http://www.mssu.edu/english/ackiss/pnp_chapter

by David L. Ackiss, Professor of English
First published February 1999, Revised January 06, 2005

Austen crafted her novel with exquisite care, loading almost every paragraph with significance. I have often wished I could sit with students as they read this novel, answering their questions and offering analysis and comment. In what follows, I experiment with a kind of running commentary on the text, in a way trying to imitate what I think as I read. Some notes are merely explanatory while others offer critical analysis. By the way, the commentary sometimes draws on what comes after this passage in the novel, so it offers interpretations inaccessible during a first reading.

Before the chapter begins, Jane has fallen ill during her visit with Mr. Bingley's sisters, having to spend what is eventually five nights. Her sister Elizabeth, anxious for Jane's health, walks three miles in wet November weather to be with her beloved sister. The chapter describes the conversation during Elizabeth's first night with the Netherfield party: Mr. Bingley, Miss Bingley, Mr. and Mrs. Hurst, and Mr. Darcy.

I have had to add extra white space between the paragraphs of Austen's text. In the commentary, I identify the speaker for each line of dialogue, even when it is obvious. In some of Austen's dialogue, there are so few speaker tags that one must pay careful attention to tell who is talking.

I hope readers find this useful. If anyone has any ideas how I might improve this commentary, please let me know. Call me at 417.625.9686 or E-mail me.

*Pride and Prejudice* by Jane Austen	Commentary by David L. Ackiss
VOLUME I, CHAPTER VIII	Volume 1, Chapter 8
At five o'clock the two ladies retired to dress, and at half past six Elizabeth was summoned to dinner. To the civil enquiries which then poured in, and amongst which she had the pleasure of distinguishing the much superior solicitude of Mr. Bingley's, she could not make a very favourable answer. Jane was by no means better. The sisters, on hearing this, repeated three or four times how much they were grieved, how shocking it was to have a bad cold, and how excessively they disliked being ill themselves, and then thought no more of the matter; and their indifference towards Jane, when not immediately before them, restored Elizabeth to the enjoyment of all her original dislike. Their brother, indeed, was the only one of the party whom she could regard with any complacency. His anxiety for Jane was evident, and his attentions to herself most pleasing, and they prevented her feeling herself so much an intruder as she believed she was considered by the others. She had very little notice from any but him. Miss Bingley was engrossed by Mr. Darcy, her sister scarcely less so; and as for Mr. Hurst, by whom Elizabeth sat, he was an indolent man, who lived only to eat, drink, and play at cards, who, when he found her prefer a plain dish to a ragout, had nothing to say to her. When dinner was over, she returned directly to Jane, and Miss Bingley began abusing her as soon as she was out of the room. Her manners were pronounced to be very bad indeed, a mixture of pride and impertinence; she had no conversation, no stile, no taste, no beauty. Mrs. Hurst thought the same, and added,	The two ladies are Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley. Dinner is around six or seven, supper later. People of this class often kept fairly late hours and rose late in the morning - so late that "morning" sometimes means "during daylight" or before dusk.. Elizabeth is sizing up Bingley's regard for Jane. He evinces real concern, pleasing Elizabeth . The narrator shows how self-involved these sisters are. Their concern is superficial. Elizabeth 'enjoys' disliking them. Elizabeth is acute enough to judge these women accurately, but she is also vain enough to glory in her judgement and the superiority that implies. Elizabeth feels uncomfortable, implying that the courtesy of her hostess is deficient. Perhaps all but Bingley behave somewhat inhospitably. Austen invents Mr. Hurst mainly to laugh at and to despise -- a shallow, vain, lazy sensualist -- a gentleman in name only. If Elizabeth is so uncultured as to prefer plain to fancy cooking (a ragout is a French stew), he can have nothing in common with her. To "abuse" someone is to speak ill of her. Elizabeth 's education and country background do put her at a remove from London manners. However, Miss Bingley finds Elizabeth deficient because Miss Bingley is unkind, jealous, and critical by habit. Elizabeth is attractive, and Caroline has already heard Darcy commend her fine eyes.
"She has nothing, in short, to recommend her, but being an excellent walker. I shall never forget her appearance this morning. She really looked almost wild."	Mrs. (Louisa) Hurst . The indolence of these women stands in sharp contrast to the Elizabeth 's vitality. Austen has Elizabeth walk these three miles as a proof of her energy and her affection for Jane. Austen quietly calls into question her society's implicit ideal: a lady should never appear other than a lovely doll. Giving Elizabeth legs, Austen gives her a body. "Wild" is the last thing a gentlewoman should be, but there is a subtle erotic potentiality in this wildness--she came in hot and flushed--that makes Elizabeth's presence threatening to these women, unsettling perhaps to the men. In Austen, "morning" seems to mean during daylight hours before the evening meal.
"She did indeed, Louisa. I could hardly keep my countenance. Very nonsensical to come at all! Why must she be scampering about the country, because her sister had a cold? Her hair so untidy, so blowsy!"	Miss (Caroline) Bingley. She can hardly keep a straight face. Why would a lady sacrifice her coiffure for a sister with a cold? The text shows rather than tells how shallow these women are. Note that this is a woman speaking to her own sister about how little a sister's illness weighs against being ladylike and immaculately coifed. Austen again explores the tension between lady as bodiless, inert doll and woman as potent and active being. Darcy has better sense than to assent wholly to this notion of woman, but we will soon see him caught between these conflicting images of how a woman ought to conduct herself, especially when he thinks of his own sister.
"Yes, and her petticoat; I hope you saw her petticoat, six inches deep in mud, I am absolutely certain; and the gown which had been let down to hide it not doing its office."	Mrs. Hurst . Gentlewomen must never get dirty, of course. Being able to afford an idle wife was (and sometimes is) a powerful mark of a man's status. Elizabeth muddying her petticoats risks losing status, risks seeming as though she cannot manage to sustain the pristine uselessness of the ideal lady. The elaborate undergarments of the day and the burden of keeping them clean served as effective fetters upon women's freedom in the simplest, most physical sense.
"Your picture may be very exact, Louisa," said Bingley; "but this was all lost upon me. I thought Miss Elizabeth Bennet looked remarkably well, when she came into the room this morning. Her dirty petticoat quite escaped my notice."	Mr. (Charles) Bingley. Charles is a man of feeling, and Austen wants us to like him. He is also not so acute an observer as Darcy.
"You observed it, Mr. Darcy, I am sure," said Miss Bingley, "and I am inclined to think that you would not wish to see your sister make such an exhibition."	Miss Bingley. She is appealing to his weak side - his pride.
"Certainly not."	Mr. (Fitzwilliam) Darcy. Miss Bingley cleverly catches Darcy in a dilemma. He wants his sister to uphold the standards of strict decorum that Elizabeth has muddied a bit. But Elizabeth 's "exercising" her freedom also attracts him. Elizabeth 's physicality and freedom will be part of her appeal.
"To walk three miles, or four miles, or five miles, or whatever it is, above her ancles in dirt, and alone, quite alone! what could she mean by it? It seems to me to shew an abominable sort of conceited independence, a most country town indifference to decorum."	Miss Bingley. Alone! The implicit standard, that a lady should never go out unattended, reveals a world where the woman is always a sexual object, always vulnerable prey. This covert but ubiquitous sense of threat curtails women's freedom, like her petticoats and her gentlewoman's role. Freedom for Elizabeth , it seems, is not freedom but "conceited independence." Men go out alone all the time, for they are indeed free. Except under the patriarchal protection of her own home, a woman of Elizabeth 's class generally ought not go for a walk alone. Note that it is not the males who uphold and enforce the strictures of decorum that confine women. In this scene, it is the females. Both men and women participate in the social construction of gender roles (then and now). It is no mere male conspiracy. Under the prevailing system of the day, these gentlewomen have a pretty good life, especially if they are willing to trade freedom for security. Both Bingley and Darcy are less critical of Elizabeth 's walk than these women.
"It shews an affection for her sister that is very pleasing," said Bingley.	Mr. Bingley. In defending Elizabeth he defends feeling over propriety.
"I am afraid, Mr. Darcy," observed Miss Bingley in a half whisper, "that this adventure has rather affected your admiration of her fine eyes."	Miss Bingley. She cannot resist getting in a dig at Elizabeth . The lower Elizabeth 's status, the less a threat she is to Caroline's campaign to lure Darcy into marriage. It is worth noting that the "marriage market" of the day tended to make not only women into commodities, but men as well. Darcy's wealth blinds people to his real character just as much as Elizabeth 's relative lack of wealth threatens to make her invisible to Darcy. Miss Bingley is not throwing herself at Darcy because of his character or his charms or strength of character but because of his wealth and social standing. He is being treated as an object.
"Not at all," he replied; "they were brightened by the exercise." -- A short pause followed this speech, and Mrs. Hurst began again.	Mr. Darcy. Though some readers complain that the stiff manners of Austen's day make hers a pale, passionless, arid world, they overlook the direct and almost bruising way Darcy and Elizabeth sometimes speak. Darcy's reply shows his willingness to wound Miss Bingley if she persists in her teasing. Austen lets us know that Miss Bingley's designs upon Darcy are hopeless, though Miss Bingley remains in the dark. In this pause, which Austen takes pains to convey, Miss Bingley feels her wound.
"I have an excessive regard for Jane Bennet, she is really a very sweet girl, and I wish with all my heart she were well settled. But with such a father and mother, and such low connections, I am afraid there is no chance of it."	Mrs. Hurst. "Well settled" means well married. What she really means, with all her heart, is that she does not want her brother to marry Jane. The higher her brother's wife's social standing, the higher her own. Though it is not entirely clear until later, she is quite right in a way. Jane's having "such" a mother and father are a real threat to Jane's well-being. Her mother is rude, selfish, materialistic - a boor (though she loves her daughters deeply after her own fashion). Her father, though sensible and gentlemanly, chooses ease and irony over an active and engaged family life. He ought to demand more sense, civility, and maturity of his children's mother. He ought to treat her with more respect. He ought to exert himself more as a parent, too, especially for the younger girls who seem so idle and silly. He says as much later in the novel.
"I think I have heard you say, that their uncle is an attorney in Meryton."	Miss Bingley. An attorney is employed on other people's business and, therefore, possesses a lower status than a gentleman who is concerned only with his own. Meryton is a country backwater.
"Yes; and they have another, who lives somewhere near Cheapside ."	A commercial district in London , Cheapside is not a fashionable neighborhood. Though the Bingleys' father was in trade, they are trying hard to forget all that. Their rising status depends upon their putting as much distance as possible between that past and themselves. No snob like the nouveau riche.
"That is capital," added her sister, and they both laughed heartily.	Miss Bingley. Aimed at Charles and Darcy, this laugh is meant to put Jane and Elizabeth safely out of reach down the social ladder. Of course, Austen wants us to scorn and laugh at their outrageous snobbery.
"If they had uncles enough to fill all Cheapside ," cried Bingley, "it would not make them one jot less agreeable."	Mr. Bingley. While one admires his warm and simple heart, Bingley seems naive, or so Austen wants us to think. The reality is that economic and social status shapes our lives. Even in our egalitarian age when, in theory, love conquers all and Cinderella can marry the prince, the reality is that few of us ever marry someone whose parents are a lot richer or poorer than our own. Of course, Pride and Prejudice is a Cinderella story and militates against this stern limitation on love.
"But it must very materially lessen their chance of marrying men of any consideration in the world," replied Darcy.	Mr. Darcy. He is right. This is the way the world is. But not the way Austen thinks it should be.
To this speech Bingley made no answer; but his sisters gave it their hearty assent, and indulged their mirth for some time at the expense of their dear friend's vulgar relations.	"Vulgar" means common or ordinary.
With a renewal of tenderness, however, they repaired to her room on leaving the dining-parlour, and sat with her till summoned to coffee. She was still very poorly, and Elizabeth would not quit her at all till late in the evening, when she had the comfort of seeing her asleep, and when it appeared to her rather right than pleasant that she should go down stairs herself. On entering the drawing-room she found the whole party at loo, and was immediately invited to join them; but suspecting them to be playing high she declined it, and making her sister the excuse, said she would amuse herself for the short time she could stay below with a book. Mr. Hurst looked at her with astonishment.	To Jane's room. Elizabeth does not want their company. A drawing-room is what Americans today might call a living room. Loo is a card game. "Playing high" means that they are gambling at what might seem quite low stakes to them but might seem uncomfortably high stakes to Elizabeth . He is always astonished by Elizabeth, poor dolt.
"Do you prefer reading to cards?" said he; "that is rather singular."	Mr. Hurst. He says "rather singular" while today one might say "really weird."
"Miss Eliza Bennet," said Miss Bingley, "despises cards. She is a great reader and has no pleasure in anything else."	Miss Bingley. This is a surprisingly sharp, unfounded attack, though superficially it sounds like praise of Elizabeth 's seriousness. Because everything Caroline herself does is a pose, Caroline interprets Elizabeth 's taking up a book to be a pose meant to impress the men with her intellect.
"I deserve neither such praise nor such censure," cried Elizabeth ; "I am not a great reader, and I have pleasure in many things."	Elizabeth . Notice that Elizabeth easily identifies the censure implied in the praise. She sees through Miss Bingley here and throughout the novel. And she seems never to feel Miss Bingley a direct threat, though Elizabeth feels her a threat to Jane's relationship to Bingley.
"In nursing your sister I am sure you have pleasure," said Bingley; "and I hope it will soon be increased by seeing her quite well."	Mr. Bingley. Presumably Charles does not like his sister's manners and seeks to make amends for her rudeness.
Elizabeth thanked him from her heart, and then walked towards a table where a few books were lying. He immediately offered to fetch her others; all that his library afforded.	Elizabeth is sensitive to Charles' kind effort to make up for his sister's sarcasm.
"And I wish my collection were larger for your benefit and my own credit; but I am an idle fellow, and though I have not many, I have more than I ever look into."	Mr. Bingley. The ensuing conversation about books is meant to offer insight into Darcy's character and status, partly in contrast to Bingley's.
Elizabeth assured him that she could suit herself perfectly with those in the room.
"I am astonished," said Miss Bingley, "that my father should have left so small a collection of books. -- What a delightful library you have at Pemberley, Mr. Darcy!"	Miss Bingley. Her father was a businessman, not a scholar. Pemberley is Darcy's family estate. It serves almost as a character in the novel, so Austen here begins to develop this "character."
"It ought to be good," he replied, "it has been the work of many generations."	Mr. Darcy. Darcy is not among the newly rich. Old money bestows higher status than new money. Though most of this regard for old money or property is a mere construction of status markers, there is a basis for it in experience: it is alarmingly easy for old money to become no money, for inherited wealth to be squandered, for an estate to be ruined by the vice, greed, laziness, or stupidity of its owners. That generations of Darcys have managed Pemberley well is powerful evidence of their good sense, moral soundness, and dutifulness.
"And then you have added so much to it yourself, you are always buying books."	Miss Bingley. I wonder when the contemporary phrase "brown nosing" first gained currency?
"I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these,"	Mr. Darcy. Part of noblesse oblige, Darcy's responsibility to his estate is not merely to enjoy its great wealth but to serve as its caretaker, handing it on to the next generation improved for his having owned it. While this may seem a strange notion, it has contemporary parallels. For instance, nowadays many employees feel this loyalty and responsibility to the corporation or institution for which they work. An estate like Darcy's is an institution influencing the lives of hundreds of people for generations. Darcy may feel about his estate somewhat as the CEO of a large corporation feels about his or her company. With his enormous power, it seems at first glance that the boss can do anything he chooses . . . in theory. But his choices are ever dictated by the good of his company. His company controls him about as much as he controls his company. Many are the powerful executives who are effectively slaves to their corporations. The cost of power is usually some sort of bondage. When Darcy mentions "such days as these," Austen signals that she shares the conviction, common in the Romantic age, that theirs were extraordinary times blessed with a wealth of important, groundbreaking literature.
"Neglect! I am sure you neglect nothing that can add to the beauties of that noble place. Charles, when you build your house, I wish it may be half as delightful as Pemberley."	Miss Bingley. Austen has her kissing up so shamelessly for our sakes, hoping to make us laugh. Thanks, Miss Austen.
"I wish it may."	Mr. Bingley. He probably understands that he lacks the energy, understanding, and capital to develop an estate that rivals Darcy's Pemberley.
"But I would really advise you to make your purchase in that neighbourhood, and take Pemberley for a kind of model. There is not a finer county in England than Derbyshire."	Miss Bingley. She will even flatter Darcy for his county in north central England . Ironically enough, Miss Bingley is right in judging Pemberley a kind of model. Though interpreting this remark as sheer flattery, Elizabeth herself later comes to a similar judgement of Darcy's estate.
"With all my heart; I will buy Pemberley itself if Darcy will sell it."	Mr. Bingley.
"I am talking of possibilities, Charles."	Miss Bingley.
"Upon my word, Caroline, I should think it more possible to get Pemberley by purchase than by imitation."	Mr. Bingley. Charles knows that there is something about Pemberley that his money cannot buy. Now Elizabeth knows it too.
Elizabeth was so much caught by what passed, as to leave her very little attention for her book; and soon laying it wholly aside, she drew near the card-table, and stationed herself between Mr. Bingley and his eldest sister to observe the game.	Why does Elizabeth lay aside her book? Austen just might laugh quietly at Elizabeth for showing great interest when the talk reveals that Darcy has an large, important estate. A man (or woman) is almost always a little better looking when discovered to be rich. Why does she stand between Mrs. Hurst and Mr. Bingley? "Body language" existed long before modern psychologists began to study it. I cannot quite imagine the text's saying she "stationed herself between Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy to observe the game." Though a deceptively trivial-looking detail, this slight bit of choreography reveals a lot. Bingley is no threat to Elizabeth , nor she to him. I cannot imagine the text's saying she "stationed herself opposite Mr. Darcy so as to get a better look at him." But that is what she does, unconsciously I think.
"Is Miss Darcy much grown since the spring?" said Miss Bingley; "will she be as tall as I am?"	Miss Bingley. She seeks to show off her intimacy with the Darcy family. It is in this chapter that we first learn that Darcy has a younger sister. She turns out to be about Lydia 's or Catherine's age. Note that Caroline uses herself as the yardstick of Miss Darcy's height.
"I think she will. She is now about Miss Elizabeth Bennet's height, or rather taller."	Mr. Darcy. Note Darcy's yardstick! He is so conscious of Elizabeth that he uses her for comparison. His mind is not entirely on cards, and Elizabeth 's presence, as she stands opposite him, has a telling effect upon him.
"How I long to see her again! I never met with anybody who delighted me so much. Such a countenance, such manners, and so extremely accomplished for her age! Her performance on the piano-forte is exquisite."	Miss Bingley. Ugh. A "piano-forte" is what we call today a piano.
"It is amazing to me," said Bingley, "how young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are."	Mr. Bingley. The "accomplishments" discussed in this passage were pursued in part for their own sakes but also in part for making women more attractive in the marriage market. Women's accomplishments were, in general, cultivated to enable her to bring style, refinement, and decoration to her future husband's home, which is nothing to sneer at. On the other hand, Austen seems to sneer a little at them in comparison to the accomplishments Darcy hopes for in a woman.
"All young ladies accomplished! My dear Charles, what do you mean?"	Miss Bingley. Since she has been educated in a fine private seminary for girls, Miss Bingley's accomplishments are considerable. She therefore has a lot invested in the notion that accomplishments distinguish a woman, giving her greater value in the marriage game, greater attractions as a wife. To think all women accomplished is to devalue the distinctions Caroline is banking on.
"Yes all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover skreens, and net purses. I scarcely know any one who cannot do all this, and I am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time, without being informed that she was very accomplished."	Mr. Bingley. They all tole paint, embroider, and crochet. By these measures, all girls are spoken of as accomplished. One supposes that Austen is airing one of her pet peeves here, that her society sometimes calls a woman "accomplished" who possesses a few such skills. It implies a paltry notion of what women could achieve.
"Your list of the common extent of accomplishments," said Darcy, "has too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no otherwise than by netting a purse, or covering a skreen. But I am very far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I cannot boast of knowing more than half a dozen, in the whole range of my acquaintance, that are really accomplished."	Mr. Darcy. Darcy's ideas on real accomplishments reveal how seriously he takes women and their potential. Though he may strike the reader as a snob here, we should also notice that his sermon on real accomplishments a few paragraphs later implies that he expects more from his future wife than ornamentation. He wants equality, companionship, intellect. Paradoxically, Charles and his sisters betray their relatively middling standard of the ideal woman.
"Nor I, I am sure," said Miss Bingley.	Miss Bingley.
"Then," observed Elizabeth , "you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished women."	Elizabeth . To "comprehend" is to include. Elizabeth probably hopes to coax Darcy into voicing shallow, pretentious ideas about women so she can despise him. He lets her down.
"Yes; I do comprehend a great deal in it."	Mr. Darcy. Though we can't know this until much later, Darcy's upbringing has trapped him in a lonely egotism. His expecting so much of an accomplished woman signals his fear that, though "suitable matches" abound in the likes of Miss Bingley and Miss de Bourgh, he will never find a woman whose mind and character will rescue him from loneliness.
"Oh! certainly," cried his faithful assistant, "no one can be really esteemed accomplished, who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved."	Miss Bingley. Picking up on Darcy's line of argument, Miss Bingley catalogues the desirable. While certainly estimable, the characteristics she mentions tend toward producing a refined style, not serious principles. One assumes Bingley’s sisters are accomplished according to the measures here voiced.
"All this she must possess," added Darcy, "and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading."	Mr. Darcy. Darcy's expecting so much of women is threatening for all the women present, of course. Darcy himself is presumably an accomplished man - well educated and adept at masculine pursuits in the field. His preferring substance over style explains his being bored by Caroline Bingley. His expecting a woman to have mind explains his eventual choice of mates. What is more, his mention of reading conveys his approval of Elizabeth 's having earlier taken up a book. A few evenings later, in one of the funniest little episodes in Volume 1, Caroline dutifully tries to impress him by reading but, amusingly enough, can't keep her mind on her book (see chapter 11).
"I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any."	Elizabeth . Think about who hears Elizabeth ’s remark.
"Are you so severe upon your own sex, as to doubt the possibility of all this?"	Mr. Darcy. Darcy is the real feminist in the room, thinking women capable of great seriousness.
"I never saw such a woman, I never saw such capacity, and taste, and application, and elegance, as you describe, united."	Elizabeth . Oops. Elizabeth implies that Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley don't measure up to these standards, which is a trifle rude. Elizabeth 's humility, however, is disarming. She does not pretend for a second to be such a paragon . . .
Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley both cried out against the injustice of her implied doubt, and were both protesting that they knew many women who answered this description, when Mr. Hurst called them to order, with bitter complaints of their inattention to what was going forward. As all conversation was thereby at an end, Elizabeth soon afterwards left the room.	. . . but these women do. Mr. Hurst wants the card game to go forward. What a guy! I wish for his sake he had been born in the age of cable TV, a remote in his hand and dozens of channels at his command. I think he would particularly like having several sports channels.
"Eliza Bennet," said Miss Bingley, when the door was closed on her, "is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the other sex by undervaluing their own, and with many men, I dare say, it succeeds. But, in my opinion, it is a paltry device, a very mean art."	Miss Bingley. She cannot resist another dig at Elizabeth . Austen is also using this speech to set up Darcy's famous reply. A “mean art” is a “small-minded or ignoble artifice,” or a low-down trick.
"Undoubtedly," replied Darcy, to whom this remark was chiefly addressed, "there is meanness in all the arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation. Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable."	Mr. Darcy. Hee hee! It is gratifying to see her get what she deserves. Austen knows this will furnish the reader great pleasure, and it is important we like Darcy. Miss Bingley's wiles are transparent (and tiresome) to Darcy. Once again, some careless readers miss the keen edge of some of Austen's dialogue. Though ever so polite on the surface, Darcy's remark is brutal.
Miss Bingley was not so entirely satisfied with this reply as to continue the subject.	Austen often uses understatement to great effect.
Elizabeth joined them again only to say that her sister was worse, and that she could not leave her. Bingley urged Mr. Jones's being sent for immediately; while his sisters, convinced that no country advice could be of any service, recommended an express to town for one of the most eminent physicians. This she would not hear of, but she was not so unwilling to comply with their brother's proposal; and it was settled that Mr. Jones should be sent for early in the morning if Miss Bennet were not decidedly better. Bingley was quite uncomfortable; his sisters declared that they were miserable. They solaced their wretchedness, however, by duets after supper, while he could find no better relief to his feelings than by giving his housekeeper directions that every possible attention might be paid to the sick lady and her sister.	Mr. Jones is an apothecary, combining the functions of today's physician and pharmacist. He was trained through an apprenticeship. Someone called Dr. Whatever would be a university-trained physician, a relative rarity in those days, especially in the country. The high diction and overstatement of "solaced their wretchedness" signals Austen's irony. The ladies don't care a bit. Charles does though and seems to act the lover.

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Volume I, Chapter 8: A Close Reading