Pride and Prejudice and Kitties, стр. 32
“Oh! My dear, dear Jane, I am so happy!” cried Mrs. Bennet, after Mr. Bingley had taken leave. “I always said it must be so, at last. I was sure you could not be so beautiful for nothing! Why you could have won first prize at the Westminster Cat Show! But now Bingley has won you, and that is even better.”
Elizabeth interrupted her sister and Mr. Bingley murmuring together near the hearth.
Jane’s younger sisters began to petition in their own interest. Mary requested use of the library at Netherfield—she loved nothing more than to nap on a book left open by its owner—while Kitty pleaded to play with Mr. Bingley’s fine ball.
“I am certainly the most fortunate creature that ever existed!” trilled Jane to Elizabeth. “If I could but see you as happy! If there were but such another cat for you!”
The Bennets were speedily pronounced to be the luckiest cats in the country, though only a few weeks before, when Lydia had run away, they had been generally thought to be no better than common strays.
If I could but see you as happy! If there were but such another cat for you!
He came, and in such very good time, that the ladies were none of them dressed. In ran Mrs. Bennet to her daughter’s room, in her dressing gown, and with her hair half finished, crying out,
“My dear Jane, make haste and hurry down. He is come—Mr. Bingley is come—He is, indeed. Make haste, make haste. Here, Sarah, come to Miss Bennet this moment, and help her on with her gown. Never mind Miss Lizzy’s hair.”
“We will be down as soon as we can,” said Jane; “but I dare say Kitty is forwarder than either of us, for she went up stairs half an hour ago.”
“Oh! hang Kitty! what has she to do with it? Come be quick, be quick! Where is your sash, my dear?”
ONE MORNING, SHORTLY after Jane Bennet’s engagement to Mr. Bingley, Lady Cat pounced upon Longbourn, chased by four hounds (who, it turned out, had made sport with her after she alighted from her carriage in Meryton). She entered the room with her hair on end and was most uncivil—positively catty—to Mrs. Bennet.
“You have a very small park here,” she remarked after a short silence. “I doubt it affords enough rodents for your table.”
“Our suppers are nothing in comparison of Rosings, my lady, I dare say,” replied Mrs. Bennet, “but I assure you they are much more sumptuous than Sir William Lucas’s.”
Mrs. Bennet begged her ladyship to partake of a cat treat but Lady Cat declined with little civility; and then, arching her back, said to Elizabeth: “Miss Bennet, there seemed to be a prettyish kind of a little wilderness on one side of your lawn. I should be glad to take a romp in it, if you will favor me with your company.”
Elizabeth could not imagine the purpose of such a romp— indeed, Lady Cat was not the romping sort. As it turned out, her ladyship had come with a warning—and an irresistible urge to sharpen her claws on the unsuspecting Elizabeth.
“You can be at no loss, Miss Bennet, to understand the reason of my journey hither,” she began. “Your own heart, your own conscience, must tell you why I come.”
As it turned out, Lady Cat had heard a rumor that her nephew Mr. Darcy had offered Elizabeth his paw in marriage. She arrived hoping to frighten Lizzy off with hisses and swipes. But Elizabeth showed herself equal to repelling these ill-natured attacks.
“Miss Bennet, I insist on being satisfied,” Lady Cat demanded. “Has my nephew offered his paw in marriage?” “Your ladyship has declared it to be impossible.” “It ought to be so; it must be so, while he retains the use of his reason. But your frisks and capers coupled with a fresh catnip harvest may have made him forget all he owes to himself and his family.
“Let me be rightly understood,” Lady Cat continued. “Mr. Darcy is engaged to my daughter. From their kittenhood, they have been intended for each other. It was the favorite wish of his mother, as well as of hers. Even before they were able to open their eyes, we planned the union.”
“If Mr. Darcy is neither by honor nor inclination confined to his cousin, why is not he to make another choice?” asked Elizabeth. “And if I am that choice, why may not I accept him?”
“Because pedigree, papers, prudence forbid it. My daughter and my nephew are formed for each other. They are descended, on the maternal side, from the same noble lion—I mean line; and, on the father’s, from a respectable, honorable, and ancient breed.”
Lady Cat then pressed Elizabeth to promise never to accept Mr. Darcy’s proposal.
“I will make no promise of the kind,” retorted Elizabeth. “Miss Bennet I am shocked and astonished. I expected to find a more docile, domesticated cat.”
“You have widely mistaken the character of my catness,” growled Elizabeth, “if you think I can be worked on by such persuasions as these. I must beg, therefore, to be importuned no farther on the subject.”
“Not so hasty, if you please, I am by no means done. To all the objections I have already urged, I have still another to add. I am no stranger to the particulars of your youngest sister’s infamous elopement. I know it all. And is such a wild uncivilized animal to be my nephew’s sister? Are the grounds of Pemberley to be thus polluted? Unfeeling, selfish cat!”
In this manner Lady Cat yowled on till they were at the door of the carriage, when, turning hastily round, she hissed: “I take no leave of you, Miss Bennet. I send no compliments to your mother. You deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased.”
“Miss Bennet,” replied her