A Letter From Mr Collins

The Shame

The next morning the family sat around the breakfast table, a hubbub of knifes and forks scraping against six plates.

"...I do look forward to dinner at Rosing's tonight! Another meal with The Lady Catherine De Bourgh! I am all anticipation!" Mr Collins declared with a passionate ebullience.

"I feel much the same, Cousin." Mary concurred with coquettish eyes and a dallying nod of her head. The action tickled her conscience, everything felt different after last night.

In that moment, she caught sight of a hard stare from Charlotte. Was she imagining a glare or really seeing it?

Mary had no time to decide as not another moment later, Charlotte stood and spoke.

"I just remembered, Mary, I have been meaning to show you something. Come along with me to my sitting-room." She announced with harsh eyes.

"Why... now? I -" Mary began.

"Yes, now please. Or I shall forget." Charlotte continued.

Mary observed Mrs Collins's rigid posture and thought it best not argue. "Very well."

Mrs Collins turned to the rest of the table. "We shan't be a minute."

Mary felt something sink ominously in her chest as she followed Charlotte out the door, down the hall and into the small sitting-room at the front of the house.

The silence was strangling once she shut the door behind her with a deafening click. Mary new Charlotte had nothing to show her but instead, something to say.

"I am shocked by you, Mary." Mrs Collins turned around with a grating expression.

"I don't understa-"

"You will let me finish. I expect you know very well what I have to say."

With a pang of guilt, Mary recognised the sinking feeling in her chest as the heavy weight of shame. All of her intentions now felt so dishonourable as the realisation began to weigh her down to the floor, incapable of moving a foot; she felt heavier than after being lifted out the pond last night.

"Yes," her voice shook slightly by the end of her word.

"In the beginning, your flirtatious manner, naturally was seen as innocent play. That was a fault lying with my own misjudgement. Nevertheless, now you act uncivil! You are invited into my home and you instantly attempt the pursuit of my husband. I dare say, your method quickly becomes cheaper." Mrs Collins harangued with a severe bearing.

Mary stood, responding with a flinch. Her throat was unusually dry.

"I am aware I have always expressed myself without mind for romance, but that gives you no right to frolic with a woman's husband in her own home. Least of all would I expect these actions from you, Mary Bennet! I beg you, consider you behaviour. You play with a holy relation between married people. This is no trifle matter you have interfared with, but matrimony! I ask you, value not your chastity?" She hissed.

"Charlotte... I - I don't know what to say." Mary's face was now hot with disgrace.

Anything that passed her lips now felt so feeble and insufficient.

"I'm so sorry. I see no reason for you to accept my regret." A warm tear rolled down her cheek.

She stared up at Mrs Collins's affronted disbelief.

"My remorse is sincere, is all I can say. I hope you can see the truth in that... I have disregarded your honour - aswell as my own.

And - I am ashamed it took this for me to realise. I don't ask you to forgive me, only that you see I have made a woeful miscalculation, which now I recognise."

"Oh indeed, I see that plainly." Mrs Collins returned.

In the moments of drowning stillness that followed, Mary would have given anything to be able to run out the door to the garden and dig herself a grave.

But instead, there she stood fixated to the fine carpet under her feet, no doubt appointed by Lady Catherine.

Lady Catherine! Of whom I have sacrificed my educated views and spoken highly of. All for such a way. The holes in my comportment are vaster in area than I anticipated.

Mary stood and studied Charlotte Collins's face as she waited for an answer. The atmosphere was thick with intolerable intensity. Mary began to think her anxiety would choke her...