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