Chapter XLV — Pride and Prejudice

Caroline Bingley's jealousy greets Elizabeth at Pemberley before Darcy walks in, and every planted insult that afternoon will turn against the woman who speaks it. Elizabeth and Mrs. Gardiner return Georgiana's visit at Pemberley. Georgiana is civil but painfully shy; Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley offer only cold courtesy while Elizabeth reads Caroline's hostility as rivalry for Darcy. Mrs. Annesley keeps conversation alive through the awkward pause; Elizabeth waits for the gentlemen with mixed wish and fear, unsure which feeling wins.

Servants bring fruit and cold meat; then Darcy enters from the river where he has been fishing with Mr. Gardiner. Every eye in the room watches him, none more sharply than Miss Bingley's smiling curiosity. She needles Elizabeth about the ----shire militia as a great loss to her family, striking at Wickham without naming him. Darcy flushes; Georgiana is overcome; Elizabeth answers in a tolerably disengaged tone. The attack meant to shame her instead fixes Darcy's attention more cheerfully on Elizabeth.

Georgiana will not join Caroline's later catalogue of Elizabeth's defects; her brother's praise has already settled her regard. When Darcy returns to the saloon, Caroline repeats the insults to him and he declares that for many months he has considered Elizabeth one of the handsomest women of his acquaintance, then leaves her to her pain alone. Riding back to Lambton, Elizabeth and Mrs. Gardiner discuss his sister, his friends, his house, and his fruit, but not him, though each longs for the other to speak first.