Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 51

Their sis­ter’s wed­ding day ar­rived; and Jane and Eliz­abeth felt for her prob­ably more than she felt for her­self. The car­riage was sent to meet them at —-, and they were to re­turn in it by din­ner-​time. Their ar­rival was dread­ed by the el­der Miss Ben­nets, and Jane more es­pe­cial­ly, who gave Ly­dia the feel­ings which would have at­tend­ed her­self, had she been the cul­prit, and was wretched in the thought of what her sis­ter must en­dure.

They came. The fam­ily were as­sem­bled in the break­fast room to re­ceive them. Smiles decked the face of Mrs. Ben­net as the car­riage drove up to the door; her hus­band looked im­pen­etra­bly grave; her daugh­ters, alarmed, anx­ious, un­easy.

Ly­dia’s voice was heard in the vestibule; the door was thrown open, and she ran in­to the room. Her moth­er stepped for­wards, em­braced her, and wel­comed her with rap­ture; gave her hand, with an af­fec­tion­ate smile, to Wick­ham, who fol­lowed his la­dy; and wished them both joy with an alacrity which shewed no doubt of their hap­pi­ness.

Their re­cep­tion from Mr. Ben­net, to whom they then turned, was not quite so cor­dial. His coun­te­nance rather gained in aus­ter­ity; and he scarce­ly opened his lips. The easy as­sur­ance of the young cou­ple, in­deed, was enough to pro­voke him. Eliz­abeth was dis­gust­ed, and even Miss Ben­net was shocked. Ly­dia was Ly­dia still; un­tamed, un­abashed, wild, noisy, and fear­less. She turned from sis­ter to sis­ter, de­mand­ing their con­grat­ula­tions; and when at length they all sat down, looked ea­ger­ly round the room, took no­tice of some lit­tle al­ter­ation in it, and ob­served, with a laugh, that it was a great while since she had been there.

Wick­ham was not at all more dis­tressed than her­self, but his man­ners were al­ways so pleas­ing, that had his char­ac­ter and his mar­riage been ex­act­ly what they ought, his smiles and his easy ad­dress, while he claimed their re­la­tion­ship, would have de­light­ed them all. Eliz­abeth had not be­fore be­lieved him quite equal to such as­sur­ance; but she sat down, re­solv­ing with­in her­self to draw no lim­its in fu­ture to the im­pu­dence of an im­pu­dent man. She blushed, and Jane blushed; but the cheeks of the two who caused their con­fu­sion suf­fered no vari­ation of colour.

There was no want of dis­course. The bride and her moth­er could nei­ther of them talk fast enough; and Wick­ham, who hap­pened to sit near Eliz­abeth, be­gan in­quir­ing af­ter his ac­quain­tance in that neigh­bour­hood, with a good hu­moured ease which she felt very un­able to equal in her replies. They seemed each of them to have the hap­pi­est mem­ories in the world. Noth­ing of the past was rec­ol­lect­ed with pain; and Ly­dia led vol­un­tar­ily to sub­jects which her sis­ters would not have al­lud­ed to for the world.

“On­ly think of its be­ing three months,” she cried, “since I went away; it seems but a fort­night I de­clare; and yet there have been things enough hap­pened in the time. Good gra­cious! when I went away, I am sure I had no more idea of be­ing mar­ried till I came back again! though I thought it would be very good fun if I was.”

Her fa­ther lift­ed up his eyes. Jane was dis­tressed. Eliz­abeth looked ex­pres­sive­ly at Ly­dia; but she, who nev­er heard nor saw any­thing of which she chose to be in­sen­si­ble, gai­ly con­tin­ued, “Oh! mam­ma, do the peo­ple here­abouts know I am mar­ried to-​day? I was afraid they might not; and we over­took William Gould­ing in his cur­ri­cle, so I was de­ter­mined he should know it, and so I let down the side-​glass next to him, and took off my glove, and let my hand just rest up­on the win­dow frame, so that he might see the ring, and then I bowed and smiled like any­thing.”

Eliz­abeth could bear it no longer. She got up, and ran out of the room; and re­turned no more, till she heard them pass­ing through the hall to the din­ing par­lour. She then joined them soon enough to see Ly­dia, with anx­ious pa­rade, walk up to her moth­er’s right hand, and hear her say to her el­dest sis­ter, “Ah! Jane, I take your place now, and you must go low­er, be­cause I am a mar­ried wom­an.”

It was not to be sup­posed that time would give Ly­dia that em­bar­rass­ment from which she had been so whol­ly free at first. Her ease and good spir­its in­creased. She longed to see Mrs. Phillips, the Lu­cas­es, and all their oth­er neigh­bours, and to hear her­self called “Mrs. Wick­ham” by each of them; and in the mean time, she went af­ter din­ner to show her ring, and boast of be­ing mar­ried, to Mrs. Hill and the two house­maids.

“Well, mam­ma,” said she, when they were all re­turned to the break­fast room, “and what do you think of my hus­band? Is not he a charm­ing man? I am sure my sis­ters must all en­vy me. I on­ly hope they may have half my good luck. They must all go to Brighton. That is the place to get hus­bands. What a pity it is, mam­ma, we did not all go.”

“Very true; and if I had my will, we should. But my dear Ly­dia, I don’t at all like your go­ing such a way off. Must it be so?”

“Oh, lord! yes;–there is noth­ing in that. I shall like it of all things. You and pa­pa, and my sis­ters, must come down and see us. We shall be at New­cas­tle all the win­ter, and I dare say there will be some balls, and I will take care to get good part­ners for them all.”

“I should like it be­yond any­thing!” said her moth­er.

“And then when you go away, you may leave one or two of my sis­ters be­hind you; and I dare say I shall get hus­bands for them be­fore the win­ter is over.”

“I thank you for my share of the favour,” said Eliz­abeth; “but I do not par­tic­ular­ly like your way of get­ting hus­bands.”

Their vis­itors were not to re­main above ten days with them. Mr. Wick­ham had re­ceived his com­mis­sion be­fore he left Lon­don, and he was to join his reg­iment at the end of a fort­night.

No one but Mrs. Ben­net re­gret­ted that their stay would be so short; and she made the most of the time by vis­it­ing about with her daugh­ter, and hav­ing very fre­quent par­ties at home. These par­ties were ac­cept­able to all; to avoid a fam­ily cir­cle was even more de­sir­able to such as did think, than such as did not.

Wick­ham’s af­fec­tion for Ly­dia was just what Eliz­abeth had ex­pect­ed to find it; not equal to Ly­dia’s for him. She had scarce­ly need­ed her present ob­ser­va­tion to be sat­is­fied, from the rea­son of things, that their elope­ment had been brought on by the strength of her love, rather than by his; and she would have won­dered why, with­out vi­olent­ly car­ing for her, he chose to elope with her at all, had she not felt cer­tain that his flight was ren­dered nec­es­sary by dis­tress of cir­cum­stances; and if that were the case, he was not the young man to re­sist an op­por­tu­ni­ty of hav­ing a com­pan­ion.

Ly­dia was ex­ceed­ing­ly fond of him. He was her dear Wick­ham on ev­ery oc­ca­sion; no one was to be put in com­pe­ti­tion with him. He did ev­ery thing best in the world; and she was sure he would kill more birds on the first of Septem­ber, than any body else in the coun­try.

One morn­ing, soon af­ter their ar­rival, as she was sit­ting with her two el­der sis­ters, she said to Eliz­abeth:

“Lizzy, I nev­er gave YOU an ac­count of my wed­ding, I be­lieve. You were not by, when I told mam­ma and the oth­ers all about it. Are not you cu­ri­ous to hear how it was man­aged?”

“No re­al­ly,” replied Eliz­abeth; “I think there can­not be too lit­tle said on the sub­ject.”

“La! You are so strange! But I must tell you how it went off. We were mar­ried, you know, at St. Clement’s, be­cause Wick­ham’s lodg­ings were in that parish. And it was set­tled that we should all be there by eleven o’clock. My un­cle and aunt and I were to go to­geth­er; and the oth­ers were to meet us at the church. Well, Mon­day morn­ing came, and I was in such a fuss! I was so afraid, you know, that some­thing would hap­pen to put it off, and then I should have gone quite dis­tract­ed. And there was my aunt, all the time I was dress­ing, preach­ing and talk­ing away just as if she was read­ing a ser­mon. How­ev­er, I did not hear above one word in ten, for I was think­ing, you may sup­pose, of my dear Wick­ham. I longed to know whether he would be mar­ried in his blue coat.”

“Well, and so we break­fast­ed at ten as usu­al; I thought it would nev­er be over; for, by the bye, you are to un­der­stand, that my un­cle and aunt were hor­rid un­pleas­ant all the time I was with them. If you’ll be­lieve me, I did not once put my foot out of doors, though I was there a fort­night. Not one par­ty, or scheme, or any­thing. To be sure Lon­don was rather thin, but, how­ev­er, the Lit­tle The­atre was open. Well, and so just as the car­riage came to the door, my un­cle was called away up­on busi­ness to that hor­rid man Mr. Stone. And then, you know, when once they get to­geth­er, there is no end of it. Well, I was so fright­ened I did not know what to do, for my un­cle was to give me away; and if we were be­yond the hour, we could not be mar­ried all day. But, luck­ily, he came back again in ten min­utes’ time, and then we all set out. How­ev­er, I rec­ol­lect­ed af­ter­wards that if he had been pre­vent­ed go­ing, the wed­ding need not be put off, for Mr. Dar­cy might have done as well.”

“Mr. Dar­cy!” re­peat­ed Eliz­abeth, in ut­ter amaze­ment.

“Oh, yes!–he was to come there with Wick­ham, you know. But gra­cious me! I quite for­got! I ought not to have said a word about it. I promised them so faith­ful­ly! What will Wick­ham say? It was to be such a se­cret!”

“If it was to be se­cret,” said Jane, “say not an­oth­er word on the sub­ject. You may de­pend up­on my seek­ing no fur­ther.”

“Oh! cer­tain­ly,” said Eliz­abeth, though burn­ing with cu­rios­ity; “we will ask you no ques­tions.”

“Thank you,” said Ly­dia, “for if you did, I should cer­tain­ly tell you all, and then Wick­ham would be an­gry.”

On such en­cour­age­ment to ask, Eliz­abeth was forced to put it out of her pow­er, by run­ning away.

But to live in ig­no­rance on such a point was im­pos­si­ble; or at least it was im­pos­si­ble not to try for in­for­ma­tion. Mr. Dar­cy had been at her sis­ter’s wed­ding. It was ex­act­ly a scene, and ex­act­ly among peo­ple, where he had ap­par­ent­ly least to do, and least temp­ta­tion to go. Con­jec­tures as to the mean­ing of it, rapid and wild, hur­ried in­to her brain; but she was sat­is­fied with none. Those that best pleased her, as plac­ing his con­duct in the no­blest light, seemed most im­prob­able. She could not bear such sus­pense; and hasti­ly seiz­ing a sheet of pa­per, wrote a short let­ter to her aunt, to re­quest an ex­pla­na­tion of what Ly­dia had dropt, if it were com­pat­ible with the se­cre­cy which had been in­tend­ed.

“You may read­ily com­pre­hend,” she added, “what my cu­rios­ity must be to know how a per­son un­con­nect­ed with any of us, and (com­par­ative­ly speak­ing) a stranger to our fam­ily, should have been amongst you at such a time. Pray write in­stant­ly, and let me un­der­stand it–un­less it is, for very co­gent rea­sons, to re­main in the se­cre­cy which Ly­dia seems to think nec­es­sary; and then I must en­deav­our to be sat­is­fied with ig­no­rance.”

“Not that I SHALL, though,” she added to her­self, as she fin­ished the let­ter; “and my dear aunt, if you do not tell me in an hon­ourable man­ner, I shall cer­tain­ly be re­duced to tricks and stratagems to find it out.”

Jane’s del­icate sense of hon­our would not al­low her to speak to Eliz­abeth pri­vate­ly of what Ly­dia had let fall; Eliz­abeth was glad of it;–till it ap­peared whether her in­quiries would re­ceive any sat­is­fac­tion, she had rather be with­out a con­fi­dante.