“Miss Bingley’s letter arrived, and put an end to doubt.” Thus begins the second volume of Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen’s most famous novel. This line, of course, refers to the letter in which Caroline Bingley relates her brother’s regret at leaving Hertfordshire without saying goodbye and repeats her desire to see him form an attachment to Mr. Darcy’s sister in London. Jane Bennet, to whom the letter is addressed, is quietly devastated to learn of Mr. Bingley’s seeming disinterest in continuing their courtship, while Elizabeth maintains that Mr. Bingley’s disapproving friends and family must have interfered in some nefarious way to separate the young lovers.
Meanwhile, as Mr. Collins and Charlotte Lucas finalize their wedding preparations, Charlotte beseeches Elizabeth to visit her in March, to which Lizzy agrees. After the wedding, Mr. and Mrs. Collins return to the parsonage at Rosings Park, while Charlotte and Elizabeth continue to converse by letter: “their correspondence was as regular and frequent as it had ever been; that it should be equally unreserved was impossible. Elizabeth could never address her without feeling that all the comfort of intimacy was over, and, though determined not to slacken as a correspondent, it was for the sake of what had been, rather than what was.” Elizabeth's greatest friendship, at least as she once knew it, is thus gone forever.
Jane, on the other hand, seizes the opportunity to travel to London with her aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, in hopes of renewing her acquaintance with the former Netherfield party. Unfortunately, Caroline Bingley soon reveals her true colors to Jane in London, at first refusing to visit her at all, and finally doing so with the snobbiest of attitudes—all the while conspiring to keep Jane’s presence in London a secret from her brother.
Back in Hertfordshire, Mr. Wickham’s affections have appeared to shift from Elizabeth to Miss King, a young lady whose grandfather recently passed away, leaving her a fortune of several thousand pounds. Her family mourns his shifting attentions, but Elizabeth—as she always does—turns the situation into a laugh, declaring that “handsome young men must have something to live on, as well as the plain.”
Elizabeth departs for Kent in lively spirits, excited to reunite with Mrs. Collins, whom she finds content, if not incandescently happy, in her new home. At the parsonage, Charlotte encourages Mr. Collins to spend as much time as possible in the garden, while she herself enjoys the privacy of her very own drawing room, where she may escape her husband’s incessant chatter.
Mr. Darcy and his cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam soon join the party at Rosings, paying a visit to their “favorite aunt,“ the haughty, judgmental Lady Catherine. “‘I must thank you, Eliza, for this piece of civility,’” Mr. Collins gushes upon Darcy’s arrival. “‘Mr. Darcy would never have come so soon to wait upon me.’”
(For those of us familiar with the novel—how right Mr. Collins is, indeed!)
To Elizabeth’s great surprise, Mr. Darcy seems to pay her special attention while they are together at Rosings, perhaps exhibited best in one of my all-time favorite passages from the novel:
More than once did Elizabeth in her ramble within the park, unexpectedly meet Mr. Darcy.—She felt all the perverseness of the mischance that should bring him where no one else was brought; and to prevent its ever happening again, took care to inform him at first, that it was a favourite haunt of hers.—How it could occur a second time therefore was very odd!—Yet it did, and even a third.
Oh, Lizzy! Our beloved, oblivious girl. I simply adore how Darcy always assumes his flirting is top-notch—and without fail, Elizabeth rolls her eyes and thinks, Huh, what a weirdo.
To make matters worse, Elizabeth’s existing negative sentiments toward Mr. Darcy multiply tenfold when Colonel Fitzwilliam reveals Darcy’s instrumental role in convincing Mr. Bingley to quit Netherfield, thus ending his relationship with Jane, on account of the Bennets’ low social status and lack of propriety.
The climax of Volume Two arrives with the second proposal of marriage Elizabeth receives throughout the novel, this time tactlessly delivered by none other than Mr. Darcy himself. Truly, I cannot do the scene justice in my own words, so in lieu of a recap, I implore you to dust off your copy of Pride and Prejudice and reread it for yourself! However, if you do not have easy access to the novel, please refer to these versions adapted for film and television: BBC’s Pride and Prejudice (1995), Pride & Prejudice (2005), and my personal favorite, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2016).
After rejecting Mr. Darcy’s proposal most thoroughly, Elizabeth panics upon meeting him in the park the next day. However, he only pauses to deliver a letter and thus departs with little fanfare. Curiosity piqued, Elizabeth rips open the letter almost immediately and discovers within an explanation for his previous “bad behavior,” including the situation with Jane and Mr. Bingley. Most importantly, however, he refutes Mr. Wickham’s account of their previous acquaintance, revealing that Wickham demanded a sum of £3,000 instead of the living that Mr. Darcy’s father had promised him, promptly squandered it all, and then demanded even more money. When Darcy refused to pay it, Wickham attempted to seduce Darcy’s then-fifteen-year-old sister, Georgiana, in order to gain access to her large fortune.
Volume Two ends with Elizabeth’s return to Longbourn, at which point she is still reeling from the contents of Mr. Darcy's bombshell of a letter. Lydia, against Elizabeth’s sincerest wishes (“… she will, at sixteen, be the most determined flirt that ever made herself and her family ridiculous,” Lizzy warns their father), joins Colonel Forster and his wife in Brighton with the militia, while Lizzy herself departs for Derbyshire with Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, where she is assured of Mr. Darcy's absence: “To Pemberley, therefore, they were to go.”
Be sure to join us next Monday, September 2, for a recap of Pride and Prejudice’s Volume Three! Until then, leave your thoughts in the comment section below.
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