Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 25

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 prepa­ra­tions 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 Long­bourn. 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. Gar­diner, 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. Bin­gley 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 per­verse­ness. 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 de­scribe 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 in­ter­fer­ence 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 inat­ten­tive 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 per­haps 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 pos­si­ble, and some­times she thought it prob­able, that his af­fec­tion might be re­an­imat­ed, 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 Bin­gleys 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 oc­ca­sion­al­ly 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 en­gage­ment 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, un­con­nect­ed 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 com­mon; 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 de­scrip­tion which Wick­ham could give, and in be­stow­ing her trib­ute of praise on the char­ac­ter of its late pos­ses­sor, she was de­light­ing both him and her­self. 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.