Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 57

The dis­com­po­sure of spir­its which this ex­traor­di­nary vis­it threw Eliz­abeth in­to, could not be eas­ily over­come; nor could she, for many hours, learn to think of it less than in­ces­sant­ly. La­dy Cather­ine, it ap­peared, had ac­tu­al­ly tak­en the trou­ble of this jour­ney from Ros­ings, for the sole pur­pose of break­ing off her sup­posed en­gage­ment with Mr. Dar­cy. It was a ra­tio­nal scheme, to be sure! but from what the re­port of their en­gage­ment could orig­inate, Eliz­abeth was at a loss to imag­ine; till she rec­ol­lect­ed that HIS be­ing the in­ti­mate friend of Bin­gley, and HER be­ing the sis­ter of Jane, was enough, at a time when the ex­pec­ta­tion of one wed­ding made ev­ery­body ea­ger for an­oth­er, to sup­ply the idea. She had not her­self for­got­ten to feel that the mar­riage of her sis­ter must bring them more fre­quent­ly to­geth­er. And her neigh­bours at Lu­cas Lodge, there­fore (for through their com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the Collins­es, the re­port, she con­clud­ed, had reached la­dy Cather­ine), had on­ly set that down as al­most cer­tain and im­me­di­ate, which she had looked for­ward to as pos­si­ble at some fu­ture time.

In re­volv­ing La­dy Cather­ine’s ex­pres­sions, how­ev­er, she could not help feel­ing some un­easi­ness as to the pos­si­ble con­se­quence of her per­sist­ing in this in­ter­fer­ence. From what she had said of her res­olu­tion to pre­vent their mar­riage, it oc­curred to Eliz­abeth that she must med­itate an ap­pli­ca­tion to her nephew; and how HE might take a sim­ilar rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the evils at­tached to a con­nec­tion with her, she dared not pro­nounce. She knew not the ex­act de­gree of his af­fec­tion for his aunt, or his de­pen­dence on her judg­ment, but it was nat­ural to sup­pose that he thought much high­er of her la­dy­ship than SHE could do; and it was cer­tain that, in enu­mer­at­ing the mis­eries of a mar­riage with ONE, whose im­me­di­ate con­nec­tions were so un­equal to his own, his aunt would ad­dress him on his weak­est side. With his no­tions of dig­ni­ty, he would prob­ably feel that the ar­gu­ments, which to Eliz­abeth had ap­peared weak and ridicu­lous, con­tained much good sense and sol­id rea­son­ing.

If he had been wa­ver­ing be­fore as to what he should do, which had of­ten seemed like­ly, the ad­vice and en­treaty of so near a re­la­tion might set­tle ev­ery doubt, and de­ter­mine him at once to be as hap­py as dig­ni­ty un­blem­ished could make him. In that case he would re­turn no more. La­dy Cather­ine might see him in her way through town; and his en­gage­ment to Bin­gley of com­ing again to Nether­field must give way.

“If, there­fore, an ex­cuse for not keep­ing his promise should come to his friend with­in a few days,” she added, “I shall know how to un­der­stand it. I shall then give over ev­ery ex­pec­ta­tion, ev­ery wish of his con­stan­cy. If he is sat­is­fied with on­ly re­gret­ting me, when he might have ob­tained my af­fec­tions and hand, I shall soon cease to re­gret him at all.”

* * * * *

The sur­prise of the rest of the fam­ily, on hear­ing who their vis­itor had been, was very great; but they oblig­ing­ly sat­is­fied it, with the same kind of sup­po­si­tion which had ap­peased Mrs. Ben­net’s cu­rios­ity; and Eliz­abeth was spared from much teas­ing on the sub­ject.

The next morn­ing, as she was go­ing down­stairs, she was met by her fa­ther, who came out of his li­brary with a let­ter in his hand.

“Lizzy,” said he, “I was go­ing to look for you; come in­to my room.”

She fol­lowed him thith­er; and her cu­rios­ity to know what he had to tell her was height­ened by the sup­po­si­tion of its be­ing in some man­ner con­nect­ed with the let­ter he held. It sud­den­ly struck her that it might be from La­dy Cather­ine; and she an­tic­ipat­ed with dis­may all the con­se­quent ex­pla­na­tions.

She fol­lowed her fa­ther to the fire place, and they both sat down. He then said,

“I have re­ceived a let­ter this morn­ing that has as­ton­ished me ex­ceed­ing­ly. As it prin­ci­pal­ly con­cerns your­self, you ought to know its con­tents. I did not know be­fore, that I had two daugh­ters on the brink of mat­ri­mo­ny. Let me con­grat­ulate you on a very im­por­tant con­quest.”

The colour now rushed in­to Eliz­abeth’s cheeks in the in­stan­ta­neous con­vic­tion of its be­ing a let­ter from the nephew, in­stead of the aunt; and she was un­de­ter­mined whether most to be pleased that he ex­plained him­self at all, or of­fend­ed that his let­ter was not rather ad­dressed to her­self; when her fa­ther con­tin­ued:

“You look con­scious. Young ladies have great pen­etra­tion in such mat­ters as these; but I think I may de­fy even YOUR sagac­ity, to dis­cov­er the name of your ad­mir­er. This let­ter is from Mr. Collins.”

“From Mr. Collins! and what can HE have to say?”

“Some­thing very much to the pur­pose of course. He be­gins with con­grat­ula­tions on the ap­proach­ing nup­tials of my el­dest daugh­ter, of which, it seems, he has been told by some of the good-​na­tured, gos­sip­ing Lu­cas­es. I shall not sport with your im­pa­tience, by read­ing what he says on that point. What re­lates to your­self, is as fol­lows: ‘Hav­ing thus of­fered you the sin­cere con­grat­ula­tions of Mrs. Collins and my­self on this hap­py event, let me now add a short hint on the sub­ject of an­oth­er; of which we have been ad­ver­tised by the same au­thor­ity. Your daugh­ter Eliz­abeth, it is pre­sumed, will not long bear the name of Ben­net, af­ter her el­der sis­ter has re­signed it, and the cho­sen part­ner of her fate may be rea­son­ably looked up to as one of the most il­lus­tri­ous per­son­ages in this land.’

“Can you pos­si­bly guess, Lizzy, who is meant by this?” ‘This young gen­tle­man is blessed, in a pe­cu­liar way, with ev­ery thing the heart of mor­tal can most de­sire,–splen­did prop­er­ty, no­ble kin­dred, and ex­ten­sive pa­tron­age. Yet in spite of all these temp­ta­tions, let me warn my cousin Eliz­abeth, and your­self, of what evils you may in­cur by a pre­cip­itate clo­sure with this gen­tle­man’s pro­pos­als, which, of course, you will be in­clined to take im­me­di­ate ad­van­tage of.’

“Have you any idea, Lizzy, who this gen­tle­man is? But now it comes out:

“‘My mo­tive for cau­tion­ing you is as fol­lows. We have rea­son to imag­ine that his aunt, La­dy Cather­ine de Bourgh, does not look on the match with a friend­ly eye.’

“MR. DAR­CY, you see, is the man! Now, Lizzy, I think I HAVE sur­prised you. Could he, or the Lu­cas­es, have pitched on any man with­in the cir­cle of our ac­quain­tance, whose name would have giv­en the lie more ef­fec­tu­al­ly to what they re­lat­ed? Mr. Dar­cy, who nev­er looks at any wom­an but to see a blem­ish, and who prob­ably nev­er looked at you in his life! It is ad­mirable!”

Eliz­abeth tried to join in her fa­ther’s pleas­antry, but could on­ly force one most re­luc­tant smile. Nev­er had his wit been di­rect­ed in a man­ner so lit­tle agree­able to her.

“Are you not di­vert­ed?”

“Oh! yes. Pray read on.”

“‘Af­ter men­tion­ing the like­li­hood of this mar­riage to her la­dy­ship last night, she im­me­di­ate­ly, with her usu­al con­de­scen­sion, ex­pressed what she felt on the oc­ca­sion; when it be­come ap­par­ent, that on the score of some fam­ily ob­jec­tions on the part of my cousin, she would nev­er give her con­sent to what she termed so dis­grace­ful a match. I thought it my du­ty to give the speed­iest in­tel­li­gence of this to my cousin, that she and her no­ble ad­mir­er may be aware of what they are about, and not run hasti­ly in­to a mar­riage which has not been prop­er­ly sanc­tioned.’ Mr. Collins more­over adds, ‘I am tru­ly re­joiced that my cousin Ly­dia’s sad busi­ness has been so well hushed up, and am on­ly con­cerned that their liv­ing to­geth­er be­fore the mar­riage took place should be so gen­er­al­ly known. I must not, how­ev­er, ne­glect the du­ties of my sta­tion, or re­frain from declar­ing my amaze­ment at hear­ing that you re­ceived the young cou­ple in­to your house as soon as they were mar­ried. It was an en­cour­age­ment of vice; and had I been the rec­tor of Long­bourn, I should very stren­uous­ly have op­posed it. You ought cer­tain­ly to for­give them, as a Chris­tian, but nev­er to ad­mit them in your sight, or al­low their names to be men­tioned in your hear­ing.’ That is his no­tion of Chris­tian for­give­ness! The rest of his let­ter is on­ly about his dear Char­lotte’s sit­ua­tion, and his ex­pec­ta­tion of a young olive-​branch. But, Lizzy, you look as if you did not en­joy it. You are not go­ing to be MIS­SISH, I hope, and pre­tend to be af­front­ed at an idle re­port. For what do we live, but to make sport for our neigh­bours, and laugh at them in our turn?”

“Oh!” cried Eliz­abeth, “I am ex­ces­sive­ly di­vert­ed. But it is so strange!”

“Yes–THAT is what makes it amus­ing. Had they fixed on any oth­er man it would have been noth­ing; but HIS per­fect in­dif­fer­ence, and YOUR point­ed dis­like, make it so de­light­ful­ly ab­surd! Much as I abom­inate writ­ing, I would not give up Mr. Collins’s cor­re­spon­dence for any con­sid­er­ation. Nay, when I read a let­ter of his, I can­not help giv­ing him the pref­er­ence even over Wick­ham, much as I val­ue the im­pu­dence and hypocrisy of my son-​in-​law. And pray, Lizzy, what said La­dy Cather­ine about this re­port? Did she call to refuse her con­sent?”

To this ques­tion his daugh­ter replied on­ly with a laugh; and as it had been asked with­out the least sus­pi­cion, she was not dis­tressed by his re­peat­ing it. Eliz­abeth had nev­er been more at a loss to make her feel­ings ap­pear what they were not. It was nec­es­sary to laugh, when she would rather have cried. Her fa­ther had most cru­el­ly mor­ti­fied her, by what he said of Mr. Dar­cy’s in­dif­fer­ence, and she could do noth­ing but won­der at such a want of pen­etra­tion, or fear that per­haps, in­stead of his see­ing too lit­tle, she might have fan­cied too much.