Chapter LVII — Pride and Prejudice

After a power play against you, you trace the gossip and then your parent jokes about the one person you cannot explain. Elizabeth cannot shake Lady Catherine's visit: the journey was to break off a supposed engagement with Mr. Darcy. She traces the rumour from Jane's wedding and the Lucases through the Collinses, and fears her Ladyship will persuade Darcy on the evils of connecting with the Bennets. If he does not return to Netherfield, she will know how to understand it.

The family learns only that Lady Catherine called. Mr. Bennet summons Elizabeth with a letter he says astonished him: two daughters on the brink of matrimony. It is from Mr. Collins, repeating gossip that Elizabeth will not long bear the name Bennet, warning against a precipitate match with Mr. Darcy, and reporting that Lady Catherine does not look on it with a friendly eye.

Mr. Bennet delights in the absurdity of Darcy as admirer and asks what Lady Catherine said about the report. Elizabeth laughs when she must, mortified by his talk of Darcy's indifference, and wonders whether her father sees too little while she may have fancied too much. She must laugh when she would rather cry, hiding hope and hurt from a father who cannot see what Lady Catherine's visit already revealed.