Bingley calls again without his friend, announcing that Darcy has gone
to London, but will return to Netherfield in ten days. From this date
Bingley’s wooing thrives apace. He makes daily engagements to shoot, or
dine, or sup at Longbourn.
Mrs. Bennet practises the most transparent manœuvres to leave him alone
with Jane, so that he may have the opportunity of saying “Barkis is
willin’,” or some equivalent phrase, since Barkis had not yet made
his model proposal. For a short space Jane and Elizabeth defeat these
arrangements.
At last, one evening when Elizabeth has gone out of the room to write
a letter, believing that all the others, including Bingley, are safely
seated at cards, the indefatigable matchmaker contrives to dissolve the
party, sends Mary to her piano, and carries away Kitty to sit with her
mother in her dressing-room, while Mr. Bennet is, as usual, ensconced
in his library. Elizabeth, returning to the drawing-room, where she
expects to find the family, discovers that her mother has been too
ingenious for her. On opening the door she perceives her sister and
Bingley standing together over the hearth, as if engaged in earnest
conversation, and had this led to no suspicion, the faces of both, as
they hastily turn and move away from each other, would have told all.
There is a momentary awkwardness, till Bingley leaves the room to seek
Mr. Bennet, when Jane is ready to proclaim herself the happiest girl in
the world.
Elizabeth smiles at the rapidity and ease with which an affair that
has cost them so much suspense and anxiety is finally settled. “And
this,” she says to herself, “is the end of all his friend’s anxious
circumspection, of all his sister’s falsehood and contrivance,--the
happiest, wisest, most reasonable end.”
If Jane Bennet is the happiest girl, Mrs. Bennet is the happiest woman,
according to her ideas of happiness. Lydia and Wickham are superseded;
Jane is promoted, beyond comparison, her mother’s favourite child.
Meryton soon hears the tale, and after having, only a few weeks before,
when Lydia ran away, pronounced the Bennet household marked out for
misfortune, now declares them the luckiest family in the kingdom.
One morning, shortly after Jane’s engagement, a chaise and four drives
up to Longbourn House. The equipage and liveries are not familiar. The
horses are “post.” It is too early for visitors.
Amidst the speculation thus aroused, Jane and Bingley retreat into the
shrubbery, leaving Mrs. Bennet, Elizabeth, and Kitty to receive the
strangers, whoever they may be.
In a few minutes Lady Catherine de Bourgh is shown into the room.
With the same arrogant ill-breeding which had distinguished the great
lady’s behaviour at home, she now conducts herself in another person’s
house, merely bowing to Elizabeth--the only member of the family with
whom she has any previous acquaintance--sitting down, and in return
for Mrs. Bennet’s fluttered attentions, putting her through a series
of impertinent questions, and finding fault with the park and the
sitting-room.
Elizabeth is at a loss to account for the unsolicited favour of her
ladyship’s company, unless, indeed, she comes with a message from Mrs.
Collins, but none is given.
At last Lady Catherine proposes that Elizabeth should take a turn with
her in the wilderness, to which the girl accompanies her visitor,
followed by an anxious direction from her mother to show her ladyship
the different walks and the hermitage. As the couple go out, Lady
Catherine opens the doors of the dining-parlour and drawing-room, and
after a short survey, allows that they are “decent-looking rooms.”
The carriage stands at the door with Lady Catherine’s waiting-woman in
it, announcing that Lady Catherine is on a journey taken with a set
purpose.
Elizabeth leaves her companion, who is more than usually insolent and
disagreeable, to begin the conversation, which she is not slow to do.
“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 professes her unaffected astonishment and entire ignorance.
“Miss Bennet,” says her ladyship angrily, “you ought to know that I am
not to be trifled with.” Then, with a little preamble on the sincerity
and frankness of her own character, she informs Elizabeth that a
report of a most alarming nature had reached her two days before. “I
was told,” says Lady Catherine, “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.”
Filled with resentment as Elizabeth is, she remains mistress of
the situation. “If you believe it impossible to be true,” says the
high-spirited, quick-witted girl, “I wonder you took the trouble of
coming so far. What could your ladyship propose by it?”
“At once to insist on having such a report universally contradicted.”
“Your coming to Longbourn to see me and my family,” says Elizabeth,
with cool shrewdness, “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?”
But Elizabeth is a match for her absurd inquisitor. The girl is
neither to be insulted nor browbeaten into giving Lady Catherine such
satisfaction as she has not the smallest right to require, or into
submitting to her tyranny.
In vain Lady Catherine presses her as to the report and its origin;
Elizabeth will neither confess nor deny the implication.
“This is not to be borne!” exclaims her ladyship. “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,” replies Elizabeth,
with demure imperturbability.
“It ought to be so,” her ladyship protests, hotly; but then--as she
hints, broadly--Elizabeth’s arts and allurements may have made the
young man, in a moment of infatuation, forget what is due to himself
and his family. She may have drawn him in.
“If I have, I shall be the last person to confess it,” Elizabeth
answers.
Lady Catherine brings forward another imperative reason why such a
proceeding can never take place: Mr. Darcy is engaged to her daughter.
“If he is so,” says the unshaken Elizabeth, “you can have no reason to
suppose he will make an offer to me.”
Lady Catherine is forced to hesitate, and to condescend to an
explanation. The engagement is a family arrangement, based on perfect
suitability of rank, fortune, and character. It had been planned by the
two mothers, when the cousins were still children in their cradles. Can
Elizabeth, a young woman of inferior birth, and of no importance in
the world, be so lost to every feeling of propriety and delicacy as to
disregard the wishes of Mr. Darcy’s friends, and presume to alter the
destiny which, from his earliest years, has united him with his cousin?
Yes; Elizabeth is intrepid enough to do it, and to tell the
domineering woman that if there were no other objection to
her--Elizabeth’s--marrying Lady Catherine’s nephew, she would certainly
not be kept from it by knowing that his mother and aunt had wished him
to marry Miss de Bourgh.
It is useless for Lady Catherine to threaten the penalties which the
outraged family will inflict, ending in that direst indignity of all,
that Elizabeth’s name will never be mentioned by any one of them;
Elizabeth assures the speaker, almost airily, that though these may be
heavy misfortunes, the wife of Mr. Darcy must have such extraordinary
sources of happiness, that upon the whole she could have no cause to
complain.
No wonder the incensed great lady is reduced to the somewhat
undignified alternative of calling Elizabeth names--“obstinate,
headstrong girl;” to telling her she is ashamed of her; to sitting
down and crying--well-nigh piteously, waxing childish and maudlin,
like many another baulked, irrational tyrant--that she will carry out
her purpose; she has not been used to any person’s whims; she has not
been in the habit of brooking disappointment; and it is not to be
endured that her nephew and daughter are to be divided by the upstart
pretensions of a young woman who, if she were sensible of her own good,
would not wish to quit the sphere in which she had been brought up.
Elizabeth ventures to suggest that she is a gentleman’s daughter.
“True,” grants Lady Catherine; only to add, “but who was your mother?
who are your uncles and aunts?”
“Whatever my connexions may be, if your nephew does not object to them,
they can be nothing to you,” says Elizabeth. She could not have been
without a tingling recollection that he had objected to them pretty
strongly, though she had just been marvelling how she could ever have
imagined a resemblance between him and his aunt--the fact being that
Lady Catherine presents a striking caricature of Darcy’s original
defects, without any of his redeeming virtues.
“Tell me, once for all, are you engaged to him?” demands Lady Catherine.
Though Elizabeth has no cause to oblige Lady Catherine by giving a
reply, her own candour and self-respect compel her to answer, “I am
not.”
Lady Catherine shows herself pleased. “And will you promise me never
to enter into such an engagement?” She pursues her advantage with
determination. “I will make no promises of the kind,” Elizabeth
refuses point-blank, and Lady Catherine’s short-lived satisfaction is
dashed to the ground. She resumes her reproaches. She is shocked. At
last she is guilty of the meanness and cruelty of taunting Elizabeth
with her sister Lydia’s misconduct, ending by crying, “And is such a
girl to be my nephew’s sister? Is her husband--the son of his father’s
late steward--to be his brother? Heaven and earth, of what are you
thinking? Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?”
The extravagant theatrical declamation of her ladyship might have
provoked a smile from Elizabeth, but she has already borne too much,
and she winces under the last ungenerous stab. “You can have nothing
further to say to me,” she exclaims, in her wounded feeling, with a
simple dignity that contrasts well with the inflated pretensions of the
other. “You have insulted me in every possible method; I must beg to
return to the house.”
Lady Catherine is not to be taught a lesson: she has long outlived
such a possibility. The thick skin of her arrogance and conceit is
impenetrable. She assails Elizabeth with fresh abuse and importunity.
“Lady Catherine, I have nothing further to say,” Elizabeth contents
herself with repeating. “You know my sentiments.”
Lady Catherine talks on till the carriage is reached, when she finishes
her prolonged attack very characteristically. “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.”
The interview between Lady Catherine and Elizabeth, like the scene in
which Mr. Collins proposes to the heroine, is a triumph of art. It is
the perfection of true comedy, as opposed to the coarse farce which
frequently stands for it, not only in its wonderful exhibition of
Lady Catherine’s densely stupid egotism and self-importance, but in
what is so successfully opposed to them in Elizabeth Bennet’s strong
common sense, racy mother wit, and sterling truth to her lover and to
herself. Where a weak woman might have been cowed--at least, into a
show of yielding for the time--or a foolishly sentimental girl might
have been betrayed by the false glamour of unnecessary and uncalled-for
self-sacrifice, Elizabeth stands firm, and comes out triumphantly.
The whole passage, in its genius and wisdom, is a protest against the
bathos of mock heroism, which is occasionally in danger of entrapping
unwary actors in the drama of life. It is still more apt to mislead the
artists who picture life, and mistake soft, even silly submission for
unselfish resignation, and self-martyrdom for true martyrdom.
Elizabeth Bennet is dutiful in all the relations of life; she is even
scrupulous as to its proprieties; but she is not a puppet in the hands
of a Lady Catherine.
There is a curiously parallel scene drawn by one of Jane Austen’s
favourite authors--Fanny Burney, in her novel of “Cecilia”--where the
heroine is driven by nearly similar arguments--employed, however, by
the mother, and not merely the aunt of the hero, who has also been a
true friend, to whom Cecilia was deeply indebted--to give up the lover
to whom she is doubly bound. In spite of these differences in the
situation, which are in Fanny Burney’s favour, the opposite results of
the two chapters go far to prove the immense superiority of Jane Austen
as a writer.
Elizabeth has undergone the ordeal without blenching; but the reaction
is to come. No doubt Lady Catherine will see her nephew in passing
through London--how far may not her prejudiced version of what has
passed between her and Elizabeth, with a vigorous personal appeal to
Darcy, sway him as he still halts between two opinions? It is said that
a woman who hesitates is lost--on the other side of the question; but
the same saying does not hold good of a man. Lady Catherine is Darcy’s
aunt; he must view her in another light from that in which Elizabeth
regards her. It is natural to suppose she has some influence over him,
while Elizabeth is only too well aware how much weight he once put on
some of his kinswoman’s violent objections.
Elizabeth makes up her mind that if Darcy does not return to
Netherfield at the appointed date, she will know what to think.
In the meantime Elizabeth is summoned by her father to hear a letter
from Mr. Collins read. In the tallest of tall language the writer
solemnly congratulates the family on the brilliant prospects of his
cousin Jane. Then, after referring to what is even the surpassing
splendour of the alliance said to be within his cousin Elizabeth’s
reach, Mr. Collins servilely and with nervous timidity states the
unconquerable opposition of his revered patroness, and implores
Elizabeth not to provoke Lady Catherine’s anger.
Mr. Bennet regards the report to which Mr. Collins has alluded, as
the most preposterous mistake, and calls upon Elizabeth to laugh at
it, as the best joke out. “Now, Lizzy, I think I have surprised you.
Mr. Darcy, who never looks at any woman but to see a blemish, and who
probably never looked at you in his life!”
Mr. Bennet is rather provoked because his daughter does not enjoy the
absurdity of the idea as he had expected. “You are not going to be
missish, I hope,” he says reproachfully, “and pretend to be affronted
by an idle report.”
Poor Elizabeth! such incredulity is hard at this moment.
But Darcy returns punctually, and comes over to Longbourn with his
friend; and in a walk undertaken by several of the young people, in
which Elizabeth is Darcy’s companion, she musters courage to thank him
as the only member of the family who knows how much they owe him for
what he has done for her sister.
Darcy is surprised, but perhaps not sorry to have such an opening given
to a shy man. “If you will thank me,” he says, “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 is too embarrassed to say a word.
After a short pause her companion adds, “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 the subject for ever.”
Elizabeth, feeling all the more than common awkwardness and anxiety
of his situation, now forces herself to speak, and immediately,
though not very fluently, gives him to understand that her sentiments
have undergone so material a change since the period to which he has
alluded, as to make her receive with gratitude and pleasure his present
assurances.
The happiness which this reply produces is such as Darcy had probably
never felt before, and he expresses himself on the occasion as sensibly
and as warmly as a man violently in love could 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 cannot look she can listen, and he speaks of feelings
which, in proving of what importance she is to him, make his affection
every moment more valuable.
Various happy explanations follow. Among others he tells her Lady
Catherine did visit him and relate the substance of her conversation
with Elizabeth, dwelling on every expression of the latter which, in
her ladyship’s opinion, denoted Elizabeth’s perverseness and assurance.
But, unfortunately for his noble aunt, the effect of the communication
proved the reverse of what she had intended. “It taught me to hope,”
he says, “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 colours and laughs as she replies, “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 to me that I did not deserve?” protests the ardent,
magnanimous lover, and goes on to farther penitent and grateful
confessions.
In reference to the engagement between Bingley and Jane, with which
Darcy declares himself delighted, “I must ask whether you were
surprised,” says Elizabeth.
“Not at all. When I went away I felt it would soon happen.”
“That is to say, you had given your permission. I guessed as much.”
Elizabeth rallies the speaker gaily.
Though he exclaims at the word, she finds that it had been pretty much
the case.
On the evening before his last visit to London, Darcy had honestly told
his friend of his own attachment and proposal to Elizabeth Bennet,
which rendered his former interference between Bingley and Jane Bennet
“simply impertinent.” The speaker had also courageously acknowledged
that he believed from his observation of the latter he had been
mistaken in his impression of Jane’s indifference.
“Your assurance,” says Elizabeth, with half-smothered fun, “I suppose
carried immediate conviction to him?”
“It did,” replies Darcy, in perfect good faith. “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
everything easy.”
Elizabeth longs to observe that Mr. Bingley has been a most delightful
friend--so easily guided that his worth is invaluable; but she checks
herself. She remembers that he has yet to learn to be laughed at, and
it is rather too early to begin.
Here is one of Jane Austen’s characteristic touches. Elizabeth, in
the middle of her love and admiration for Darcy, sees, as such a woman
could not fail to do, his weak points, and is not only tempted to laugh
at him, but with a grand faith in his sense and love, and true to the
character which had won his regard, she contemplates subjecting him
in time to the wholesome discipline of her kindly laughter. And she
lives to put her purpose into execution, for we are told Darcy’s young
sister, in her delight in the sister he has given her, is forced to
wonder at the liberties Elizabeth takes with her husband. For Georgiana
Darcy had to learn that a wise man will bear and relish from his wife
what would be out of place and unwelcome from the sister fifteen years
his junior.
Surely any man worthy of his salt would prefer to be so dealt with by
the woman who in her heart of hearts dearly loves and heartily honours
and obeys him, rather than receive the mawkish and fulsome--even when
it is free from deliberate falsehood--flattery and submission, not of a
friend and mate, but of a toy and slave.
Elizabeth, in her happiness, has still to suffer for the violent,
unreasonable prejudice, so freely expressed, which had marked the
commencement of her intercourse with Darcy. She knows what she has to
expect when even Jane, who, through Bingley, understands something of
Darcy’s really fine nature, and who is besides prepossessed in his
favour by what she imagines his hopeless passion for Elizabeth, yet
meets her sister’s news with something like stony incredulity. “You are
joking. This cannot be! Engaged to Mr. Darcy! No, no; you shall not
deceive me. I know it to be impossible.”
“This is a wretched beginning,” cries Elizabeth, lively in her very
vexation. “My sole dependence was on you; and I am sure nobody else
will believe me if you do not.”
“Oh! Lizzy, it cannot be. I know how much you dislike him.”
“You know nothing of the matter,” Elizabeth contradicts her
indignantly. “That is all to be forgotten. Perhaps I did not always
love him so well as I do now,” she submits to own, “but in such cases
as these a good memory is unpardonable. This is the last time I shall
ever remember it myself.”
“My dear, dear Lizzy, I would, I do congratulate you; but are you
certain--forgive the question--are you quite certain that you can be
happy with him?”
“There can be no doubt of that,” asserts the bride-elect, briskly. “It
is settled between us already that we are to be the happiest couple in
the world!”
Elizabeth has still to hear the ungracious epithets she herself had
first applied bestowed liberally on her lover. So successful had she
been in diffusing her ideas, that the faith in them--together with
Darcy’s reserve--prevents even Mrs. Bennet, whose head is as full of
lovers and future husbands as the feather-head of any extremely silly
girl of sixteen, from viewing him in that light. “Good gracious!” she
cries, as she stands at a window next morning, “if that disagreeable
Mr. Darcy is not coming here again with our dear Bingley. What can he
mean by being so tiresome as to be always coming here? I had no notion
but that he would go a-shooting, or something or other, and not disturb
us with his company. What shall we do with him? Lizzy, you must walk
out with him again, that he may not be in Bingley’s way.”
Elizabeth cannot help laughing at so convenient an arrangement; still
she smarts at the prolonged echo of her own idle words.
It is still worse when Darcy has asked Mr. Bennet for Elizabeth’s hand,
on the understanding that she herself has accepted him, and Elizabeth
is bidden go to her father.
Mr. Bennet is walking up and down the library, looking grave and
anxious. “Lizzy,” he says, “what are you doing? Are you out of your
senses to be accepting this man? Have not you always hated him?”
How she wishes her former opinions had been more reasonable, her
expressions more moderate, that her pride and modesty might have been
spared unsaying her own declarations on the one hand, and on the other
making professions which are generally taken for granted. In some
confusion she assures her father of her regard for Mr. Darcy.
“Or, in other words, you are determined to have him. He is rich, to be
sure, and you may have finer clothes and finer carriages than Jane. But
will they make you happy?”
“Have you any other objection than your belief in my indifference?”
Elizabeth finds voice to say.
“None at all,” her father admits. “We all know him to be a proud,
unpleasant sort of man, but that would be nothing if you really liked
him.”
“I do, I do like him, I love him,” protests poor Elizabeth, with
unwonted tears in her bright eyes, partly called forth by the trial
of having to make such an awkward confession, partly provoked by the
aspersions cast on Darcy, for which she was to blame in the first
instance. “Indeed, he has no improper pride. He is perfectly amiable.
You do not know what he really is; then pray do not pain me by speaking
of him in such terms.”
In spite of this warm defence, Mr. Bennet, with an honourable
disinterestedness that does him credit as a man, and with no lack of
fatherly tenderness--which even goes so far as to hint at the rock on
which his own happiness has been wrecked--continues to remonstrate
with his favourite daughter. No doubt he has given Darcy his consent,
he says, with a flavour of his usual sardonic humour in his speech,
for he is the kind of man to whom he should never dare refuse anything
which he condescended to ask. Her father will give the same consent
to Elizabeth if she is resolved on having it. But, changing his tone,
he implores her to think better of the step she is about to take. She
will be neither happy nor respectable unless she truly esteems her
husband--unless she looks up to him as a superior. Her lively talents
will be a snare to her. “My child,” he ends with seriousness and
feeling, “let me not have the grief of seeing you unable to respect
your partner in life.”
It is only after Elizabeth has entered into the fullest details of the
progress of her love and Darcy’s, with the obstacles it has overcome,
and after she has told all that Darcy did for Lydia, that Mr. Bennet
is not merely reconciled to the match, but is duly impressed by the
merits of his future son-in-law. “And so Darcy did everything, made up
the match, gave the money, paid the fellow’s debts, and got him his
commission! So much the better. It will save me a world of trouble and
economy. Had it been your uncle’s doing, I must and would have paid
him; but these violent young lovers carry everything their own way. I
shall offer to pay him to-morrow; he will rant and storm about his love
for you; and there will be an end of the matter.”
At last Mr. Bennet is in sufficient spirits to dismiss his daughter
with the injunction, “If any young men come for Mary and Kitty, send
them in, for I am quite at leisure.”
Mrs. Bennet receives the announcement of her second daughter’s
prospects in a very different fashion, for which Elizabeth is not
responsible. Elizabeth takes care to tell the tale in the privacy of
her mother’s dressing-room, after she has retired for the night. Here
is the witty account of what followed. After remarking that the effect
of Elizabeth’s communication was most extraordinary, the author enters
into particulars:--
“Mrs. Bennet sat quite still, and unable to utter a syllable; nor was
it until many, many minutes that she could comprehend what she heard,
though not in general backward to credit what was for the benefit of
her family, or that came in the shape of a lover to any of them. She
began at length to recover, to fidget about in her chair, get up, sit
down again, wonder, and bless herself. “Good gracious! Lord bless me!
only think! dear me! Mr. Darcy! who would have thought it? and is it
really true? Oh, my sweetest Lizzy! how rich and how great you will
be! What pin-money! what jewels! what carriages you will have! Jane’s
is nothing to it--nothing at all! I am so pleased--so happy! Such a
charming man! so handsome! so tall! Oh, my dear Lizzy, pray apologise
for my having disliked him so much before. I hope he will overlook it.
Dear, dear Lizzy! A house in town!--everything that is charming. Three
daughters married! Ten thousand a year! Oh, Lord! what will become of
me? I shall go distracted!””
When Elizabeth escapes, she has not been in her own room three minutes
before her mother comes after her. “My dearest child!” she cries, “I
can think of nothing else! Ten thousand a year, and very likely more!
’Tis as good as a lord! And a special licence! You must and shall be
married by a special licence! But, my dearest love, tell me what dish
Mr. Darcy is particularly fond of, that I may have it to-morrow.”
Elizabeth dreads the next day, but after all, it goes off better than
she has dared to expect; for, luckily, Mrs. Bennet stands in such awe
of her intended son-in-law, that she does not venture to speak to him,
unless it is in her power to offer him any attention, and mark her
deference for his opinion.
Elizabeth turns for relief to write, like an affectionate young girl at
the summit of human bliss, telling her Aunt Gardiner to suppose as much
as she chooses, bidding her write again soon, and praise _him_ (the one
him for Elizabeth then) a great deal more than she has done in her last
letter; thanking her for not going to the Lakes last summer; declaring
the idea of the ponies is delightful. They will go round the park every
day. She--Elizabeth--is the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps
other people have said so before, but none with such justice. She is
happier, even, than Jane; _she_ only smiles, Elizabeth laughs. Mr.
Darcy sends Mrs. Gardiner all the love in the world that he can spare
from the writer. They are all to come to Pemberley at Christmas.
Was ever a young bride’s letter more full of frank, girlish joy;
natural exultation, and glad look-out into the future?
Darcy writes to Lady Catherine, and acquaints her with the impending
catastrophe, and she replies in such terms as for a time puts a stop to
all intercourse between aunt and nephew.
Jane Austen begins her last chapter in her most sarcastic vein. “Happy
for all her maternal feelings was the day on which Mrs. Bennet got
rid of her two most deserving daughters. With what delighted pride
she afterwards visited Mrs. Bingley and talked of Mrs. Darcy may be
guessed. I wish I could say, for the sake of her family, that the
accomplishment of her earnest desire in the establishment of so many
of her children produced so happy an effect as to make her a sensible,
amiable, well-informed woman for the rest of her life; though, perhaps,
it was lucky for her husband, who might not have relished domestic
felicity in so unusual a form, that she still was occasionally nervous,
and invariably silly.”
The rest of the few remaining paragraphs are in a gentler strain,
though they record that even Bingley’s easy temper and Jane’s
affectionate heart discover a year’s residence in the immediate
neighbourhood of Mrs. Bingley’s relations enough for them; though
scrupulous mention is made of Miss Bingley’s paying all her arrears of
civility to Elizabeth as Mrs. Darcy of Pemberley; and though a place
is found for Lydia’s letter, wishing her sisters joy, and containing
the impudent, mendacious request that, after they have become so rich,
they will think of her and Wickham when they have nothing better to do.
He would like a place at Court, and she does not think they have money
enough to live on without some help.
The concluding paragraphs tell a little more which is pleasanter as
far as human nature is concerned. Jane and Elizabeth’s darling wish is
gratified by Bingley at last buying an estate in one of the counties
next to Derbyshire, so that the sisters dwell only thirty miles apart.
Mr. Bennet misses his second daughter so much that he is frequently
found, a welcome guest, at Pemberley.
Mary and Kitty--especially the latter--derive lasting benefit from
their elder sisters’ marriages, and the superior society opened up to
them.
Elizabeth and Georgiana Darcy love each other, like true sisters.
By Elizabeth’s intercession Darcy is reconciled to his aunt, Lady
Catherine, who consents to revisit Pemberley, in spite of the pollution
which its woods have sustained, not merely from the presence of such a
mistress, but from the visits of her uncle and aunt from the city. For
Darcy and Elizabeth show how true and lasting is their happiness by
always testifying the most cordial esteem and gratitude to the friends
who had been the means, by bringing her to Derbyshire, of uniting the
couple.
Thus ends a novel which has for nearly a century been viewed, with
reason, as one of the best novels in the English language, which has
been the delight of some of the greatest geniuses of this and other
countries. It must always remain a marvel that it was the work of a
country-bred girl in her twenty-first year.