Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 27

With no greater events than these in the Long­bourn fam­ily, and oth­er­wise di­ver­si­fied by lit­tle be­yond the walks to Mery­ton, some­times dirty and some­times cold, did Jan­uary and Febru­ary pass away. March was to take Eliz­abeth to Hunsford. She had not at first thought very se­ri­ous­ly of go­ing thith­er; but Char­lotte, she soon found, was de­pend­ing on the plan and she grad­ual­ly learned to con­sid­er it her­self with greater plea­sure as well as greater cer­tain­ty. Ab­sence had in­creased her de­sire of see­ing Char­lotte again, and weak­ened her dis­gust of Mr. Collins. There was nov­el­ty in the scheme, and as, with such a moth­er and such un­com­pan­ion­able sis­ters, home could not be fault­less, a lit­tle change was not un­wel­come for its own sake. The jour­ney would more­over give her a peep at Jane; and, in short, as the time drew near, she would have been very sor­ry for any de­lay. Ev­ery­thing, how­ev­er, went on smooth­ly, and was fi­nal­ly set­tled ac­cord­ing to Char­lotte’s first sketch. She was to ac­com­pa­ny Sir William and his sec­ond daugh­ter. The im­prove­ment of spend­ing a night in Lon­don was added in time, and the plan be­came per­fect as plan could be.

The on­ly pain was in leav­ing her fa­ther, who would cer­tain­ly miss her, and who, when it came to the point, so lit­tle liked her go­ing, that he told her to write to him, and al­most promised to an­swer her let­ter.

The farewell be­tween her­self and Mr. Wick­ham was per­fect­ly friend­ly; on his side even more. His present pur­suit could not make him for­get that Eliz­abeth had been the first to ex­cite and to de­serve his at­ten­tion, the first to lis­ten and to pity, the first to be ad­mired; and in his man­ner of bid­ding her adieu, wish­ing her ev­ery en­joy­ment, re­mind­ing her of what she was to ex­pect in La­dy Cather­ine de Bourgh, and trust­ing their opin­ion of her–their opin­ion of ev­ery­body–would al­ways co­in­cide, there was a so­lic­itude, an in­ter­est which she felt must ev­er at­tach her to him with a most sin­cere re­gard; and she part­ed from him con­vinced that, whether mar­ried or sin­gle, he must al­ways be her mod­el of the ami­able and pleas­ing.

Her fel­low-​trav­ellers the next day were not of a kind to make her think him less agree­able. Sir William Lu­cas, and his daugh­ter Maria, a good-​hu­moured girl, but as emp­ty-​head­ed as him­self, had noth­ing to say that could be worth hear­ing, and were lis­tened to with about as much de­light as the rat­tle of the chaise. Eliz­abeth loved ab­sur­di­ties, but she had known Sir William’s too long. He could tell her noth­ing new of the won­ders of his pre­sen­ta­tion and knight­hood; and his ci­vil­ities were worn out, like his in­for­ma­tion.

It was a jour­ney of on­ly twen­ty-​four miles, and they be­gan it so ear­ly as to be in Gracechurch Street by noon. As they drove to Mr. Gar­diner’s door, Jane was at a draw­ing-​room win­dow watch­ing their ar­rival; when they en­tered the pas­sage she was there to wel­come them, and Eliz­abeth, look­ing earnest­ly in her face, was pleased to see it health­ful and love­ly as ev­er. On the stairs were a troop of lit­tle boys and girls, whose ea­ger­ness for their cousin’s ap­pear­ance would not al­low them to wait in the draw­ing-​room, and whose shy­ness, as they had not seen her for a twelve­month, pre­vent­ed their com­ing low­er. All was joy and kind­ness. The day passed most pleas­ant­ly away; the morn­ing in bus­tle and shop­ping, and the evening at one of the the­atres.

Eliz­abeth then con­trived to sit by her aunt. Their first ob­ject was her sis­ter; and she was more grieved than as­ton­ished to hear, in re­ply to her minute in­quiries, that though Jane al­ways strug­gled to sup­port her spir­its, there were pe­ri­ods of de­jec­tion. It was rea­son­able, how­ev­er, to hope that they would not con­tin­ue long. Mrs. Gar­diner gave her the par­tic­ulars al­so of Miss Bin­gley’s vis­it in Gracechurch Street, and re­peat­ed con­ver­sa­tions oc­cur­ring at dif­fer­ent times be­tween Jane and her­self, which proved that the for­mer had, from her heart, giv­en up the ac­quain­tance.

Mrs. Gar­diner then ral­lied her niece on Wick­ham’s de­ser­tion, and com­pli­ment­ed her on bear­ing it so well.

“But my dear Eliz­abeth,” she added, “what sort of girl is Miss King? I should be sor­ry to think our friend mer­ce­nary.”

“Pray, my dear aunt, what is the dif­fer­ence in mat­ri­mo­ni­al af­fairs, be­tween the mer­ce­nary and the pru­dent mo­tive? Where does dis­cre­tion end, and avarice be­gin? Last Christ­mas you were afraid of his mar­ry­ing me, be­cause it would be im­pru­dent; and now, be­cause he is try­ing to get a girl with on­ly ten thou­sand pounds, you want to find out that he is mer­ce­nary.”

“If you will on­ly tell me what sort of girl Miss King is, I shall know what to think.”

“She is a very good kind of girl, I be­lieve. I know no harm of her.”

“But he paid her not the small­est at­ten­tion till her grand­fa­ther’s death made her mis­tress of this for­tune.”

“No–what should he? If it were not al­low­able for him to gain MY af­fec­tions be­cause I had no mon­ey, what oc­ca­sion could there be for mak­ing love to a girl whom he did not care about, and who was equal­ly poor?”

“But there seems an in­del­ica­cy in di­rect­ing his at­ten­tions to­wards her so soon af­ter this event.”

“A man in dis­tressed cir­cum­stances has not time for all those el­egant deco­rums which oth­er peo­ple may ob­serve. If SHE does not ob­ject to it, why should WE?”

“HER not ob­ject­ing does not jus­ti­fy HIM. It on­ly shows her be­ing de­fi­cient in some­thing her­self–sense or feel­ing.”

“Well,” cried Eliz­abeth, “have it as you choose. HE shall be mer­ce­nary, and SHE shall be fool­ish.”

“No, Lizzy, that is what I do NOT choose. I should be sor­ry, you know, to think ill of a young man who has lived so long in Der­byshire.”

“Oh! if that is all, I have a very poor opin­ion of young men who live in Der­byshire; and their in­ti­mate friends who live in Hert­ford­shire are not much bet­ter. I am sick of them all. Thank Heav­en! I am go­ing to-​mor­row where I shall find a man who has not one agree­able qual­ity, who has nei­ther man­ner nor sense to rec­om­mend him. Stupid men are the on­ly ones worth know­ing, af­ter all.”

“Take care, Lizzy; that speech savours strong­ly of dis­ap­point­ment.”

Be­fore they were sep­arat­ed by the con­clu­sion of the play, she had the un­ex­pect­ed hap­pi­ness of an in­vi­ta­tion to ac­com­pa­ny her un­cle and aunt in a tour of plea­sure which they pro­posed tak­ing in the sum­mer.

“We have not de­ter­mined how far it shall car­ry us,” said Mrs. Gar­diner, “but, per­haps, to the Lakes.”

No scheme could have been more agree­able to Eliz­abeth, and her ac­cep­tance of the in­vi­ta­tion was most ready and grate­ful. “Oh, my dear, dear aunt,” she rap­tur­ous­ly cried, “what de­light! what fe­lic­ity! You give me fresh life and vigour. Adieu to dis­ap­point­ment and spleen. What are young men to rocks and moun­tains? Oh! what hours of trans­port we shall spend! And when we DO re­turn, it shall not be like oth­er trav­ellers, with­out be­ing able to give one ac­cu­rate idea of any­thing. We WILL know where we have gone–we WILL rec­ol­lect what we have seen. Lakes, moun­tains, and rivers shall not be jum­bled to­geth­er in our imag­ina­tions; nor when we at­tempt to de­scribe any par­tic­ular scene, will we be­gin quar­rel­ing about its rel­ative sit­ua­tion. Let OUR first ef­fu­sions be less in­sup­port­able than those of the gen­er­al­ity of trav­ellers.”