‘Yes,Miss Elizabeth,you will have the honour of seeing Lady Catherine de Bourgh on the ensuing Sunday at church,and I need not say you will be delighted with her.She is all affability and condescension,and I doubt not but you will be honoured with some portion of her notice when service is over.I have scarcely any hesitation in saying that she will include you and my sister Maria in every invitation with which she honours us during your stay here.Her behaviour to my dear Charlotte is charming.We dine at Rosings twice every week,and are never allowed to walk home.Her ladyship's carriage is regularly ordered for us.I should say,one of her ladyship's carriages,for she has several.’
‘Lady Catherine is a very respectable,sensible woman indeed,’added Charlotte,‘and a most attentive neighbour.’
‘Very true,my dear,that is exactly what I say.She is the sort of woman whom one cannot regard with too much deference.’
The evening was spent chiefly in talking over Hertfordshire news,and telling again what had been already written;and when it closed,Elizabeth,in the solitude of her chamber,had to meditate upon Charlotte's degree of contentment,to understand her address in guiding,and composure in bearing with her husband,and to acknowledge that it was all done very well.She had also to anticipate how her visit would pass,the quiet tenor of their usual employments,the vexatious interruptions of Mr Collins,and the gaieties of their intercourse with Rosings.A lively imagination soon settled it all.
About the middle of the next day,as she was in her room getting ready for a walk,a sudden noise below seemed to speak the whole house in confusion;and after listening a moment,she heard somebody running up stairs in a violent hurry,and calling loudly after her.She opened the door,and met Maria in the landing place,who,breathless with agitation,cried out,
‘Oh,my dear Eliza!pray make haste and come into the dining room,for there is such a sight to be seen!I will not tell you what it is.Make haste,and come down this moment.’
Elizabeth asked questions in vain;Maria would tell her nothing more,and down they ran into the dining room,which fronted the lane,in quest of this wonder;It was two ladies stopping in a low phaeton at the garden gate.
‘And is this all?’cried Elizabeth.‘I expected at least that the pigs were got into the garden,and here is nothing but Lady Catherine and her daughter!’
‘La!my dear,’said Maria,quite shocked at the mistake,‘it is not Lady Catherine.The old lady is Mrs Jenkinson,who lives with them.The other is Miss de Bourgh.Only look at her.She is quite a little creature.Who would have thought she could be so thin and small!’
‘She is abominably rude to keep Charlotte out of doors in all this wind.Why does she not come in?’
‘Oh!Charlotte says she hardly ever does.It is the greatest of favours when Miss de Bourgh comes in.’
‘I like her appearance,’said Elizabeth,struck with other ideas.‘She looks sickly and cross.-Yes,she will do for him very well.She will make him a very proper wife.’
Mr Collins and Charlotte were both standing at the gate in conversation with the ladies;and Sir William,to Elizabeth's high diversion,was stationed in the doorway,in earnest contemplation of the greatness before him,and constantly bowing whenever Miss de Bourgh looked that way.
At length there was nothing more to be said;the ladies drove on,and the others returned into the house.Mr Collins no sooner saw the two girls than he began to congratulate them on their good fortune,which Charlotte explained by letting them know that the whole party was asked to dine at Rosings the next day.
Chapter 29
Mr Collins's triumph in consequence of this invitation was complete.The power of displaying the grandeur of his patroness to his wondering visitors,and of letting them see her civility towards himself and his wife,was exactly what he had wished for;and that an opportunity of doing it should be given so soon was such an instance of Lady Catherine's condescension as he knew not how to admire enough.
‘I confess,’said he,‘that I should not have been at all surprized by her ladyship's asking us on Sunday to drink tea and spend the evening at Rosings.I rather expected,from my knowledge of her affability,that it would happen.But who could have foreseen such an attention as this?Who could have imagined that we should receive an invitation to dine there (an invitation moreover including the whole party)so immediately after your arrival!’
‘I am the less surprized at what has happened,’replied Sir William,‘from that knowledge of what the manners of the great really are,which my situation in life has allowed me to acquire.About the court,such instances of elegant breeding are not uncommon.’
Scarcely any thing was talked of the whole day,or next morning,but their visit to Rosings.Mr Collins was carefully instructing them in what they were to expect,that the sight of such rooms,so many servants,and so splendid a dinner might not wholly overpower them.
When the ladies were separating for the toilette,he said to Elizabeth,
‘Do not make yourself uneasy,my dear cousin,about your apparel.Lady Catherine is far from requiring that elegance of dress in us,which becomes herself and daughter.I would advise you merely to put on whatever of your clothes is superior to the rest,there is no occasion for any thing more.Lady Catherine will not think the worse of you for being simply dressed.She likes to have the distinction of rank preserved.’
While they were dressing,he came two or three times to their different doors,to recommend their being quick,as Lady Catherine very much objected to be kept waiting for her dinner.-Such formidable accounts of her ladyship,and her manner of living,quite frightened Maria Lucas,who had been little used to company,and she looked forward to her introduction at Rosings with as much apprehension,as her father had done to his presentation at St.James's.
