Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 49

Two days af­ter Mr. Ben­net’s re­turn, as Jane and Eliz­abeth were walk­ing to­geth­er in the shrub­bery be­hind the house, they saw the house­keep­er com­ing to­wards them, and, con­clud­ing that she came to call them to their moth­er, went for­ward to meet her; but, in­stead of the ex­pect­ed sum­mons, when they ap­proached her, she said to Miss Ben­net, “I beg your par­don, madam, for in­ter­rupt­ing you, but I was in hopes you might have got some good news from town, so I took the lib­er­ty of com­ing to ask.”

“What do you mean, Hill? We have heard noth­ing from town.”

“Dear madam,” cried Mrs. Hill, in great as­ton­ish­ment, “don’t you know there is an ex­press come for mas­ter from Mr. Gar­diner? He has been here this half-​hour, and mas­ter has had a let­ter.”

Away ran the girls, too ea­ger to get in to have time for speech. They ran through the vestibule in­to the break­fast-​room; from thence to the li­brary; their fa­ther was in nei­ther; and they were on the point of seek­ing him up­stairs with their moth­er, when they were met by the but­ler, who said:

“If you are look­ing for my mas­ter, ma’am, he is walk­ing to­wards the lit­tle copse.”

Up­on this in­for­ma­tion, they in­stant­ly passed through the hall once more, and ran across the lawn af­ter their fa­ther, who was de­lib­er­ate­ly pur­su­ing his way to­wards a small wood on one side of the pad­dock.

Jane, who was not so light nor so much in the habit of run­ning as Eliz­abeth, soon lagged be­hind, while her sis­ter, pant­ing for breath, came up with him, and ea­ger­ly cried out:

“Oh, pa­pa, what news–what news? Have you heard from my un­cle?”

“Yes I have had a let­ter from him by ex­press.”

“Well, and what news does it bring–good or bad?”

“What is there of good to be ex­pect­ed?” said he, tak­ing the let­ter from his pock­et. “But per­haps you would like to read it.”

Eliz­abeth im­pa­tient­ly caught it from his hand. Jane now came up.

“Read it aloud,” said their fa­ther, “for I hard­ly know my­self what it is about.”

“Gracechurch Street, Mon­day, Au­gust 2.

“MY DEAR BROTH­ER,

“At last I am able to send you some tid­ings of my niece, and such as, up­on the whole, I hope it will give you sat­is­fac­tion. Soon af­ter you left me on Sat­ur­day, I was for­tu­nate enough to find out in what part of Lon­don they were. The par­tic­ulars I re­serve till we meet; it is enough to know they are dis­cov­ered. I have seen them both–“

“Then it is as I al­ways hoped,” cried Jane; “they are mar­ried!”

Eliz­abeth read on:

“I have seen them both. They are not mar­ried, nor can I find there was any in­ten­tion of be­ing so; but if you are will­ing to per­form the en­gage­ments which I have ven­tured to make on your side, I hope it will not be long be­fore they are. All that is re­quired of you is, to as­sure to your daugh­ter, by set­tle­ment, her equal share of the five thou­sand pounds se­cured among your chil­dren af­ter the de­cease of your­self and my sis­ter; and, more­over, to en­ter in­to an en­gage­ment of al­low­ing her, dur­ing your life, one hun­dred pounds per an­num. These are con­di­tions which, con­sid­er­ing ev­ery­thing, I had no hes­ita­tion in com­ply­ing with, as far as I thought my­self priv­ileged, for you. I shall send this by ex­press, that no time may be lost in bring­ing me your an­swer. You will eas­ily com­pre­hend, from these par­tic­ulars, that Mr. Wick­ham’s cir­cum­stances are not so hope­less as they are gen­er­al­ly be­lieved to be. The world has been de­ceived in that re­spect; and I am hap­py to say there will be some lit­tle mon­ey, even when all his debts are dis­charged, to set­tle on my niece, in ad­di­tion to her own for­tune. If, as I con­clude will be the case, you send me full pow­ers to act in your name through­out the whole of this busi­ness, I will im­me­di­ate­ly give di­rec­tions to Hag­ger­ston for prepar­ing a prop­er set­tle­ment. There will not be the small­est oc­ca­sion for your com­ing to town again; there­fore stay qui­et at Long­bourn, and de­pend on my dili­gence and care. Send back your an­swer as fast as you can, and be care­ful to write ex­plic­it­ly. We have judged it best that my niece should be mar­ried from this house, of which I hope you will ap­prove. She comes to us to-​day. I shall write again as soon as any­thing more is de­ter­mined on. Yours, etc.,

“EDW. GAR­DINER.”

“Is it pos­si­ble?” cried Eliz­abeth, when she had fin­ished. “Can it be pos­si­ble that he will mar­ry her?”

“Wick­ham is not so un­de­serv­ing, then, as we thought him,” said her sis­ter. “My dear fa­ther, I con­grat­ulate you.”

“And have you an­swered the let­ter?” cried Eliz­abeth.

“No; but it must be done soon.”

Most earnest­ly did she then en­treaty him to lose no more time be­fore he wrote.

“Oh! my dear fa­ther,” she cried, “come back and write im­me­di­ate­ly. Con­sid­er how im­por­tant ev­ery mo­ment is in such a case.”

“Let me write for you,” said Jane, “if you dis­like the trou­ble your­self.”

“I dis­like it very much,” he replied; “but it must be done.”

And so say­ing, he turned back with them, and walked to­wards the house.

“And may I ask–” said Eliz­abeth; “but the terms, I sup­pose, must be com­plied with.”

“Com­plied with! I am on­ly ashamed of his ask­ing so lit­tle.”

“And they MUST mar­ry! Yet he is SUCH a man!”

“Yes, yes, they must mar­ry. There is noth­ing else to be done. But there are two things that I want very much to know; one is, how much mon­ey your un­cle has laid down to bring it about; and the oth­er, how am I ev­er to pay him.”

“Mon­ey! My un­cle!” cried Jane, “what do you mean, sir?”

“I mean, that no man in his sens­es would mar­ry Ly­dia on so slight a temp­ta­tion as one hun­dred a year dur­ing my life, and fifty af­ter I am gone.”

“That is very true,” said Eliz­abeth; “though it had not oc­curred to me be­fore. His debts to be dis­charged, and some­thing still to re­main! Oh! it must be my un­cle’s do­ings! Gen­er­ous, good man, I am afraid he has dis­tressed him­self. A small sum could not do all this.”

“No,” said her fa­ther; “Wick­ham’s a fool if he takes her with a far­thing less than ten thou­sand pounds. I should be sor­ry to think so ill of him, in the very be­gin­ning of our re­la­tion­ship.”

“Ten thou­sand pounds! Heav­en for­bid! How is half such a sum to be re­paid?”

Mr. Ben­net made no an­swer, and each of them, deep in thought, con­tin­ued silent till they reached the house. Their fa­ther then went on to the li­brary to write, and the girls walked in­to the break­fast-​room.

“And they are re­al­ly to be mar­ried!” cried Eliz­abeth, as soon as they were by them­selves. “How strange this is! And for THIS we are to be thank­ful. That they should mar­ry, small as is their chance of hap­pi­ness, and wretched as is his char­ac­ter, we are forced to re­joice. Oh, Ly­dia!”

“I com­fort my­self with think­ing,” replied Jane, “that he cer­tain­ly would not mar­ry Ly­dia if he had not a re­al re­gard for her. Though our kind un­cle has done some­thing to­wards clear­ing him, I can­not be­lieve that ten thou­sand pounds, or any­thing like it, has been ad­vanced. He has chil­dren of his own, and may have more. How could he spare half ten thou­sand pounds?”

“If he were ev­er able to learn what Wick­ham’s debts have been,” said Eliz­abeth, “and how much is set­tled on his side on our sis­ter, we shall ex­act­ly know what Mr. Gar­diner has done for them, be­cause Wick­ham has not six­pence of his own. The kind­ness of my un­cle and aunt can nev­er be re­quit­ed. Their tak­ing her home, and af­ford­ing her their per­son­al pro­tec­tion and coun­te­nance, is such a sac­ri­fice to her ad­van­tage as years of grat­itude can­not enough ac­knowl­edge. By this time she is ac­tu­al­ly with them! If such good­ness does not make her mis­er­able now, she will nev­er de­serve to be hap­py! What a meet­ing for her, when she first sees my aunt!”

“We must en­deav­our to for­get all that has passed on ei­ther side,” said Jane: “I hope and trust they will yet be hap­py. His con­sent­ing to mar­ry her is a proof, I will be­lieve, that he is come to a right way of think­ing. Their mu­tu­al af­fec­tion will steady them; and I flat­ter my­self they will set­tle so qui­et­ly, and live in so ra­tio­nal a man­ner, as may in time make their past im­pru­dence for­got­ten.”

“Their con­duct has been such,” replied Eliz­abeth, “as nei­ther you, nor I, nor any­body can ev­er for­get. It is use­less to talk of it.”

It now oc­curred to the girls that their moth­er was in all like­li­hood per­fect­ly ig­no­rant of what had hap­pened. They went to the li­brary, there­fore, and asked their fa­ther whether he would not wish them to make it known to her. He was writ­ing and, with­out rais­ing his head, cool­ly replied:

“Just as you please.”

“May we take my un­cle’s let­ter to read to her?”

“Take what­ev­er you like, and get away.”

Eliz­abeth took the let­ter from his writ­ing-​ta­ble, and they went up­stairs to­geth­er. Mary and Kit­ty were both with Mrs. Ben­net: one com­mu­ni­ca­tion would, there­fore, do for all. Af­ter a slight prepa­ra­tion for good news, the let­ter was read aloud. Mrs. Ben­net could hard­ly con­tain her­self. As soon as Jane had read Mr. Gar­diner’s hope of Ly­dia’s be­ing soon mar­ried, her joy burst forth, and ev­ery fol­low­ing sen­tence added to its ex­uber­ance. She was now in an ir­ri­ta­tion as vi­olent from de­light, as she had ev­er been fid­gety from alarm and vex­ation. To know that her daugh­ter would be mar­ried was enough. She was dis­turbed by no fear for her fe­lic­ity, nor hum­bled by any re­mem­brance of her mis­con­duct.

“My dear, dear Ly­dia!” she cried. “This is de­light­ful in­deed! She will be mar­ried! I shall see her again! She will be mar­ried at six­teen! My good, kind broth­er! I knew how it would be. I knew he would man­age ev­ery­thing! How I long to see her! and to see dear Wick­ham too! But the clothes, the wed­ding clothes! I will write to my sis­ter Gar­diner about them di­rect­ly. Lizzy, my dear, run down to your fa­ther, and ask him how much he will give her. Stay, stay, I will go my­self. Ring the bell, Kit­ty, for Hill. I will put on my things in a mo­ment. My dear, dear Ly­dia! How mer­ry we shall be to­geth­er when we meet!”

Her el­dest daugh­ter en­deav­oured to give some re­lief to the vi­olence of these trans­ports, by lead­ing her thoughts to the obli­ga­tions which Mr. Gar­diner’s be­haviour laid them all un­der.

“For we must at­tribute this hap­py con­clu­sion,” she added, “in a great mea­sure to his kind­ness. We are per­suad­ed that he has pledged him­self to as­sist Mr. Wick­ham with mon­ey.”

“Well,” cried her moth­er, “it is all very right; who should do it but her own un­cle? If he had not had a fam­ily of his own, I and my chil­dren must have had all his mon­ey, you know; and it is the first time we have ev­er had any­thing from him, ex­cept a few presents. Well! I am so hap­py! In a short time I shall have a daugh­ter mar­ried. Mrs. Wick­ham! How well it sounds! And she was on­ly six­teen last June. My dear Jane, I am in such a flut­ter, that I am sure I can’t write; so I will dic­tate, and you write for me. We will set­tle with your fa­ther about the mon­ey af­ter­wards; but the things should be or­dered im­me­di­ate­ly.”

She was then pro­ceed­ing to all the par­tic­ulars of cal­ico, muslin, and cam­bric, and would short­ly have dic­tat­ed some very plen­ti­ful or­ders, had not Jane, though with some dif­fi­cul­ty, per­suad­ed her to wait till her fa­ther was at leisure to be con­sult­ed. One day’s de­lay, she ob­served, would be of small im­por­tance; and her moth­er was too hap­py to be quite so ob­sti­nate as usu­al. Oth­er schemes, too, came in­to her head.

“I will go to Mery­ton,” said she, “as soon as I am dressed, and tell the good, good news to my sis­ter Philips. And as I come back, I can call on La­dy Lu­cas and Mrs. Long. Kit­ty, run down and or­der the car­riage. An air­ing would do me a great deal of good, I am sure. Girls, can I do any­thing for you in Mery­ton? Oh! Here comes Hill! My dear Hill, have you heard the good news? Miss Ly­dia is go­ing to be mar­ried; and you shall all have a bowl of punch to make mer­ry at her wed­ding.”

Mrs. Hill be­gan in­stant­ly to ex­press her joy. Eliz­abeth re­ceived her con­grat­ula­tions amongst the rest, and then, sick of this fol­ly, took refuge in her own room, that she might think with free­dom.

Poor Ly­dia’s sit­ua­tion must, at best, be bad enough; but that it was no worse, she had need to be thank­ful. She felt it so; and though, in look­ing for­ward, nei­ther ra­tio­nal hap­pi­ness nor world­ly pros­per­ity could be just­ly ex­pect­ed for her sis­ter, in look­ing back to what they had feared, on­ly two hours ago, she felt all the ad­van­tages of what they had gained.