Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 20

Mr. Collins was not left long to the silent con­tem­pla­tion of his suc­cess­ful love; for Mrs. Ben­net, hav­ing daw­dled about in the vestibule to watch for the end of the con­fer­ence, no soon­er saw Eliz­abeth open the door and with quick step pass her to­wards the stair­case, than she en­tered the break­fast-​room, and con­grat­ulat­ed both him and her­self in warm terms on the hap­py prospect or their near­er con­nec­tion. Mr. Collins re­ceived and re­turned these fe­lic­ita­tions with equal plea­sure, and then pro­ceed­ed to re­late the par­tic­ulars of their in­ter­view, with the re­sult of which he trust­ed he had ev­ery rea­son to be sat­is­fied, since the re­fusal which his cousin had stead­fast­ly giv­en him would nat­ural­ly flow from her bash­ful mod­esty and the gen­uine del­ica­cy of her char­ac­ter.

This in­for­ma­tion, how­ev­er, star­tled Mrs. Ben­net; she would have been glad to be equal­ly sat­is­fied that her daugh­ter had meant to en­cour­age him by protest­ing against his pro­pos­als, but she dared not be­lieve it, and could not help say­ing so.

“But, de­pend up­on it, Mr. Collins,” she added, “that Lizzy shall be brought to rea­son. I will speak to her about it di­rect­ly. She is a very head­strong, fool­ish girl, and does not know her own in­ter­est but I will MAKE her know it.”

“Par­don me for in­ter­rupt­ing you, madam,” cried Mr. Collins; “but if she is re­al­ly head­strong and fool­ish, I know not whether she would al­to­geth­er be a very de­sir­able wife to a man in my sit­ua­tion, who nat­ural­ly looks for hap­pi­ness in the mar­riage state. If there­fore she ac­tu­al­ly per­sists in re­ject­ing my suit, per­haps it were bet­ter not to force her in­to ac­cept­ing me, be­cause if li­able to such de­fects of tem­per, she could not con­tribute much to my fe­lic­ity.”

“Sir, you quite mis­un­der­stand me,” said Mrs. Ben­net, alarmed. “Lizzy is on­ly head­strong in such mat­ters as these. In ev­ery­thing else she is as good-​na­tured a girl as ev­er lived. I will go di­rect­ly to Mr. Ben­net, and we shall very soon set­tle it with her, I am sure.”

She would not give him time to re­ply, but hur­ry­ing in­stant­ly to her hus­band, called out as she en­tered the li­brary, “Oh! Mr. Ben­net, you are want­ed im­me­di­ate­ly; we are all in an up­roar. You must come and make Lizzy mar­ry Mr. Collins, for she vows she will not have him, and if you do not make haste he will change his mind and not have HER.”

Mr. Ben­net raised his eyes from his book as she en­tered, and fixed them on her face with a calm un­con­cern which was not in the least al­tered by her com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

“I have not the plea­sure of un­der­stand­ing you,” said he, when she had fin­ished her speech. “Of what are you talk­ing?”

“Of Mr. Collins and Lizzy. Lizzy de­clares she will not have Mr. Collins, and Mr. Collins be­gins to say that he will not have Lizzy.”

“And what am I to do on the oc­ca­sion? It seems an hope­less busi­ness.”

“Speak to Lizzy about it your­self. Tell her that you in­sist up­on her mar­ry­ing him.”

“Let her be called down. She shall hear my opin­ion.”

Mrs. Ben­net rang the bell, and Miss Eliz­abeth was sum­moned to the li­brary.

“Come here, child,” cried her fa­ther as she ap­peared. “I have sent for you on an af­fair of im­por­tance. I un­der­stand that Mr. Collins has made you an of­fer of mar­riage. Is it true?” Eliz­abeth replied that it was. “Very well–and this of­fer of mar­riage you have re­fused?”

“I have, sir.”

“Very well. We now come to the point. Your moth­er in­sists up­on your ac­cept­ing it. Is it not so, Mrs. Ben­net?”

“Yes, or I will nev­er see her again.”

“An un­hap­py al­ter­na­tive is be­fore you, Eliz­abeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your par­ents. Your moth­er will nev­er see you again if you do NOT mar­ry Mr. Collins, and I will nev­er see you again if you DO.”

Eliz­abeth could not but smile at such a con­clu­sion of such a be­gin­ning, but Mrs. Ben­net, who had per­suad­ed her­self that her hus­band re­gard­ed the af­fair as she wished, was ex­ces­sive­ly dis­ap­point­ed.

“What do you mean, Mr. Ben­net, in talk­ing this way? You promised me to IN­SIST up­on her mar­ry­ing him.”

“My dear,” replied her hus­band, “I have two small favours to re­quest. First, that you will al­low me the free use of my un­der­stand­ing on the present oc­ca­sion; and sec­ond­ly, of my room. I shall be glad to have the li­brary to my­self as soon as may be.”

Not yet, how­ev­er, in spite of her dis­ap­point­ment in her hus­band, did Mrs. Ben­net give up the point. She talked to Eliz­abeth again and again; coaxed and threat­ened her by turns. She en­deav­oured to se­cure Jane in her in­ter­est; but Jane, with all pos­si­ble mild­ness, de­clined in­ter­fer­ing; and Eliz­abeth, some­times with re­al earnest­ness, and some­times with play­ful gai­ety, replied to her at­tacks. Though her man­ner var­ied, how­ev­er, her de­ter­mi­na­tion nev­er did.

Mr. Collins, mean­while, was med­itat­ing in soli­tude on what had passed. He thought too well of him­self to com­pre­hend on what mo­tives his cousin could refuse him; and though his pride was hurt, he suf­fered in no oth­er way. His re­gard for her was quite imag­inary; and the pos­si­bil­ity of her de­serv­ing her moth­er’s re­proach pre­vent­ed his feel­ing any re­gret.

While the fam­ily were in this con­fu­sion, Char­lotte Lu­cas came to spend the day with them. She was met in the vestibule by Ly­dia, who, fly­ing to her, cried in a half whis­per, “I am glad you are come, for there is such fun here! What do you think has hap­pened this morn­ing? Mr. Collins has made an of­fer to Lizzy, and she will not have him.”

Char­lotte hard­ly had time to an­swer, be­fore they were joined by Kit­ty, who came to tell the same news; and no soon­er had they en­tered the break­fast-​room, where Mrs. Ben­net was alone, than she like­wise be­gan on the sub­ject, call­ing on Miss Lu­cas for her com­pas­sion, and en­treat­ing her to per­suade her friend Lizzy to com­ply with the wish­es of all her fam­ily. “Pray do, my dear Miss Lu­cas,” she added in a melan­choly tone, “for no­body is on my side, no­body takes part with me. I am cru­el­ly used, no­body feels for my poor nerves.”

Char­lotte’s re­ply was spared by the en­trance of Jane and Eliz­abeth.

“Aye, there she comes,” con­tin­ued Mrs. Ben­net, “look­ing as un­con­cerned as may be, and car­ing no more for us than if we were at York, pro­vid­ed she can have her own way. But I tell you, Miss Lizzy–if you take it in­to your head to go on re­fus­ing ev­ery of­fer of mar­riage in this way, you will nev­er get a hus­band at all–and I am sure I do not know who is to main­tain you when your fa­ther is dead. I shall not be able to keep you–and so I warn you. I have done with you from this very day. I told you in the li­brary, you know, that I should nev­er speak to you again, and you will find me as good as my word. I have no plea­sure in talk­ing to un­du­ti­ful chil­dren. Not that I have much plea­sure, in­deed, in talk­ing to any­body. Peo­ple who suf­fer as I do from ner­vous com­plaints can have no great in­cli­na­tion for talk­ing. No­body can tell what I suf­fer! But it is al­ways so. Those who do not com­plain are nev­er pitied.”

Her daugh­ters lis­tened in si­lence to this ef­fu­sion, sen­si­ble that any at­tempt to rea­son with her or soothe her would on­ly in­crease the ir­ri­ta­tion. She talked on, there­fore, with­out in­ter­rup­tion from any of them, till they were joined by Mr. Collins, who en­tered the room with an air more state­ly than usu­al, and on per­ceiv­ing whom, she said to the girls, “Now, I do in­sist up­on it, that you, all of you, hold your tongues, and let me and Mr. Collins have a lit­tle con­ver­sa­tion to­geth­er.”

Eliz­abeth passed qui­et­ly out of the room, Jane and Kit­ty fol­lowed, but Ly­dia stood her ground, de­ter­mined to hear all she could; and Char­lotte, de­tained first by the ci­vil­ity of Mr. Collins, whose in­quiries af­ter her­self and all her fam­ily were very minute, and then by a lit­tle cu­rios­ity, sat­is­fied her­self with walk­ing to the win­dow and pre­tend­ing not to hear. In a dole­ful voice Mrs. Ben­net be­gan the pro­ject­ed con­ver­sa­tion: “Oh! Mr. Collins!”

“My dear madam,” replied he, “let us be for ev­er silent on this point. Far be it from me,” he present­ly con­tin­ued, in a voice that marked his dis­plea­sure, “to re­sent the be­haviour of your daugh­ter. Res­ig­na­tion to in­evitable evils is the evil du­ty of us all; the pe­cu­liar du­ty of a young man who has been so for­tu­nate as I have been in ear­ly prefer­ment; and I trust I am re­signed. Per­haps not the less so from feel­ing a doubt of my pos­itive hap­pi­ness had my fair cousin hon­oured me with her hand; for I have of­ten ob­served that res­ig­na­tion is nev­er so per­fect as when the bless­ing de­nied be­gins to lose some­what of its val­ue in our es­ti­ma­tion. You will not, I hope, con­sid­er me as show­ing any dis­re­spect to your fam­ily, my dear madam, by thus with­draw­ing my pre­ten­sions to your daugh­ter’s favour, with­out hav­ing paid your­self and Mr. Ben­net the com­pli­ment of re­quest­ing you to in­ter­pose your au­thor­ity in my be­half. My con­duct may, I fear, be ob­jec­tion­able in hav­ing ac­cept­ed my dis­mis­sion from your daugh­ter’s lips in­stead of your own. But we are all li­able to er­ror. I have cer­tain­ly meant well through the whole af­fair. My ob­ject has been to se­cure an ami­able com­pan­ion for my­self, with due con­sid­er­ation for the ad­van­tage of all your fam­ily, and if my MAN­NER has been at all rep­re­hen­si­ble, I here beg leave to apol­ogise.”