Page 60 of Hard Home

Her Ladyship, with great condescension, arose to receive them; and as Mrs. Collins had settled it with her husband that the office of introduction should be hers, it was performed in a proper manner, without any of those apologies and thanks which he would have thought necessary.

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Lady Catherine de Bourgh was a tall, large woman, with strongly-marked features, which might once have been handsome. Her air was not conciliating, nor was her manner of receiving them such as to make her visitors forget their inferior rank. She was not rendered formidable by silence; but whatever she said, was spoken in so authoritative a tone as marked her self-importance.

Elizabeth found that she was not at all frightened of her, and was interested to find it.

Miss de Bourgh was pale and sickly; her features, though not plain, were insignificant; and she spoke very little, except in a low voice to Mrs. Jenkinson, in whose appearance there was nothing remarkable, and who was entirely engaged in listening to what she said, and placing a screen in the proper direction before her eyes.

They had not been many minutes at table before Lady Catherine began.

"Your father's estate is entailed on Mr. Collins, I think. For your sake," turning to Charlotte, "I am glad of it; but otherwise I see no occasion for entailing estates from the female line. — It was not thought necessary in Sir Lewis de Bourgh's family. — Do you play and sing, Miss Bennet?"

"A little."

"Oh! then — some time or other we shall be happy to hear you. Our instrument is a capital one, probably superior to —— You shall try it some day. — Do your sisters play and sing?"

"One of them does."

"Why did not you all learn? — You ought all to have learned. The Miss Webbs all play, and their father has not so good an income as yours. — Do you draw?"

"No, not at all."

"What, none of you?"

"Not one."

"That is very strange. But I suppose you had no opportunity. Your mother should have taken you to town every spring for the benefit of masters."

"My mother would have had no objection, but my father hates London."

"Has your governess left you?"

"We never had any governess."

"No governess! How was that possible? Five daughters brought up at home without a governess! — I never heard of such a thing. Your mother must have been quite a slave to your education."

Elizabeth could hardly help smiling, as she assured her that had not been the case.

"Then, who taught you? who attended to you? Without a governess you must have been neglected."

"Compared with some families, I believe we were; but such of us as wished to learn, never wanted the means. We were always encouraged to read, and had all the masters that were necessary. Those who chose to be idle, certainly might."

"Aye, no doubt; but that is what a governess will prevent, and if I had known your mother, I should have advised her most strenuously to engage one." Lady Catherine set down her glass. "Your mother's family name?"

"Gardiner, ma'am."

"Of?"

"Of Meryton. My grandfather was an attorney there."

"And her mother?"

Elizabeth said that she did not perfectly know.

"You do not know your own grandmother's family." It was not a question and there was no anger in it; it was the flat displeasure of a woman finding a gate off its hinges on a farm she does not own. "That is a very great deal too common in this country and it will be the ruin of half of it. Do you know your father's? — no, do not tell me, I know your father's. Bennet of Longbourn, four hundred years, heirs male, and there are five of you and no boy."

"Yes, ma'am."