Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 6

The ladies of Long­bourn soon wait­ed on those of Nether­field. The vis­it was soon re­turned in due form. Miss Ben­net’s pleas­ing man­ners grew on the good­will of Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bin­gley; and though the moth­er was found to be in­tol­er­able, and the younger sis­ters not worth speak­ing to, a wish of be­ing bet­ter ac­quaint­ed with THEM was ex­pressed to­wards the two el­dest. By Jane, this at­ten­tion was re­ceived with the great­est plea­sure, but Eliz­abeth still saw su­per­cil­ious­ness in their treat­ment of ev­ery­body, hard­ly ex­cept­ing even her sis­ter, and could not like them; though their kind­ness to Jane, such as it was, had a val­ue as aris­ing in all prob­abil­ity from the in­flu­ence of their broth­er’s ad­mi­ra­tion. It was gen­er­al­ly ev­ident when­ev­er they met, that he DID ad­mire her and to HER it was equal­ly ev­ident that Jane was yield­ing to the pref­er­ence which she had be­gun to en­ter­tain for him from the first, and was in a way to be very much in love; but she con­sid­ered with plea­sure that it was not like­ly to be dis­cov­ered by the world in gen­er­al, since Jane unit­ed, with great strength of feel­ing, a com­po­sure of tem­per and a uni­form cheer­ful­ness of man­ner which would guard her from the sus­pi­cions of the im­per­ti­nent. She men­tioned this to her friend Miss Lu­cas.

“It may per­haps be pleas­ant,” replied Char­lotte, “to be able to im­pose on the pub­lic in such a case; but it is some­times a dis­ad­van­tage to be so very guard­ed. If a wom­an con­ceals her af­fec­tion with the same skill from the ob­ject of it, she may lose the op­por­tu­ni­ty of fix­ing him; and it will then be but poor con­so­la­tion to be­lieve the world equal­ly in the dark. There is so much of grat­itude or van­ity in al­most ev­ery at­tach­ment, that it is not safe to leave any to it­self. We can all BE­GIN freely–a slight pref­er­ence is nat­ural enough; but there are very few of us who have heart enough to be re­al­ly in love with­out en­cour­age­ment. In nine cas­es out of ten a wom­en had bet­ter show MORE af­fec­tion than she feels. Bin­gley likes your sis­ter un­doubt­ed­ly; but he may nev­er do more than like her, if she does not help him on.”

“But she does help him on, as much as her na­ture will al­low. If I can per­ceive her re­gard for him, he must be a sim­ple­ton, in­deed, not to dis­cov­er it too.”

“Re­mem­ber, Eliza, that he does not know Jane’s dis­po­si­tion as you do.”

“But if a wom­an is par­tial to a man, and does not en­deav­our to con­ceal it, he must find it out.”

“Per­haps he must, if he sees enough of her. But, though Bin­gley and Jane meet tol­er­ably of­ten, it is nev­er for many hours to­geth­er; and, as they al­ways see each oth­er in large mixed par­ties, it is im­pos­si­ble that ev­ery mo­ment should be em­ployed in con­vers­ing to­geth­er. Jane should there­fore make the most of ev­ery half-​hour in which she can com­mand his at­ten­tion. When she is se­cure of him, there will be more leisure for falling in love as much as she choos­es.”

“Your plan is a good one,” replied Eliz­abeth, “where noth­ing is in ques­tion but the de­sire of be­ing well mar­ried, and if I were de­ter­mined to get a rich hus­band, or any hus­band, I dare say I should adopt it. But these are not Jane’s feel­ings; she is not act­ing by de­sign. As yet, she can­not even be cer­tain of the de­gree of her own re­gard nor of its rea­son­able­ness. She has known him on­ly a fort­night. She danced four dances with him at Mery­ton; she saw him one morn­ing at his own house, and has since dined with him in com­pa­ny four times. This is not quite enough to make her un­der­stand his char­ac­ter.”

“Not as you rep­re­sent it. Had she mere­ly DINED with him, she might on­ly have dis­cov­ered whether he had a good ap­petite; but you must re­mem­ber that four evenings have al­so been spent to­geth­er–and four evenings may do a great deal.”

“Yes; these four evenings have en­abled them to as­cer­tain that they both like Vingt-​un bet­ter than Com­merce; but with re­spect to any oth­er lead­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic, I do not imag­ine that much has been un­fold­ed.”

“Well,” said Char­lotte, “I wish Jane suc­cess with all my heart; and if she were mar­ried to him to-​mor­row, I should think she had as good a chance of hap­pi­ness as if she were to be study­ing his char­ac­ter for a twelve­month. Hap­pi­ness in mar­riage is en­tire­ly a mat­ter of chance. If the dis­po­si­tions of the par­ties are ev­er so well known to each oth­er or ev­er so sim­ilar be­fore­hand, it does not ad­vance their fe­lic­ity in the least. They al­ways con­tin­ue to grow suf­fi­cient­ly un­like af­ter­wards to have their share of vex­ation; and it is bet­ter to know as lit­tle as pos­si­ble of the de­fects of the per­son with whom you are to pass your life.”

“You make me laugh, Char­lotte; but it is not sound. You know it is not sound, and that you would nev­er act in this way your­self.”

Oc­cu­pied in ob­serv­ing Mr. Bin­gley’s at­ten­tions to her sis­ter, Eliz­abeth was far from sus­pect­ing that she was her­self be­com­ing an ob­ject of some in­ter­est in the eyes of his friend. Mr. Dar­cy had at first scarce­ly al­lowed her to be pret­ty; he had looked at her with­out ad­mi­ra­tion at the ball; and when they next met, he looked at her on­ly to crit­icise. But no soon­er had he made it clear to him­self and his friends that she hard­ly had a good fea­ture in her face, than he be­gan to find it was ren­dered un­com­mon­ly in­tel­li­gent by the beau­ti­ful ex­pres­sion of her dark eyes. To this dis­cov­ery suc­ceed­ed some oth­ers equal­ly mor­ti­fy­ing. Though he had de­tect­ed with a crit­ical eye more than one fail­ure of per­fect sym­me­try in her form, he was forced to ac­knowl­edge her fig­ure to be light and pleas­ing; and in spite of his as­sert­ing that her man­ners were not those of the fash­ion­able world, he was caught by their easy play­ful­ness. Of this she was per­fect­ly un­aware; to her he was on­ly the man who made him­self agree­able nowhere, and who had not thought her hand­some enough to dance with.

He be­gan to wish to know more of her, and as a step to­wards con­vers­ing with her him­self, at­tend­ed to her con­ver­sa­tion with oth­ers. His do­ing so drew her no­tice. It was at Sir William Lu­cas’s, where a large par­ty were as­sem­bled.

“What does Mr. Dar­cy mean,” said she to Char­lotte, “by lis­ten­ing to my con­ver­sa­tion with Colonel Forster?”

“That is a ques­tion which Mr. Dar­cy on­ly can an­swer.”

“But if he does it any more I shall cer­tain­ly let him know that I see what he is about. He has a very satir­ical eye, and if I do not be­gin by be­ing im­per­ti­nent my­self, I shall soon grow afraid of him.”

On his ap­proach­ing them soon af­ter­wards, though with­out seem­ing to have any in­ten­tion of speak­ing, Miss Lu­cas de­fied her friend to men­tion such a sub­ject to him; which im­me­di­ate­ly pro­vok­ing Eliz­abeth to do it, she turned to him and said:

“Did you not think, Mr. Dar­cy, that I ex­pressed my­self un­com­mon­ly well just now, when I was teas­ing Colonel Forster to give us a ball at Mery­ton?”

“With great en­er­gy; but it is al­ways a sub­ject which makes a la­dy en­er­get­ic.”

“You are se­vere on us.”

“It will be HER turn soon to be teased,” said Miss Lu­cas. “I am go­ing to open the in­stru­ment, Eliza, and you know what fol­lows.”

“You are a very strange crea­ture by way of a friend!–al­ways want­ing me to play and sing be­fore any­body and ev­ery­body! If my van­ity had tak­en a mu­si­cal turn, you would have been in­valu­able; but as it is, I would re­al­ly rather not sit down be­fore those who must be in the habit of hear­ing the very best per­form­ers.” On Miss Lu­cas’s per­se­ver­ing, how­ev­er, she added, “Very well, if it must be so, it must.” And grave­ly glanc­ing at Mr. Dar­cy, “There is a fine old say­ing, which ev­ery­body here is of course fa­mil­iar with: ‘Keep your breath to cool your por­ridge’; and I shall keep mine to swell my song.”

Her per­for­mance was pleas­ing, though by no means cap­ital. Af­ter a song or two, and be­fore she could re­ply to the en­treaties of sev­er­al that she would sing again, she was ea­ger­ly suc­ceed­ed at the in­stru­ment by her sis­ter Mary, who hav­ing, in con­se­quence of be­ing the on­ly plain one in the fam­ily, worked hard for knowl­edge and ac­com­plish­ments, was al­ways im­pa­tient for dis­play.

Mary had nei­ther ge­nius nor taste; and though van­ity had giv­en her ap­pli­ca­tion, it had giv­en her like­wise a pedan­tic air and con­ceit­ed man­ner, which would have in­jured a high­er de­gree of ex­cel­lence than she had reached. Eliz­abeth, easy and un­af­fect­ed, had been lis­tened to with much more plea­sure, though not play­ing half so well; and Mary, at the end of a long con­cer­to, was glad to pur­chase praise and grat­itude by Scotch and Irish airs, at the re­quest of her younger sis­ters, who, with some of the Lu­cas­es, and two or three of­fi­cers, joined ea­ger­ly in danc­ing at one end of the room.

Mr. Dar­cy stood near them in silent in­dig­na­tion at such a mode of pass­ing the evening, to the ex­clu­sion of all con­ver­sa­tion, and was too much en­grossed by his thoughts to per­ceive that Sir William Lu­cas was his neigh­bour, till Sir William thus be­gan:

“What a charm­ing amuse­ment for young peo­ple this is, Mr. Dar­cy! There is noth­ing like danc­ing af­ter all. I con­sid­er it as one of the first re­fine­ments of pol­ished so­ci­ety.”

“Cer­tain­ly, sir; and it has the ad­van­tage al­so of be­ing in vogue amongst the less pol­ished so­ci­eties of the world. Ev­ery sav­age can dance.”

Sir William on­ly smiled. “Your friend per­forms de­light­ful­ly,” he con­tin­ued af­ter a pause, on see­ing Bin­gley join the group; “and I doubt not that you are an adept in the sci­ence your­self, Mr. Dar­cy.”

“You saw me dance at Mery­ton, I be­lieve, sir.”

“Yes, in­deed, and re­ceived no in­con­sid­er­able plea­sure from the sight. Do you of­ten dance at St. James’s?”

“Nev­er, sir.”

“Do you not think it would be a prop­er com­pli­ment to the place?”

“It is a com­pli­ment which I nev­er pay to any place if I can avoid it.”

“You have a house in town, I con­clude?”

Mr. Dar­cy bowed.

“I had once had some thought of fix­ing in town my­self–for I am fond of su­pe­ri­or so­ci­ety; but I did not feel quite cer­tain that the air of Lon­don would agree with La­dy Lu­cas.”

He paused in hopes of an an­swer; but his com­pan­ion was not dis­posed to make any; and Eliz­abeth at that in­stant mov­ing to­wards them, he was struck with the ac­tion of do­ing a very gal­lant thing, and called out to her:

“My dear Miss Eliza, why are you not danc­ing? Mr. Dar­cy, you must al­low me to present this young la­dy to you as a very de­sir­able part­ner. You can­not refuse to dance, I am sure when so much beau­ty is be­fore you.” And, tak­ing her hand, he would have giv­en it to Mr. Dar­cy who, though ex­treme­ly sur­prised, was not un­will­ing to re­ceive it, when she in­stant­ly drew back, and said with some dis­com­po­sure to Sir William:

“In­deed, sir, I have not the least in­ten­tion of danc­ing. I en­treat you not to sup­pose that I moved this way in or­der to beg for a part­ner.”

Mr. Dar­cy, with grave pro­pri­ety, re­quest­ed to be al­lowed the hon­our of her hand, but in vain. Eliz­abeth was de­ter­mined; nor did Sir William at all shake her pur­pose by his at­tempt at per­sua­sion.

“You ex­cel so much in the dance, Miss Eliza, that it is cru­el to de­ny me the hap­pi­ness of see­ing you; and though this gen­tle­man dis­likes the amuse­ment in gen­er­al, he can have no ob­jec­tion, I am sure, to oblige us for one half-​hour.”

“Mr. Dar­cy is all po­lite­ness,” said Eliz­abeth, smil­ing.

“He is, in­deed; but, con­sid­er­ing the in­duce­ment, my dear Miss Eliza, we can­not won­der at his com­plai­sance–for who would ob­ject to such a part­ner?”

Eliz­abeth looked arch­ly, and turned away. Her re­sis­tance had not in­jured her with the gen­tle­man, and he was think­ing of her with some com­pla­cen­cy, when thus ac­cost­ed by Miss Bin­gley:

“I can guess the sub­ject of your rever­ie.”

“I should imag­ine not.”

“You are con­sid­er­ing how in­sup­port­able it would be to pass many evenings in this man­ner–in such so­ci­ety; and in­deed I am quite of your opin­ion. I was nev­er more an­noyed! The in­si­pid­ity, and yet the noise–the noth­ing­ness, and yet the self-​im­por­tance of all those peo­ple! What would I give to hear your stric­tures on them!”

“You con­jec­ture is to­tal­ly wrong, I as­sure you. My mind was more agree­ably en­gaged. I have been med­itat­ing on the very great plea­sure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pret­ty wom­an can be­stow.”

Miss Bin­gley im­me­di­ate­ly fixed her eyes on his face, and de­sired he would tell her what la­dy had the cred­it of in­spir­ing such re­flec­tions. Mr. Dar­cy replied with great in­tre­pid­ity:

“Miss Eliz­abeth Ben­net.”

“Miss Eliz­abeth Ben­net!” re­peat­ed Miss Bin­gley. “I am all as­ton­ish­ment. How long has she been such a favourite?–and pray, when am I to wish you joy?”

“That is ex­act­ly the ques­tion which I ex­pect­ed you to ask. A la­dy’s imag­ina­tion is very rapid; it jumps from ad­mi­ra­tion to love, from love to mat­ri­mo­ny, in a mo­ment. I knew you would be wish­ing me joy.”

“Nay, if you are se­ri­ous about it, I shall con­sid­er the mat­ter is ab­so­lute­ly set­tled. You will be hav­ing a charm­ing moth­er-​in-​law, in­deed; and, of course, she will al­ways be at Pem­ber­ley with you.”

He lis­tened to her with per­fect in­dif­fer­ence while she chose to en­ter­tain her­self in this man­ner; and as his com­po­sure con­vinced her that all was safe, her wit flowed long.