Chapter 56 338
" Miss Bennet , do you know who I am ? I have not been accustomed to such language as this . I am almost the nearest relation he has in the world , and am entitled to know all his dearest concerns ."
" But you are not entitled to know mine ; nor will such behaviour as this , ever induce me to be explicit ."
" Let me be rightly understood . This match , to which you have the presumption to aspire , can never take place . No , never . Mr . Darcy is engaged to my daughter . Now what have you to say ?"
" Only this ; that if he is so , you can have no reason to suppose he will make an offer to me ."
Lady Catherine hesitated for a moment , and then replied :
" The engagement between them is of a peculiar kind . From their infancy , they have been intended for each other . It was the favourite wish of his mother , as well as of hers . While in their cradles , we planned the union : and now , at the moment when the wishes of both sisters would be accomplished in their marriage , to be prevented by a young woman of inferior birth , of no importance in the world , and wholly unallied to the family ! Do you pay no regard to the wishes of his friends ? To his tacit engagement with Miss de Bourgh ? Are you lost to every feeling of propriety and delicacy ? Have you not heard me say that from his earliest hours he was destined for his cousin ?"
" Yes , and I had heard it before . But what is that to me ? If there is no other objection to my marrying your nephew , I shall certainly not be kept from it by knowing that his mother and aunt wished him to marry Miss de Bourgh . You both did as much as you could in planning the marriage . Its completion depended on others . If Mr . Darcy is neither by honour nor inclination confined to his cousin , why is not he to make another choice ? And if I am that choice , why may not I accept him ?"