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“This is not to be borne.Miss Bennet,I insist on being satisfied. Has he,has my nephew,made you an offer of marriage?”
“Your ladyship has declared it to be impossible.”
“It ought to be so; it must be so, while he retains the use of his reason. But your arts and allurements may, in a moment of infatuation,have made him forget what he owes to himself and to all his family.You may have drawn him in.”
“If I have,I shall be the last person to confess it.”
“Miss Bennet, do you know who I am? I have not been accustomed to such language as this. I am almost the nearest relation he has in the world, and am entitled to know all his dearest concerns.”
“But you are not entitled to know mine;nor will such behaviour as this,ever induce me to be explicit.”
“Let me be rightly understood.This match,to which you have the presumption to aspire,can never take place.No,never.Mr. Darcy is engaged to my daughter.Now what have you to say?”
“Only this;that if he is so,you can have no reason to suppose he will make an offer to me.”
Lady Catherine hesitated for a moment,and then replied:
“The engagement between them is of a peculiar kind. From their infancy, they have been intended for each other. It was the favourite wish of his mother, as well as of hers.While in their cradles, we planned the union: and now, at the moment when the wishes of both sisters would be accomplished is their marriage,to be prevented by a young woman of inferior birth,of no importance in the world, and wholly unallied to the family! Do you pay no regard to the wishes of his friends?To his tacit engagement with Miss de Bourgh?Are you lost to every feeling of propriety and delicacy?Have you not heard me say that from his earliest hours he was destined for his cousin?”
“Yes, and I had heard it before. But what is that to me? If there is no other objection to my marrying your nephew,I shall certainly not be kept from it by knowing that his mother and aunt wished him to marry Miss de Bourgh.You both did as much as you could in planning the marriage.Its completion depended on others.If Mr.Darcy is neither by honour nor inclination confined to his cousin,why is not he to make another choice?And if I am that choice,why may not I accept him?”
“Because honour, decorum, prudence, nay, interest, forbid it. Yes, Miss Bennet, interest; for do not expect to be noticed by his family or friends, if you wilfully act against the inclinations of all.You will be censured,slighted,and despised,by everyone connected with him.Your alliance will be a disgrace;your name will never even be mentioned by any of us.”
“These are heavy misfortunes,”replied Elizabeth.“But the wife of Mr.Darcy must have such extraordinary sources of happiness necessarily attached to her situation, that she could, upon the whole,have no cause to repine.”
“Obstinate,headstrong girl!I am ashamed of you!Is this your gratitude for my attentions to you last spring?Is nothing due to me on that score?Let us sit down.You are to understand,Miss Bennet, that I came here with the determined resolution of carrying my purpose;nor will I be dissuaded from it.I have not been used to submit to any person's whims.I have not been in the habit of brooking disappointment.”
“That will make your ladyship's situation at present more pitiable;but it will have no effect on me.”
“I will not be interrupted.Hear me in silence.My daughter and my nephew are formed for each other.They are descended,on the maternal side,from the same noble line;and,on the father's,from respectable,honourable,and ancient—though untitled—families. Their fortune on both sides is splendid.They are destined for each other by the voice of every member of their respective houses;and what is to divide them?The upstart pretensions of a young woman without family,connections,or fortune.Is this to be endured!But it must not,shall not be.If you were sensible of your own good,you would not wish to quit the sphere in which you have been brought up.”
“In marrying your nephew, I should not consider myself as quitting that sphere. He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman's daughter;so far we are equal.”
“True.You are a gentleman's daughter.But who was your mother? Who are your uncles and aunts?Do not imagine me ignorant of their condition.”
“Whatever my connections may be,”said Elizabeth,“if your nephew does not object to them,they can be nothing to you.”
“Tell me once for all,are you engaged to him?”