Chapter 12
As soon as they were gone, Elizabeth walked out to
recover her spirits; or, in other words, to dwell without
interruption on those subjects that must deaden them more. Mr.
Darcy’s behaviour astonished and vexed her.
“Why, if he came only to be silent, grave, and
indifferent,” said she, “did he come at all?”
She could settle it in no way that gave her
pleasure.
“He could be still amiable, still pleasing to my
uncle and aunt, when he was in town; and why not to me? If he fears
me, why come hither? If he no longer cares for me, why silent?
Teasing, teasing man! I will think no more about him.”
Her resolution was for a short time involuntarily
kept by the approach of her sister, who joined her with a cheerful
look which showed her better satisfied with their visitors than
Elizabeth.
“Now,” said she, “that this first meeting is over,
I feel perfectly easy. I know my own strength, and I shall never be
embarrassed again by his coming. I am glad he dines here on
Tuesday. It will then be publicly seen, that on both sides we met
only as common and indifferent acquaintance.”
“Yes, very indifferent, indeed,” said Elizabeth,
laughingly. “Oh, Jane! take care.”
“My dear Lizzy, you cannot think me so weak as to
be in danger now.”
“I think you are in very great danger of making him
as much in love with you as ever.”
They did not see the gentlemen again till Tuesday;
and Mrs. Bennet, in the mean while, was giving way to all the happy
schemes which the good-humour and common politeness of Bingley, in
half an hour’s visit, had revived.
On Tuesday there was a large party assembled at
Longbourn; and the two who were most anxiously expected, to the
credit of their punctuality as sportsmen, were in very good time.
When they repaired to the dining-room, Elizabeth eagerly watched to
see whether Bingley would take the place which, in all their former
parties, had belonged to him, by her sister. Her prudent mother,
occupied by the same ideas, forbore to invite him to sit by
herself. On entering the room, he seemed to hesitate; but Jane
happened to look round, and happened to smile: it was decided. He
placed himself by her.
Elizabeth, with a triumphant sensation, looked
towards his friend. He bore it with noble indifference; and she
would have imagined that Bingley had received his sanction to be
happy, had she not seen his eyes likewise turned towards Mr. Darcy,
with an expression of half-laughing alarm.
His behaviour to her sister was such during
dinner-time as showed an admiration of her, which, though more
guarded than formerly, persuaded Elizabeth, that, if left wholly to
himself, Jane’s happiness, and his own, would be speedily secured.
Though she dared not depend upon the consequence, she yet received
pleasure from observing his behaviour. It gave her all the
animation that her spirits could boast; for she was in no cheerful
humour. Mr. Darcy was almost as far from her as the table could
divide them. He was on one side of her mother. She knew how little
such a situation would give pleasure to either, or make either
appear to advantage. She was not near enough to hear any of their
discourse; but she could see how seldom they spoke to each other,
and how formal and cold was their manner whenever they did. Her
mother’s ungraciousness made the sense of what they owed him more
painful to Elizabeth’s mind; and she would, at times, have given
any thing to be privileged to tell him, that his kindness was
neither unknown nor unfelt by the whole of the family.
She was in hopes that the evening would afford some
opportunity of bringing them together; that the whole of the visit
would not pass away without enabling them to enter into something
more of conversation, than the mere ceremonious salutation
attending his entrance. Anxious and uneasy, the period which passed
in the drawing-room, before the gentlemen came, was wearisome and
dull to a degree that almost made her uncivil. She looked forward
to their entrance as the point on which all her chance of pleasure
for the evening must depend.
“If he does not come to me, then,” said she,
“I shall give him up for ever.”
The gentlemen came; and she thought he looked as if
he would have answered her hopes; but, alas! the ladies had crowded
round the table, where Miss Bennet was making tea, and Elizabeth
pouring out the coffee, in so close a confederacy, that there was
not a single vacancy near her which would admit of a chair. And on
the gentlemen’s approaching, one of the girls moved closer to her
than ever, and said, in a whisper,—
“The men shan’t come and part us, I am determined.
We want none of them; do we?”
Darcy had walked away to another part of the room.
She followed him with her eyes, envied every one to whom he spoke,
had scarcely patience enough to help any body to coffee, and then
was enraged against herself for being so silly!
“A man who has once been refused! How could I ever
be foolish enough to expect a renewal of his love? Is there one
among the sex who would not protest against such a weakness as a
second proposal to the same woman? There is no indignity so
abhorrent to their feelings!”
She was a little revived, however, by his bringing
back his coffee cup himself; and she seized the opportunity of
saying,—
“Is your sister at Pemberley still?”
“Yes; she will remain there till Christmas.”
“And quite alone? Have all her friends left
her?”
“Mrs. Annesley is with her. The others have been
gone on to Scarboroughbm these
three weeks.”
She could think of nothing more to say; but if he
wished to converse with her, he might have better success. He stood
by her, however, for some minutes, in silence; and, at last, on the
young lady’s whispering to Elizabeth again, he walked away.
When the tea things were removed, and the card
tables placed, the ladies all rose, and Elizabeth was then hoping
to be soon joined by him, when all her views were overthrown, by
seeing him fall a victim to her mother’s rapacity for whist
players, and in a few moments after seated with the rest of the
party. She now lost every expectation of pleasure. They were
confined for the evening at different tables, and she had nothing
to hope, but that his eyes were so often turned towards her side of
the room, as to make him play as unsuccessfully as herself.
Mrs. Bennet had designed to keep the two
Netherfield gentlemen to supper; but their carriage was, unluckily,
ordered before any of the others, and she had no opportunity of
detaining them.
“Well, girls,” said she, as soon as they were left
to themselves, “what say you to the day? I think every thing has
passed off uncommonly well, I assure you. The dinner was as well
dressed as any I ever saw. The venison was roasted to a turn—and
every body said, they never saw so fat a haunch. The soup was fifty
times better than what we had at the Lucases last week; and even
Mr. Darcy acknowledged, that the partridges were remarkably well
done; and I suppose he has two or three French cooks at least. And,
my dear Jane, I never saw you look in greater beauty. Mrs. Long
said so too, for I asked her whether you did not. And what do you
think she said besides?
“ ‘Ah! Mrs. Bennet, we shall have her at
Netherfield at last!’ She did, indeed. I do think Mrs. Long is as
good a creature as ever lived—and her nieces are very pretty
behaved girls, and not at all handsome: I like them
prodigiously.”
Mrs. Bennet, in short, was in very great spirits:
she had seen enough of Bingley’s behaviour to Jane to be convinced
that she would get him at last; and her expectations of advantage
to her family, when in a happy humour, were so far beyond reason,
that she was quite disappointed at not seeing him there again the
next day to make his proposals.
“It has been a very agreeable day,” said Miss
Bennet to Elizabeth. “The party seemed so well selected, so
suitable one with the other. I hope we may often meet again.”
Elizabeth smiled.
“Lizzy, you must not do so. You must not suspect
me. It mortifies me. I assure you that I have now learnt to enjoy
his conversation as an agreeable and sensible young man, without
having a wish beyond it. I am perfectly satisfied, from what his
manners now are, that he never had any design of engaging my
affection. It is only that he is blessed with greater sweetness of
address, and a stronger desire of generally pleasing, than any
other man.”
“You are very cruel,” said her sister, “you will
not let me smile, and are provoking me to it every moment.”
“How hard it is in some cases to be
believed!”
“And how impossible in others!”
“But why should you wish to persuade me that I feel
more than I acknowledge?”
“That is a question which I hardly know how to
answer. We all love to instruct, though we can teach only what is
not worth knowing. Forgive me; and if you persist in indifference,
do not make me your confidante.”