Austen August: A Pride and Prejudice Read-A-Long discussion

The girls and Collins stay out at Maryton for the evening and wind up having dinner with their aunt and uncle, Collins and Wickham. A dinner which Collins spends most of his time, once again, comparing anything and anyone to the grandeur and amazingness of Rosings and Lady Catherine (give me strength.). Lizzie finds herself starting to notice Wickham and seems to be flattered by him when he sits next to her.

After dinner he initially sits between Lydia and Lizzie, but Lydia gets sucked into a game of cards, so Wickham ends up just talking to Lizzie. The topic of Darcy quickly comes up. He tells Lizzie that she could ask nobody else about Darcy better than him as he grew up with the man.

Wickham spends a lot of time basically saying to Lizzie “Well I can't pass any opinion on Darcy buuuuut...” and begins to tell her what happened between the two. He was raised by Mr Darcy's late father, who was his godfather, and was supposed to inherit upon his passing, but unfortunately his inheritance went “elsewhere”. He argues that he cannot fight Darcy for his rightful inheritance because it would bring shame to Darcy's late father.

And just like that, any slight glimpses of positive thoughts of Darcy have gone from Lizzie's mind and she finds him truly hateful. Oh dear.

Wickham also brings up Darcy's sister into the conversation, which prompts Lizzie to ask him about her. He says that as a child, Miss Darcy was “affectionate, pleasing and very fond of me” but now he has no idea what she is like due to the fall out of the two gents (foreshadowing austen is foreshadowing in this entire chapter).

Lizzie also finds out (a lot of things in this chapter, evidently!) that Lady Catherine de Bought is actually Darcy's Aunt! (Put the two in a room together and the amount of Pride would probably cause a tear in the fabric of space.) It is believed that the Lady Catherine's daughter and Darcy are supposed to marry so that their two fortunes combine. Lizzie is amused at the thought of what this news would do to Caroline Bingley.

Phew- I'm all gossiped out!

Oh, Mr. Wickham, how much I dislike you. I wonder if he would have been so willing to disparage Mr. Darcy if Elizabeth hadn't pointed out how unpopular he was.

Wickham is just...slimey. Ugh. I thought that when I read it, to be fair. I wonder if he would have brought up knowing Darcy at all if she hadn't name-dropped him