I am sending you a sketch of the park, which I have just completed, and I console myself with the thought that, if Mama is determined to visit Darcy, then at least I will have the consolation of seeing you.
Your dear coz,
Anne
Miss Georgiana Darcy to Miss Anne de Bourgh
Darcy House, London, October 2
Dearest Anne,
I think your sketch is beautiful, I have sent it to be framed and I intend to hang it by the fireplace in my bedroom. I do hope you call here, for I would so love to see you again.
How I wish the rumours might be true, and that my brother will marry Miss Bennet! I liked her very much when I met her and I know that she is special to him. He told me a great deal about her before I even met her, and all of it good. That is not like Fitzwilliam, for you know he is easily bored and has very little time for the women who cluster around him. But I know he was taken with Elizabeth. There, I am calling her Elizabeth, quite as if she were my sister already!
I am sure Fitzwilliam would like to marry her. I can think of no other reason for him introducing me to her, and being so pleased when we got on well together. He introduces me to very few people, thinking that I am too young to come out, which in general is true, and in the past he has only introduced me to young women who are related to his friends, like Miss Bingley.
Oh dear, poor Caroline: I know she would like to be Mrs Darcy, but it will never happen, even if my brother does not marry Elizabeth. He does not like her very much. He admires her accomplishments and he thinks her a suitable companion for me, and of course he likes Mr Bingley a great deal, but Caroline is not always wise and does not see when her amusing remarks become spiteful. Fitzwilliam sees it and hears it, though. He is ill-humoured himself sometimes—you see, I know my brother, and much as I love him I know that he is not perfect—but there is a generosity and kindness at the heart of him that I think Caroline lacks.
Elizabeth does not lack it. When I met her in Derbyshire she put me at my ease and went out of her way to protect me from some comments that Caroline made about George Wickham.
It seems odd to me now that I was ever betrothed, however secretly, to George. He ran off with Miss Bennet’s sister Lydia, you know. It was all hushed up but I could not help seeing that my brother was very agitated, and I could not help overhearing the directions he gave to his coachman, nor seeing what was in one of my guardian’s letters, for my brother was so distracted that when he gave it to me to read, he forgot to remove the sheet which had been intended for him alone. By the time I realised what I was reading, I had already learnt the truth: that George had preyed upon another young woman and that, having ruined her, he was refusing to marry her.
I do not think that he would have refused to marry me; indeed, I think that was his intention, but only because of my fortune. And if I had not been an heiress but had been foolish enough to believe him—which I am ashamed to say that I would have been—then my fate would have been the same.
Fitzwilliam had to pay George in the end to marry Lydia—and it is that, I think, which has persuaded me that my brother is really in love with Elizabeth, for he would not have sought out George Wickham for anyone else.
I do hope he is about to propose to her, and I do hope she says Yes. I would love such a sister. But whether it will ever come to pass…we must just wait and see.
I am sending you one of my own sketches and I hope you find it pretty.
Your loving coz,
Georgiana
Mr Collins to Mr Bennet
Hunsford, near Westerham, Kent,
October 2
Dear Sir,
I must congratulate you on the approaching nuptials of your eldest daughter, whose beauty is matched only by her modesty and elegance. As a clergyman it is my duty to encourage the institution of matrimony and I am sure that the marriage of your uniformly charming daughter to so estimable a man as Mr Bingley will bring joy to all who know them.
Having thus offered you the sincere congratulations of Mrs Collins and myself on this happy event, let me now add a short hint on the subject of another; of which we have been advertised by the same authority. Your daughter Elizabeth, it is presumed, will not long bear the name of Bennet after her elder sister has resigned it, and the chosen partner of her fate may be reasonably looked up to as one of the most illustrious personages in this land. This young gentleman is blessed, in a peculiar way, with everything the heart of mortal can most desire—splendid property, noble kindred, and extensive patronage. Yet in spite of all these temptations, let me warn my cousin Elizabeth, and yourself, of what evils you may incur by a precipitate closure with this gentleman’s proposals, which, of course, you will be inclined to take immediate advantage of. My motive for cautioning you is as follows: we have reason to imagine that his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, does not look on the match with a friendly eye.
After mentioning the likelihood of this marriage to her ladyship last night, she immediately, with her usual condescension, expressed what she felt on the occasion; when it became apparent that, on the score of some family objections on the part of my cousin, she would never give her consent to what she termed so disgraceful a match, I thought it my duty to give the speediest intelligence of this to my cousin, that she and her noble admirer may be aware of what they are about, and not run hastily into a marriage which has not been properly sanctioned.
I am truly rejoiced that my cousin Lydia’s sad business has been so well hushed up, and am only concerned that their living together before the marriage took place should be so generally known. I must not, however, neglect the duties of my station, or refrain from declaring my amazement, at hearing that you received the young couple into your house as soon as they were married. It was an encouragement of vice; and had I been the rector of Longbourn, I should very strenuously have opposed it. You ought certainly to forgive them, as a Christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your hearing.
And now, dear sir, I must give you some news of my own which I am sure will delight you. My dear Charlotte is in an interesting condition and she will soon grace us with a young olive branch, which, if we are blessed with good fortune, will be a boy, a son and heir to come after me and to come, if I may so put it, good sir, after you; a child who will inherit Longbourn and continue the noble tradition of elegance and hospitality so charmingly begun by your own grandfather and so estimably continued by your father and yourself.
I remain, sir, your humble servant,
William Collins
Mr Darcy to Colonel Fitzwilliam
Netherfield Park, Hertfordshire,
October 5
Henry, direct your letters to Netherfield Park, as I am once again with Bingley. I have hope, hope at last! My aunt sought to interfere in my affairs and in so doing has done me an unexpectedly good turn.
Having heard a rumour that I was about to propose to Elizabeth—it seems that Mrs Collins’s mother suspected my feelings and guessed my reasons for going to Longbourn—Lady Catherine visited Longbourn herself to tell Elizabeth that she must not marry me. When Elizabeth refused to give her any undertaking that she would never marry me, my aunt bore down on me like a Fury and demanded that I give her an undertaking never to offer my hand to Elizabeth. I did not give it. I would not have given it anyway, as she has no right to interfere in my affairs, but I was in no mood to even contemplate it when I learnt that Elizabeth had refused to put paid to the rumours.