Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Lady Catherine arrived on Friday.
She did not send a card. She arrived, in a carriage whose quality and crest would have been visible from three fields away, and descended at the Longbourn gate with the air of a woman who has never been required to wait for anything and does not intend to begin now.
Hill, who had seen a great deal, looked briefly at the carriage, the woman, and the expression, and went to fetch Mrs. Bennet.
This was, Elizabeth would later think, the correct response. Her mother had her limitations, but on the subject of a titled visitor in her own parlour, she had resources.
Mrs. Bennet received Lady Catherine in the best drawing room with a warmth that was not entirely artless — she could recognise consequence, and consequence of this order required the good china and a degree of social effort she did not always produce.
She was flustered, she was pleased, she was slightly overwhelmed, and she was entirely herself, which meant Lady Catherine had not, in the first five minutes, the unchallenged field she had expected.
"Lady Catherine! This is an honour — we did not expect — Hill, the Wedgwood — Lady Catherine, you must be cold after the journey, it is a long way from Kent, I always say the Kent roads are very?—"
"I am quite well, Mrs. Bennet," said Lady Catherine, with a civility that was the precise minimum required and no more. She took the best chair without being offered it and looked around the room with the assessment of a woman cataloguing deficiencies.
Mr. Bennet appeared in the doorway, received the scene with the expression of a naturalist who has encountered a particularly interesting specimen, and sat down by the fire to observe.
Elizabeth came in last, and Lady Catherine looked at her with the specific attention of a woman who has formed an opinion in advance and is comparing it to the evidence.
"Miss Bennet," said Lady Catherine. "I have heard a great deal about you."
"I hope some of it was interesting," said Elizabeth.
A slight pause. "I am not here to find it interesting. I am here to speak plainly."
"I have always preferred plain speaking," said Elizabeth.
Mrs. Bennet, sensing something in the air that she could not quite identify, looked between them with the bright uncertain attention of a woman at a play whose plot she has arrived late to. Mr. Bennet watched over his cup.
Lady Catherine folded her hands. "I will come directly to the purpose of my visit.
I have received intelligence — reliable intelligence — that my nephew, Mr. Darcy, has been forming an attachment in this neighbourhood.
That he has been calling with a frequency and particularity that can admit only one interpretation.
And that the object of his attentions is yourself. "
"He has been calling," said Elizabeth. "That is accurate."
"It is more than calling. It is an understanding. Or something that resembles one, to those who have been watching." Lady Catherine's voice was controlled, precise, the voice of a woman who has given speeches before and knows how to land them. "I wish to know whether any such understanding exists."
"That," said Elizabeth, "is perhaps a question better addressed to Mr. Darcy."
"I am addressing it to you. A woman of sense knows her own situation. Do you or do you not have reason to expect an offer from my nephew?"
Mrs. Bennet drew in a breath. Mr. Bennet did not move.
Elizabeth looked at Lady Catherine directly. "I know my own situation," she said. "I am not certain I am obliged to describe it to you."
Lady Catherine's expression shifted — not quite surprise, but the adjustment of a woman who has met unexpected resistance. She had expected uncertainty, perhaps tears, perhaps gratitude for the condescension of a visit. She had not expected composure.
"You are not what I was led to expect," she said.
"I am generally not," said Elizabeth.
"I was told you were clever. I see that is accurate.
" Lady Catherine's tone carried the particular quality of a compliment given and then immediately withdrawn.
"Cleverness in a woman of your situation is, however, not always an advantage.
It can lead a young woman to overestimate the degree to which her personal qualities can compensate for the deficiencies of her connexion. "
"I have never claimed," said Elizabeth, "that they can compensate for anything. I have not been in the market for compensation."
Mrs. Bennet, whose sense of the conversation's direction had been sharpening, sat very upright and said: "Lady Catherine, I am sure Lizzy means no disrespect?—"
"Mama," said Elizabeth quietly.
"—she is a very good girl, only she has always been rather?—"
"Mama."
Mrs. Bennet subsided. It was, Elizabeth thought, one of the more remarkable things her mother had ever done.
Lady Catherine resumed. "My nephew," she said, "has duties.
He has a name, a position, an estate, and expectations that were formed before his birth and cannot be set aside because he has spent an autumn in a neighbourhood that flattered him.
Anne de Bourgh is not a healthy woman, but she is a Darcy by expectation, by his mother's wish, and by every principle of family and connexion that he ought to honour.
" She looked at Elizabeth with the full weight of Rosings behind her.
"I ask you to give me your word that you will not accept him. "
Elizabeth was quiet for a moment. Outside, the frost. The familiar cold-bright November light on a garden that had become, over the past several weeks, the setting of every important thing.
"I will not give you that word," she said.