Darcy, a time during which Darcy begins to feel the danger of his attraction
to Elizabeth.
By contrast, Austen’s arrangements for Elizabeth and Darcy’s meeting at
Pemberley are far less elaborate and far more dependent on Chance. First, it
just so happens that the Gardiners are required to change their planned trip
with Elizabeth so that they go to Derbyshire, the location of Pemberley, rather
than the Lake Country. Second, once in Derbyshire, the Gardiners naturally
want to see Pemberley. Elizabeth is reluctant to go, given that she has by this
time rejected Darcy’s marriage proposal and done so in a manner that she
now deeply regrets. But after receiving assurances from the chambermaid
at their hotel that Darcy is away for the summer, Elizabeth consents. Third,
Darcy then turns up “unexpectedly.” We might conclude that his arrival is a
contrivance, an event motivated by authorial purpose that works against the
illusion of the characters’ autonomy. But most readers don’t regard the meet-
ing as something that violates the mimetic illusion, and I believe our tacit
assumptions about fiction—and the overall readerly dynamics of the novel’s
progression—help explain why.
These assumptions help us recognize that Darcy’s arrival at Pemberley is
unexpected by the narrative audience, that is, the audience engaged with the
characters as autonomous actors, but wholly expected by the authorial audi-
ence, that is, the audience that knows the autonomy is an illusion. Here Shel-
don Sacks’s arguments about the power of genre that I discussed in chapter 2
(and in this context, genre means not simply “fiction” but “fictional comedy
of fulfillment”) do apply. If the first chapter supplies insufficient evidence for
a solid inference about this genre, the progression in the rest of the begin-
ning and the middle supplies ample evidence. The most significant evidence
is Austen’s handling of Mr. Collins’s proposal to Elizabeth. Austen’s represen-
tation of Collins’s many defects, from unwarranted pride to an overall lack
of good sense, combined with Mrs. Bennet’s desire to have Elizabeth accept
the proposal, means that Elizabeth faces a genuine threat to her happiness,
present and future. Austen resolves the instability by means of Mr. Bennet’s
wittily expressing the choice Elizabeth faces: “From this day you must be a
stranger to one of your parents.—Your mother will never see you again if you
do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do.” Austen
uses both this resolution and its manner as strong signals to her audience
that in this narrative, the various threats to Elizabeth’s happiness will never be
wholly realized. Furthermore, the interactions between Darcy and Elizabeth at
Netherfield and at Lady Catherine’s before Darcy’s first proposal reinforce her
audience’s expectation that Darcy and Elizabeth will eventually marry. Conse-
quently, the authorial audience’s response to the disastrous first proposal scene
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