Posted on Friday, 4 July 2003
William Collins Jr. entered the drawing room at Longbourn and flopped into the nearest armchair. He looked across to his elder brother and sighed the sigh of an unrequited lover. "She will not have me."
Phillip looked at his younger sibling over his newspaper. "Who?"
"Dearest Miss Wickham."
"Well, I daresay it is for the best. Mama says she is every bit as silly as her mother was." Phillip returned to his paper.
William, however, was not finished. "I need love, brother. To ease my mind. I need to find someone to call mine."
Phillip crumpled his newspaper in exasperation and threw up his hands. "Will, you know what mama says. You can't hurry love. You'll just have to wait. Love doesn't come easy: it's a game of give and take."
Will was not comforted. "But how long must I wait, how much more must I take?"
Phil rolled his eyes. "Will, you are all of two and twenty. You've just come back from Oxford and you haven't established yourself. There is plenty of time to meet someone and settle down."
Will got up and began to pace. "But how many heartaches must I stand before I find a love to let me live again."
Phil sat back and sighed. "Brother, perhaps you have noticed that I too am single." At this Will stopped his pacing and looked to his elder brother. "However, I do not allow myself to be dragged into melancholy reflections when our father harasses me for not having already secured an heir for Longbourn. Or when he laments the fact that the estate will be entailed away, despite the fact that he so dutifully provided heirs. But Will, the only the thing that keeps me hanging on, when I feel that my strength is almost gone, I'm impatient for a love to call my own. Sometimes the only thing that keeps me hanging on are these precious words. I remember what mama said."
Will looked at his brother with a puzzled expression before demanding to know what the devil he was talking of.
Phil rolled his eyes at his inexperienced brother and recited, " You can't hurry love. You'll just have to wait. She said that love doesn't come easy; it's a game of give and take. Trust and give it time, no matter how long it takes." He stopped for a moment on his way out the door and turned back to look at Will. "Perhaps I should write a song about this."