Exiled from Pemberley : Finding Home in Pride and Prejudice

Pride and Prejudice begins when a house in the neighborhood of the

Bennet’s Longbourn estate is let. It ends with a list of those who are, and those who are not, welcome at Mr. Darcy’s fabled Pemberley when he weds

Elizabeth Bennet. In the arc that connects these two points, the two eldest

Bennet daughters traverse England. Jane, blinded by good-natured confidence in Miss Bingley, resides with her aunt and uncle Gardiner in

Cheapside for its proximity to Mr. Bingley and, presumably, to his heart.

Elizabeth, with some trepidation, undertakes a journey by coach to the parsonage at Rosings Park, where her best friend tends the poultry that might have been hers, had she accepted Mr. Collins’ proposal. The

Gardiners and Elizabeth, because of Mr. Gardiner’s business commitments, are forced to curtail their planned tour of the Lakes to a jaunt through

Derbyshire.

Movement between locations is nearly always central to Jane Austen’s plots. Sense and Sensibility is defined by the Dashwood’s forced removal to

Barton Cottage, and, later, what Marianne discovers about Willoughby while residing in London. Fanny Price is sent from Mansfield Park so that she might remember all that her wealthy relations have done to improve her situation in life. Each change of scenery requires a new description, an increased level of attention to the details of place and location. In this sense, it would be a mistake to consider journeys a unique feature of Pride and Prejudice. What is different, however, is the degree to which the physical features of a place, particularly houses, stand in for a general description of that infinitely more elusive quality of “home”—the nature of, and the relationships between, its inhabitants. Jane and Elizabeth end their travels far away from Longbourn, their nominal house, because they are pursuing the concept of “home” elsewhere.

But before this complex connection between the actual house and the psychological home is established, Austen puts herself at pains to describe the relationship between personality and surroundings, and between master and estate.

Mr. Bingley inherited property to the amount of nearly a hundred thousand pounds from his father, who had intended to purchase an estate, but did not live to do it. Mr. Bingley intended it likewise, and sometimes made choice of his county; but as he was now provided with a good house and the liberty of a manor, it was doubtful to many of those who best knew the easiness of his temper, whether he might not spend the remainder of his days at Netherfield (18).

The acquisition of real estate is used as a metaphor for the abstract qualities of “easiness” and “ductility”—the two words used with some frequency to describe Bingley’s character. Mr. Bingley had “not been of age two years when he was tempted by an accidental recommendation to look at

Netherfield House. He did look at it, and into it for half-an-hour—was pleased with the situation and the principle rooms…and took it immediately” (18). Although these qualities are underscored at many points, in ballrooms and in conversations with Darcy, the author’s own description of him is in terms of where he lives and why.

Nor is the association limited to Mr. Bingley. The way in which Mr.

Collins establishes himself first with the Bennets, and later with Charlotte

Lucas, is not only through the name of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, but through his descriptions of her estate. We see him ingratiating himself with

Mrs. Philips by comparing her parlor to a “small summer breakfast room at

Rosings” (85). The reflection does not suit Mrs. Philips until she understands the grandeur of Rosings (where the chimney-piece alone cost eight hundred pounds), the communication of which was Mr. Collins’ point all along (85-86). Mr. Collins is important through his connection with Lady

Catherine, but the medium by which he establishes the degree of his importance is his frequent reference to the physical features of Rosings, and, in the case of his courtship of Charlotte Lucas, his own parsonage on the Rosings’ grounds. “I ask only a comfortable home,” Charlotte explains to an astonished Elizabeth upon the occasion of her engagement to Mr.

Collins. (146). She is certain that Mr. Collins’ situation, his money and connections, will provide it, but the physical manifestation of his wealth and consequence—the house—is what matters.

Once this important link is established, Austen is free to describe what becomes the guiding force behind much of the plot of Pride and

Prejudice—Jane’s, and particularly Elizabeth’s, search for home. The first stage of Elizabeth’s journey begins at the parsonage in Rosings Park, where