Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 46

Eliz­abeth had been a good deal dis­ap­point­ed in not find­ing a let­ter from Jane on their first ar­rival at Lambton; and this dis­ap­point­ment had been re­newed on each of the morn­ings that had now been spent there; but on the third her re­pin­ing was over, and her sis­ter jus­ti­fied, by the re­ceipt of two let­ters from her at once, on one of which was marked that it had been mis­sent else­where. Eliz­abeth was not sur­prised at it, as Jane had writ­ten the di­rec­tion re­mark­ably ill.

They had just been prepar­ing to walk as the let­ters came in; and her un­cle and aunt, leav­ing her to en­joy them in qui­et, set off by them­selves. The one mis­sent must first be at­tend­ed to; it had been writ­ten five days ago. The be­gin­ning con­tained an ac­count of all their lit­tle par­ties and en­gage­ments, with such news as the coun­try af­ford­ed; but the lat­ter half, which was dat­ed a day lat­er, and writ­ten in ev­ident ag­ita­tion, gave more im­por­tant in­tel­li­gence. It was to this ef­fect:

“Since writ­ing the above, dear­est Lizzy, some­thing has oc­curred of a most un­ex­pect­ed and se­ri­ous na­ture; but I am afraid of alarm­ing you–be as­sured that we are all well. What I have to say re­lates to poor Ly­dia. An ex­press came at twelve last night, just as we were all gone to bed, from Colonel Forster, to in­form us that she was gone off to Scot­land with one of his of­fi­cers; to own the truth, with Wick­ham! Imag­ine our sur­prise. To Kit­ty, how­ev­er, it does not seem so whol­ly un­ex­pect­ed. I am very, very sor­ry. So im­pru­dent a match on both sides! But I am will­ing to hope the best, and that his char­ac­ter has been mis­un­der­stood. Thought­less and in­dis­creet I can eas­ily be­lieve him, but this step (and let us re­joice over it) marks noth­ing bad at heart. His choice is dis­in­ter­est­ed at least, for he must know my fa­ther can give her noth­ing. Our poor moth­er is sad­ly grieved. My fa­ther bears it bet­ter. How thank­ful am I that we nev­er let them know what has been said against him; we must for­get it our­selves. They were off Sat­ur­day night about twelve, as is con­jec­tured, but were not missed till yes­ter­day morn­ing at eight. The ex­press was sent off di­rect­ly. My dear Lizzy, they must have passed with­in ten miles of us. Colonel Forster gives us rea­son to ex­pect him here soon. Ly­dia left a few lines for his wife, in­form­ing her of their in­ten­tion. I must con­clude, for I can­not be long from my poor moth­er. I am afraid you will not be able to make it out, but I hard­ly know what I have writ­ten.”

With­out al­low­ing her­self time for con­sid­er­ation, and scarce­ly know­ing what she felt, Eliz­abeth on fin­ish­ing this let­ter in­stant­ly seized the oth­er, and open­ing it with the ut­most im­pa­tience, read as fol­lows: it had been writ­ten a day lat­er than the con­clu­sion of the first.

“By this time, my dear­est sis­ter, you have re­ceived my hur­ried let­ter; I wish this may be more in­tel­li­gi­ble, but though not con­fined for time, my head is so be­wil­dered that I can­not an­swer for be­ing co­her­ent. Dear­est Lizzy, I hard­ly know what I would write, but I have bad news for you, and it can­not be de­layed. Im­pru­dent as the mar­riage be­tween Mr. Wick­ham and our poor Ly­dia would be, we are now anx­ious to be as­sured it has tak­en place, for there is but too much rea­son to fear they are not gone to Scot­land. Colonel Forster came yes­ter­day, hav­ing left Brighton the day be­fore, not many hours af­ter the ex­press. Though Ly­dia’s short let­ter to Mrs. F. gave them to un­der­stand that they were go­ing to Gret­na Green, some­thing was dropped by Den­ny ex­press­ing his be­lief that W. nev­er in­tend­ed to go there, or to mar­ry Ly­dia at all, which was re­peat­ed to Colonel F., who, in­stant­ly tak­ing the alarm, set off from B. in­tend­ing to trace their route. He did trace them eas­ily to Clapham, but no fur­ther; for on en­ter­ing that place, they re­moved in­to a hack­ney coach, and dis­missed the chaise that brought them from Ep­som. All that is known af­ter this is, that they were seen to con­tin­ue the Lon­don road. I know not what to think. Af­ter mak­ing ev­ery pos­si­ble in­quiry on that side Lon­don, Colonel F. came on in­to Hert­ford­shire, anx­ious­ly re­new­ing them at all the turn­pikes, and at the inns in Bar­net and Hat­field, but with­out any suc­cess–no such peo­ple had been seen to pass through. With the kind­est con­cern he came on to Long­bourn, and broke his ap­pre­hen­sions to us in a man­ner most cred­itable to his heart. I am sin­cere­ly grieved for him and Mrs. F., but no one can throw any blame on them. Our dis­tress, my dear Lizzy, is very great. My fa­ther and moth­er be­lieve the worst, but I can­not think so ill of him. Many cir­cum­stances might make it more el­igi­ble for them to be mar­ried pri­vate­ly in town than to pur­sue their first plan; and even if HE could form such a de­sign against a young wom­an of Ly­dia’s con­nec­tions, which is not like­ly, can I sup­pose her so lost to ev­ery­thing? Im­pos­si­ble! I grieve to find, how­ev­er, that Colonel F. is not dis­posed to de­pend up­on their mar­riage; he shook his head when I ex­pressed my hopes, and said he fear W. was not a man to be trust­ed. My poor moth­er is re­al­ly ill, and keeps her room. Could she ex­ert her­self, it would be bet­ter; but this is not to be ex­pect­ed. And as to my fa­ther, I nev­er in my life saw him so af­fect­ed. Poor Kit­ty has anger for hav­ing con­cealed their at­tach­ment; but as it was a mat­ter of con­fi­dence, one can­not won­der. I am tru­ly glad, dear­est Lizzy, that you have been spared some­thing of these dis­tress­ing scenes; but now, as the first shock is over, shall I own that I long for your re­turn? I am not so self­ish, how­ev­er, as to press for it, if in­con­ve­nient. Adieu! I take up my pen again to do what I have just told you I would not; but cir­cum­stances are such that I can­not help earnest­ly beg­ging you all to come here as soon as pos­si­ble. I know my dear un­cle and aunt so well, that I am not afraid of re­quest­ing it, though I have still some­thing more to ask of the for­mer. My fa­ther is go­ing to Lon­don with Colonel Forster in­stant­ly, to try to dis­cov­er her. What he means to do I am sure I know not; but his ex­ces­sive dis­tress will not al­low him to pur­sue any mea­sure in the best and safest way, and Colonel Forster is obliged to be at Brighton again to-​mor­row evening. In such and ex­igence, my un­cle’s ad­vice and as­sis­tance would be ev­ery­thing in the world; he will im­me­di­ate­ly com­pre­hend what I must feel, and I re­ly up­on his good­ness.”

“Oh! where, where is my un­cle?” cried Eliz­abeth, dart­ing from her seat as she fin­ished the let­ter, in ea­ger­ness to fol­low him, with­out los­ing a mo­ment of the time so pre­cious; but as she reached the door it was opened by a ser­vant, and Mr. Dar­cy ap­peared. Her pale face and im­petu­ous man­ner made him start, and be­fore he could re­cov­er him­self to speak, she, in whose mind ev­ery idea was su­per­seded by Ly­dia’s sit­ua­tion, hasti­ly ex­claimed, “I beg your par­don, but I must leave you. I must find Mr. Gar­diner this mo­ment, on busi­ness that can­not be de­layed; I have not an in­stant to lose.”

“Good God! what is the mat­ter?” cried he, with more feel­ing than po­lite­ness; then rec­ol­lect­ing him­self, “I will not de­tain you a minute; but let me, or let the ser­vant go af­ter Mr. and Mrs. Gar­diner. You are not well enough; you can­not go your­self.”

Eliz­abeth hes­itat­ed, but her knees trem­bled un­der her and she felt how lit­tle would be gained by her at­tempt­ing to pur­sue them. Call­ing back the ser­vant, there­fore, she com­mis­sioned him, though in so breath­less an ac­cent as made her al­most un­in­tel­li­gi­ble, to fetch his mas­ter and mis­tress home in­stant­ly.

On his quit­ting the room she sat down, un­able to sup­port her­self, and look­ing so mis­er­ably ill, that it was im­pos­si­ble for Dar­cy to leave her, or to re­frain from say­ing, in a tone of gen­tle­ness and com­mis­er­ation, “Let me call your maid. Is there noth­ing you could take to give you present re­lief? A glass of wine; shall I get you one? You are very ill.”

“No, I thank you,” she replied, en­deav­our­ing to re­cov­er her­self. “There is noth­ing the mat­ter with me. I am quite well; I am on­ly dis­tressed by some dread­ful news which I have just re­ceived from Long­bourn.”

She burst in­to tears as she al­lud­ed to it, and for a few min­utes could not speak an­oth­er word. Dar­cy, in wretched sus­pense, could on­ly say some­thing in­dis­tinct­ly of his con­cern, and ob­serve her in com­pas­sion­ate si­lence. At length she spoke again. “I have just had a let­ter from Jane, with such dread­ful news. It can­not be con­cealed from any­one. My younger sis­ter has left all her friends–has eloped; has thrown her­self in­to the pow­er of–of Mr. Wick­ham. They are gone off to­geth­er from Brighton. YOU know him too well to doubt the rest. She has no mon­ey, no con­nec­tions, noth­ing that can tempt him to–she is lost for ev­er.”

Dar­cy was fixed in as­ton­ish­ment. “When I con­sid­er,” she added in a yet more ag­itat­ed voice, “that I might have pre­vent­ed it! I, who knew what he was. Had I but ex­plained some part of it on­ly–some part of what I learnt, to my own fam­ily! Had his char­ac­ter been known, this could not have hap­pened. But it is all–all too late now.”

“I am grieved in­deed,” cried Dar­cy; “grieved–shocked. But is it cer­tain–ab­so­lute­ly cer­tain?”

“Oh, yes! They left Brighton to­geth­er on Sun­day night, and were traced al­most to Lon­don, but not be­yond; they are cer­tain­ly not gone to Scot­land.”

“And what has been done, what has been at­tempt­ed, to re­cov­er her?”

“My fa­ther is gone to Lon­don, and Jane has writ­ten to beg my un­cle’s im­me­di­ate as­sis­tance; and we shall be off, I hope, in half-​an-​hour. But noth­ing can be done–I know very well that noth­ing can be done. How is such a man to be worked on? How are they even to be dis­cov­ered? I have not the small­est hope. It is ev­ery way hor­ri­ble!”

Dar­cy shook his head in silent ac­qui­es­cence.

“When MY eyes were opened to his re­al char­ac­ter–Oh! had I known what I ought, what I dared to do! But I knew not–I was afraid of do­ing too much. Wretched, wretched mis­take!”

Dar­cy made no an­swer. He seemed scarce­ly to hear her, and was walk­ing up and down the room in earnest med­ita­tion, his brow con­tract­ed, his air gloomy. Eliz­abeth soon ob­served, and in­stant­ly un­der­stood it. Her pow­er was sink­ing; ev­ery­thing MUST sink un­der such a proof of fam­ily weak­ness, such an as­sur­ance of the deep­est dis­grace. She could nei­ther won­der nor con­demn, but the be­lief of his self-​con­quest brought noth­ing to her con­so­la­to­ry to her bo­som, af­ford­ed no pal­li­ation of her dis­tress. It was, on the con­trary, ex­act­ly cal­cu­lat­ed to make her un­der­stand her own wish­es; and nev­er had she so hon­est­ly felt that she could have loved him, as now, when all love must be vain.

But self, though it would in­trude, could not en­gross her. Ly­dia–the hu­mil­ia­tion, the mis­ery she was bring­ing on them all, soon swal­lowed up ev­ery pri­vate care; and cov­er­ing her face with her hand­ker­chief, Eliz­abeth was soon lost to ev­ery­thing else; and, af­ter a pause of sev­er­al min­utes, was on­ly re­called to a sense of her sit­ua­tion by the voice of her com­pan­ion, who, in a man­ner which, though it spoke com­pas­sion, spoke like­wise re­straint, said, “I am afraid you have been long de­sir­ing my ab­sence, nor have I any­thing to plead in ex­cuse of my stay, but re­al, though un­avail­ing con­cern. Would to Heav­en that any­thing could be ei­ther said or done on my part that might of­fer con­so­la­tion to such dis­tress! But I will not tor­ment you with vain wish­es, which may seem pur­pose­ly to ask for your thanks. This un­for­tu­nate af­fair will, I fear, pre­vent my sis­ter’s hav­ing the plea­sure of see­ing you at Pem­ber­ley to-​day.”

“Oh, yes. Be so kind as to apol­ogise for us to Miss Dar­cy. Say that ur­gent busi­ness calls us home im­me­di­ate­ly. Con­ceal the un­hap­py truth as long as it is pos­si­ble, I know it can­not be long.”

He read­ily as­sured her of his se­cre­cy; again ex­pressed his sor­row for her dis­tress, wished it a hap­pi­er con­clu­sion than there was at present rea­son to hope, and leav­ing his com­pli­ments for her re­la­tions, with on­ly one se­ri­ous, part­ing look, went away.

As he quit­ted the room, Eliz­abeth felt how im­prob­able it was that they should ev­er see each oth­er again on such terms of cor­dial­ity as had marked their sev­er­al meet­ings in Der­byshire; and as she threw a ret­ro­spec­tive glance over the whole of their ac­quain­tance, so full of con­tra­dic­tions and va­ri­eties, sighed at the per­verse­ness of those feel­ings which would now have pro­mot­ed its con­tin­uance, and would for­mer­ly have re­joiced in its ter­mi­na­tion.

If grat­itude and es­teem are good foun­da­tions of af­fec­tion, Eliz­abeth’s change of sen­ti­ment will be nei­ther im­prob­able nor faulty. But if oth­er­wise–if re­gard spring­ing from such sources is un­rea­son­able or un­nat­ural, in com­par­ison of what is so of­ten de­scribed as aris­ing on a first in­ter­view with its ob­ject, and even be­fore two words have been ex­changed, noth­ing can be said in her de­fence, ex­cept that she had giv­en some­what of a tri­al to the lat­ter method in her par­tial­ity for Wick­ham, and that its ill suc­cess might, per­haps, au­tho­rise her to seek the oth­er less in­ter­est­ing mode of at­tach­ment. Be that as it may, she saw him go with re­gret; and in this ear­ly ex­am­ple of what Ly­dia’s in­famy must pro­duce, found ad­di­tion­al an­guish as she re­flect­ed on that wretched busi­ness. Nev­er, since read­ing Jane’s sec­ond let­ter, had she en­ter­tained a hope of Wick­ham’s mean­ing to mar­ry her. No one but Jane, she thought, could flat­ter her­self with such an ex­pec­ta­tion. Sur­prise was the least of her feel­ings on this de­vel­op­ment. While the con­tents of the first let­ter re­mained in her mind, she was all sur­prise–all as­ton­ish­ment that Wick­ham should mar­ry a girl whom it was im­pos­si­ble he could mar­ry for mon­ey; and how Ly­dia could ev­er have at­tached him had ap­peared in­com­pre­hen­si­ble. But now it was all too nat­ural. For such an at­tach­ment as this she might have suf­fi­cient charms; and though she did not sup­pose Ly­dia to be de­lib­er­ate­ly en­gag­ing in an elope­ment with­out the in­ten­tion of mar­riage, she had no dif­fi­cul­ty in be­liev­ing that nei­ther her virtue nor her un­der­stand­ing would pre­serve her from falling an easy prey.

She had nev­er per­ceived, while the reg­iment was in Hert­ford­shire, that Ly­dia had any par­tial­ity for him; but she was con­vinced that Ly­dia want­ed on­ly en­cour­age­ment to at­tach her­self to any­body. Some­times one of­fi­cer, some­times an­oth­er, had been her favourite, as their at­ten­tions raised them in her opin­ion. Her af­fec­tions had con­tin­ual­ly been fluc­tu­at­ing but nev­er with­out an ob­ject. The mis­chief of ne­glect and mis­tak­en in­dul­gence to­wards such a girl–oh! how acute­ly did she now feel it!

She was wild to be at home–to hear, to see, to be up­on the spot to share with Jane in the cares that must now fall whol­ly up­on her, in a fam­ily so de­ranged, a fa­ther ab­sent, a moth­er in­ca­pable of ex­er­tion, and re­quir­ing con­stant at­ten­dance; and though al­most per­suad­ed that noth­ing could be done for Ly­dia, her un­cle’s in­ter­fer­ence seemed of the ut­most im­por­tance, and till he en­tered the room her im­pa­tience was se­vere. Mr. and Mrs. Gar­diner had hur­ried back in alarm, sup­pos­ing by the ser­vant’s ac­count that their niece was tak­en sud­den­ly ill; but sat­is­fy­ing them in­stant­ly on that head, she ea­ger­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed the cause of their sum­mons, read­ing the two let­ters aloud, and dwelling on the postscript of the last with trem­bling en­er­gy, though Ly­dia had nev­er been a favourite with them, Mr. and Mrs. Gar­diner could not but be deeply af­flict­ed. Not Ly­dia on­ly, but all were con­cerned in it; and af­ter the first ex­cla­ma­tions of sur­prise and hor­ror, Mr. Gar­diner promised ev­ery as­sis­tance in his pow­er. Eliz­abeth, though ex­pect­ing no less, thanked him with tears of grat­itude; and all three be­ing ac­tu­at­ed by one spir­it, ev­ery­thing re­lat­ing to their jour­ney was speed­ily set­tled. They were to be off as soon as pos­si­ble. “But what is to be done about Pem­ber­ley?” cried Mrs. Gar­diner. “John told us Mr. Dar­cy was here when you sent for us; was it so?”

“Yes; and I told him we should not be able to keep our en­gage­ment. THAT is all set­tled.”

“What is all set­tled?” re­peat­ed the oth­er, as she ran in­to her room to pre­pare. “And are they up­on such terms as for her to dis­close the re­al truth? Oh, that I knew how it was!”

But wish­es were vain, or at least could on­ly serve to amuse her in the hur­ry and con­fu­sion of the fol­low­ing hour. Had Eliz­abeth been at leisure to be idle, she would have re­mained cer­tain that all em­ploy­ment was im­pos­si­ble to one so wretched as her­self; but she had her share of busi­ness as well as her aunt, and amongst the rest there were notes to be writ­ten to all their friends at Lambton, with false ex­cus­es for their sud­den de­par­ture. An hour, how­ev­er, saw the whole com­plet­ed; and Mr. Gar­diner mean­while hav­ing set­tled his ac­count at the inn, noth­ing re­mained to be done but to go; and Eliz­abeth, af­ter all the mis­ery of the morn­ing, found her­self, in a short­er space of time than she could have sup­posed, seat­ed in the car­riage, and on the road to Long­bourn.