Gay Pride and Prejudice (25 page)

But why Miss Bingley came so often to the Parsonage, it was more difficult to understand. It could not be for society, as she frequently sat there ten minutes together without opening her lips; and when she did speak, it seemed the effect of necessity rather than of choice—a sacrifice to propriety, not a pleasure. She seldom appeared really animated.

Mrs. Collins knew not what to make of this behavior. Mr. Darcy’s occasionally poking fun at Caroline’s reserve, proved that she was generally different, which Charlotte’s own knowledge could not have told her; and as she suspected this change to be the effect of love, and the object of that love her friend Eliza, she set herself seriously to work to find it out. She watched Caroline whenever they were at Rosings, and whenever she came to Hunsford; but without much success. The lady certainly looked at her friend a great deal, but the expression of that look was disputable. It was an earnest, steadfast gaze, but she often doubted whether there were much admiration in it, and sometimes it seemed nothing but absence of mind.

She had once or twice suggested to Elizabeth the possibility of Miss Bingley’s being partial to her, but Elizabeth always denied this; and Mrs. Collins did not think it right to press the subject, for she was a bit anxious, truthfully, that all her friend’s purported dislike of the lady would vanish, if she could suppose Miss Bingley to be in her power.

In her solicitous schemes for Elizabeth, she occasionally planned her marrying Colonel Fitzwilliam. He was beyond comparison the most pleasant man; he certainly admired her, and his situation in life was most eligible. If only she could convince Elizabeth to settle down as she had; but on this subject as on the first, Elizabeth appeared disinclined to receive her opinion, an aversion Charlotte found in the end she could hardly begrudge her friend.

Chapter Thirty-Three

M
ORE THAN ONCE DID
E
LIZABETH,
in her ramble within the park, unexpectedly meet Miss Bingley. She felt all the perverseness of the mischance that should bring the lady where no one else was brought, and, to prevent its ever happening again, took care to inform her at first that it was a favourite haunt of hers. How it could occur a second time, therefore, was very odd! Yet it did, and even a third. It seemed like willful ill-nature, or a voluntary penance, for on these occasions it was not merely a few formal inquiries and an awkward pause and then away, but Caroline actually thought it necessary to turn back and walk with her. She never said a great deal, nor did Elizabeth give herself the trouble of talking or of listening much; but it struck her in the course of their third rencontre that Caroline was asking some odd unconnected questions—about her pleasure in being at Hunsford, her love of solitary walks, and her opinion of Mr. and Mrs. Collins’s happiness. Had Charlotte been right? Was Caroline, in fact, enamored of her? Her spirits seemed set to rise at the thought; but then she pictured Jane waiting in vain at their aunt’s house in town every morning for a fortnight, and she reminded herself that Caroline Bingley’s feelings, like those of her brother’s, had a history of capriciousness that did little to recommend her.

She was engaged one day as she walked, in perusing Jane’s last letter, and dwelling on some passages which proved that Jane had not written in spirits, when, instead of being again surprised by Miss Bingley, she saw on looking up that Colonel Fitzwilliam was meeting her. Putting away the letter immediately and forcing a smile, she said: “I did not know before that you ever walked this way.”

“I have been making the tour of the park,” he replied, “as I generally do every year, and intend to close it with a call at the Parsonage. Are you going much farther?”

“No, I should have turned in a moment.”

And accordingly she did turn, and they walked towards the Parsonage together.

“Do you certainly leave Kent on Saturday?” asked she.

“Yes—if Darcy does not put it off again. But I am at his disposal. He arranges the business just as he pleases.”

“And if not able to please himself in the arrangement, he has at least pleasure in the great power of choice. I do not know anybody who seems more to enjoy the power of doing what he likes than Mr. Darcy.”

“He likes to have his own way very well,” replied Colonel Fitzwilliam. “But so we all do. It is only that he has better means of having it than many others, because he is rich, and many others are poor. I speak feelingly. A younger son, you know, must be inured to self-denial and dependence.”

“In my opinion, the younger son of an earl can know very little of either. 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 want of money. Younger sons cannot marry where they like.”

“Unless 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?” 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 and the others down with him chiefly for the sake of having someone 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 guardians 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 Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley.”

“As well as an intimate friend of their brother, Mr. Bingley. I believe you said you know him as well? A most 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 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 helped save 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. Besides which Darcy indicated that the main design of separation came from the man’s sisters, and I could well imagine Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst to have a hand in such a scheme.”

“Did Mr. Darcy give you reasons for this interference?”

“I understood that there were some very strong objections against the lady.”

“And what arts did they use to separate them?”

“He did not talk to me of 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, and that of his friends, does not suit my feelings. Why did they feel the need to appoint themselves as judge?”

“You are rather disposed to call this interference officious?”

“I do not see what right Mr. Darcy or the man’s sisters had to decide on the propriety of their friend’s inclination, or why they were to determine and direct in what manner the friend was to be happy. But,” she continued, recollecting herself, “as we know none of the particulars, it is not fair to condemn either Mr. Darcy or the sisters in question. 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 a lessening of 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 until 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 influence. That he had been concerned in the measures taken to separate Bingley and Jane she had never doubted; but to receive confirmation that Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley were responsible for the principal design and arrangement of them? Caroline, who Elizabeth had failed to convince herself was no more appealing than any other woman, was now confirmed without a doubt to be a principal cause of Jane’s unhappiness. Caroline’s pride and caprice, along with that of Mrs. Hurst and Mr. Darcy, were the cause of all that Jane had suffered, and still continued to suffer. Those three exalted individuals had helped ruin 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 they might have inflicted.

“There were some very strong objections against the lady,” were Colonel Fitzwilliam’s words; and those 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 Mr. Darcy himself need not disdain, and respectability which he will probably never reach.” When she thought of her mother, her confidence gave way a little; but she would not allow that any objections
there
had material weight with Mr. Darcy or the Bingley sisters, whose pride, she was convinced, would receive a deeper wound from the want of importance in their friend’s connections, than from any want of sense.

The agitation which the subject occasioned, brought on a headache; and it grew so much worse towards the evening that, added to her unwillingness to see any of Lady Catherine’s guests, 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.

Chapter Thirty-Four

W
HEN THEY WERE GONE,
Elizabeth, as if intending to exasperate herself as much as possible against Miss Bingley, 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 characterise 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 boast to his cousin of what misery he and his accomplices had been able to inflict, gave her a keener sense of her sister’s sufferings. It was some consolation to think that Caroline and Darcy’s visit to Rosings was to end on the day after the next—perhaps she could avoid seeing Lady Catherine’s guests at all between now and then. A still greater consolation lay in the fact that, in less than a fortnight, Elizabeth should herself be with Jane again, and enabled to contribute to the recovery of her spirits, by all that affection could do.

While settling this point, she was suddenly roused by the sound of the door-bell, and her spirits were a little lifted by the idea of its being Colonel Fitzwilliam, 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 Caroline Bingley walk into the room.

“What are you doing here?” demanded Elizabeth, colour rising in her cheeks as she stared at the very person she had wished most to avoid.