Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 16

As no ob­jec­tion was made to the young peo­ple’s en­gage­ment with their aunt, and all Mr. Collins’s scru­ples of leav­ing Mr. and Mrs. Ben­net for a sin­gle evening dur­ing his vis­it were most steadi­ly re­sist­ed, the coach con­veyed him and his five cousins at a suit­able hour to Mery­ton; and the girls had the plea­sure of hear­ing, as they en­tered the draw­ing-​room, that Mr. Wick­ham had ac­cept­ed their un­cle’s in­vi­ta­tion, and was then in the house.

When this in­for­ma­tion was giv­en, and they had all tak­en their seats, Mr. Collins was at leisure to look around him and ad­mire, and he was so much struck with the size and fur­ni­ture of the apart­ment, that he de­clared he might al­most have sup­posed him­self in the small sum­mer break­fast par­lour at Ros­ings; a com­par­ison that did not at first con­vey much grat­ifi­ca­tion; but when Mrs. Phillips un­der­stood from him what Ros­ings was, and who was its pro­pri­etor–when she had lis­tened to the de­scrip­tion of on­ly one of La­dy Cather­ine’s draw­ing-​rooms, and found that the chim­ney-​piece alone had cost eight hun­dred pounds, she felt all the force of the com­pli­ment, and would hard­ly have re­sent­ed a com­par­ison with the house­keep­er’s room.

In de­scrib­ing to her all the grandeur of La­dy Cather­ine and her man­sion, with oc­ca­sion­al di­gres­sions in praise of his own hum­ble abode, and the im­prove­ments it was re­ceiv­ing, he was hap­pi­ly em­ployed un­til the gen­tle­men joined them; and he found in Mrs. Phillips a very at­ten­tive lis­ten­er, whose opin­ion of his con­se­quence in­creased with what she heard, and who was re­solv­ing to re­tail it all among her neigh­bours as soon as she could. To the girls, who could not lis­ten to their cousin, and who had noth­ing to do but to wish for an in­stru­ment, and ex­am­ine their own in­dif­fer­ent im­ita­tions of chi­na on the man­tel­piece, the in­ter­val of wait­ing ap­peared very long. It was over at last, how­ev­er. The gen­tle­men did ap­proach, and when Mr. Wick­ham walked in­to the room, Eliz­abeth felt that she had nei­ther been see­ing him be­fore, nor think­ing of him since, with the small­est de­gree of un­rea­son­able ad­mi­ra­tion. The of­fi­cers of the —-shire were in gen­er­al a very cred­itable, gen­tle­man­like set, and the best of them were of the present par­ty; but Mr. Wick­ham was as far be­yond them all in per­son, coun­te­nance, air, and walk, as THEY were su­pe­ri­or to the broad-​faced, stuffy un­cle Phillips, breath­ing port wine, who fol­lowed them in­to the room.

Mr. Wick­ham was the hap­py man to­wards whom al­most ev­ery fe­male eye was turned, and Eliz­abeth was the hap­py wom­an by whom he fi­nal­ly seat­ed him­self; and the agree­able man­ner in which he im­me­di­ate­ly fell in­to con­ver­sa­tion, though it was on­ly on its be­ing a wet night, made her feel that the com­mon­est, dullest, most thread­bare top­ic might be ren­dered in­ter­est­ing by the skill of the speak­er.

With such ri­vals for the no­tice of the fair as Mr. Wick­ham and the of­fi­cers, Mr. Collins seemed to sink in­to in­signif­icance; to the young ladies he cer­tain­ly was noth­ing; but he had still at in­ter­vals a kind lis­ten­er in Mrs. Phillips, and was by her watch­ful­ness, most abun­dant­ly sup­plied with cof­fee and muf­fin. When the card-​ta­bles were placed, he had the op­por­tu­ni­ty of oblig­ing her in turn, by sit­ting down to whist.

“I know lit­tle of the game at present,” said he, “but I shall be glad to im­prove my­self, for in my sit­ua­tion in life–” Mrs. Phillips was very glad for his com­pli­ance, but could not wait for his rea­son.

Mr. Wick­ham did not play at whist, and with ready de­light was he re­ceived at the oth­er ta­ble be­tween Eliz­abeth and Ly­dia. At first there seemed dan­ger of Ly­dia’s en­gross­ing him en­tire­ly, for she was a most de­ter­mined talk­er; but be­ing like­wise ex­treme­ly fond of lot­tery tick­ets, she soon grew too much in­ter­est­ed in the game, too ea­ger in mak­ing bets and ex­claim­ing af­ter prizes to have at­ten­tion for any­one in par­tic­ular. Al­low­ing for the com­mon de­mands of the game, Mr. Wick­ham was there­fore at leisure to talk to Eliz­abeth, and she was very will­ing to hear him, though what she chiefly wished to hear she could not hope to be told–the his­to­ry of his ac­quain­tance with Mr. Dar­cy. She dared not even men­tion that gen­tle­man. Her cu­rios­ity, how­ev­er, was un­ex­pect­ed­ly re­lieved. Mr. Wick­ham be­gan the sub­ject him­self. He in­quired how far Nether­field was from Mery­ton; and, af­ter re­ceiv­ing her an­swer, asked in a hes­itat­ing man­ner how long Mr. Dar­cy had been stay­ing there.

“About a month,” said Eliz­abeth; and then, un­will­ing to let the sub­ject drop, added, “He is a man of very large prop­er­ty in Der­byshire, I un­der­stand.”

“Yes,” replied Mr. Wick­ham; “his es­tate there is a no­ble one. A clear ten thou­sand per an­num. You could not have met with a per­son more ca­pa­ble of giv­ing you cer­tain in­for­ma­tion on that head than my­self, for I have been con­nect­ed with his fam­ily in a par­tic­ular man­ner from my in­fan­cy.”

Eliz­abeth could not but look sur­prised.

“You may well be sur­prised, Miss Ben­net, at such an as­ser­tion, af­ter see­ing, as you prob­ably might, the very cold man­ner of our meet­ing yes­ter­day. Are you much ac­quaint­ed with Mr. Dar­cy?”

“As much as I ev­er wish to be,” cried Eliz­abeth very warm­ly. “I have spent four days in the same house with him, and I think him very dis­agree­able.”

“I have no right to give MY opin­ion,” said Wick­ham, “as to his be­ing agree­able or oth­er­wise. I am not qual­ified to form one. I have known him too long and too well to be a fair judge. It is im­pos­si­ble for ME to be im­par­tial. But I be­lieve your opin­ion of him would in gen­er­al as­ton­ish–and per­haps you would not ex­press it quite so strong­ly any­where else. Here you are in your own fam­ily.”

“Up­on my word, I say no more HERE than I might say in any house in the neigh­bour­hood, ex­cept Nether­field. He is not at all liked in Hert­ford­shire. Ev­ery­body is dis­gust­ed with his pride. You will not find him more favourably spo­ken of by any­one.”

“I can­not pre­tend to be sor­ry,” said Wick­ham, af­ter a short in­ter­rup­tion, “that he or that any man should not be es­ti­mat­ed be­yond their deserts; but with HIM I be­lieve it does not of­ten hap­pen. The world is blind­ed by his for­tune and con­se­quence, or fright­ened by his high and im­pos­ing man­ners, and sees him on­ly as he choos­es to be seen.”

“I should take him, even on MY slight ac­quain­tance, to be an ill-​tem­pered man.” Wick­ham on­ly shook his head.

“I won­der,” said he, at the next op­por­tu­ni­ty of speak­ing, “whether he is like­ly to be in this coun­try much longer.”

“I do not at all know; but I HEARD noth­ing of his go­ing away when I was at Nether­field. I hope your plans in favour of the —-shire will not be af­fect­ed by his be­ing in the neigh­bour­hood.”

“Oh! no–it is not for ME to be driv­en away by Mr. Dar­cy. If HE wish­es to avoid see­ing ME, he must go. We are not on friend­ly terms, and it al­ways gives me pain to meet him, but I have no rea­son for avoid­ing HIM but what I might pro­claim be­fore all the world, a sense of very great ill-​us­age, and most painful re­grets at his be­ing what he is. His fa­ther, Miss Ben­net, the late Mr. Dar­cy, was one of the best men that ev­er breathed, and the truest friend I ev­er had; and I can nev­er be in com­pa­ny with this Mr. Dar­cy with­out be­ing grieved to the soul by a thou­sand ten­der rec­ol­lec­tions. His be­haviour to my­self has been scan­dalous; but I ver­ily be­lieve I could for­give him any­thing and ev­ery­thing, rather than his dis­ap­point­ing the hopes and dis­grac­ing the mem­ory of his fa­ther.”

Eliz­abeth found the in­ter­est of the sub­ject in­crease, and lis­tened with all her heart; but the del­ica­cy of it pre­vent­ed fur­ther in­quiry.

Mr. Wick­ham be­gan to speak on more gen­er­al top­ics, Mery­ton, the neigh­bour­hood, the so­ci­ety, ap­pear­ing high­ly pleased with all that he had yet seen, and speak­ing of the lat­ter with gen­tle but very in­tel­li­gi­ble gal­lantry.

“It was the prospect of con­stant so­ci­ety, and good so­ci­ety,” he added, “which was my chief in­duce­ment to en­ter the —-shire. I knew it to be a most re­spectable, agree­able corps, and my friend Den­ny tempt­ed me fur­ther by his ac­count of their present quar­ters, and the very great at­ten­tions and ex­cel­lent ac­quain­tances Mery­ton had pro­cured them. So­ci­ety, I own, is nec­es­sary to me. I have been a dis­ap­point­ed man, and my spir­its will not bear soli­tude. I MUST have em­ploy­ment and so­ci­ety. A mil­itary life is not what I was in­tend­ed for, but cir­cum­stances have now made it el­igi­ble. The church OUGHT to have been my pro­fes­sion–I was brought up for the church, and I should at this time have been in pos­ses­sion of a most valu­able liv­ing, had it pleased the gen­tle­man we were speak­ing of just now.”

“In­deed!”

“Yes–the late Mr. Dar­cy be­queathed me the next pre­sen­ta­tion of the best liv­ing in his gift. He was my god­fa­ther, and ex­ces­sive­ly at­tached to me. I can­not do jus­tice to his kind­ness. He meant to pro­vide for me am­ply, and thought he had done it; but when the liv­ing fell, it was giv­en else­where.”

“Good heav­ens!” cried Eliz­abeth; “but how could THAT be? How could his will be dis­re­gard­ed? Why did you not seek le­gal re­dress?”

“There was just such an in­for­mal­ity in the terms of the be­quest as to give me no hope from law. A man of hon­our could not have doubt­ed the in­ten­tion, but Mr. Dar­cy chose to doubt it–or to treat it as a mere­ly con­di­tion­al rec­om­men­da­tion, and to as­sert that I had for­feit­ed all claim to it by ex­trav­agance, im­pru­dence–in short any­thing or noth­ing. Cer­tain it is, that the liv­ing be­came va­cant two years ago, ex­act­ly as I was of an age to hold it, and that it was giv­en to an­oth­er man; and no less cer­tain is it, that I can­not ac­cuse my­self of hav­ing re­al­ly done any­thing to de­serve to lose it. I have a warm, un­guard­ed tem­per, and I may have spo­ken my opin­ion OF him, and TO him, too freely. I can re­call noth­ing worse. But the fact is, that we are very dif­fer­ent sort of men, and that he hates me.”

“This is quite shock­ing! He de­serves to be pub­licly dis­graced.”

“Some time or oth­er he WILL be–but it shall not be by ME. Till I can for­get his fa­ther, I can nev­er de­fy or ex­pose HIM.”

Eliz­abeth hon­oured him for such feel­ings, and thought him hand­somer than ev­er as he ex­pressed them.

“But what,” said she, af­ter a pause, “can have been his mo­tive? What can have in­duced him to be­have so cru­el­ly?”

“A thor­ough, de­ter­mined dis­like of me–a dis­like which I can­not but at­tribute in some mea­sure to jeal­ousy. Had the late Mr. Dar­cy liked me less, his son might have borne with me bet­ter; but his fa­ther’s un­com­mon at­tach­ment to me ir­ri­tat­ed him, I be­lieve, very ear­ly in life. He had not a tem­per to bear the sort of com­pe­ti­tion in which we stood–the sort of pref­er­ence which was of­ten giv­en me.”

“I had not thought Mr. Dar­cy so bad as this–though I have nev­er liked him. I had not thought so very ill of him. I had sup­posed him to be de­spis­ing his fel­low-​crea­tures in gen­er­al, but did not sus­pect him of de­scend­ing to such ma­li­cious re­venge, such in­jus­tice, such in­hu­man­ity as this.”

Af­ter a few min­utes’ re­flec­tion, how­ev­er, she con­tin­ued, “I DO re­mem­ber his boast­ing one day, at Nether­field, of the im­pla­ca­bil­ity of his re­sent­ments, of his hav­ing an un­for­giv­ing tem­per. His dis­po­si­tion must be dread­ful.”

“I will not trust my­self on the sub­ject,” replied Wick­ham; “I can hard­ly be just to him.”

Eliz­abeth was again deep in thought, and af­ter a time ex­claimed, “To treat in such a man­ner the god­son, the friend, the favourite of his fa­ther!” She could have added, “A young man, too, like YOU, whose very coun­te­nance may vouch for your be­ing ami­able”–but she con­tent­ed her­self with, “and one, too, who had prob­ably been his com­pan­ion from child­hood, con­nect­ed to­geth­er, as I think you said, in the clos­est man­ner!”

“We were born in the same parish, with­in the same park; the great­est part of our youth was passed to­geth­er; in­mates of the same house, shar­ing the same amuse­ments, ob­jects of the same parental care. MY fa­ther be­gan life in the pro­fes­sion which your un­cle, Mr. Phillips, ap­pears to do so much cred­it to–but he gave up ev­ery­thing to be of use to the late Mr. Dar­cy and de­vot­ed all his time to the care of the Pem­ber­ley prop­er­ty. He was most high­ly es­teemed by Mr. Dar­cy, a most in­ti­mate, con­fi­den­tial friend. Mr. Dar­cy of­ten ac­knowl­edged him­self to be un­der the great­est obli­ga­tions to my fa­ther’s ac­tive su­per­in­ten­dence, and when, im­me­di­ate­ly be­fore my fa­ther’s death, Mr. Dar­cy gave him a vol­un­tary promise of pro­vid­ing for me, I am con­vinced that he felt it to be as much a debt of grat­itude to HIM, as of his af­fec­tion to my­self.”

“How strange!” cried Eliz­abeth. “How abom­inable! I won­der that the very pride of this Mr. Dar­cy has not made him just to you! If from no bet­ter mo­tive, that he should not have been too proud to be dis­hon­est–for dis­hon­esty I must call it.”

“It IS won­der­ful,” replied Wick­ham, “for al­most all his ac­tions may be traced to pride; and pride had of­ten been his best friend. It has con­nect­ed him near­er with virtue than with any oth­er feel­ing. But we are none of us con­sis­tent, and in his be­haviour to me there were stronger im­puls­es even than pride.”

“Can such abom­inable pride as his have ev­er done him good?”

“Yes. It has of­ten led him to be lib­er­al and gen­er­ous, to give his mon­ey freely, to dis­play hos­pi­tal­ity, to as­sist his ten­ants, and re­lieve the poor. Fam­ily pride, and FIL­IAL pride–for he is very proud of what his fa­ther was–have done this. Not to ap­pear to dis­grace his fam­ily, to de­gen­er­ate from the pop­ular qual­ities, or lose the in­flu­ence of the Pem­ber­ley House, is a pow­er­ful mo­tive. He has al­so BROTH­ER­LY pride, which, with SOME broth­er­ly af­fec­tion, makes him a very kind and care­ful guardian of his sis­ter, and you will hear him gen­er­al­ly cried up as the most at­ten­tive and best of broth­ers.”

“What sort of girl is Miss Dar­cy?”

He shook his head. “I wish I could call her ami­able. It gives me pain to speak ill of a Dar­cy. But she is too much like her broth­er–very, very proud. As a child, she was af­fec­tion­ate and pleas­ing, and ex­treme­ly fond of me; and I have de­vot­ed hours and hours to her amuse­ment. But she is noth­ing to me now. She is a hand­some girl, about fif­teen or six­teen, and, I un­der­stand, high­ly ac­com­plished. Since her fa­ther’s death, her home has been Lon­don, where a la­dy lives with her, and su­per­in­tends her ed­uca­tion.”

Af­ter many paus­es and many tri­als of oth­er sub­jects, Eliz­abeth could not help re­vert­ing once more to the first, and say­ing:

“I am as­ton­ished at his in­ti­ma­cy with Mr. Bin­gley! How can Mr. Bin­gley, who seems good hu­mour it­self, and is, I re­al­ly be­lieve, tru­ly ami­able, be in friend­ship with such a man? How can they suit each oth­er? Do you know Mr. Bin­gley?”

“Not at all.”

“He is a sweet-​tem­pered, ami­able, charm­ing man. He can­not know what Mr. Dar­cy is.”

“Prob­ably not; but Mr. Dar­cy can please where he choos­es. He does not want abil­ities. He can be a con­versible com­pan­ion if he thinks it worth his while. Among those who are at all his equals in con­se­quence, he is a very dif­fer­ent man from what he is to the less pros­per­ous. His pride nev­er deserts him; but with the rich he is lib­er­al-​mind­ed, just, sin­cere, ra­tio­nal, hon­ourable, and per­haps agree­able–al­low­ing some­thing for for­tune and fig­ure.”

The whist par­ty soon af­ter­wards break­ing up, the play­ers gath­ered round the oth­er ta­ble and Mr. Collins took his sta­tion be­tween his cousin Eliz­abeth and Mrs. Phillips. The usu­al in­quiries as to his suc­cess was made by the lat­ter. It had not been very great; he had lost ev­ery point; but when Mrs. Phillips be­gan to ex­press her con­cern there­upon, he as­sured her with much earnest grav­ity that it was not of the least im­por­tance, that he con­sid­ered the mon­ey as a mere tri­fle, and begged that she would not make her­self un­easy.

“I know very well, madam,” said he, “that when per­sons sit down to a card-​ta­ble, they must take their chances of these things, and hap­pi­ly I am not in such cir­cum­stances as to make five shillings any ob­ject. There are un­doubt­ed­ly many who could not say the same, but thanks to La­dy Cather­ine de Bourgh, I am re­moved far be­yond the ne­ces­si­ty of re­gard­ing lit­tle mat­ters.”

Mr. Wick­ham’s at­ten­tion was caught; and af­ter ob­serv­ing Mr. Collins for a few mo­ments, he asked Eliz­abeth in a low voice whether her re­la­tion was very in­ti­mate­ly ac­quaint­ed with the fam­ily of de Bourgh.

“La­dy Cather­ine de Bourgh,” she replied, “has very late­ly giv­en him a liv­ing. I hard­ly know how Mr. Collins was first in­tro­duced to her no­tice, but he cer­tain­ly has not known her long.”

“You know of course that La­dy Cather­ine de Bourgh and La­dy Anne Dar­cy were sis­ters; con­se­quent­ly that she is aunt to the present Mr. Dar­cy.”

“No, in­deed, I did not. I knew noth­ing at all of La­dy Cather­ine’s con­nec­tions. I nev­er heard of her ex­is­tence till the day be­fore yes­ter­day.”

“Her daugh­ter, Miss de Bourgh, will have a very large for­tune, and it is be­lieved that she and her cousin will unite the two es­tates.”

This in­for­ma­tion made Eliz­abeth smile, as she thought of poor Miss Bin­gley. Vain in­deed must be all her at­ten­tions, vain and use­less her af­fec­tion for his sis­ter and her praise of him­self, if he were al­ready self-​des­tined for an­oth­er.

“Mr. Collins,” said she, “speaks high­ly both of La­dy Cather­ine and her daugh­ter; but from some par­tic­ulars that he has re­lat­ed of her la­dy­ship, I sus­pect his grat­itude mis­leads him, and that in spite of her be­ing his pa­troness, she is an ar­ro­gant, con­ceit­ed wom­an.”

“I be­lieve her to be both in a great de­gree,” replied Wick­ham; “I have not seen her for many years, but I very well re­mem­ber that I nev­er liked her, and that her man­ners were dic­ta­to­ri­al and in­so­lent. She has the rep­uta­tion of be­ing re­mark­ably sen­si­ble and clever; but I rather be­lieve she de­rives part of her abil­ities from her rank and for­tune, part from her au­thor­ita­tive man­ner, and the rest from the pride for her nephew, who choos­es that ev­ery­one con­nect­ed with him should have an un­der­stand­ing of the first class.”

Eliz­abeth al­lowed that he had giv­en a very ra­tio­nal ac­count of it, and they con­tin­ued talk­ing to­geth­er, with mu­tu­al sat­is­fac­tion till sup­per put an end to cards, and gave the rest of the ladies their share of Mr. Wick­ham’s at­ten­tions. There could be no con­ver­sa­tion in the noise of Mrs. Phillips’s sup­per par­ty, but his man­ners rec­om­mend­ed him to ev­ery­body. What­ev­er he said, was said well; and what­ev­er he did, done grace­ful­ly. Eliz­abeth went away with her head full of him. She could think of noth­ing but of Mr. Wick­ham, and of what he had told her, all the way home; but there was not time for her even to men­tion his name as they went, for nei­ther Ly­dia nor Mr. Collins were once silent. Ly­dia talked in­ces­sant­ly of lot­tery tick­ets, of the fish she had lost and the fish she had won; and Mr. Collins in de­scrib­ing the ci­vil­ity of Mr. and Mrs. Phillips, protest­ing that he did not in the least re­gard his loss­es at whist, enu­mer­at­ing all the dish­es at sup­per, and re­peat­ed­ly fear­ing that he crowd­ed his cousins, had more to say than he could well man­age be­fore the car­riage stopped at Long­bourn House.