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Beginning with Elizabeth Bennet’s stroll with Colonel Fitzwilliam, and then
continuing during Darcy’s botched first proposal, and then in his letter to
Elizabeth, Elizabeth Bennet comes to learn that Bingley has been kept in
the dark by Miss Bingley and Darcy since leaving Meryton about Jane’s
continuing interest in him, which is what brought Jane to London a few
months after he left.



Elizabeth is thus uniquely situated by Chapter 36 in her knowledge that
Bingley may still be romantically interested in Jane, and she already knew
all along that Jane was definitely still romantically interested in
Bingley. It’s an old romantic trope, the two lovers who each don’t realize
that the other is still in love with them.



I suggest that once Elizabeth has this unique knowledge (the only other
character who also knows is Darcy, but he has made it clear, arrogantly,
that he stands by his actions to keep Bingley in the dark about Jane), she
does absolutely nothing to try to somehow let each of the lovebirds know
about the other, which might cause Bingley to wake up and (as Darcy puts it
in the 1996 miniseries, “go to it”). When she does think about telling
Jane, she decides that it would only make Jane even sadder, since, so her
thinking seems to go, it would be a fool’s errand, it would not bring
Bingley back.



I advocate for Elizabeth to persuade her father to covertly seek out
Bingley in London, and inform Bingley of this crucial fact that Jane still
loves him. I am not suggesting that Elizabeth tell Jane directly, not
unless and until her father was successful.



Two counterarguments to mine come to mind:



FIRST:

Mr. Bennet is indolent, not a responsible diligent father, so even if
Elizabeth asked, he would refuse to intervene. But, given the stakes for
Jane, shouldn't Elizabeth give it a try with him anyway, what does she have
to lose? It would be for Jane’s sake, so it would be the generous thing for
Elizabeth to do. But this possibility never even occurs to Elizabeth. Also,

in Chapter 41, Elizabeth does try to get her father to stop Lydia and Kitty
from going to Brighton. But she doesn’t ask him to do something he already
did, in a different way, at the beginning of the novel, which is to go on a
secret romantic mission to Bingley!



And…. last but not least, Elizabeth doesn’t even think the thought of
asking her father, it never even occurs to her. Her mind is totally
occupied, I would suggest, with increasingly obsessive thoughts and regrets
about Darcy, so it appears there’s no room for thoughts about Jane.



Even when she is at Pemberley with her aunt and uncle, and Darcy’s being so
nice to them and to her – it never occurs to her even then that she might
ask him to reconsider about Jane and Bingley. No, that would risk him
getting angry at her, and sending her on her way home.



SECOND: I actually made up a hypothetical letter that Mr. Bennet could
arrange to have delivered to Bingley in London without being detected by
either Caroline Bingley or Darcy. The letter doesn’t threaten Bingley, it
doesn’t try to make him feel guilty, it recognizes the delicacy of the
situation, and it makes Mr. Bennet’s good intentions perfectly clear, and
gives Bingley an easy out if he is not interested, for any reason, in
restarting with Jane.



Would that be “improper” for Mr. Bennet to write such a letter? But why
would it be improper for a respectable gentleman like Mr. Bennet if he
wrote a carefully worded, non-threatening letter of information to another
gentleman, about a matter of great personal interest to both of them, and
to the woman they both share affection for – Jane? Why would that be more
improper than Mr. Bennet going over to Netherfield at the beginning of the
novel to introduce Bingley to the Bennet family and all his daughters,
which everyone thought was a great move by him.



More important, though, this got me thinking deeply about the distinction
between “propriety” and “morality”. Even if hypothetically, someone could
argue that it was not normal Regency Era decorum for Mr. Bennet to
intervene in this way, I would think that everyone would agree that this
was a very moral thing for Mr. Bennet to do. It would be a mission of
mercy, a mission of love, with pure motives and a possibility it could lead
to the righting of a very bad wrong – two people who love each other having
been separated for no good reason at all.



I don't believe Jane Austen valued propriety and protocol over true love.
Isn't such propriety what Austen ridicules strongly when Mr. Bennet reacts
to Mr. Collins’s letter:

“I must not, however, neglect the duties of my station, or refrain from
declaring my amazement, at hearing that you received the young couple into
your house as soon as they were married. It was an encouragement of vice;
and had I been the rector of Longbourn, I should very strenuously have
opposed it. You ought certainly to forgive them as a Christian, but never
to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your
hearing.’ That is his notion of Christian forgiveness!”



Mr. Bennet would, I conclude, find a mission to Bingley to be a mission of
charity and generosity. He would risk looking improper, out of love for his
daughter Jane.



What do you all think, about any of the above?



ARNIE