Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 22

The Ben­nets were en­gaged to dine with the Lu­cas­es and again dur­ing the chief of the day was Miss Lu­cas so kind as to lis­ten to Mr. Collins. Eliz­abeth took an op­por­tu­ni­ty of thank­ing her. “It keeps him in good hu­mour,” said she, “and I am more obliged to you than I can ex­press.” Char­lotte as­sured her friend of her sat­is­fac­tion in be­ing use­ful, and that it am­ply re­paid her for the lit­tle sac­ri­fice of her time. This was very ami­able, but Char­lotte’s kind­ness ex­tend­ed far­ther than Eliz­abeth had any con­cep­tion of; its ob­ject was noth­ing else than to se­cure her from any re­turn of Mr. Collins’s ad­dress­es, by en­gag­ing them to­wards her­self. Such was Miss Lu­cas’s scheme; and ap­pear­ances were so favourable, that when they part­ed at night, she would have felt al­most se­cure of suc­cess if he had not been to leave Hert­ford­shire so very soon. But here she did in­jus­tice to the fire and in­de­pen­dence of his char­ac­ter, for it led him to es­cape out of Long­bourn House the next morn­ing with ad­mirable sly­ness, and has­ten to Lu­cas Lodge to throw him­self at her feet. He was anx­ious to avoid the no­tice of his cousins, from a con­vic­tion that if they saw him de­part, they could not fail to con­jec­ture his de­sign, and he was not will­ing to have the at­tempt known till its suc­cess might be known like­wise; for though feel­ing al­most se­cure, and with rea­son, for Char­lotte had been tol­er­ably en­cour­ag­ing, he was com­par­ative­ly dif­fi­dent since the ad­ven­ture of Wednes­day. His re­cep­tion, how­ev­er, was of the most flat­ter­ing kind. Miss Lu­cas per­ceived him from an up­per win­dow as he walked to­wards the house, and in­stant­ly set out to meet him ac­ci­den­tal­ly in the lane. But lit­tle had she dared to hope that so much love and elo­quence await­ed her there.

In as short a time as Mr. Collins’s long speech­es would al­low, ev­ery­thing was set­tled be­tween them to the sat­is­fac­tion of both; and as they en­tered the house he earnest­ly en­treat­ed her to name the day that was to make him the hap­pi­est of men; and though such a so­lic­ita­tion must be waived for the present, the la­dy felt no in­cli­na­tion to tri­fle with his hap­pi­ness. The stu­pid­ity with which he was favoured by na­ture must guard his courtship from any charm that could make a wom­an wish for its con­tin­uance; and Miss Lu­cas, who ac­cept­ed him sole­ly from the pure and dis­in­ter­est­ed de­sire of an es­tab­lish­ment, cared not how soon that es­tab­lish­ment were gained.

Sir William and La­dy Lu­cas were speed­ily ap­plied to for their con­sent; and it was be­stowed with a most joy­ful alacrity. Mr. Collins’s present cir­cum­stances made it a most el­igi­ble match for their daugh­ter, to whom they could give lit­tle for­tune; and his prospects of fu­ture wealth were ex­ceed­ing­ly fair. La­dy Lu­cas be­gan di­rect­ly to cal­cu­late, with more in­ter­est than the mat­ter had ev­er ex­cit­ed be­fore, how many years longer Mr. Ben­net was like­ly to live; and Sir William gave it as his de­cid­ed opin­ion, that when­ev­er Mr. Collins should be in pos­ses­sion of the Long­bourn es­tate, it would be high­ly ex­pe­di­ent that both he and his wife should make their ap­pear­ance at St. James’s. The whole fam­ily, in short, were prop­er­ly over­joyed on the oc­ca­sion. The younger girls formed hopes of COM­ING OUT a year or two soon­er than they might oth­er­wise have done; and the boys were re­lieved from their ap­pre­hen­sion of Char­lotte’s dy­ing an old maid. Char­lotte her­self was tol­er­ably com­posed. She had gained her point, and had time to con­sid­er of it. Her re­flec­tions were in gen­er­al sat­is­fac­to­ry. Mr. Collins, to be sure, was nei­ther sen­si­ble nor agree­able; his so­ci­ety was irk­some, and his at­tach­ment to her must be imag­inary. But still he would be her hus­band. With­out think­ing high­ly ei­ther of men or mat­ri­mo­ny, mar­riage had al­ways been her ob­ject; it was the on­ly pro­vi­sion for well-​ed­ucat­ed young wom­en of small for­tune, and how­ev­er un­cer­tain of giv­ing hap­pi­ness, must be their pleas­an­test preser­va­tive from want. This preser­va­tive she had now ob­tained; and at the age of twen­ty-​sev­en, with­out hav­ing ev­er been hand­some, she felt all the good luck of it. The least agree­able cir­cum­stance in the busi­ness was the sur­prise it must oc­ca­sion to Eliz­abeth Ben­net, whose friend­ship she val­ued be­yond that of any oth­er per­son. Eliz­abeth would won­der, and prob­ably would blame her; and though her res­olu­tion was not to be shak­en, her feel­ings must be hurt by such a dis­ap­pro­ba­tion. She re­solved to give her the in­for­ma­tion her­self, and there­fore charged Mr. Collins, when he re­turned to Long­bourn to din­ner, to drop no hint of what had passed be­fore any of the fam­ily. A promise of se­cre­cy was of course very du­ti­ful­ly giv­en, but it could not be kept with­out dif­fi­cul­ty; for the cu­rios­ity ex­cit­ed by his long ab­sence burst forth in such very di­rect ques­tions on his re­turn as re­quired some in­ge­nu­ity to evade, and he was at the same time ex­er­cis­ing great self-​de­nial, for he was long­ing to pub­lish his pros­per­ous love.

As he was to be­gin his jour­ney too ear­ly on the mor­row to see any of the fam­ily, the cer­emo­ny of leave-​tak­ing was per­formed when the ladies moved for the night; and Mrs. Ben­net, with great po­lite­ness and cor­dial­ity, said how hap­py they should be to see him at Long­bourn again, when­ev­er his en­gage­ments might al­low him to vis­it them.

“My dear madam,” he replied, “this in­vi­ta­tion is par­tic­ular­ly grat­ify­ing, be­cause it is what I have been hop­ing to re­ceive; and you may be very cer­tain that I shall avail my­self of it as soon as pos­si­ble.”

They were all as­ton­ished; and Mr. Ben­net, who could by no means wish for so speedy a re­turn, im­me­di­ate­ly said:

“But is there not dan­ger of La­dy Cather­ine’s dis­ap­pro­ba­tion here, my good sir? You had bet­ter ne­glect your re­la­tions than run the risk of of­fend­ing your pa­troness.”

“My dear sir,” replied Mr. Collins,” I am par­tic­ular­ly obliged to you for this friend­ly cau­tion, and you may de­pend up­on my not tak­ing so ma­te­ri­al a step with­out her la­dy­ship’s con­cur­rence.”

“You can­not be too much up­on your guard. Risk any­thing rather than her dis­plea­sure; and if you find it like­ly to be raised by your com­ing to us again, which I should think ex­ceed­ing­ly prob­able, stay qui­et­ly at home, and be sat­is­fied that WE shall take no of­fence.”

“Be­lieve me, my dear sir, my grat­itude is warm­ly ex­cit­ed by such af­fec­tion­ate at­ten­tion; and de­pend up­on it, you will speed­ily re­ceive from me a let­ter of thanks for this, and for ev­ery oth­er mark of your re­gard dur­ing my stay in Hert­ford­shire. As for my fair cousins, though my ab­sence may not be long enough to ren­der it nec­es­sary, I shall now take the lib­er­ty of wish­ing them health and hap­pi­ness, not ex­cept­ing my cousin Eliz­abeth.”

With prop­er ci­vil­ities the ladies then with­drew; all of them equal­ly sur­prised that he med­itat­ed a quick re­turn. Mrs. Ben­net wished to un­der­stand by it that he thought of pay­ing his ad­dress­es to one of her younger girls, and Mary might have been pre­vailed on to ac­cept him. She rat­ed his abil­ities much high­er than any of the oth­ers; there was a so­lid­ity in his re­flec­tions which of­ten struck her, and though by no means so clever as her­self, she thought that if en­cour­aged to read and im­prove him­self by such an ex­am­ple as hers, he might be­come a very agree­able com­pan­ion. But on the fol­low­ing morn­ing, ev­ery hope of this kind was done away. Miss Lu­cas called soon af­ter break­fast, and in a pri­vate con­fer­ence with Eliz­abeth re­lat­ed the event of the day be­fore.

The pos­si­bil­ity of Mr. Collins’s fan­cy­ing her­self in love with her friend had once oc­curred to Eliz­abeth with­in the last day or two; but that Char­lotte could en­cour­age him seemed al­most as far from pos­si­bil­ity as she could en­cour­age him her­self, and her as­ton­ish­ment was con­se­quent­ly so great as to over­come at first the bounds of deco­rum, and she could not help cry­ing out:

“En­gaged to Mr. Collins! My dear Char­lotte–im­pos­si­ble!”

The steady coun­te­nance which Miss Lu­cas had com­mand­ed in telling her sto­ry, gave way to a mo­men­tary con­fu­sion here on re­ceiv­ing so di­rect a re­proach; though, as it was no more than she ex­pect­ed, she soon re­gained her com­po­sure, and calm­ly replied:

“Why should you be sur­prised, my dear Eliza? Do you think it in­cred­ible that Mr. Collins should be able to pro­cure any wom­an’s good opin­ion, be­cause he was not so hap­py as to suc­ceed with you?”

But Eliz­abeth had now rec­ol­lect­ed her­self, and mak­ing a strong ef­fort for it, was able to as­sure with tol­er­able firm­ness that the prospect of their re­la­tion­ship was high­ly grate­ful to her, and that she wished her all imag­in­able hap­pi­ness.

“I see what you are feel­ing,” replied Char­lotte. “You must be sur­prised, very much sur­prised–so late­ly as Mr. Collins was wish­ing to mar­ry you. But when you have had time to think it over, I hope you will be sat­is­fied with what I have done. I am not ro­man­tic, you know; I nev­er was. I ask on­ly a com­fort­able home; and con­sid­er­ing Mr. Collins’s char­ac­ter, con­nec­tion, and sit­ua­tion in life, I am con­vinced that my chance of hap­pi­ness with him is as fair as most peo­ple can boast on en­ter­ing the mar­riage state.”

Eliz­abeth qui­et­ly an­swered “Un­doubt­ed­ly;” and af­ter an awk­ward pause, they re­turned to the rest of the fam­ily. Char­lotte did not stay much longer, and Eliz­abeth was then left to re­flect on what she had heard. It was a long time be­fore she be­came at all rec­on­ciled to the idea of so un­suit­able a match. The strangeness of Mr. Collins’s mak­ing two of­fers of mar­riage with­in three days was noth­ing in com­par­ison of his be­ing now ac­cept­ed. She had al­ways felt that Char­lotte’s opin­ion of mat­ri­mo­ny was not ex­act­ly like her own, but she had not sup­posed it to be pos­si­ble that, when called in­to ac­tion, she would have sac­ri­ficed ev­ery bet­ter feel­ing to world­ly ad­van­tage. Char­lotte the wife of Mr. Collins was a most hu­mil­iat­ing pic­ture! And to the pang of a friend dis­grac­ing her­self and sunk in her es­teem, was added the dis­tress­ing con­vic­tion that it was im­pos­si­ble for that friend to be tol­er­ably hap­py in the lot she had cho­sen.