Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 52

Eliz­abeth had the sat­is­fac­tion of re­ceiv­ing an an­swer to her let­ter as soon as she pos­si­bly could. She was no soon­er in pos­ses­sion of it than, hur­ry­ing in­to the lit­tle copse, where she was least like­ly to be in­ter­rupt­ed, she sat down on one of the bench­es and pre­pared to be hap­py; for the length of the let­ter con­vinced her that it did not con­tain a de­nial.

“Gracechurch street, Sept. 6.

“MY DEAR NIECE,

“I have just re­ceived your let­ter, and shall de­vote this whole morn­ing to an­swer­ing it, as I fore­see that a LIT­TLE writ­ing will not com­prise what I have to tell you. I must con­fess my­self sur­prised by your ap­pli­ca­tion; I did not ex­pect it from YOU. Don’t think me an­gry, how­ev­er, for I on­ly mean to let you know that I had not imag­ined such in­quiries to be nec­es­sary on YOUR side. If you do not choose to un­der­stand me, for­give my im­per­ti­nence. Your un­cle is as much sur­prised as I am–and noth­ing but the be­lief of your be­ing a par­ty con­cerned would have al­lowed him to act as he has done. But if you are re­al­ly in­no­cent and ig­no­rant, I must be more ex­plic­it.

“On the very day of my com­ing home from Long­bourn, your un­cle had a most un­ex­pect­ed vis­itor. Mr. Dar­cy called, and was shut up with him sev­er­al hours. It was all over be­fore I ar­rived; so my cu­rios­ity was not so dread­ful­ly racked as YOUR’S seems to have been. He came to tell Mr. Gar­diner that he had found out where your sis­ter and Mr. Wick­ham were, and that he had seen and talked with them both; Wick­ham re­peat­ed­ly, Ly­dia once. From what I can col­lect, he left Der­byshire on­ly one day af­ter our­selves, and came to town with the res­olu­tion of hunt­ing for them. The mo­tive pro­fessed was his con­vic­tion of its be­ing ow­ing to him­self that Wick­ham’s worth­less­ness had not been so well known as to make it im­pos­si­ble for any young wom­an of char­ac­ter to love or con­fide in him. He gen­er­ous­ly im­put­ed the whole to his mis­tak­en pride, and con­fessed that he had be­fore thought it be­neath him to lay his pri­vate ac­tions open to the world. His char­ac­ter was to speak for it­self. He called it, there­fore, his du­ty to step for­ward, and en­deav­our to rem­edy an evil which had been brought on by him­self. If he HAD AN­OTH­ER mo­tive, I am sure it would nev­er dis­grace him. He had been some days in town, be­fore he was able to dis­cov­er them; but he had some­thing to di­rect his search, which was more than WE had; and the con­scious­ness of this was an­oth­er rea­son for his re­solv­ing to fol­low us.

“There is a la­dy, it seems, a Mrs. Younge, who was some time ago gov­erness to Miss Dar­cy, and was dis­missed from her charge on some cause of dis­ap­pro­ba­tion, though he did not say what. She then took a large house in Ed­ward-​street, and has since main­tained her­self by let­ting lodg­ings. This Mrs. Younge was, he knew, in­ti­mate­ly ac­quaint­ed with Wick­ham; and he went to her for in­tel­li­gence of him as soon as he got to town. But it was two or three days be­fore he could get from her what he want­ed. She would not be­tray her trust, I sup­pose, with­out bribery and cor­rup­tion, for she re­al­ly did know where her friend was to be found. Wick­ham in­deed had gone to her on their first ar­rival in Lon­don, and had she been able to re­ceive them in­to her house, they would have tak­en up their abode with her. At length, how­ev­er, our kind friend pro­cured the wished-​for di­rec­tion. They were in —- street. He saw Wick­ham, and af­ter­wards in­sist­ed on see­ing Ly­dia. His first ob­ject with her, he ac­knowl­edged, had been to per­suade her to quit her present dis­grace­ful sit­ua­tion, and re­turn to her friends as soon as they could be pre­vailed on to re­ceive her, of­fer­ing his as­sis­tance, as far as it would go. But he found Ly­dia ab­so­lute­ly re­solved on re­main­ing where she was. She cared for none of her friends; she want­ed no help of his; she would not hear of leav­ing Wick­ham. She was sure they should be mar­ried some time or oth­er, and it did not much sig­ni­fy when. Since such were her feel­ings, it on­ly re­mained, he thought, to se­cure and ex­pe­dite a mar­riage, which, in his very first con­ver­sa­tion with Wick­ham, he eas­ily learnt had nev­er been HIS de­sign. He con­fessed him­self obliged to leave the reg­iment, on ac­count of some debts of hon­our, which were very press­ing; and scru­pled not to lay all the ill-​con­se­quences of Ly­dia’s flight on her own fol­ly alone. He meant to re­sign his com­mis­sion im­me­di­ate­ly; and as to his fu­ture sit­ua­tion, he could con­jec­ture very lit­tle about it. He must go some­where, but he did not know where, and he knew he should have noth­ing to live on.

“Mr. Dar­cy asked him why he had not mar­ried your sis­ter at once. Though Mr. Ben­net was not imag­ined to be very rich, he would have been able to do some­thing for him, and his sit­ua­tion must have been ben­efit­ed by mar­riage. But he found, in re­ply to this ques­tion, that Wick­ham still cher­ished the hope of more ef­fec­tu­al­ly mak­ing his for­tune by mar­riage in some oth­er coun­try. Un­der such cir­cum­stances, how­ev­er, he was not like­ly to be proof against the temp­ta­tion of im­me­di­ate re­lief.

“They met sev­er­al times, for there was much to be dis­cussed. Wick­ham of course want­ed more than he could get; but at length was re­duced to be rea­son­able.

“Ev­ery thing be­ing set­tled be­tween THEM, Mr. Dar­cy’s next step was to make your un­cle ac­quaint­ed with it, and he first called in Gracechurch street the evening be­fore I came home. But Mr. Gar­diner could not be seen, and Mr. Dar­cy found, on fur­ther in­quiry, that your fa­ther was still with him, but would quit town the next morn­ing. He did not judge your fa­ther to be a per­son whom he could so prop­er­ly con­sult as your un­cle, and there­fore read­ily post­poned see­ing him till af­ter the de­par­ture of the for­mer. He did not leave his name, and till the next day it was on­ly known that a gen­tle­man had called on busi­ness.

“On Sat­ur­day he came again. Your fa­ther was gone, your un­cle at home, and, as I said be­fore, they had a great deal of talk to­geth­er.

“They met again on Sun­day, and then _I_ saw him too. It was not all set­tled be­fore Mon­day: as soon as it was, the ex­press was sent off to Long­bourn. But our vis­itor was very ob­sti­nate. I fan­cy, Lizzy, that ob­sti­na­cy is the re­al de­fect of his char­ac­ter, af­ter all. He has been ac­cused of many faults at dif­fer­ent times, but THIS is the true one. Noth­ing was to be done that he did not do him­self; though I am sure (and I do not speak it to be thanked, there­fore say noth­ing about it), your un­cle would most read­ily have set­tled the whole.

“They bat­tled it to­geth­er for a long time, which was more than ei­ther the gen­tle­man or la­dy con­cerned in it de­served. But at last your un­cle was forced to yield, and in­stead of be­ing al­lowed to be of use to his niece, was forced to put up with on­ly hav­ing the prob­able cred­it of it, which went sore­ly against the grain; and I re­al­ly be­lieve your let­ter this morn­ing gave him great plea­sure, be­cause it re­quired an ex­pla­na­tion that would rob him of his bor­rowed feath­ers, and give the praise where it was due. But, Lizzy, this must go no far­ther than your­self, or Jane at most.

“You know pret­ty well, I sup­pose, what has been done for the young peo­ple. His debts are to be paid, amount­ing, I be­lieve, to con­sid­er­ably more than a thou­sand pounds, an­oth­er thou­sand in ad­di­tion to her own set­tled up­on HER, and his com­mis­sion pur­chased. The rea­son why all this was to be done by him alone, was such as I have giv­en above. It was ow­ing to him, to his re­serve and want of prop­er con­sid­er­ation, that Wick­ham’s char­ac­ter had been so mis­un­der­stood, and con­se­quent­ly that he had been re­ceived and no­ticed as he was. Per­haps there was some truth in THIS; though I doubt whether HIS re­serve, or ANY­BODY’S re­serve, can be an­swer­able for the event. But in spite of all this fine talk­ing, my dear Lizzy, you may rest per­fect­ly as­sured that your un­cle would nev­er have yield­ed, if we had not giv­en him cred­it for AN­OTH­ER IN­TER­EST in the af­fair.

“When all this was re­solved on, he re­turned again to his friends, who were still stay­ing at Pem­ber­ley; but it was agreed that he should be in Lon­don once more when the wed­ding took place, and all mon­ey mat­ters were then to re­ceive the last fin­ish.

“I be­lieve I have now told you ev­ery thing. It is a re­la­tion which you tell me is to give you great sur­prise; I hope at least it will not af­ford you any dis­plea­sure. Ly­dia came to us; and Wick­ham had con­stant ad­mis­sion to the house. HE was ex­act­ly what he had been, when I knew him in Hert­ford­shire; but I would not tell you how lit­tle I was sat­is­fied with her be­haviour while she staid with us, if I had not per­ceived, by Jane’s let­ter last Wednes­day, that her con­duct on com­ing home was ex­act­ly of a piece with it, and there­fore what I now tell you can give you no fresh pain. I talked to her re­peat­ed­ly in the most se­ri­ous man­ner, rep­re­sent­ing to her all the wicked­ness of what she had done, and all the un­hap­pi­ness she had brought on her fam­ily. If she heard me, it was by good luck, for I am sure she did not lis­ten. I was some­times quite pro­voked, but then I rec­ol­lect­ed my dear Eliz­abeth and Jane, and for their sakes had pa­tience with her.

“Mr. Dar­cy was punc­tu­al in his re­turn, and as Ly­dia in­formed you, at­tend­ed the wed­ding. He dined with us the next day, and was to leave town again on Wednes­day or Thurs­day. Will you be very an­gry with me, my dear Lizzy, if I take this op­por­tu­ni­ty of say­ing (what I was nev­er bold enough to say be­fore) how much I like him. His be­haviour to us has, in ev­ery re­spect, been as pleas­ing as when we were in Der­byshire. His un­der­stand­ing and opin­ions all please me; he wants noth­ing but a lit­tle more live­li­ness, and THAT, if he mar­ry PRU­DENT­LY, his wife may teach him. I thought him very sly;–he hard­ly ev­er men­tioned your name. But sly­ness seems the fash­ion.

“Pray for­give me if I have been very pre­sum­ing, or at least do not pun­ish me so far as to ex­clude me from P. I shall nev­er be quite hap­py till I have been all round the park. A low phaeton, with a nice lit­tle pair of ponies, would be the very thing.

“But I must write no more. The chil­dren have been want­ing me this half hour.

“Yours, very sin­cere­ly,

“M. GAR­DINER.”

The con­tents of this let­ter threw Eliz­abeth in­to a flut­ter of spir­its, in which it was dif­fi­cult to de­ter­mine whether plea­sure or pain bore the great­est share. The vague and un­set­tled sus­pi­cions which un­cer­tain­ty had pro­duced of what Mr. Dar­cy might have been do­ing to for­ward her sis­ter’s match, which she had feared to en­cour­age as an ex­er­tion of good­ness too great to be prob­able, and at the same time dread­ed to be just, from the pain of obli­ga­tion, were proved be­yond their great­est ex­tent to be true! He had fol­lowed them pur­pose­ly to town, he had tak­en on him­self all the trou­ble and mor­ti­fi­ca­tion at­ten­dant on such a re­search; in which sup­pli­ca­tion had been nec­es­sary to a wom­an whom he must abom­inate and de­spise, and where he was re­duced to meet, fre­quent­ly meet, rea­son with, per­suade, and fi­nal­ly bribe, the man whom he al­ways most wished to avoid, and whose very name it was pun­ish­ment to him to pro­nounce. He had done all this for a girl whom he could nei­ther re­gard nor es­teem. Her heart did whis­per that he had done it for her. But it was a hope short­ly checked by oth­er con­sid­er­ations, and she soon felt that even her van­ity was in­suf­fi­cient, when re­quired to de­pend on his af­fec­tion for her –for a wom­an who had al­ready re­fused him–as able to over­come a sen­ti­ment so nat­ural as ab­hor­rence against re­la­tion­ship with Wick­ham. Broth­er-​in-​law of Wick­ham! Ev­ery kind of pride must re­volt from the con­nec­tion. He had, to be sure, done much. She was ashamed to think how much. But he had giv­en a rea­son for his in­ter­fer­ence, which asked no ex­traor­di­nary stretch of be­lief. It was rea­son­able that he should feel he had been wrong; he had lib­er­al­ity, and he had the means of ex­er­cis­ing it; and though she would not place her­self as his prin­ci­pal in­duce­ment, she could, per­haps, be­lieve that re­main­ing par­tial­ity for her might as­sist his en­deav­ours in a cause where her peace of mind must be ma­te­ri­al­ly con­cerned. It was painful, ex­ceed­ing­ly painful, to know that they were un­der obli­ga­tions to a per­son who could nev­er re­ceive a re­turn. They owed the restora­tion of Ly­dia, her char­ac­ter, ev­ery thing, to him. Oh! how hearti­ly did she grieve over ev­ery un­gra­cious sen­sa­tion she had ev­er en­cour­aged, ev­ery saucy speech she had ev­er di­rect­ed to­wards him. For her­self she was hum­bled; but she was proud of him. Proud that in a cause of com­pas­sion and hon­our, he had been able to get the bet­ter of him­self. She read over her aunt’s com­men­da­tion of him again and again. It was hard­ly enough; but it pleased her. She was even sen­si­ble of some plea­sure, though mixed with re­gret, on find­ing how stead­fast­ly both she and her un­cle had been per­suad­ed that af­fec­tion and con­fi­dence sub­sist­ed be­tween Mr. Dar­cy and her­self.

She was roused from her seat, and her re­flec­tions, by some one’s ap­proach; and be­fore she could strike in­to an­oth­er path, she was over­tak­en by Wick­ham.

“I am afraid I in­ter­rupt your soli­tary ram­ble, my dear sis­ter?” said he, as he joined her.

“You cer­tain­ly do,” she replied with a smile; “but it does not fol­low that the in­ter­rup­tion must be un­wel­come.”

“I should be sor­ry in­deed, if it were. We were al­ways good friends; and now we are bet­ter.”

“True. Are the oth­ers com­ing out?”

“I do not know. Mrs. Ben­net and Ly­dia are go­ing in the car­riage to Mery­ton. And so, my dear sis­ter, I find, from our un­cle and aunt, that you have ac­tu­al­ly seen Pem­ber­ley.”

She replied in the af­fir­ma­tive.

“I al­most en­vy you the plea­sure, and yet I be­lieve it would be too much for me, or else I could take it in my way to New­cas­tle. And you saw the old house­keep­er, I sup­pose? Poor Reynolds, she was al­ways very fond of me. But of course she did not men­tion my name to you.”

“Yes, she did.”

“And what did she say?”

“That you were gone in­to the army, and she was afraid had –not turned out well. At such a dis­tance as THAT, you know, things are strange­ly mis­rep­re­sent­ed.”

“Cer­tain­ly,” he replied, bit­ing his lips. Eliz­abeth hoped she had si­lenced him; but he soon af­ter­wards said:

“I was sur­prised to see Dar­cy in town last month. We passed each oth­er sev­er­al times. I won­der what he can be do­ing there.”

“Per­haps prepar­ing for his mar­riage with Miss de Bourgh,” said Eliz­abeth. “It must be some­thing par­tic­ular, to take him there at this time of year.”

“Un­doubt­ed­ly. Did you see him while you were at Lambton? I thought I un­der­stood from the Gar­diners that you had.”

“Yes; he in­tro­duced us to his sis­ter.”

“And do you like her?”

“Very much.”

“I have heard, in­deed, that she is un­com­mon­ly im­proved with­in this year or two. When I last saw her, she was not very promis­ing. I am very glad you liked her. I hope she will turn out well.”

“I dare say she will; she has got over the most try­ing age.”

“Did you go by the vil­lage of Kymp­ton?”

“I do not rec­ol­lect that we did.”

“I men­tion it, be­cause it is the liv­ing which I ought to have had. A most de­light­ful place!–Ex­cel­lent Par­son­age House! It would have suit­ed me in ev­ery re­spect.”

“How should you have liked mak­ing ser­mons?”

“Ex­ceed­ing­ly well. I should have con­sid­ered it as part of my du­ty, and the ex­er­tion would soon have been noth­ing. One ought not to re­pine;–but, to be sure, it would have been such a thing for me! The qui­et, the re­tire­ment of such a life would have an­swered all my ideas of hap­pi­ness! But it was not to be. Did you ev­er hear Dar­cy men­tion the cir­cum­stance, when you were in Kent?”

“I have heard from au­thor­ity, which I thought AS GOOD, that it was left you con­di­tion­al­ly on­ly, and at the will of the present pa­tron.”

“You have. Yes, there was some­thing in THAT; I told you so from the first, you may re­mem­ber.”

“I DID hear, too, that there was a time, when ser­mon-​mak­ing was not so palat­able to you as it seems to be at present; that you ac­tu­al­ly de­clared your res­olu­tion of nev­er tak­ing or­ders, and that the busi­ness had been com­pro­mised ac­cord­ing­ly.”

“You did! and it was not whol­ly with­out foun­da­tion. You may re­mem­ber what I told you on that point, when first we talked of it.”

They were now al­most at the door of the house, for she had walked fast to get rid of him; and un­will­ing, for her sis­ter’s sake, to pro­voke him, she on­ly said in re­ply, with a good-​hu­moured smile:

“Come, Mr. Wick­ham, we are broth­er and sis­ter, you know. Do not let us quar­rel about the past. In fu­ture, I hope we shall be al­ways of one mind.”

She held out her hand; he kissed it with af­fec­tion­ate gal­lantry, though he hard­ly knew how to look, and they en­tered the house.