From his garden,Mr.Collins would have led them round his two meadows;but the ladies,not having shoes to encounter the remains of a white frost,turned back;and while Sir William accompanied him,Charlotte took her sister and friend over the house,extremely well pleased, probably, to have the opportunity of showing it without her husband's help. It was rather small, but well built and convenient;and everything was fitted up and arranged with a neatness and consistency of which Elizabeth gave Charlotte all the credit.When Mr.Collins could be forgotten,there was really an air of great comfort throughout,and by Charlotte's evident enjoyment of it,Elizabeth supposed he must be often forgotten.
She had already learnt that Lady Catherine was still in the country.It was spoken of again while they were at dinner,when Mr.Collins joining in,observed:
“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 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 already been 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 upstairs 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 that 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.
