Chapter One

The post came to Longbourn at breakfast, and on Tuesday it brought Jane the letter for which she had been above a fortnight pretending not to wait.

Elizabeth knew it before Hill had set it down. It was Miss Bingley’s: the same fair, flowing hand, upon the same little hot-pressed paper which had done so much mischief in November. Jane took it up with perfect composure and broke the seal with none; and in a moment she was so entirely occupied that her mother spoke to her twice across the table, and was obliged to make the answer herself.

Nobody else observed her. Mr. Bennet had the newspaper; Mary had a book beside her plate; and Kitty and Lydia were disputing which of them Mr. Denny had bowed to first in the street on Saturday. Mr. Collins, who was to spend the day at Lucas Lodge, was acquainting Mrs. Bennet with the hour at which he should be compelled, with infinite regret, to quit her; and Mrs. Bennet bore it very ill. She had not forgiven him for Charlotte Lucas, nor Charlotte Lucas for him; and a guest who slept in her house in order to pay his addresses in another was more than her nerves had any right to be asked to support.

“And this is for Miss Lizzy, ma’am,” said Hill. “It came up with the letters.”

She held out a small parcel, sealed, and directed in a hand which Elizabeth had never seen before: round, careful, and very young. Mrs. Bennet had it first, and looked at both sides of it before she gave it up.

“Who is there to send you parcels, Lizzy? That is not your aunt Gardiner’s writing; and your aunt will be here on Monday, and might bring anything herself.”

Elizabeth did not know, and had much rather not have found out at table. But Jane had reached the end of her letter and begun it again, with a face which it was very desirable that nobody should study; and a parcel was at least something to look at. She broke the seal.

It was music. There were three songs, copied upon ruled paper in the same round hand, rolled together and tied with a narrow green ribbon; and inside the roll a note, which she had read to the end, and was reading a second time in great astonishment, before her mother’s patience gave way.

“Well, child, who is it from? One would think it was a secret.”

“It is from Miss Darcy, ma’am.”

Mr. Collins stopped in the middle of a sentence, and did not go back for the rest.

“Miss Darcy!” cried Lydia. “Mr. Darcy’s sister! La, Lizzy, what can she want with you? She is hardly older than I am; and Wickham says she is as proud as her brother, and never speaks to anybody.”

“Give it to me,” said Mrs. Bennet. “You never read anything out as it ought to be read.”

She read it herself, in the voice which she kept for good news.

“‘Miss Darcy presents her compliments to Miss Elizabeth Bennet, and begs her acceptance of three songs, which she has copied for her. Her brother wrote from Netherfield in November that he had heard Miss Elizabeth Bennet sing at Sir William Lucas’s, and had seldom heard anything which pleased him so well. Miss Darcy has chosen those which she likes best herself; and she hopes that the liberty she takes will be forgiven at such a season, and that Miss Elizabeth Bennet will accept with them her best wishes for Christmas.’”

Mrs. Bennet laid it down. She had been an ill-used woman since the end of November; and she now looked round her own table with more complacency than it had afforded her in all that time.

“Seldom heard anything which pleased him so well! And he stood about at Sir William’s that night without a word for anybody, and we all thought he was despising us. I always said there was more in that young man than pride. Mr. Bennet, do you hear?”

“I hear, my dear. I have listened to Lizzy ever since she could reach the instrument, and I confess that I never suspected her of being the best thing in Hertfordshire. Mr. Darcy must have a better ear than I have, or a worse.”

“It is his sister who has sent them, ma’am,” said Elizabeth, “and it is very good-natured of her. But it is a civility from one young lady to another, and no more. Mr. Darcy has nothing to do with it.”

“Nothing to do with it! When she tells you herself what he wrote! A girl of that age does not send presents to people she never saw, Lizzy, out of her own head. Somebody has desired her to do it; and I should like to know who it can be, if it is not her brother. It is the way these things are managed in great families. The gentleman cannot write; it would not be proper. So his sister writes for him, and takes notice of you, and then everybody knows what to expect. And copied with her own hand, when she might have sent to a shop!”

Elizabeth looked to her father. He had gone back behind his newspaper, where he very plainly intended to enjoy himself.

It was Mr. Collins who answered, and he rose to do it.

“My dear madam, I feel it incumbent upon me, both as a clergyman and as one who is honoured with the particular notice of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, to say that I cannot hear such a construction put upon Miss Darcy’s very amiable attention without uneasiness. I have reason to know, from more than one expression which her Ladyship has condescended to let fall in my hearing, that Mr. Darcy is destined, by the wishes of both families, for his cousin Miss de Bourgh. If there has been any departure from so desirable an arrangement, her Ladyship is ignorant of it; and I need hardly add that it will be my duty, upon my return into Kent on Saturday, to make her acquainted with everything which has passed at this table.”

“Then you may tell her that he has thought better of it,” said Mrs. Bennet, “and I am sure nobody can wonder. You told us yourself, sir, that Miss de Bourgh was sickly.”

Mr. Collins could not deny that he had said so. He bowed, in a manner which reserved the whole question for a higher authority; he recollected that he was expected at Lucas Lodge; and he went.

Mr. Bennet lowered his newspaper when the door had shut.

“You refused one gentleman in this room in November, Lizzy, and your mother has accepted another for you in December. I congratulate you. Few young ladies are spared so much of the trouble.”

“You may laugh, Mr. Bennet,” said his wife, “but ten thousand a year is no laughing matter; and so you will find, when you are dead, and the Collinses are in this house.”

Elizabeth took back her note. She had no wish to be flattered by it, and she was not. The man who had looked at her all the autumn only to find fault, who had ruined Mr. Wickham and carried off Mr. Bingley, might have whatever ear he chose; there was nothing of hers which she wanted him to approve. But she remembered the letter. She had been in the room while it was written: an evening at Netherfield, with Jane ill upstairs, and Miss Bingley at his elbow admiring the evenness of his lines and sending compliments to a harp. She had supposed it to be all harp.

And the note was not what Mr. Wickham had taught her to expect. It had been written by somebody who was afraid of giving offence, and who had very probably written it more than once.

“We shall walk to Meryton directly,” said Lydia. “My aunt Philips must hear it from us, or she will never forgive it. Mr. Darcy in love with Lizzy! Denny will never believe it.”

“He is not in love with me, Lydia. He cannot bear the sight of me.”

“Then why did he write it?” said Kitty.

To this there was no answer which Elizabeth could give, and she did not attempt one. She looked for the songs, to put them out of the way; but the songs were gone. Mary, who had said nothing whatever, had carried them to the instrument; and she was presently to be heard in the drawing-room, doing justice to the first of them at about half its pace.

Jane had folded her letter very small. Nobody had looked at her, and nobody was to guess that there had been anything to see.

“It is a very kind note, Lizzy,” said she. “You must answer it as it deserves.”

It was an hour before they were alone upstairs; and then Jane told her, in three sentences, and with a steadiness which cost Elizabeth more than tears could have done. They were all settled in London for the winter. Mr. Bingley was sorry that he had not had time to take leave of his friends in Hertfordshire. He was living in Mr. Darcy’s house; and Caroline could not say enough of Miss Darcy, who was everything that was elegant and amiable, and of whom she hoped before long to have a nearer right to speak.

“Caroline is very happy,” said Jane, “and I am glad that she should be. I think I shall walk in the shrubbery a little. You have a letter to write.”

Elizabeth let her go. The note lay upon the table where she had put it down, and her eyes went back to the round, careful hand. The young lady whom Miss Bingley had married to her brother in two letters had been employed, while the second was writing, in copying songs for Elizabeth Bennet. The parcel had come out of the very house in which Mr. Bingley was living, and it had not brought one word from him.

Below, in the hall, her mother was calling for Hill.

“Tell them I must have the horses, and I don’t care what is wanted at the farm. I have owed Lady Lucas a call this fortnight; and Mr. Collins is gone there already, and he will tell it all wrong.”