2,306Author's Note: I know that this story is dragging because I am spending too much time with Collins, and as I said before, he is my least favorite character. When I go back to edit this story, I will probably cut quite a bit of Collins out - including much of this chapter, but you have to start with the marble block to get to the sculpture inside it. If you find Collins and/or the Bible boring, feel free to consider this chapter optional. I'll put a brief author's note at the end that summarizes it in one sentence. The good news is that this will be the last chapter where Collins is the main character, and things will pick up from here.
This chapter: In this chapter, everything Lizzy states as a simple fact about the Bible is accurate, at least for the King James Version, the official Bible of England at that time. However, her purpose is to make Collins find her unsuitable as a parson's wife, so she may or may not be serious about the interpretations and conjectures she presents to Collins. She is "just asking questions."
Chapter 34 - It Wasn't Me
Longbourn, Hertfordshire, October 23, 1811
After lunch, Elizabeth was pleased to note that the rain had stopped, and the sun was beginning to peek out from the clouds. It seemed that the Netherfield party would be able to keep its dinner engagement after all.
Collins was not sure how he had lost control of his religious instruction to Elizabeth that morning, but he was determined that it would not happen again, so he was waiting when she descended the stairs. "Cousin Elizabeth, I am ready to resume our discussion, if you will accompany me to the drawing room."
Elizabeth smiled at him and said, "Yes, Mr. Collins, I will join you there momentarily. Just let me collect Jennie," and she was off before he could object. Somewhat grumpily, he went to the drawing room and sat on the same sofa he had used earlier. Looking around, he had the brilliant idea to move the chair that Elizabeth had used so that she would be forced to sit on the sofa with him, but just as he decided to do it Elizabeth came breezing in with the maid, and took her seat in the chair he had wanted to move. Jennie again sat in the corner with her mending.
"Now, Mr. Collins," Elizabeth said, "where were we?"
Collins had his speech prepared. "Cousin Elizabeth, it is perhaps incumbent upon me to be more open in my motives, for I perceive that your maidenly modesty, which I must hasten to assure you does you credit, prevents you from apprehending the honor which my esteemed patroness, the Honorable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, has graciously advised me to bestow upon this house…"
He was forced to stop so that he could stand and bow as Jane entered the parlor. She curtsied to him and said, "Good afternoon, Mr. Collins," then turned and said, "Oh, there you are, Jennie! Lizzy, I am very sorry, but I need Jennie in the stillroom. Could you find another chaperone?"
Elizabeth pretended to look confused, then said, "Excuse me, Mr. Collins, I will see if Mary is about."
Left alone again, Collins was miffed, but what could he do? He eyed the chair Elizabeth was using again, but if he moved it now it would be too obvious, so he could only stew in silence. He was slightly mollified when Elizabeth returned in only a minute or two with Mary.
"Mr. Collins, I have made a bargain with Mary. She needs to practice her music for the after-dinner entertainment tonight, but she will act as chaperone if we sit in the music room while she practices. Will that suit?"
Collins, thinking that Mary could not be an attentive chaperone while concentrating on her music, eagerly accepted.
Elizabeth led the way to the music room and quickly selected a chair that would leave her facing Mary when she played in the adjoining room with the pianoforte. Collins was obliged to sit with his back to Mary. He hoped that it would not be too annoying to hear her practice her scales, and was pleasantly surprised when she began softly playing a beautiful Bach chorale.
Elizabeth noticed his surprise and said, "It is exquisite, is it not? Mary is widely acknowledged to be the finest musician in Hertfordshire."
"It is indeed quite pleasant. I must admit that she plays even better than Mrs. Jenkinson, the companion of the daughter of my patroness."
Still, he wondered at the importance given to after-dinner entertainment for what he thought was to be a simple family dinner, and he asked Elizabeth about it.
"Oh, has no one told you we are to have guests this evening?" Elizabeth asked. "Mr. Bingley and his party, who are now our nearest neighbors, are to join us for dinner."
"He is a gentleman?"
Mr. Bennet, to no one's surprise, had strictly charged his family not to inform Collins of the identity of Bingley's guests, for he thought it would be a fine joke to see Collins' face when he realized that the tradesman's guests were relations of Lady Catherine. Elizabeth therefore had to choose her words carefully.
"He is in the process of becoming a landed gentleman. He is renting Netherfield Park, which as I said is the nearest estate to Longbourn, and in fact borders it. He plans to buy an estate in the near future."
"So he is not a gentleman?"
"Well, not yet a landed gentleman, but his brother-in-law is heir to an estate. We expect that Mr. Bingley will bring him, along with his sisters and his friends from Town who are staying with him."
Collins, now assured that he would be the highest-ranking guest at dinner, was satisfied. He resumed his prepared speech.
"As I was saying, my esteemed patroness, the Honorable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, has graciously advised me to offer an olive branch to heal the rift between our families. It grieves me exceedingly that your esteemed father and my own were at odds, but as the Bible says, the sins of the fathers should not be visited upon the children."
He paused for breath, but he had given Elizabeth all the opening she needed. To be fair, her knowledge of the Bible was such that there was little Collins could have said that she would not be able to redirect into her chosen path.
"You refer to Deuteronomy 24:16, I believe," she said, and Collins looked surprised. But before he could respond, she continued, "But sir, you must admit that there were many exceptions to that rule. In First Samuel 15, God ordered King Saul of Israel to wipe out the Amalekites - men, women, children, infants, and even their livestock. The reason he gave was that their ancestors had attacked the Israelites centuries earlier. And Saul lost God's approval forever when he failed to carry out the order to the last man and animal, but left some alive."
Mr. Collins looked alarmed, and said, "Er, please give me a moment, Cousin Elizabeth." He quickly turned to the chapter she had named and scanned it, then read it more carefully, looking for an error in Elizabeth's account. When he could not find one, he shook his head and said, "I can only conclude that God had more than one reason for his order."
Elizabeth nodded. "Yes, that might explain it. When Joshua killed every man, woman, and child in several cities in the Promised Land, we are told it was because those people were worshiping other gods, and he needed to prevent the pollution of the true faith. Perhaps the Amalekites were also worshiping foreign gods."
But just as Collins began to sag in relief, she frowned and added, "However, there are other instances that do not fit that scenario. In 2 Samuel 21, Israel is struck by famine, and God's prophet tells King David that Israel is being punished for, ironically, Saul's attempt to exterminate another tribe, this time the Gibeonites. To atone, David hands over to the Gibeonites two sons and five grandsons of Saul, whom the Gibeonites promptly execute, and the famine ends."
Collins could only gape at her, but Elizabeth smiled and said, "But I suspect that story may have been embellished by King David's court historians, for David certainly would have killed those men anyway."
"Whatever do you mean?" asked Collins.
Elizabeth looked at him as if he had asked her why water was wet. "Well, of course he had to kill them! After he usurped the throne, he had to exterminate Saul's line to prevent them from becoming the foci of future rebellions."
"Usurped? But David was anointed by God!" Collins spluttered.
Elizabeth nodded agreeably. "Well, we know that, for the Bible tells us so, but there is no indication that the people of Israel knew it, for the books of the Bible were not like a daily newspaper. The parts concerning David were quite obviously written some years after he died. And what 1 Samuel 16 says is that God told Samuel to anoint David in secret; he even told him to disguise the reason he journeyed to Bethlehem, so nobody had any idea that anyone, let alone the youngest son of a shepherd, was to be anointed. The only witnesses to the ceremony were his brothers, and it was never mentioned again. Indeed, in the next chapter his brothers treat David as if he is still an annoying younger brother who should be home tending the sheep, and David himself constantly referred to King Saul, rather than himself, as God's anointed, even when Saul was bending all his efforts to hunt down David and kill him, and even after Saul was dead." She peered at Collins. "Tell me, Mr. Collins, if I were a wanted outlaw, and (God forbid) good King George died, and I announced that I had been anointed by God to succeed him as queen, and could offer only my sisters as witnesses, would you believe me?"
Dull as he was, Collins realized that it would not be good technique to say he would not believe his intended, but neither could he lie. He was relieved of his dilemma when Elizabeth added, "And even if you did, would all of England believe me?"
"I fear that those who had not the privilege of knowing you might doubt your story, Cousin," he admitted. "But, even if the people of Israel did not know of the private ceremony, was there not a public anointing?"
"I assume, sir, that you refer to the account in Chronicles?"
Collins racked his brain. He had dutifully read the Bible from cover to cover while at Oxford, but only once, and was often so tired when he read it that he retained very little, for as a servitor - waiting on the more affluent students in exchange for his room and tuition - he had menial tasks that forced him to retire late and rise early. As a newly appointed parson, he tailored his sermons to the preferences of Lady Catherine. They sometimes referred to Genesis and Exodus, but the great majority of his material was taken from the New Testament. For the life of him, he could remember little about the Old Testament accounts of David, other than a few highlights like his duel with Goliath.
When Elizabeth mentioned Chronicles, he pretended that he had known where to find the account all along. "Er, yes, Cousin Elizabeth, let me refresh my memory…," he said as he hoped he remembered where Chronicles was located. Before or after the Psalms? Before, he thought, and was gratified that he was right. But where in Chronicles? First, or Second Chronicles? Unexpectedly, his cousin came to his rescue, for she could easily see that he was struggling.
"I believe the account you are recalling is in 1 Chronicles," said Elizabeth cheerfully. "Chapter 10 says that in a battle with the Philistines, Saul's entire line was wiped out, and Chapter 11 says that after Saul died, all of Israel gathered at Hebron and anointed David king."
Collins quickly read the relevant passages, which were as Elizabeth had described. With some relief he said, "Yes, Cousin, that is as I recalled." His eyes narrowed. "Do you dispute it?"
Instead of answering him directly, Elizabeth asked, "What would you say if I told you that after Charles I died, the next king of England was his son, Charles II?"
Collins was only slightly stronger on English history than on ancient Israelite history, so he said cautiously, "Er, I seem to recall…"
Elizabeth's aim was to provoke and confuse him, not to humiliate him, so she interrupted, "Yes, sir, I imagine that you recall that while what I said is not false, it makes it sound as if Charles II was crowned the day after Charles I died, with no controversy, just as Henry VIII was crowned the day after Henry VII died. But it is very misleading, for it omits some rather significant events, including the Civil War, the beheading of Charles I for treason, the abolishment of the monarchy, the establishment of the Commonwealth under Cromwell, and finally, the restoration of the monarchy with Charles II being crowned, not the day after his father's death, but over 11 years later."
Collins reached for his handkerchief and mopped his brow. "Forgive me, Cousin, but your point?"
As Collins was looking down to replace his handkerchief, Elizabeth nodded to Mary, who began to play more and more softly.
"My point is that the account in Chronicles of David's succession is similarly misleading. It is not false to say that David became king of all Israel after Saul died, but it too omits some rather significant events, including the coronation of Saul's son Ish-bosheth as king of Israel, David launching a civil war against him, and the struggle for the crown lasting a full seven years before Ish-bosheth was assassinated. Only then was David crowned king of Israel. This is all detailed in the second book of Samuel."
Collins could only gape.
"So you see," Elizabeth continued, "after all that, there was no way that David could allow Saul's sons and grandsons to live, for they would be too great a danger to his legitimacy. I think it possible that his court historians invented the tale of Saul's attempted massacre of the Gibeonites, for there is no mention of it elsewhere in the Bible, and it gives David a convenient excuse to remove potential rivals for the throne. I cannot account for Chronicles saying that Saul's entire house was already eliminated along with Saul before David's coronation, for the seven sons and grandsons David gave to the Gibeonites for execution were certainly alive several years after Saul's death, along with Saul's grandson Mephibosheth, whom David spared because not only was he a child, but he was crippled, and therefore ineligible to be king. Even so, David kept him in the royal palace under close watch."
She sighed. "I suppose that something may have been lost in translation, and that we can never know all the details about even comparatively recent kings of England like Richard III, for the victors write the histories. When we are talking about King David, who lived nearly three thousand years ago, I fear it is quite hopeless. But is it not remarkable that so many of his enemies died at convenient times, especially when the assassins of Saul, and later of his son and successor, came to David for their reward, and David had them killed immediately before they could say anything more?
"It seems that whenever David had an enemy, or even a potential future enemy like Saul's grandsons, they conveniently died, and David was never to blame. He often loudly lamented their deaths, and always had an alibi. It happened with Saul, it happened with Saul's son and successor Ish-bosheth, it happened with Abner, the general of Israel's army when it was opposing David's attempt to gain the throne, it happened with Saul's grandsons … so you can see why one might suspect some embellishment in the account of their deaths. It appears as though the court historians did whatever they could to preserve David's reputation. It is even possible they may have done the same thing when a man most conveniently died just before David married that man's widow."
Collins, who had been slumping during Elizabeth's litany, now straightened. "Just a moment! You are mistaken, Cousin, for the Bible does not hide David's treachery when he had Bathsheba's husband Uriah killed so that he might marry her."
Elizabeth smiled and nodded, genuinely pleased for Mary that Collins truly did know something in his supposed field of expertise. "Yes, that is a difficulty with my theory, but it is in Second Samuel, and if we assume that First Samuel was indeed mostly written by the prophet Samuel, then clearly Second Samuel has a different author, for Samuel died several chapters before the end of First Samuel. This new author seems less inclined to paint David and his family as perfect, for it is in Second Samuel that we learn of David's adultery with Bathsheba at a time when he already had at least a dozen wives and concubines, the murder of her husband Uriah, the rape of one of David's daughters by one of his sons, the multiple attempts by his sons to take the throne for themselves while David still lived…" She shook her head. "But to return to your point, I was not referring to Uriah. I was referring to Nabal."
Collins was completely at sea. "Er… Nabal?"
"Yes. That was back in First Samuel, when King Saul was trying to kill David, so David was forced to flee to the wilderness. He became the leader of a band of outlaws, demanding payment from rich estate owners in return for his 'protection', rather like the gangs in London who extort the merchants there. He sent some of his men to the estate of Nabal, a very rich man, to tell him that as he had not stolen any of Nabal's sheep, he would be grateful for a contribution. When Nabal refused to pay him, David took 400 men and set out to kill not only Nabal, but every… ah, male in his house." She had practiced making herself blush, and she did so now. "I cannot repeat the term he actually used."
Curious, Collins said, "Your maidenly modesty does you credit, Cousin, but you need not be embarrassed by anything in the scriptures. Er, what was the verse again?"
"First Samuel 25:22," Elizabeth offered helpfully.
Collins located the verse and read silently, "So and more also do God unto the enemies of David, if I leave of all that pertain to him by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall." Elizabeth observed that she needed even more practice if she ever hoped to be able to blush as deeply as Mr. Collins could.
"Ah, please continue, Cousin Elizabeth," he finally said.
"Yes, well, given that David intended to kill all the men on the estate, it is horrifying to contemplate what they might have intended for the women of the house, with 400 men who had been living with the sheep for some time, but Nabal's wife Abigail did not wait to find out. She ran out to meet David, offered him various forms of tribute, and made it clear that she despised her husband and worshipped David. David left without killing anyone that day, but the next day, Nabal was suddenly paralyzed, and he was dead within a fortnight. David immediately sent for Abigail, who was only too happy to marry him. The Bible says that God killed Nabal, and of course that is true in the sense that nothing happens that is not part of God's plan, but do you not think that the description of Nabal's death sounds very much like he was poisoned by Abigail at the behest of David? Because what had Nabal done to deserve death? Although the account does its best to portray Nabal as the villain of the story by having his character disparaged by various people, the bare facts show that Nabal's only 'crime' was refusing to reward a stranger for not stealing from him."
Collins pondered this for a time, and finally said, "Cousin Elizabeth, if David thought that Nabal had cheated him, I am very sure that he was justified."
"Oh, you sound just like Mary," Elizabeth said with a laugh. "She has always admired King David."
"Indeed?" asked Collins, running his eyes over Mary, who looked down demurely. At some time when Collins had not noticed, she had stopped playing and had moved to sit near Elizabeth to listen to their discussion.
Collins looked at her closely for perhaps the first time. There was no doubt that she was the least beautiful Bennet sister, but that was a high standard. And unlike most of her sisters, who were either too boisterous, or too impertinent, or too irreverent, she seemed to know her place, as a parson's wife should. He reluctantly admitted to himself that even the eldest would not make a proper parson's wife, for she was too beautiful. As much as he would enjoy sharing her bed, it would not do for him to marry a woman who inspired carnal lust in the men in his flock. Lady Catherine would certainly not approve.
Miss Mary's face would inspire lust in no one, but she had the best deportment for a proper parson's wife of all her sisters, and she played the pianoforte beautifully. She was a bit plump, but Collins rather liked plump.
Mary looked up at him and smiled. And this time, Collins smiled back. "Miss Mary, what is your opinion of all this?"
"There do seem to be a great many coincidences that benefited David, but it does not follow that David was responsible," Mary said, looking into his eyes. "He was God's favorite, so perhaps it was God who helped David by eliminating all obstacles from his path to the throne. I believe that God knows what is best for us and often shows us the way, even when we do not immediately see it ourselves."
Collins beamed at her. "In this, I must agree, Miss Mary."
"Mr. Collins," said Elizabeth, "I thank you for your instruction, which I found most edifying, but I have some embroidery I must finish before our guests arrive. Might I persuade you to turn the pages for Mary as she continues her practice?"
Collins stood and bowed. "I would be happy to do so, Miss Mary."
Author's Note: For those who skipped the chapter, all you really need to know is that Collins now thinks that Mary might suit him better than Elizabeth.
Thanks to everyone who follows, favs, or reviews, especially with constructive criticism. I realize that the last few chapters have been slow, but we are now through with Collins except as part of the scenery. The next chapter will return our focus to the main characters.
Copyright 2024 by DeeLime, all rights reserved.