Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 3

Not all that Mrs. Ben­net, how­ev­er, with the as­sis­tance of her five daugh­ters, could ask on the sub­ject, was suf­fi­cient to draw from her hus­band any sat­is­fac­to­ry de­scrip­tion of Mr. Bin­gley. They at­tacked him in var­ious ways–with barefaced ques­tions, in­ge­nious sup­po­si­tions, and dis­tant sur­mis­es; but he elud­ed the skill of them all, and they were at last obliged to ac­cept the sec­ond-​hand in­tel­li­gence of their neigh­bour, La­dy Lu­cas. Her re­port was high­ly favourable. Sir William had been de­light­ed with him. He was quite young, won­der­ful­ly hand­some, ex­treme­ly agree­able, and, to crown the whole, he meant to be at the next as­sem­bly with a large par­ty. Noth­ing could be more de­light­ful! To be fond of danc­ing was a cer­tain step to­wards falling in love; and very live­ly hopes of Mr. Bin­gley’s heart were en­ter­tained.

“If I can but see one of my daugh­ters hap­pi­ly set­tled at Nether­field,” said Mrs. Ben­net to her hus­band, “and all the oth­ers equal­ly well mar­ried, I shall have noth­ing to wish for.”

In a few days Mr. Bin­gley re­turned Mr. Ben­net’s vis­it, and sat about ten min­utes with him in his li­brary. He had en­ter­tained hopes of be­ing ad­mit­ted to a sight of the young ladies, of whose beau­ty he had heard much; but he saw on­ly the fa­ther. The ladies were some­what more for­tu­nate, for they had the ad­van­tage of as­cer­tain­ing from an up­per win­dow that he wore a blue coat, and rode a black horse.

An in­vi­ta­tion to din­ner was soon af­ter­wards dis­patched; and al­ready had Mrs. Ben­net planned the cours­es that were to do cred­it to her house­keep­ing, when an an­swer ar­rived which de­ferred it all. Mr. Bin­gley was obliged to be in town the fol­low­ing day, and, con­se­quent­ly, un­able to ac­cept the hon­our of their in­vi­ta­tion, etc. Mrs. Ben­net was quite dis­con­cert­ed. She could not imag­ine what busi­ness he could have in town so soon af­ter his ar­rival in Hert­ford­shire; and she be­gan to fear that he might be al­ways fly­ing about from one place to an­oth­er, and nev­er set­tled at Nether­field as he ought to be. La­dy Lu­cas qui­et­ed her fears a lit­tle by start­ing the idea of his be­ing gone to Lon­don on­ly to get a large par­ty for the ball; and a re­port soon fol­lowed that Mr. Bin­gley was to bring twelve ladies and sev­en gen­tle­men with him to the as­sem­bly. The girls grieved over such a num­ber of ladies, but were com­fort­ed the day be­fore the ball by hear­ing, that in­stead of twelve he brought on­ly six with him from Lon­don–his five sis­ters and a cousin. And when the par­ty en­tered the as­sem­bly room it con­sist­ed of on­ly five al­to­geth­er–Mr. Bin­gley, his two sis­ters, the hus­band of the el­dest, and an­oth­er young man.

Mr. Bin­gley was good-​look­ing and gen­tle­man­like; he had a pleas­ant coun­te­nance, and easy, un­af­fect­ed man­ners. His sis­ters were fine wom­en, with an air of de­cid­ed fash­ion. His broth­er-​in-​law, Mr. Hurst, mere­ly looked the gen­tle­man; but his friend Mr. Dar­cy soon drew the at­ten­tion of the room by his fine, tall per­son, hand­some fea­tures, no­ble mien, and the re­port which was in gen­er­al cir­cu­la­tion with­in five min­utes af­ter his en­trance, of his hav­ing ten thou­sand a year. The gen­tle­men pro­nounced him to be a fine fig­ure of a man, the ladies de­clared he was much hand­somer than Mr. Bin­gley, and he was looked at with great ad­mi­ra­tion for about half the evening, till his man­ners gave a dis­gust which turned the tide of his pop­ular­ity; for he was dis­cov­ered to be proud; to be above his com­pa­ny, and above be­ing pleased; and not all his large es­tate in Der­byshire could then save him from hav­ing a most for­bid­ding, dis­agree­able coun­te­nance, and be­ing un­wor­thy to be com­pared with his friend.

Mr. Bin­gley had soon made him­self ac­quaint­ed with all the prin­ci­pal peo­ple in the room; he was live­ly and un­re­served, danced ev­ery dance, was an­gry that the ball closed so ear­ly, and talked of giv­ing one him­self at Nether­field. Such ami­able qual­ities must speak for them­selves. What a con­trast be­tween him and his friend! Mr. Dar­cy danced on­ly once with Mrs. Hurst and once with Miss Bin­gley, de­clined be­ing in­tro­duced to any oth­er la­dy, and spent the rest of the evening in walk­ing about the room, speak­ing oc­ca­sion­al­ly to one of his own par­ty. His char­ac­ter was de­cid­ed. He was the proud­est, most dis­agree­able man in the world, and ev­ery­body hoped that he would nev­er come there again. Amongst the most vi­olent against him was Mrs. Ben­net, whose dis­like of his gen­er­al be­haviour was sharp­ened in­to par­tic­ular re­sent­ment by his hav­ing slight­ed one of her daugh­ters.

Eliz­abeth Ben­net had been obliged, by the scarci­ty of gen­tle­men, to sit down for two dances; and dur­ing part of that time, Mr. Dar­cy had been stand­ing near enough for her to hear a con­ver­sa­tion be­tween him and Mr. Bin­gley, who came from the dance for a few min­utes, to press his friend to join it.

“Come, Dar­cy,” said he, “I must have you dance. I hate to see you stand­ing about by your­self in this stupid man­ner. You had much bet­ter dance.”

“I cer­tain­ly shall not. You know how I de­test it, un­less I am par­tic­ular­ly ac­quaint­ed with my part­ner. At such an as­sem­bly as this it would be in­sup­port­able. Your sis­ters are en­gaged, and there is not an­oth­er wom­an in the room whom it would not be a pun­ish­ment to me to stand up with.”

“I would not be so fas­tid­ious as you are,” cried Mr. Bin­gley, “for a king­dom! Up­on my hon­our, I nev­er met with so many pleas­ant girls in my life as I have this evening; and there are sev­er­al of them you see un­com­mon­ly pret­ty.”

“YOU are danc­ing with the on­ly hand­some girl in the room,” said Mr. Dar­cy, look­ing at the el­dest Miss Ben­net.

“Oh! She is the most beau­ti­ful crea­ture I ev­er be­held! But there is one of her sis­ters sit­ting down just be­hind you, who is very pret­ty, and I dare say very agree­able. Do let me ask my part­ner to in­tro­duce you.”

“Which do you mean?” and turn­ing round he looked for a mo­ment at Eliz­abeth, till catch­ing her eye, he with­drew his own and cold­ly said: “She is tol­er­able, but not hand­some enough to tempt ME; I am in no hu­mour at present to give con­se­quence to young ladies who are slight­ed by oth­er men. You had bet­ter re­turn to your part­ner and en­joy her smiles, for you are wast­ing your time with me.”

Mr. Bin­gley fol­lowed his ad­vice. Mr. Dar­cy walked off; and Eliz­abeth re­mained with no very cor­dial feel­ings to­ward him. She told the sto­ry, how­ev­er, with great spir­it among her friends; for she had a live­ly, play­ful dis­po­si­tion, which de­light­ed in any­thing ridicu­lous.

The evening al­to­geth­er passed off pleas­ant­ly to the whole fam­ily. Mrs. Ben­net had seen her el­dest daugh­ter much ad­mired by the Nether­field par­ty. Mr. Bin­gley had danced with her twice, and she had been dis­tin­guished by his sis­ters. Jane was as much grat­ified by this as her moth­er could be, though in a qui­eter way. Eliz­abeth felt Jane’s plea­sure. Mary had heard her­self men­tioned to Miss Bin­gley as the most ac­com­plished girl in the neigh­bour­hood; and Cather­ine and Ly­dia had been for­tu­nate enough nev­er to be with­out part­ners, which was all that they had yet learnt to care for at a ball. They re­turned, there­fore, in good spir­its to Long­bourn, the vil­lage where they lived, and of which they were the prin­ci­pal in­hab­itants. They found Mr. Ben­net still up. With a book he was re­gard­less of time; and on the present oc­ca­sion he had a good deal of cu­rios­ity as to the events of an evening which had raised such splen­did ex­pec­ta­tions. He had rather hoped that his wife’s views on the stranger would be dis­ap­point­ed; but he soon found out that he had a dif­fer­ent sto­ry to hear.

“Oh! my dear Mr. Ben­net,” as she en­tered the room, “we have had a most de­light­ful evening, a most ex­cel­lent ball. I wish you had been there. Jane was so ad­mired, noth­ing could be like it. Ev­ery­body said how well she looked; and Mr. Bin­gley thought her quite beau­ti­ful, and danced with her twice! On­ly think of THAT, my dear; he ac­tu­al­ly danced with her twice! and she was the on­ly crea­ture in the room that he asked a sec­ond time. First of all, he asked Miss Lu­cas. I was so vexed to see him stand up with her! But, how­ev­er, he did not ad­mire her at all; in­deed, no­body can, you know; and he seemed quite struck with Jane as she was go­ing down the dance. So he in­quired who she was, and got in­tro­duced, and asked her for the two next. Then the two third he danced with Miss King, and the two fourth with Maria Lu­cas, and the two fifth with Jane again, and the two sixth with Lizzy, and the BOULANGER–“

“If he had had any com­pas­sion for ME,” cried her hus­band im­pa­tient­ly, “he would not have danced half so much! For God’s sake, say no more of his part­ners. O that he had sprained his an­kle in the first place!”

“Oh! my dear, I am quite de­light­ed with him. He is so ex­ces­sive­ly hand­some! And his sis­ters are charm­ing wom­en. I nev­er in my life saw any­thing more el­egant than their dress­es. I dare say the lace up­on Mrs. Hurst’s gown–“

Here she was in­ter­rupt­ed again. Mr. Ben­net protest­ed against any de­scrip­tion of fin­ery. She was there­fore obliged to seek an­oth­er branch of the sub­ject, and re­lat­ed, with much bit­ter­ness of spir­it and some ex­ag­ger­ation, the shock­ing rude­ness of Mr. Dar­cy.

“But I can as­sure you,” she added, “that Lizzy does not lose much by not suit­ing HIS fan­cy; for he is a most dis­agree­able, hor­rid man, not at all worth pleas­ing. So high and so con­ceit­ed that there was no en­dur­ing him! He walked here, and he walked there, fan­cy­ing him­self so very great! Not hand­some enough to dance with! I wish you had been there, my dear, to have giv­en him one of your set-​downs. I quite de­test the man.”