Denny tempted me farther by his
account of their present quarters, and the very great attentions and excellent
acquaintance Meryton had procured them. Society, I own, is necessary to me. I
have been a disappointed man, and my spirits will not bear solitude. I must have
employment and society. A military life is not what I was intended for, but
circumstances have now made it eligible. The church ought to have been my
profession - I was brought up for the church, and I should at this time have
been in possession of a most valuable living, had it pleased the gentleman we
were speaking of just now.«
    »Indeed!«
    »Yes - the late Mr. Darcy bequeathed me the next presentation of the best
living in his gift. He was my godfather, and excessively attached to me. I
cannot do justice to his kindness. He meant to provide for me amply, and thought
he had done it; but when the living fell, it was given elsewhere.«
    »Good heavens!« cried Elizabeth; »but how could that be? - How could his
will be disregarded? - Why did not you seek legal redress?«
    »There was just such an informality in the terms of the bequest as to give
me no hope from law. A man of honour could not have doubted the intention, but
Mr. Darcy chose to doubt it - or to treat it as a merely conditional
recommendation, and to assert that I had forfeited all claim to it by
extravagance, imprudence, in short any thing or nothing. Certain it is, that the
living became vacant two years ago, exactly as I was of an age to hold it, and
that it was given to another man; and no less certain is it, that I cannot
accuse myself of having really done any thing to deserve to lose it. I have a
warm, unguarded temper, and I may perhaps have sometimes spoken my opinion of
him, and to him, too freely. I can recal nothing worse. But the fact is, that we
are very different sort of men, and that he hates me.«
    »This is quite shocking! - He deserves to be publicly disgraced.«
    »Some time or other he will be - but it shall not be by me. Till I can
forget his father, I can never defy or expose him.«
    Elizabeth honoured him for such feelings, and thought him handsomer than
ever as he expressed them.
    »But what,« said she, after a pause, »can have been his motive? - what can