After a week spent in professions of love and schemes of felicity,
Mr. Collins was called from his amiable Charlotte by the arrival of
Saturday. The pain of separation, however, might be alleviated on his
side, by preparations for the reception of his bride; as he had reason
to hope, that shortly after his return into Hertfordshire, the day would
be fixed that was to make him the happiest of men. He took leave of his
relations at Longbourn with as much solemnity as before; wished his
fair cousins health and happiness again, and promised their father
another letter of thanks.
On the following Monday, Mrs. Bennet had
the pleasure of receiving her brother and his wife, who came as usual
to spend the Christmas at Longbourn. Mr. Gardiner was a sensible,
gentlemanlike man, greatly superior to his sister, as well by nature as
education. The Netherfield ladies would have had difficulty in believing
that a man who lived by trade, and within view of his own warehouses,
could have been so well-bred and agreeable. Mrs. Gardiner, who was
several years younger than Mrs. Bennet and Mrs. Phillips, was an
amiable, intelligent, elegant woman, and a great favourite with all her
Longbourn nieces. Between the two eldest and herself especially, there
subsisted a particular regard. They had frequently been staying with her
in town.
The first part of Mrs. Gardiner's business on her
arrival was to distribute her presents and describe the newest fashions.
When this was done she had a less active part to play. It became her
turn to listen. Mrs. Bennet had many grievances to relate, and much to
complain of. They had all been very ill-used since she last saw her
sister. Two of her girls had been upon the point of marriage, and after
all there was nothing in it.
"I do not blame Jane," she continued,
"for Jane would have got Mr. Bingley if she could. But Lizzy! Oh,
sister! It is very hard to think that she might have been Mr. Collins's
wife by this time, had it not been for her own perverseness. He made her
an offer in this very room, and she refused him. The consequence of it
is, that Lady Lucas will have a daughter married before I have, and that
the Longbourn estate is just as much entailed as ever. The Lucases are
very artful people indeed, sister. They are all for what they can get. I
am sorry to say it of them, but so it is. It makes me very nervous and
poorly, to be thwarted so in my own family, and to have neighbours who
think of themselves before anybody else. However, your coming just at
this time is the greatest of comforts, and I am very glad to hear what
you tell us, of long sleeves."
Mrs. Gardiner, to whom the chief of
this news had been given before, in the course of Jane and Elizabeth's
correspondence with her, made her sister a slight answer, and, in
compassion to her nieces, turned the conversation.
When alone with
Elizabeth afterwards, she spoke more on the subject. "It seems likely
to have been a desirable match for Jane," said she. "I am sorry it went
off. But these things happen so often! A young man, such as you describe
Mr. Bingley, so easily falls in love with a pretty girl for a few
weeks, and when accident separates them, so easily forgets her, that
these sort of inconsistencies are very frequent."
"An excellent
consolation in its way," said Elizabeth, "but it will not do for _us_.
We do not suffer by _accident_. It does not often happen that the
interference of friends will persuade a young man of independent fortune
to think no more of a girl whom he was violently in love with only a
few days before."
"But that expression of 'violently in love' is
so hackneyed, so doubtful, so indefinite, that it gives me very little
idea. It is as often applied to feelings which arise from a half-hour's
acquaintance, as to a real, strong attachment. Pray, how _violent was_
Mr. Bingley's love?"
"I never saw a more promising inclination; he
was growing quite inattentive to other people, and wholly engrossed by
her. Every time they met, it was more decided and remarkable. At his own
ball he offended two or three young ladies, by not asking them to
dance; and I spoke to him twice myself, without receiving an answer.
Could there be finer symptoms? Is not general incivility the very
essence of love?"
"Oh, yes!--of that kind of love which I suppose
him to have felt. Poor Jane! I am sorry for her, because, with her
disposition, she may not get over it immediately. It had better have
happened to _you_, Lizzy; you would have laughed yourself out of it
sooner. But do you think she would be prevailed upon to go back with us?
Change of scene might be of service--and perhaps a little relief from
home may be as useful as anything."
Elizabeth was exceedingly pleased with this proposal, and felt persuaded of her sister's ready acquiescence.
"I
hope," added Mrs. Gardiner, "that no consideration with regard to this
young man will influence her. We live in so different a part of town,
all our connections are so different, and, as you well know, we go out
so little, that it is very improbable that they should meet at all,
unless he really comes to see her."
"And _that_ is quite
impossible; for he is now in the custody of his friend, and Mr. Darcy
would no more suffer him to call on Jane in such a part of London! My
dear aunt, how could you think of it? Mr. Darcy may perhaps have _heard_
of such a place as Gracechurch Street, but he would hardly think a
month's ablution enough to cleanse him from its impurities, were he once
to enter it; and depend upon it, Mr. Bingley never stirs without him."
"So
much the better. I hope they will not meet at all. But does not Jane
correspond with his sister? _She_ will not be able to help calling."
"She will drop the acquaintance entirely."
But
in spite of the certainty in which Elizabeth affected to place this
point, as well as the still more interesting one of Bingley's being
withheld from seeing Jane, she felt a solicitude on the subject which
convinced her, on examination, that she did not consider it entirely
hopeless. It was possible, and sometimes she thought it probable, that
his affection might be reanimated, and the influence of his friends
successfully combated by the more natural influence of Jane's
attractions.
Miss Bennet accepted her aunt's invitation with
pleasure; and the Bingleys were no otherwise in her thoughts at the same
time, than as she hoped by Caroline's not living in the same house with
her brother, she might occasionally spend a morning with her, without
any danger of seeing him.
The Gardiners stayed a week at
Longbourn; and what with the Phillipses, the Lucases, and the officers,
there was not a day without its engagement. Mrs. Bennet had so carefully
provided for the entertainment of her brother and sister, that they did
not once sit down to a family dinner. When the engagement was for home,
some of the officers always made part of it--of which officers Mr.
Wickham was sure to be one; and on these occasion, Mrs. Gardiner,
rendered suspicious by Elizabeth's warm commendation, narrowly observed
them both. Without supposing them, from what she saw, to be very
seriously in love, their preference of each other was plain enough to
make her a little uneasy; and she resolved to speak to Elizabeth on the
subject before she left Hertfordshire, and represent to her the
imprudence of encouraging such an attachment.
To Mrs. Gardiner,
Wickham had one means of affording pleasure, unconnected with his
general powers. About ten or a dozen years ago, before her marriage, she
had spent a considerable time in that very part of Derbyshire to which
he belonged. They had, therefore, many acquaintances in common; and
though Wickham had been little there since the death of Darcy's father,
it was yet in his power to give her fresher intelligence of her former
friends than she had been in the way of procuring.
Mrs. Gardiner
had seen Pemberley, and known the late Mr. Darcy by character perfectly
well. Here consequently was an inexhaustible subject of discourse. In
comparing her recollection of Pemberley with the minute description
which Wickham could give, and in bestowing her tribute of praise on the
character of its late possessor, she was delighting both him and
herself. On being made acquainted with the present Mr. Darcy's treatment
of him, she tried to remember some of that gentleman's reputed
disposition when quite a lad which might agree with it, and was
confident at last that she recollected having heard Mr. Fitzwilliam
Darcy formerly spoken of as a very proud, ill-natured boy. _