Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 58

In­stead of re­ceiv­ing any such let­ter of ex­cuse from his friend, as Eliz­abeth half ex­pect­ed Mr. Bin­gley to do, he was able to bring Dar­cy with him to Long­bourn be­fore many days had passed af­ter La­dy Cather­ine’s vis­it. The gen­tle­men ar­rived ear­ly; and, be­fore Mrs. Ben­net had time to tell him of their hav­ing seen his aunt, of which her daugh­ter sat in mo­men­tary dread, Bin­gley, who want­ed to be alone with Jane, pro­posed their all walk­ing out. It was agreed to. Mrs. Ben­net was not in the habit of walk­ing; Mary could nev­er spare time; but the re­main­ing five set off to­geth­er. Bin­gley and Jane, how­ev­er, soon al­lowed the oth­ers to out­strip them. They lagged be­hind, while Eliz­abeth, Kit­ty, and Dar­cy were to en­ter­tain each oth­er. Very lit­tle was said by ei­ther; Kit­ty was too much afraid of him to talk; Eliz­abeth was se­cret­ly form­ing a des­per­ate res­olu­tion; and per­haps he might be do­ing the same.

They walked to­wards the Lu­cas­es, be­cause Kit­ty wished to call up­on Maria; and as Eliz­abeth saw no oc­ca­sion for mak­ing it a gen­er­al con­cern, when Kit­ty left them she went bold­ly on with him alone. Now was the mo­ment for her res­olu­tion to be ex­ecut­ed, and, while her courage was high, she im­me­di­ate­ly said:

“Mr. Dar­cy, I am a very self­ish crea­ture; and, for the sake of giv­ing re­lief to my own feel­ings, care not how much I may be wound­ing your’s. I can no longer help thank­ing you for your un­ex­am­pled kind­ness to my poor sis­ter. Ev­er since I have known it, I have been most anx­ious to ac­knowl­edge to you how grate­ful­ly I feel it. Were it known to the rest of my fam­ily, I should not have mere­ly my own grat­itude to ex­press.”

“I am sor­ry, ex­ceed­ing­ly sor­ry,” replied Dar­cy, in a tone of sur­prise and emo­tion, “that you have ev­er been in­formed of what may, in a mis­tak­en light, have giv­en you un­easi­ness. I did not think Mrs. Gar­diner was so lit­tle to be trust­ed.”

“You must not blame my aunt. Ly­dia’s thought­less­ness first be­trayed to me that you had been con­cerned in the mat­ter; and, of course, I could not rest till I knew the par­tic­ulars. Let me thank you again and again, in the name of all my fam­ily, for that gen­er­ous com­pas­sion which in­duced you to take so much trou­ble, and bear so many mor­ti­fi­ca­tions, for the sake of dis­cov­er­ing them.”

“If you WILL thank me,” he replied, “let it be for your­self alone. That the wish of giv­ing hap­pi­ness to you might add force to the oth­er in­duce­ments which led me on, I shall not at­tempt to de­ny. But your FAM­ILY owe me noth­ing. Much as I re­spect them, I be­lieve I thought on­ly of YOU.”

Eliz­abeth was too much em­bar­rassed to say a word. Af­ter a short pause, her com­pan­ion added, “You are too gen­er­ous to tri­fle with me. If your feel­ings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. MY af­fec­tions and wish­es are un­changed, but one word from you will si­lence me on this sub­ject for ev­er.”

Eliz­abeth, feel­ing all the more than com­mon awk­ward­ness and anx­iety of his sit­ua­tion, now forced her­self to speak; and im­me­di­ate­ly, though not very flu­ent­ly, gave him to un­der­stand that her sen­ti­ments had un­der­gone so ma­te­ri­al a change, since the pe­ri­od to which he al­lud­ed, as to make her re­ceive with grat­itude and plea­sure his present as­sur­ances. The hap­pi­ness which this re­ply pro­duced, was such as he had prob­ably nev­er felt be­fore; and he ex­pressed him­self on the oc­ca­sion as sen­si­bly and as warm­ly as a man vi­olent­ly in love can be sup­posed to do. Had Eliz­abeth been able to en­counter his eye, she might have seen how well the ex­pres­sion of heart­felt de­light, dif­fused over his face, be­came him; but, though she could not look, she could lis­ten, and he told her of feel­ings, which, in prov­ing of what im­por­tance she was to him, made his af­fec­tion ev­ery mo­ment more valu­able.

They walked on, with­out know­ing in what di­rec­tion. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for at­ten­tion to any oth­er ob­jects. She soon learnt that they were in­debt­ed for their present good un­der­stand­ing to the ef­forts of his aunt, who did call on him in her re­turn through Lon­don, and there re­late her jour­ney to Long­bourn, its mo­tive, and the sub­stance of her con­ver­sa­tion with Eliz­abeth; dwelling em­phat­ical­ly on ev­ery ex­pres­sion of the lat­ter which, in her la­dy­ship’s ap­pre­hen­sion, pe­cu­liar­ly de­not­ed her per­verse­ness and as­sur­ance; in the be­lief that such a re­la­tion must as­sist her en­deav­ours to ob­tain that promise from her nephew which she had re­fused to give. But, un­luck­ily for her la­dy­ship, its ef­fect had been ex­act­ly con­trari­wise.

“It taught me to hope,” said he, “as I had scarce­ly ev­er al­lowed my­self to hope be­fore. I knew enough of your dis­po­si­tion to be cer­tain that, had you been ab­so­lute­ly, ir­re­vo­ca­bly de­cid­ed against me, you would have ac­knowl­edged it to La­dy Cather­ine, frankly and open­ly.”

Eliz­abeth coloured and laughed as she replied, “Yes, you know enough of my frank­ness to be­lieve me ca­pa­ble of THAT. Af­ter abus­ing you so abom­inably to your face, I could have no scru­ple in abus­ing you to all your re­la­tions.”

“What did you say of me, that I did not de­serve? For, though your ac­cu­sa­tions were ill-​found­ed, formed on mis­tak­en premis­es, my be­haviour to you at the time had mer­it­ed the sever­est re­proof. It was un­par­don­able. I can­not think of it with­out ab­hor­rence.”

“We will not quar­rel for the greater share of blame an­nexed to that evening,” said Eliz­abeth. “The con­duct of nei­ther, if strict­ly ex­am­ined, will be ir­re­proach­able; but since then, we have both, I hope, im­proved in ci­vil­ity.”

“I can­not be so eas­ily rec­on­ciled to my­self. The rec­ol­lec­tion of what I then said, of my con­duct, my man­ners, my ex­pres­sions dur­ing the whole of it, is now, and has been many months, in­ex­press­ibly painful to me. Your re­proof, so well ap­plied, I shall nev­er for­get: ‘had you be­haved in a more gen­tle­man­like man­ner.’ Those were your words. You know not, you can scarce­ly con­ceive, how they have tor­tured me;–though it was some time, I con­fess, be­fore I was rea­son­able enough to al­low their jus­tice.”

“I was cer­tain­ly very far from ex­pect­ing them to make so strong an im­pres­sion. I had not the small­est idea of their be­ing ev­er felt in such a way.”

“I can eas­ily be­lieve it. You thought me then de­void of ev­ery prop­er feel­ing, I am sure you did. The turn of your coun­te­nance I shall nev­er for­get, as you said that I could not have ad­dressed you in any pos­si­ble way that would in­duce you to ac­cept me.”

“Oh! do not re­peat what I then said. These rec­ol­lec­tions will not do at all. I as­sure you that I have long been most hearti­ly ashamed of it.”

Dar­cy men­tioned his let­ter. “Did it,” said he, “did it soon make you think bet­ter of me? Did you, on read­ing it, give any cred­it to its con­tents?”

She ex­plained what its ef­fect on her had been, and how grad­ual­ly all her for­mer prej­udices had been re­moved.

“I knew,” said he, “that what I wrote must give you pain, but it was nec­es­sary. I hope you have de­stroyed the let­ter. There was one part es­pe­cial­ly, the open­ing of it, which I should dread your hav­ing the pow­er of read­ing again. I can re­mem­ber some ex­pres­sions which might just­ly make you hate me.”

“The let­ter shall cer­tain­ly be burnt, if you be­lieve it es­sen­tial to the preser­va­tion of my re­gard; but, though we have both rea­son to think my opin­ions not en­tire­ly un­al­ter­able, they are not, I hope, quite so eas­ily changed as that im­plies.”

“When I wrote that let­ter,” replied Dar­cy, “I be­lieved my­self per­fect­ly calm and cool, but I am since con­vinced that it was writ­ten in a dread­ful bit­ter­ness of spir­it.”

“The let­ter, per­haps, be­gan in bit­ter­ness, but it did not end so. The adieu is char­ity it­self. But think no more of the let­ter. The feel­ings of the per­son who wrote, and the per­son who re­ceived it, are now so wide­ly dif­fer­ent from what they were then, that ev­ery un­pleas­ant cir­cum­stance at­tend­ing it ought to be for­got­ten. You must learn some of my phi­los­ophy. Think on­ly of the past as its re­mem­brance gives you plea­sure.”

“I can­not give you cred­it for any phi­los­ophy of the kind. Your ret­ro­spec­tions must be so to­tal­ly void of re­proach, that the con­tent­ment aris­ing from them is not of phi­los­ophy, but, what is much bet­ter, of in­no­cence. But with me, it is not so. Painful rec­ol­lec­tions will in­trude which can­not, which ought not, to be re­pelled. I have been a self­ish be­ing all my life, in prac­tice, though not in prin­ci­ple. As a child I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to cor­rect my tem­per. I was giv­en good prin­ci­ples, but left to fol­low them in pride and con­ceit. Un­for­tu­nate­ly an on­ly son (for many years an on­ly child), I was spoilt by my par­ents, who, though good them­selves (my fa­ther, par­tic­ular­ly, all that was benev­olent and ami­able), al­lowed, en­cour­aged, al­most taught me to be self­ish and over­bear­ing; to care for none be­yond my own fam­ily cir­cle; to think mean­ly of all the rest of the world; to wish at least to think mean­ly of their sense and worth com­pared with my own. Such I was, from eight to eight and twen­ty; and such I might still have been but for you, dear­est, loveli­est Eliz­abeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a les­son, hard in­deed at first, but most ad­van­ta­geous. By you, I was prop­er­ly hum­bled. I came to you with­out a doubt of my re­cep­tion. You showed me how in­suf­fi­cient were all my pre­ten­sions to please a wom­an wor­thy of be­ing pleased.”

“Had you then per­suad­ed your­self that I should?”

“In­deed I had. What will you think of my van­ity? I be­lieved you to be wish­ing, ex­pect­ing my ad­dress­es.”

“My man­ners must have been in fault, but not in­ten­tion­al­ly, I as­sure you. I nev­er meant to de­ceive you, but my spir­its might of­ten lead me wrong. How you must have hat­ed me af­ter THAT evening?”

“Hate you! I was an­gry per­haps at first, but my anger soon be­gan to take a prop­er di­rec­tion.”

“I am al­most afraid of ask­ing what you thought of me, when we met at Pem­ber­ley. You blamed me for com­ing?”

“No in­deed; I felt noth­ing but sur­prise.”

“Your sur­prise could not be greater than MINE in be­ing no­ticed by you. My con­science told me that I de­served no ex­traor­di­nary po­lite­ness, and I con­fess that I did not ex­pect to re­ceive MORE than my due.”

“My ob­ject then,” replied Dar­cy, “was to show you, by ev­ery ci­vil­ity in my pow­er, that I was not so mean as to re­sent the past; and I hoped to ob­tain your for­give­ness, to lessen your ill opin­ion, by let­ting you see that your re­proofs had been at­tend­ed to. How soon any oth­er wish­es in­tro­duced them­selves I can hard­ly tell, but I be­lieve in about half an hour af­ter I had seen you.”

He then told her of Geor­giana’s de­light in her ac­quain­tance, and of her dis­ap­point­ment at its sud­den in­ter­rup­tion; which nat­ural­ly lead­ing to the cause of that in­ter­rup­tion, she soon learnt that his res­olu­tion of fol­low­ing her from Der­byshire in quest of her sis­ter had been formed be­fore he quit­ted the inn, and that his grav­ity and thought­ful­ness there had arisen from no oth­er strug­gles than what such a pur­pose must com­pre­hend.

She ex­pressed her grat­itude again, but it was too painful a sub­ject to each, to be dwelt on far­ther.

Af­ter walk­ing sev­er­al miles in a leisure­ly man­ner, and too busy to know any­thing about it, they found at last, on ex­am­in­ing their watch­es, that it was time to be at home.

“What could be­come of Mr. Bin­gley and Jane!” was a won­der which in­tro­duced the dis­cus­sion of their af­fairs. Dar­cy was de­light­ed with their en­gage­ment; his friend had giv­en him the ear­li­est in­for­ma­tion of it.

“I must ask whether you were sur­prised?” said Eliz­abeth.

“Not at all. When I went away, I felt that it would soon hap­pen.”

“That is to say, you had giv­en your per­mis­sion. I guessed as much.” And though he ex­claimed at the term, she found that it had been pret­ty much the case.

“On the evening be­fore my go­ing to Lon­don,” said he, “I made a con­fes­sion to him, which I be­lieve I ought to have made long ago. I told him of all that had oc­curred to make my for­mer in­ter­fer­ence in his af­fairs ab­surd and im­per­ti­nent. His sur­prise was great. He had nev­er had the slight­est sus­pi­cion. I told him, more­over, that I be­lieved my­self mis­tak­en in sup­pos­ing, as I had done, that your sis­ter was in­dif­fer­ent to him; and as I could eas­ily per­ceive that his at­tach­ment to her was un­abat­ed, I felt no doubt of their hap­pi­ness to­geth­er.”

Eliz­abeth could not help smil­ing at his easy man­ner of di­rect­ing his friend.

“Did you speak from your own ob­ser­va­tion,” said she, “when you told him that my sis­ter loved him, or mere­ly from my in­for­ma­tion last spring?”

“From the for­mer. I had nar­row­ly ob­served her dur­ing the two vis­its which I had late­ly made here; and I was con­vinced of her af­fec­tion.”

“And your as­sur­ance of it, I sup­pose, car­ried im­me­di­ate con­vic­tion to him.”

“It did. Bin­gley is most un­af­fect­ed­ly mod­est. His dif­fi­dence had pre­vent­ed his de­pend­ing on his own judg­ment in so anx­ious a case, but his re­liance on mine made ev­ery thing easy. I was obliged to con­fess one thing, which for a time, and not un­just­ly, of­fend­ed him. I could not al­low my­self to con­ceal that your sis­ter had been in town three months last win­ter, that I had known it, and pur­pose­ly kept it from him. He was an­gry. But his anger, I am per­suad­ed, last­ed no longer than he re­mained in any doubt of your sis­ter’s sen­ti­ments. He has hearti­ly for­giv­en me now.”

Eliz­abeth longed to ob­serve that Mr. Bin­gley had been a most de­light­ful friend; so eas­ily guid­ed that his worth was in­valu­able; but she checked her­self. She re­mem­bered that he had yet to learn to be laughed at, and it was rather too ear­ly to be­gin. In an­tic­ipat­ing the hap­pi­ness of Bin­gley, which of course was to be in­fe­ri­or on­ly to his own, he con­tin­ued the con­ver­sa­tion till they reached the house. In the hall they part­ed.