Chapter 48

The next morning everyone waited for a letter from Mr. Bennet. But the post brought not one line from him. The family all knew that at other times he was very slow and very careless about answering letters. Still, at such a time as this they had hoped that he would make an effort. They were forced to conclude that he had no pleasant news to send. But even of that much they would have been glad to be certain. Mr. Gardiner had waited only for the post, and he set off at once.

When he was gone, they were at least sure of hearing regularly how matters went on. Their uncle promised, at parting, that he would persuade Mr. Bennet to return to Longbourn as soon as he could. This was a great comfort to his sister, who looked upon it as the only security that her husband would not be killed in a duel.

Mrs. Gardiner and the children were to stay in Hertfordshire a few days longer. She thought that her being there might be of some use to her nieces. She shared their care of Mrs. Bennet, and she was a great comfort to them in their hours of rest. Their other aunt also came to see them often. Her purpose, by her own account, was always to give them strength and to raise their spirits. But she never came without a new story of Wickham's waste and loose living. So she seldom went away without leaving them lower than she had found them.

The people of Meryton seemed to be trying hard to blacken a man who, only three months before, had been almost an angel of light. He was said to owe money to every tradesman in the place. All his love affairs had been given the fine name of seduction, and they had spread into every tradesman's family. Everybody said that he was the wickedest young man in the world. And everybody began to find out that they had always distrusted his look of goodness. Elizabeth did not believe half of what was said. Still, she believed enough to make her old certainty of her sister's ruin more certain than before. Jane believed even less than that, and yet she had almost lost hope. For if the two of them had gone to Scotland, a thing she had never wholly given up before, news of them must surely have come by this time.

Mr. Gardiner left Longbourn on Sunday. On Tuesday his wife received a letter from him, which said that he had found out his brother as soon as he arrived and had persuaded him to come to Gracechurch Street. Before Mr. Gardiner came, Mr. Bennet had gone as far as Epsom and Clapham. But he had gained no satisfactory information. He was now determined to inquire at all the principal hotels in London. He thought that the two of them might have stopped at one of the hotels when they first came to town, before they found lodgings. Mr. Gardiner himself did not expect this plan to succeed. Still, since his brother wished it so earnestly, he meant to help him in it. The letter also said that Mr. Bennet seemed to have no wish at all to leave London just yet. With a promise of writing again very soon, there was this postscript as well.

"I have written to Colonel Forster. I have asked him to find out from those in the regiment who were close to the young man whether Wickham has any relations or acquaintances who would be likely to know in what part of London he is now hiding. If there were anyone we could go to with some hope of getting such a clue, it might be of decisive importance. At present we have nothing to guide us. Colonel Forster will, I am sure, do everything in his power to find this out. But, on second thought, perhaps Lizzy can tell us better than anyone else what relations Wickham has now living."

Elizabeth easily understood why he leaned so much on what she could tell him. But she had nothing to give that would answer such an expectation.

She had never heard that Wickham had any relations except a father and a mother. Both of them had been dead for many years. Still, it was possible that some of his companions in the militia knew more. She had no great hope of it, but the inquiry gave her something to wait for.

Every day at Longbourn was now a day of anxiety. The most painful part of each day was the time when the post was expected. The first thing they wished to know every morning was whether any letters had come. Whether the news was good or bad, it would come by letter. And every one of them expected that the next day would bring something of importance.

But before they heard again from Mr. Gardiner, a letter came for their father from a very different quarter. It was from Mr. Collins. Jane had been told to open all letters that came while her father was away, and so she read it. Mr. Collins's letters were always a curious thing to see. Elizabeth knew this, and so she read it too over her sister's shoulder. It ran like this.

"My dear sir,

"Because of our relationship as family, and because of my position in life, I feel it to be my duty to offer you comfort in the painful trouble you are now suffering. I was told of it yesterday by a letter from Hertfordshire. My dear sir, Mrs. Collins and I send you our deepest sympathy in the distress that you and your respected family are enduring. It must be grief of the bitterest kind, because it comes from a cause that no passing of time can remove. I will spare no words that may lessen so cruel a misfortune. Nor will I spare words of comfort at a time that must grieve a parent's heart more than anything else in the world. The death of your daughter would have been a blessing compared with this. It is the more to be lamented because there is reason to suppose, as my dear Charlotte tells me, that this loose behavior in your daughter has come from too great an indulgence. Yet, for the comfort of yourself and Mrs. Bennet, I am inclined to think that her own nature must have been bad as well. If it had not been so, she could not have been guilty of so wicked a sin at so early an age. In either case you are greatly to be pitied. In this opinion I am joined not only by Mrs. Collins, but also by Lady Catherine and her daughter, to whom I have told the whole affair. They agree with me in my fear that this false step in one daughter will do harm to the marriage prospects of all the others. For who, as Lady Catherine herself was so gracious as to say, will connect themselves with such a family? This thought leads me to look back on a certain event of last November with greater satisfaction. For if it had ended otherwise, I must have been drawn into all your sorrow and disgrace. Let me then advise you, my dear sir, to comfort yourself as much as you can. Throw off your unworthy child from your affection for ever. And leave her, I would advise, to gather in the fruits of the wicked deed she has brought upon herself.

"Yours, dear sir, and so on."

Mr. Gardiner did not write again until he had received an answer from Colonel Forster. And then he had nothing pleasant to tell. It was not known that Wickham had a single relation with whom he kept up any connection. It was certain that he had no near relation living. He had once had many acquaintances, but since he joined the militia he did not seem to have been on particularly close terms with any of them. So there was no one who could be expected to give news of him. The wretched state of his own money matters, together with his fear of being found out by Lydia's relations, was a strong reason for keeping himself hidden. For it had just come out that he had left large gambling debts behind him at Brighton. Colonel Forster believed that more than a thousand pounds would be needed to clear all he had spent at Brighton. He owed a great deal in the town as well. But his debts of honor at play were far heavier. Mr. Gardiner did not try to keep these details from the family at Longbourn. Jane heard them with horror. "A gambler!" she cried. "I never thought of such a thing."

Mr. Gardiner added in his letter that they might expect to see their father at home on the next day, which was Saturday. Worn out by the failure of all his efforts, Mr. Bennet had decided to return to his family. And he had given way to his brother-in-law's request that everything the search still needed should be left to him. When Mrs. Bennet heard this, she did not show as much pleasure as her children expected, considering how anxious she had been for his life before.

"What! Is he coming home, and without poor Lydia?" she cried. "Surely he will not leave London before he has found the two of them. Who is to fight Wickham and make him marry her, if he comes away?"

Mrs. Gardiner began to wish to be at home. So it was settled that she and the children should go to London at the same time that Mr. Bennet came from it. The carriage took them the first stage of their journey, and then brought its master back to Longbourn.

Mrs. Gardiner went away with all the wonder about Elizabeth and her friend that she had carried with her ever since Derbyshire. Her niece had never once been the first to speak his name before them. Mrs. Gardiner had half expected that a letter from him would follow her. But nothing of the kind had come. Since Elizabeth's return, not one letter had arrived that could be thought to come from Pemberley.

The unhappy state of the family was by itself reason enough for her low spirits. So nothing could be guessed from the way she looked. But Elizabeth, who by this time knew her own heart pretty well, saw it plainly. If she had known nothing of Darcy, she could have borne the dread of Lydia's disgrace a little better. It would have saved her, she thought, one sleepless night out of every two.

When Mr. Bennet arrived, he seemed to have all his usual calm and philosophic manner. He said as little as he had ever been in the habit of saying. He made no mention of the business that had taken him away. And it was some time before his daughters had courage to speak of it.

It was not until the afternoon, when he joined them at tea, that Elizabeth ventured to speak of it. When she said a few short words of comfort on what he had suffered, Mr. Bennet answered. "Say nothing of that. Who should suffer but myself? I have brought it on myself, and I ought to feel it."

"Do not blame yourself so severely," said Elizabeth.

"You may well warn me against such a fault. How easily a man falls into that kind of mistake! No, Lizzy. Let me once in my life feel how much I have been to blame. I am not afraid of being crushed by this feeling. It will pass away soon enough."

"Do you suppose them to be in London?"

"Yes. Where else can they be so well hidden?"

"And Lydia used to want to go to London," added Kitty.

"She is happy, then," said her father dryly. "And her stay there will probably be a fairly long one."

After a short silence he spoke. "Lizzy, I bear you no ill will for having been right in the advice you gave me last May. Considering how things have turned out, that shows a very generous spirit."

They were interrupted by Miss Bennet, who came to fetch her mother's tea.

"This is a piece of ceremony that does one a great deal of good," he cried. "How much elegance it gives to misfortune! Another day I will do the same. I will sit in my library, in my nightcap and dressing gown, and give as much trouble as I can. Or perhaps I may put it off until Kitty runs away."

"I am not going to run away, Papa," said Kitty fretfully. "If I should ever go to Brighton, I would behave better than Lydia."

"You go to Brighton! I would not trust you so near it as Eastbourne for fifty pounds! Well then, Kitty. I have learned at least to be careful, and you will feel what comes of it. No officer is ever to enter my house again, nor even to pass through the village. Balls are forbidden altogether, unless you go out with one of your sisters. And you are never to stir out of doors until you can prove that you have spent ten minutes of every day in a reasonable manner."

Kitty, who took all these threats seriously, began to cry.

"Well, well," said he. "Do not make yourself unhappy. If you are a good girl for the next ten years, I will take you to a military review at the end of them."