Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 36

If Eliz­abeth, when Mr. Dar­cy gave her the let­ter, did not ex­pect it to con­tain a re­new­al of his of­fers, she had formed no ex­pec­ta­tion at all of its con­tents. But such as they were, it may well be sup­posed how ea­ger­ly she went through them, and what a con­tra­ri­ety of emo­tion they ex­cit­ed. Her feel­ings as she read were scarce­ly to be de­fined. With amaze­ment did she first un­der­stand that he be­lieved any apol­ogy to be in his pow­er; and stead­fast­ly was she per­suad­ed, that he could have no ex­pla­na­tion to give, which a just sense of shame would not con­ceal. With a strong prej­udice against ev­ery­thing he might say, she be­gan his ac­count of what had hap­pened at Nether­field. She read with an ea­ger­ness which hard­ly left her pow­er of com­pre­hen­sion, and from im­pa­tience of know­ing what the next sen­tence might bring, was in­ca­pable of at­tend­ing to the sense of the one be­fore her eyes. His be­lief of her sis­ter’s in­sen­si­bil­ity she in­stant­ly re­solved to be false; and his ac­count of the re­al, the worst ob­jec­tions to the match, made her too an­gry to have any wish of do­ing him jus­tice. He ex­pressed no re­gret for what he had done which sat­is­fied her; his style was not pen­itent, but haughty. It was all pride and in­so­lence.

But when this sub­ject was suc­ceed­ed by his ac­count of Mr. Wick­ham–when she read with some­what clear­er at­ten­tion a re­la­tion of events which, if true, must over­throw ev­ery cher­ished opin­ion of his worth, and which bore so alarm­ing an affin­ity to his own his­to­ry of him­self–her feel­ings were yet more acute­ly painful and more dif­fi­cult of def­ini­tion. As­ton­ish­ment, ap­pre­hen­sion, and even hor­ror, op­pressed her. She wished to dis­cred­it it en­tire­ly, re­peat­ed­ly ex­claim­ing, “This must be false! This can­not be! This must be the gross­est false­hood!”–and when she had gone through the whole let­ter, though scarce­ly know­ing any­thing of the last page or two, put it hasti­ly away, protest­ing that she would not re­gard it, that she would nev­er look in it again.

In this per­turbed state of mind, with thoughts that could rest on noth­ing, she walked on; but it would not do; in half a minute the let­ter was un­fold­ed again, and col­lect­ing her­self as well as she could, she again be­gan the mor­ti­fy­ing pe­rusal of all that re­lat­ed to Wick­ham, and com­mand­ed her­self so far as to ex­am­ine the mean­ing of ev­ery sen­tence. The ac­count of his con­nec­tion with the Pem­ber­ley fam­ily was ex­act­ly what he had re­lat­ed him­self; and the kind­ness of the late Mr. Dar­cy, though she had not be­fore known its ex­tent, agreed equal­ly well with his own words. So far each recital con­firmed the oth­er; but when she came to the will, the dif­fer­ence was great. What Wick­ham had said of the liv­ing was fresh in her mem­ory, and as she re­called his very words, it was im­pos­si­ble not to feel that there was gross du­plic­ity on one side or the oth­er; and, for a few mo­ments, she flat­tered her­self that her wish­es did not err. But when she read and re-​read with the clos­est at­ten­tion, the par­tic­ulars im­me­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing of Wick­ham’s re­sign­ing all pre­ten­sions to the liv­ing, of his re­ceiv­ing in lieu so con­sid­er­able a sum as three thou­sand pounds, again was she forced to hes­itate. She put down the let­ter, weighed ev­ery cir­cum­stance with what she meant to be im­par­tial­ity–de­lib­er­at­ed on the prob­abil­ity of each state­ment–but with lit­tle suc­cess. On both sides it was on­ly as­ser­tion. Again she read on; but ev­ery line proved more clear­ly that the af­fair, which she had be­lieved it im­pos­si­ble that any con­trivance could so rep­re­sent as to ren­der Mr. Dar­cy’s con­duct in it less than in­fa­mous, was ca­pa­ble of a turn which must make him en­tire­ly blame­less through­out the whole.

The ex­trav­agance and gen­er­al profli­ga­cy which he scru­pled not to lay at Mr. Wick­ham’s charge, ex­ceed­ing­ly shocked her; the more so, as she could bring no proof of its in­jus­tice. She had nev­er heard of him be­fore his en­trance in­to the —-shire Mili­tia, in which he had en­gaged at the per­sua­sion of the young man who, on meet­ing him ac­ci­den­tal­ly in town, had there re­newed a slight ac­quain­tance. Of his for­mer way of life noth­ing had been known in Hert­ford­shire but what he told him­self. As to his re­al char­ac­ter, had in­for­ma­tion been in her pow­er, she had nev­er felt a wish of in­quir­ing. His coun­te­nance, voice, and man­ner had es­tab­lished him at once in the pos­ses­sion of ev­ery virtue. She tried to rec­ol­lect some in­stance of good­ness, some dis­tin­guished trait of in­tegri­ty or benev­olence, that might res­cue him from the at­tacks of Mr. Dar­cy; or at least, by the pre­dom­inance of virtue, atone for those ca­su­al er­rors un­der which she would en­deav­our to class what Mr. Dar­cy had de­scribed as the idle­ness and vice of many years’ con­tin­uance. But no such rec­ol­lec­tion be­friend­ed her. She could see him in­stant­ly be­fore her, in ev­ery charm of air and ad­dress; but she could re­mem­ber no more sub­stan­tial good than the gen­er­al ap­pro­ba­tion of the neigh­bour­hood, and the re­gard which his so­cial pow­ers had gained him in the mess. Af­ter paus­ing on this point a con­sid­er­able while, she once more con­tin­ued to read. But, alas! the sto­ry which fol­lowed, of his de­signs on Miss Dar­cy, re­ceived some con­fir­ma­tion from what had passed be­tween Colonel Fitzwilliam and her­self on­ly the morn­ing be­fore; and at last she was re­ferred for the truth of ev­ery par­tic­ular to Colonel Fitzwilliam him­self–from whom she had pre­vi­ous­ly re­ceived the in­for­ma­tion of his near con­cern in all his cousin’s af­fairs, and whose char­ac­ter she had no rea­son to ques­tion. At one time she had al­most re­solved on ap­ply­ing to him, but the idea was checked by the awk­ward­ness of the ap­pli­ca­tion, and at length whol­ly ban­ished by the con­vic­tion that Mr. Dar­cy would nev­er have haz­ard­ed such a pro­pos­al, if he had not been well as­sured of his cousin’s cor­rob­ora­tion.

She per­fect­ly re­mem­bered ev­ery­thing that had passed in con­ver­sa­tion be­tween Wick­ham and her­self, in their first evening at Mr. Phillips’s. Many of his ex­pres­sions were still fresh in her mem­ory. She was NOW struck with the im­pro­pri­ety of such com­mu­ni­ca­tions to a stranger, and won­dered it had es­caped her be­fore. She saw the in­del­ica­cy of putting him­self for­ward as he had done, and the in­con­sis­ten­cy of his pro­fes­sions with his con­duct. She re­mem­bered that he had boast­ed of hav­ing no fear of see­ing Mr. Dar­cy–that Mr. Dar­cy might leave the coun­try, but that HE should stand his ground; yet he had avoid­ed the Nether­field ball the very next week. She re­mem­bered al­so that, till the Nether­field fam­ily had quit­ted the coun­try, he had told his sto­ry to no one but her­self; but that af­ter their re­moval it had been ev­ery­where dis­cussed; that he had then no re­serves, no scru­ples in sink­ing Mr. Dar­cy’s char­ac­ter, though he had as­sured her that re­spect for the fa­ther would al­ways pre­vent his ex­pos­ing the son.

How dif­fer­ent­ly did ev­ery­thing now ap­pear in which he was con­cerned! His at­ten­tions to Miss King were now the con­se­quence of views sole­ly and hate­ful­ly mer­ce­nary; and the medi­ocrity of her for­tune proved no longer the mod­er­ation of his wish­es, but his ea­ger­ness to grasp at any­thing. His be­haviour to her­self could now have had no tol­er­able mo­tive; he had ei­ther been de­ceived with re­gard to her for­tune, or had been grat­ify­ing his van­ity by en­cour­ag­ing the pref­er­ence which she be­lieved she had most in­cau­tious­ly shown. Ev­ery lin­ger­ing strug­gle in his favour grew fainter and fainter; and in far­ther jus­ti­fi­ca­tion of Mr. Dar­cy, she could not but al­low Mr. Bin­gley, when ques­tioned by Jane, had long ago as­sert­ed his blame­less­ness in the af­fair; that proud and re­pul­sive as were his man­ners, she had nev­er, in the whole course of their ac­quain­tance–an ac­quain­tance which had lat­ter­ly brought them much to­geth­er, and giv­en her a sort of in­ti­ma­cy with his ways–seen any­thing that be­trayed him to be un­prin­ci­pled or un­just–any­thing that spoke him of ir­re­li­gious or im­moral habits; that among his own con­nec­tions he was es­teemed and val­ued–that even Wick­ham had al­lowed him mer­it as a broth­er, and that she had of­ten heard him speak so af­fec­tion­ate­ly of his sis­ter as to prove him ca­pa­ble of SOME ami­able feel­ing; that had his ac­tions been what Mr. Wick­ham rep­re­sent­ed them, so gross a vi­ola­tion of ev­ery­thing right could hard­ly have been con­cealed from the world; and that friend­ship be­tween a per­son ca­pa­ble of it, and such an ami­able man as Mr. Bin­gley, was in­com­pre­hen­si­ble.

She grew ab­so­lute­ly ashamed of her­self. Of nei­ther Dar­cy nor Wick­ham could she think with­out feel­ing she had been blind, par­tial, prej­udiced, ab­surd.

“How de­spi­ca­bly I have act­ed!” she cried; “I, who have prid­ed my­self on my dis­cern­ment! I, who have val­ued my­self on my abil­ities! who have of­ten dis­dained the gen­er­ous can­dour of my sis­ter, and grat­ified my van­ity in use­less or blame­able mis­trust! How hu­mil­iat­ing is this dis­cov­ery! Yet, how just a hu­mil­ia­tion! Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretched­ly blind! But van­ity, not love, has been my fol­ly. Pleased with the pref­er­ence of one, and of­fend­ed by the ne­glect of the oth­er, on the very be­gin­ning of our ac­quain­tance, I have court­ed pre­pos­ses­sion and ig­no­rance, and driv­en rea­son away, where ei­ther were con­cerned. Till this mo­ment I nev­er knew my­self.”

From her­self to Jane–from Jane to Bin­gley, her thoughts were in a line which soon brought to her rec­ol­lec­tion that Mr. Dar­cy’s ex­pla­na­tion THERE had ap­peared very in­suf­fi­cient, and she read it again. Wide­ly dif­fer­ent was the ef­fect of a sec­ond pe­rusal. How could she de­ny that cred­it to his as­ser­tions in one in­stance, which she had been obliged to give in the oth­er? He de­clared him­self to be to­tal­ly un­sus­pi­cious of her sis­ter’s at­tach­ment; and she could not help re­mem­ber­ing what Char­lotte’s opin­ion had al­ways been. Nei­ther could she de­ny the jus­tice of his de­scrip­tion of Jane. She felt that Jane’s feel­ings, though fer­vent, were lit­tle dis­played, and that there was a con­stant com­pla­cen­cy in her air and man­ner not of­ten unit­ed with great sen­si­bil­ity.

When she came to that part of the let­ter in which her fam­ily were men­tioned in terms of such mor­ti­fy­ing, yet mer­it­ed re­proach, her sense of shame was se­vere. The jus­tice of the charge struck her too forcibly for de­nial, and the cir­cum­stances to which he par­tic­ular­ly al­lud­ed as hav­ing passed at the Nether­field ball, and as con­firm­ing all his first dis­ap­pro­ba­tion, could not have made a stronger im­pres­sion on his mind than on hers.

The com­pli­ment to her­self and her sis­ter was not un­felt. It soothed, but it could not con­sole her for the con­tempt which had thus been self-​at­tract­ed by the rest of her fam­ily; and as she con­sid­ered that Jane’s dis­ap­point­ment had in fact been the work of her near­est re­la­tions, and re­flect­ed how ma­te­ri­al­ly the cred­it of both must be hurt by such im­pro­pri­ety of con­duct, she felt de­pressed be­yond any­thing she had ev­er known be­fore.

Af­ter wan­der­ing along the lane for two hours, giv­ing way to ev­ery va­ri­ety of thought–re-​con­sid­er­ing events, de­ter­min­ing prob­abil­ities, and rec­on­cil­ing her­self, as well as she could, to a change so sud­den and so im­por­tant, fa­tigue, and a rec­ol­lec­tion of her long ab­sence, made her at length re­turn home; and she en­tered the house with the wish of ap­pear­ing cheer­ful as usu­al, and the res­olu­tion of re­press­ing such re­flec­tions as must make her un­fit for con­ver­sa­tion.

She was im­me­di­ate­ly told that the two gen­tle­men from Ros­ings had each called dur­ing her ab­sence; Mr. Dar­cy, on­ly for a few min­utes, to take leave–but that Colonel Fitzwilliam had been sit­ting with them at least an hour, hop­ing for her re­turn, and al­most re­solv­ing to walk af­ter her till she could be found. Eliz­abeth could but just AF­FECT con­cern in miss­ing him; she re­al­ly re­joiced at it. Colonel Fitzwilliam was no longer an ob­ject; she could think on­ly of her let­ter.