(This conversation will contain spoilers for the current chapters and possibly for future chapters.)

S: Chapter 11 is so funny. I enjoyed seeing how attentive Mr. Bingley is toward Jane. There’s such a subtlety to the scene, yet the reader can see that Mr. Bingley treats Miss Bennet differently. Miss Bingley is thwarted in her attempts to wrangle Mr. Darcy’s attention, and her attempts are the parts I giggled at most. I know I’ve made a fool of myself trying to get someone’s attention!

R: She also tries to turn Mr. Darcy against Elizabeth. Instead, we learn something of Darcy’s views. He says, in response to a comment by Elizabeth, ‘Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride – where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will always be under good regulation.’ This echoes what Mary said earlier about pride.

There is also his famous line, ‘My good opinion once lost, is lost forever.’

S: I also like that Mr. Darcy has Elizabeth’s number: ‘And yours…is wilfully to misunderstand them’, he responds when she accuses him of hating everyone. It makes me wonder if he suspects that she knows he likes her and is being stubborn, or if she really has no clue still. I can see the continued brewings of misunderstandings!

R: That was certainly one of their most direct interactions, and we are given our first clear glimpse of the pride of Mr. Darcy and the prejudice of Elizabeth Bennet referenced in the novel’s title. 

Elizabeth and Jane finally return home, to the sorrow of Mr. Bingley and Mrs. Bennet, but the joy of nearly everyone else.

S: I love that both Jane and Elizabeth stand up for themselves. While the reader already knows Elizabeth has her own mind and voices it, the book makes it clear in this chapter that Jane is not a pushover, however even-tempered she may be: ‘…but Jane was firm where she felt herself to be right’. She knows her own mind and will be assertive when she thinks she needs to be assertive.

Their father’s reaction at having them both home again in order to bring back some stability to their family is so sweet! I couldn’t tell at the beginning of the novel if Jane annoyed him like Mary, Catherine, and Lydia do, but he seems to lump Jane and Elizabeth together as being the sensible daughters.

R: The only sense in a house full of sensibility! Oh wait, that was the other novel.

We meet a couple more important characters in these chapters. Mr. Collins is a minister, under the patronage of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and heir to the Bennet estate. He wants to reconcile with Mr. Bennet before his death by marrying one of his daughters. Upon learning that Jane is, according to Mrs. Bennet, all but spoken for, he turns his attentions to Elizabeth. Mr. Collins is hilarious and irritating all rolled into one.

S: Lady de Bourgh does not seem like someone I would want to cross, and Mr. Collins is certainly a piece of work! It was so funny to me that Mr. Bennet’s desire was that Mr. Collins proved himself to be a fool; he was not disappointed and neither was the reader! Mr. Collins’s letter to Mr. Bennet is so cringe-worthy, as is how he speaks to the ladies, yet in a strange way he’s not rude, just awkward, whereas Lydia’s outburst and interruption of his reading was extremely rude; it is not the first time she has behaved in such a manner. I am shocked that, rather than being reprimanded by her father and mother, she was reprimanded by Jane and Elizabeth. 

Poor Mr. Bennet. The reader knows that Mr. Collins is awkward and simple because of how he was raised, so some of his actions can be excused. Still, it would be rather annoying to be shadowed by someone in your own home when all you want to do is get away for a moment’s peace, so I can understand why Mr. Bennet encouraged Mr. Collins to go on a walk with the girls.

R: That’s a good point about Jane and Elizabeth being the ones to step in and call the younger girls to task for their behavior. I imagine that Mr. Bennet has all but given up hope that they’ll actually heed him, while Mrs. Bennet likely doesn’t see anything wrong with how they act. 

Finally, we meet the handsome but mysterious figure of Mr. Wickham, who is joining the military regiment at Meryton. They meet him in town, where Darcy and Bingley happen to be passing by on their way to Longbourn to check on Jane, and Elizabeth sees that Darcy and Wickham have a sort of strange reaction to one another. 

S: As a reader I’m becoming almost as convinced as Mrs. Bennet that Mr. Bingley very much cares for Jane. 

The interaction between Mr. Darcy and Mr. Wickham intrigues me. Nothing is really out of character for Mr. Darcy, but it does make one wonder about Mr. Wickham. I’m hoping we find out more about Mr. Wickham and his relationship to Mr. Darcy soon.