Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 41

The first week of their re­turn was soon gone. The sec­ond be­gan. It was the last of the reg­iment’s stay in Mery­ton, and all the young ladies in the neigh­bour­hood were droop­ing apace. The de­jec­tion was al­most uni­ver­sal. The el­der Miss Ben­nets alone were still able to eat, drink, and sleep, and pur­sue the usu­al course of their em­ploy­ments. Very fre­quent­ly were they re­proached for this in­sen­si­bil­ity by Kit­ty and Ly­dia, whose own mis­ery was ex­treme, and who could not com­pre­hend such hard-​heart­ed­ness in any of the fam­ily.

“Good Heav­en! what is to be­come of us? What are we to do?” would they of­ten ex­claim­ing the bit­ter­ness of woe. “How can you be smil­ing so, Lizzy?”

Their af­fec­tion­ate moth­er shared all their grief; she re­mem­bered what she had her­self en­dured on a sim­ilar oc­ca­sion, five-​and-​twen­ty years ago.

“I am sure,” said she, “I cried for two days to­geth­er when Colonel Miller’s reg­iment went away. I thought I should have bro­ken my heart.”

“I am sure I shall break MINE,” said Ly­dia.

“If one could but go to Brighton!” ob­served Mrs. Ben­net.

“Oh, yes!–if one could but go to Brighton! But pa­pa is so dis­agree­able.”

“A lit­tle sea-​bathing would set me up for­ev­er.”

“And my aunt Phillips is sure it would do ME a great deal of good,” added Kit­ty.

Such were the kind of lamen­ta­tions re­sound­ing per­pet­ual­ly through Long­bourn House. Eliz­abeth tried to be di­vert­ed by them; but all sense of plea­sure was lost in shame. She felt anew the jus­tice of Mr. Dar­cy’s ob­jec­tions; and nev­er had she been so much dis­posed to par­don his in­ter­fer­ence in the views of his friend.

But the gloom of Ly­dia’s prospect was short­ly cleared away; for she re­ceived an in­vi­ta­tion from Mrs. Forster, the wife of the colonel of the reg­iment, to ac­com­pa­ny her to Brighton. This in­valu­able friend was a very young wom­an, and very late­ly mar­ried. A re­sem­blance in good hu­mour and good spir­its had rec­om­mend­ed her and Ly­dia to each oth­er, and out of their THREE months’ ac­quain­tance they had been in­ti­mate TWO.

The rap­ture of Ly­dia on this oc­ca­sion, her ado­ra­tion of Mrs. Forster, the de­light of Mrs. Ben­net, and the mor­ti­fi­ca­tion of Kit­ty, are scarce­ly to be de­scribed. Whol­ly inat­ten­tive to her sis­ter’s feel­ings, Ly­dia flew about the house in rest­less ec­sta­sy, call­ing for ev­ery­one’s con­grat­ula­tions, and laugh­ing and talk­ing with more vi­olence than ev­er; whilst the luck­less Kit­ty con­tin­ued in the par­lour re­pined at her fate in terms as un­rea­son­able as her ac­cent was pee­vish.

“I can­not see why Mrs. Forster should not ask ME as well as Ly­dia,” said she, “Though I am NOT her par­tic­ular friend. I have just as much right to be asked as she has, and more too, for I am two years old­er.”

In vain did Eliz­abeth at­tempt to make her rea­son­able, and Jane to make her re­signed. As for Eliz­abeth her­self, this in­vi­ta­tion was so far from ex­cit­ing in her the same feel­ings as in her moth­er and Ly­dia, that she con­sid­ered it as the death war­rant of all pos­si­bil­ity of com­mon sense for the lat­ter; and de­testable as such a step must make her were it known, she could not help se­cret­ly ad­vis­ing her fa­ther not to let her go. She rep­re­sent­ed to him all the im­pro­pri­eties of Ly­dia’s gen­er­al be­haviour, the lit­tle ad­van­tage she could de­rive from the friend­ship of such a wom­an as Mrs. Forster, and the prob­abil­ity of her be­ing yet more im­pru­dent with such a com­pan­ion at Brighton, where the temp­ta­tions must be greater than at home. He heard her at­ten­tive­ly, and then said:

“Ly­dia will nev­er be easy un­til she has ex­posed her­self in some pub­lic place or oth­er, and we can nev­er ex­pect her to do it with so lit­tle ex­pense or in­con­ve­nience to her fam­ily as un­der the present cir­cum­stances.”

“If you were aware,” said Eliz­abeth, “of the very great dis­ad­van­tage to us all which must arise from the pub­lic no­tice of Ly­dia’s un­guard­ed and im­pru­dent man­ner–nay, which has al­ready arisen from it, I am sure you would judge dif­fer­ent­ly in the af­fair.”

“Al­ready arisen?” re­peat­ed Mr. Ben­net. “What, has she fright­ened away some of your lovers? Poor lit­tle Lizzy! But do not be cast down. Such squeamish youths as can­not bear to be con­nect­ed with a lit­tle ab­sur­di­ty are not worth a re­gret. Come, let me see the list of piti­ful fel­lows who have been kept aloof by Ly­dia’s fol­ly.”

“In­deed you are mis­tak­en. I have no such in­juries to re­sent. It is not of par­tic­ular, but of gen­er­al evils, which I am now com­plain­ing. Our im­por­tance, our re­spectabil­ity in the world must be af­fect­ed by the wild volatil­ity, the as­sur­ance and dis­dain of all re­straint which mark Ly­dia’s char­ac­ter. Ex­cuse me, for I must speak plain­ly. If you, my dear fa­ther, will not take the trou­ble of check­ing her ex­uber­ant spir­its, and of teach­ing her that her present pur­suits are not to be the busi­ness of her life, she will soon be be­yond the reach of amend­ment. Her char­ac­ter will be fixed, and she will, at six­teen, be the most de­ter­mined flirt that ev­er made her­self or her fam­ily ridicu­lous; a flirt, too, in the worst and mean­est de­gree of flir­ta­tion; with­out any at­trac­tion be­yond youth and a tol­er­able per­son; and, from the ig­no­rance and empti­ness of her mind, whol­ly un­able to ward off any por­tion of that uni­ver­sal con­tempt which her rage for ad­mi­ra­tion will ex­cite. In this dan­ger Kit­ty al­so is com­pre­hend­ed. She will fol­low wher­ev­er Ly­dia leads. Vain, ig­no­rant, idle, and ab­so­lute­ly un­con­trolled! Oh! my dear fa­ther, can you sup­pose it pos­si­ble that they will not be cen­sured and de­spised wher­ev­er they are known, and that their sis­ters will not be of­ten in­volved in the dis­grace?”

Mr. Ben­net saw that her whole heart was in the sub­ject, and af­fec­tion­ate­ly tak­ing her hand said in re­ply:

“Do not make your­self un­easy, my love. Wher­ev­er you and Jane are known you must be re­spect­ed and val­ued; and you will not ap­pear to less ad­van­tage for hav­ing a cou­ple of–or I may say, three–very sil­ly sis­ters. We shall have no peace at Long­bourn if Ly­dia does not go to Brighton. Let her go, then. Colonel Forster is a sen­si­ble man, and will keep her out of any re­al mis­chief; and she is luck­ily too poor to be an ob­ject of prey to any­body. At Brighton she will be of less im­por­tance even as a com­mon flirt than she has been here. The of­fi­cers will find wom­en bet­ter worth their no­tice. Let us hope, there­fore, that her be­ing there may teach her her own in­signif­icance. At any rate, she can­not grow many de­grees worse, with­out au­tho­ris­ing us to lock her up for the rest of her life.”

With this an­swer Eliz­abeth was forced to be con­tent; but her own opin­ion con­tin­ued the same, and she left him dis­ap­point­ed and sor­ry. It was not in her na­ture, how­ev­er, to in­crease her vex­ations by dwelling on them. She was con­fi­dent of hav­ing per­formed her du­ty, and to fret over un­avoid­able evils, or aug­ment them by anx­iety, was no part of her dis­po­si­tion.

Had Ly­dia and her moth­er known the sub­stance of her con­fer­ence with her fa­ther, their in­dig­na­tion would hard­ly have found ex­pres­sion in their unit­ed vol­ubil­ity. In Ly­dia’s imag­ina­tion, a vis­it to Brighton com­prised ev­ery pos­si­bil­ity of earth­ly hap­pi­ness. She saw, with the cre­ative eye of fan­cy, the streets of that gay bathing-​place cov­ered with of­fi­cers. She saw her­self the ob­ject of at­ten­tion, to tens and to scores of them at present un­known. She saw all the glo­ries of the camp–its tents stretched forth in beau­teous uni­for­mi­ty of lines, crowd­ed with the young and the gay, and daz­zling with scar­let; and, to com­plete the view, she saw her­self seat­ed be­neath a tent, ten­der­ly flirt­ing with at least six of­fi­cers at once.

Had she known her sis­ter sought to tear her from such prospects and such re­al­ities as these, what would have been her sen­sa­tions? They could have been un­der­stood on­ly by her moth­er, who might have felt near­ly the same. Ly­dia’s go­ing to Brighton was all that con­soled her for her melan­choly con­vic­tion of her hus­band’s nev­er in­tend­ing to go there him­self.

But they were en­tire­ly ig­no­rant of what had passed; and their rap­tures con­tin­ued, with lit­tle in­ter­mis­sion, to the very day of Ly­dia’s leav­ing home.

Eliz­abeth was now to see Mr. Wick­ham for the last time. Hav­ing been fre­quent­ly in com­pa­ny with him since her re­turn, ag­ita­tion was pret­ty well over; the ag­ita­tions of for­mal par­tial­ity en­tire­ly so. She had even learnt to de­tect, in the very gen­tle­ness which had first de­light­ed her, an af­fec­ta­tion and a same­ness to dis­gust and weary. In his present be­haviour to her­self, more­over, she had a fresh source of dis­plea­sure, for the in­cli­na­tion he soon tes­ti­fied of re­new­ing those in­ten­tions which had marked the ear­ly part of their ac­quain­tance could on­ly serve, af­ter what had since passed, to pro­voke her. She lost all con­cern for him in find­ing her­self thus se­lect­ed as the ob­ject of such idle and frivolous gal­lantry; and while she steadi­ly re­pressed it, could not but feel the re­proof con­tained in his be­liev­ing, that how­ev­er long, and for what­ev­er cause, his at­ten­tions had been with­drawn, her van­ity would be grat­ified, and her pref­er­ence se­cured at any time by their re­new­al.

On the very last day of the reg­iment’s re­main­ing at Mery­ton, he dined, with oth­er of the of­fi­cers, at Long­bourn; and so lit­tle was Eliz­abeth dis­posed to part from him in good hu­mour, that on his mak­ing some in­quiry as to the man­ner in which her time had passed at Hunsford, she men­tioned Colonel Fitzwilliam’s and Mr. Dar­cy’s hav­ing both spent three weeks at Ros­ings, and asked him, if he was ac­quaint­ed with the for­mer.

He looked sur­prised, dis­pleased, alarmed; but with a mo­ment’s rec­ol­lec­tion and a re­turn­ing smile, replied, that he had for­mer­ly seen him of­ten; and, af­ter ob­serv­ing that he was a very gen­tle­man­like man, asked her how she had liked him. Her an­swer was warm­ly in his favour. With an air of in­dif­fer­ence he soon af­ter­wards added:

“How long did you say he was at Ros­ings?”

“Near­ly three weeks.”

“And you saw him fre­quent­ly?”

“Yes, al­most ev­ery day.”

“His man­ners are very dif­fer­ent from his cousin’s.”

“Yes, very dif­fer­ent. But I think Mr. Dar­cy im­proves up­on ac­quain­tance.”

“In­deed!” cried Mr. Wick­ham with a look which did not es­cape her. “And pray, may I ask?–” But check­ing him­self, he added, in a gay­er tone, “Is it in ad­dress that he im­proves? Has he deigned to add aught of ci­vil­ity to his or­di­nary style?–for I dare not hope,” he con­tin­ued in a low­er and more se­ri­ous tone, “that he is im­proved in es­sen­tials.”

“Oh, no!” said Eliz­abeth. “In es­sen­tials, I be­lieve, he is very much what he ev­er was.”

While she spoke, Wick­ham looked as if scarce­ly know­ing whether to re­joice over her words, or to dis­trust their mean­ing. There was a some­thing in her coun­te­nance which made him lis­ten with an ap­pre­hen­sive and anx­ious at­ten­tion, while she added:

“When I said that he im­proved on ac­quain­tance, I did not mean that his mind or his man­ners were in a state of im­prove­ment, but that, from know­ing him bet­ter, his dis­po­si­tion was bet­ter un­der­stood.”

Wick­ham’s alarm now ap­peared in a height­ened com­plex­ion and ag­itat­ed look; for a few min­ut­ed he was silent, till, shak­ing off his em­bar­rass­ment, he turned to her again, and said in the gen­tlest of ac­cents:

“You, who so well know my feel­ing to­wards Mr. Dar­cy, will read­ily com­pre­hend how sin­cere­ly I must re­joice that he is wise enough to as­sume even the AP­PEAR­ANCE of what is right. His pride, in that di­rec­tion, may be of ser­vice, if not to him­self, to many oth­ers, for it must on­ly de­ter him from such foul mis­con­duct as I have suf­fered by. I on­ly fear that the sort of cau­tious­ness to which you, I imag­ine, have been al­lud­ing, is mere­ly adopt­ed on his vis­its to his aunt, of whose good opin­ion and judge­ment he stands much in awe. His fear of her has al­ways op­er­at­ed, I know, when they were to­geth­er; and a good deal is to be im­put­ed to his wish of for­ward­ing the match with Miss de Bourgh, which I am cer­tain he has very much at heart.”

Eliz­abeth could not re­press a smile at this, but she an­swered on­ly by a slight in­cli­na­tion of the head. She saw that he want­ed to en­gage her on the old sub­ject of his grievances, and she was in no hu­mour to in­dulge him. The rest of the evening passed with the AP­PEAR­ANCE, on his side, of usu­al cheer­ful­ness, but with no fur­ther at­tempt to dis­tin­guish Eliz­abeth; and they part­ed at last with mu­tu­al ci­vil­ity, and pos­si­bly a mu­tu­al de­sire of nev­er meet­ing again.

When the par­ty broke up, Ly­dia re­turned with Mrs. Forster to Mery­ton, from whence they were to set out ear­ly the next morn­ing. The sep­ara­tion be­tween her and her fam­ily was rather noisy than pa­thet­ic. Kit­ty was the on­ly one who shed tears; but she did weep from vex­ation and en­vy. Mrs. Ben­net was dif­fuse in her good wish­es for the fe­lic­ity of her daugh­ter, and im­pres­sive in her in­junc­tions that she should not miss the op­por­tu­ni­ty of en­joy­ing her­self as much as pos­si­ble–ad­vice which there was ev­ery rea­son to be­lieve would be well at­tend­ed to; and in the clam­orous hap­pi­ness of Ly­dia her­self in bid­ding farewell, the more gen­tle adieus of her sis­ters were ut­tered with­out be­ing heard.