Sir William then told Anne of the weeks of suspense he had endured at the hands of her mother until he could feel assured of success in both quarters. He sealed the impression of his sincerity by imparting to her the fact that she had long been a woman of independent means, and other particulars relative to her late father’s marriage settlements, including his final act of leaving the entirety of the Rosings estate to his daughter. Upon Miss de Bourgh’s careful questioning of Sir William, she was given to understand that, since attaining her majority, her own mother had knowingly withheld the particulars of her father’s will. In this testament, Anne, not Lady Catherine, was the mistress of Rosings!

“Anne, as your father purchased Rosings and did not inherit it, it need not be entailed on any successor. His wife forfeited her dower rights with the marriage articles, as agreed between the Earl and Sir Lewis at the time of her marriage. As the Earl was not rich, the best he could reasonably secure for his daughter was a jointure of £7,000 without any life-estate, excepting an otherwise unstipulated ‘life-time domicile,’ which I venture to suggest—by your leave—to be habitation of the old dower cottage. I am sure that Lady Catherine’s father did not have an idea of Sir Lewis leaving the entirety of the estate away from his widow to settle it upon his daughter, but it was done, and we may both easily guess his motive. In short, your mother has been living at Rosings these past few years at your pleasure, and her only source of income derives from her jointure of £7,000 in the four per-cents. In short, all she is left with is a little money and a little house.”

The accumulated resentment over years of subjugation may well be imagined, but cannot be wonderful. Miss de Bourgh’s marriage to Sir William would be the undoing of Lady Catherine, heart and home; Anne resolved, at once, to accept the hand of Sir William, and effect the ruination of her mother. And with what pretty words did Anne plight her troth to Sir William?