“In my opinion, the younger son of an earl can know very little of either. Now, seriously,what have you ever known of self-denial and dependence?When have you been prevented by want of money from going wherever you chose or procuring anything you had a fancy for?”
“These are home questions--and perhaps I cannot say that I have experienced many hardships of that nature.But in matters of greater weight, I may suffer from the want of money.Younger sons cannot marry where they like.”
“Unless where they like women of fortune, which I think they very often do.”
“Our habits of expense make us too dependent,and there are not many in my rank of life who can afford to marry without some attention to money.”
“Is this,” thought Elizabeth, “meant for me?” and she coloured at the idea; but, recovering herself, said in a lively tone, “And pray,what is the usual price of an earl’s younger son?Unless the elder brother is very sickly, I suppose you would not ask above fifty thousand pounds.”
He answered her in the same style, and the subject dropped.To interrupt a silence which might make him fancy her affected with what had passed, she soon afterwards said,--
“I imagine your cousin brought you down with him chiefly for the sake of having somebody at his disposal.I wonder he does not marry, to secure a lasting convenience of that kind. But, perhaps,his sister does as well for the present; and, as she is under his sole care, he may do what he likes with her.”
“No,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, “that is an advantage which he must divide with me.I am joined with him in the guardianship of Miss Darcy.”
“Are you, indeed?And pray what sort of a guardian do you make?Does your charge give you much trouble?Young ladies of her age are sometimes a little difficult to manage;and if she has the true Darcy spirit, she may like to have her own way.”
As she spoke, she observed him looking at her earnestly;and the manner in which he immediately asked her why she supposed Miss Darcy likely to give them any uneasiness,convinced her that she had somehow or other got pretty near the truth. She directly replied,--
“You need not be frightened. I never heard any harm of her;and I dare say she is one of the most tractable creatures in the world.She is a very great favourite with some ladies of my acquaintance, Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley.I think I have heard you say that you know them.”
“I know them a little. Their brother is a pleasant,gentlemanlike man--he is a great friend of Darcy’s.”
“Oh yes,” said Elizabeth drily--“Mr. Darcy is uncommonly kind to Mr. Bingley,and takes a prodigious deal of care of him.”
“Care of him!Yes, I really believe Darcy _does_ take care of him in those points where he most wants care.From something that he told me in our journey hither,I have reason to think Bingley very much indebted to him. But I ought to beg his pardon,for I have no right to suppose that Bingley was the person meant. It was all conjecture.”
“What is it you mean?”
“It is a circumstance which Darcy of course could not wish to be generally known,because if it were to get round to the lady’s family it would be an unpleasant thing.”
“You may depend upon my not mentioning it.”
“And remember that I have not much reason for supposing it to be Bingley.What he told me was merely this: that he congratulated himself on having lately saved a friend from the inconveniences of a most imprudent marriage,but without mentioning names or any other particulars;and I only suspected it to be Bingley from believing him the kind of young man to get into a scrape of that sort,and from knowing them to have been together the whole of last summer.”
“Did Mr. Darcy give you his reasons for this interference?”
“I understood that there were some very strong objections against the lady.”
“And what arts did he use to separate them?”
“He did not talk to me of his own arts,” said Fitzwilliam, smiling.“He only told me what I have now told you.”
Elizabeth made no answer, and walked on, her heart swelling with indignation.After watching her a little, Fitzwilliam asked her why she was so thoughtful.
“I am thinking of what you have been telling me,” said she.“Your cousin’s conduct does not suit my feelings. Why was he to be the judge?”
“You are rather disposed to call his interference officious?”
“I do not see what right Mr. Darcy had to decide on the propriety of his friend’s inclination;or why, upon his own judgment alone, he was to determine and direct in what manner that friend was to be happy.But,” she continued, recollecting herself, “as we know none of the particulars,it is not fair to condemn him. It is not to be supposed that there was much affection in the case.”
“That is not an unnatural surmise,” said Fitzwilliam;“but it is lessening the honour of my cousin’s triumph very sadly.”
This was spoken jestingly, but it appeared to her so just a picture of Mr. Darcy,that she would not trust herself with an answer; and, therefore,abruptly changing the conversation, talked on indifferent matters till they reached the Parsonage.There, shut into her own room, as soon as their visitor left them,she could think without interruption of all that she had heard.It was not to be supposed that any other people could be meant than those with whom she was connected.There could not exist in the world _two_ men over whom Mr.Darcy could have such boundless influence.That he had been concerned in the measures taken to separate Mr. Bingley and Jane,she had never doubted; but she had always attributed to Miss Bingley the principal design and arrangement of them.If his own vanity, however, did not mislead him,_he_ was the cause--his pride and caprice were the cause--of all that Jane had suffered,and still continued to suffer. He had ruined for a while every hope of happiness for the most affectionate,generous heart in the world; and no one could say how lasting an evil he might have inflicted.
“There were some very strong objections against the lady,” were Colonel Fitzwilliam’s words;and these strong objections probably were, her having one uncle who was a country attorney,and another who was in business in London.
“To Jane herself,” she exclaimed, “there could be no possibility of objection,--all loveliness and goodness as she is!Her understanding excellent, her mind improved, and her manners captivating.Neither could anything be urged against my father, who, though with some peculiarities,has abilities which Mr. Darcy himself need not disdain,and respectability which he will probably never reach.” When she thought of her mother, indeed,her confidence gave way a little; but she would not allow that any objections _there_ had material weight with Mr.Darcy, whose pride, she was convinced, would receive a deeper wound from the want of importance in his friend’s connections than from their want of sense;and she was quite decided, at last, that he had been partly governed by this worst kind of pride,and partly by the wish of retaining Mr. Bingley for his sister.
The agitation and tears which the subject occasioned brought on a headache;and it grew so much worse towards the evening that, added to her unwillingness to see Mr. Darcy,it determined her not to attend her cousins to Rosings, where they were engaged to drink tea. Mrs.Collins, seeing that she was really unwell, did not press her to go,and as much as possible prevented her husband from pressing her; but Mr.Collins could not conceal his apprehension of Lady Catherine’s being rather displeased by her staying at home.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XXXIV.
[Illustration]
When they were gone, Elizabeth, as if intending to exasperate herself as much as possible against Mr.Darcy, chose for her employment the examination of all the letters which Jane had written to her since her being in Kent.They contained no actual complaint, nor was there any revival of past occurrences,or any communication of present suffering. But in all, and in almost every line of each,there was a want of that cheerfulness which had been used to characterize her style, and which,proceeding from the serenity of a mind at ease with itself, and kindly disposed towards everyone,had been scarcely ever clouded. Elizabeth noticed every sentence conveying the idea of uneasiness,with an attention which it had hardly received on the first perusal. Mr.Darcy’s shameful boast of what misery he had been able to inflict gave her a keener sense of her sister’s sufferings.It was some consolation to think that his visit to Rosings was to end on the day after the next,and a still greater that in less than a fortnight she should herself be with Jane again,and enabled to contribute to the recovery of her spirits, by all that affection could do.
She could not think of Darcy’s leaving Kent without remembering that his cousin was to go with him;but Colonel Fitzwilliam had made it clear that he had no intentions at all, and,agreeable as he was, she did not mean to be unhappy about him.
While settling this point, she was suddenly roused by the sound of the door-bell;and her spirits were a little fluttered by the idea of its being Colonel Fitzwilliam himself,who had once before called late in the evening,and might now come to inquire particularly after her. But this idea was soon banished,and her spirits were very differently affected, when, to her utter amazement, she saw Mr.Darcy walk into the room. In a hurried manner he immediately began an inquiry after her health,imputing his visit to a wish of hearing that she were better. She answered him with cold civility.He sat down for a few moments, and then getting up walked about the room. Elizabeth was surprised,but said not a word. After a silence of several minutes, he came towards her in an agitated manner, and thus began:--
“In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed.You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.”
Elizabeth’s astonishment was beyond expression. She stared, coloured, doubted, and was silent.This he considered sufficient encouragement,and the avowal of all that he felt and had long felt for her immediately followed. He spoke well;but there were feelings besides those of the heart to be detailed,and he was not more eloquent on the subject of tenderness than of pride.His sense of her inferiority, of its being a degradation,of the family obstacles which judgment had always opposed to inclination,were dwelt on with a warmth which seemed due to the consequence he was wounding,but was very unlikely to recommend his suit.
In spite of her deeply-rooted dislike, she could not be insensible to the compliment of such a man’s affection,and though her intentions did not vary for an instant,she was at first sorry for the pain he was to receive;till roused to resentment by his subsequent language, she lost all compassion in anger. She tried,however, to compose herself to answer him with patience, when he should have done.He concluded with representing to her the strength of that attachment which in spite of all his endeavours he had found impossible to conquer;and with expressing his hope that it would now be rewarded by her acceptance of his hand.As he said this she could easily see that he had no doubt of a favourable answer.He _spoke_ of apprehension and anxiety, but his countenance expressed real security.Such a circumstance could only exasperate farther;and when he ceased the colour rose into her cheeks and she said,--
“In such cases as this, it is, I believe,the established mode to express a sense of obligation for the sentiments avowed,however unequally they may be returned. It is natural that obligation should be felt,and if I could _feel_ gratitude, I would now thank you.But I cannot--I have never desired your good opinion,and you have certainly bestowed it most unwillingly. I am sorry to have occasioned pain to anyone.It has been most unconsciously done, however, and I hope will be of short duration.The feelings which you tell me have long prevented the acknowledgment of your regard can have little difficulty in overcoming it after this explanation. ”
Mr. Darcy, who was leaning against the mantel-piece with his eyes fixed on her face,seemed to catch her words with no less resentment than surprise.His complexion became pale with anger, and the disturbance of his mind was visible in every feature.He was struggling for the appearance of composure,and would not open his lips till he believed himself to have attained it.The pause was to Elizabeth’s feelings dreadful. At length, in a voice of forced calmness, he said, --
“And this is all the reply which I am to have the honour of expecting!I might, perhaps, wish to be informed why, with so little _endeavour_ at civility,I am thus rejected. But it is of small importance.”
“I might as well inquire,” replied she, “why,with so evident a design of offending and insulting me,you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character?Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I _was_ uncivil?But I have other provocations. You know I have. Had not my own feelings decided against you,had they been indifferent, or had they even been favourable,do you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who has been the means of ruining,perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister?”
As she pronounced these words, Mr. Darcy changed colour; but the emotion was short,and he listened without attempting to interrupt her while she continued,--
“I have every reason in the world to think ill of you.No motive can excuse the unjust and ungenerous part you acted _there_. You dare not,you cannot deny that you have been the principal,if not the only means of dividing them from each other,of exposing one to the censure of the world for caprice and instability,the other to its derision for disappointed hopes,and involving them both in misery of the acutest kind.”
She paused, and saw with no slight indignation that he was listening with an air which proved him wholly unmoved by any feeling of remorse.He even looked at her with a smile of affected incredulity.
“Can you deny that you have done it?” she repeated.
With assumed tranquillity he then replied,“I have no wish of denying that I did everything in my power to separate my friend from your sister,or that I rejoice in my success. Towards _him_ I have been kinder than towards myself.”
Elizabeth disdained the appearance of noticing this civil reflection,but its meaning did not escape, nor was it likely to conciliate her.
“But it is not merely this affair,” she continued, “on which my dislike is founded.Long before it had taken place, my opinion of you was decided.Your character was unfolded in the recital which I received many months ago from Mr. Wickham.On this subject, what can you have to say?In what imaginary act of friendship can you here defend yourself?or under what misrepresentation can you here impose upon others?”
“You take an eager interest in that gentleman’s concerns,” said Darcy, in a less tranquil tone, and with a heightened colour.
“Who that knows what his misfortunes have been can help feeling an interest in him?”
“His misfortunes!” repeated Darcy, contemptuously,--“yes, his misfortunes have been great indeed.”
“And of your infliction,” cried Elizabeth, with energy;“You have reduced him to his present state of poverty--comparative poverty.You have withheld the advantages which you must know to have been designed for him.You have deprived the best years of his life of that independence which was no less his due than his desert. You have done all this!and yet you can treat the mention of his misfortunes with contempt and ridicule.”
“And this,” cried Darcy, as he walked with quick steps across the room, “is your opinion of me!This is the estimation in which you hold me!I thank you for explaining it so fully. My faults, according to this calculation, are heavy indeed!But, perhaps,” added he, stopping in his walk, and turning towards her,“these offences might have been overlooked,had not your pride been hurt by my honest confession of the scruples that had long prevented my forming any serious design.These bitter accusations might have been suppressed, had I, with greater policy,concealed my struggles, and flattered you into the belief of my being impelled by unqualified,unalloyed inclination; by reason, by reflection, by everything.But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence. Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I related.They were natural and just. Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections?--to congratulate myself on the hope of relations whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?”
Elizabeth felt herself growing more angry every moment;yet she tried to the utmost to speak with composure when she said,--
“You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way than as it spared me the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.”
She saw him start at this; but he said nothing, and she continued,--
“You could not have made me the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it. ”
Again his astonishment was obvious; and he looked at her with an expression of mingled incredulity and mortification. She went on,--
“From the very beginning, from the first moment, I may almost say, of my acquaintance with you,your manners impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit,and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others,were such as to form that groundwork of disapprobation,on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike;and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry. ”
“You have said quite enough, madam. I perfectly comprehend your feelings,and have now only to be ashamed of what my own have been.Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time,and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness.”
And with these words he hastily left the room,and Elizabeth heard him the next moment open the front door and quit the house.The tumult of her mind was now painfully great. She knew not how to support herself, and,from actual weakness, sat down and cried for half an hour. Her astonishment,as she reflected on what had passed, was increased by every review of it.That she should receive an offer of marriage from Mr. Darcy!that he should have been in love with her for so many months!so much in love as to wish to marry her in spite of all the objections which had made him prevent his friend’s marrying her sister,and which must appear at least with equal force in his own case, was almost incredible!it was gratifying to have inspired unconsciously so strong an affection. But his pride,his abominable pride, his shameless avowal of what he had done with respect to Jane,his unpardonable assurance in acknowledging, though he could not justify it,and the unfeeling manner which he had mentioned Mr. Wickham,his cruelty towards whom he had not attempted to deny,soon overcame the pity which the consideration of his attachment had for a moment excited.
She continued in very agitating reflections till the sound of Lady Catherine’s carriage made her feel how unequal she was to encounter Charlotte’s observation, and hurried her away to her room.
[Illustration:
“Hearing herself called” ]
CHAPTER XXXV.
[Illustration]
Elizabeth awoke the next morning to the same thoughts and meditations which had at length closed her eyes.She could not yet recover from the surprise of what had happened:it was impossible to think of anything else; and, totally indisposed for employment,she resolved soon after breakfast to indulge herself in air and exercise.She was proceeding directly to her favourite walk, when the recollection of Mr.Darcy’s sometimes coming there stopped her, and instead of entering the park,she turned up the lane which led her farther from the turnpike road.The park paling was still the boundary on one side,and she soon passed one of the gates into the ground.
After walking two or three times along that part of the lane, she was tempted,by the pleasantness of the morning, to stop at the gates and look into the park.The five weeks which she had now passed in Kent had made a great difference in the country,and every day was adding to the verdure of the early trees.She was on the point of continuing her walk,when she caught a glimpse of a gentleman within the sort of grove which edged the park:he was moving that way; and fearful of its being Mr. Darcy, she was directly retreating.But the person who advanced was now near enough to see her, and stepping forward with eagerness,pronounced her name. She had turned away; but on hearing herself called,though in a voice which proved it to be Mr. Darcy, she moved again towards the gate.He had by that time reached it also; and, holding out a letter, which she instinctively took, said,with a look of haughty composure, “I have been walking in the grove some time,in the hope of meeting you. Will you do me the honour of reading that letter?” and then, with a slight bow, turned again into the plantation, and was soon out of sight.
With no expectation of pleasure, but with the strongest curiosity, Elizabeth opened the letter,and to her still increasing wonder, perceived an envelope containing two sheets of letter paper,written quite through, in a very close hand. The envelope itself was likewise full.Pursuing her way along the lane, she then began it. It was dated from Rosings,at eight o’clock in the morning, and was as follows:--
“Be not alarmed, madam, on receiving this letter,by the apprehension of its containing any repetition of those sentiments,or renewal of those offers, which were last night so disgusting to you.I write without any intention of paining you, or humbling myself, by dwelling on wishes, which,for the happiness of both, cannot be too soon forgotten;and the effort which the formation and the perusal of this letter must occasion,should have been spared, had not my character required it to be written and read. You must,therefore, pardon the freedom with which I demand your attention; your feelings, I know,will bestow it unwillingly, but I demand it of your justice.