December Advent Calendar Begins!

Do you remember the days – before the internet and everything digital – when a simple Advent Calendar added joy and excitement to the weeks leading up to Christmas? Every day you would open up a new window to discover something special inside. Well, we’re doing our own version of that Advent Calendar here at Austen Variations. We will have a new post for you to open every single day from now through Christmas, with a variety of fun things planned – games, puzzles, stories, etc. – for you to discover!

I’m first up with a short story called Mr. Collins’s Last Supper, which, for a “short story,” is rather long. So I’ve split it into installments spread out over three consecutive days. It’s a tongue-in-cheek tale of that pompous clergyman’s unfortunate and early demise.

Yes, it’s true. Killing Mr. Collins was my first official act as a writer.  I hope you don’t mind. So far, I haven’t found anybody who does. (In fact, many have thanked me for doing what so obviously needed to be done.) Anyway, when I sat down to begin my first novel (The Darcys of Pemberley), for some reason, that’s what immediately sprang to mind. Not homicidal violence, be assured, but an accident – something ironically suited to Mr. Collins’s particular character and foibles.  I had so much fun writing that opening to the novel that I later expanded it to this short story.

So, without further ado, here’s part one, which is introduced with my attempt at a humorous poem. Hope you enjoy Mr. Collins’s Last Supper in the spirit I intended – with tongue firmly planted in cheek!

When I am gone, my fellow men

With charity will cry

That such a good man, such a saint,

did not deserve to die.

The eulogy will be quite grand.

Of this I have no doubt.

My every fault will be forgot;

each virtue will sing out.

I think what gives me greatest pain,

In these my final days,

Is knowing that I’ll not be there

to listen to the praise.

My friends will mourn me and lament.

No foe will dare oppose.

But secretly they’ll all be glad

it’s me, not them, that goes.

– S. Winslow

 Mr. Collins’s Last Supper

It is a truth universally acknowledged that an ordinary clergyman cannot expect a vast deal out of life. He must not expect to derive great wealth from his work. He must not expect prestige beyond the common courtesy due his office. He most certainly must not expect to dwell in luxury all his days. The best such a person can reasonably look for is to spend his life in useful toil, and to receive his reward sometime thereafter.

A perfectly sensible man of a suitable nature accepts these unalterable facts as a matter of course when he enters the clerical profession. But William Bartholomew Collins was a man of rather less than perfect sense and suitability, as anybody having spent ten minutes in his company could attest. He was, however, a person upon whom the friendly face of undeserved fortune had smiled.

Mr. Collins had already been given more than one reason to suppose himself singled out by providence for special beneficence. Through no effort of his own, he stood to inherit Longbourn, a tidy estate in Hertfordshire, which was happily entailed upon him due to the bad luck of his cousin (the current holder) in begetting a useless succession of five daughters instead of a single male heir. Since this plainly represented the hand of God at work, Mr. Collins planned to take possession with a clear conscience when the time came.

In the interim, the clergyman basked in the rarefied light of Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s patronage, a place where he could sample, albeit vicariously, the wealth and consequence he secretly yearned for. The crumbs from her exceedingly handsome table often fell to him. Her Ladyship, in return, received a doggedly faithful servant eager to prostrate himself at her feet.

Pure chance – nay, surely providence again – had introduced Mr. Collins to the great lady’s notice at the very moment she had the living of Hunsford parish to dispose of. A proper semblance of modesty prevented Mr. Collins from openly accepting credit for his early and unexpected rise to prosperity. He instead lavished his praise for the appointment on Lady Catherine herself, for this incontrovertible proof of her superior judgment.

Good fortune had also thrown a humane and judicious wife in Mr. Collins’s way. Charlotte, rather than being blinded to her spouse’s deficiencies by love, chose to look past them with a view to the snug comfort promised by the parsonage home he offered her. Once installed there, she unflinchingly did her duty to home and husband, managing both with equal efficiency.

With his good wife’s encouragement, Mr. Collins took daily outdoor exercise, tending the garden and walking to Rosings Park to pay homage to his noble patroness. Alas, this proved an inadequate antidote to his hearty appetite. Mr. Collins’s habit of taking too much pleasure in his dinner (or perhaps, simply taking too much dinner) resulted in a more portly figure than some thought prudent or fashionable. Still, no one could have foreseen that his overindulgence would precipitate his premature and permanent demise… (continue reading here)