A Letter From Mr Collins

The Lesson She Learnt

It was had been two mornings after Mary Bennet's return from Hunsford.

She was at ease again, under a roof where she wasn't marred with frivolry.

The events of the past few days now felt so shameful and out of character in the light of her old self. Who had such hypocrisy in her coming.

The Bennets were having breakfast when Mr Bennet gave a quip of surprise from behind the paper.

"What is it Mr Bennet?" Mrs Bennet asked, her attention askew from tirading at her daughters.

"I do not believe it." He mused with grave eyes.

"What? Please Pappa." Kitty winged.

"Celia Woodbourne has eloped!"

"I hear you wrong! With whom I dare say?" Mrs Bennet urged, her eyes alight.

There was silence.

"With Mr George Wickham." He announced.

...

"Oh! Oh - I concieve it not! Our Wickham? Our dearest George Wickham? And Celia Woodbourne! Of Penning's Estate! Why, what a story of talk this shall be! Oh... you read wrong Mr Bennet! You read wrong. For those spectacles of yours have long begged retirement! Give the paper here; I must read myself!" Mrs Bennet prated with electricity.

Mr Bennet handed over the paper with surety.

All the girls had their hands over their mouths; speechless.

Mary felt a tenuous pang of guilt. Why did she feel this guilt? It was perhaps, because she recognised the source of such an event so personally. The foolish lust of immaturity.

"Oh! It is true! All apparent in this very article girls! How I abhor the thought of his gentlemanly acts to be only deceptional sanctimony! Oh, I do regret our every polite exchange - hateful man! What lies he must have sung to us -"

"Oh Mamma, how can we trust only an article, they seem to have a magnified perception of every little tale and transform them into scandalous chronicles! But perhaps it is not their fault they are disfavored with intellect or understanding, I am very sure -" Jane began.

Lizzy seemed to have found her voice again, and her feet. "I am nothing but certain now. How I gave him the benefit of my diminishing doubt, yet now he so publicly disgraces himself I rebuke myself for any credit I ever gave him. For he steals it from himself so shamelessly! Oh, Wickham. I am remorse for any pretential relation he ever shared with us!" She seethed, stalking out of the room with an angry foot followed quickly by Jane.

The shock was stunning to the bone. A man of such close aqquaintance in the past few months, how could it be?

"...Oh and I see! These two wooed in Brighton! The very venture our dear Lydia refraned from!" Mrs Bennet continued from behind the article with bright eyes, filled with absolute astonishment.

Lydia and Kitty were no less the same. However Lydia did not seem more horrified then dazzled. "How I should have liked myself a handsome officer of my own! Oh - what more romantic than a quick, sure vow of eternal love! What a time she must have had. " She laughed.

"Lydia... you learn the very wrongest lesson. From this sisters, we should take into mind a valuable lesson." Mary set down her cup with chastising eyes. "A woman's reputation, is no less brittle as it is beautiful. And therefore, we cannot be too guarded in our behaviour towards the undeserving; the other sex." She said, and with that she learnt something more valuable than a handsome officer of her own. And it truly resonated.

"Well said, my dear. Well said." Mr Benned grinned with all the signs of amusion.

And that was the end of a good start.