Page 15 of Mr Collins in Love
She did not raise her eyes from the play, made a bid, and passed over the whole thing as if it scarcely mattered.I was limp with relief, afterwards, and lost every hand, to the silent vexation of Miss de Bourgh who was my partner.
That night I slept thirteen hours straight, even though I knew Lady Catherine might suddenly change her mind and find fault with me and my new man.All the same, as the days turned into weeks and she made no further mention of Jem and his place in my household, I began to think that perhaps, somehow, all would be well.
My own folk had no bad word to say of Jem, or, if they did, they did not share such opinions with me, although I gathered they found him rather shy and silent.George took him to the Oak Tree, when he was able, for a pot of ale and said he was a ‘good willing lad, though don’t know all there is to know about marrows’.Mrs Fowke remarked that he was very careful with his boots and not prone to spandling dirty footsteps on her nice clean floors.Moreover, she said he was never saucy, not even with Mr Butler’s Tess, who came to milk the cows and who was so provoking.Milly put his tidy ways down to his once having been to sea in his younger days, from which I guessed that while Jem had not lied, he had been economical with the truth.
Jem himself was kept busy at a hundred jobs—clearing nettles and sow thistles from the garden beds, digging potatoes, trimming the sage and the thyme, mending a gate to stop the sheep getting in to strip the new plum trees, and dipping rags in coal-tar creosote to string around the garden edges to keep the Rosings deer at bay.Sometimes I would send him about the parish on errands: collecting new Geneva bands for me from the tailor, driving to Pettiford to collect some pipes of port, or taking some of our surplus beans to any family who I felt might be able to put them to good use.
My duties kept me busy about the parish during the day, for I did much visiting of the old and the sick and infirm, but I took to finding Jem in the garden in the warm, still hour before supper.We would discuss how the peas were coming, or the marrows, and I would help him finish whatever job he was doing.We did not speak much then, except for brief, equable remarks about string or trowels or watering cans.Jem never spoke unless he had something to say, and the silences were easy.
I allowed myself, at such times, to imagine us both gardeners in the grounds of some large house like Rosings.We worked together always, side by side, and our lives were a succession of days with our hands in the earth and nobody expected me to make conversation or be gracious in society.
Jem, although he never seemed to hurry, was faster than me in all things, and could weed two rows of marrows to my one.Not that there was any whisper of competition between us.I disliked setting myself against my fellows because I craved always for companions, not rivals.Jem understood this and so we were at peace.
After supper I usually went into the garden again to enjoy the summer evening.Jem would be at one last job and checking all was well for the night.Sometimes he would show me something he had found: the nest of a willow warbler, a bright red and blue wasp, a Star of Bethlehem growing in the hedgerow.As the long evenings drew on, we took to lingering near the back paddock, leaning upon the gate and watching the cows as the sun went down.
At these times we often spoke of the past, of Marshing, and of the people we had known there.We fell into the way of playing what I suppose was a kind of game.I would say, “Could you still get from the parsonage to the old net-shed without being seen?”And he would ponder and say, “I’d go out near that old holly bush and into the churchyard.Go low through the gravestones and at the far corner was that hole in the yew.Remember?Through the hole and you be in Whiting’s Lane.Wait until all’s clear.Along the lane past the saltings.Then cut across behind the boat sheds and there you are.”
Or he might say to me “What if you were at that old barn and had to get home quick?”And I’d say “Well, if it was summer I’d go across the levels and past the pond with the willows; remember it?It was all right in summer, but any other time you’d be in mud above the knees.So, if it was winter I’d go north, through Brightling Wood.Then cross the road by Teal’s Farm and go down that little track that came out near crossroads.You know, the one with the hazels where we found the dog that time.It was one of Mr Fleming’s young hounds and we took it home and he gave us twopence.Remember?And then I’d run down the high street, cut through the yard at the Ship and be home.”
My boyhood had not been happy and neither had his, for one of his elder brothers had been a bully, and after Jem’s father had died, had seemed to find any excuse to find fault with Jem or to beat him.But somehow, recalling these hidden shortcuts and secret ways was both satisfying and pleasant.It was as if we were living our childhoods over, but this time without fear of punishment if we got home late or dirty.
My father had been considered a miser by his parishioners because he skimped on everything and paid nothing on time.He kept a lean table and had me wear his cast-offs.As a boy, my coats, which had been black when he had worn them, were all faded to rusty-charcoal or dark green.My breeches had ever been patched, and my linen sad and grey.
The truth was that my father had been terrified of running out of money.We lived in constant fear of the French, of course, and there seemed always to be some unexpected new tax or a hard winter or a failing bank.The living at Marshing was paltry and he had no family connections to count upon for his advancement.I learned, later, that he might have counted upon one Mr Bennet, who was some sort of distant cousin to me, and who had an estate worth two thousand a year, but my father had fallen out with that gentleman.The circumstances of the strife, he would never relate.
He was not illiterate, as I had heard it said, but he mumbled so terribly that some said he could not read his sermons.He did not send me to school until I was fifteen because he would not spare the money, but taught me at home, having me read from the Bible and other improving works.
He told me often that he had little hope of depending upon me in his old age, for he found me wanting in almost every regard and had no confidence in my ability to make my way in the world.He had died a few scant weeks before Lady Catherine had offered me the living at Hunsford.How I should have liked to give him the news that he should never have to worry about money again!But, alas, that joy had not been mine.
Usually, after we had spoken of Marshing, Jem would ask about my day, who I had seen and what they had said.I would get out my little notebook in which I had written the pertinent points, for I kept a record so I should not forget anything important such as the names of people’s relations or my insights into the ways that a clergyman ought to behave.I would give him my news and we would talk of local events and doings.I valued these talks a great deal, for his remarks often gave me an interesting new perspective on matters.
Occasionally, at such times, he would let slip something about his life at sea.For example, that he had learned a bit of carpentry and so could mend the alms-house bench himself, or observations about human behaviour, such as that occasionally in life two people simply cannot get on, and will find any reason to find fault with one another, such as he had seen with two midshipmen of his acquaintance.
I made it clear to him early on that he must attend church on Sundays because I did not believe it would be thought fitting for members of my household to neglect that duty.I was nervous the first few times, for he had never seen my Sunday performance as rector before and I was worried he might find me wanting, even though I knew he would say nothing.
Some people, I am told, find churches to be places of peace and succour.I had ever found them steeped in anxiety, for as a child I had often been punished for looking bored or not appearing to attend to the service, though in fact I had listened to every word.Now, of course, I must perform said service for persons who were judging me and likely finding me dull.
The parish church at Hunsford was therefore, for me, a place of tension, besides being rather cold and damp even in the summertime.The interior was plain white plaster, Lady Catherine’s ancestors having had no truck with popery.Also, I had, on my induction, employed a man to scrape the mould from the walls of the chancel and to cover it in fresh whitewash.The church’s sole adornment was a pair of tablets with the Ten Commandments inscribed upon them, which hung on the eastern wall.
The bareness made me feel very exposed when I mounted the three-decker pulpit, there being but little to distract the attention of the flock away from me.Of course, that was the point, but nonetheless I often wished the church boasted some decorative stained glass or a carved rood screen as I had seen in other churches during my curacies in Sussex and in London.
However, after the first few services, with Jem making no remarks afterwards about my performances and treating me no differently than before, I more or less forgot he was there and concentrated simply on reading the services, and my sermons, as loudly as I could, as usual.
* * *
One sweltering evening in August, Jem said he had something to show me.There was an eagerness to his manner that led me to the conjecture that it was something special.It had been a long hot day and I felt I had said the wrong thing to Mr Butler when I had met him in the lane as he had been quite curt with me.I was tired and cross with myself and therefore with everything.I was disinclined to linger in the heat, even with Jem, but I could not disappoint him.
He led me out of the garden and into the back paddock, round the back of the barn and across to the snicket gate set into what George called a carvet, being a hedgerow of some age and thickness.The gate was not much used as it led nowhere but the wilderness; a thicket that sloped down to various sedges and willows that grew about a small brook.Some of my ill temper fell away.We had seen a peregrine of late, perhaps Jem had found its nest?
“Where are we going?”I asked.
Jem glanced over his shoulder and smiled.“Not far.”
He led me unerringly into the wilderness, through some sweet chestnuts, around a hawthorn, under a curtain of ivy and down, towards the brook.As I scrambled after him, I noticed, here and there, freshly cut branches which told me he had cleared a path.All the same, we must pick our way, and the exertion and the closeness of the trees caused my head to pound and the sweat to pour down my face and my back.
A musical trickling drifted towards us.A gleam came through the trees, the sound of water grew louder and we found ourselves on the edge of the brook.It was narrow at this point and had no name that I knew, though it was a tributary of the Gadway, since it curved, eventually, around the far side of my western pasture and thence beneath a low bridge in the road.It meandered through Butler’s coppice to join the Gadway proper, which flowed through Hunsford.
At the brook, Jem turned left and continued picking his way through brambles and ferns.If we walked far enough, we should get to Rosings Park.I said as much.
