Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 17

Eliz­abeth re­lat­ed to Jane the next day what had passed be­tween Mr. Wick­ham and her­self. Jane lis­tened with as­ton­ish­ment and con­cern; she knew not how to be­lieve that Mr. Dar­cy could be so un­wor­thy of Mr. Bin­gley’s re­gard; and yet, it was not in her na­ture to ques­tion the ve­rac­ity of a young man of such ami­able ap­pear­ance as Wick­ham. The pos­si­bil­ity of his hav­ing en­dured such un­kind­ness, was enough to in­ter­est all her ten­der feel­ings; and noth­ing re­mained there­fore to be done, but to think well of them both, to de­fend the con­duct of each, and throw in­to the ac­count of ac­ci­dent or mis­take what­ev­er could not be oth­er­wise ex­plained.

“They have both,” said she, “been de­ceived, I dare say, in some way or oth­er, of which we can form no idea. In­ter­est­ed peo­ple have per­haps mis­rep­re­sent­ed each to the oth­er. It is, in short, im­pos­si­ble for us to con­jec­ture the caus­es or cir­cum­stances which may have alien­at­ed them, with­out ac­tu­al blame on ei­ther side.”

“Very true, in­deed; and now, my dear Jane, what have you got to say on be­half of the in­ter­est­ed peo­ple who have prob­ably been con­cerned in the busi­ness? Do clear THEM too, or we shall be obliged to think ill of some­body.”

“Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opin­ion. My dear­est Lizzy, do but con­sid­er in what a dis­grace­ful light it places Mr. Dar­cy, to be treat­ing his fa­ther’s favourite in such a man­ner, one whom his fa­ther had promised to pro­vide for. It is im­pos­si­ble. No man of com­mon hu­man­ity, no man who had any val­ue for his char­ac­ter, could be ca­pa­ble of it. Can his most in­ti­mate friends be so ex­ces­sive­ly de­ceived in him? Oh! no.”

“I can much more eas­ily be­lieve Mr. Bin­gley’s be­ing im­posed on, than that Mr. Wick­ham should in­vent such a his­to­ry of him­self as he gave me last night; names, facts, ev­ery­thing men­tioned with­out cer­emo­ny. If it be not so, let Mr. Dar­cy con­tra­dict it. Be­sides, there was truth in his looks.”

“It is dif­fi­cult in­deed–it is dis­tress­ing. One does not know what to think.”

“I beg your par­don; one knows ex­act­ly what to think.”

But Jane could think with cer­tain­ty on on­ly one point–that Mr. Bin­gley, if he HAD been im­posed on, would have much to suf­fer when the af­fair be­came pub­lic.

The two young ladies were sum­moned from the shrub­bery, where this con­ver­sa­tion passed, by the ar­rival of the very per­sons of whom they had been speak­ing; Mr. Bin­gley and his sis­ters came to give their per­son­al in­vi­ta­tion for the long-​ex­pect­ed ball at Nether­field, which was fixed for the fol­low­ing Tues­day. The two ladies were de­light­ed to see their dear friend again, called it an age since they had met, and re­peat­ed­ly asked what she had been do­ing with her­self since their sep­ara­tion. To the rest of the fam­ily they paid lit­tle at­ten­tion; avoid­ing Mrs. Ben­net as much as pos­si­ble, say­ing not much to Eliz­abeth, and noth­ing at all to the oth­ers. They were soon gone again, ris­ing from their seats with an ac­tiv­ity which took their broth­er by sur­prise, and hur­ry­ing off as if ea­ger to es­cape from Mrs. Ben­net’s ci­vil­ities.

The prospect of the Nether­field ball was ex­treme­ly agree­able to ev­ery fe­male of the fam­ily. Mrs. Ben­net chose to con­sid­er it as giv­en in com­pli­ment to her el­dest daugh­ter, and was par­tic­ular­ly flat­tered by re­ceiv­ing the in­vi­ta­tion from Mr. Bin­gley him­self, in­stead of a cer­emo­ni­ous card. Jane pic­tured to her­self a hap­py evening in the so­ci­ety of her two friends, and the at­ten­tions of her broth­er; and Eliz­abeth thought with plea­sure of danc­ing a great deal with Mr. Wick­ham, and of see­ing a con­fir­ma­tion of ev­ery­thing in Mr. Dar­cy’s look and be­hav­ior. The hap­pi­ness an­tic­ipat­ed by Cather­ine and Ly­dia de­pend­ed less on any sin­gle event, or any par­tic­ular per­son, for though they each, like Eliz­abeth, meant to dance half the evening with Mr. Wick­ham, he was by no means the on­ly part­ner who could sat­is­fy them, and a ball was, at any rate, a ball. And even Mary could as­sure her fam­ily that she had no dis­in­cli­na­tion for it.

“While I can have my morn­ings to my­self,” said she, “it is enough–I think it is no sac­ri­fice to join oc­ca­sion­al­ly in evening en­gage­ments. So­ci­ety has claims on us all; and I pro­fess my­self one of those who con­sid­er in­ter­vals of recre­ation and amuse­ment as de­sir­able for ev­ery­body.”

Eliz­abeth’s spir­its were so high on this oc­ca­sion, that though she did not of­ten speak un­nec­es­sar­ily to Mr. Collins, she could not help ask­ing him whether he in­tend­ed to ac­cept Mr. Bin­gley’s in­vi­ta­tion, and if he did, whether he would think it prop­er to join in the evening’s amuse­ment; and she was rather sur­prised to find that he en­ter­tained no scru­ple what­ev­er on that head, and was very far from dread­ing a re­buke ei­ther from the Arch­bish­op, or La­dy Cather­ine de Bourgh, by ven­tur­ing to dance.

“I am by no means of the opin­ion, I as­sure you,” said he, “that a ball of this kind, giv­en by a young man of char­ac­ter, to re­spectable peo­ple, can have any evil ten­den­cy; and I am so far from ob­ject­ing to danc­ing my­self, that I shall hope to be hon­oured with the hands of all my fair cousins in the course of the evening; and I take this op­por­tu­ni­ty of so­lic­it­ing yours, Miss Eliz­abeth, for the two first dances es­pe­cial­ly, a pref­er­ence which I trust my cousin Jane will at­tribute to the right cause, and not to any dis­re­spect for her.”

Eliz­abeth felt her­self com­plete­ly tak­en in. She had ful­ly pro­posed be­ing en­gaged by Mr. Wick­ham for those very dances; and to have Mr. Collins in­stead! her live­li­ness had nev­er been worse timed. There was no help for it, how­ev­er. Mr. Wick­ham’s hap­pi­ness and her own were per­force de­layed a lit­tle longer, and Mr. Collins’s pro­pos­al ac­cept­ed with as good a grace as she could. She was not the bet­ter pleased with his gal­lantry from the idea it sug­gest­ed of some­thing more. It now first struck her, that SHE was se­lect­ed from among her sis­ters as wor­thy of be­ing mis­tress of Hunsford Par­son­age, and of as­sist­ing to form a quadrille ta­ble at Ros­ings, in the ab­sence of more el­igi­ble vis­itors. The idea soon reached to con­vic­tion, as she ob­served his in­creas­ing ci­vil­ities to­ward her­self, and heard his fre­quent at­tempt at a com­pli­ment on her wit and vi­vac­ity; and though more as­ton­ished than grat­ified her­self by this ef­fect of her charms, it was not long be­fore her moth­er gave her to un­der­stand that the prob­abil­ity of their mar­riage was ex­treme­ly agree­able to HER. Eliz­abeth, how­ev­er, did not choose to take the hint, be­ing well aware that a se­ri­ous dis­pute must be the con­se­quence of any re­ply. Mr. Collins might nev­er make the of­fer, and till he did, it was use­less to quar­rel about him.

If there had not been a Nether­field ball to pre­pare for and talk of, the younger Miss Ben­nets would have been in a very pitiable state at this time, for from the day of the in­vi­ta­tion, to the day of the ball, there was such a suc­ces­sion of rain as pre­vent­ed their walk­ing to Mery­ton once. No aunt, no of­fi­cers, no news could be sought af­ter–the very shoe-​ros­es for Nether­field were got by proxy. Even Eliz­abeth might have found some tri­al of her pa­tience in weath­er which to­tal­ly sus­pend­ed the im­prove­ment of her ac­quain­tance with Mr. Wick­ham; and noth­ing less than a dance on Tues­day, could have made such a Fri­day, Sat­ur­day, Sun­day, and Mon­day en­durable to Kit­ty and Ly­dia.