Instead of receiving any such letter of excuse from his friend, as
Elizabeth half expected Mr. Bingley to do, he was able to bring Darcy with
him to Longbourn before many days had passed after Lady Catherine’s visit.
The gentlemen arrived early; and, before Mrs. Bennet had time to tell him
of their having seen his aunt, of which her daughter sat in momentary
dread, Bingley, who wanted to be alone with Jane, proposed their all
walking out. It was agreed to. Mrs. Bennet was not in the habit of
walking; Mary could never spare time; but the remaining five set off
together. Bingley and Jane, however, soon allowed the others to outstrip
them. They lagged behind, while Elizabeth, Kitty, and Darcy were to
entertain each other. Very little was said by either; Kitty was too much
afraid of him to talk; Elizabeth was secretly forming a desperate
resolution; and perhaps he might be doing the same.🔗
They walked towards the Lucases, because Kitty wished to call upon Maria;
and as Elizabeth saw no occasion for making it a general concern, when
Kitty left them she went boldly on with him alone. Now was the moment for
her resolution to be executed, and, while her courage was high, she
immediately said:🔗
“Mr. Darcy, I am a very selfish creature; and, for the sake of giving
relief to my own feelings, care not how much I may be wounding yours. I
can no longer help thanking you for your unexampled kindness to my poor
sister. Ever since I have known it, I have been most anxious to
acknowledge to you how gratefully I feel it. Were it known to the rest of
my family, I should not have merely my own gratitude to express.”🔗
“I am sorry, exceedingly sorry,” replied Darcy, in a tone of surprise and
emotion, “that you have ever been informed of what may, in a mistaken
light, have given you uneasiness. I did not think Mrs. Gardiner was so
little to be trusted.”🔗
“You must not blame my aunt. Lydia’s thoughtlessness first betrayed to me
that you had been concerned in the matter; and, of course, I could not
rest till I knew the particulars. Let me thank you again and again, in the
name of all my family, for that generous compassion which induced you to
take so much trouble, and bear so many mortifications, for the sake of
discovering them.”🔗
“If you will thank me,” he replied, “let it be for yourself alone.
That the wish of giving happiness to you might add force to the other
inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your family
owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of you.”🔗
Elizabeth was too much embarrassed to say a word. After a short pause, her
companion added, “You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings
are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My
affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me
on this subject for ever.”🔗
Elizabeth, feeling all the more than common awkwardness and anxiety of his
situation, now forced herself to speak; and immediately, though not very
fluently, gave him to understand that her sentiments had undergone so
material a change, since the period to which he alluded, as to make her
receive with gratitude and pleasure his present assurances. The happiness
which this reply produced, was such as he had probably never felt before;
and he expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as warmly as a
man violently in love can be supposed to do. Had Elizabeth been able to
encounter his eye, she might have seen how well the expression of
heartfelt delight, diffused over his face, became him; but, though she
could not look, she could listen, and he told her of feelings, which, in
proving of what importance she was to him, made his affection every moment
more valuable.🔗
They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to
be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects. She
soon learnt that they were indebted for their present good understanding
to the efforts of his aunt, who did call on him in her return through
London, and there relate her journey to Longbourn, its motive, and the
substance of her conversation with Elizabeth; dwelling emphatically on
every expression of the latter which, in her ladyship’s apprehension,
peculiarly denoted her perverseness and assurance; in the belief that such
a relation must assist her endeavours to obtain that promise from her
nephew which she had refused to give. But, unluckily for her ladyship, its
effect had been exactly contrariwise.🔗
“It taught me to hope,” said he, “as I had scarcely ever allowed myself to
hope before. I knew enough of your disposition to be certain that, had you
been absolutely, irrevocably decided against me, you would have
acknowledged it to Lady Catherine, frankly and openly.”🔗
Elizabeth coloured and laughed as she replied, “Yes, you know enough of my
frankness to believe me capable of that. After abusing you so
abominably to your face, I could have no scruple in abusing you to all
your relations.”🔗
“What did you say of me, that I did not deserve? For, though your
accusations were ill-founded, formed on mistaken premises, my behaviour to
you at the time had merited the severest reproof. It was unpardonable. I
cannot think of it without abhorrence.”🔗
“We will not quarrel for the greater share of blame annexed to that
evening,” said Elizabeth. “The conduct of neither, if strictly examined,
will be irreproachable; but since then, we have both, I hope, improved in
civility.”🔗
“I cannot be so easily reconciled to myself. The recollection of what I
then said, of my conduct, my manners, my expressions during the whole of
it, is now, and has been many months, inexpressibly painful to me. Your
reproof, so well applied, I shall never forget: ‘had you behaved in a more
gentlemanlike manner.’ Those were your words. You know not, you can
scarcely conceive, how they have tortured me;—though it was some
time, I confess, before I was reasonable enough to allow their justice.”🔗
“I was certainly very far from expecting them to make so strong an
impression. I had not the smallest idea of their being ever felt in such a
way.”🔗
“I can easily believe it. You thought me then devoid of every proper
feeling, I am sure you did. The turn of your countenance I shall never
forget, as you said that I could not have addressed you in any possible
way that would induce you to accept me.”🔗
“Oh! do not repeat what I then said. These recollections will not do at
all. I assure you that I have long been most heartily ashamed of it.”🔗
Darcy mentioned his letter. “Did it,” said he, “did it soon make you think
better of me? Did you, on reading it, give any credit to its contents?”🔗
She explained what its effect on her had been, and how gradually all her
former prejudices had been removed.🔗
“I knew,” said he, “that what I wrote must give you pain, but it was
necessary. I hope you have destroyed the letter. There was one part
especially, the opening of it, which I should dread your having the power
of reading again. I can remember some expressions which might justly make
you hate me.”🔗
“The letter shall certainly be burnt, if you believe it essential to the
preservation of my regard; but, though we have both reason to think my
opinions not entirely unalterable, they are not, I hope, quite so easily
changed as that implies.”🔗
“When I wrote that letter,” replied Darcy, “I believed myself perfectly
calm and cool, but I am since convinced that it was written in a dreadful
bitterness of spirit.”🔗
“The letter, perhaps, began in bitterness, but it did not end so. The
adieu is charity itself. But think no more of the letter. The feelings of
the person who wrote, and the person who received it, are now so widely
different from what they were then, that every unpleasant circumstance
attending it ought to be forgotten. You must learn some of my philosophy.
Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”🔗
“I cannot give you credit for any philosophy of the kind. Your
retrospections must be so totally void of reproach, that the contentment
arising from them is not of philosophy, but, what is much better, of
innocence. But with me, it is not so. Painful recollections will intrude
which cannot, which ought not, to be repelled. I have been a selfish being
all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child I was taught
what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given
good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit.
Unfortunately an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoilt by
my parents, who, though good themselves (my father, particularly, all that
was benevolent and amiable), allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be
selfish and overbearing; to care for none beyond my own family circle; to
think meanly of all the rest of the world; to wish at least to think
meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I was, from
eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been but for you,
dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a
lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was
properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You
showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman
worthy of being pleased.”🔗
“Had you then persuaded yourself that I should?”🔗
“Indeed I had. What will you think of my vanity? I believed you to be
wishing, expecting my addresses.”🔗
“My manners must have been in fault, but not intentionally, I assure you.
I never meant to deceive you, but my spirits might often lead me wrong.
How you must have hated me after that evening?”🔗
“Hate you! I was angry perhaps at first, but my anger soon began to take a
proper direction.”🔗
“I am almost afraid of asking what you thought of me, when we met at
Pemberley. You blamed me for coming?”🔗
“No indeed; I felt nothing but surprise.”🔗
“Your surprise could not be greater than mine in being noticed by
you. My conscience told me that I deserved no extraordinary politeness,
and I confess that I did not expect to receive more than my due.”🔗
“My object then,” replied Darcy, “was to show you, by every civility in my
power, that I was not so mean as to resent the past; and I hoped to obtain
your forgiveness, to lessen your ill opinion, by letting you see that your
reproofs had been attended to. How soon any other wishes introduced
themselves I can hardly tell, but I believe in about half an hour after I
had seen you.”🔗
He then told her of Georgiana’s delight in her acquaintance, and of her
disappointment at its sudden interruption; which naturally leading to the
cause of that interruption, she soon learnt that his resolution of
following her from Derbyshire in quest of her sister had been formed
before he quitted the inn, and that his gravity and thoughtfulness there
had arisen from no other struggles than what such a purpose must
comprehend.🔗
She expressed her gratitude again, but it was too painful a subject to
each, to be dwelt on farther.🔗
After walking several miles in a leisurely manner, and too busy to know
anything about it, they found at last, on examining their watches, that it
was time to be at home.🔗
“What could become of Mr. Bingley and Jane!” was a wonder which introduced
the discussion of their affairs. Darcy was delighted with their
engagement; his friend had given him the earliest information of it.🔗
“I must ask whether you were surprised?” said Elizabeth.🔗
“Not at all. When I went away, I felt that it would soon happen.”🔗
“That is to say, you had given your permission. I guessed as much.” And
though he exclaimed at the term, she found that it had been pretty much
the case.🔗
“On the evening before my going to London,” said he, “I made a confession
to him, which I believe I ought to have made long ago. I told him of all
that had occurred to make my former interference in his affairs absurd and
impertinent. His surprise was great. He had never had the slightest
suspicion. I told him, moreover, that I believed myself mistaken in
supposing, as I had done, that your sister was indifferent to him; and as
I could easily perceive that his attachment to her was unabated, I felt no
doubt of their happiness together.”🔗
Elizabeth could not help smiling at his easy manner of directing his
friend.🔗
“Did you speak from your own observation,” said she, “when you told him
that my sister loved him, or merely from my information last spring?”🔗
“From the former. I had narrowly observed her during the two visits which
I had lately made here; and I was convinced of her affection.”🔗
“And your assurance of it, I suppose, carried immediate conviction to
him.”🔗
“It did. Bingley is most unaffectedly modest. His diffidence had prevented
his depending on his own judgment in so anxious a case, but his reliance
on mine made every thing easy. I was obliged to confess one thing, which
for a time, and not unjustly, offended him. I could not allow myself to
conceal that your sister had been in town three months last winter, that I
had known it, and purposely kept it from him. He was angry. But his anger,
I am persuaded, lasted no longer than he remained in any doubt of your
sister’s sentiments. He has heartily forgiven me now.”🔗
Elizabeth longed to observe that Mr. Bingley had been a most delightful
friend; so easily guided that his worth was invaluable; but she checked
herself. She remembered that he had yet to learn to be laughed at, and it
was rather too early to begin. In anticipating the happiness of Bingley,
which of course was to be inferior only to his own, he continued the
conversation till they reached the house. In the hall they parted.🔗