Artful Lizzy Bennet
Elizabeth Bennet stonewalls her way through a disagreeable encounter with Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
1813
King George III 1760-1820
Charlotte and Sarah Carteret-Hardy, by Thomas Lawrence (detail).
By Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830), © Sailko, Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 3.0.
A detail from a portrait of Charlotte and Sarah Carteret-Hardy, painted in 1801 by Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830). The confrontation between Lady Catherine and Elizabeth Bennet is one of the high points of Jane Austen’s beloved novel Pride and Prejudice (1813). Throughout the exchanges, Lizzy (who is ‘not one and twenty’, and has spent her entire life in a village) steadfastly refuses to give straight answers to what instinct warns her are not straight questions. What a career she might have had in the law! but no woman would be called to the bar until Ivy Williams in May 1922, and no woman would practise as a barrister until Helena Normanton the following November.
Introduction
In Pride and Prejudice, Lady Catherine de Bourgh has heard that her wealthy nephew, Fitzwilliam Darcy, is planning to propose to Elizabeth Bennet, instead of her own daughter. She has raced to Longbourn, Elizabeth’s home, to demand an explanation of the ‘impossible’, but Lizzy sees no reason to be defensive.
“If you believed it impossible to be true,” said Elizabeth, colouring with astonishment and disdain, “I wonder you took the trouble of coming so far. What could your ladyship propose by it?”
“At once to insist upon having sach a report universally contradicted.”
“Your coming to Longbourn, to see me and my family,” said Elizabeth, coolly, “will be rather a confirmation of it; if, indeed, such a report is in existence.”
“If! do you then pretend to be ignorant of it? Has it not been industriously circulated by yourselves? Do you not know that such a report is spread abroad?”
“I never heard that it was.”
“And can you likewise declare, that there is no foundation for it?”
“I do not pretend to possess equal frankness with your ladyship. You may ask questions, which I shall not choose to answer.”
“This is not to be borne. Miss Bennet, I insist on being satisfied. Has he, has my nephew, made you an offer of marriage?”
“Your ladyship has declared it to be impossible.”
