“There is nothing like dancing after all. - I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished societies.”
Last week, we unpacked what I hope to be the final aftermath chapter of the party. Today, the chapter opens with Bingley’s sisters returning the Bennets’ visit and beginning to form some thoughts on them.
The manners of a Ms Bennet (no idea which one) prove pleasant enough, but the sisters find Mrs Bennet intolerable and her youngest children unworthy of their attention. Jane and Elizabeth are the exceptions to this, and react to it differently. For Jane, the positive attention due to her blossoming love with Mr Bingley is welcome, but for Elizabeth, she feels his sisters are just being condescending to everyone, which is interesting considering they’re all in the upper class. Shows you can never have it all, I suppose.
Though Jane and Mr Bingley’s love has grown only in little glances and dances at parties in the last few weeks, Charlotte urges her to make her love for him obvious (good move) otherwise she “may lose the opportunity of fixing him” (hmm…) as men need a woman’s help to properly fall in love, though Eliza does counter this with the assertion that they “must be a simpleton indeed” if they can’t discover any of their own feelings without the help of a good woman.
Eliza goes on to criticise Charlotte’s theories on love for being centred purely on the pursuit of marriage, especially the pursuit of marriage to a rich man. It’s here that I question who exactly is Austen’s mouthpiece in the story. Lizzy? Jane? Certainly not Charlotte in any case. I must say I found admirable too see her deconstruct the core themes of the book - love, the pursuit of marriage and whether romance has any role in it for the upper classes. Not to mention pride and prejudice, of course.
It’s clear that these women have little else to be doing in their positions in society, as there is an in-depth analysis over the quality and quantity of time their sister Jane has spent with Bingley, and what she may have learnt from it. Including : his appetite, their mutual opinions on Vingt-un over Commerce (which I’m inferring is a kind of drink, possibly wine?) and whether she would be happier married to him on that day or after “a twelvemonth” of courting. It’s apparently “a matter of chance” and completely unrelated to the compatibility of their respective personalities and willingness to push and pull over mutual issues.
Spending all her time pouring over her sister’s love life, Lizzy fails to notice Mr Darcy’s blossoming tolerance of her; from “scarcely allowed” to be pretty, to being caught by the “easy playfulness” of her manners, showing a progression from observing the superficial to her personal qualities. As far as Lizzy is unaware (and I feel now is the perfect moment to remind you that Lizzy, or ‘Eliza’, is Elizabeth Bennet - second-oldest at around twenty years of the Bennet sisters - just in case you had lost track.), Darcy is in every way the man who rudely refused to dance with her, which is honestly still quite an accurate assessment of him. But familiarity with Lizzy is breeding intrigue for him, rather than contempt, in the back of his mind, (probably) stricken with severe social anxiety as it is.
Will Austen follow up on this soon? Well, there’s another 60-something chapters to fill, so I wouldn’t hold my breath over her rushing what appears to be the central plot thread if I were you.
We move to a fleeting anecdote of a subsequent party, utterly wrecking my party:aftermath chapter ratio, where Darcy follows up on his matured interest in Lizzy by... standing around and listening in to her conversations with others. To the surprise of everyone (read : NO-ONE), being exposed to so much of his “satirical eye” simply makes Lizzy feel uncomfortable and like she has to be “impertinent” with him or fear him. Take notes ladies, gentlemen and all other dignified people, this man has such a good way with the ladies.
To defend her poor friend from Mr Darcy’s presumed barbs, one of the Ms Lucases (I’m assuming the 27-year-old, but I could be wrong) nudges her to displays her modest singing talent for the amusement of the party as she plays some undetermined instrument. Probably a flute. She is then swiftly overshadowed by her emphatically mediocre sister Mary, who is more than happy to “purchase” their praise. Transactional lexis here makes me draw conclusions of the nature of these balls. Very ‘something for something’ it seems.
And then everyone danced.
Except for Mr Darcy, I think. When asked by Sir William to join them as a compliment to the place (their manners have reached the point of flattering inanimate objects through the medium of mirthful movement). In any case, he does not desire to do this for any building if he can help it, so at least he’s non-discriminatory in his social withdrawal.
Unperturbed by this, William tries to turn the conversation toward the subject of his total insecurity with his social status via the medium of home ownership, to no avail. In order to keep things moving, Austen plonks Lizzy next to Darcy at the sidelines of the party and the good Sir tries to get what he presumes to be kindred spirits together. Lizzy is not interested, but Darcy demonstrates some character development by offering her a dance “with grave propriety” like the eligible bachelor he is. She refuses. For a couple of paragraphs.
When she walks back out of the chapter, Darcy confesses his blossoming interest in the girl who quite clearly dislikes him to Bingley’s unmarried sister. Not sure if she’s the best person to be confiding in, but maybe my opinion of her is just tainted by my alignment with good old Lizzy.
Thoughts
- Need to get ahead on these, not finish them at midnight
- Darcy goes from aloof to smitten
- Still sardonic
- I want to see a bit of the world outside of the ballroom, but I think I’m reading the wrong book for it
