The first week of their return was soon gone. The second began. It was the
last of the regiment’s stay in Meryton, and all the young ladies in the
neighbourhood were drooping apace. The dejection was almost universal. The
elder Miss Bennets alone were still able to eat, drink, and sleep, and
pursue the usual course of their employments. Very frequently were they
reproached for this insensibility by Kitty and Lydia, whose own misery was
extreme, and who could not comprehend such hard-heartedness in any of the
family.🔗
“Good Heaven! what is to become of us? What are we to do?” would they
often exclaim in the bitterness of woe. “How can you be smiling so,
Lizzy?”🔗
Their affectionate mother shared all their grief; she remembered what she
had herself endured on a similar occasion, five-and-twenty years ago.🔗
“I am sure,” said she, “I cried for two days together when Colonel
Miller’s regiment went away. I thought I should have broken my heart.”🔗
“I am sure I shall break mine,” said Lydia.🔗
“If one could but go to Brighton!” observed Mrs. Bennet.🔗
“Oh, yes!—if one could but go to Brighton! But papa is so
disagreeable.”🔗
“A little sea-bathing would set me up forever.”🔗
“And my aunt Phillips is sure it would do me a great deal of good,”
added Kitty.🔗
Such were the kind of lamentations resounding perpetually through
Longbourn House. Elizabeth tried to be diverted by them; but all sense of
pleasure was lost in shame. She felt anew the justice of Mr. Darcy’s
objections; and never had she been so much disposed to pardon his
interference in the views of his friend.🔗
But the gloom of Lydia’s prospect was shortly cleared away; for she
received an invitation from Mrs. Forster, the wife of the colonel of the
regiment, to accompany her to Brighton. This invaluable friend was a very
young woman, and very lately married. A resemblance in good humour and
good spirits had recommended her and Lydia to each other, and out of their
three months’ acquaintance they had been intimate two.🔗
The rapture of Lydia on this occasion, her adoration of Mrs. Forster, the
delight of Mrs. Bennet, and the mortification of Kitty, are scarcely to be
described. Wholly inattentive to her sister’s feelings, Lydia flew about
the house in restless ecstasy, calling for everyone’s congratulations, and
laughing and talking with more violence than ever; whilst the luckless
Kitty continued in the parlour repining at her fate in terms as
unreasonable as her accent was peevish.🔗
“I cannot see why Mrs. Forster should not ask me as well as Lydia,”
said she, “Though I am not her particular friend. I have just as
much right to be asked as she has, and more too, for I am two years
older.”🔗
In vain did Elizabeth attempt to make her reasonable, and Jane to make her
resigned. As for Elizabeth herself, this invitation was so far from
exciting in her the same feelings as in her mother and Lydia, that she
considered it as the death warrant of all possibility of common sense for
the latter; and detestable as such a step must make her were it known, she
could not help secretly advising her father not to let her go. She
represented to him all the improprieties of Lydia’s general behaviour, the
little advantage she could derive from the friendship of such a woman as
Mrs. Forster, and the probability of her being yet more imprudent with
such a companion at Brighton, where the temptations must be greater than
at home. He heard her attentively, and then said:🔗
“Lydia will never be easy until she has exposed herself in some public
place or other, and we can never expect her to do it with so little
expense or inconvenience to her family as under the present
circumstances.”🔗
“If you were aware,” said Elizabeth, “of the very great disadvantage to us
all which must arise from the public notice of Lydia’s unguarded and
imprudent manner—nay, which has already arisen from it, I am sure
you would judge differently in the affair.”🔗
“Already arisen?” repeated Mr. Bennet. “What, has she frightened away some
of your lovers? Poor little Lizzy! But do not be cast down. Such squeamish
youths as cannot bear to be connected with a little absurdity are not
worth a regret. Come, let me see the list of pitiful fellows who have been
kept aloof by Lydia’s folly.”🔗
“Indeed you are mistaken. I have no such injuries to resent. It is not of
particular, but of general evils, which I am now complaining. Our
importance, our respectability in the world must be affected by the wild
volatility, the assurance and disdain of all restraint which mark Lydia’s
character. Excuse me, for I must speak plainly. If you, my dear father,
will not take the trouble of checking her exuberant spirits, and of
teaching her that her present pursuits are not to be the business of her
life, she will soon be beyond the reach of amendment. Her character will
be fixed, and she will, at sixteen, be the most determined flirt that ever
made herself or her family ridiculous; a flirt, too, in the worst and
meanest degree of flirtation; without any attraction beyond youth and a
tolerable person; and, from the ignorance and emptiness of her mind,
wholly unable to ward off any portion of that universal contempt which her
rage for admiration will excite. In this danger Kitty also is
comprehended. She will follow wherever Lydia leads. Vain, ignorant, idle,
and absolutely uncontrolled! Oh! my dear father, can you suppose it
possible that they will not be censured and despised wherever they are
known, and that their sisters will not be often involved in the disgrace?”🔗
Mr. Bennet saw that her whole heart was in the subject, and affectionately
taking her hand said in reply:🔗
“Do not make yourself uneasy, my love. Wherever you and Jane are known you
must be respected and valued; and you will not appear to less advantage
for having a couple of—or I may say, three—very silly sisters.
We shall have no peace at Longbourn if Lydia does not go to Brighton. Let
her go, then. Colonel Forster is a sensible man, and will keep her out of
any real mischief; and she is luckily too poor to be an object of prey to
anybody. At Brighton she will be of less importance even as a common flirt
than she has been here. The officers will find women better worth their
notice. Let us hope, therefore, that her being there may teach her her own
insignificance. At any rate, she cannot grow many degrees worse, without
authorising us to lock her up for the rest of her life.”🔗
With this answer Elizabeth was forced to be content; but her own opinion
continued the same, and she left him disappointed and sorry. It was not in
her nature, however, to increase her vexations by dwelling on them. She
was confident of having performed her duty, and to fret over unavoidable
evils, or augment them by anxiety, was no part of her disposition.🔗
Had Lydia and her mother known the substance of her conference with her
father, their indignation would hardly have found expression in their
united volubility. In Lydia’s imagination, a visit to Brighton comprised
every possibility of earthly happiness. She saw, with the creative eye of
fancy, the streets of that gay bathing-place covered with officers. She
saw herself the object of attention, to tens and to scores of them at
present unknown. She saw all the glories of the camp—its tents
stretched forth in beauteous uniformity of lines, crowded with the young
and the gay, and dazzling with scarlet; and, to complete the view, she saw
herself seated beneath a tent, tenderly flirting with at least six
officers at once.🔗
Had she known her sister sought to tear her from such prospects and such
realities as these, what would have been her sensations? They could have
been understood only by her mother, who might have felt nearly the same.
Lydia’s going to Brighton was all that consoled her for her melancholy
conviction of her husband’s never intending to go there himself.🔗
But they were entirely ignorant of what had passed; and their raptures
continued, with little intermission, to the very day of Lydia’s leaving
home.🔗
Elizabeth was now to see Mr. Wickham for the last time. Having been
frequently in company with him since her return, agitation was pretty well
over; the agitations of former partiality entirely so. She had even learnt
to detect, in the very gentleness which had first delighted her, an
affectation and a sameness to disgust and weary. In his present behaviour
to herself, moreover, she had a fresh source of displeasure, for the
inclination he soon testified of renewing those intentions which had
marked the early part of their acquaintance could only serve, after what
had since passed, to provoke her. She lost all concern for him in finding
herself thus selected as the object of such idle and frivolous gallantry;
and while she steadily repressed it, could not but feel the reproof
contained in his believing, that however long, and for whatever cause, his
attentions had been withdrawn, her vanity would be gratified, and her
preference secured at any time by their renewal.🔗
On the very last day of the regiment’s remaining at Meryton, he dined,
with others of the officers, at Longbourn; and so little was Elizabeth
disposed to part from him in good humour, that on his making some enquiry
as to the manner in which her time had passed at Hunsford, she mentioned
Colonel Fitzwilliam’s and Mr. Darcy’s having both spent three weeks at
Rosings, and asked him, if he was acquainted with the former.🔗
He looked surprised, displeased, alarmed; but with a moment’s recollection
and a returning smile, replied, that he had formerly seen him often; and,
after observing that he was a very gentlemanlike man, asked her how she
had liked him. Her answer was warmly in his favour. With an air of
indifference he soon afterwards added:🔗
“How long did you say he was at Rosings?”🔗
“Nearly three weeks.”🔗
“And you saw him frequently?”🔗
“Yes, almost every day.”🔗
“His manners are very different from his cousin’s.”🔗
“Yes, very different. But I think Mr. Darcy improves upon acquaintance.”🔗
“Indeed!” cried Mr. Wickham with a look which did not escape her. “And
pray, may I ask?—” But checking himself, he added, in a gayer tone,
“Is it in address that he improves? Has he deigned to add aught of
civility to his ordinary style?—for I dare not hope,” he continued
in a lower and more serious tone, “that he is improved in essentials.”🔗
“Oh, no!” said Elizabeth. “In essentials, I believe, he is very much what
he ever was.”🔗
While she spoke, Wickham looked as if scarcely knowing whether to rejoice
over her words, or to distrust their meaning. There was a something in her
countenance which made him listen with an apprehensive and anxious
attention, while she added:🔗
“When I said that he improved on acquaintance, I did not mean that his
mind or his manners were in a state of improvement, but that, from knowing
him better, his disposition was better understood.”🔗
Wickham’s alarm now appeared in a heightened complexion and agitated look;
for a few minutes he was silent, till, shaking off his embarrassment, he
turned to her again, and said in the gentlest of accents:🔗
“You, who so well know my feeling towards Mr. Darcy, will readily
comprehend how sincerely I must rejoice that he is wise enough to assume
even the appearance of what is right. His pride, in that direction,
may be of service, if not to himself, to many others, for it must only
deter him from such foul misconduct as I have suffered by. I only fear
that the sort of cautiousness to which you, I imagine, have been alluding,
is merely adopted on his visits to his aunt, of whose good opinion and
judgement he stands much in awe. His fear of her has always operated, I
know, when they were together; and a good deal is to be imputed to his
wish of forwarding the match with Miss de Bourgh, which I am certain he
has very much at heart.”🔗
Elizabeth could not repress a smile at this, but she answered only by a
slight inclination of the head. She saw that he wanted to engage her on
the old subject of his grievances, and she was in no humour to indulge
him. The rest of the evening passed with the appearance, on his
side, of usual cheerfulness, but with no further attempt to distinguish
Elizabeth; and they parted at last with mutual civility, and possibly a
mutual desire of never meeting again.🔗
When the party broke up, Lydia returned with Mrs. Forster to Meryton, from
whence they were to set out early the next morning. The separation between
her and her family was rather noisy than pathetic. Kitty was the only one
who shed tears; but she did weep from vexation and envy. Mrs. Bennet was
diffuse in her good wishes for the felicity of her daughter, and
impressive in her injunctions that she should not miss the opportunity of
enjoying herself as much as possible—advice which there was every
reason to believe would be well attended to; and in the clamorous
happiness of Lydia herself in bidding farewell, the more gentle adieus of
her sisters were uttered without being heard.🔗