III.
Elizabeth has a gratification in store for her, to which she has long looked forward, so simple and common a one in this generation, that it is refreshing to hear how much, even in anticipation, a trip to the Lakes or to Derbyshire has been to the untravelled girl, with her fresh, unjaded tastes. In the same way, it is touching to read in some of the last published letters of Charlotte Brontë how the gifted, hard-faring woman was disposed to think a week by the sea, which she had not seen before, in the company of a congenial friend, implied almost too much happiness for this world.
The Bennets have an uncle and aunt in London, in trade, like the rest of their mother’s relations, inhabiting a house in the City region of Gracechurch Street, but who are in all other respects different from Mrs. Bennet and the Philips in Meryton. Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner are sensible, intelligent, amiable people, much esteemed by their elder nieces. The couple have promised to take Elizabeth with them on a summer tour of a month’s duration to the Lakes; the idea cheers and consoles the girl under a hundred depressing and mortifying influences.
As it happens, Mr. Gardiner cannot go so far as the Lakes, and the expedition is limited to Derbyshire, with its dales, towns, and great houses, its Peak, and its caverns. Elizabeth enjoys herself heartily, without an arrière pensée, till the excursion brings the party to the little town of Lambton, where Mrs. Gardiner had once lived for several years, and where she has still old acquaintances. Elizabeth is aware that Lambton is within a mile or two of Mr. Darcy’s estate and house of Pemberley. She cannot be without some curiosity to see the fine place, of which, had she so chosen, she might have been by this time mistress. Therefore, when her companions, who are in complete ignorance of their niece’s special interest in Pemberley, propose to drive to it, as one of the show-places of the neighbourhood, Elizabeth, having carefully ascertained that not one of the family is at home, willingly consents to accompany her uncle and aunt.
Jane Austen hardly ever describes scenery. The criticism on a recent tale, that there is not much of human nature but a great deal about the weather in the book, could never have been spoken of her stories. The fashion in the fiction of her day tended to two extremes—to the gorgeous ideal foreign landscape of Mrs. Radcliffe, or to the ignoring of inanimate nature in all save the barest accessories, practised by Mrs. Inchbald and Fanny Burney. Jane Austen preferred the latter style of treatment; her interest is not merely centred in her men and women, it is monopolised by them. As in the old tragic ballads, which were yet so far removed from her stories, there seems no time for elaborate analyses of earth, sea, and sky, with the moulding of these mute forces into subtle sympathy, or clashing discord with men’s moods, a tendency which belongs to artificial and self-conscious art.
Yet we receive the impression that Jane Austen loved the country and country walks. Once and again she paints little landscape pictures which indicate her taste and feeling. As might have been expected in her generation, she shows her preference for rich, cultivated, smiling, or at most prettily picturesque, thoroughly domestic scenery. Her description of Pemberley Park is one of her rare bits of landscape. She dwells with much approbation—not only on the large, handsome stone building (the age which revels in mellow brick, and puts Queen Anne, not to say Queen Elizabeth, houses, far before Georgian mansions, had not yet arrived), standing well on a rising ground—but also on the ridge of wooded hills which forms the background, and on the stream of some natural importance, and “swelled” into still greater, but without any artificial appearance, with banks which are neither formal nor falsely adorned, that constitutes the foreground. One has no difficulty in conjuring up the place—somewhat heavy, yet stately and tranquil, with its stretches of fine wood, its open vistas contrived for “prospects,” and its careful adaptation of the fall of the ground to “a valley narrowing into a glen,” according to the principles of the landscape gardening of the period.
Elizabeth is disinterestedly delighted. She feels that to be mistress of Pemberley might have been something. She is no less pleased with the house, and its lofty, well-proportioned rooms, each window commanding a charming view; the furniture suitable to the fortune of the owner, but neither gaudy nor needlessly fine, with less splendour but more real elegance than the furniture at Rosings. “And of this place,” thinks Elizabeth, with some pardonable hankering, “I might have been mistress. With these rooms I might have been familiarly acquainted. Instead of viewing them as a stranger, I might have rejoiced in them as my own, and welcomed to them as visitors my uncle and aunt. But, no—” a wholesome recollection stops the current of her thoughts in time—“I should not have been allowed to invite them.”
The housekeeper, an elderly, respectable-looking woman, much more civil and less fine than Elizabeth had expected, shows the visitors over the house. After Elizabeth has recovered from a momentary alarm, and made a mental note of thanksgiving that they have not come a day later, on the servant’s observing that she expects her master the next morning with a large party of friends, the girl is able to listen with a mixture of feelings, in which wonder and bewilderment are not the least, to the talk which goes on among the others as the family pictures are being looked at. The housekeeper, on finding by some words which drop from Mrs. Gardiner that Elizabeth is acquainted with her master, begins to speak of him with honest pride and warmth. How good a master and landlord he is! How affectionate a brother! How kind to the poor! Does the young lady not think him a very handsome gentleman?
“Very handsome,” answers poor Elizabeth briefly.
One example of the praise thus freely bestowed strikes Elizabeth as of all others the most extraordinary. “I have never had a cross word from him in his life, and I have known him ever since he was four years old,” declares the old servant. And yet, if there was one fault more than another which Elizabeth Bennet had been accustomed to ascribe unhesitatingly to the lordly bear, Darcy, it was a bad temper; but, according to this credible witness, the bear abroad must be a lamb at home.
As Elizabeth digests the reflections aroused by this evidence, and looks at a full-length portrait of the master of the house, in which the face wears such a smile as she had noticed sometimes on the lips of the living man when he looked at her, she feels a deeper sentiment of gratitude than she has yet experienced for the love which had been so strong, though there was little of the courtier in the lover.
The little party are consigned to the gardener, who is conducting them across the lawn to the river. Elizabeth has turned back to look again. Her uncle and aunt have stopped also, and are conjecturing the date of the house, when its owner comes suddenly forward from the road leading to the stables.
The two so much interested are within twenty yards of each other, and cannot avoid an encounter. Their eyes meet; both grow crimson. He absolutely starts, and for a moment seems immovable with surprise, but shortly recovering himself, advances and speaks to Elizabeth with perfect civility, if not perfect composure.
Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner recognise Mr. Darcy from his resemblance to his picture and from the exclamation of the gardener. They stand a little aloof, while the new comer and their niece exchange greetings.
In the meantime Elizabeth is reduced to a state of extreme confusion and discomfort. She scarcely dares lift her eyes to her quondam lover’s face. She cannot forget, and she knows he must recall with equal vividness, the circumstances under which they parted at Hunsford.
She is keenly alive to the impropriety, the indelicacy of his finding her at Pemberley. Why did she come? or why has he thus returned a day before he was expected? How strange her being there must appear to him! In what a disgraceful light may it not strike so vain a man! For Elizabeth still holds forlornly to the last rag of the mental and moral habiliments in which she clothed him. She clings to the conviction of his high opinion of himself and his deserts. But, in spite of herself, amidst all the jumble of sensations which his appearance has excited, none is more distinct or strikes her more forcibly, than the realisation that he is heaping coals of fire on her head, by behaving to the girl who had rejected him—well-nigh with contumely—with the greatest, most sedulous courtesy that a true gentleman could show on such a trying occasion. More than that, there is a complete alteration in his whole tone, which she cannot fail to observe, that might have been perceptible even to a stranger. He has overcome his old aversion to the small polite forms and genialities of social intercourse, along with his old stiffness and coldness. He puts himself to the trouble of inquiring for the very relations he stigmatised, as well as for herself. He asks when she has left home, and how long she means to stay in Derbyshire. He is interested in her answers. He is animated and agreeable, in the middle of his evident agitation, for the first time since she has known him. His words only fail him when his last idea deserts him, and, after standing a moment silent, he recollects himself, and takes his leave.
Elizabeth is full of astonishment in her distress, and all the time she walks about the grounds, mechanically responding to their praises on the part of her companions, and hearing the gardener triumphantly announce that the park is ten miles round, she is puzzling out the riddle, asking herself what Mr. Darcy thinks of her; whether she is still dear to him, in defiance of everything? She cannot tell, not even from her own heart, if he has felt most pain or pleasure in seeing her again; but certainly he has not been at ease.
While the visitors are still wandering about, Elizabeth is again surprised by seeing Darcy at a little distance coming towards them. For a moment she thinks he will strike into another path, but when a turn of the road shows him still advancing, and preparing to greet them with all his newly-acquired cordiality, she determines to emulate him, and gets out the words “delightful,” “charming,” when it strikes her that praise of Pemberley from her may be misconstrued, and she colours and is silent.
Darcy asks if she will do him the honour of introducing her friends.
This is a stroke of civility which even yet Elizabeth did not expect. She cannot suppress a smile at his seeking the acquaintance of some of the very people against whom, viewed as her connections, his pride had revolted. “What will be his surprise,” she thinks, with girlish glee in her reviving spirits, “when he knows who they are? He takes them now for people of fashion.”
As she names the Gardiners’ relationship to herself, she steals a mischievous glance at Darcy, to see how he bears it. She is not without a suspicion that he will decamp, as fast as he can, from such disgraceful companions.
On the contrary, though he is surprised, he bears the news with apparent fortitude, and, so far from going away, turns and walks with them, entering into conversation with Mr. Gardiner.
Elizabeth cannot but be pleased—cannot but triumph. It is consoling that Darcy should know she has some relations for whom there is no need to blush. She listens attentively to all that passes, and glories in every sentence of her uncle’s which marks his intelligence, his taste, or his good manners.
Soon Elizabeth hears Mr. Darcy invite her uncle, who is fond of fishing, to fish in the stream while he is in the neighbourhood. Elizabeth says nothing, but it gratifies her exceedingly; the compliment must be all to herself. In place of continuing to torment herself with the reproach “Why has she been so foolish as to visit Pemberley?” she begins to ask more agreeable questions. “Why is he so altered? It cannot be for me? It cannot be for my sake his manners are thus softened? It is impossible he should still love me.”
Elizabeth finds an opportunity, when Mrs. Gardiner has taken her husband’s arm, and their niece has been forced to walk behind with Darcy, to let him know she had not expected to see him there, observing that his return must have been unexpected, since his housekeeper had said he would certainly not be back till to-morrow.
He tells her he had ridden on before his party, to arrange some business with his steward. His sister and the others—among whom are old acquaintances of hers, Mr. Bingley and his sisters—will follow early the following morning.
Elizabeth simply bows. Her thoughts fly back to the last occasion on which Mr. Bingley’s name was mentioned between them, and if she may judge by his complexion, his mind is not very differently engaged.
But Mr. Darcy is still to give the crowning proof of his condonement of Elizabeth’s offence, and his unshaken—if possible, increased—respect for her. He tells her there is one person in his party who particularly wishes to be known to her. Will she allow him or does he ask too much, to introduce his sister to her acquaintance during her stay in Derbyshire?
This flattering request from the proud, exclusive, great man of the neighbourhood, who is naturally still more exclusive for his young sister than for himself, is delicate homage indeed, such as Elizabeth is well qualified to appreciate. Any desire Miss Darcy has to know her must be the work of her brother, and, without looking further, it is very gratifying to have this strong testimony that his resentment has not made him think really ill of her.
Elizabeth hardly knows how she accedes to the petition, only it cannot have been very ungraciously. He wishes her to walk into the house, but she excuses herself, saying she is not tired, and the two stand together on the lawn talking indefatigably of Matlock and Dovedale, to avoid an awkward silence, till the Gardiners came up, when, after a renewed and pressing invitation to enter the house and take some refreshment, Mr. Darcy hands the ladies into the carriage.
Elizabeth has to listen to her uncle and aunt’s remarks on the Squire of Pemberley, who, in spite of his formidable reputation for hauteur and reserve, has shown himself “perfectly well-behaved, polite, and unassuming.” “I can now say with the housekeeper,” ends Mrs. Gardiner, with a great deal more point than she is aware of, “that though some people may call him proud, I have seen nothing of it.”
The probability of such a reformation of manners on Darcy’s part remains an open question. Perhaps the sudden change in him is one of the most unlikely occurrences which happen in Jane Austen’s life-like novels. But her readers must remember that Darcy was only eight-and-twenty years of age. He was a young man of high character and many fine qualities, though these had been warped by the false self-importance which was the result of the over-indulged, isolated, really narrow experience of the only son and heir of a great family, confined largely to the circle of his own friends—at the utmost his dependents. And the influence brought to bear on Darcy, with such telling effect, was his strong attachment to the bright, true-hearted girl who told him his faults so plainly, yet who could not alienate him, partly because of the single-heartedness of her nature, partly because of the elements of nobility in his. Love and his mistress, acting together on good principles which had been suffered to lie dormant, were Darcy’s teachers, and at twenty-eight such teachers are still powerful.
The gradual change of Elizabeth’s feelings towards Darcy is wrought out with great skill.
Darcy is so eager to fulfil his intention with regard to Elizabeth Bennet and his sister, that on the very afternoon of Georgiana’s arrival at home he drives her over to the inn in Lambton, where the Gardiners are staying.
Elizabeth has not been able to tell her uncle and aunt the compliment which she is to receive, and her confusion when the Pemberley livery is seen in the streets, together with the effort to be calm, impresses them with a new idea. There is no way to account for so marked attentions from such a quarter, unless by supposing a partiality for their niece—a supposition highly acceptable to the worthy uncle and aunt.
Elizabeth finds Miss Darcy, who is a ladylike girl, though not pretty, no alarming critic. She is shy instead of proud, but her shyness does not prevent her from being eager to like the friend her brother has presented to her.
A few minutes afterwards Bingley also “waits upon” Elizabeth, and is as friendly as of old. Her anger against him has vanished long ago. She is glad to see him again. She is pleased to fancy that he looks at her once or twice as if he were seeking to trace a resemblance between her and Jane. He is clearly on terms of simple friendship with Georgiana Darcy, for whom his sister, in complacently contemplating the possibility of a double family match, has designed him. And Elizabeth believes she detects a regretful remembrance in the tone in which he refers to its having been a long time since he has seen her. She approves of the promptness and exactness of the mental calculation which follows: “It is above eight months; we have not met since the 20th of November, when we were all dancing together at Netherfield.”
An invitation to dine at Pemberley follows. It is accepted with pleasure by the Gardiners, under the agreeable persuasion that Mr. Darcy is much better acquainted with Elizabeth than her friends had any idea of; in fact, that he is very much in love with her. Of the gentleman’s feelings there can be no doubt; with regard to the sentiments of the lady—whom her relatives do not choose to embarrass by pressing for her confidence on the great conquest of which she has been far from boasting—there is still an interesting uncertainty.
Once more in agitating circumstances Elizabeth visits Pemberley, in paying the return call which she and her aunt make upon Miss Darcy prior to the dinner.
Miss Darcy is as hospitable as her shyness will allow. Darcy comes in and shows how anxious he is that Elizabeth and his sister should get better acquainted.
Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst are the marplots. They greet Elizabeth with no more than a curtsey, till, in the imprudence of anger at the master of the house’s manner towards one of his guests, Caroline Bingley, who has been watching the pair jealously, calls out, “Pray, Miss Eliza, are not the ——shire militia removed from Meryton? They must be a great loss to your family.”
The impertinence stings more than one of the listeners, in a way which the speaker has never contemplated. The friend to whom Miss Bingley professes herself to be devoted, Georgiana Darcy, is yet more distressed than Elizabeth at the association with Wickham which the mention of the militia regiment calls up, while Darcy actually neglects to watch the effect of the malicious speech on Elizabeth, in his sympathy with his young sister.
The callers are no sooner gone than Miss Bingley expatiates on how ill Eliza Bennet is looking. She has never in her life seen any one so much altered. Eliza Bennet has grown quite brown and coarse.
Mr. Darcy confesses he has seen no alteration in Miss Elizabeth Bennet, save her being tanned—no miraculous consequence of travelling in summer.
The infatuated woman is not to be silenced. She pulls every feature of her successful rival’s face to pieces. Elizabeth’s face is too thin; her complexion has no brilliance; her nose lacks character; her eyes, which have been called fine, possess a sharp, shrewish look.
Darcy remains resolutely silent.
His assailant, unfortunately for herself, is determined he shall speak. “I remember when we first met in Hertfordshire,” she continues in an airy strain, “how amazed we all were to find that she was a reputed beauty;[15] and I particularly recollect your saying one night after they had been dining at Netherfield, ‘She a beauty! I should as soon call her mother a wit.’ But afterwards she seemed to improve on you, and I believe you thought her rather pretty at one time.”
“Yes,” replies Darcy, who can contain himself no longer, “but that was only when I first knew her, for it is many months since I have considered her one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance.”
Well done, Mr. Darcy! always fearless in announcing even a change of opinion, and now loyal to the absent, and true to your mistress’s colours!
A terrible catastrophe is at hand.
That dinner-party at Pemberley never takes place. Elizabeth has been expecting a letter from Jane, and wondering at its non-arrival.
The delay is explained by two letters coming at one time, and the Gardiners set out to visit some of Mrs. Gardiner’s old friends, leaving Elizabeth at the inn to go leisurely through the home news. They are of an alarming, disastrous description. Lydia has eloped from Brighton with Wickham. The worst reports are in circulation with regard to his debts and his disreputable character. The family at Longbourn are in the utmost distress. Mr. Bennet has followed the fugitive pair to London, where Mr. Gardiner is implored to join him. Elizabeth is summoned home immediately.
As Elizabeth reads the letters in the height of dismay, passionately lamenting what is likely to be the miserable fate of her youngest sister, keenly sensible of the disgrace brought on the whole family, bitterly blaming herself for having abstained from letting her circle know what she had heard against Wickham when she was at Hunsford, Mr. Darcy is shown into the room.
“Oh, where is my uncle?” Elizabeth has just been crying to herself, and she has no further words for her visitor than a hurried “I beg your pardon, but I must leave you. I must find Mr. Gardiner this moment, on business that cannot be delayed; I have not an instant to lose.”
Before he has time to think, he calls out, “What is the matter?” then begs to go himself, or to send a servant after Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. He fears she is ill. He cannot leave her in such a state. With the utmost gentleness and consideration he urges her to let him help her, to suffer him to call her maid, to get her a glass of wine.
Elizabeth is forced to explain herself. There is nothing wrong with her health. She is only grieved by dreadful tidings from Longbourn, and at the words she bursts into tears. After having said so much it is idle to withhold the rest of the truth; indeed, the scandal must be over the whole country soon.
Elizabeth tells Darcy her youngest sister has eloped and is in the power of Mr. Wickham. She breaks off to reproach herself anew. She might have prevented it, if she had but explained some part of what she had learnt to her family. But it is too late! too late! and Darcy might have said, “I told you so. The tables are turned with a vengeance.” But he is only amazed, sorry, shocked. At last he scarcely seems to see her, as he walks up and down the room in earnest thought, his brow contracted, his air gloomy.
Elizabeth observes and understands. Her power is sinking in the balance; everything must sink under such an overwhelming evidence of family weakness. “And never had she so honestly felt that she could have loved him as now, when all love must be vain.”
At last Darcy recollects himself, and with a voice which indicates compassion, but also restraint, excuses himself for intruding on her and staying so long. He would fain have helped her, but he will not torment her with vain wishes. He fears the unfortunate affair will prevent his sister’s having the pleasure of seeing her at Pemberley that day.
Elizabeth hastily acquiesces, begs him to apologise to Miss Darcy, and adds a miserable entreaty that he will conceal the unhappy truth as long as possible—she knows it cannot be long.
He readily assures her of his secrecy, again expresses his sorrow for her distress, wishes it a happier ending than seems probable, leaves his compliments for her relations, and with only one serious parting look, goes.
As Darcy quits the room, Elizabeth feels how improbable it is that they two will ever see each other again on the happy terms which have marked their meetings in Derbyshire. But though the consideration is full of pain, the loyal girl has no time to spare for her own loss, in the calamity[16] which has befallen her family.
The Gardiners, returning, are ready with the utmost sympathy and regret. They promise every assistance in their power, including the immediate escort of Elizabeth to Longbourn, after which Mr. Gardiner will join Mr. Bennet in London.
“But what is to be done about Pemberley?” exclaims Mrs. Gardiner. “John told us Mr. Darcy was here when you sent for us. Was it so?”
“Yes; and I told him we should not be able to keep our engagement; that is all settled,” cries Elizabeth, hurrying out of the room in a fever to set off.
“What, is all settled?” repeats the other; “and are they on such terms as for her to disclose the real truth? If I only knew how it is!”