Confessions & Correspondence: Darcy Writes in his Journal after Discovering Elizabeth at Rosings

Welcome to our epistolary retelling of Pride & Prejudice! Jane Austen’s original version of the story, First Impression, was told entirely in letters, so it seemed like a great group project. We’ll be posting a new letter every Wednesday. 

Private Journal of Fitzwilliam Darcy

25 March 1813 — Rosings Park, Kent

The journey from London was unremarkable in all the ways that matter and rather too remarkable in all the ways that do not. The off-side rear spring is developing a complaint which I shall add to my list of grievances against Watkins & Sons, who assured me last autumn that the carriage had been put in perfect order. I shall have it re-sprung before summer. I mentioned this to Richard, who said it was a smooth ride and he had slept the last twenty miles without any trouble at all. I suppose when one has campaigned in the Peninsula, a bouncing carriage requires a more strenuous inducement to wakefulness than I can provide. I shall make note of the spring regardless.

We arrived at Rosings shortly before three. Lady Catherine had evidently been watching from the window for some time, as the door was open and Mrs Jenkinson already stationed in the hall before our wheels had properly stopped on the gravel. My aunt appears in decent health, perhaps even improved since last autumn; she had colour in her face and a great deal of energy, at any rate, for she spoke for the better part of an hour and a half without any apparent inconvenience to herself. I learnt the state of the kitchen gardens, the plans for the east pasture, the particular excellence of her new cook’s removal from Bath, and the precise dimensions of the proposed improvements to the orangery. I confess my attention wandered somewhat, but I have no doubt she would not have noticed if I had fallen asleep upright, provided I maintained the approximate attitude of a person engaged in listening.

Cousin Anne looks rather pale. More so, I think, than when I last saw her, though it is difficult to judge with any precision, as she is invariably pale and her general aspect is one of patient endurance. I have always assumed she finds these visits from Richard and myself an acceptable variation in her routine, though she expressed no opinion on the matter today — indeed, she expressed no opinion at all, but sat very quietly with her embroidery and glanced up at intervals, which is, I believe, the fullest expression of her feelings on any subject. I should arrange for Georgiana to write to her more often. The correspondence might do them both some good.

All this I have set down in perfect good order, and I observe that I have successfully delayed for the length of three paragraphs what I might have written first. I shall now proceed to write it.

Mr Collins has married.

I was informed of this fact by my aunt at some point during her opening address, offered in the same breath as the kitchen garden and the new cook, which suggests she considers these items of roughly equivalent consequence. I cannot fault her for it. Ordinarily, I should consider the marital arrangements of a country clergyman to be likewise equivalent to the kitchen garden. I am aware that I have not, historically, given a great deal of thought to Mr Collins at all, which is as it should be, Mr Collins being precisely the sort of man to whom one ought to give no thought whatsoever.

I confess that upon hearing the words Mr Collins has married, I experienced a brief and entirely uncharacteristic moment of something I can only describe as alarm. This is embarrassing to record. I shall record it regardless, as this journal is for accuracy. The alarm lasted perhaps three seconds, during which time I performed a rapid and involuntary calculation involving the question of who, and then my aunt supplied the answer, which was Miss Charlotte Lucas, Sir William Lucas’s eldest daughter, of Hertfordshire.

I believe I returned to normal respiration almost immediately.

I do not know what I expected. I do not know, precisely, why I had expected anything at all, because there was no rational basis upon which to found an expectation that the answer to who has Mr Collins married? would be anyone of the remotest significance to me. There was no logical reason whatsoever for that three seconds of alarm. I have spent some time this evening reflecting on the irrationality of it and have concluded that it was simply a natural response to the unexpected, which could have been produced by any surprising piece of information whatever, and was in no way indicative of anything beyond a momentary disruption of equanimity brought on by travel fatigue and the off-side rear spring.

I am satisfied with this explanation.

It was then that my aunt informed me that Sir William Lucas himself was presently at the parsonage on a visit to his newly married daughter, along with his younger daughter Miss Maria, and a friend of Mrs Collins’s, a Miss Bennet, from Hertfordshire.

I shall note, for accuracy, that I did not experience alarm this time. The sensation was entirely different and is not one I intend to examine at length in this entry, or indeed at any future point.

She is here.

I had rather thought, after leaving Hertfordshire in November, that I had achieved something approaching equilibrium on the matter. I had been very deliberate about it. Very systematic. I had reminded myself on numerous occasions of the objections, such as her family’s want of connection, her mother’s vulgarity, the general unsuitability of the thing. I had found the exercise quite restorative, in the way that any sensible course of action tends to restore a sensible man. By Christmas I was feeling entirely myself again. By February I was, I believe, genuinely indifferent, in the way that is particular to a man who thinks about something as little as possible in order to feel nothing about it.

And now she is at the parsonage. Approximately half a mile from where I currently sit.

Richard suggested, with great enthusiasm, that we call at once. I agreed immediately, which I attribute entirely to the natural politeness one owes to near neighbours when visiting in the country, and not to anything else. Thus, we went.

She looks well. That is an entirely neutral observation. She looked well when I last saw her, and she looks well now, which is consistent and unsurprising. Her eyes are the same, which is to say they are very fine. I noticed this in the way one notices any fact about one’s surroundings and then sets it aside as irrelevant.

The parsonage sitting room is very small. Mrs Collins managed it all graciously and seemed genuinely pleased to see us, which surprised me a little; I had not thought she had any particular attachment to Rosings society, but perhaps the winter months in Kent have altered her expectations of entertainment. Mr Collins was, predictably, himself, and spent a considerable portion of the visit addressing the mantelpiece on the subject of my aunt’s condescension in permitting us to call. I say the mantelpiece because there is a slightly elevated portion of the wall above it that appeared to hold a great deal of interest for me during this portion of the conversation, and I find it difficult to say, in retrospect, whether I was staring at the mantelpiece, or somewhere in the near vicinity of the mantelpiece, which is to say approximately in the direction of Miss Bennet, who was seated in a chair not far from it.

She was not looking at me when I was looking at… when I was looking at the mantelpiece. However, I am reasonably certain that on at least two occasions when I looked away, she looked up at my profile. I have no evidence for this beyond a general impression, and I acknowledge it may be inaccurate.

Richard was in excellent spirits throughout and asked her a great many questions, which she answered with that particular ease she has always possessed. There is a directness to her manner that is, I think, unusual. She does not say insipid things in order to fill a silence, which is a quality I find — which is a quality that is, objectively speaking, rare. She laughed twice during the visit. She has a very — It is a pleasant laugh. That is all.

I said almost nothing. I am told I sometimes give that impression in company generally, so I see no particular reason to remark on it further.

I believe she still wears lavender water. I cannot confirm this with any certainty, as the parsonage sitting room is small but not quite that small, and I should not care to be caught loitering in proximity to a young woman I am meeting for the first time in several months, apparently in order to identify her perfume. I am not an impulsive man. I maintain my dignity in all circumstances.

She mentioned a walk she had taken that morning along the lane toward Rosings, and said she liked the prospect very much, and was in the habit of walking in that direction most fine mornings.

This is the sort of information I file without comment.

We did not stay above half an hour. My own thoughts, mercifully, were my only companions on the short walk back. Richard was humming something.

I find I am in reasonable spirits this evening. Lady Catherine has already spoken of plans to have the parsonage party to dinner. Anne seemed, if not animated, then perhaps a degree or two removed from inanimated. The orangery improvements, whatever their merits, are at least a subject I can ask after at intervals to suggest I am following along.

The spring, definitely, before summer. I shall write to Watkins in the morning.

Read all the letters from Confessions & Correspondence here!