Pride and Prejudice (Clandestine Classics) (47 page)

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. Elizabeth would dearly love for that to be true, but she had not hope enough to imagine it ever could be. She thought back to their last meeting at Pemberley, in which Darcy had voiced his wish of spending time alone with her, of making her more intimate with his home and perhaps, with himself. She deeply regretted they had not had that one last time together, for she was sure it would be a happy memory and something she could hold on to in her unhappiest of times. She would have loved once more to feel their bodies moving together as one.

She was roused from her seat, and her reflections, by someone’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.

Chapter Fifty-Three

Mr Wickham was so perfectly satisfied with this conversation that he never again distressed himself, or provoked his dear sister Elizabeth, by introducing the subject of it, and she was pleased to find that she had said enough to keep him quiet.

The day of his and Lydia’s departure soon came, and Mrs Bennet was forced to submit to a separation, which, as her husband by no means entered into her scheme of their all going to Newcastle, was likely to continue at least a twelvemonth.

“Oh! my dear Lydia,” she cried, “when shall we meet again?”

“Oh, lord! I don’t know. Not these two or three years, perhaps.”

“Write to me very often, my dear.”

“As often as I can. But you know married women have never much time for writing. My sisters may write to
me
. They will have nothing else to do.”

Mr Wickham’s adieus were much more affectionate than his wife’s. He smiled, looked handsome, and said many pretty things.

“He is as fine a fellow,” said Mr Bennet, as soon as they were out of the house, “as ever I saw. He simpers, and smirks, and makes love to us all. I am prodigiously proud of him. I defy even Sir William Lucas himself to produce a more valuable son-in-law.”

Elizabeth allowed herself a small smile at her father’s sarcasm, though it didn’t last long. She was grateful for their departure, but the near silence in the house after they were gone only gave her more time to contemplate her own troubles.

The loss of her daughter made Mrs Bennet very dull for several days.

“I often think,” said she, “that there is nothing so bad as parting with one’s friends. One seems so forlorn without them.”

“This is the consequence, you see, Madam, of marrying a daughter,” said Elizabeth. “It must make you better satisfied that your other four are single.”

“It is no such thing. Lydia does not leave me because she is married, but only because her husband’s regiment happens to be so far off. If that had been nearer, she would not have gone so soon.”

But the spiritless condition which this event threw her into was shortly relieved, and her mind opened again to the agitation of hope, by an article of news which then began to be in circulation. The housekeeper at Netherfield had received orders to prepare for the arrival of her master, who was coming down in a day or two, to shoot there for several weeks. Mrs Bennet was quite in the fidgets. She looked at Jane, and smiled and shook her head by turns.

“Well, well, and so Mr Bingley is coming down, sister,”—for Mrs Phillips first brought her the news. “Well, so much the better. Not that I care about it, though. He is nothing to us, you know, and I am sure
I
never want to see him again. But, however, he is very welcome to come to Netherfield, if he likes it. And who knows what
may
happen? But that is nothing to us. You know, sister, we agreed long ago never to mention a word about it. And so, is it quite certain he is coming?”

“You may depend on it,” replied the other, “for Mrs Nicholls was in Meryton last night, I saw her passing by, and went out myself on purpose to know the truth of it, and she told me that it was certain true. He comes down on Thursday at the latest, very likely on Wednesday. She was going to the butcher’s, she told me, on purpose to order in some meat on Wednesday, and she has got three couple of ducks just fit to be killed.”

Miss Bennet had not been able to hear of his coming without changing colour. It was many months since she had mentioned his name to Elizabeth, but now, as soon as they were alone together, she said, “I saw you look at me today, Lizzy, when my aunt told us of the present report, and I know I appeared distressed. But don’t imagine it was from any silly cause. I was only confused for the moment, because I felt that I
should
be looked at. I do assure you that the news does not affect me either with pleasure or pain. I am glad of one thing, that he comes alone, because we shall see the less of him. Not that I am afraid of
myself
, but I dread other people’s remarks.”

Elizabeth did not know what to make of it. Had she not seen him in Derbyshire, she might have supposed him capable of coming there with no other view than what was acknowledged, but she still thought him partial to Jane, and she wavered as to the greater probability of his coming there
with
his friend’s permission, or being bold enough to come without it. It crossed her mind several times whether Mr Darcy would be in Bingley’s company, and though the thought gave her some measure of hope, she dismissed the idea quickly as senseless. Even if Mr Darcy were to come to Netherfield it would be of no consequence to her, for he would surely not want her company.

“Yet it is hard,” she sometimes thought, “that this poor man cannot come to a house which he has legally hired, without raising all this speculation! I
will
leave him to himself.”

In spite of what her sister declared, and really believed to be her feelings in the expectation of his arrival, Elizabeth could easily perceive that her spirits were affected by it. They were more disturbed, more unequal, than she had often seen them.

The subject which had been so warmly canvassed between their parents, about a twelvemonth ago, was now brought forward again.

“As soon as ever Mr Bingley comes, my dear,” said Mrs Bennet, “you will wait on him of course.”

“No, no. You forced me into visiting him last year, and promised, if I went to see him, he should marry one of my daughters. But it ended in nothing, and I will not be sent on a fool’s errand again.”

His wife represented to him how absolutely necessary such an attention would be from all the neighbouring gentlemen, on his returning to Netherfield.

“’Tis an etiquette I despise,” said he. “If he wants our society, let him seek it. He knows where we live. I will not spend my hours in running after my neighbours every time they go away and come back again.”

“Well, all I know is, that it will be abominably rude if you do not wait on him. But, however, that shan’t prevent my asking him to dine here, I am determined. We must have Mrs Long and the Gouldings soon. That will make thirteen with ourselves, so there will be just room at table for him.”

Consoled by this resolution, she was the better able to bear her husband’s incivility, though it was very mortifying to know that her neighbours might all see Mr Bingley, in consequence of it, before
they
did. As the day of his arrival drew near,—

“I begin to be sorry that he comes at all,” said Jane to her sister. “It would be nothing, I could see him with perfect indifference, but I can hardly bear to hear it thus perpetually talked of. My mother means well, but she does not know, no one can know, how much I suffer from what she says. Happy shall I be, when his stay at Netherfield is over!”

“I wish I could say anything to comfort you,” replied Elizabeth, “but it is wholly out of my power. You must feel it, and the usual satisfaction of preaching patience to a sufferer is denied me, because you have always so much.”

Mr Bingley arrived. Mrs Bennet, through the assistance of servants, contrived to have the earliest tidings of it, that the period of anxiety and fretfulness on her side might be as long as it could. She counted the days that must intervene before their invitation could be sent, hopeless of seeing him before. But on the third morning after his arrival in Hertfordshire, she saw him, from her dressing-room window, enter the paddock and ride towards the house.

Her daughters were eagerly called to partake of her joy. Jane resolutely kept her place at the table, but Elizabeth, to satisfy her mother, went to the window—she looked,—she saw Mr Darcy with him, and sat down again by her sister. Her heart beat furiously in her chest, and she could not determine for all the world what the meaning of his visit could be. She had thought his wish would be to disassociate himself from their family as much as he were able—yet here he was.

“There is a gentleman with him, mamma,” said Kitty, “who can it be?”

“Some acquaintance or other, my dear, I suppose, I am sure I do not know.”

“La!” replied Kitty, “it looks just like that man that used to be with him before. Mr what’s-his-name. That tall, proud man.”

“Good gracious! Mr Darcy!—and so it does, I vow. Well, any friend of Mr Bingley’s will always be welcome here, to be sure, but else I must say that I hate the very sight of him.”

Jane looked at Elizabeth with surprise and concern. She knew but little of their meeting in Derbyshire and nothing of Elizabeth’s feelings for him or the extent of their previous relationship, and therefore felt for the awkwardness which must attend her sister, in seeing him almost for the first time after receiving his explanatory letter. Both sisters were uncomfortable enough. Each felt for the other, and of course for themselves, and their mother talked on, of her dislike of Mr Darcy, and her resolution to be civil to him only as Mr Bingley’s friend, without being heard by either of them. But Elizabeth had sources of uneasiness which could not be suspected by Jane, to whom she had never yet had courage to shew Mrs Gardiner’s letter, or to relate her own change of sentiment towards him. To Jane, he could be only a man whose proposals she had refused, and whose merit she had undervalued, but to her own more extensive information, he was the person to whom the whole family were indebted for the first of benefits, and whom she regarded herself with an interest, if not quite so tender, at least as reasonable and just as what Jane felt for Bingley. Her astonishment at his coming—at his coming to Netherfield, to Longbourn, and voluntarily seeking her again, was almost equal to what she had known on first witnessing his altered behaviour in Derbyshire. Though she had wondered if he would be at Mr Bingley’s side, she had not thought it very likely.