Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 56

One morn­ing, about a week af­ter Bin­gley’s en­gage­ment with Jane had been formed, as he and the fe­males of the fam­ily were sit­ting to­geth­er in the din­ing-​room, their at­ten­tion was sud­den­ly drawn to the win­dow, by the sound of a car­riage; and they per­ceived a chaise and four driv­ing up the lawn. It was too ear­ly in the morn­ing for vis­itors, and be­sides, the equipage did not an­swer to that of any of their neigh­bours. The hors­es were post; and nei­ther the car­riage, nor the liv­ery of the ser­vant who pre­ced­ed it, were fa­mil­iar to them. As it was cer­tain, how­ev­er, that some­body was com­ing, Bin­gley in­stant­ly pre­vailed on Miss Ben­net to avoid the con­fine­ment of such an in­tru­sion, and walk away with him in­to the shrub­bery. They both set off, and the con­jec­tures of the re­main­ing three con­tin­ued, though with lit­tle sat­is­fac­tion, till the door was thrown open and their vis­itor en­tered. It was La­dy Cather­ine de Bourgh.

They were of course all in­tend­ing to be sur­prised; but their as­ton­ish­ment was be­yond their ex­pec­ta­tion; and on the part of Mrs. Ben­net and Kit­ty, though she was per­fect­ly un­known to them, even in­fe­ri­or to what Eliz­abeth felt.

She en­tered the room with an air more than usu­al­ly un­gra­cious, made no oth­er re­ply to Eliz­abeth’s salu­ta­tion than a slight in­cli­na­tion of the head, and sat down with­out say­ing a word. Eliz­abeth had men­tioned her name to her moth­er on her la­dy­ship’s en­trance, though no re­quest of in­tro­duc­tion had been made.

Mrs. Ben­net, all amaze­ment, though flat­tered by hav­ing a guest of such high im­por­tance, re­ceived her with the ut­most po­lite­ness. Af­ter sit­ting for a mo­ment in si­lence, she said very stiffly to Eliz­abeth,

“I hope you are well, Miss Ben­net. That la­dy, I sup­pose, is your moth­er.”

Eliz­abeth replied very con­cise­ly that she was.

“And THAT I sup­pose is one of your sis­ters.”

“Yes, madam,” said Mrs. Ben­net, de­light­ed to speak to a La­dy Cather­ine. “She is my youngest girl but one. My youngest of all is late­ly mar­ried, and my el­dest is some­where about the grounds, walk­ing with a young man who, I be­lieve, will soon be­come a part of the fam­ily.”

“You have a very small park here,” re­turned La­dy Cather­ine af­ter a short si­lence.

“It is noth­ing in com­par­ison of Ros­ings, my la­dy, I dare say; but I as­sure you it is much larg­er than Sir William Lu­cas’s.”

“This must be a most in­con­ve­nient sit­ting room for the evening, in sum­mer; the win­dows are full west.”

Mrs. Ben­net as­sured her that they nev­er sat there af­ter din­ner, and then added:

“May I take the lib­er­ty of ask­ing your la­dy­ship whether you left Mr. and Mrs. Collins well.”

“Yes, very well. I saw them the night be­fore last.”

Eliz­abeth now ex­pect­ed that she would pro­duce a let­ter for her from Char­lotte, as it seemed the on­ly prob­able mo­tive for her call­ing. But no let­ter ap­peared, and she was com­plete­ly puz­zled.

Mrs. Ben­net, with great ci­vil­ity, begged her la­dy­ship to take some re­fresh­ment; but La­dy Cather­ine very res­olute­ly, and not very po­lite­ly, de­clined eat­ing any­thing; and then, ris­ing up, said to Eliz­abeth,

“Miss Ben­net, there seemed to be a pret­ty­ish kind of a lit­tle wilder­ness on one side of your lawn. I should be glad to take a turn in it, if you will favour me with your com­pa­ny.”

“Go, my dear,” cried her moth­er, “and show her la­dy­ship about the dif­fer­ent walks. I think she will be pleased with the her­mitage.”

Eliz­abeth obeyed, and run­ning in­to her own room for her para­sol, at­tend­ed her no­ble guest down­stairs. As they passed through the hall, La­dy Cather­ine opened the doors in­to the din­ing-​par­lour and draw­ing-​room, and pro­nounc­ing them, af­ter a short sur­vey, to be de­cent look­ing rooms, walked on.

Her car­riage re­mained at the door, and Eliz­abeth saw that her wait­ing-​wom­an was in it. They pro­ceed­ed in si­lence along the grav­el walk that led to the copse; Eliz­abeth was de­ter­mined to make no ef­fort for con­ver­sa­tion with a wom­an who was now more than usu­al­ly in­so­lent and dis­agree­able.

“How could I ev­er think her like her nephew?” said she, as she looked in her face.

As soon as they en­tered the copse, La­dy Cather­ine be­gan in the fol­low­ing man­ner:–

“You can be at no loss, Miss Ben­net, to un­der­stand the rea­son of my jour­ney hith­er. Your own heart, your own con­science, must tell you why I come.”

Eliz­abeth looked with un­af­fect­ed as­ton­ish­ment.

“In­deed, you are mis­tak­en, Madam. I have not been at all able to ac­count for the hon­our of see­ing you here.”

“Miss Ben­net,” replied her la­dy­ship, in an an­gry tone, “you ought to know, that I am not to be tri­fled with. But how­ev­er in­sin­cere YOU may choose to be, you shall not find ME so. My char­ac­ter has ev­er been cel­ebrat­ed for its sin­cer­ity and frank­ness, and in a cause of such mo­ment as this, I shall cer­tain­ly not de­part from it. A re­port of a most alarm­ing na­ture reached me two days ago. I was told that not on­ly your sis­ter was on the point of be­ing most ad­van­ta­geous­ly mar­ried, but that you, that Miss Eliz­abeth Ben­net, would, in all like­li­hood, be soon af­ter­wards unit­ed to my nephew, my own nephew, Mr. Dar­cy. Though I KNOW it must be a scan­dalous false­hood, though I would not in­jure him so much as to sup­pose the truth of it pos­si­ble, I in­stant­ly re­solved on set­ting off for this place, that I might make my sen­ti­ments known to you.”

“If you be­lieved it im­pos­si­ble to be true,” said Eliz­abeth, colour­ing with as­ton­ish­ment and dis­dain, “I won­der you took the trou­ble of com­ing so far. What could your la­dy­ship pro­pose by it?”

“At once to in­sist up­on hav­ing such a re­port uni­ver­sal­ly con­tra­dict­ed.”

“Your com­ing to Long­bourn, to see me and my fam­ily,” said Eliz­abeth cool­ly, “will be rather a con­fir­ma­tion of it; if, in­deed, such a re­port is in ex­is­tence.”

“If! Do you then pre­tend to be ig­no­rant of it? Has it not been in­dus­tri­ous­ly cir­cu­lat­ed by your­selves? Do you not know that such a re­port is spread abroad?”

“I nev­er heard that it was.”

“And can you like­wise de­clare, that there is no foun­da­tion for it?”

“I do not pre­tend to pos­sess equal frank­ness with your la­dy­ship. You may ask ques­tions which I shall not choose to an­swer.”

“This is not to be borne. Miss Ben­net, I in­sist on be­ing sat­is­fied. Has he, has my nephew, made you an of­fer of mar­riage?”

“Your la­dy­ship has de­clared it to be im­pos­si­ble.”

“It ought to be so; it must be so, while he re­tains the use of his rea­son. But your arts and al­lure­ments may, in a mo­ment of in­fat­ua­tion, have made him for­get what he owes to him­self and to all his fam­ily. You may have drawn him in.”

“If I have, I shall be the last per­son to con­fess it.”

“Miss Ben­net, do you know who I am? I have not been ac­cus­tomed to such lan­guage as this. I am al­most the near­est re­la­tion he has in the world, and am en­ti­tled to know all his dear­est con­cerns.”

“But you are not en­ti­tled to know mine; nor will such be­haviour as this, ev­er in­duce me to be ex­plic­it.”

“Let me be right­ly un­der­stood. This match, to which you have the pre­sump­tion to as­pire, can nev­er take place. No, nev­er. Mr. Dar­cy is en­gaged to my daugh­ter. Now what have you to say?”

“On­ly this; that if he is so, you can have no rea­son to sup­pose he will make an of­fer to me.”

La­dy Cather­ine hes­itat­ed for a mo­ment, and then replied:

“The en­gage­ment be­tween them is of a pe­cu­liar kind. From their in­fan­cy, they have been in­tend­ed for each oth­er. It was the favourite wish of HIS moth­er, as well as of her’s. While in their cra­dles, we planned the union: and now, at the mo­ment when the wish­es of both sis­ters would be ac­com­plished in their mar­riage, to be pre­vent­ed by a young wom­an of in­fe­ri­or birth, of no im­por­tance in the world, and whol­ly un­al­lied to the fam­ily! Do you pay no re­gard to the wish­es of his friends? To his tac­it en­gage­ment with Miss de Bourgh? Are you lost to ev­ery feel­ing of pro­pri­ety and del­ica­cy? Have you not heard me say that from his ear­li­est hours he was des­tined for his cousin?”

“Yes, and I had heard it be­fore. But what is that to me? If there is no oth­er ob­jec­tion to my mar­ry­ing your nephew, I shall cer­tain­ly not be kept from it by know­ing that his moth­er and aunt wished him to mar­ry Miss de Bourgh. You both did as much as you could in plan­ning the mar­riage. Its com­ple­tion de­pend­ed on oth­ers. If Mr. Dar­cy is nei­ther by hon­our nor in­cli­na­tion con­fined to his cousin, why is not he to make an­oth­er choice? And if I am that choice, why may not I ac­cept him?”

“Be­cause hon­our, deco­rum, pru­dence, nay, in­ter­est, for­bid it. Yes, Miss Ben­net, in­ter­est; for do not ex­pect to be no­ticed by his fam­ily or friends, if you wil­ful­ly act against the in­cli­na­tions of all. You will be cen­sured, slight­ed, and de­spised, by ev­ery­one con­nect­ed with him. Your al­liance will be a dis­grace; your name will nev­er even be men­tioned by any of us.”

“These are heavy mis­for­tunes,” replied Eliz­abeth. “But the wife of Mr. Dar­cy must have such ex­traor­di­nary sources of hap­pi­ness nec­es­sar­ily at­tached to her sit­ua­tion, that she could, up­on the whole, have no cause to re­pine.”

“Ob­sti­nate, head­strong girl! I am ashamed of you! Is this your grat­itude for my at­ten­tions to you last spring? Is noth­ing due to me on that score? Let us sit down. You are to un­der­stand, Miss Ben­net, that I came here with the de­ter­mined res­olu­tion of car­ry­ing my pur­pose; nor will I be dis­suad­ed from it. I have not been used to sub­mit to any per­son’s whims. I have not been in the habit of brook­ing dis­ap­point­ment.”

“THAT will make your la­dy­ship’s sit­ua­tion at present more pitiable; but it will have no ef­fect on me.”

“I will not be in­ter­rupt­ed. Hear me in si­lence. My daugh­ter and my nephew are formed for each oth­er. They are de­scend­ed, on the ma­ter­nal side, from the same no­ble line; and, on the fa­ther’s, from re­spectable, hon­ourable, and an­cient–though un­ti­tled–fam­ilies. Their for­tune on both sides is splen­did. They are des­tined for each oth­er by the voice of ev­ery mem­ber of their re­spec­tive hous­es; and what is to di­vide them? The up­start pre­ten­sions of a young wom­an with­out fam­ily, con­nec­tions, or for­tune. Is this to be en­dured! But it must not, shall not be. If you were sen­si­ble of your own good, you would not wish to quit the sphere in which you have been brought up.”

“In mar­ry­ing your nephew, I should not con­sid­er my­self as quit­ting that sphere. He is a gen­tle­man; I am a gen­tle­man’s daugh­ter; so far we are equal.”

“True. You ARE a gen­tle­man’s daugh­ter. But who was your moth­er? Who are your un­cles and aunts? Do not imag­ine me ig­no­rant of their con­di­tion.”

“What­ev­er my con­nec­tions may be,” said Eliz­abeth, “if your nephew does not ob­ject to them, they can be noth­ing to YOU.”

“Tell me once for all, are you en­gaged to him?”

Though Eliz­abeth would not, for the mere pur­pose of oblig­ing La­dy Cather­ine, have an­swered this ques­tion, she could not but say, af­ter a mo­ment’s de­lib­er­ation:

“I am not.”

La­dy Cather­ine seemed pleased.

“And will you promise me, nev­er to en­ter in­to such an en­gage­ment?”

“I will make no promise of the kind.”

“Miss Ben­net I am shocked and as­ton­ished. I ex­pect­ed to find a more rea­son­able young wom­an. But do not de­ceive your­self in­to a be­lief that I will ev­er re­cede. I shall not go away till you have giv­en me the as­sur­ance I re­quire.”

“And I cer­tain­ly NEV­ER shall give it. I am not to be in­tim­idat­ed in­to any­thing so whol­ly un­rea­son­able. Your la­dy­ship wants Mr. Dar­cy to mar­ry your daugh­ter; but would my giv­ing you the wished-​for promise make their mar­riage at all more prob­able? Sup­pos­ing him to be at­tached to me, would my re­fus­ing to ac­cept his hand make him wish to be­stow it on his cousin? Al­low me to say, La­dy Cather­ine, that the ar­gu­ments with which you have sup­port­ed this ex­traor­di­nary ap­pli­ca­tion have been as frivolous as the ap­pli­ca­tion was ill-​judged. You have wide­ly mis­tak­en my char­ac­ter, if you think I can be worked on by such per­sua­sions as these. How far your nephew might ap­prove of your in­ter­fer­ence in his af­fairs, I can­not tell; but you have cer­tain­ly no right to con­cern your­self in mine. I must beg, there­fore, to be im­por­tuned no far­ther on the sub­ject.”

“Not so hasty, if you please. I have by no means done. To all the ob­jec­tions I have al­ready urged, I have still an­oth­er to add. I am no stranger to the par­tic­ulars of your youngest sis­ter’s in­fa­mous elope­ment. I know it all; that the young man’s mar­ry­ing her was a patched-​up busi­ness, at the ex­pence of your fa­ther and un­cles. And is such a girl to be my nephew’s sis­ter? Is her hus­band, is the son of his late fa­ther’s stew­ard, to be his broth­er? Heav­en and earth!–of what are you think­ing? Are the shades of Pem­ber­ley to be thus pol­lut­ed?”

“You can now have noth­ing fur­ther to say,” she re­sent­ful­ly an­swered. “You have in­sult­ed me in ev­ery pos­si­ble method. I must beg to re­turn to the house.”

And she rose as she spoke. La­dy Cather­ine rose al­so, and they turned back. Her la­dy­ship was high­ly in­censed.

“You have no re­gard, then, for the hon­our and cred­it of my nephew! Un­feel­ing, self­ish girl! Do you not con­sid­er that a con­nec­tion with you must dis­grace him in the eyes of ev­ery­body?”

“La­dy Cather­ine, I have noth­ing fur­ther to say. You know my sen­ti­ments.”

“You are then re­solved to have him?”

“I have said no such thing. I am on­ly re­solved to act in that man­ner, which will, in my own opin­ion, con­sti­tute my hap­pi­ness, with­out ref­er­ence to YOU, or to any per­son so whol­ly un­con­nect­ed with me.”

“It is well. You refuse, then, to oblige me. You refuse to obey the claims of du­ty, hon­our, and grat­itude. You are de­ter­mined to ru­in him in the opin­ion of all his friends, and make him the con­tempt of the world.”

“Nei­ther du­ty, nor hon­our, nor grat­itude,” replied Eliz­abeth, “have any pos­si­ble claim on me, in the present in­stance. No prin­ci­ple of ei­ther would be vi­olat­ed by my mar­riage with Mr. Dar­cy. And with re­gard to the re­sent­ment of his fam­ily, or the in­dig­na­tion of the world, if the for­mer WERE ex­cit­ed by his mar­ry­ing me, it would not give me one mo­ment’s con­cern–and the world in gen­er­al would have too much sense to join in the scorn.”

“And this is your re­al opin­ion! This is your fi­nal re­solve! Very well. I shall now know how to act. Do not imag­ine, Miss Ben­net, that your am­bi­tion will ev­er be grat­ified. I came to try you. I hoped to find you rea­son­able; but, de­pend up­on it, I will car­ry my point.”

In this man­ner La­dy Cather­ine talked on, till they were at the door of the car­riage, when, turn­ing hasti­ly round, she added, “I take no leave of you, Miss Ben­net. I send no com­pli­ments to your moth­er. You de­serve no such at­ten­tion. I am most se­ri­ous­ly dis­pleased.”

Eliz­abeth made no an­swer; and with­out at­tempt­ing to per­suade her la­dy­ship to re­turn in­to the house, walked qui­et­ly in­to it her­self. She heard the car­riage drive away as she pro­ceed­ed up stairs. Her moth­er im­pa­tient­ly met her at the door of the dress­ing-​room, to ask why La­dy Cather­ine would not come in again and rest her­self.

“She did not choose it,” said her daugh­ter, “she would go.”

“She is a very fine-​look­ing wom­an! and her call­ing here was prodi­gious­ly civ­il! for she on­ly came, I sup­pose, to tell us the Collins­es were well. She is on her road some­where, I dare say, and so, pass­ing through Mery­ton, thought she might as well call on you. I sup­pose she had noth­ing par­tic­ular to say to you, Lizzy?”

Eliz­abeth was forced to give in­to a lit­tle false­hood here; for to ac­knowl­edge the sub­stance of their con­ver­sa­tion was im­pos­si­ble.