‘Mr Darcy is engaged to marry my daughter,’ exclaimed her ladyship. ‘Now, what do you say to that?’

Mr Collins, at first rendered speechless by this turn of events, had resorted to repeated apologies of a general nature, but had not much of sense to contribute otherwise, and it was left to Charlotte to attempt to reason with Lady Catherine.

‘Your ladyship, surely if Mr Darcy and Miss de Bourgh are engaged, neither you nor she have anything to fear from what is doubtless a mischievous report, or a grave misunderstanding?’

Lady Catherine hesitated. ‘Theirs is not the usual sort of engagement: it is an understanding shared by the family. His mother and I planned it while both were still in their cradles. It is an expectation that has become fact, a union that will be most satisfactory, correct, and necessary. I will not have it overturned by a pert girl with ideas above her station. Mrs Collins, I charge you to use your power to dissuade your friend from a step that will cost her all her friends. It did not escape me last Easter that you have influence with Miss Elizabeth Bennet. I insist that you write to her at once.’

She turned to the goldfish-mouthed Mr Collins: ‘And I insist that you travel straight away to Longbourn, bearing your wife’s letter, to speak most sternly to the Bennets, and warn them against spreading such wild and malicious rumours. There can be no truth in them. They must be contradicted at once. You must impress this upon your cousin.’

This was going too far. Charlotte had no intention of writing such a letter, or allowing her husband to cross two counties on a fool’s errand. ‘But Lady Catherine, we know of no such predisposition on Mr Darcy’s part.’ She paused, remembering the rapt expression on Darcy’s face as he watched Elizabeth during their evenings at Rosings. She felt private delight and even triumph at this intimation of her friend’s conquest; of Mr Darcy’s feelings, she had never been in any doubt. Eliza, I hope this is true.

However, now she needed to dissemble: ‘Your ladyship cannot wish for me to excite Miss Elizabeth Bennet’s hopes in this regard. This would be foolish in the extreme. If Mr Collins were to visit, especially to speak on such a topic, surely this would confirm or harden reports of such a match? Would not the Bennets begin to speak of it abroad? We could hardly hope for discretion, and it seems that discretion is our friend in this matter.’

Lady Catherine was not disposed to be soothed by any of this, and it took Charlotte’s most strenuous efforts to explain that no letter from her, or visit by Mr Collins, could be productive of anything more than added evil to the situation, which might in any case be entirely imaginary.