Pride and Prejudice

Chapter 55

A few days af­ter this vis­it, Mr. Bin­gley called again, and alone. His friend had left him that morn­ing for Lon­don, but was to re­turn home in ten days time. He sat with them above an hour, and was in re­mark­ably good spir­its. Mrs. Ben­net in­vit­ed him to dine with them; but, with many ex­pres­sions of con­cern, he con­fessed him­self en­gaged else­where.

“Next time you call,” said she, “I hope we shall be more lucky.”

He should be par­tic­ular­ly hap­py at any time, etc. etc.; and if she would give him leave, would take an ear­ly op­por­tu­ni­ty of wait­ing on them.

“Can you come to-​mor­row?”

Yes, he had no en­gage­ment at all for to-​mor­row; and her in­vi­ta­tion was ac­cept­ed with alacrity.

He came, and in such very good time that the ladies were none of them dressed. In ran Mrs. Ben­net to her daugh­ter’s room, in her dress­ing gown, and with her hair half fin­ished, cry­ing out:

“My dear Jane, make haste and hur­ry down. He is come–Mr. Bin­gley is come. He is, in­deed. Make haste, make haste. Here, Sarah, come to Miss Ben­net this mo­ment, and help her on with her gown. Nev­er mind Miss Lizzy’s hair.”

“We will be down as soon as we can,” said Jane; “but I dare say Kit­ty is for­warder than ei­ther of us, for she went up stairs half an hour ago.”

“Oh! hang Kit­ty! what has she to do with it? Come be quick, be quick! Where is your sash, my dear?”

But when her moth­er was gone, Jane would not be pre­vailed on to go down with­out one of her sis­ters.

The same anx­iety to get them by them­selves was vis­ible again in the evening. Af­ter tea, Mr. Ben­net re­tired to the li­brary, as was his cus­tom, and Mary went up stairs to her in­stru­ment. Two ob­sta­cles of the five be­ing thus re­moved, Mrs. Ben­net sat look­ing and wink­ing at Eliz­abeth and Cather­ine for a con­sid­er­able time, with­out mak­ing any im­pres­sion on them. Eliz­abeth would not ob­serve her; and when at last Kit­ty did, she very in­no­cent­ly said, “What is the mat­ter mam­ma? What do you keep wink­ing at me for? What am I to do?”

“Noth­ing child, noth­ing. I did not wink at you.” She then sat still five min­utes longer; but un­able to waste such a pre­cious oc­ca­sion, she sud­den­ly got up, and say­ing to Kit­ty, “Come here, my love, I want to speak to you,” took her out of the room. Jane in­stant­ly gave a look at Eliz­abeth which spoke her dis­tress at such pre­med­ita­tion, and her en­treaty that SHE would not give in to it. In a few min­utes, Mrs. Ben­net half-​opened the door and called out:

“Lizzy, my dear, I want to speak with you.”

Eliz­abeth was forced to go.

“We may as well leave them by them­selves you know;” said her moth­er, as soon as she was in the hall. “Kit­ty and I are go­ing up­stairs to sit in my dress­ing-​room.”

Eliz­abeth made no at­tempt to rea­son with her moth­er, but re­mained qui­et­ly in the hall, till she and Kit­ty were out of sight, then re­turned in­to the draw­ing-​room.

Mrs. Ben­net’s schemes for this day were in­ef­fec­tu­al. Bin­gley was ev­ery thing that was charm­ing, ex­cept the pro­fessed lover of her daugh­ter. His ease and cheer­ful­ness ren­dered him a most agree­able ad­di­tion to their evening par­ty; and he bore with the ill-​judged of­fi­cious­ness of the moth­er, and heard all her sil­ly re­marks with a for­bear­ance and com­mand of coun­te­nance par­tic­ular­ly grate­ful to the daugh­ter.

He scarce­ly need­ed an in­vi­ta­tion to stay sup­per; and be­fore he went away, an en­gage­ment was formed, chiefly through his own and Mrs. Ben­net’s means, for his com­ing next morn­ing to shoot with her hus­band.

Af­ter this day, Jane said no more of her in­dif­fer­ence. Not a word passed be­tween the sis­ters con­cern­ing Bin­gley; but Eliz­abeth went to bed in the hap­py be­lief that all must speed­ily be con­clud­ed, un­less Mr. Dar­cy re­turned with­in the stat­ed time. Se­ri­ous­ly, how­ev­er, she felt tol­er­ably per­suad­ed that all this must have tak­en place with that gen­tle­man’s con­cur­rence.

Bin­gley was punc­tu­al to his ap­point­ment; and he and Mr. Ben­net spent the morn­ing to­geth­er, as had been agreed on. The lat­ter was much more agree­able than his com­pan­ion ex­pect­ed. There was noth­ing of pre­sump­tion or fol­ly in Bin­gley that could pro­voke his ridicule, or dis­gust him in­to si­lence; and he was more com­mu­nica­tive, and less ec­cen­tric, than the oth­er had ev­er seen him. Bin­gley of course re­turned with him to din­ner; and in the evening Mrs. Ben­net’s in­ven­tion was again at work to get ev­ery body away from him and her daugh­ter. Eliz­abeth, who had a let­ter to write, went in­to the break­fast room for that pur­pose soon af­ter tea; for as the oth­ers were all go­ing to sit down to cards, she could not be want­ed to coun­ter­act her moth­er’s schemes.

But on re­turn­ing to the draw­ing-​room, when her let­ter was fin­ished, she saw, to her in­fi­nite sur­prise, there was rea­son to fear that her moth­er had been too in­ge­nious for her. On open­ing the door, she per­ceived her sis­ter and Bin­gley stand­ing to­geth­er over the hearth, as if en­gaged in earnest con­ver­sa­tion; and had this led to no sus­pi­cion, the faces of both, as they hasti­ly turned round and moved away from each oth­er, would have told it all. Their sit­ua­tion was awk­ward enough; but HER’S she thought was still worse. Not a syl­la­ble was ut­tered by ei­ther; and Eliz­abeth was on the point of go­ing away again, when Bin­gley, who as well as the oth­er had sat down, sud­den­ly rose, and whis­per­ing a few words to her sis­ter, ran out of the room.

Jane could have no re­serves from Eliz­abeth, where con­fi­dence would give plea­sure; and in­stant­ly em­brac­ing her, ac­knowl­edged, with the liveli­est emo­tion, that she was the hap­pi­est crea­ture in the world.

“‘Tis too much!” she added, “by far too much. I do not de­serve it. Oh! why is not ev­ery­body as hap­py?”

Eliz­abeth’s con­grat­ula­tions were giv­en with a sin­cer­ity, a warmth, a de­light, which words could but poor­ly ex­press. Ev­ery sen­tence of kind­ness was a fresh source of hap­pi­ness to Jane. But she would not al­low her­self to stay with her sis­ter, or say half that re­mained to be said for the present.

“I must go in­stant­ly to my moth­er;” she cried. “I would not on any ac­count tri­fle with her af­fec­tion­ate so­lic­itude; or al­low her to hear it from any­one but my­self. He is gone to my fa­ther al­ready. Oh! Lizzy, to know that what I have to re­late will give such plea­sure to all my dear fam­ily! how shall I bear so much hap­pi­ness!”

She then has­tened away to her moth­er, who had pur­pose­ly bro­ken up the card par­ty, and was sit­ting up stairs with Kit­ty.

Eliz­abeth, who was left by her­self, now smiled at the ra­pid­ity and ease with which an af­fair was fi­nal­ly set­tled, that had giv­en them so many pre­vi­ous months of sus­pense and vex­ation.

“And this,” said she, “is the end of all his friend’s anx­ious cir­cum­spec­tion! of all his sis­ter’s false­hood and con­trivance! the hap­pi­est, wis­est, most rea­son­able end!”

In a few min­utes she was joined by Bin­gley, whose con­fer­ence with her fa­ther had been short and to the pur­pose.

“Where is your sis­ter?” said he hasti­ly, as he opened the door.

“With my moth­er up stairs. She will be down in a mo­ment, I dare say.”

He then shut the door, and, com­ing up to her, claimed the good wish­es and af­fec­tion of a sis­ter. Eliz­abeth hon­est­ly and hearti­ly ex­pressed her de­light in the prospect of their re­la­tion­ship. They shook hands with great cor­dial­ity; and then, till her sis­ter came down, she had to lis­ten to all he had to say of his own hap­pi­ness, and of Jane’s per­fec­tions; and in spite of his be­ing a lover, Eliz­abeth re­al­ly be­lieved all his ex­pec­ta­tions of fe­lic­ity to be ra­tio­nal­ly found­ed, be­cause they had for ba­sis the ex­cel­lent un­der­stand­ing, and su­per-​ex­cel­lent dis­po­si­tion of Jane, and a gen­er­al sim­ilar­ity of feel­ing and taste be­tween her and him­self.

It was an evening of no com­mon de­light to them all; the sat­is­fac­tion of Miss Ben­net’s mind gave a glow of such sweet an­ima­tion to her face, as made her look hand­somer than ev­er. Kit­ty sim­pered and smiled, and hoped her turn was com­ing soon. Mrs. Ben­net could not give her con­sent or speak her ap­pro­ba­tion in terms warm enough to sat­is­fy her feel­ings, though she talked to Bin­gley of noth­ing else for half an hour; and when Mr. Ben­net joined them at sup­per, his voice and man­ner plain­ly showed how re­al­ly hap­py he was.

Not a word, how­ev­er, passed his lips in al­lu­sion to it, till their vis­itor took his leave for the night; but as soon as he was gone, he turned to his daugh­ter, and said:

“Jane, I con­grat­ulate you. You will be a very hap­py wom­an.”

Jane went to him in­stant­ly, kissed him, and thanked him for his good­ness.

“You are a good girl;” he replied, “and I have great plea­sure in think­ing you will be so hap­pi­ly set­tled. I have not a doubt of your do­ing very well to­geth­er. Your tem­pers are by no means un­like. You are each of you so com­ply­ing, that noth­ing will ev­er be re­solved on; so easy, that ev­ery ser­vant will cheat you; and so gen­er­ous, that you will al­ways ex­ceed your in­come.”

“I hope not so. Im­pru­dence or thought­less­ness in mon­ey mat­ters would be un­par­don­able in me.”

“Ex­ceed their in­come! My dear Mr. Ben­net,” cried his wife, “what are you talk­ing of? Why, he has four or five thou­sand a year, and very like­ly more.” Then ad­dress­ing her daugh­ter, “Oh! my dear, dear Jane, I am so hap­py! I am sure I shan’t get a wink of sleep all night. I knew how it would be. I al­ways said it must be so, at last. I was sure you could not be so beau­ti­ful for noth­ing! I re­mem­ber, as soon as ev­er I saw him, when he first came in­to Hert­ford­shire last year, I thought how like­ly it was that you should come to­geth­er. Oh! he is the hand­somest young man that ev­er was seen!”

Wick­ham, Ly­dia, were all for­got­ten. Jane was be­yond com­pe­ti­tion her favourite child. At that mo­ment, she cared for no oth­er. Her younger sis­ters soon be­gan to make in­ter­est with her for ob­jects of hap­pi­ness which she might in fu­ture be able to dis­pense.

Mary pe­ti­tioned for the use of the li­brary at Nether­field; and Kit­ty begged very hard for a few balls there ev­ery win­ter.

Bin­gley, from this time, was of course a dai­ly vis­itor at Long­bourn; com­ing fre­quent­ly be­fore break­fast, and al­ways re­main­ing till af­ter sup­per; un­less when some bar­barous neigh­bour, who could not be enough de­test­ed, had giv­en him an in­vi­ta­tion to din­ner which he thought him­self obliged to ac­cept.

Eliz­abeth had now but lit­tle time for con­ver­sa­tion with her sis­ter; for while he was present, Jane had no at­ten­tion to be­stow on any­one else; but she found her­self con­sid­er­ably use­ful to both of them in those hours of sep­ara­tion that must some­times oc­cur. In the ab­sence of Jane, he al­ways at­tached him­self to Eliz­abeth, for the plea­sure of talk­ing of her; and when Bin­gley was gone, Jane con­stant­ly sought the same means of re­lief.

“He has made me so hap­py,” said she, one evening, “by telling me that he was to­tal­ly ig­no­rant of my be­ing in town last spring! I had not be­lieved it pos­si­ble.”

“I sus­pect­ed as much,” replied Eliz­abeth. “But how did he ac­count for it?”

“It must have been his sis­ter’s do­ing. They were cer­tain­ly no friends to his ac­quain­tance with me, which I can­not won­der at, since he might have cho­sen so much more ad­van­ta­geous­ly in many re­spects. But when they see, as I trust they will, that their broth­er is hap­py with me, they will learn to be con­tent­ed, and we shall be on good terms again; though we can nev­er be what we once were to each oth­er.”

“That is the most un­for­giv­ing speech,” said Eliz­abeth, “that I ev­er heard you ut­ter. Good girl! It would vex me, in­deed, to see you again the dupe of Miss Bin­gley’s pre­tend­ed re­gard.”

“Would you be­lieve it, Lizzy, that when he went to town last Novem­ber, he re­al­ly loved me, and noth­ing but a per­sua­sion of MY be­ing in­dif­fer­ent would have pre­vent­ed his com­ing down again!”

“He made a lit­tle mis­take to be sure; but it is to the cred­it of his mod­esty.”

This nat­ural­ly in­tro­duced a pan­egyric from Jane on his dif­fi­dence, and the lit­tle val­ue he put on his own good qual­ities. Eliz­abeth was pleased to find that he had not be­trayed the in­ter­fer­ence of his friend; for, though Jane had the most gen­er­ous and for­giv­ing heart in the world, she knew it was a cir­cum­stance which must prej­udice her against him.

“I am cer­tain­ly the most for­tu­nate crea­ture that ev­er ex­ist­ed!” cried Jane. “Oh! Lizzy, why am I thus sin­gled from my fam­ily, and blessed above them all! If I could but see YOU as hap­py! If there WERE but such an­oth­er man for you!”

“If you were to give me forty such men, I nev­er could be so hap­py as you. Till I have your dis­po­si­tion, your good­ness, I nev­er can have your hap­pi­ness. No, no, let me shift for my­self; and, per­haps, if I have very good luck, I may meet with an­oth­er Mr. Collins in time.”

The sit­ua­tion of af­fairs in the Long­bourn fam­ily could not be long a se­cret. Mrs. Ben­net was priv­ileged to whis­per it to Mrs. Phillips, and she ven­tured, with­out any per­mis­sion, to do the same by all her neigh­bours in Mery­ton.

The Ben­nets were speed­ily pro­nounced to be the luck­iest fam­ily in the world, though on­ly a few weeks be­fore, when Ly­dia had first run away, they had been gen­er­al­ly proved to be marked out for mis­for­tune.