Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 37

The two gen­tle­men left Ros­ings the next morn­ing, and Mr. Collins hav­ing been in wait­ing near the lodges, to make them his part­ing obei­sance, was able to bring home the pleas­ing in­tel­li­gence, of their ap­pear­ing in very good health, and in as tol­er­able spir­its as could be ex­pect­ed, af­ter the melan­choly scene so late­ly gone through at Ros­ings. To Ros­ings he then has­tened, to con­sole La­dy Cather­ine and her daugh­ter; and on his re­turn brought back, with great sat­is­fac­tion, a mes­sage from her la­dy­ship, im­port­ing that she felt her­self so dull as to make her very de­sirous of hav­ing them all to dine with her.

Eliz­abeth could not see La­dy Cather­ine with­out rec­ol­lect­ing that, had she cho­sen it, she might by this time have been pre­sent­ed to her as her fu­ture niece; nor could she think, with­out a smile, of what her la­dy­ship’s in­dig­na­tion would have been. “What would she have said? how would she have be­haved?” were ques­tions with which she amused her­self.

Their first sub­ject was the diminu­tion of the Ros­ings par­ty. “I as­sure you, I feel it ex­ceed­ing­ly,” said La­dy Cather­ine; “I be­lieve no one feels the loss of friends so much as I do. But I am par­tic­ular­ly at­tached to these young men, and know them to be so much at­tached to me! They were ex­ces­sive­ly sor­ry to go! But so they al­ways are. The dear Colonel ral­lied his spir­its tol­er­ably till just at last; but Dar­cy seemed to feel it most acute­ly, more, I think, than last year. His at­tach­ment to Ros­ings cer­tain­ly in­creas­es.”

Mr. Collins had a com­pli­ment, and an al­lu­sion to throw in here, which were kind­ly smiled on by the moth­er and daugh­ter.

La­dy Cather­ine ob­served, af­ter din­ner, that Miss Ben­net seemed out of spir­its, and im­me­di­ate­ly ac­count­ing for it by her­self, by sup­pos­ing that she did not like to go home again so soon, she added:

“But if that is the case, you must write to your moth­er and beg that you may stay a lit­tle longer. Mrs. Collins will be very glad of your com­pa­ny, I am sure.”

“I am much obliged to your la­dy­ship for your kind in­vi­ta­tion,” replied Eliz­abeth, “but it is not in my pow­er to ac­cept it. I must be in town next Sat­ur­day.”

“Why, at that rate, you will have been here on­ly six weeks. I ex­pect­ed you to stay two months. I told Mrs. Collins so be­fore you came. There can be no oc­ca­sion for your go­ing so soon. Mrs. Ben­net could cer­tain­ly spare you for an­oth­er fort­night.”

“But my fa­ther can­not. He wrote last week to hur­ry my re­turn.”

“Oh! your fa­ther of course may spare you, if your moth­er can. Daugh­ters are nev­er of so much con­se­quence to a fa­ther. And if you will stay an­oth­er MONTH com­plete, it will be in my pow­er to take one of you as far as Lon­don, for I am go­ing there ear­ly in June, for a week; and as Daw­son does not ob­ject to the barouche-​box, there will be very good room for one of you–and in­deed, if the weath­er should hap­pen to be cool, I should not ob­ject to tak­ing you both, as you are nei­ther of you large.”

“You are all kind­ness, madam; but I be­lieve we must abide by our orig­inal plan.”

La­dy Cather­ine seemed re­signed. “Mrs. Collins, you must send a ser­vant with them. You know I al­ways speak my mind, and I can­not bear the idea of two young wom­en trav­el­ling post by them­selves. It is high­ly im­prop­er. You must con­trive to send some­body. I have the great­est dis­like in the world to that sort of thing. Young wom­en should al­ways be prop­er­ly guard­ed and at­tend­ed, ac­cord­ing to their sit­ua­tion in life. When my niece Geor­giana went to Rams­gate last sum­mer, I made a point of her hav­ing two men-​ser­vants go with her. Miss Dar­cy, the daugh­ter of Mr. Dar­cy, of Pem­ber­ley, and La­dy Anne, could not have ap­peared with pro­pri­ety in a dif­fer­ent man­ner. I am ex­ces­sive­ly at­ten­tive to all those things. You must send John with the young ladies, Mrs. Collins. I am glad it oc­curred to me to men­tion it; for it would re­al­ly be dis­cred­itable to YOU to let them go alone.”

“My un­cle is to send a ser­vant for us.”

“Oh! Your un­cle! He keeps a man-​ser­vant, does he? I am very glad you have some­body who thinks of these things. Where shall you change hors­es? Oh! Brom­ley, of course. If you men­tion my name at the Bell, you will be at­tend­ed to.”

La­dy Cather­ine had many oth­er ques­tions to ask re­spect­ing their jour­ney, and as she did not an­swer them all her­self, at­ten­tion was nec­es­sary, which Eliz­abeth be­lieved to be lucky for her; or, with a mind so oc­cu­pied, she might have for­got­ten where she was. Re­flec­tion must be re­served for soli­tary hours; when­ev­er she was alone, she gave way to it as the great­est re­lief; and not a day went by with­out a soli­tary walk, in which she might in­dulge in all the de­light of un­pleas­ant rec­ol­lec­tions.

Mr. Dar­cy’s let­ter she was in a fair way of soon know­ing by heart. She stud­ied ev­ery sen­tence; and her feel­ings to­wards its writ­er were at times wide­ly dif­fer­ent. When she re­mem­bered the style of his ad­dress, she was still full of in­dig­na­tion; but when she con­sid­ered how un­just­ly she had con­demned and up­braid­ed him, her anger was turned against her­self; and his dis­ap­point­ed feel­ings be­came the ob­ject of com­pas­sion. His at­tach­ment ex­cit­ed grat­itude, his gen­er­al char­ac­ter re­spect; but she could not ap­prove him; nor could she for a mo­ment re­pent her re­fusal, or feel the slight­est in­cli­na­tion ev­er to see him again. In her own past be­haviour, there was a con­stant source of vex­ation and re­gret; and in the un­hap­py de­fects of her fam­ily, a sub­ject of yet heav­ier cha­grin. They were hope­less of rem­edy. Her fa­ther, con­tent­ed with laugh­ing at them, would nev­er ex­ert him­self to re­strain the wild gid­di­ness of his youngest daugh­ters; and her moth­er, with man­ners so far from right her­self, was en­tire­ly in­sen­si­ble of the evil. Eliz­abeth had fre­quent­ly unit­ed with Jane in an en­deav­our to check the im­pru­dence of Cather­ine and Ly­dia; but while they were sup­port­ed by their moth­er’s in­dul­gence, what chance could there be of im­prove­ment? Cather­ine, weak-​spir­it­ed, ir­ri­ta­ble, and com­plete­ly un­der Ly­dia’s guid­ance, had been al­ways af­front­ed by their ad­vice; and Ly­dia, self-​willed and care­less, would scarce­ly give them a hear­ing. They were ig­no­rant, idle, and vain. While there was an of­fi­cer in Mery­ton, they would flirt with him; and while Mery­ton was with­in a walk of Long­bourn, they would be go­ing there for­ev­er.

Anx­iety on Jane’s be­half was an­oth­er pre­vail­ing con­cern; and Mr. Dar­cy’s ex­pla­na­tion, by restor­ing Bin­gley to all her for­mer good opin­ion, height­ened the sense of what Jane had lost. His af­fec­tion was proved to have been sin­cere, and his con­duct cleared of all blame, un­less any could at­tach to the im­plic­it­ness of his con­fi­dence in his friend. How grievous then was the thought that, of a sit­ua­tion so de­sir­able in ev­ery re­spect, so re­plete with ad­van­tage, so promis­ing for hap­pi­ness, Jane had been de­prived, by the fol­ly and in­deco­rum of her own fam­ily!

When to these rec­ol­lec­tions was added the de­vel­op­ment of Wick­ham’s char­ac­ter, it may be eas­ily be­lieved that the hap­py spir­its which had sel­dom been de­pressed be­fore, were now so much af­fect­ed as to make it al­most im­pos­si­ble for her to ap­pear tol­er­ably cheer­ful.

Their en­gage­ments at Ros­ings were as fre­quent dur­ing the last week of her stay as they had been at first. The very last evening was spent there; and her la­dy­ship again in­quired minute­ly in­to the par­tic­ulars of their jour­ney, gave them di­rec­tions as to the best method of pack­ing, and was so ur­gent on the ne­ces­si­ty of plac­ing gowns in the on­ly right way, that Maria thought her­self obliged, on her re­turn, to un­do all the work of the morn­ing, and pack her trunk afresh.

When they part­ed, La­dy Cather­ine, with great con­de­scen­sion, wished them a good jour­ney, and in­vit­ed them to come to Hunsford again next year; and Miss de Bourgh ex­ert­ed her­self so far as to curt­sey and hold out her hand to both.