After a week spent in professions of love and schemes of felicity, Mr.
Collins was called from his amiable Charlotte by the arrival of Saturday.
The pain of separation, however, might be alleviated on his side, by prepa-
rations for the reception of his bride; as he had reason to hope, that shortly
after his return into Hertfordshire, the day would be fixed that was to make
him the happiest of men. He took leave of his relations at Longbourn with
as much solemnity as before; wished his fair cousins health and happiness
again, and promised their father another letter of thanks.
On the following Monday, Mrs. Bennet had the pleasure of receiving her
brother and his wife, who came as usual to spend the Christmas at Long-
bourn. Mr. Gardiner was a sensible, gentlemanlike man, greatly superior to
his sister, as well by nature as education. The Netherfield ladies would have
had difficulty in believing that a man who lived by trade, and within view of
his own warehouses, could have been so well-bred and agreeable. Mrs. Gar-
diner, who was several years younger than Mrs. Bennet and Mrs. Phillips,
was an amiable, intelligent, elegant woman, and a great favourite with all
her Longbourn nieces. Between the two eldest and herself especially, there
subsisted a particular regard. They had frequently been staying with her in
town.
The first part of Mrs. Gardiner's business on her arrival was to distribute
her presents and describe the newest fashions. When this was done she had
a less active part to play. It became her turn to listen. Mrs. Bennet had many
grievances to relate, and much to complain of. They had all been very ill-
used since she last saw her sister. Two of her girls had been upon the point
of marriage, and after all there was nothing in it.
"I do not blame Jane," she continued, "for Jane would have got Mr. Bing-
ley if she could. But Lizzy! Oh, sister! It is very hard to think that she might
have been Mr. Collins's wife by this time, had it not been for her own per-
verseness. He made her an offer in this very room, and she refused him. The
consequence of it is, that Lady Lucas will have a daughter married before I
have, and that the Longbourn estate is just as much entailed as ever. The
Lucases are very artful people indeed, sister. They are all for what they can
get. I am sorry to say it of them, but so it is. It makes me very nervous and
poorly, to be thwarted so in my own family, and to have neighbours who
think of themselves before anybody else. However, your coming just at this
time is the greatest of comforts, and I am very glad to hear what you tell us,
of long sleeves."
Mrs. Gardiner, to whom the chief of this news had been given before, in
the course of Jane and Elizabeth's correspondence with her, made her sister
a slight answer, and, in compassion to her nieces, turned the conversation.
When alone with Elizabeth afterwards, she spoke more on the subject. "It
seems likely to have been a desirable match for Jane," said she. "I am sorry
it went off. But these things happen so often! A young man, such as you de-
scribe Mr. Bingley, so easily falls in love with a pretty girl for a few weeks,
and when accident separates them, so easily forgets her, that these sort of
inconsistencies are very frequent."
"An excellent consolation in its way," said Elizabeth, "but it will not do
for us. We do not suffer by accident. It does not often happen that the inter-
ference of friends will persuade a young man of independent fortune to
think no more of a girl whom he was violently in love with only a few days
before."
"But that expression of 'violently in love' is so hackneyed, so doubtful, so
indefinite, that it gives me very little idea. It is as often applied to feelings
which arise from a half-hour's acquaintance, as to a real, strong attachment.
Pray, how violent was Mr. Bingley's love?"
"I never saw a more promising inclination; he was growing quite inatten-
tive to other people, and wholly engrossed by her. Every time they met, it
was more decided and remarkable. At his own ball he offended two or three
young ladies, by not asking them to dance; and I spoke to him twice myself,
without receiving an answer. Could there be finer symptoms? Is not general
incivility the very essence of love?"
"Oh, yes!—of that kind of love which I suppose him to have felt. Poor
Jane! I am sorry for her, because, with her disposition, she may not get over
it immediately. It had better have happened to you, Lizzy; you would have
laughed yourself out of it sooner. But do you think she would be prevailed
upon to go back with us? Change of scene might be of service—and per-
haps a little relief from home may be as useful as anything."
Elizabeth was exceedingly pleased with this proposal, and felt persuaded
of her sister's ready acquiescence.
"I hope," added Mrs. Gardiner, "that no consideration with regard to this
young man will influence her. We live in so different a part of town, all our
connections are so different, and, as you well know, we go out so little, that
it is very improbable that they should meet at all, unless he really comes to
see her."
"And that is quite impossible; for he is now in the custody of his friend,
and Mr. Darcy would no more suffer him to call on Jane in such a part of
London! My dear aunt, how could you think of it? Mr. Darcy may perhaps
have heard of such a place as Gracechurch Street, but he would hardly think
a month's ablution enough to cleanse him from its impurities, were he once
to enter it; and depend upon it, Mr. Bingley never stirs without him."
"So much the better. I hope they will not meet at all. But does not Jane
correspond with his sister? She will not be able to help calling."
"She will drop the acquaintance entirely."
But in spite of the certainty in which Elizabeth affected to place this
point, as well as the still more interesting one of Bingley's being withheld
from seeing Jane, she felt a solicitude on the subject which convinced her,
on examination, that she did not consider it entirely hopeless. It was possi-
ble, and sometimes she thought it probable, that his affection might be rean-
imated, and the influence of his friends successfully combated by the more
natural influence of Jane's attractions.
Miss Bennet accepted her aunt's invitation with pleasure; and the Bing-
leys were no otherwise in her thoughts at the same time, than as she hoped
by Caroline's not living in the same house with her brother, she might occa-
sionally spend a morning with her, without any danger of seeing him.
The Gardiners stayed a week at Longbourn; and what with the Phillipses,
the Lucases, and the officers, there was not a day without its engagement.
Mrs. Bennet had so carefully provided for the entertainment of her brother
and sister, that they did not once sit down to a family dinner. When the en-
gagement was for home, some of the officers always made part of it—of
which officers Mr. Wickham was sure to be one; and on these occasion,
Mrs. Gardiner, rendered suspicious by Elizabeth's warm commendation,
narrowly observed them both. Without supposing them, from what she saw,
to be very seriously in love, their preference of each other was plain enough
to make her a little uneasy; and she resolved to speak to Elizabeth on the
subject before she left Hertfordshire, and represent to her the imprudence of
encouraging such an attachment.
To Mrs. Gardiner, Wickham had one means of affording pleasure, uncon-
nected with his general powers. About ten or a dozen years ago, before her
marriage, she had spent a considerable time in that very part of Derbyshire
to which he belonged. They had, therefore, many acquaintances in com-
mon; and though Wickham had been little there since the death of Darcy's
father, it was yet in his power to give her fresher intelligence of her former
friends than she had been in the way of procuring.
Mrs. Gardiner had seen Pemberley, and known the late Mr. Darcy by
character perfectly well. Here consequently was an inexhaustible subject of
discourse. In comparing her recollection of Pemberley with the minute de-
scription which Wickham could give, and in bestowing her tribute of praise
on the character of its late possessor, she was delighting both him and her-
self. On being made acquainted with the present Mr. Darcy's treatment of
him, she tried to remember some of that gentleman's reputed disposition
when quite a lad which might agree with it, and was confident at last that
she recollected having heard Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy formerly spoken of as a
very proud, ill-natured boy.
