Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 15

Mr. Collins was not a sen­si­ble man, and the de­fi­cien­cy of na­ture had been but lit­tle as­sist­ed by ed­uca­tion or so­ci­ety; the great­est part of his life hav­ing been spent un­der the guid­ance of an il­lit­er­ate and miser­ly fa­ther; and though he be­longed to one of the uni­ver­si­ties, he had mere­ly kept the nec­es­sary terms, with­out form­ing at it any use­ful ac­quain­tance. The sub­jec­tion in which his fa­ther had brought him up had giv­en him orig­inal­ly great hu­mil­ity of man­ner; but it was now a good deal coun­ter­act­ed by the self-​con­ceit of a weak head, liv­ing in re­tire­ment, and the con­se­quen­tial feel­ings of ear­ly and un­ex­pect­ed pros­per­ity. A for­tu­nate chance had rec­om­mend­ed him to La­dy Cather­ine de Bourgh when the liv­ing of Hunsford was va­cant; and the re­spect which he felt for her high rank, and his ven­er­ation for her as his pa­troness, min­gling with a very good opin­ion of him­self, of his au­thor­ity as a cler­gy­man, and his right as a rec­tor, made him al­to­geth­er a mix­ture of pride and ob­se­quious­ness, self-​im­por­tance and hu­mil­ity.

Hav­ing now a good house and a very suf­fi­cient in­come, he in­tend­ed to mar­ry; and in seek­ing a rec­on­cil­ia­tion with the Long­bourn fam­ily he had a wife in view, as he meant to choose one of the daugh­ters, if he found them as hand­some and ami­able as they were rep­re­sent­ed by com­mon re­port. This was his plan of amends–of atone­ment–for in­her­it­ing their fa­ther’s es­tate; and he thought it an ex­cel­lent one, full of el­igi­bil­ity and suit­able­ness, and ex­ces­sive­ly gen­er­ous and dis­in­ter­est­ed on his own part.

His plan did not vary on see­ing them. Miss Ben­net’s love­ly face con­firmed his views, and es­tab­lished all his strictest no­tions of what was due to se­nior­ity; and for the first evening SHE was his set­tled choice. The next morn­ing, how­ev­er, made an al­ter­ation; for in a quar­ter of an hour’s tete-​a-​tete with Mrs. Ben­net be­fore break­fast, a con­ver­sa­tion be­gin­ning with his par­son­age-​house, and lead­ing nat­ural­ly to the avow­al of his hopes, that a mis­tress might be found for it at Long­bourn, pro­duced from her, amid very com­plaisant smiles and gen­er­al en­cour­age­ment, a cau­tion against the very Jane he had fixed on. “As to her YOUNGER daugh­ters, she could not take up­on her to say–she could not pos­itive­ly an­swer–but she did not KNOW of any pre­pos­ses­sion; her EL­DEST daugh­ter, she must just men­tion–she felt it in­cum­bent on her to hint, was like­ly to be very soon en­gaged.”

Mr. Collins had on­ly to change from Jane to Eliz­abeth–and it was soon done–done while Mrs. Ben­net was stir­ring the fire. Eliz­abeth, equal­ly next to Jane in birth and beau­ty, suc­ceed­ed her of course.

Mrs. Ben­net trea­sured up the hint, and trust­ed that she might soon have two daugh­ters mar­ried; and the man whom she could not bear to speak of the day be­fore was now high in her good graces.

Ly­dia’s in­ten­tion of walk­ing to Mery­ton was not for­got­ten; ev­ery sis­ter ex­cept Mary agreed to go with her; and Mr. Collins was to at­tend them, at the re­quest of Mr. Ben­net, who was most anx­ious to get rid of him, and have his li­brary to him­self; for thith­er Mr. Collins had fol­lowed him af­ter break­fast; and there he would con­tin­ue, nom­inal­ly en­gaged with one of the largest fo­lios in the col­lec­tion, but re­al­ly talk­ing to Mr. Ben­net, with lit­tle ces­sa­tion, of his house and gar­den at Hunsford. Such do­ings dis­com­posed Mr. Ben­net ex­ceed­ing­ly. In his li­brary he had been al­ways sure of leisure and tran­quil­li­ty; and though pre­pared, as he told Eliz­abeth, to meet with fol­ly and con­ceit in ev­ery oth­er room of the house, he was used to be free from them there; his ci­vil­ity, there­fore, was most prompt in invit­ing Mr. Collins to join his daugh­ters in their walk; and Mr. Collins, be­ing in fact much bet­ter fit­ted for a walk­er than a read­er, was ex­treme­ly pleased to close his large book, and go.

In pompous noth­ings on his side, and civ­il as­sents on that of his cousins, their time passed till they en­tered Mery­ton. The at­ten­tion of the younger ones was then no longer to be gained by him. Their eyes were im­me­di­ate­ly wan­der­ing up in the street in quest of the of­fi­cers, and noth­ing less than a very smart bon­net in­deed, or a re­al­ly new muslin in a shop win­dow, could re­call them.

But the at­ten­tion of ev­ery la­dy was soon caught by a young man, whom they had nev­er seen be­fore, of most gen­tle­man­like ap­pear­ance, walk­ing with an­oth­er of­fi­cer on the oth­er side of the way. The of­fi­cer was the very Mr. Den­ny con­cern­ing whose re­turn from Lon­don Ly­dia came to in­quire, and he bowed as they passed. All were struck with the stranger’s air, all won­dered who he could be; and Kit­ty and Ly­dia, de­ter­mined if pos­si­ble to find out, led the way across the street, un­der pre­tense of want­ing some­thing in an op­po­site shop, and for­tu­nate­ly had just gained the pave­ment when the two gen­tle­men, turn­ing back, had reached the same spot. Mr. Den­ny ad­dressed them di­rect­ly, and en­treat­ed per­mis­sion to in­tro­duce his friend, Mr. Wick­ham, who had re­turned with him the day be­fore from town, and he was hap­py to say had ac­cept­ed a com­mis­sion in their corps. This was ex­act­ly as it should be; for the young man want­ed on­ly reg­imen­tals to make him com­plete­ly charm­ing. His ap­pear­ance was great­ly in his favour; he had all the best part of beau­ty, a fine coun­te­nance, a good fig­ure, and very pleas­ing ad­dress. The in­tro­duc­tion was fol­lowed up on his side by a hap­py readi­ness of con­ver­sa­tion–a readi­ness at the same time per­fect­ly cor­rect and unas­sum­ing; and the whole par­ty were still stand­ing and talk­ing to­geth­er very agree­ably, when the sound of hors­es drew their no­tice, and Dar­cy and Bin­gley were seen rid­ing down the street. On dis­tin­guish­ing the ladies of the group, the two gen­tle­men came di­rect­ly to­wards them, and be­gan the usu­al ci­vil­ities. Bin­gley was the prin­ci­pal spokesman, and Miss Ben­net the prin­ci­pal ob­ject. He was then, he said, on his way to Long­bourn on pur­pose to in­quire af­ter her. Mr. Dar­cy cor­rob­orat­ed it with a bow, and was be­gin­ning to de­ter­mine not to fix his eyes on Eliz­abeth, when they were sud­den­ly ar­rest­ed by the sight of the stranger, and Eliz­abeth hap­pen­ing to see the coun­te­nance of both as they looked at each oth­er, was all as­ton­ish­ment at the ef­fect of the meet­ing. Both changed colour, one looked white, the oth­er red. Mr. Wick­ham, af­ter a few mo­ments, touched his hat–a salu­ta­tion which Mr. Dar­cy just deigned to re­turn. What could be the mean­ing of it? It was im­pos­si­ble to imag­ine; it was im­pos­si­ble not to long to know.

In an­oth­er minute, Mr. Bin­gley, but with­out seem­ing to have no­ticed what passed, took leave and rode on with his friend.

Mr. Den­ny and Mr. Wick­ham walked with the young ladies to the door of Mr. Phillip’s house, and then made their bows, in spite of Miss Ly­dia’s press­ing en­treaties that they should come in, and even in spite of Mrs. Phillips’s throw­ing up the par­lour win­dow and loud­ly sec­ond­ing the in­vi­ta­tion.

Mrs. Phillips was al­ways glad to see her nieces; and the two el­dest, from their re­cent ab­sence, were par­tic­ular­ly wel­come, and she was ea­ger­ly ex­press­ing her sur­prise at their sud­den re­turn home, which, as their own car­riage had not fetched them, she should have known noth­ing about, if she had not hap­pened to see Mr. Jones’s shop-​boy in the street, who had told her that they were not to send any more draughts to Nether­field be­cause the Miss Ben­nets were come away, when her ci­vil­ity was claimed to­wards Mr. Collins by Jane’s in­tro­duc­tion of him. She re­ceived him with her very best po­lite­ness, which he re­turned with as much more, apol­ogis­ing for his in­tru­sion, with­out any pre­vi­ous ac­quain­tance with her, which he could not help flat­ter­ing him­self, how­ev­er, might be jus­ti­fied by his re­la­tion­ship to the young ladies who in­tro­duced him to her no­tice. Mrs. Phillips was quite awed by such an ex­cess of good breed­ing; but her con­tem­pla­tion of one stranger was soon put to an end by ex­cla­ma­tions and in­quiries about the oth­er; of whom, how­ev­er, she could on­ly tell her nieces what they al­ready knew, that Mr. Den­ny had brought him from Lon­don, and that he was to have a lieu­tenant’s com­mis­sion in the —-shire. She had been watch­ing him the last hour, she said, as he walked up and down the street, and had Mr. Wick­ham ap­peared, Kit­ty and Ly­dia would cer­tain­ly have con­tin­ued the oc­cu­pa­tion, but un­luck­ily no one passed win­dows now ex­cept a few of the of­fi­cers, who, in com­par­ison with the stranger, were be­come “stupid, dis­agree­able fel­lows.” Some of them were to dine with the Phillipses the next day, and their aunt promised to make her hus­band call on Mr. Wick­ham, and give him an in­vi­ta­tion al­so, if the fam­ily from Long­bourn would come in the evening. This was agreed to, and Mrs. Phillips protest­ed that they would have a nice com­fort­able noisy game of lot­tery tick­ets, and a lit­tle bit of hot sup­per af­ter­wards. The prospect of such de­lights was very cheer­ing, and they part­ed in mu­tu­al good spir­its. Mr. Collins re­peat­ed his apolo­gies in quit­ting the room, and was as­sured with un­weary­ing ci­vil­ity that they were per­fect­ly need­less.

As they walked home, Eliz­abeth re­lat­ed to Jane what she had seen pass be­tween the two gen­tle­men; but though Jane would have de­fend­ed ei­ther or both, had they ap­peared to be in the wrong, she could no more ex­plain such be­haviour than her sis­ter.

Mr. Collins on his re­turn high­ly grat­ified Mrs. Ben­net by ad­mir­ing Mrs. Phillips’s man­ners and po­lite­ness. He protest­ed that, ex­cept La­dy Cather­ine and her daugh­ter, he had nev­er seen a more el­egant wom­an; for she had not on­ly re­ceived him with the ut­most ci­vil­ity, but even point­ed­ly in­clud­ed him in her in­vi­ta­tion for the next evening, al­though ut­ter­ly un­known to her be­fore. Some­thing, he sup­posed, might be at­tribut­ed to his con­nec­tion with them, but yet he had nev­er met with so much at­ten­tion in the whole course of his life.