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.”