The Elopers

When Mr Collins, the newly appointed clergyman of the parish of Hunsford in Kent, receives a letter from a solicitor informing him that he is the presumptive heir to the Longbourn estate in Hertfordshire, he consults his patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh. The lady advises him to write to the current owner, a Mr Bennet, and visit him to choose one of his five daughters as his wife. The letter that Mr Collins subsequently sends to Mr Bennet arrives like a bolt from the blue in a family that has never truly considered what will become of them after Mr Bennet’s death. For Mrs Bennet, since the subject is now in plain sight on the family table, the answer to any inheritance trouble is obvious: she must get her five daughters quickly married. The arrival in the neighbourhood of a Mr Bingley—a wealthy, single young man from the north of England—might well be the beginning of a solution. Yet, in real life, just like in novels, hasty decision rarely unfold as anticipated.