Dancing with Mr Darcy: Stories Inspired by Jane Austen

We Need To Talk About Mr Collins Mary Howell

‘Cup of tea, Charlotte? Black isn’t it?’

‘Lovely,’ Charlotte smiled. They were practically friends. Eliza, the only woman she would trust to cut her hair, wayward curls that needed a firm hand. Charlotte smiled again before retreating under the pile of glossy magazines and the noise of the blower and a good half hour’s staring. Weekly trips to Thin Lizzie’s on the high street were the highlight of her quiet life; a constant round of light dusting, light shopping, light gardening, light strolls. Here, in Eliza’s capable, manicured hands, she had her light trim, light set and, very occasionally, low lights to mask the incipient grey.

She found going to the hairdresser very pleasing. Nothing was expected of her as she sat inventing lives and intrigues for the other ladies reflected there and listening to the lop-sided conversations half drowned by mechanical sounds. The mirror in the salon was a perfect medium, allowing her to see the world yet to see only its reflection refracted many times, multifaceted yet flat like the pages of novels.

‘Thought I’d buy ready-made and pass it off, save all that slog in the kitchen. Anyway I’ve clients till half six.’ Eliza’s hands-free phone was on constantly.

None of the ladies ever complained of inattention, so grateful perhaps to have a decent hairdresser in the village. She was pulling out curlers from the woman two seats down, running her hands through the fine grey, her red nails disappearing and reappearing rhythmically, repeatedly down the salon in smaller and smaller versions.

‘Do you want hairspray, Gladys?’

The can was out in a flash, perhaps Gladys had commented on the windy day. Charlotte watched the slack lips move in the mirror but could not make out what they said. She imagined the hiss of the can and saw the cloud of fine spray.

Yes, definitely a hairspray day.

‘She’s not wearing hairspray ‘

‘Oh yes she is,’ and workmen looking meaningfully into the young girl’s shopping basket and seeing Harmony.

‘A face without a trace of make-up.’

Charlotte laughed out loud and Eliza turned and smiled. Charlotte could meet her eyes in the mirror and see the woman’s lips move wordlessly in front of Eliza’s smile and the little black microphone in front of her teeth.

‘Well you make it then if you’re so bothered.’

Charlotte imagined the other end of the line. A husband, athletic, handsome in an earthy way with a broad back that would ripple under Eliza’s red nails, who loved Eliza’s no nonsense approach to life. Perhaps this was an important business supper and the husband needed to impress in order to make that step up the ladder.

‘If I don’t die of boredom I’ll kill you for inviting him.’

She could not help feeling that Eliza should be a little more sympathetic to the needs of her husband and his associate. She could see her impudently picking her nails with her teeth at the table, fidgeting one slim leg over the other with a scrape of black stockings, to distract the men from their serious discussions. She was sure that, in Eliza’s shoes, she would be more sensitive, she would know instinctively what was needed.

‘A whole evening of Mr Collins would be fatal.’

The name made her focus and she was not often called in to the real world. For a delightful moment she imagined the clatter of a carriage, the rustle of silk and the appearance of the rector and his patron. She felt there was a place for her somewhere in the pages of this novel. Why else had she been christened Charlotte? The unmarried daughter of respectable, elderly parents now deceased, leaving their unmarried elderly daughter comfortably off but elderly and unmarried.

She was hot under her blower, with an uncomfortable sense that time had dislodged and been lost somewhere.

‘Thanks very much, Gladys.’

The cash till registered with a ching, and a welcome rush of cool air as the door opened and closed, then relief when Eliza turned off the machine.

‘Think you’re cooked, Charlotte. You’re all pink.’

Curlers dropped one by one onto the waiting trolley with a little click and Charlotte’s hair recoiled.

‘You’ll have to ask someone else as well.’ Eliza sounded almost petulant.

‘Call me back will you.’ Eliza moved the mouthpiece above her head. It looked like a hover fly, Charlotte thought.

‘I could come and entertain Mr Collins for you.’

She laughed at her reflection, face to face with the multiple reality of it, pleased that the words were spoken. It was quite short notice, but with her hair done, no need to worry on her account, Mr Collins would do all the talking.

It had never been her intention to be a heroine, a romantic lead, but she thought, given an evening in the company of Mr Collins, even she could persuade him. She longed to be part of that world, any world, to join the sorority of married women whose bliss and trials she read about so often. At least, she thought she did until she got to the happy ending. Much as she enjoyed happy endings she could not trust them. They were a failing in novels, in life, a blind alley, a cul-de-sac; their inevitability ruined many pages, many days. She often did not finish books for that very reason, preferring to leave endless possibilities.

Charlotte noticed that Eliza did not stop to run her hands over her head in that satisfying way she usually did but seemed to punish the curls with her brush.

She was looking quite out of character, her mouth knitted in a tight knot of disapproval as she worked deftly, methodically. The salon with just the two of them seemed cold. There was tension in the spray that landed finely on her hair that Eliza had not offered and she had not accepted.

A border had been crossed: the fine line of professional and personal. Charlotte saw in her reflected pink face all the what-ifs of her life, the if-onlys, the wasted possibilities and was on the verge of falling into the bleak emptiness of it.

‘Know what, Charlotte? I think you should come and meet Mr Collins.’

The emptiness receded.

Eliza tweaked at her fringe, bending her knees to get closer then put her head next to Charlotte’s, resting her hands on her shoulders and fixing her eyes on the reflection.

‘Like seafood?’

All of a sudden, the weight of Eliza’s hands was unbearable. She saw for the first time how shrewd her eyes were; how calculating and she wanted to brush them off, free herself from the eyes, the salon and the whole sorry business. The impudence of the headset. Why should she, Charlotte Lucas of independent means and a comfortable home, entertain ideas of marrying?

‘Who is Mr Collins?’ her reflection asked. She could see she had recovered her usual pallor and poise.

Eliza took her hands from Charlotte’s shoulders, pulled down the mouthpiece, still hovering, and listened. The salon was very still. Charlotte wondered if she should get up from her chair. She was ready to go home now.

A high snivelling sound came from Eliza. Tears were falling from her eyes.

‘Well be like that, you bastard.’

A new chapter, a new book even. Charlotte thought she was letting herself down and pretended not to hear for as long as possible. Then it occurred to her that this was drama, a real-life drama reflected in the mirror before her.

‘Is there anything—’ Charlotte let the words trail, seeing herself in the mirror, the older but still attractive woman lending her worldly wisdom to the jilted youngster crying into her headset. Was the young man still there? Was he feeling remorse for his harshly spoken words? Not a bit of it, Charlotte decided. He would be brutish and arrogant and gone. Tears would not melt his heart. ‘I hate it when you cry. Whatever you cook and whoever you chose to invite will be wonderful.’ That type of happy ending was reserved for the type of books she did not read. Not to the end, at least.

Distinction blurred; a car door banged and the door to the salon was flung open with force such that it hit the wall. A man stood in the doorway, smiling. With the setting sun behind his head like a halo, he strode towards Eliza and taking her in his manly arms— ‘Charlotte, Charlotte,’ she heard her name repeated and felt a sharp tapping on her hand. He had come to take her for the meal of ready-made food. Her Mr Collins, whose presence Eliza could not endure for one evening.

A handsome young man in uniform was kneeling beside her holding her wrist.

‘Please do not kneel.’ Her words, though fully formed in her head, sounded jumbled.

‘Can you hear me?’

What a ridiculous question. Then she remembered that was what is said at disasters when the hero or heroine is dying. ‘Well, I’m not dying.’ Again the words did not come.

Eliza was still tearful, ‘She came over all, well, you know, and just slumped in my chair. I thought she had fallen asleep, she often does, but when she wouldn’t wake up I thought I’d better call you.’

‘You did the right thing, people often leave it too late and don’t want to bother us. We’ll take care of her. Do you know of any relative we can contact? I think it best to take her in.’

‘Lives on her own – as far as I know she’s an old maid.’

It dawned on Charlotte that they were speaking about her: she was the old maid. She would have liked to check the role in the mirror to see if it suited her noble profile but her head was so heavy she thought she would leave it for now. She was tired of the effort of life, tired of pretence. They had come to take her away, the fear of the old and lonely. Perhaps this is what happened in all those endings she had refused to read. It would be a new chapter in her life, hospital she supposed, for this was not the usual story. Perhaps she would be home again, back to her light, gentle life full of empty days, and that would do for the end.

Then Eliza, her practical friend, was beside her with her head close to hers.

‘This gentleman is Mr Wickham. He thinks it best to take you in.’

None of it made much sense to Charlotte and she was in no mood to be taken in, certainly not by Mr Wickham. He had already taken in enough people when what everyone needed was truth and plain speaking.

‘We may as well carry her; she only looks two scraps of nothing.’

Charlotte would have liked to look to see who they were talking about now, but she could not focus.

‘Charlotte, I want you to put your arms round my neck, I’m going to take you—’

She felt the muscles taut across his shoulders and he lifted her as if she were no more than a feather. She laid her head on his shoulder and felt the stiff cloth of his uniform on her cheek. His smell was essence of man, of horse leather and fields and cigar smoke. It was pure Mills and Boon. Her mother had always warned her against filling her head with romantic nonsense but she felt the time had come to let herself go, ‘Why, Mr Wickham.’

My inspiration: I wanted to write something giving minor characters a major role. I thought of Charlotte as the anti-heroine marrying the unfortunate Mr Collins so that at least she would have a modicum of independence. The thought of Mr Collins immediately made me want to laugh so the story would be droll. I love Pride and Prejudice but wanted a story that did not work out.