Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 18

Till Eliz­abeth en­tered the draw­ing-​room at Nether­field, and looked in vain for Mr. Wick­ham among the clus­ter of red coats there as­sem­bled, a doubt of his be­ing present had nev­er oc­curred to her. The cer­tain­ty of meet­ing him had not been checked by any of those rec­ol­lec­tions that might not un­rea­son­ably have alarmed her. She had dressed with more than usu­al care, and pre­pared in the high­est spir­its for the con­quest of all that re­mained un­sub­dued of his heart, trust­ing that it was not more than might be won in the course of the evening. But in an in­stant arose the dread­ful sus­pi­cion of his be­ing pur­pose­ly omit­ted for Mr. Dar­cy’s plea­sure in the Bin­gleys’ in­vi­ta­tion to the of­fi­cers; and though this was not ex­act­ly the case, the ab­so­lute fact of his ab­sence was pro­nounced by his friend Den­ny, to whom Ly­dia ea­ger­ly ap­plied, and who told them that Wick­ham had been obliged to go to town on busi­ness the day be­fore, and was not yet re­turned; adding, with a sig­nif­icant smile, “I do not imag­ine his busi­ness would have called him away just now, if he had not want­ed to avoid a cer­tain gen­tle­man here.”

This part of his in­tel­li­gence, though un­heard by Ly­dia, was caught by Eliz­abeth, and, as it as­sured her that Dar­cy was not less an­swer­able for Wick­ham’s ab­sence than if her first sur­mise had been just, ev­ery feel­ing of dis­plea­sure against the for­mer was so sharp­ened by im­me­di­ate dis­ap­point­ment, that she could hard­ly re­ply with tol­er­able ci­vil­ity to the po­lite in­quiries which he di­rect­ly af­ter­wards ap­proached to make. At­ten­dance, for­bear­ance, pa­tience with Dar­cy, was in­jury to Wick­ham. She was re­solved against any sort of con­ver­sa­tion with him, and turned away with a de­gree of ill-​hu­mour which she could not whol­ly sur­mount even in speak­ing to Mr. Bin­gley, whose blind par­tial­ity pro­voked her.

But Eliz­abeth was not formed for ill-​hu­mour; and though ev­ery prospect of her own was de­stroyed for the evening, it could not dwell long on her spir­its; and hav­ing told all her griefs to Char­lotte Lu­cas, whom she had not seen for a week, she was soon able to make a vol­un­tary tran­si­tion to the odd­ities of her cousin, and to point him out to her par­tic­ular no­tice. The first two dances, how­ev­er, brought a re­turn of dis­tress; they were dances of mor­ti­fi­ca­tion. Mr. Collins, awk­ward and solemn, apol­ogis­ing in­stead of at­tend­ing, and of­ten mov­ing wrong with­out be­ing aware of it, gave her all the shame and mis­ery which a dis­agree­able part­ner for a cou­ple of dances can give. The mo­ment of her re­lease from him was ec­sta­sy.

She danced next with an of­fi­cer, and had the re­fresh­ment of talk­ing of Wick­ham, and of hear­ing that he was uni­ver­sal­ly liked. When those dances were over, she re­turned to Char­lotte Lu­cas, and was in con­ver­sa­tion with her, when she found her­self sud­den­ly ad­dressed by Mr. Dar­cy who took her so much by sur­prise in his ap­pli­ca­tion for her hand, that, with­out know­ing what she did, she ac­cept­ed him. He walked away again im­me­di­ate­ly, and she was left to fret over her own want of pres­ence of mind; Char­lotte tried to con­sole her:

“I dare say you will find him very agree­able.”

“Heav­en for­bid! THAT would be the great­est mis­for­tune of all! To find a man agree­able whom on is de­ter­mined to hate! Do not wish me such an evil.”

When the danc­ing recom­menced, how­ev­er, and Dar­cy ap­proached to claim her hand, Char­lotte could not help cau­tion­ing her in a whis­per, not to be a sim­ple­ton, and al­low her fan­cy for Wick­ham to make her ap­pear un­pleas­ant in the eyes of a man ten times his con­se­quence. Eliz­abeth made no an­swer, and took her place in the set, amazed at the dig­ni­ty to which she was ar­rived in be­ing al­lowed to stand op­po­site to Mr. Dar­cy, and read­ing in her neigh­bours’ looks, their equal amaze­ment in be­hold­ing it. They stood for some time with­out speak­ing a word; and she be­gan to imag­ine that their si­lence was to last through the two dances, and at first was re­solved not to break it; till sud­den­ly fan­cy­ing that it would be the greater pun­ish­ment to her part­ner to oblige him to talk, she made some slight ob­ser­va­tion on the dance. He replied, and was again silent. Af­ter a pause of some min­utes, she ad­dressed him a sec­ond time with:–“It is YOUR turn to say some­thing now, Mr. Dar­cy. I talked about the dance, and YOU ought to make some sort of re­mark on the size of the room, or the num­ber of cou­ples.”

He smiled, and as­sured her that what­ev­er she wished him to say should be said.

“Very well. That re­ply will do for the present. Per­haps by and by I may ob­serve that pri­vate balls are much pleas­an­ter than pub­lic ones. But NOW we may be silent.”

“Do you talk by rule, then, while you are danc­ing?”

“Some­times. One must speak a lit­tle, you know. It would look odd to be en­tire­ly silent for half an hour to­geth­er; and yet for the ad­van­tage of SOME, con­ver­sa­tion ought to be so ar­ranged, as that they may have the trou­ble of say­ing as lit­tle as pos­si­ble.”

“Are you con­sult­ing your own feel­ings in the present case, or do you imag­ine that you are grat­ify­ing mine?”

“Both,” replied Eliz­abeth arch­ly; “for I have al­ways seen a great sim­ilar­ity in the turn of our minds. We are each of an unso­cial, tac­iturn dis­po­si­tion, un­will­ing to speak, un­less we ex­pect to say some­thing that will amaze the whole room, and be hand­ed down to pos­ter­ity with all the eclat of a proverb.”

“This is no very strik­ing re­sem­blance of your own char­ac­ter, I am sure,” said he. “How near it may be to MINE, I can­not pre­tend to say. YOU think it a faith­ful por­trait un­doubt­ed­ly.”

“I must not de­cide on my own per­for­mance.”

He made no an­swer, and they were again silent till they had gone down the dance, when he asked her if she and her sis­ters did not very of­ten walk to Mery­ton. She an­swered in the af­fir­ma­tive, and, un­able to re­sist the temp­ta­tion, added, “When you met us there the oth­er day, we had just been form­ing a new ac­quain­tance.”

The ef­fect was im­me­di­ate. A deep­er shade of hau­teur over­spread his fea­tures, but he said not a word, and Eliz­abeth, though blam­ing her­self for her own weak­ness, could not go on. At length Dar­cy spoke, and in a con­strained man­ner said, “Mr. Wick­ham is blessed with such hap­py man­ners as may en­sure his MAK­ING friends–whether he may be equal­ly ca­pa­ble of RE­TAIN­ING them, is less cer­tain.”

“He has been so un­lucky as to lose YOUR friend­ship,” replied Eliz­abeth with em­pha­sis, “and in a man­ner which he is like­ly to suf­fer from all his life.”

Dar­cy made no an­swer, and seemed de­sirous of chang­ing the sub­ject. At that mo­ment, Sir William Lu­cas ap­peared close to them, mean­ing to pass through the set to the oth­er side of the room; but on per­ceiv­ing Mr. Dar­cy, he stopped with a bow of su­pe­ri­or cour­tesy to com­pli­ment him on his danc­ing and his part­ner.

“I have been most high­ly grat­ified in­deed, my dear sir. Such very su­pe­ri­or danc­ing is not of­ten seen. It is ev­ident that you be­long to the first cir­cles. Al­low me to say, how­ev­er, that your fair part­ner does not dis­grace you, and that I must hope to have this plea­sure of­ten re­peat­ed, es­pe­cial­ly when a cer­tain de­sir­able event, my dear Eliza (glanc­ing at her sis­ter and Bin­gley) shall take place. What con­grat­ula­tions will then flow in! I ap­peal to Mr. Dar­cy:–but let me not in­ter­rupt you, sir. You will not thank me for de­tain­ing you from the be­witch­ing con­verse of that young la­dy, whose bright eyes are al­so up­braid­ing me.”

The lat­ter part of this ad­dress was scarce­ly heard by Dar­cy; but Sir William’s al­lu­sion to his friend seemed to strike him forcibly, and his eyes were di­rect­ed with a very se­ri­ous ex­pres­sion to­wards Bin­gley and Jane, who were danc­ing to­geth­er. Re­cov­er­ing him­self, how­ev­er, short­ly, he turned to his part­ner, and said, “Sir William’s in­ter­rup­tion has made me for­get what we were talk­ing of.”

“I do not think we were speak­ing at all. Sir William could not have in­ter­rupt­ed two peo­ple in the room who had less to say for them­selves. We have tried two or three sub­jects al­ready with­out suc­cess, and what we are to talk of next I can­not imag­ine.”

“What think you of books?” said he, smil­ing.

“Books–oh! no. I am sure we nev­er read the same, or not with the same feel­ings.”

“I am sor­ry you think so; but if that be the case, there can at least be no want of sub­ject. We may com­pare our dif­fer­ent opin­ions.”

“No–I can­not talk of books in a ball-​room; my head is al­ways full of some­thing else.”

“The PRESENT al­ways oc­cu­pies you in such scenes–does it?” said he, with a look of doubt.

“Yes, al­ways,” she replied, with­out know­ing what she said, for her thoughts had wan­dered far from the sub­ject, as soon af­ter­wards ap­peared by her sud­den­ly ex­claim­ing, “I re­mem­ber hear­ing you once say, Mr. Dar­cy, that you hard­ly ev­er for­gave, that you re­sent­ment once cre­at­ed was un­ap­peasable. You are very cau­tious, I sup­pose, as to its BE­ING CRE­AT­ED.”

“I am,” said he, with a firm voice.

“And nev­er al­low your­self to be blind­ed by prej­udice?”

“I hope not.”

“It is par­tic­ular­ly in­cum­bent on those who nev­er change their opin­ion, to be se­cure of judg­ing prop­er­ly at first.”

“May I ask to what these ques­tions tend?”

“Mere­ly to the il­lus­tra­tion of YOUR char­ac­ter,” said she, en­deav­our­ing to shake off her grav­ity. “I am try­ing to make it out.”

“And what is your suc­cess?”

She shook her head. “I do not get on at all. I hear such dif­fer­ent ac­counts of you as puz­zle me ex­ceed­ing­ly.”

“I can read­ily be­lieve,” an­swered he grave­ly, “that re­ports may vary great­ly with re­spect to me; and I could wish, Miss Ben­net, that you were not to sketch my char­ac­ter at the present mo­ment, as there is rea­son to fear that the per­for­mance would re­flect no cred­it on ei­ther.”

“But if I do not take your like­ness now, I may nev­er have an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

“I would by no means sus­pend any plea­sure of yours,” he cold­ly replied. She said no more, and they went down the oth­er dance and part­ed in si­lence; and on each side dis­sat­is­fied, though not to an equal de­gree, for in Dar­cy’s breast there was a tol­er­able pow­er­ful feel­ing to­wards her, which soon pro­cured her par­don, and di­rect­ed all his anger against an­oth­er.

They had not long sep­arat­ed, when Miss Bin­gley came to­wards her, and with an ex­pres­sion of civ­il dis­dain ac­cost­ed her:

“So, Miss Eliza, I hear you are quite de­light­ed with George Wick­ham! Your sis­ter has been talk­ing to me about him, and ask­ing me a thou­sand ques­tions; and I find that the young man quite for­got to tell you, among his oth­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion, that he was the son of old Wick­ham, the late Mr. Dar­cy’s stew­ard. Let me rec­om­mend you, how­ev­er, as a friend, not to give im­plic­it con­fi­dence to all his as­ser­tions; for as to Mr. Dar­cy’s us­ing him ill, it is per­fect­ly false; for, on the con­trary, he has al­ways been re­mark­ably kind to him, though George Wick­ham has treat­ed Mr. Dar­cy in a most in­fa­mous man­ner. I do not know the par­tic­ulars, but I know very well that Mr. Dar­cy is not in the least to blame, that he can­not bear to hear George Wick­ham men­tioned, and that though my broth­er thought that he could not well avoid in­clud­ing him in his in­vi­ta­tion to the of­fi­cers, he was ex­ces­sive­ly glad to find that he had tak­en him­self out of the way. His com­ing in­to the coun­try at all is a most in­so­lent thing, in­deed, and I won­der how he could pre­sume to do it. I pity you, Miss Eliza, for this dis­cov­ery of your favourite’s guilt; but re­al­ly, con­sid­er­ing his de­scent, one could not ex­pect much bet­ter.”

“His guilt and his de­scent ap­pear by your ac­count to be the same,” said Eliz­abeth an­gri­ly; “for I have heard you ac­cuse him of noth­ing worse than of be­ing the son of Mr. Dar­cy’s stew­ard, and of THAT, I can as­sure you, he in­formed me him­self.”

“I beg your par­don,” replied Miss Bin­gley, turn­ing away with a sneer. “Ex­cuse my in­ter­fer­ence–it was kind­ly meant.”

“In­so­lent girl!” said Eliz­abeth to her­self. “You are much mis­tak­en if you ex­pect to in­flu­ence me by such a pal­try at­tack as this. I see noth­ing in it but your own wil­ful ig­no­rance and the mal­ice of Mr. Dar­cy.” She then sought her el­dest sis­ter, who has un­der­tak­en to make in­quiries on the same sub­ject of Bin­gley. Jane met her with a smile of such sweet com­pla­cen­cy, a glow of such hap­py ex­pres­sion, as suf­fi­cient­ly marked how well she was sat­is­fied with the oc­cur­rences of the evening. Eliz­abeth in­stant­ly read her feel­ings, and at that mo­ment so­lic­itude for Wick­ham, re­sent­ment against his en­emies, and ev­ery­thing else, gave way be­fore the hope of Jane’s be­ing in the fairest way for hap­pi­ness.

“I want to know,” said she, with a coun­te­nance no less smil­ing than her sis­ter’s, “what you have learnt about Mr. Wick­ham. But per­haps you have been too pleas­ant­ly en­gaged to think of any third per­son; in which case you may be sure of my par­don.”

“No,” replied Jane, “I have not for­got­ten him; but I have noth­ing sat­is­fac­to­ry to tell you. Mr. Bin­gley does not know the whole of his his­to­ry, and is quite ig­no­rant of the cir­cum­stances which have prin­ci­pal­ly of­fend­ed Mr. Dar­cy; but he will vouch for the good con­duct, the pro­bity, and hon­our of his friend, and is per­fect­ly con­vinced that Mr. Wick­ham has de­served much less at­ten­tion from Mr. Dar­cy than he has re­ceived; and I am sor­ry to say by his ac­count as well as his sis­ter’s, Mr. Wick­ham is by no means a re­spectable young man. I am afraid he has been very im­pru­dent, and has de­served to lose Mr. Dar­cy’s re­gard.”

“Mr. Bin­gley does not know Mr. Wick­ham him­self?”

“No; he nev­er saw him till the oth­er morn­ing at Mery­ton.”

“This ac­count then is what he has re­ceived from Mr. Dar­cy. I am sat­is­fied. But what does he say of the liv­ing?”

“He does not ex­act­ly rec­ol­lect the cir­cum­stances, though he has heard them from Mr. Dar­cy more than once, but he be­lieves that it was left to him CON­DI­TION­AL­LY on­ly.”

“I have not a doubt of Mr. Bin­gley’s sin­cer­ity,” said Eliz­abeth warm­ly; “but you must ex­cuse my not be­ing con­vinced by as­sur­ances on­ly. Mr. Bin­gley’s de­fense of his friend was a very able one, I dare say; but since he is un­ac­quaint­ed with sev­er­al parts of the sto­ry, and has learnt the rest from that friend him­self, I shall ven­ture to still think of both gen­tle­men as I did be­fore.”

She then changed the dis­course to one more grat­ify­ing to each, and on which there could be no dif­fer­ence of sen­ti­ment. Eliz­abeth lis­tened with de­light to the hap­py, though mod­est hopes which Jane en­ter­tained of Mr. Bin­gley’s re­gard, and said all in her pow­er to height­en her con­fi­dence in it. On their be­ing joined by Mr. Bin­gley him­self, Eliz­abeth with­drew to Miss Lu­cas; to whose in­quiry af­ter the pleas­ant­ness of her last part­ner she had scarce­ly replied, be­fore Mr. Collins came up to them, and told her with great ex­ul­ta­tion that he had just been so for­tu­nate as to make a most im­por­tant dis­cov­ery.

“I have found out,” said he, “by a sin­gu­lar ac­ci­dent, that there is now in the room a near re­la­tion of my pa­troness. I hap­pened to over­hear the gen­tle­man him­self men­tion­ing to the young la­dy who does the hon­ours of the house the names of his cousin Miss de Bourgh, and of her moth­er La­dy Cather­ine. How won­der­ful­ly these sort of things oc­cur! Who would have thought of my meet­ing with, per­haps, a nephew of La­dy Cather­ine de Bourgh in this as­sem­bly! I am most thank­ful that the dis­cov­ery is made in time for me to pay my re­spects to him, which I am now go­ing to do, and trust he will ex­cuse my not hav­ing done it be­fore. My to­tal ig­no­rance of the con­nec­tion must plead my apol­ogy.”

“You are not go­ing to in­tro­duce your­self to Mr. Dar­cy!”

“In­deed I am. I shall en­treat his par­don for not hav­ing done it ear­li­er. I be­lieve him to be La­dy Cather­ine’s NEPHEW. It will be in my pow­er to as­sure him that her la­dy­ship was quite well yes­ter­day se’nnight.”

Eliz­abeth tried hard to dis­suade him from such a scheme, as­sur­ing him that Mr. Dar­cy would con­sid­er his ad­dress­ing him with­out in­tro­duc­tion as an im­per­ti­nent free­dom, rather than a com­pli­ment to his aunt; that it was not in the least nec­es­sary there should be any no­tice on ei­ther side; and that if it were, it must be­long to Mr. Dar­cy, the su­pe­ri­or in con­se­quence, to be­gin the ac­quain­tance. Mr. Collins lis­tened to her with the de­ter­mined air of fol­low­ing his own in­cli­na­tion, and, when she ceased speak­ing, replied thus:

“My dear Miss Eliz­abeth, I have the high­est opin­ion in the world in your ex­cel­lent judge­ment in all mat­ters with­in the scope of your un­der­stand­ing; but per­mit me to say, that there must be a wide dif­fer­ence be­tween the es­tab­lished forms of cer­emo­ny amongst the laity, and those which reg­ulate the cler­gy; for, give me leave to ob­serve that I con­sid­er the cler­ical of­fice as equal in point of dig­ni­ty with the high­est rank in the king­dom–pro­vid­ed that a prop­er hu­mil­ity of be­haviour is at the same time main­tained. You must there­fore al­low me to fol­low the dic­tates of my con­science on this oc­ca­sion, which leads me to per­form what I look on as a point of du­ty. Par­don me for ne­glect­ing to prof­it by your ad­vice, which on ev­ery oth­er sub­ject shall be my con­stant guide, though in the case be­fore us I con­sid­er my­self more fit­ted by ed­uca­tion and ha­bit­ual study to de­cide on what is right than a young la­dy like your­self.” And with a low bow he left her to at­tack Mr. Dar­cy, whose re­cep­tion of his ad­vances she ea­ger­ly watched, and whose as­ton­ish­ment at be­ing so ad­dressed was very ev­ident. Her cousin pref­aced his speech with a solemn bow and though she could not hear a word of it, she felt as if hear­ing it all, and saw in the mo­tion of his lips the words “apol­ogy,” “Hunsford,” and “La­dy Cather­ine de Bourgh.” It vexed her to see him ex­pose him­self to such a man. Mr. Dar­cy was eye­ing him with un­re­strained won­der, and when at last Mr. Collins al­lowed him time to speak, replied with an air of dis­tant ci­vil­ity. Mr. Collins, how­ev­er, was not dis­cour­aged from speak­ing again, and Mr. Dar­cy’s con­tempt seemed abun­dant­ly in­creas­ing with the length of his sec­ond speech, and at the end of it he on­ly made him a slight bow, and moved an­oth­er way. Mr. Collins then re­turned to Eliz­abeth.

“I have no rea­son, I as­sure you,” said he, “to be dis­sat­is­fied with my re­cep­tion. Mr. Dar­cy seemed much pleased with the at­ten­tion. He an­swered me with the ut­most ci­vil­ity, and even paid me the com­pli­ment of say­ing that he was so well con­vinced of La­dy Cather­ine’s dis­cern­ment as to be cer­tain she could nev­er be­stow a favour un­worthi­ly. It was re­al­ly a very hand­some thought. Up­on the whole, I am much pleased with him.”

As Eliz­abeth had no longer any in­ter­est of her own to pur­sue, she turned her at­ten­tion al­most en­tire­ly on her sis­ter and Mr. Bin­gley; and the train of agree­able re­flec­tions which her ob­ser­va­tions gave birth to, made her per­haps al­most as hap­py as Jane. She saw her in idea set­tled in that very house, in all the fe­lic­ity which a mar­riage of true af­fec­tion could be­stow; and she felt ca­pa­ble, un­der such cir­cum­stances, of en­deav­our­ing even to like Bin­gley’s two sis­ters. Her moth­er’s thoughts she plain­ly saw were bent the same way, and she de­ter­mined not to ven­ture near her, lest she might hear too much. When they sat down to sup­per, there­fore, she con­sid­ered it a most un­lucky per­verse­ness which placed them with­in one of each oth­er; and deeply was she vexed to find that her moth­er was talk­ing to that one per­son (La­dy Lu­cas) freely, open­ly, and of noth­ing else but her ex­pec­ta­tion that Jane would soon be mar­ried to Mr. Bin­gley. It was an an­imat­ing sub­ject, and Mrs. Ben­net seemed in­ca­pable of fa­tigue while enu­mer­at­ing the ad­van­tages of the match. His be­ing such a charm­ing young man, and so rich, and liv­ing but three miles from them, were the first points of self-​grat­ula­tion; and then it was such a com­fort to think how fond the two sis­ters were of Jane, and to be cer­tain that they must de­sire the con­nec­tion as much as she could do. It was, more­over, such a promis­ing thing for her younger daugh­ters, as Jane’s mar­ry­ing so great­ly must throw them in the way of oth­er rich men; and last­ly, it was so pleas­ant at her time of life to be able to con­sign her sin­gle daugh­ters to the care of their sis­ter, that she might not be obliged to go in­to com­pa­ny more than she liked. It was nec­es­sary to make this cir­cum­stance a mat­ter of plea­sure, be­cause on such oc­ca­sions it is the eti­quette; but no one was less like­ly than Mrs. Ben­net to find com­fort in stay­ing home at any pe­ri­od of her life. She con­clud­ed with many good wish­es that La­dy Lu­cas might soon be equal­ly for­tu­nate, though ev­ident­ly and tri­umphant­ly be­liev­ing there was no chance of it.

In vain did Eliz­abeth en­deav­our to check the ra­pid­ity of her moth­er’s words, or per­suade her to de­scribe her fe­lic­ity in a less au­di­ble whis­per; for, to her in­ex­press­ible vex­ation, she could per­ceive that the chief of it was over­heard by Mr. Dar­cy, who sat op­po­site to them. Her moth­er on­ly scold­ed her for be­ing non­sen­si­cal.

“What is Mr. Dar­cy to me, pray, that I should be afraid of him? I am sure we owe him no such par­tic­ular ci­vil­ity as to be obliged to say noth­ing HE may not like to hear.”

“For heav­en’s sake, madam, speak low­er. What ad­van­tage can it be for you to of­fend Mr. Dar­cy? You will nev­er rec­om­mend your­self to his friend by so do­ing!”

Noth­ing that she could say, how­ev­er, had any in­flu­ence. Her moth­er would talk of her views in the same in­tel­li­gi­ble tone. Eliz­abeth blushed and blushed again with shame and vex­ation. She could not help fre­quent­ly glanc­ing her eye at Mr. Dar­cy, though ev­ery glance con­vinced her of what she dread­ed; for though he was not al­ways look­ing at her moth­er, she was con­vinced that his at­ten­tion was in­vari­ably fixed by her. The ex­pres­sion of his face changed grad­ual­ly from in­dig­nant con­tempt to a com­posed and steady grav­ity.

At length, how­ev­er, Mrs. Ben­net had no more to say; and La­dy Lu­cas, who had been long yawn­ing at the rep­eti­tion of de­lights which she saw no like­li­hood of shar­ing, was left to the com­forts of cold ham and chick­en. Eliz­abeth now be­gan to re­vive. But not long was the in­ter­val of tran­quil­li­ty; for, when sup­per was over, singing was talked of, and she had the mor­ti­fi­ca­tion of see­ing Mary, af­ter very lit­tle en­treaty, prepar­ing to oblige the com­pa­ny. By many sig­nif­icant looks and silent en­treaties, did she en­deav­our to pre­vent such a proof of com­plai­sance, but in vain; Mary would not un­der­stand them; such an op­por­tu­ni­ty of ex­hibit­ing was de­light­ful to her, and she be­gan her song. Eliz­abeth’s eyes were fixed on her with most painful sen­sa­tions, and she watched her progress through the sev­er­al stan­zas with an im­pa­tience which was very ill re­ward­ed at their close; for Mary, on re­ceiv­ing, amongst the thanks of the ta­ble, the hint of a hope that she might be pre­vailed on to favour them again, af­ter the pause of half a minute be­gan an­oth­er. Mary’s pow­ers were by no means fit­ted for such a dis­play; her voice was weak, and her man­ner af­fect­ed. Eliz­abeth was in ag­onies. She looked at Jane, to see how she bore it; but Jane was very com­pos­ed­ly talk­ing to Bin­gley. She looked at his two sis­ters, and saw them mak­ing signs of de­ri­sion at each oth­er, and at Dar­cy, who con­tin­ued, how­ev­er, im­per­turbably grave. She looked at her fa­ther to en­treat his in­ter­fer­ence, lest Mary should be singing all night. He took the hint, and when Mary had fin­ished her sec­ond song, said aloud, “That will do ex­treme­ly well, child. You have de­light­ed us long enough. Let the oth­er young ladies have time to ex­hib­it.”

Mary, though pre­tend­ing not to hear, was some­what dis­con­cert­ed; and Eliz­abeth, sor­ry for her, and sor­ry for her fa­ther’s speech, was afraid her anx­iety had done no good. Oth­ers of the par­ty were now ap­plied to.

“If I,” said Mr. Collins, “were so for­tu­nate as to be able to sing, I should have great plea­sure, I am sure, in oblig­ing the com­pa­ny with an air; for I con­sid­er mu­sic as a very in­no­cent di­ver­sion, and per­fect­ly com­pat­ible with the pro­fes­sion of a cler­gy­man. I do not mean, how­ev­er, to as­sert that we can be jus­ti­fied in de­vot­ing too much of our time to mu­sic, for there are cer­tain­ly oth­er things to be at­tend­ed to. The rec­tor of a parish has much to do. In the first place, he must make such an agree­ment for tithes as a may be ben­efi­cial to him­self and not of­fen­sive to his pa­tron. He must write his own ser­mons; and the time that re­mains will not be too much for his parish du­ties, and the care and im­prove­ment of his dwelling, which he can­not be ex­cused from mak­ing as a com­fort­able as pos­si­ble. And I do not think it of light im­por­tance that he should have at­ten­tive and con­cil­ia­to­ry man­ner to­wards ev­ery­body, es­pe­cial­ly to­wards those to whom he owes his prefer­ment. I can­not ac­quit him of that du­ty; nor could I think well of the man who should omit an oc­ca­sion of tes­ti­fy­ing his re­spect to­wards any­body con­nect­ed with the fam­ily.” And with a bow to Mr. Dar­cy, he con­clud­ed his speech, which had been spo­ken so loud as a to be heard by half the room. Many stared–many smiled; but no one looked more amused than Mr. Ben­net him­self, while his wife se­ri­ous­ly com­mend­ed Mr. Collins for hav­ing spo­ken so sen­si­bly, and ob­served in a half-​whis­per to La­dy Lu­cas, that he was a re­mark­ably clever, good kind of young man.

To Eliz­abeth it ap­peared that, had her fam­ily made an agree­ment to ex­pose them­selves as a much as a they could dur­ing the evening, it would have been im­pos­si­ble for them to play their parts with more spir­it or fin­er suc­cess; and hap­py did she think it for Bin­gley and her sis­ter that some of the ex­hi­bi­tion had es­caped his no­tice, and that his feel­ings were not of a sort to be much dis­tressed by the fol­ly which he must have wit­nessed. That his two sis­ters and Mr. Dar­cy, how­ev­er, should have such an op­por­tu­ni­ty of ridi­cul­ing her re­la­tions, was bad enough, and she could not de­ter­mine whether the silent con­tempt of the gen­tle­man, or the in­so­lent smiles of the ladies, were more in­tol­er­able.

The rest of the evening brought her lit­tle amuse­ment. She was teased by Mr. Collins, who con­tin­ued most per­se­ver­ing­ly by her side, and though he could not pre­vail on her to dance with him again, put it out of her pow­er to dance with oth­ers. In vain did she en­treat him to stand up with some­body else, and of­fer to in­tro­duce him to any young la­dy in the room. He as­sured her, that as to danc­ing, he was per­fect­ly in­dif­fer­ent to it; that his chief ob­ject was by del­icate at­ten­tions to rec­om­mend him­self to her and that he should there­fore make a point of re­main­ing close to her the whole evening. There was no ar­gu­ing up­on such a project. She owed her great­est re­lief to her friend Miss Lu­cas, who of­ten joined them, and good-​na­tured­ly en­gaged Mr. Collins’s con­ver­sa­tion to her­self.

She was at least free from the of­fense of Mr. Dar­cy’s fur­ther no­tice; though of­ten stand­ing with­in a very short dis­tance of her, quite dis­en­gaged, he nev­er came near enough to speak. She felt it to be the prob­able con­se­quence of her al­lu­sions to Mr. Wick­ham, and re­joiced in it.

The Long­bourn par­ty were the last of all the com­pa­ny to de­part, and, by a ma­noeu­vre of Mrs. Ben­net, had to wait for their car­riage a quar­ter of an hour af­ter ev­ery­body else was gone, which gave them time to see how hearti­ly they were wished away by some of the fam­ily. Mrs. Hurst and her sis­ter scarce­ly opened their mouths, ex­cept to com­plain of fa­tigue, and were ev­ident­ly im­pa­tient to have the house to them­selves. They re­pulsed ev­ery at­tempt of Mrs. Ben­net at con­ver­sa­tion, and by so do­ing threw a lan­guor over the whole par­ty, which was very lit­tle re­lieved by the long speech­es of Mr. Collins, who was com­pli­ment­ing Mr. Bin­gley and his sis­ters on the el­egance of their en­ter­tain­ment, and the hos­pi­tal­ity and po­lite­ness which had marked their be­haviour to their guests. Dar­cy said noth­ing at all. Mr. Ben­net, in equal si­lence, was en­joy­ing the scene. Mr. Bin­gley and Jane were stand­ing to­geth­er, a lit­tle de­tached from the rest, and talked on­ly to each oth­er. Eliz­abeth pre­served as steady a si­lence as ei­ther Mrs. Hurst or Miss Bin­gley; and even Ly­dia was too much fa­tigued to ut­ter more than the oc­ca­sion­al ex­cla­ma­tion of “Lord, how tired I am!” ac­com­pa­nied by a vi­olent yawn.

When at length they arose to take leave, Mrs. Ben­net was most press­ing­ly civ­il in her hope of see­ing the whole fam­ily soon at Long­bourn, and ad­dressed her­self es­pe­cial­ly to Mr. Bin­gley, to as­sure him how hap­py he would make them by eat­ing a fam­ily din­ner with them at any time, with­out the cer­emo­ny of a for­mal in­vi­ta­tion. Bin­gley was all grate­ful plea­sure, and he read­ily en­gaged for tak­ing the ear­li­est op­por­tu­ni­ty of wait­ing on her, af­ter his re­turn from Lon­don, whith­er he was obliged to go the next day for a short time.

Mrs. Ben­net was per­fect­ly sat­is­fied, and quit­ted the house un­der the de­light­ful per­sua­sion that, al­low­ing for the nec­es­sary prepa­ra­tions of set­tle­ments, new car­riages, and wed­ding clothes, she should un­doubt­ed­ly see her daugh­ter set­tled at Nether­field in the course of three or four months. Of hav­ing an­oth­er daugh­ter mar­ried to Mr. Collins, she thought with equal cer­tain­ty, and with con­sid­er­able, though not equal, plea­sure. Eliz­abeth was the least dear to her of all her chil­dren; and though the man and the match were quite good enough for HER, the worth of each was eclipsed by Mr. Bin­gley and Nether­field.