Mr. Wickham was so perfectly satisfied with this conversation that he never
again distressed himself, or provoked his dear sister Elizabeth, by introduc-
ing the subject of it; and she was pleased to find that she had said enough to
keep him quiet.
The day of his and Lydia's departure soon came, and Mrs. Bennet was
forced to submit to a separation, which, as her husband by no means entered
into her scheme of their all going to Newcastle, was likely to continue at
least a twelvemonth.
"Oh! my dear Lydia," she cried, "when shall we meet again?"
"Oh, lord! I don't know. Not these two or three years, perhaps."
"Write to me very often, my dear."
"As often as I can. But you know married women have never much time
for writing. My sisters may write to me. They will have nothing else to do."
Mr. Wickham's adieus were much more affectionate than his wife's. He
smiled, looked handsome, and said many pretty things.
"He is as fine a fellow," said Mr. Bennet, as soon as they were out of the
house, "as ever I saw. He simpers, and smirks, and makes love to us all. I
am prodigiously proud of him. I defy even Sir William Lucas himself to
produce a more valuable son-in-law."
The loss of her daughter made Mrs. Bennet very dull for several days.
"I often think," said she, "that there is nothing so bad as parting with
one's friends. One seems so forlorn without them."
"This is the consequence, you see, Madam, of marrying a daughter," said
Elizabeth. "It must make you better satisfied that your other four are single."
"It is no such thing. Lydia does not leave me because she is married, but
only because her husband's regiment happens to be so far off. If that had
been nearer, she would not have gone so soon."
But the spiritless condition which this event threw her into was shortly
relieved, and her mind opened again to the agitation of hope, by an article
of news which then began to be in circulation. The housekeeper at Nether-
field had received orders to prepare for the arrival of her master, who was
coming down in a day or two, to shoot there for several weeks. Mrs. Bennet
was quite in the fidgets. She looked at Jane, and smiled and shook her head
by turns.
"Well, well, and so Mr. Bingley is coming down, sister," (for Mrs.
Phillips first brought her the news). "Well, so much the better. Not that I
care about it, though. He is nothing to us, you know, and I am sure I never
want to see him again. But, however, he is very welcome to come to
Netherfield, if he likes it. And who knows what may happen? But that is
nothing to us. You know, sister, we agreed long ago never to mention a
word about it. And so, is it quite certain he is coming?"
"You may depend on it," replied the other, "for Mrs. Nicholls was in
Meryton last night; I saw her passing by, and went out myself on purpose to
know the truth of it; and she told me that it was certain true. He comes
down on Thursday at the latest, very likely on Wednesday. She was going to
the butcher's, she told me, on purpose to order in some meat on Wednesday,
and she has got three couple of ducks just fit to be killed."
Miss Bennet had not been able to hear of his coming without changing
colour. It was many months since she had mentioned his name to Elizabeth;
but now, as soon as they were alone together, she said:
"I saw you look at me to-day, Lizzy, when my aunt told us of the present
report; and I know I appeared distressed. But don't imagine it was from any
silly cause. I was only confused for the moment, because I felt that
I should be looked at. I do assure you that the news does not affect me ei-
ther with pleasure or pain. I am glad of one thing, that he comes alone; be-
cause we shall see the less of him. Not that I am afraid of myself, but I dread
other people's remarks."
Elizabeth did not know what to make of it. Had she not seen him in Der-
byshire, she might have supposed him capable of coming there with no oth-
er view than what was acknowledged; but she still thought him partial to
Jane, and she wavered as to the greater probability of his coming
there with his friend's permission, or being bold enough to come without it.
"Yet it is hard," she sometimes thought, "that this poor man cannot come
to a house which he has legally hired, without raising all this speculation!
I will leave him to himself."
In spite of what her sister declared, and really believed to be her feelings
in the expectation of his arrival, Elizabeth could easily perceive that her
spirits were affected by it. They were more disturbed, more unequal, than
she had often seen them.
The subject which had been so warmly canvassed between their parents,
about a twelvemonth ago, was now brought forward again.
"As soon as ever Mr. Bingley comes, my dear," said Mrs. Bennet, "you
will wait on him of course."
"No, no. You forced me into visiting him last year, and promised, if I
went to see him, he should marry one of my daughters. But it ended in noth-
ing, and I will not be sent on a fool's errand again."
His wife represented to him how absolutely necessary such an attention
would be from all the neighbouring gentlemen, on his returning to
Netherfield.
"'Tis an etiquette I despise," said he. "If he wants our society, let him seek
it. He knows where we live. I will not spend my hours in running after my
neighbours every time they go away and come back again."
"Well, all I know is, that it will be abominably rude if you do not wait on
him. But, however, that shan't prevent my asking him to dine here, I am de-
termined. We must have Mrs. Long and the Gouldings soon. That will make
thirteen with ourselves, so there will be just room at table for him."
Consoled by this resolution, she was the better able to bear her husband's
incivility; though it was very mortifying to know that her neighbours might
all see Mr. Bingley, in consequence of it, before they did. As the day of his
arrival drew near:
"I begin to be sorry that he comes at all," said Jane to her sister. "It would
be nothing; I could see him with perfect indifference, but I can hardly bear
to hear it thus perpetually talked of. My mother means well; but she does
not know, no one can know, how much I suffer from what she says. Happy
shall I be, when his stay at Netherfield is over!"
"I wish I could say anything to comfort you," replied Elizabeth; "but it is
wholly out of my power. You must feel it; and the usual satisfaction of
preaching patience to a sufferer is denied me, because you have always so
much."
Mr. Bingley arrived. Mrs. Bennet, through the assistance of servants,
contrived to have the earliest tidings of it, that the period of anxiety and
fretfulness on her side might be as long as it could. She counted the days
that must intervene before their invitation could be sent; hopeless of seeing
him before. But on the third morning after his arrival in Hertfordshire, she
saw him, from her dressing-room window, enter the paddock and ride to-
wards the house.
Her daughters were eagerly called to partake of her joy. Jane resolutely
kept her place at the table; but Elizabeth, to satisfy her mother, went to the
window—she looked,—she saw Mr. Darcy with him, and sat down again
by her sister.
"There is a gentleman with him, mamma," said Kitty; "who can it be?"
"Some acquaintance or other, my dear, I suppose; I am sure I do not
know."
"La!" replied Kitty, "it looks just like that man that used to be with him
before. Mr. what's-his-name. That tall, proud man."
"Good gracious! Mr. Darcy!—and so it does, I vow. Well, any friend of
Mr. Bingley's will always be welcome here, to be sure; but else I must say
that I hate the very sight of him."
Jane looked at Elizabeth with surprise and concern. She knew but little of
their meeting in Derbyshire, and therefore felt for the awkwardness which
must attend her sister, in seeing him almost for the first time after receiving
his explanatory letter. Both sisters were uncomfortable enough. Each felt
for the other, and of course for themselves; and their mother talked on, of
her dislike of Mr. Darcy, and her resolution to be civil to him only as Mr.
Bingley's friend, without being heard by either of them. But Elizabeth had
sources of uneasiness which could not be suspected by Jane, to whom she
had never yet had courage to shew Mrs. Gardiner's letter, or to relate her
own change of sentiment towards him. To Jane, he could be only a man
whose proposals she had refused, and whose merit she had undervalued; but
to her own more extensive information, he was the person to whom the
whole family were indebted for the first of benefits, and whom she regarded
herself with an interest, if not quite so tender, at least as reasonable and just
as what Jane felt for Bingley. Her astonishment at his coming—at his com-
ing to Netherfield, to Longbourn, and voluntarily seeking her again, was al-
most equal to what she had known on first witnessing his altered behaviour
in Derbyshire.
The colour which had been driven from her face, returned for half a
minute with an additional glow, and a smile of delight added lustre to her
eyes, as she thought for that space of time that his affection and wishes
must still be unshaken. But she would not be secure.
"Let me first see how he behaves," said she; "it will then be early enough
for expectation."
She sat intently at work, striving to be composed, and without daring to
lift up her eyes, till anxious curiosity carried them to the face of her sister as
the servant was approaching the door. Jane looked a little paler than usual,
but more sedate than Elizabeth had expected. On the gentlemen's appearing,
her colour increased; yet she received them with tolerable ease, and with a
propriety of behaviour equally free from any symptom of resentment or any
unnecessary complaisance.
Elizabeth said as little to either as civility would allow, and sat down
again to her work, with an eagerness which it did not often command. She
had ventured only one glance at Darcy. He looked serious, as usual; and,
she thought, more as he had been used to look in Hertfordshire, than as she
had seen him at Pemberley. But, perhaps he could not in her mother's pres-
ence be what he was before her uncle and aunt. It was a painful, but not an
improbable, conjecture.
Bingley, she had likewise seen for an instant, and in that short period saw
him looking both pleased and embarrassed. He was received by Mrs. Ben-
net with a degree of civility which made her two daughters ashamed, espe-
cially when contrasted with the cold and ceremonious politeness of her curt-
sey and address to his friend.
Elizabeth, particularly, who knew that her mother owed to the latter the
preservation of her favourite daughter from irremediable infamy, was hurt
and distressed to a most painful degree by a distinction so ill applied.
Darcy, after inquiring of her how Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner did, a question
which she could not answer without confusion, said scarcely anything. He
was not seated by her; perhaps that was the reason of his silence; but it had
not been so in Derbyshire. There he had talked to her friends, when he
could not to herself. But now several minutes elapsed without bringing the
sound of his voice; and when occasionally, unable to resist the impulse of
curiosity, she raised her eyes to his face, she as often found him looking at
Jane as at herself, and frequently on no object but the ground. More
thoughtfulness and less anxiety to please, than when they last met, were
plainly expressed. She was disappointed, and angry with herself for being
so.
"Could I expect it to be otherwise!" said she. "Yet why did he come?"
She was in no humour for conversation with anyone but himself; and to
him she had hardly courage to speak.
She inquired after his sister, but could do no more.
"It is a long time, Mr. Bingley, since you went away," said Mrs. Bennet.
He readily agreed to it.
"I began to be afraid you would never come back again. People did say
you meant to quit the place entirely at Michaelmas; but, however, I hope it
is not true. A great many changes have happened in the neighbourhood,
since you went away. Miss Lucas is married and settled. And one of my
own daughters. I suppose you have heard of it; indeed, you must have seen
it in the papers. It was in The Times and The Courier, I know; though it was
not put in as it ought to be. It was only said, 'Lately, George Wickham, Esq.
to Miss Lydia Bennet,' without there being a syllable said of her father, or
the place where she lived, or anything. It was my brother Gardiner's draw-
ing up too, and I wonder how he came to make such an awkward business
of it. Did you see it?"
Bingley replied that he did, and made his congratulations. Elizabeth
dared not lift up her eyes. How Mr. Darcy looked, therefore, she could not
tell.
"It is a delightful thing, to be sure, to have a daughter well married," con-
tinued her mother, "but at the same time, Mr. Bingley, it is very hard to have
her taken such a way from me. They are gone down to Newcastle, a place
quite northward, it seems, and there they are to stay I do not know how
long. His regiment is there; for I suppose you have heard of his leaving the
——shire, and of his being gone into the regulars. Thank Heaven! he
has some friends, though perhaps not so many as he deserves."
Elizabeth, who knew this to be levelled at Mr. Darcy, was in such misery
of shame, that she could hardly keep her seat. It drew from her, however,
the exertion of speaking, which nothing else had so effectually done before;
and she asked Bingley whether he meant to make any stay in the country at
present. A few weeks, he believed.
"When you have killed all your own birds, Mr. Bingley," said her mother,
"I beg you will come here, and shoot as many as you please on Mr. Bennet's
manor. I am sure he will be vastly happy to oblige you, and will save all the
best of the covies for you."
Elizabeth's misery increased, at such unnecessary, such officious atten-
tion! Were the same fair prospect to arise at present as had flattered them a
year ago, every thing, she was persuaded, would be hastening to the same
vexatious conclusion. At that instant, she felt that years of happiness could
not make Jane or herself amends for moments of such painful confusion.
"The first wish of my heart," said she to herself, "is never more to be in
company with either of them. Their society can afford no pleasure that will
atone for such wretchedness as this! Let me never see either one or the oth-
er again!"
Yet the misery, for which years of happiness were to offer no compensa-
tion, received soon afterwards material relief, from observing how much the
beauty of her sister re-kindled the admiration of her former lover. When
first he came in, he had spoken to her but little; but every five minutes
seemed to be giving her more of his attention. He found her as handsome as
she had been last year; as good natured, and as unaffected, though not quite
so chatty. Jane was anxious that no difference should be perceived in her at
all, and was really persuaded that she talked as much as ever. But her mind
was so busily engaged, that she did not always know when she was silent.
When the gentlemen rose to go away, Mrs. Bennet was mindful of her
intended civility, and they were invited and engaged to dine at Longbourn
in a few days time.
"You are quite a visit in my debt, Mr. Bingley," she added, "for when you
went to town last winter, you promised to take a family dinner with us, as
soon as you returned. I have not forgot, you see; and I assure you, I was
very much disappointed that you did not come back and keep your
engagement."
Bingley looked a little silly at this reflection, and said something of his
concern at having been prevented by business. They then went away.
Mrs. Bennet had been strongly inclined to ask them to stay and dine there
that day; but, though she always kept a very good table, she did not think
anything less than two courses could be good enough for a man on whom
she had such anxious designs, or satisfy the appetite and pride of one who
had ten thousand a year.
