable, but has no polite means of escape. I think that we should have a secret phrase that will alert each other that we need assistance."

"A secret phrase? Do you mean like Latin?" asked Lydia.

"No, its purpose is to request aid without the soldiers knowing that we are doing so. If we used Latin, they would certainly notice. It must be some innocuous English phrase that we don't normally use, but is common enough not to attract attention."

Jane was the only one brave enough to say, "I am sorry, Lizzy, but I have no idea what you mean."

Lizzy laughed and said, "That is because I just thought of it, and it is not even half-baked. Perhaps one-tenth baked. But let me try to explain, to myself as well as to you. Suppose we are in company, and one of us is being made uncomfortable by unwelcome attentions, but does not wish to give offense."

Lizzy stopped herself, then said, "Let me emphasize that should you find yourself in real danger of being compromised, or of being forced to do something against your will, you should not worry about propriety. You should scream, or run, or scratch his eyes out, or do whatever else is necessary to protect your virtue. Is that clear?"

When everyone assented, she continued, "But I am not speaking of such extreme situations just now. I am talking about someone's attentions being too uncomfortable to bear, but not to the point of making a scene. In that case, we need a way to extricate ourselves from the situation without causing a disturbance.

"If one of us is in that situation, or one of us notices another in that situation, she could alert the rest of us by saying, 'Mama will raise the roof if we are late getting home,' or something similar. We will know that 'raise the roof' means one of us needs aid, and we can join up and leave as a group, making our excuses so as not to offend anyone, but making it impossible for the soldiers to keep us from leaving."

It took more discussion, and her sisters were still not sure of the need, but it hardly cost them anything to agree to the signal.

Later, as Lizzy and Mary snuggled into bed, Mary asked hesitantly, "Lizzy, do you truly think that Mr. Collins is unsuitable to be a husband to any of us?"

It did not take Lizzy's genius to realize that Mary must be talking about herself, so she asked, "Mary, dearest, are you thinking of accepting him?"

Mary said quickly, "I do not think he is interested in me, but if he were, I believe that I would consider him. Not as he is now, but I am not so sure that his worst faults could not be corrected. Things like bathing more often, or not speaking with his mouth full, could be improved with friendly suggestions. Even his looks - if he walked outdoors more often, he might perhaps lose his pasty complexion, and become less heavy. I am not a romantic person, so I do not care that he is not particularly handsome."

"Mary, you have not yet had a season. Do you not think that you could do better?"

"Perhaps, but there is Longbourn to consider. If I could keep it in the family, and help run it, I believe it would outweigh almost any other consideration. And it would help all of my sisters, most of all you."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"Oh Lizzy, you must know what I mean!. Before this year, you were keeping yourself busy with improving the estate, and helping Netherfield's tenants, and the like. But now the estate is as efficient as it can be without more long-term investment, and Netherfield has a master again, and you must be very bored. You have outgrown Longbourn; indeed, you have outgrown Hertfordshire, and you are only months away from reaching your majority. I know that you would love to move to London and help our uncle with his business, perhaps expanding it to other locations, perhaps even sailing to distant lands.

"On the other hand," Mary continued, "managing Longbourn would be a good challenge for me. If I were to marry Collins, we could begin some of those long-term investments that make no sense unless a Bennet continues to live here. It would require managing Mr. Collins as well, of course, but I believe that over time, I could transfer his devotion from his current patroness to myself. I think I could be quite content as mistress of Longbourn, even with such a husband. I honestly cannot think of any better way to spend my life."

Lizzy was not often caught so off-guard. She had thought that she was concealing her growing restlessness with living at Longbourn. She loved everyone in her family, but she needed new challenges. Her recent success in helping her mother conquer her fears had just about completed the list of goals that she could achieve at Longbourn under the present circumstances. She indeed longed for the opportunity to be more active in helping her uncle run his worldwide business.

"Mary," she said, "I want to see you happy, and conversely, I would hate to see you unhappy. Would you be willing to demand a long courtship, to see whether it is truly possible to change Mr. Collins in such a way as to make living with him bearable?"

"I would."

"Then we will all help you. Perhaps it would be a good start if you left it to us to correct Mr. Collins' more egregious faults with regard to manners and hygiene, so that any resentment he feels about it does not fall on you. And we will also do what we can to direct his attentions toward you."

"Thank you, Lizzy."

The sisters embraced, and then drifted off to sleep.

Chapter Notes: Feel free to skip these; they are interesting to me, but not essential to the story.

*Ussher - James Ussher, the Archbishop of Armagh in Ireland, began publishing his Annals of the World in 1650. While it summarized much of what was known of ancient history at that time, it is most famous for the Bible chronology that became widely accepted by church authorities. Ussher's dates were printed in the margins of several official editions of the King James Bible, including the 1769 Oxford edition that would likely have been in the homes of anyone who could afford it during the Regency era.

It is less well known that his Annals also documented secular ancient history, with dates for Greek and Roman history that were not far from the best figures available today, after nearly 400 years of additional scholarship. His objectivity is slightly suspect, however, for he managed to come up with a date of exactly 1000 years before Jesus' birth for the building of Solomon's Temple, and exactly 4000 years before Jesus' birth for the beginning of the world (he was well aware of the error in the Anno Domini dating system that resulted in Jesus' birth year being 4 BC).

His chronology began to fall out of favor some decades after our story, when scientific advances made it clear that the earth had to be much older than a few thousand years, but it was still included in (among others) the King James Bible in England, and the Scofield Reference Bible in the US, well into the 20th century. The scientific discoveries were also the impetus for the Fundamentalist movement, which rejected the scientific claims. The Fundamentalists were not people who suddenly began to take the Bible literally; they were people who refused to stop taking the Bible literally.

* Anti-Semitism and anti-Catholicism - While reprehensible to us today, Collins must be treated leniently for his bigotry, because at the time of our story, it was his job.

The first ten words of the US Bill of Rights are, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion," so some Americans may not realize how uncommon it was to not have a state religion 200 years ago, but England most certainly had a state religion in 1811.

Among the titles of the king or queen of England even today is "Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England." Jews were completely expelled from England in the late 13th century (after most of their wealth and property was confiscated), and although Catholics were not expelled, the practice of Catholicism was effectively banned in the 16th century (and most of the wealth and property of the Catholic Church was confiscated). The most severe restrictions had been relaxed by the 19th century, but discrimination against both groups was still the law of the land. For example, Jews and Catholics were not permitted to serve in Parliament until decades after our story takes place, and to this day, the monarch cannot be a Catholic.

For history buffs only:

Seriously, this is pretty dry stuff, and possibly offensive to conservative Christians or Jews, but it is a more complete explanation of the above, and no offense is intended.

At the time of our story, virtually everyone in Christendom (including Lizzy) was what we would call today a "young-earth creationist." This was not due to any formal doctrine of Biblical literalism or inerrancy; it was simply because there was no reason to believe otherwise. Archaeology was in its infancy, Lyell's Principles of Geology was not completed until 1833, Darwin's Origin of Species was not published until 1859, and there was no objective way to date fossils and artifacts. So until the late 19th century, the historical accuracy of the Bible was the default position for educated Christians and Jews, including those liberal enough to allow for copyists' errors and allegorical layers of meaning. Even St. Augustine, who is invariably cited in modern debates as an example of a Church Father who did not take the Bible literally, wrote: "These same people are deceived also by certain false documents, which, so they assure us, cover in their chronology many thousands of years, though from sacred Scripture we calculate that 6,000 years have not yet elapsed since the creation of man."

19th-century proponents of the new theories of geology and evolution saw that 6,000 years, or even several times that, would not allow sufficient time for the processes they believed formed the earth and its life. The time required had to be hundreds of millions of years, at least. But they were opposed not only by those who objected to any questioning of the Bible, but by their fellow scientists in other fields. In particular, the most eminent physicists of the time, notably Lord Kelvin, showed that no known process of combustion, nor the heat from asteroids colliding with the sun, nor the heat produced by gravitational collapse, could account for the sun producing heat and light for more than a few tens of millions of years.

The physicists were correct - no known process could account for it. But beginning around the turn of the twentieth century, new processes were discovered, including the fission and fusion of atomic nuclei. The fusion of hydrogen, which requires only the immense gravitational forces present in objects as massive as the sun, can be sustained for billions of years, and as radiometric techniques for dating rocks were gradually perfected, scientific consensus has settled on over four billion years for the age of the earth.

At the time of our story, however, the most "scientific" way to calculate the age of the world was to use the Bible.

Casual readers of the Bible frequently fall into two groups regarding the dating of its events:

a) those who assume that the Bible supplies dates for most of the events it describes, and therefore wonder why there is any question about them, and

b) those who have heard that genealogies in the Bible are used to date ancient events, but have observed that most of the genealogies in the Bible are merely lists of names, and therefore wonder how anyone can know how long the periods between generations were. Some of the patriarchs were said to have lived for centuries, so you can't just assume they were 20-40 years old when they had a son. Also, Matthew and Luke give two different genealogies of Jesus, one with 26 generations between Jesus and King David, the other with 41 generations between the two, implying that genealogies not only do not give exact numbers, but may skip generations entirely, rendering them extremely uncertain for dating events.

The answer to (a) is that the Bible does not give any dates that can be used to place events in history that occurred before the first millennium before Christ. Even after that, it dates events relative to the reigns of various kings or emperors, some of whom do not appear outside the Bible, and some of these dates are confusing or contradictory even within the Bible, probably due to copyist errors. It is only when we can find matching events in extra-Biblical sources, such as the fall of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar, that we can confidently date an event in the Bible. Dates before the first millennium are only given in relative terms, e.g. 1 Kings 6:1 says that Solomon began building his temple 480 years after the Exodus. But we don't know when the Exodus allegedly occurred, because the Bible did not name the Pharaoh whom Moses opposed. And the Greek version of the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, frequently has different dates from the Hebrew version - the same verse in the Septuagint says that Solomon began construction 440 years after the Exodus, not 480. Scholars have long considered the Septuagint important because until the Dead Sea scrolls were discovered less than 80 years ago, we had manuscripts of the Septuagint that were centuries older than any Hebrew manuscripts, and therefore presumably closer to the originals. In the post-Hellenic world of 1st-century Israel, it was the Greek version of Jewish scripture that the gospel writers used to find their prophecies about the Messiah.

The answer to (b) is that even though there are indeed several genealogies that are not very useful for determining how many years passed, there are two exceptions. The genealogy in Genesis 5 lists the patriarchs from Adam to Shem (Noah's son), and the genealogy in Genesis 11 lists the patriarchs from Shem to Abram, later renamed Abraham. Both of these genealogies do not merely list the succession of names, but they say how old each man was when his son in the succession was born. So all you have to do is add up those numbers, and you have the exact number of years from the creation of Adam to the birth of Abraham. While Abraham still predates any extrabiblical sources we can correlate to, he is close enough to known dates that we are unlikely to be more than a few centuries off when estimating his date of birth.

The reason for the discrepancies in the date of creation between Ussher and the Jewish calendar is uncertainty about the time between Abraham and the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians. The reason for the larger discrepancy between Ussher and the Byzantine calendar is that the Byzantines spoke Greek, and therefore used the Septuagint, which for reasons unknown assigned longer lifespans to the patriarchs than did the Hebrew version of Genesis. Sometimes much longer, a total of around 1500 years in all.

As always, sincere thanks to everyone who follows, favs, or reviews, especially with constructive criticism.