The evening was spent chiefly in talking over Hertfordshire news,and telling again what had been already written;and when it closed, Elizabeth,in the solitude of her chamber,had to meditate upon Charlotte’s degree of contentment,to understand her address in guiding,and composure in bearing with, her husband,and to acknowledge that it was all done very well.She had also to anticipate how her visit would pass,the quiet tenour of their usual employments,the vexatious interruptions of Mr. Collins,and the gaieties of their intercourse with Rosings.A lively imagination soon settled it all.
About the middle of the next day,as she was in her room getting ready for a walk,a sudden noise below seemed to speak the whole house in confusion;and, after listening a moment,she heard somebody running upstairs in a violent hurry,and calling loudly after her. She opened the door,and met Maria in the landing-place, who,breathless with agitation, cried out,--
[Illustration:
“In Conversation with the ladies”
[Copyright 1894 by George Allen.]]
“Oh, my dear Eliza!pray make haste and come into the dining-room,for there is such a sight to be seen!I will not tell you what it is. Make haste,and come down this moment.”
Elizabeth asked questions in vain;Maria would tell her nothing more;and down they ran into the dining-room which fronted the lane,in quest of this wonder; it was two ladies,stopping in a low phaeton at the garden gate.
“And is this all?” cried Elizabeth. “I expected at least that the pigs were got into the garden,and here is nothing but Lady Catherine and her daughter!”
“La!my dear,” said Maria, quite shocked at the mistake,“it is not Lady Catherine. The old lady is Mrs.Jenkinson, who lives with them.The other is Miss De Bourgh. Only look at her.She is quite a little creature.Who would have thought she could be so thin and small!”
“She is abominably rude to keep Charlotte out of doors in all this wind.Why does she not come in?”
“Oh, Charlotte says she hardly ever does.It is the greatest of favours when Miss De Bourgh comes in. ”
“I like her appearance,” said Elizabeth,struck with other ideas. “She looks sickly and cross.Yes, she will do for him very well.She will make him a very proper wife.”
Mr. Collins and Charlotte were both standing at the gate in conversation with the ladies; and Sir William, to Elizabeth’s high diversion, was stationed in the doorway, in earnest contemplation of the greatness before him, and constantly bowing whenever Miss De Bourgh looked that way.
At length there was nothing more to be said;the ladies drove on,and the others returned into the house. Mr.Collins no sooner saw the two girls than he began to congratulate them on their good fortune, which Charlotte explained by letting them know that the whole party was asked to dine at Rosings the next day.
[Illustration:
‘Lady Catherine, said she, you have given me a treasure. ’
[_Copyright 1894 by George Allen._]]
CHAPTER XXIX.
[Illustration]
Mr. Collins’s triumph,in consequence of this invitation, was complete.The power of displaying the grandeur of his patroness to his wondering visitors, and of letting them see her civility towards himself and his wife, was exactly what he had wished for; and that an opportunity of doing it should be given so soon was such an instance of Lady Catherine’s condescension as he knew not how to admire enough.
“I confess,” said he,“that I should not have been at all surprised by her Ladyship’s asking us on Sunday to drink tea and spend the evening at Rosings. I rather expected, from my knowledge of her affability, that it would happen. But who could have foreseen such an attention as this?Who could have imagined that we should receive an invitation to dine there (an invitation, moreover, including the whole party) so immediately after your arrival?”
“I am the less surprised at what has happened,” replied Sir William,“from that knowledge of what the manners of the great really are,which my situation in life has allowed me to acquire.About the court, such instances of elegant breeding are not uncommon. ”
Scarcely anything was talked of the whole day or next morning but their visit to Rosings. Mr. Collins was carefully instructing them in what they were to expect, that the sight of such rooms, so many servants, and so splendid a dinner, might not wholly overpower them.
When the ladies were separating for the toilette,he said to Elizabeth,--
“Do not make yourself uneasy, my dear cousin,about your apparel.Lady Catherine is far from requiring that elegance of dress in us which becomes herself and daughter. I would advise you merely to put on whatever of your clothes is superior to the rest--there is no occasion for anything more. Lady Catherine will not think the worse of you for being simply dressed. She likes to have the distinction of rank preserved.”
While they were dressing,he came two or three times to their different doors,to recommend their being quick,as Lady Catherine very much objected to be kept waiting for her dinner.Such formidable accounts of her Ladyship,and her manner of living, quite frightened Maria Lucas,who had been little used to company;and she looked forward to her introduction at Rosings with as much apprehension as her father had done to his presentation at St. James’s.
As the weather was fine,they had a pleasant walk of about half a mile across the park.Every park has its beauty and its prospects;and Elizabeth saw much to be pleased with,though she could not be in such raptures as Mr.Collins expected the scene to inspire,and was but slightly affected by his enumeration of the windows in front of the house, and his relation of what the glazing altogether had originally cost Sir Lewis de Bourgh.
When they ascended the steps to the hall,Maria’s alarm was every moment increasing,and even Sir William did not look perfectly calm.Elizabeth’s courage did not fail her.She had heard nothing of Lady Catherine that spoke her awful from any extraordinary talents or miraculous virtue, and the mere stateliness of money and rank she thought she could witness without trepidation.
From the entrance hall, of which Mr.Collins pointed out, with a rapturous air,the fine proportion and finished ornaments,they followed the servants through an antechamber to the room where Lady Catherine, her daughter, and Mrs. Jenkinson were sitting. Her Ladyship, with great condescension, arose to receive them; and as Mrs. Collins had settled it with her husband that the office of introduction should be hers, it was performed in a proper manner, without any of those apologies and thanks which he would have thought necessary.
In spite of having been at St. James’s,Sir William was so completely awed by the grandeur surrounding him,that he had but just courage enough to make a very low bow,and take his seat without saying a word;and his daughter, frightened almost out of her senses,sat on the edge of her chair,not knowing which way to look.Elizabeth found herself quite equal to the scene,and could observe the three ladies before her composedly.Lady Catherine was a tall, large woman,with strongly-marked features,which might once have been handsome.Her air was not conciliating,nor was her manner of receiving them such as to make her visitors forget their inferior rank. She was not rendered formidable by silence: but whatever she said was spoken in so authoritative a tone as marked her self-importance, and brought Mr. Wickham immediately to Elizabeth’s mind; and, from the observation of the day altogether, she believed Lady Catherine to be exactly what he had represented.