The former was divided between admiration of the brilliancy which exercise had given to her complexion, and doubt as to the occasion's justifying her coming so far alone.
– Pride and Prejudice
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KillingTime
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Sunny
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2The sentence would not make any sense if it stood for is. It's genitive. – fev Aug 22 '22 at 09:44
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It is genitive. The gerund justifying is modified by the possessive the occasion's. Gerunds preceded by possessives is a known construction, but this sentence is quite particular: the PP
[as to the occasion's justifying [her coming so far alone]].
contains the possessive the occasion's - subject of the gerund justifying, and then the object of the gerund is her coming so far alone - an accusative pronoun followed by a participle. The sentence is indeed intricate, but in an elegant and stylish way characteristic to conversations of Jane Austen's time.
As for the possessive 's with inanimate things, this ELU post explains it very well.
fev
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That is, "the occasion's justifying" and "her coming" are both the same grammatical structure - gerunds preceded by possessives. – Sunny Aug 23 '22 at 03:18