Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 21

The dis­cus­sion of Mr. Collins’s of­fer was now near­ly at an end, and Eliz­abeth had on­ly to suf­fer from the un­com­fort­able feel­ings nec­es­sar­ily at­tend­ing it, and oc­ca­sion­al­ly from some pee­vish al­lu­sions of her moth­er. As for the gen­tle­man him­self, HIS feel­ings were chiefly ex­pressed, not by em­bar­rass­ment or de­jec­tion, or by try­ing to avoid her, but by stiff­ness of man­ner and re­sent­ful si­lence. He scarce­ly ev­er spoke to her, and the as­sid­uous at­ten­tions which he had been so sen­si­ble of him­self were trans­ferred for the rest of the day to Miss Lu­cas, whose ci­vil­ity in lis­ten­ing to him was a sea­son­able re­lief to them all, and es­pe­cial­ly to her friend.

The mor­row pro­duced no abate­ment of Mrs. Ben­net’s ill-​hu­mour or ill health. Mr. Collins was al­so in the same state of an­gry pride. Eliz­abeth had hoped that his re­sent­ment might short­en his vis­it, but his plan did not ap­pear in the least af­fect­ed by it. He was al­ways to have gone on Sat­ur­day, and to Sat­ur­day he meant to stay.

Af­ter break­fast, the girls walked to Mery­ton to in­quire if Mr. Wick­ham were re­turned, and to lament over his ab­sence from the Nether­field ball. He joined them on their en­ter­ing the town, and at­tend­ed them to their aunt’s where his re­gret and vex­ation, and the con­cern of ev­ery­body, was well talked over. To Eliz­abeth, how­ev­er, he vol­un­tar­ily ac­knowl­edged that the ne­ces­si­ty of his ab­sence HAD been self-​im­posed.

“I found,” said he, “as the time drew near that I had bet­ter not meet Mr. Dar­cy; that to be in the same room, the same par­ty with him for so many hours to­geth­er, might be more than I could bear, and that scenes might arise un­pleas­ant to more than my­self.”

She high­ly ap­proved his for­bear­ance, and they had leisure for a full dis­cus­sion of it, and for all the com­men­da­tion which they civil­ly be­stowed on each oth­er, as Wick­ham and an­oth­er of­fi­cer walked back with them to Long­bourn, and dur­ing the walk he par­tic­ular­ly at­tend­ed to her. His ac­com­pa­ny­ing them was a dou­ble ad­van­tage; she felt all the com­pli­ment it of­fered to her­self, and it was most ac­cept­able as an oc­ca­sion of in­tro­duc­ing him to her fa­ther and moth­er.

Soon af­ter their re­turn, a let­ter was de­liv­ered to Miss Ben­net; it came from Nether­field. The en­ve­lope con­tained a sheet of el­egant, lit­tle, hot-​pressed pa­per, well cov­ered with a la­dy’s fair, flow­ing hand; and Eliz­abeth saw her sis­ter’s coun­te­nance change as she read it, and saw her dwelling in­tent­ly on some par­tic­ular pas­sages. Jane rec­ol­lect­ed her­self soon, and putting the let­ter away, tried to join with her usu­al cheer­ful­ness in the gen­er­al con­ver­sa­tion; but Eliz­abeth felt an anx­iety on the sub­ject which drew off her at­ten­tion even from Wick­ham; and no soon­er had he and he com­pan­ion tak­en leave, than a glance from Jane in­vit­ed her to fol­low her up­stairs. When they had gained their own room, Jane, tak­ing out the let­ter, said:

“This is from Car­oline Bin­gley; what it con­tains has sur­prised me a good deal. The whole par­ty have left Nether­field by this time, and are on their way to town–and with­out any in­ten­tion of com­ing back again. You shall hear what she says.”

She then read the first sen­tence aloud, which com­prised the in­for­ma­tion of their hav­ing just re­solved to fol­low their broth­er to town di­rect­ly, and of their mean­ing to dine in Grosvenor Street, where Mr. Hurst had a house. The next was in these words: “I do not pre­tend to re­gret any­thing I shall leave in Hert­ford­shire, ex­cept your so­ci­ety, my dear­est friend; but we will hope, at some fu­ture pe­ri­od, to en­joy many re­turns of that de­light­ful in­ter­course we have known, and in the mean­while may lessen the pain of sep­ara­tion by a very fre­quent and most un­re­served cor­re­spon­dence. I de­pend on you for that.” To these high­flown ex­pres­sions Eliz­abeth lis­tened with all the in­sen­si­bil­ity of dis­trust; and though the sud­den­ness of their re­moval sur­prised her, she saw noth­ing in it re­al­ly to lament; it was not to be sup­posed that their ab­sence from Nether­field would pre­vent Mr. Bin­gley’s be­ing there; and as to the loss of their so­ci­ety, she was per­suad­ed that Jane must cease to re­gard it, in the en­joy­ment of his.

“It is un­lucky,” said she, af­ter a short pause, “that you should not be able to see your friends be­fore they leave the coun­try. But may we not hope that the pe­ri­od of fu­ture hap­pi­ness to which Miss Bin­gley looks for­ward may ar­rive ear­li­er than she is aware, and that the de­light­ful in­ter­course you have known as friends will be re­newed with yet greater sat­is­fac­tion as sis­ters? Mr. Bin­gley will not be de­tained in Lon­don by them.”

“Car­oline de­cid­ed­ly says that none of the par­ty will re­turn in­to Hert­ford­shire this win­ter. I will read it to you:”

“When my broth­er left us yes­ter­day, he imag­ined that the busi­ness which took him to Lon­don might be con­clud­ed in three or four days; but as we are cer­tain it can­not be so, and at the same time con­vinced that when Charles gets to town he will be in no hur­ry to leave it again, we have de­ter­mined on fol­low­ing him thith­er, that he may not be obliged to spend his va­cant hours in a com­fort­less ho­tel. Many of my ac­quain­tances are al­ready there for the win­ter; I wish that I could hear that you, my dear­est friend, had any in­ten­tion of mak­ing one of the crowd–but of that I de­spair. I sin­cere­ly hope your Christ­mas in Hert­ford­shire may abound in the gai­eties which that sea­son gen­er­al­ly brings, and that your beaux will be so nu­mer­ous as to pre­vent your feel­ing the loss of the three of whom we shall de­prive you.”

“It is ev­ident by this,” added Jane, “that he comes back no more this win­ter.”

“It is on­ly ev­ident that Miss Bin­gley does not mean that he SHOULD.”

“Why will you think so? It must be his own do­ing. He is his own mas­ter. But you do not know ALL. I WILL read you the pas­sage which par­tic­ular­ly hurts me. I will have no re­serves from YOU.”

“Mr. Dar­cy is im­pa­tient to see his sis­ter; and, to con­fess the truth, WE are scarce­ly less ea­ger to meet her again. I re­al­ly do not think Geor­giana Dar­cy has her equal for beau­ty, el­egance, and ac­com­plish­ments; and the af­fec­tion she in­spires in Louisa and my­self is height­ened in­to some­thing still more in­ter­est­ing, from the hope we dare en­ter­tain of her be­ing here­after our sis­ter. I do not know whether I ev­er be­fore men­tioned to you my feel­ings on this sub­ject; but I will not leave the coun­try with­out con­fid­ing them, and I trust you will not es­teem them un­rea­son­able. My broth­er ad­mires her great­ly al­ready; he will have fre­quent op­por­tu­ni­ty now of see­ing her on the most in­ti­mate foot­ing; her re­la­tions all wish the con­nec­tion as much as his own; and a sis­ter’s par­tial­ity is not mis­lead­ing me, I think, when I call Charles most ca­pa­ble of en­gag­ing any wom­an’s heart. With all these cir­cum­stances to favour an at­tach­ment, and noth­ing to pre­vent it, am I wrong, my dear­est Jane, in in­dulging the hope of an event which will se­cure the hap­pi­ness of so many?”

“What do you think of THIS sen­tence, my dear Lizzy?” said Jane as she fin­ished it. “Is it not clear enough? Does it not ex­press­ly de­clare that Car­oline nei­ther ex­pects nor wish­es me to be her sis­ter; that she is per­fect­ly con­vinced of her broth­er’s in­dif­fer­ence; and that if she sus­pects the na­ture of my feel­ings for him, she means (most kind­ly!) to put me on my guard? Can there be any oth­er opin­ion on the sub­ject?”

“Yes, there can; for mine is to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent. Will you hear it?”

“Most will­ing­ly.”

“You shall have it in a few words. Miss Bin­gley sees that her broth­er is in love with you, and wants him to mar­ry Miss Dar­cy. She fol­lows him to town in hope of keep­ing him there, and tries to per­suade you that he does not care about you.”

Jane shook her head.

“In­deed, Jane, you ought to be­lieve me. No one who has ev­er seen you to­geth­er can doubt his af­fec­tion. Miss Bin­gley, I am sure, can­not. She is not such a sim­ple­ton. Could she have seen half as much love in Mr. Dar­cy for her­self, she would have or­dered her wed­ding clothes. But the case is this: We are not rich enough or grand enough for them; and she is the more anx­ious to get Miss Dar­cy for her broth­er, from the no­tion that when there has been ONE in­ter­mar­riage, she may have less trou­ble in achiev­ing a sec­ond; in which there is cer­tain­ly some in­ge­nu­ity, and I dare say it would suc­ceed, if Miss de Bourgh were out of the way. But, my dear­est Jane, you can­not se­ri­ous­ly imag­ine that be­cause Miss Bin­gley tells you her broth­er great­ly ad­mires Miss Dar­cy, he is in the small­est de­gree less sen­si­ble of YOUR mer­it than when he took leave of you on Tues­day, or that it will be in her pow­er to per­suade him that, in­stead of be­ing in love with you, he is very much in love with her friend.”

“If we thought alike of Miss Bin­gley,” replied Jane, “your rep­re­sen­ta­tion of all this might make me quite easy. But I know the foun­da­tion is un­just. Car­oline is in­ca­pable of wil­ful­ly de­ceiv­ing any­one; and all that I can hope in this case is that she is de­ceiv­ing her­self.”

“That is right. You could not have start­ed a more hap­py idea, since you will not take com­fort in mine. Be­lieve her to be de­ceived, by all means. You have now done your du­ty by her, and must fret no longer.”

“But, my dear sis­ter, can I be hap­py, even sup­pos­ing the best, in ac­cept­ing a man whose sis­ters and friends are all wish­ing him to mar­ry else­where?”

“You must de­cide for your­self,” said Eliz­abeth; “and if, up­on ma­ture de­lib­er­ation, you find that the mis­ery of dis­oblig­ing his two sis­ters is more than equiv­alent to the hap­pi­ness of be­ing his wife, I ad­vise you by all means to refuse him.”

“How can you talk so?” said Jane, faint­ly smil­ing. “You must know that though I should be ex­ceed­ing­ly grieved at their dis­ap­pro­ba­tion, I could not hes­itate.”

“I did not think you would; and that be­ing the case, I can­not con­sid­er your sit­ua­tion with much com­pas­sion.”

“But if he re­turns no more this win­ter, my choice will nev­er be re­quired. A thou­sand things may arise in six months!”

The idea of his re­turn­ing no more Eliz­abeth treat­ed with the ut­most con­tempt. It ap­peared to her mere­ly the sug­ges­tion of Car­oline’s in­ter­est­ed wish­es, and she could not for a mo­ment sup­pose that those wish­es, how­ev­er open­ly or art­ful­ly spo­ken, could in­flu­ence a young man so to­tal­ly in­de­pen­dent of ev­ery­one.

She rep­re­sent­ed to her sis­ter as forcibly as pos­si­ble what she felt on the sub­ject, and had soon the plea­sure of see­ing its hap­py ef­fect. Jane’s tem­per was not de­spond­ing, and she was grad­ual­ly led to hope, though the dif­fi­dence of af­fec­tion some­times over­came the hope, that Bin­gley would re­turn to Nether­field and an­swer ev­ery wish of her heart.

They agreed that Mrs. Ben­net should on­ly hear of the de­par­ture of the fam­ily, with­out be­ing alarmed on the score of the gen­tle­man’s con­duct; but even this par­tial com­mu­ni­ca­tion gave her a great deal of con­cern, and she be­wailed it as ex­ceed­ing­ly un­lucky that the ladies should hap­pen to go away just as they were all get­ting so in­ti­mate to­geth­er. Af­ter lament­ing it, how­ev­er, at some length, she had the con­so­la­tion that Mr. Bin­gley would be soon down again and soon din­ing at Long­bourn, and the con­clu­sion of all was the com­fort­able dec­la­ra­tion, that though he had been in­vit­ed on­ly to a fam­ily din­ner, she would take care to have two full cours­es.