The day passed much as the day before had done. Mrs. Hurst and Miss
Bingley had spent some hours of the morning with the invalid, who
continued, though slowly, to mend; and in the evening Elizabeth joined
their party in the drawing-room. The loo-table, however, did not appear.
Mr. Darcy was writing, and Miss Bingley, seated near him, was watching the
progress of his letter and repeatedly calling off his attention by
messages to his sister. Mr. Hurst and Mr. Bingley were at piquet, and Mrs.
Hurst was observing their game.🔗
Elizabeth took up some needlework, and was sufficiently amused in
attending to what passed between Darcy and his companion. The perpetual
commendations of the lady, either on his handwriting, or on the evenness
of his lines, or on the length of his letter, with the perfect unconcern
with which her praises were received, formed a curious dialogue, and was
exactly in union with her opinion of each.🔗
“How delighted Miss Darcy will be to receive such a letter!”🔗
He made no answer.🔗
“You write uncommonly fast.”🔗
“You are mistaken. I write rather slowly.”🔗
“How many letters you must have occasion to write in the course of a year!
Letters of business, too! How odious I should think them!”🔗
“It is fortunate, then, that they fall to my lot instead of yours.”🔗
“Pray tell your sister that I long to see her.”🔗
“I have already told her so once, by your desire.”🔗
“I am afraid you do not like your pen. Let me mend it for you. I mend pens
remarkably well.”🔗
“Thank you—but I always mend my own.”🔗
“How can you contrive to write so even?”🔗
He was silent.🔗
“Tell your sister I am delighted to hear of her improvement on the harp;
and pray let her know that I am quite in raptures with her beautiful
little design for a table, and I think it infinitely superior to Miss
Grantley’s.”🔗
“Will you give me leave to defer your raptures till I write again? At
present I have not room to do them justice.”🔗
“Oh! it is of no consequence. I shall see her in January. But do you
always write such charming long letters to her, Mr. Darcy?”🔗
“They are generally long; but whether always charming it is not for me to
determine.”🔗
“It is a rule with me, that a person who can write a long letter with
ease, cannot write ill.”🔗
“That will not do for a compliment to Darcy, Caroline,” cried her brother,
“because he does not write with ease. He studies too much for words
of four syllables. Do not you, Darcy?”🔗
“My style of writing is very different from yours.”🔗
“Oh!” cried Miss Bingley, “Charles writes in the most careless way
imaginable. He leaves out half his words, and blots the rest.”🔗
“My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them—by
which means my letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my
correspondents.”🔗
“Your humility, Mr. Bingley,” said Elizabeth, “must disarm reproof.”🔗
“Nothing is more deceitful,” said Darcy, “than the appearance of humility.
It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect
boast.”🔗
“And which of the two do you call my little recent piece of
modesty?”🔗
“The indirect boast; for you are really proud of your defects in writing,
because you consider them as proceeding from a rapidity of thought and
carelessness of execution, which, if not estimable, you think at least
highly interesting. The power of doing anything with quickness is always
prized much by the possessor, and often without any attention to the
imperfection of the performance. When you told Mrs. Bennet this morning
that if you ever resolved upon quitting Netherfield you should be gone in
five minutes, you meant it to be a sort of panegyric, of compliment to
yourself—and yet what is there so very laudable in a precipitance
which must leave very necessary business undone, and can be of no real
advantage to yourself or anyone else?”🔗
“Nay,” cried Bingley, “this is too much, to remember at night all the
foolish things that were said in the morning. And yet, upon my honour, I
believe what I said of myself to be true, and I believe it at this moment.
At least, therefore, I did not assume the character of needless
precipitance merely to show off before the ladies.”🔗
“I dare say you believed it; but I am by no means convinced that you would
be gone with such celerity. Your conduct would be quite as dependent on
chance as that of any man I know; and if, as you were mounting your horse,
a friend were to say, ‘Bingley, you had better stay till next week,’ you
would probably do it, you would probably not go—and at another word,
might stay a month.”🔗
“You have only proved by this,” cried Elizabeth, “that Mr. Bingley did not
do justice to his own disposition. You have shown him off now much more
than he did himself.”🔗
“I am exceedingly gratified,” said Bingley, “by your converting what my
friend says into a compliment on the sweetness of my temper. But I am
afraid you are giving it a turn which that gentleman did by no means
intend; for he would certainly think better of me, if under such a
circumstance I were to give a flat denial, and ride off as fast as I
could.”🔗
“Would Mr. Darcy then consider the rashness of your original intentions as
atoned for by your obstinacy in adhering to it?”🔗
“Upon my word, I cannot exactly explain the matter; Darcy must speak for
himself.”🔗
“You expect me to account for opinions which you choose to call mine, but
which I have never acknowledged. Allowing the case, however, to stand
according to your representation, you must remember, Miss Bennet, that the
friend who is supposed to desire his return to the house, and the delay of
his plan, has merely desired it, asked it without offering one argument in
favour of its propriety.”🔗
“To yield readily—easily—to the persuasion of a friend
is no merit with you.”🔗
“To yield without conviction is no compliment to the understanding of
either.”🔗
“You appear to me, Mr. Darcy, to allow nothing for the influence of
friendship and affection. A regard for the requester would often make one
readily yield to a request, without waiting for arguments to reason one
into it. I am not particularly speaking of such a case as you have
supposed about Mr. Bingley. We may as well wait, perhaps, till the
circumstance occurs before we discuss the discretion of his behaviour
thereupon. But in general and ordinary cases between friend and friend,
where one of them is desired by the other to change a resolution of no
very great moment, should you think ill of that person for complying with
the desire, without waiting to be argued into it?”🔗
“Will it not be advisable, before we proceed on this subject, to arrange
with rather more precision the degree of importance which is to appertain
to this request, as well as the degree of intimacy subsisting between the
parties?”🔗
“By all means,” cried Bingley; “let us hear all the particulars, not
forgetting their comparative height and size; for that will have more
weight in the argument, Miss Bennet, than you may be aware of. I assure
you, that if Darcy were not such a great tall fellow, in comparison with
myself, I should not pay him half so much deference. I declare I do not
know a more awful object than Darcy, on particular occasions, and in
particular places; at his own house especially, and of a Sunday evening,
when he has nothing to do.”🔗
Mr. Darcy smiled; but Elizabeth thought she could perceive that he was
rather offended, and therefore checked her laugh. Miss Bingley warmly
resented the indignity he had received, in an expostulation with her
brother for talking such nonsense.🔗
“I see your design, Bingley,” said his friend. “You dislike an argument,
and want to silence this.”🔗
“Perhaps I do. Arguments are too much like disputes. If you and Miss
Bennet will defer yours till I am out of the room, I shall be very
thankful; and then you may say whatever you like of me.”🔗
“What you ask,” said Elizabeth, “is no sacrifice on my side; and Mr. Darcy
had much better finish his letter.”🔗
Mr. Darcy took her advice, and did finish his letter.🔗
When that business was over, he applied to Miss Bingley and Elizabeth for
an indulgence of some music. Miss Bingley moved with some alacrity to the
pianoforte; and, after a polite request that Elizabeth would lead the way
which the other as politely and more earnestly negatived, she seated
herself.🔗
Mrs. Hurst sang with her sister, and while they were thus employed,
Elizabeth could not help observing, as she turned over some music-books
that lay on the instrument, how frequently Mr. Darcy’s eyes were fixed on
her. She hardly knew how to suppose that she could be an object of
admiration to so great a man; and yet that he should look at her because
he disliked her, was still more strange. She could only imagine, however,
at last that she drew his notice because there was something more wrong
and reprehensible, according to his ideas of right, than in any other
person present. The supposition did not pain her. She liked him too little
to care for his approbation.🔗
After playing some Italian songs, Miss Bingley varied the charm by a
lively Scotch air; and soon afterwards Mr. Darcy, drawing near Elizabeth,
said to her:🔗
“Do not you feel a great inclination, Miss Bennet, to seize such an
opportunity of dancing a reel?”🔗
She smiled, but made no answer. He repeated the question, with some
surprise at her silence.🔗
“Oh!” said she, “I heard you before, but I could not immediately determine
what to say in reply. You wanted me, I know, to say ‘Yes,’ that you might
have the pleasure of despising my taste; but I always delight in
overthrowing those kind of schemes, and cheating a person of their
premeditated contempt. I have, therefore, made up my mind to tell you,
that I do not want to dance a reel at all—and now despise me if you
dare.”🔗
“Indeed I do not dare.”🔗
Elizabeth, having rather expected to affront him, was amazed at his
gallantry; but there was a mixture of sweetness and archness in her manner
which made it difficult for her to affront anybody; and Darcy had never
been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her. He really believed, that
were it not for the inferiority of her connections, he should be in some
danger.🔗
Miss Bingley saw, or suspected enough to be jealous; and her great anxiety
for the recovery of her dear friend Jane received some assistance from her
desire of getting rid of Elizabeth.🔗
She often tried to provoke Darcy into disliking her guest, by talking of
their supposed marriage, and planning his happiness in such an alliance.🔗
“I hope,” said she, as they were walking together in the shrubbery the
next day, “you will give your mother-in-law a few hints, when this
desirable event takes place, as to the advantage of holding her tongue;
and if you can compass it, do cure the younger girls of running after
officers. And, if I may mention so delicate a subject, endeavour to check
that little something, bordering on conceit and impertinence, which your
lady possesses.”🔗
“Have you anything else to propose for my domestic felicity?”🔗
“Oh! yes. Do let the portraits of your uncle and aunt Phillips be placed
in the gallery at Pemberley. Put them next to your great-uncle the judge.
They are in the same profession, you know, only in different lines. As for
your Elizabeth’s picture, you must not have it taken, for what painter
could do justice to those beautiful eyes?”🔗
“It would not be easy, indeed, to catch their expression, but their colour
and shape, and the eyelashes, so remarkably fine, might be copied.”🔗
At that moment they were met from another walk by Mrs. Hurst and Elizabeth
herself.🔗
“I did not know that you intended to walk,” said Miss Bingley, in some
confusion, lest they had been overheard.🔗
“You used us abominably ill,” answered Mrs. Hurst, “running away without
telling us that you were coming out.”🔗
Then taking the disengaged arm of Mr. Darcy, she left Elizabeth to walk by
herself. The path just admitted three. Mr. Darcy felt their rudeness, and
immediately said:🔗
“This walk is not wide enough for our party. We had better go into the
avenue.”🔗
But Elizabeth, who had not the least inclination to remain with them,
laughingly answered:🔗
“No, no; stay where you are. You are charmingly grouped, and appear to
uncommon advantage. The picturesque would be spoilt by admitting a fourth.
Good-bye.”🔗
She then ran gaily off, rejoicing as she rambled about, in the hope of
being at home again in a day or two. Jane was already so much recovered as
to intend leaving her room for a couple of hours that evening.🔗