Part 6

A rousing report had gone beforehand through the ball-goers that the already popular Mr. Bingley was to crown his popularity by attending the assembly, and bringing with him twelve ladies and six gentlemen. The reality falls short of the rumour, but there is consolation to the belles of the place in the dwindling down of the dozen strange ladies into Mr. Bingley’s two sisters, one married and one unmarried, even though the six gentlemen also fade away into a couple, one of whom is Mr. Hurst, the husband of Mr. Bingley’s married sister. But for half the time the ball lasts the other gentleman makes up for every defalcation, and is a power in himself. He is not only a tall, handsome, distinguished-looking young man, he is also discovered to be allied to the peerage, and to possess a large estate in Derbyshire, with an unencumbered rent-roll of ten thousand a-year--and here gossips’ tongues do not wag too wildly.

But the exultation over such a guest is soon damped by his cold, reserved manners. The stranger dances once with Mrs. Hurst and once with Miss Bingley, speaks only to the members of his own party, and declines any introductions. And Meryton is spirited enough to resent the inference. If Mr. Darcy considers himself above his company, the company decline any further homage to his air and figure--even to his estate in Derbyshire.

In fact, Mr. Darcy is clever, proud, fastidious--conceiving himself entitled by his many undeniable advantages, which, however, he does not wear generously and genially, to his pride and fastidiousness.

A man in a similar position may very well be tempted to corresponding faults still, but even with a later code of manners disfigured by laziness, self-indulgence, and superciliousness, such arrogant haughtiness as Darcy betrayed, could hardly now be entertained by a man of Darcy’s sense and worth, and even if entertained, would no longer be openly exhibited in modern society. Local magnates were formerly permitted the tone of small sovereigns, and even when they were from home they were not required to come down from the heights of their overweening dignity and exclusiveness.

It is at so early a stage of their acquaintance as this important Meryton assembly that Bingley, accessible and agreeable to everybody, and dancing every dance, as a young man ought, shows his admiration of the sweet young beauty of the room--Jane Bennet, of Longbourn--by distinguishing her among his partners. He dances twice--one may say four times, with her--for we must remember that the old social, quaintly-performed, quaintly-named country dances were generally arranged in double sets. The couple who danced down the first were landed, so to speak, at the bottom of the second, up which they had to work their way, and then dance down a second time. A very respectable portion of time was thus employed. There were natural and graceful opportunities afforded for making friends, and for engaging, while still in a crowd, unexposed to invidious notice and comment, in cheerful or sentimental, more or less brilliant conversation _à deux_, but not so much _à deux_ that the speakers could not fall apart and talk by way of variety to the ladies and gentlemen, whom the couple were pretty sure to know, standing above and below them in the set. Jane Austen repeatedly uses these country dances as a means to the speedy acquaintance of her young people. We have it on record that she herself had a hearty enjoyment in dancing, and was, like Anna Maria Porter and Susannah Blamire, a proficient in what was then held a peculiarly elegant accomplishment for a young lady. She was not, therefore, likely to undervalue the merely graceful exercise of dancing. Still, dancing must have been to her, as no doubt it was to her heroes and heroines, a fitting excuse for conversation--sensible as well as sprightly, serious enough sometimes, without any consciousness of incongruity in being in earnest in the middle of a country dance.

I may be told that there is an ample and better provision for a _tête à tête_ in the conspicuous or the secluded saunter between the rapid whirls of round dances, but to my mind the earlier mode was the more daintily decorous, the freer from compromise, not to say the more social. One is tempted to wish back again the old English country dances, in which fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, often stood up in the same dance, and went with merry method through the intricate mazes with the suggestive names, “The White Cockade,” dating from the Jacobite rebellion, “The Wind that Shook the Barley,” of Irish origin, “The Country Bumpkin,” an English measure, “Petronella” and the “Boulanger,” like the Cotillon, of French descent. Will they not return, with the Queen Anne furniture and the Gainsborough costumes, and take their places along with the time-honoured “Sir Roger de Coverley?”

Mr. Bingley’s promising preference for Jane Bennet in these significant four dances is artlessly enough hailed by all her friends and neighbours, and ingenuously owned by herself to her dear sister and confidante, Lizzy.

It is at this ball, too, that Darcy makes that slighting speech within earshot of Elizabeth, which starts their acquaintance on an entirely wrong footing.

Elizabeth Bennet, with her own unapproachable gifts of eyes, and tongue, and toes, is a belle only second to her sister, and it is an unwonted experience for her to be sitting down during a couple of dances for lack of a partner. As if that were not enough, she has the mortification of hearing the repulse given to the well-disposed but rash assault which Bingley at that moment makes on his impracticable friend standing near her.

“Come, Darcy,” cries the amiable, indefatigable dancer, “I must have you dance. I hate to have you standing about by yourself in this stupid manner. You had much better dance.”

“I certainly shall not,” declines Darcy. “You know how I detest it, unless I am particularly acquainted with my partner.” He adds that Bingley’s sisters are engaged, and that there is not another woman in the room with whom it would not be a punishment to him to stand up.

Bingley cries out at his friend’s fastidiousness, and maintains he has never met so many pleasant girls in his life as on that evening, and there are several of them uncommonly pretty.

“You are dancing with the only handsome girl in the room,” says Darcy, looking at the eldest Miss Bennet.

“Oh! she is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld,” vows Bingley, with effusion. “But there is one of her sisters sitting down just behind you who is very pretty, and I daresay very agreeable. Do let me ask my partner to introduce you.”

“Which do you mean?” asks Darcy, and, turning round, he looks for a moment at Elizabeth, till, catching her eye, he withdraws his own, and coldly says, “She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me, and I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other young men. You had better return to your partner, and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your time with me.”

Was ever heroine so put down in her own hearing? Elizabeth, we are told, remains with no very cordial feelings towards the offender, but, being the bright young girl she is, she makes stock of the incident by telling the story with great spirit among her friends; and for the superb Mr. Darcy there is a proper punishment preparing.

Mr. Bingley’s sisters are drawn with a few fine touches. They are fashionable, stylish-looking women, each possessing a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. They have a great opinion of their own claims, and a corresponding disdain of what they reckon the greatly inferior claims of others. With all their polish and _savoir faire_, which enable them to be entertaining when they like, they are always arrogant and ill-bred, and can be insolent when provoked.

Yet even Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley are attracted by beautiful, gentle Jane Bennet, and drawn into the semblance of a friendship for her. They are too independent and too far removed, as they conceive, from such rivalry, to experience any jealousy, or to take alarm on their brother’s account, till matters have gone a considerable length between Bingley and Jane.

Among other minor characters in the book are the Lucas family, who occupy the next county house, and are the nearest neighbours of the Bennets, and on intimate terms with them. Charlotte Lucas, the eldest daughter, a plain-looking, but sensible and agreeable young woman of seven and twenty, is Elizabeth Bennet’s great friend after her sister Jane. Charlotte’s father, Sir William, has been in trade, from which he has retired on the accident of receiving the honour of knighthood. He was always civil and obliging, and from the great era in his life he became elaborately courteous, with _bourgeois_ fine manners. He is profuse in good-natured--sometimes _mal-à-propos_--compliments. Thus, at a large party at Lucas Lodge, the host blandly praises Darcy--for his dancing of all things, and then, struck with the notion of doing a gallant thing, arrests Elizabeth Bennet, who is passing them: “My dear Miss Eliza, why are not you dancing? Mr. Darcy, you must allow me to present this young lady to you as a very desirable partner. You cannot refuse to dance, I am sure, when so much beauty is at hand.”

Have we not all known, at some period in our lives, the well-intentioned, obtuse, complacent, slightly Brummagem Sir William, who can be terrible, without the slightest suspicion of it, on occasions?

Elizabeth draws back, and refuses the partner very decidedly, and her resistance does her no harm with the gentleman, though he has really not been unwilling to lend himself to Sir William’s clumsy move.

In truth, the stately, grave Mr. Darcy, after refusing to see anything worth the trouble of bestowing his notice in Elizabeth Bennet--after taking the greatest pains to convince all his party that she has not got a good feature in her face--becomes keenly alive to the charm of that face, and captivated by the animation and archness which neither fear his censure nor solicit his favour. For Elizabeth simply regards him as the man who makes himself disagreeable everywhere, and who has spoken slightingly of herself. She is happily careless of his pretensions. What are his birth, estate, intellect, and person to her? With her it is “handsome is that handsome does.”

And Darcy, with all his faults, has enough sterling manliness and merit to be not piqued, but strangely attracted by her easy indifference to his worldly advantages, combined as it is with the girl’s quick intelligence and happy, winning playfulness.

We appreciate, too, the independent spirit which causes Darcy to make no secret of his change of opinion; not that it is a matter of much consequence to his mind, for a Darcy of Pemberley can never lower himself in his own eyes, or those of his world, by marrying the daughter of a poor, second-rate country gentleman, whose wife has been taken from an inferior professional circle. What is a great deal worse, the whole family of the Bennets, with the exception of Jane and Elizabeth, are more or less objectionable--Mr. Bennet in indulging his caustic humour in total disregard of the figures his wife and daughters cut in society; Mrs. Bennet, in continually exposing her vulgarity and folly; Mary Bennet, in rendering herself a laughing-stock by her assumption of learning and wisdom, with small claims to the same. As for Lydia and Kitty Bennet, while there are militia officers in Meryton the girls will flirt with them; and while Meryton remains at a mile’s distance from Longbourn, the younger Miss Bennets will go there every day.

But Darcy, in the face of the pronounced dislike to the second Miss Bennet entertained by his friend’s sisters--one of whom is laying close siege to Darcy’s hand and heart--calmly revokes his judgment, announces his admiration of Elizabeth’s eyes, and defends her vivacity from the charge of pertness. It is in vain Miss Bingley, with her eyes sharpened by jealousy, takes the woman’s method to drive him from his position by chaffing exaggeration of his sentiments, and malicious predictions of his future experiences with his mother-in-law; asking him if he will have his Elizabeth’s uncle, the attorney’s, portrait, opposite that of his uncle, the judge’s, and whether it may not be advisable for him to restrain that something in the coming Mrs. Darcy’s manners which borders on impertinence. Darcy stands to his colours, so far as admiring Elizabeth Bennet, and owning to the admiration, are concerned.

Elizabeth is so thoroughly without suspicion of her modified conquest, that when she finds Mr. Darcy looking at her, listening to her, and taking up his station in the quarter of a room where he can see and hear her better, she is so puzzled for his reasons, that she is compelled to conclude there is something about her peculiarly repugnant to his taste and sense of propriety; and being of the temper which she supposes, she fancies he takes a certain satisfaction in reckoning up her deficiencies. When he asks her to dance, she is so surprised that she accepts the unwelcome honour before she knows what she is doing; and then, provoked with her mechanical compliance, she seeks revenge in trying to behave in the manner most disagreeable to him. She will go down the double set in unbroken silence, so far as the conversation rests with her; and she is aware young Darcy is a quiet, grave man, while she is well known as a ready, gay talker. All at once it strikes her that a solemn mute performance of their duty as dancers may be exactly what he wishes; and then she challenges him, in an archly-defiant speech, to make conversation for her. After all he is nothing loth, though she does provoke and offend him by the determined conviction she constantly shows that they are two persons of entirely different characters and inclinations, and by her wilful, half-jesting misunderstanding of his feelings and opinions.

On one occasion he is led into the admission that he has an unyielding temper. His good opinion once lost is lost for ever.

“That is a failing indeed,” cried Elizabeth. “Implacable resentment is a shade in a character. But you have chosen your fault well; I really cannot laugh at it. You are safe from me.”

The girl’s mingled light-hearted banter and vehement antagonism form, after all, part of her fascination; and we are told that against any affront they inflict she has a powerful pleader in the feeling she has already excited in Darcy’s breast.

The progress of Bingley’s lover-like attentions to Jane, and Darcy’s brisk skirmishing with Elizabeth, is considerably accelerated by a visit of almost a week’s duration paid perforce by the girls to Netherfield.

Jane had been invited to dine with the two ladies of the house, to relieve their dulness in the absence of the gentlemen, who were dining with the officers in Meryton. She had been detained by rain in the first place, and by a violent cold in the second.

Elizabeth hearing of her sister’s illness, and being unable to procure the carriage, set out and walked the three miles between Longbourn and Netherfield. She was fearless of fatigue, or the accusation of unfeminine, unladylike independence of escort. She was equal to muddy roads, intervening stiles, and the cool reception she was likely to receive from Miss Bingley, so that Elizabeth could but relieve her anxiety concerning Jane, reach her, and be a comfort in nursing her through her little illness.

Elizabeth arrives with draggled skirts and rosy cheeks. She cheerfully surmounts Miss Bingley’s and Mrs. Hurst’s contemptuous amazement at what they regard as Miss Eliza Bennet’s uncalled-for Amazonian feat. At last they are under the necessity, in common civility, of requesting Elizabeth to remain with her sister; and the patient, suffering Jane is ill enough for the moment to make Elizabeth thankful that she has come, and to justify her in the step she has taken.

Besides, Elizabeth is gratified by the master of the house’s cordial reception, and by his unfeigned anxiety on behalf of his invalid guest. As to the fact that Darcy is successful in silencing the strictures of the ladies of the house on the “fright” Miss Eliza Bennet has chosen to appear before them, by dwelling on the additional brilliancy the early walk has lent to her complexion, and by maintaining that certainly the expedition proves her to be a most affectionate sister, Elizabeth remains profoundly ignorant of his championship.

Two new figures appear on the stage. The first is Mr. Collins, the vicar of Hunsford, in Kent, and the cousin, hitherto a stranger to the Bennet family, who, by the terms of the entail, succeeds to the Longbourn estate after Mr. Bennet’s death. He proposes a friendly visit, in a letter which is the reflex of the writer, who is a stupid, narrow-minded young man, while yet perfectly respectable and not ill-intentioned. His pompous self-importance, in which there is some family likeness to the leading mental traits in his cousin Mary Bennet, is blended with an equally natural subserviency and obsequiousness, with such a breadth of skill and comicality, that he is one of the great artist’s triumphs.

Jane Austen was a good woman and a good church-woman. She was a clergyman’s daughter, and two of her brothers were clergymen. The parsonage as well as the hall had a special place in her novels. In “Mansfield Park” she insisted on the honourable office of a clergyman. She was the last person wantonly to bring disrespect on her father’s cloth, but she was also the most sincere of women and of artists. She was acquainted with the Collins type of clergymen, which had replaced the still more accommodating, even vicious, family chaplain, under the lower and coarser moral standard of previous generations. Her Mr. Collins is not unprincipled or unconscientious, but his patroness engrosses his small, mean mind, and usurps the rights of his other parishioners; until, to give satisfaction at the great house--to come in there as an acknowledged, privileged dependent--to carve a joint--to help to make up the card-table--to amuse the old and the young--to pass away a dull hour--to take upon himself any troublesome task he can appropriate, are looked upon by him as at once among his chief duties and greatest advantages.

With unshrinking, incisive hand, Jane Austen did good service to all the churches by aiding in ridding them of despicable toadies.

Mr. Collins is all in a piece, while he is of complex fabric, with his haunting self-consciousness, his perpetual references to his “humble abode,” and his “revered patroness, Lady Catherine,” with her splendid establishment at Rosings, to which he is so affably summoned several times a week. His densely thick-headed, sycophantish homage is extended to Lady Catherine’s kindred in the person of her nephew, the resisting, disgusted Mr. Darcy. Mr. Collins’s self-complacent, over-done, heavy civility is bestowed freely on everybody, and he promises liberally beforehand formal letters of thanks to his hosts for their esteemed hospitality.

Such a man, however diverting to her strong sense of the ludicrous, cannot but be odious in other respects to Elizabeth Bennet, yet it is at Elizabeth’s feet that he lays his dull, conceited, exasperatingly considerate proposals.

Lady Catherine is of opinion Mr. Collins, as a clergyman, should marry soon. His solid merits and unexceptionable position in life warrant him in seeking a wife. He is led to Longbourn with the laudable intention of making some reparation to his fair cousins for the circumstance that, on the death of their respected father, Mr. Collins must inherit the property; and in Elizabeth he flatters himself he has found the excellent, charming, economical young woman who will at once secure to him the felicity he is entitled to expect, and satisfy the just expectations of Lady Catherine.

To the extreme mortification of her mother, but with the entire approval of her father, Elizabeth declines the obliging proposal. The scene is unique and unapproachable, in which the sublimely confident, quite unembarrassed Mr. Collins does not so much plead his cause solemnly as unfold his credentials, while Elizabeth refuses him in stronger and stronger language, for the suitor will not accept his _congé_, and persists in attributing it to the becoming coyness of “an elegant female.”

At last Elizabeth escapes, referring Mr. Collins to her father, protesting in despair that whatever his answer may be, at least Mr. Collins cannot interpret Mr. Bennet’s behaviour as the becoming coyness of “an elegant female.”

Mr. Collins’ heart is scarcely touched, but his vanity--thick-skinned as it is--has received a wound, for which, however, there is a speedy cure, since within three days he transfers his suit with the happiest result to Elizabeth’s friend Charlotte Lucas, who has not hesitated to plan this conclusion.

Elizabeth is amazed and hurt at the absence of right principle and feeling on the part of Charlotte, who has been so quickly wooed and won--nay, who has herself stooped to woo a man for whom she can have neither respect nor regard.

But in Jane Bennet’s remonstrances against the hard terms which Elizabeth uses when speaking of the marriage--in the emphasis with which the elder sister dwells on Mr. Collins’ respectable establishment as well as his unblemished character--above all, in the way in which Charlotte’s choice is made to turn out tolerably well for her in the end, we find that Jane Austen, while revolting at the conduct which she herself could never have practised, is inclined so far to endorse the reasoning of the prudent, steady gentlewoman who has offended against Elizabeth’s nobler instincts.

“Without thinking highly either of men or matrimony,” Jane Austen says of Charlotte Lucas, “marriage had always been her object: _it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and, however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservation from want_. This preservation she had now obtained; and at the age of twenty-seven, without having ever been handsome, she felt all the good luck of it.”

Poor Mrs. Bennet’s chagrin is complete. She is deprived of the opportunity of “marrying” one of her daughters very fairly. Lady Lucas is to have a daughter married first. And Charlotte Lucas is eventually to supplant Mrs. Bennet in her own house of Longbourn. Can the irony of destiny go farther?

The other new comer appears in a fresh officer who joins the militia regiment in Meryton. He is a Mr. Wickham, a young man of exceedingly attractive looks and manners, being as universally agreeable and sympathetic as Darcy is the reverse.

Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Wickham are mutually struck with each other on their introduction in the High Street of Meryton, and the impression at first sight is confirmed when they spend an evening in company together, at a tea and supper party given by Mrs. Philips, the Bennets’ aunt.

Wickham’s place in the round game of cards for the young people is between Elizabeth and her boisterous young sister Lydia, who would have proceeded to engross the gentleman had it not been for the rival attractions of the game of “Lottery Tickets,” and her zeal in acquiring mother-of-pearl fishes--the old counters.