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.

My spirits lifted, for I knew that Elizabeth would have been only too happy to declare her intention of never marrying me if she had decided definitely against me, and so I set out at once for Hertfordshire. And now here I am, with hope in my heart, and tomorrow I must put that hope to the test.

I mean to ask her to marry me again. One way or another, tomorrow my fate will be sealed.

Pray for me, Henry.

Your cousin,

Darcy


Miss Kitty Bennet to Miss Eleanor Sotherton

Longbourn, Hertfordshire,

October 6

Dear Ellie,

Everything here is horrible. Lydia is having all the fun in the north and if I had only been allowed to go to Brighton, I could have married an officer and I could be having fun flirting up in the north, too, instead of stuck here in the middle of nowhere. There are not even any new bonnets in the milliners’. Jane is the only one enjoying herself. She is having fun with Mr Bingley, though it is no fun for the rest of us as she sits and talks to him all the time and the rest of us might as well be dying of the plague for all she cares about us.

That Mr Darcy is here all the time, too. I do not know why he keeps coming, he never says anything to anyone, and as Mama says, he is the most disagreeable man in existence.

Mama keeps making me and Lizzy entertain him so that Jane can have Mr Bingley all to herself. We had to go for a walk with him today so that Jane and Mr Bingley would not have the bother of talking to him, but I managed to run off to the Lucases’. Lizzy said she did not have anything particular to say to Maria Lucas and so she walked on with Mr Darcy, which I must say was very noble of her; there could have been no pleasure in it for her.

Poor Lizzy! I would not be her for a kingdom, having to walk about with Mr Darcy. They are still out walking, though Jane and Mr Bingley returned an hour ago. Mama thinks they must have got lost. How horrid for Lizzy, to be lost with that man, and to have to wander through the country lanes with him all afternoon!

I would rather be here, writing to you, though it would be better to go somewhere like Bath or Brighton and get a husband. But Papa says he will never let me go anywhere, and if he does not relent, I will turn into an old maid.

Kitty


Miss Elizabeth Bennet to Mrs Charlotte Collins

Longbourn, Hertfordshire,

October 7

My dear Charlotte,

You were right! Mr Darcy is in love with me, he proposed to me yesterday and I have said yes! I am so happy that I cannot even be angry with you for being right where I was wrong, and for seeing what I could not. To think, you knew it all along, before I knew it myself, before even my dear Mr Darcy knew it; though he tells me now that he was struck with the beautiful expression in my eyes almost the first day he met me, as soon as he had roundly condemned my looks to everyone else! It seems that when Sir William Lucas begged a partner for me at Lucas Lodge last November, Mr Darcy was ready to oblige, although he liked me better for my spirit in refusing.

I am sure I cannot claim any virtue for it, as I was motivated by a wish to confound his expectations and remove any reason he might have for disdaining me rather than by any nobler instincts. He had slighted my charms and so I was determined never to like him, and I was certain that he would never like me. Such is the blindness that prejudice brings with it.

But I was wrong! Charlotte, we have been talking all day, and you may imagine how much we have to say. We have a year’s worth of conversation.

When I stayed with Jane at Netherfield to nurse her through her cold, he found himself so much in danger from me by the end of the visit that he withdrew into silence lest he should raise any expectations in my breast. And I thought he was simply being arrogant and disdainful; particularly after Mama’s visit, which I knew had disgusted him. And when he left the neighbourhood with Mr Bingley, my loss caused him a great deal of unhappiness; more unhappiness than his loss caused me, for by then I had heard Mr Wickham’s tale of woe and I was foolish enough to believe it.

When I think how Mr Wickham duped me, and how easy I was to dupe, I am ashamed. And when I think of how I treated my dear Mr Darcy at Easter, when I was still in the grip of all my blind prejudices, I blush with mortification.

But let me not dwell on such things. As soon as Mr Wickham’s villainy was revealed I began to think differently about everything, though I thought it too late, because by then I had lost my dearest Mr Darcy.

And now I must tell you of something which happened at Easter, when I was staying with you and Mr Collins, and which I did not tell you about at the time because of my confusion and my uncertainty as to my own feelings. It is this, Charlotte: that when I was staying at the parsonage, Mr Darcy proposed to me.

And now you are shocked, I suppose—or perhaps not, as you always suspected he had a partiality for me. It was on the night of Tuesday, the twenty-second of April that he offered me his hand. The date is ingrained in my memory. You and Mr Collins and Maria had gone to dine at Rosings Park, but I had stayed behind pleading a headache. And indeed I did have a headache, for I had just discovered that Mr Darcy had separated Mr Bingley and Jane. You may guess at my feelings towards Mr Darcy then, and my unwillingness to meet him at dinner.

But what should happen, when I was sitting alone in the parsonage, but that Mr Darcy should walk in! Oh, Charlotte, the things I said to him! And the things he said to me! He criticised my family, my person, my station in life, and then had the temerity to propose to me. You may imagine my reply. I not only condemned him for separating Mr Bingley and Jane, but for ruining Mr Wickham’s hopes as well.

In reply, he wrote me a letter. He told me the truth about Mr Wickham: that Mr Wickham was a wastrel and other, less savoury, things; and I realised how wrong I had been about everything. But it was too late to put matters right.

And there matters would have ended, had I not met Mr Darcy again in Derbyshire. How changed he was, how polite and attentive to my aunt and uncle, how unfailingly courteous to me. And then came Lydia’s elopement and I thought all hope had gone forever. But I was wrong!

Oh, Charlotte, I cannot tell you how happy I am! What does it matter what happened in the past, when everything in the present is so right? My dearest Mr Darcy smiling at me, my darling Jane happily betrothed, Susan blissfully married, and you, dear Charlotte, with your olive branch on the way.

I have time for no more. I must go. Give my love to Mr Collins, though I fear he will be horrified at my news! And perhaps it would be better to stay away from Lady Catherine for the next few days. My dear Mr Darcy intends to write to her and apprise her of our betrothal, and you know her feelings towards me. She liked me well enough as a friend of her rector’s wife, but not as the mistress of Pemberley. I fear the shades will be polluted after all.