Peering out of the window, palms pressed flat against the glass, Anne de Bourgh watched nature's violence unfold. Without warning, a spectacular storm had enveloped the village of Hunsford and the estate of Rosings Park in heavy rains as ribbons of lightning stretched from cloud to ground, accompanied by deep echoes of thunder. As she watched the trees bow in the fierce winds, she heard the splintering of trees some distance away.
She sighed and leaned her forehead against the cool glass. Her mother, Lady Catherine, had driven to the village a short while ago. Nothing was considered beneath her mother's attention, and on this particular day, her attention was focused on the settlement of a dispute between the inhabitants of two adjacent cottages. By force of her own formidable personality, Lady Catherine would likely silence their complaints and scold them into harmony. Anne was relieved at her mother's departure; she knew that when Lady Catherine returned there would be a continuation of the interminable discourse focused upon Anne's duty to secure Darcy as husband, ever more insistent since his last visit a mere month prior. She had no desire to marry her cousin; neither happiness nor pleasure for either would come from such a match; only unhappiness and pain would result. Anne was not of a mind to sacrifice herself in the name of family duty with so little regard for her own preferences. She welcomed the tempest in all its wildness and beauty, distracting her and drowning out the memory of her mother's incessant advice and instruction. Anne loved the storm; it freed her from her oppressive thoughts, if only during her mother's absence.
The quick step and urgent voice of Mrs Jenkinson brought her out of her reverie; Anne turned to see the thin, bowed frame of her attendant standing behind her, holding up a warm shawl.
“Miss de Bourgh,” spoke Mrs Jenkinson in her usual halting whisper. “Please do come away from that window, you will catch your death of cold.”
Anne turned from the gloomy landscape to the dark and oppressive furnishings of the sitting room. When she spoke, her tones were measured, distinct but soft. “Mrs Jenkinson, please. We agreed that when my mother was absent, you would cease this endless fussing. Do stop it right now. I rather like the rain.” Her voice held an edge to it, a fleeting resemblance to her mother's direct and condescending tones; her proud carriage, as she turned back to the window, resembled Lady Catherine exactly.
Mrs Jenkinson inhaled sharply, her face tight as she moved back into the shadows, laying the shawl on the sofa. “As you wish, Miss de Bourgh.”
There was no use arguing with Miss de Bourgh when she was in such a mood; she had become increasingly independent during Lady Catherine's brief absences. Mrs Jenkinson would have to report Miss de Bourgh's behaviour to Lady Catherine soon. While she cared little for Lady Catherine's condescension, she had no doubt that Lady Catherine would terminate her employment should her explicit instructions be ignored. Mrs Jenkinson sometimes felt sorry for Miss de Bourgh until she recalled that Miss de Bourgh was an heiress and she, Sarah Jenkinson, was hired to provide companionship for Miss de Bourgh at her mother's pleasure.
Turning back to the window, Anne traced her finger along the glazing. She loved the rain; it distracted her from thoughts of Darcy; from thoughts of her mother; from thoughts of being locked away in this dreadful, oppressive house. Caught up in the storm, she ignored everything but the sound of the rain beating heavily against the glass. Water streamed down the windowpane, washing away her unpleasant thoughts.
Suddenly, a bright flash of light caused her to back away from the window; she moved to the sofa as she readied herself for the resounding boom of thunder a few seconds later. The strong clap shook the walls momentarily, and Anne had a fleeting vision of the walls falling down around her. A fitting end, she thought, to this ugly, ostentatious house that had been built, sparing no expense, to meet the exacting requirements of her mother.
Gathering the shawl about her, Anne sat on the sofa, feet tucked underneath her in a small gesture of rebellion. She made herself comfortable and continued to watch the rain, enjoying her solitude. For a brief moment, she worried about her mother with only a single coachman and skittish horses in the fierce storm; however, her mother had travelled in worse conditions before and had always returned safely.
From her sitting room at the rear of Hunsford parsonage, Charlotte Collins also enjoyed her time alone. Mr Collins had gone off in the gig at the first hint of rain to offer his assistance to Lady Catherine. While Charlotte did not always understand what this assistance entailed, it very much pleased her to know that Mr Collins could always find it in himself to be of use to Lady Catherine.
When her husband returned, he would, however, be soaked quite through. She wrinkled her nose in distaste at the thought of him soaking wet, not unlike a large, malodorous dog.
Well it was her lot, she had chosen it, and by and large, it was tolerable. Mrs Collins was content in her small house with her yard, her comfortable rooms, her flourishing poultry. Moreover, Mr Collins was quite an able worker in the garden, spending long hours out of doors, tending to the vegetables and bees. There were far more days of quiet solitude than she had expected; there were far fewer days where she was called upon to perform her marital duties. Her husband frequently returned so exhausted from attending to Lady Catherine's each and every whim that he regularly fell to sleep in his own rooms, fully clothed. No, Charlotte really could not complain.
On the whole, she believed she had many reasons to thank Lady Catherine beyond her obvious patronage. Charlotte had been relieved when Mr Collins had left; were she to endure the storm in his presence, she would also have to endure his pacing and his exclamations, his conscientious attention to the safety of the noble inhabitants of Rosings. He reminded her of the poultry in the yard, making a great deal of noise, rushing back and forth in the rain without much purpose and with very little sense.
She sighed and continued to survey the garden. A particularly intense bolt of lightning followed by strong thunder caused her to rise from her chair and move to the window. She could see nothing beyond the heavy rain, so she settled back into her chair, content to enjoy her solitude.
Later, it was impossible to reconstruct the precise manner in which Lady Catherine and Mr Collins met on the road not more than a mile from Rosings Park and the Hunsford parsonage. From the look of Lady Catherine's carriage and Mr Collins's gig, it appeared that the wheels had locked together as the carriage attempted to pass the gig travelling in the opposite direction; somehow both vehicles became entwined and tumbled down a steep embankment into a ravine at the side of the road. Lady Catherine's driver was thrown from the carriage; upon awakening some time later in a state of extreme bewilderment, he had no memory of the accident, and no injuries beyond a severe headache.
A large tree at the side of the road was split down the middle, and there was speculation that perhaps a bolt of lightning had struck the tree and the flash, the noise, and the heavy rains had caused the horses to startle. No one would ever know.
Some thought that Lady Catherine might have caused the accident for her inability to give way on anything had been observed all too frequently by the inhabitants of her cottages. Others speculated that Mr Collins, in his desire to be overly attentive, had become inattentive to the road's conditions and had, thus, been at fault; for that man's inattention, resulting from excessive attention to Lady Catherine, was also well known in and around Hunsford.
Lady Catherine and her parson were found quite dead in the carnage of broken conveyances, having tumbled to their deaths in a mass of broken wood and twisted metal. In a particularly singular twist of fate, all the horses had survived, breaking free of their reins as the carriages locked and tumbled. It was the appearance of those very horses – cold, damp, shivering, and frightened – at the stables of both Rosings Park and the Hunsford parsonage that alerted the inhabitants of each to the notion that something was very much amiss.
© EDot 2004 -2008