It is a morning about a week after Jane’s engagement.
Bingley and the women of the family are sitting in the dining room when they hear wheels.
A chaise and four is coming up the lawn.
It is too early in the morning for visitors. None of the neighbours keep such an equipage, and the livery of the servant in front is strange to them.
Only one thing is certain, which is that somebody is coming.
Bingley gets Jane away into the shrubbery at once. There is no need to be shut in for such an intrusion.
The three left behind go on guessing until the door opens.
The visitor is Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
What She Says on Sitting Down
They were all intending to be surprised, and the surprise goes past what they intended.
She comes in with an air more than usually ungracious, answers Elizabeth’s greeting with a slight inclination of the head, and sits down without a word.
Their mother, amazed but flattered by such a guest, receives her with the utmost politeness.
After a silent moment Lady Catherine asks stiffly whether that lady is her mother.
Elizabeth replies very concisely that she is.
Asked whether the other is a sister, their mother answers first. Her youngest girl but one, she says. The youngest of all is lately married, and the eldest is out walking with a young man who will soon be one of the family.
Lady Catherine is silent a moment and then says something else.
You have a very small park here.
Nothing to Rosings, their mother says, but much larger than Sir William Lucas’s.
This must be a most inconvenient sitting room for a summer evening, says Lady Catherine. The windows are full west.
They never sit there after dinner, their mother assures her.
Then she asks, very civilly, whether the Collinses are well.
Quite well, says Lady Catherine. She saw them the night before last.
Elizabeth expects a letter from Charlotte to be produced. It is the only probable reason for the visit she can think of. No letter appears.
Their mother offers refreshment and Lady Catherine declines it very resolutely and not very politely.
Then she rises and speaks to Elizabeth.
There seemed to be a prettyish kind of little wilderness on one side of your lawn. I should be glad to take a turn in it.
Once They Are in the Copse
Elizabeth runs up for her parasol and comes down again.
Her mother tells her to show her Ladyship the different walks. She will be pleased with the hermitage, she says.
In the hall Lady Catherine opens the doors of the dining parlour and the drawing room.
She looks in, pronounces them decent looking rooms, and walks on.
The carriage stands at the door with her waiting woman inside it.
They go along the gravel walk in silence. Elizabeth has decided to make no effort at conversation with a woman who is more than usually insolent this morning.
How could I ever have thought her like her nephew, she says to herself.
As soon as they are in the copse, Lady Catherine begins.
You can be at no loss, Miss Bennet, to understand why I have come. Your own heart and your own conscience must tell you.
Elizabeth looks at her with unaffected astonishment.
Indeed she is mistaken, she says. She has not been able to account for the honour at all.
The Report Is to Be Contradicted
Lady Catherine’s voice rises.
She is not to be trifled with, she says. However insincere Elizabeth may choose to be, she will not be so herself. Her character has ever been celebrated for its frankness.
Then she comes to it.
A report of a most alarming nature reached her two days ago. Not only was the sister on the point of being advantageously married, but Miss Elizabeth Bennet would in all likelihood soon be united to her own nephew.
She knows it to be a scandalous falsehood, she says, and she set off at once to make her sentiments known.
Elizabeth, colouring with astonishment and disdain, answers her.
If you believed it impossible to be true, she says, I wonder you took the trouble of coming so far. What did your Ladyship propose by it.
To insist on having such a report universally contradicted, comes the answer.
Elizabeth says it coolly. Your coming to Longbourn to see me and my family will rather be a confirmation of it. If any such report is in existence.
If, says Lady Catherine. Do you pretend to be ignorant of it. Has it not been circulated by yourselves.
She never heard that it was, Elizabeth says.
And can you declare there is no foundation for it, comes next.
Elizabeth answers. I do not pretend to possess equal frankness with your Ladyship. You may ask questions which I shall not choose to answer.
A Gentleman’s Daughter
This is not to be borne, says Lady Catherine.
She asks it straight. Has my nephew made you an offer of marriage.
Your Ladyship has declared it to be impossible, Elizabeth replies.
It ought to be so, says Lady Catherine, while he retains his reason. But your arts may in a moment of infatuation have made him forget himself. You may have drawn him in.
If I have, says Elizabeth, I shall be the last person to confess it.
Do you know who I am, says Lady Catherine. I am almost the nearest relation he has and am entitled to know all his dearest concerns.
But you are not entitled to know mine, Elizabeth answers.
Then Lady Catherine puts it plainly. This match can never take place. Her nephew is engaged to her daughter.
Then you can have no reason to suppose he will make an offer to me, says Elizabeth.
Lady Catherine hesitates and then explains.
The engagement is of a peculiar kind. They have been intended for each other from their infancy, and the two mothers planned it while they were in their cradles.
Is it to be prevented by a young woman of no family and no importance in the world.
Elizabeth answers.
I had heard it before, she says, but what is that to me. You both did as much as you could in planning the marriage. Its completion depended on others.
Lady Catherine produces the list. Honour, decorum, prudence and interest all forbid it.
She will be censured and slighted by everyone connected with him, and her name will never be mentioned by any of them.
These are heavy misfortunes, says Elizabeth. But the wife of Mr Darcy must have such extraordinary sources of happiness attached to her situation that she could have no cause to repine.
Lady Catherine says she came with the determined resolution of carrying her purpose and has never been in the habit of brooking disappointment.
That will make your Ladyship’s situation the more pitiable, says Elizabeth, but it will have no effect on me.
Lady Catherine goes back to the blood. Noble on the mother’s side, ancient on the father’s, splendid fortune on both. And it is to be divided by the upstart pretensions of a young woman without family, connections or fortune.
She should not wish to quit the sphere she was brought up in, Lady Catherine adds.
And Elizabeth answers.
“In marrying your nephew, I should not consider myself as quitting that sphere. He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman’s daughter; so far we are equal.” (Chapter 56)
Lady Catherine allows it. True, she says. You are a gentleman’s daughter.
And adds the rest at once. But what was your mother. Who are your uncles and aunts. Do not imagine me ignorant of their condition.
Whatever my connections may be, says Elizabeth, if your nephew does not object to them, they can be nothing to you.
I Will Make No Promise
Lady Catherine asks it once for all. Are you engaged to him.
Elizabeth considers a moment. She will not answer to oblige this woman, and there is no reason not to answer either.
I am not, she says.
Lady Catherine looks a little pleased.
And will you promise me never to enter into such an engagement.
I will make no promise of the kind.
Lady Catherine is shocked. She expected a more reasonable young woman. She will not go away until she has the assurance she requires.
Elizabeth answers.
And I certainly never shall give it. I am not to be intimidated into anything so wholly unreasonable.
Then she does the arithmetic of the demand out loud.
Would my giving you the promise make their marriage at all more probable. Supposing him attached to me, would my refusing his hand make him wish to bestow it on his cousin.
Not so hasty, says Lady Catherine. She has by no means done.
And she brings out what she was keeping. She is no stranger to the particulars of the youngest sister’s elopement. She knows the marriage was a patched up business at the expense of the father and the uncle.
Is such a girl to be her nephew’s sister. Is that man to be his brother. Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted.
Elizabeth rises.
You can now have nothing further to say. You have insulted me in every possible method. I must beg to return to the house.
The Carriage Leaves Without a Farewell
Lady Catherine talks all the way back.
Has she no regard for her nephew’s credit. Does she not consider that a connection with her must disgrace him in everybody’s eyes.
Elizabeth says only that she has nothing further to say.
Are you then resolved to have him, Lady Catherine asks. And Elizabeth answers.
I have said no such thing. I am only resolved to act in the manner which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness. Without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.
You refuse the claims of duty, honour and gratitude, says Lady Catherine.
Elizabeth answers that none of the three has any claim on her here. No principle of any of them would be violated by the marriage.
At the carriage door Lady Catherine turns hastily round.
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.
Elizabeth makes no answer.
She does not try to persuade her back into the house. She walks quietly in and hears the carriage drive away as she goes upstairs.
Her mother is waiting at the dressing room door.
Why would Lady Catherine not come in and rest herself. She did not choose it, says her daughter. She would go.
A very fine looking woman, says her mother, and prodigiously civil to call. She came to say the Collinses were well, no doubt.
She had nothing particular to say to you, Lizzy.
Elizabeth is forced into a little falsehood here. To give the substance of that conversation is impossible.
The Letter Next Morning
Elizabeth turns the visit over for a long time.
Lady Catherine came the whole way from Rosings for the sole purpose of breaking off a supposed engagement. Where the report could have come from takes her a while to work out.
When one wedding is expected, everybody is eager for another.
His being Bingley’s friend and her being Jane’s sister was enough. That her sister’s marriage must bring the two of them together more often is a thing she had thought of herself.
One thing does uneasy her.
That her Ladyship may go to her nephew with the same persistence. How much he thinks of his aunt she does not know, only that he thinks more of her than Elizabeth can.
What looked weak and ridiculous to her may sound like good sense to him.
If he had been wavering, the entreaty of so near a relation might settle it. In that case he would not come back at all.
If an excuse for not keeping his promise reaches Bingley within a few days, she says to herself, she will know how to understand it.
The next morning she is going downstairs when her father comes out of the library with a letter.
Lizzy, he says, I was going to look for you. Come into my room.
She thinks of Lady Catherine and her heart sinks.
They sit down by the fire and he begins.
I have received a letter this morning that has astonished me exceedingly. As it principally concerns yourself you ought to know its contents. I did not know before that I had two daughters on the brink of matrimony. Let me congratulate you on a very important conquest.
The colour rushes into Elizabeth’s face.
It is from the nephew and not the aunt, she thinks, and before she can decide whether to be pleased that he explained himself or hurt that the letter was not to her, her father goes on.
You look conscious. This letter is from Mr Collins.
What Her Father Reads Out
From Mr Collins, says Elizabeth. And what can he have to say.
Her father reads.
Congratulations first on the eldest daughter’s approaching marriage, got from the good natured Lucases. Then comes the part about herself.
Her daughter Elizabeth, it is presumed, will not long bear the name of Bennet after her eldest sister has resigned it, and the chosen partner of her fate may reasonably be looked up to as one of the most illustrious personages in this land.
Can you guess who is meant, her father asks.
And reads on. The young gentleman is blessed with everything the heart of mortal can desire. Yet let him warn his cousin, and her father, of the evils of a precipitate closure with this gentleman’s proposals.
The reason follows. His aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, does not look on the match with a friendly eye.
Mr Darcy, you see, is the man, says her father, laughing.
Now, Lizzy, I think I have surprised you. Could he have pitched on any man within the circle of our acquaintance whose name would give the lie more effectually to what they related.
A man who never looks at a woman but to see a blemish, and who probably never looked at you in his life.
Elizabeth tries to join in and manages one reluctant smile.
Never has his wit been directed in a manner so little agreeable to her.
Are you not diverted, he asks. Oh yes, she says. Pray read on.
There is more about Lydia in the letter. He is glad the sad business has been so well hushed up, and only concerned that their living together before the marriage should be so generally known. Had he been rector of Longbourn he would strenuously have opposed receiving them.
They ought to be forgiven as a Christian but never admitted in his sight.
That is his notion of Christian forgiveness, says her father.
Then he looks at his daughter. Lizzy, you look as if you did not enjoy it. You are not going to pretend to be affronted at an idle report. For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours and laugh at them in our turn.
I am exceedingly diverted, says Elizabeth. But it is so strange.
That is what makes it amusing, says her father. Had they fixed on any other man it would have been nothing. It is his perfect indifference and your pointed dislike that make it so delightfully absurd.
Today, Winning and Not Losing
There is one negotiation in this chapter.
One side came to get something. It starts with a demand that the report be contradicted, moves to a question about an engagement, and stops at a promise never to enter into one. That last was what she really came for.
The other side was not trying to get anything.
Elizabeth does not say she will have him. She does not say she loves him. She does one thing only. She does not hand over the promise.
The whole chapter is in that difference.
The one who has to get something cannot stop until something comes out of the other person. So the grounds keep changing. Cradles, then blood, then fortune, then at last another family’s youngest daughter.
The one who is only withholding has nothing to change.
She has to stand in the same place. What gets asked next where you gave way once is a thing this Elizabeth appears to know.
And there is a second thing here.
The same report is read two opposite ways. Lady Catherine drives across the country because it might be true. Her father laughs at it as the most absurd thing he has heard.
One comes to prevent an engagement that does not exist. The other cannot read the daughter in front of him.
What this series has been saying since its first chapter comes round once more. People read new information with what they had already settled. Where the settled thing differs, the same sentence comes apart in two directions.
Have you ever had to laugh where you would rather have cried?