Posted on: 2009-11-10

"Set an extra place for tea, sweetheart – we're going to have a visitor." Catherine Tilney looked up from buttering her youngest daughter's toast to see her husband looking very amused by something.

"Who is it? Oh, is it James and Amelia? Or Eleanor, with the children? Or –." She stopped, realizing they would have been more likely to have written to her, not Henry. "Who?"

"Someone neither of us has met before." Henry grinned as he looked at the letter again. "A Mr. Collins. He's traveling back to Kent and, as his 'noble Patroness, Lady Catherine DeBourgh, of Rosing Park,' was so obliging as to allow him to take his time returning, he would be most honored (or perhaps he means we would be honored) to break his journey at the house of a fellow clergyman. Etc., etc."

"He sounds a bit pompous," Catherine said, not very pleased. "And today I was going to spend all afternoon making preserves! Trying to make preserves," she amended, remembering some of her past attempts. "But of course he's welcome. I'm sorry –I don't really mind."

Henry folded up the letter and then came over and kissed her. "I believe he'll be an entertaining guest, if nothing else. If he arrives early, I'll keep him in my study till tea is ready. Call me if you need help tasting the preserves." He smiled at the other faces around the breakfast table, ruffling his oldest daughter's curly hair as he walked out.

Catherine sighed a little as she wiped milk off their youngest son's face, but Henry was right – Mr. Collins did sound silly, but they were sure to find something amusing in that. "Jamie, take Jack upstairs to play with you, won't you dear? Girls, we really must brush your hair now." She ignored their moans and scooped up Rosie, the youngest. "Ellie, you know it only gets harder the longer you wait!" She could not help reaching out to ruffle her daughter's tangled curls as well, though. Henry had, by several accounts, had hair like that as a child as well, though his father had had it cut short as soon as he was out of leading strings.

She spent the rest of the morning at the usual household chores, stopping often to peek in at what the children were doing, and having a pleasant chat with Nancy, the new maid, who was from a large country family as well. She would have been surprised to discover how much this was talked over later, with Nancy telling the cook, who then told all her large acquaintance how very kind the parson's wife was (as everyone already knew), and how she was really quite pretty (as everyone also knew), and how she had stacks and stacks of books in her room, nearly all of which she had read, and which she said was not even very improving reading! And she did tell the best stories to the children when they were not being naughty.

Catherine looked a bit longingly at one of the books as she was showing them to Nancy, but there really was not time to be reading it now. She got the children back into the dining room just as Henry entered for dinner, with what was excellent (and rare) timing. "It's just bread and butter, and a bit of cold beef and boiled carrots, I'm afraid. We're going to have a nice tea – as proper and befitting – for Mr What's-His-Name, and I didn't want to trouble Cook too much."

"I don't like carrots." Jamie declared, poking them suspiciously with his knife.

"You must eat one," Henry told him, scooping the rest off his son's plate and onto his own. "Cook had to fight tooth and nail with the rabbits for them, so it would be ungrateful to ignore them."

"Cook never fought anyone," Jamie said, but he took a bite without making too dreadful of a face.

The dishes had hardly been cleared when Catherine shooed the children out into the yard. "Be good, chickadees. I'm going to be very, very busy now, and don't want to hear any quarrelling. And no climbing too high in the orchard, and no pushing Rosie into the stream again, and – ." She stopped, and kissed them all, then pushed them the rest of the way out the door.

The rest of the afternoon was spent over a hot stove with jelly jars. Nancy, who had been outside filling another bucket with water, came in to tell her that a tall gentleman – at least, she thought he must be a gentleman – had arrived and been shown into the study. "All airs, that's what he seemed like. Bowing to Mr Tilney and telling him about his Patron-ess."

Catherine did not answer, being too involved in raising the jars from a vat of boiling water without splashing herself. She did wonder about the visitor, though, and what this benefactress of his was like – she imagined a haughty lady with white hair and immense diamonds studded all over her clothes. By the time the last jar was finished, she had constructed all of Lady Catherine's tragic history in her head.

Cook promised to get the tea ready with Nancy's help, so Catherine went outside to gather up her children; their clothes were likely to be mud-spattered or torn after several hours of running around outside together, and it would be useless to get herself cleaned up before them. Collecting them took longer than she expected, though. Jack and Ellie were in the garden, eating berries. She was pleased to see that their hands were only a little stained; they were allowed to eat a few any time they wished, but had been forbidden to make gluttons of themselves. "Go inside and wash your hands, Ellie. I'll take Jack." She let him ride piggy-back, a rare treat, as she hunted for the others. "Rosie! Jamie? Where are you?"

But they were in none of the usual spots. She looked in the barn, she looked in the orchard, she walked down to the stream. Perhaps they had been to visit one of the neighbors, though Jamie knew better than to go far when company was expected. At last she gave up and went back inside to change her clothes and Jack's. It was now a bit later than their usual teatime, so she hurried, with only a glance in the mirror to make sure nothing was too much amiss.

"Nancy, would you see if you can find the others? They've wandered off, I'm afraid. I'll be back for the tea in a moment, Cook." She knocked on the study door, made a polite curtsey to Mr Collins, who was very tall and had a greasy look that reminded Catherine more of a minor villain in a novel than anything else, and handed Jack to his father. "Keep him out of the fireplace, will you, dearest? I'll bring in the tea things."

She returned a moment later with the tea cart, laden with their best china and several plates of cakes and sandwiches and small pasties. Ellie followed, looking neat in a flowered frock with a yellow band wrapped tightly around her head, holding back her curls, which she had valiantly tried to brush the latest tangles out of.

"Ah, who is this young lady? She looks like a little angel; I hope she also behaves like one." Mr Collins held out his hand to her, but with a polite nod she quickly sat down next to her father.

"How kind of you not to specify what kind of angel," Henry said, his eyes twinkling. "Her appearance is rather like one parading in clothes of light, I am afraid." But he put his arm around Ellie so she knew he was teasing.

"Love," he said to Catherine, when the tea had been poured and everyone's plates filled, "Where are our other Little Pledges?"

Catherine nearly choked on her tea. "Our what, Henry?"

"Little Pledges. For so I am pleased to style them," he told Mr Collins. "I know it's hard to keep track of so many, but I did rather hope they'd be in for tea. They never miss a chance at a good meal."

"Oh, oh yes, the children. Well, I'm afraid they've gone visiting. I could only find Jack and Ellie."

"Well, perhaps the gypsies will take a few off our hands then."

"The – a few?" This, she gathered, had something to do with baiting Mr Collins, though she could not see why. He must have given her husband a very trying afternoon. "How many do we have now, dear? I've rather lost count."

"Was it eight or nine? I have a hard time remembering, myself. What with a set of twins so often, and another little Pledge every year…"

Catherine hastily put down her cup and turned away to the window to hide the look of shock and amusement on her face. "Sir," she said, rashly deciding to pay him back, "I had meant to talk to you about that –."

"Well, Jack here is nearly tw –." But he stopped, realizing he was about to make a quite ill-suited jest. "I'm sorry, Catherine. I believe it is nine."

Ellie had been watching them silently this whole time, but now she burst out, "Who are the others, then, Papa?"

"Why, Ellie, don't you remember them all? Let's see, there's Johnny, and Richard, and Katie, and Maggie, and Jamie, and Jack, and Rosie, and you, and – and –."

"And Gracie," Ellie supplied.

"Yes, and Gracie. What do you think, Mr Collins? Is that not a fine family?" Catherine asked.

"Yes, very fine, although nearly all of them seem to be missing. But I suppose with so many young mouths to feed, that is more a blessing than not, Mrs Tilney."

"We do try to send them out to get their meals elsewhere as often as we can," Henry agreed, straight-faced.

Just then Nancy burst in, carrying Rosie. "Oh, Mr Tilney, do come quick! Jamie is quite covered in stickers and won't let anyone touch him! He's in such pain, too, poor lad."

"Two more little Pledges have turned up, you see," Henry told their visitor, but he looked quite serious. "Catherine, you entertain Mr Collins; I'll take care of Jamie. Nancy, clean up Rosie and give her and Jack some toast in the kitchen, won't you?"

He stuck his head in a moment later to ask Catherine where her forceps were and her witch hazel. It was too great a temptation not to leave (with Ellie following) and find them for him, and take a look at her son, who was trying to suffer bravely even though his bare legs were covered in thorns. "I carried Rosie, so she was all right," he explained, clutching onto a pillow so that he would not cry. "I didn't know that part of the meadow was so full of stickers, and once I was in I couldn't get out."

"You're a good boy," Catherine told him, and put her arms around him as Henry went to work on the little thorns, pulling them out as quickly as he could, though it was still a long and painful process for everyone. When he was finally done, he took a rag that Ellie had helpfully soaked in witch hazel, and patted the sore spots with it. "There, that should help. Now, Jamie, I'll bring you a book and then Mama and I must go back to our visitor."

"Isn't he a guest, Papa?" Ellie asked slyly, her eyes twinkling at him as she if she already knew the answer.

Henry sighed. "Yes, sweetheart, I'm afraid he is a guest, and so I must not tell him any more fibs about having nine children, when the four I have are plenty for now. Catherine, I am going to be utterly polite and hospitable now and not make any more fun – you may pinch me if you see me slipping back again."

The children giggled at that, and he looked at them fondly. "Come along, darling. I promise you may be excused soon to put these ones to bed, and if I were you I would go to bed myself after that and have a little supper brought up to me in my room."

"I would not leave you alone with him for that long," she whispered outside the study door. "Has he tried your patience very badly?"

"I'll tell you later," he whispered back.

"Ah, Mr Tilney. Have you no copy of Fordyce's Sermons here?" Mr Collins asked, when they re-entered the room.

"I believe I left it under my pillow," Henry said, and then, when Catherine coughed to hide a laugh, amended that to, "Actually, I do not have a copy of the work, sir, although I hear it very much praised in some circles."

"I am sure my dear Patroness, Lady Catherine, will be so obliging as to allow me to send you a copy from her library. She has followed my advice and collected several editions of the noble volume."

"I daresay the volume is quite noble," Catherine said, surprising herself a bit with her boldness. "It would never stoop to be placed side-by-side with a common novel, for instance."

She had the pleasure of feeling her husband grin, though she could not actually see him, as he was standing behind her.

"Novels are a form of literature – if it can truly be called so – that Lady Catherine quite disdains."

"I believe novels can be quite improving reading for men as well as women," Henry said, sitting in a leather armchair across from his wife. "Perhaps you should suggest Pamela to her ladyship – there's a novel where good triumphs over evil, and virtue wins the day. It is a very moral tale, but it entertains almost as well as it instructs."

"My wife has told me the same; perhaps I will recommend it to my Patroness after all," Mr Collins said.

"Do tell me about your wife, Mr Collins," Catherine begged. "Have you been long married?"

"Nearly five years," Mr Collins answered proudly. "Mrs Collins is a very well-bred lady, eldest daughter of Sir William Lucas – perhaps you have heard of him?"

"No, I don't think so; but we do not get out much anymore. And have you any little, er, have you been blessed yet with children?"

"Mrs Collins is increasing and expected to present our second-born in only a few more weeks." This news was said with an even prouder look, which Catherine approved of – it was good to be pleased with one's progeny.

"Allow me to offer my congratulations then, sir! I'm sure you're both very happy."

"Yes, and Lady Catherine says…" and as he launched again into his patroness's praises, Catherine forgot her improving opinion of him and had to stifle a yawn. Henry took pity on her after a twenty-minute monologue from Mr Collins, and interrupted to say that he thought he heard the children calling for their mother to put them to bed.

"Ah, how excellent to keep your young ones on a strict schedule! Lady Catherine says –." But Catherine did not discover what the lady said on the subject, as she hastily bid him good-bye and fled.

She spent a long time upstairs with the children, letting them tell her about their adventures and then, as often happened when she had nothing else pressing to do, she told them a story. The villagers would have been astonished had they known that her husband was the real storyteller in the family; when he was not working late on a sermon, he often came upstairs too and, although his stories did not have so many princesses or villains or dragons, they could still make shivers run down the spines of his offspring – and his wife. Then, with all of them inevitably getting out of their beds and huddling into their parents' arms on the floor (although Rosie and Jack usually fell asleep at that point), Henry would tie up the loose ends and bring the tale to a satisfactory conclusion. For instance, the poor girl who was cast out of the house where she was visiting and had to make a long, hard journey alone was happily reunited with her family – and her best friend, a terribly handsome fellow (this always made his wife giggle and then kiss him afterwards to make up for laughing) – in the end.

This night, however, Catherine told them one of the best in her now almost-nine-year career as a mother. It involved goblins, and two fairy princesses and two knights, and it was very long. Jack nodded off almost at once, but Rosie climbed out of her cot to sit in her mother's lap, and Jamie and Ellie sat on the edges of their beds the whole time, begging her to go on whenever she hesitated.

She was enjoying it almost as much as they were, and was a bit astonished to realize, when the last kisses were given and everyone tucked in again, that she had been upstairs for nearly three hours. Poor Henry! She put away a few stray toys on her way out of the nursery and then hurried downstairs, where she could hear voices coming now from the parlor.

Henry gave her a look which she correctly interpreted as asking whether the children had been difficult. She blushed, and shook her head. "Please forgive my long absence," she told Mr Collins. "I was telling the children a story and lost track of the time."

Mr Collins opened his mouth in surprise, but before he could speak, Henry said, "I am sorry I missed it, Cathy!" You have no idea how sorry, he added in his head. "Mr Collins has been sharing his views on the condescension of the rich, the place of the lower classes, and other topics."

Catherine knew it must have been a bad three hours by how tightly he clutched her hand; rather like a drowning sailor might clutch at the last scrap of wood from his broken-up ship, she thought, smiling. So this meant that Henry was through being entertained by their guest's silliness and had not yet found anything redeeming about him. Well, she would have to give it another try. Perhaps it was best to be direct this time.

"Mr Collins, perhaps you have not shared this with my husband yet, so allow me to enquire – what are your passions, what do you like to do most?"

Mr Collins opened his mouth, then closed it. He looked puzzled for a moment, as if his usual ready answers did not apply. "Why, Lady Catherine –." He paused again, then burst out, "I like to fish. It is a passion but recently discovered; my wife and I were visiting her family in Meryton and she taught me. It is not, of course, an exercise for delicately-nurtured females, but I fear my wife's childhood was not as – as sheltered as it should have been."

Catherine had plenty of experience fishing, but she decided to keep quiet about that as her husband at last had a subject he and Mr Collins could talk about companionably. They discussed lures, and brook trout, and the best time of day to fish, and everything else they could think of about the subject. Catherine leaned back on the sofa, comfortably close to her husband, and let her mind wander.

She had finished daydreaming about a picnic in the orchard and moved on to more serious things – like whether Mrs Allen could be convinced to take on Mrs Smith, a destitute widow in the village, as a paid companion, though that lady had no interest in fashion – when she noticed that the conversation had turned back to its old bent, Lady Patronesses and the like.

"Well," Henry said, looking at the clock above the mantle, "I'm afraid my Lady Patroness bids me not keep late hours." He winked at Catherine. "Will you allow me to show you to your room, Mr Collins? Or you're welcome to sit up here as long as you like."

Mr Collins agreed that late hours were most taxing to one's health, and his Lady Catherine never was up late if there was not a pressing reason. He begin to express his thanks to Catherine, for so becomingly playing her sweet duties as hostess, etc., etc., but Henry actually took him by the arm halfway through this speech and led him out of the room. "Mr Collins, your room is this way."

It was a while after that before Henry could make his escape, but Catherine knew that with the end in sight now, her husband would be more patient with his guest's foibles. She was right; he entered their room a few minutes later grinning.

"Well, my dear, that was one of the longest afternoons of my life." He collapsed dramatically onto a chair and held out his arms for her.

"Was he as entertaining as you expected?" she asked, teasing, as she came to sit beside him.

He sighed. "Too much entertainment can be just as tedious as not as enough, I'm afraid." But then, remembering an earlier conversation, he chuckled. "Oh, I wish you had been there to hear his Little Pledges speech, though! It took all my self-control not to laugh out loud." He screwed up his face and said, in a fair imitation of Mr Collins, "'And has your lovely wife given you any little Pledges of her affection yet?' I swear, Catherine, I had no idea what he meant at first! I was trying think of an appropriate response when he continued with 'I believe – and Lady Catherine agrees – that it is the duty of every clergyman to see that the human race is fruitful and multiplies.' What was I to say to that??"

"'The world must be peopled!'" Catherine quoted, and covered her mouth to keep from giggling too loudly so that their guest might not hear. Henry laughed, too, and tightened his arms around her.

"My poor, patient husband," Catherine said, when she had recovered enough to speak again. "It does sound like a very difficult afternoon. It would try the patience of a saint."

"I was not feeling very saintly today," her husband admitted. "I was almost rude more than once – and of course, told outright lies about the number of our children, although I did not really expect him to believe me." He sighed again. "It is rather hard to see another clergyman make so little of his calling, Cathy. I would find his silliness and small-mindedness more amusing if I thought he actually cared about his parishioners for anything besides bringing him further to Lady Catherine DeBourgh's attention…."

"His wife sounds a sensible sort of woman, at least. I could see her carrying baskets to the poor and giving good counsel to the women. And perhaps under her influence he will become more interested in their souls himself."

"It's very like you to say that," Henry answered fondly. "You're very well suited to be a clergyman's wife yourself, do you know? Not being shocked (anymore) to know the worst of people, and always hoping for their reformation."

Catherine smiled at him. "I'm glad your reformation is something I never had to hope for. You know, I used to rather like the rakes in novels? But I'm so thankful to have a husband who is kind and considerate instead. And yet rather fond of silliness, too…."

"Let us be as silly as we like, but no more of Mr Collins' silliness, I beg you," Henry said.

"Mmm. But if you ever meet him again, at least you will be able to talk about fishing – and his Little Pledges as well as your own – nine, was it? Though surely by the time you meet again it will be at least ten."

Henry looked at her sharply. "Sweetheart, does that mean there is another one on the way?"

"Well," she said, unable to hold back a grin. "I have been rather tired and crabby lately. Didn't it make you wonder? And, as you said, Jack is nearly two. I think I really do love you enough to give you another pledge of my affection, although trust a man to call it a 'little' one!"

Henry snickered. "I would like to go wake up Mr Collins and tell him the good news, but I'm afraid he would keep me standing there for half an hour, telling me more of Lady C's views, and I would much rather be here with you."

"Well," Catherine said practically, snuggling back against him in the chair, though it was not a terribly comfortable position, "He'll still be here tomorrow, you know. And unless you threaten him with his Patroness' probable disfavor, I imagine he could be here till teatime again."

Henry groaned, but said, in a more charitable tone that he had previously used about their guest, "He is a brother clergyman, after all, and expecting another child of his own. I could hardly drive him away. And, if he becomes too wearisome, I shall just take over the conversation and talk about my own Catherine."

"That will surely drive him away," his wife told him, but she seemed pleased, and they both reflected that, if Mr Collins in his five years of marriage was not even a fraction as happy as they were after ten, he was more to be pitied than anything else.