Chapter 53

Mr. Wickham was very well satisfied with this conversation. So he never again brought the matter up to distress himself or to anger his dear sister Elizabeth. Elizabeth was glad to find that she had said enough to keep him quiet.

The day when Lydia and Mr. Wickham were to leave came very soon. Mrs. Bennet had no choice but to accept the parting. For her husband had no mind at all for the plan of the whole family going to Newcastle. The parting seemed likely to last at least a year.

"Oh, my dear Lydia," her mother cried. "When shall we meet again?"

"Good heavens, I do not know. Perhaps not for two or three years."

"My dear girl, write to me very often."

"I will write as often as I can. But you know that a married woman has not much time for writing. My sisters may write to me. They will have nothing else to do."

Mr. Wickham's farewell was much more affectionate than his wife's. He smiled, he looked handsome, and he said a great many pleasing things.

As soon as the two of them had left the house, Mr. Bennet spoke. "He is as fine a fellow as ever I saw. He smiles his prim smiles, he grins, and he whispers his love to every one of us. I could not be prouder of him as my son-in-law. Not even Sir William Lucas could produce a more valuable son-in-law than this."

Mrs. Bennet was very low in spirits for several days after her daughter went away.

She spoke. "I often think that there is nothing worse than parting with one's friends. One feels so lonely without them."

"This is the consequence of marrying a daughter, Mother," said Elizabeth. "You must be all the more pleased that your other four are still single."

"It is not that at all. Lydia does not leave me because she is married, but only because her husband's regiment happens to be so far away. If it had been nearer, she would not have gone so soon."

But the low spirits that this event caused did not last long. A piece of news soon reached her that set her heart beating again with hope and impatience. The news was that the housekeeper at Netherfield had received orders to prepare for the arrival of her master. Mr. Bingley was coming down in a day or two to shoot there for several weeks. Mrs. Bennet was quite restless. She looked at Jane and smiled, and then she shook her head and bustled about.

"Well, well. So Mr. Bingley is coming down," said Mrs. Bennet to Mrs. Philips, who had first brought the news. "Very good. But it is nothing to me. He is nothing at all to us, and I am sure I never wish to see him again. Still, he is very welcome to come to Netherfield if he likes it. And who knows what may happen? But it is nothing to us. You know that we agreed long ago never to say one word about it. And is it quite certain that he is coming?"

Mrs. Philips answered. "You may depend upon it. Mrs. Nicholls was in Meryton last night. I saw her passing by, and I went out on purpose to learn the truth of it. She told me that it was quite certain. He comes down on Thursday at the latest, and very likely on Wednesday. She said that she was going to the butcher's to order meat for Wednesday. And she has three pairs of ducks that are fat enough to be killed at once."

Miss Bennet could not hear that Mr. Bingley was coming without a change in her face. It was many months since she had said his name to Elizabeth. But as soon as the two of them were alone, she spoke.

"Lizzy, I saw you look at me today when my aunt told us the news that is going about. I know that I seemed distressed. But do not think that it was for any foolish reason. I was only confused for a moment, because I felt that people would be looking at me. I assure you that the news gives me neither pleasure nor pain. One thing is a comfort. He comes alone, so we shall see very little of him. It is not that I am afraid for myself. It is only what other people will say that I dread."

Elizabeth did not know how she ought to take these words. If she had not seen him in Derbyshire, she might have thought that Mr. Darcy could come here with no other meaning than the purpose he had declared. But Elizabeth still believed that he was partial to Jane. Her mind wavered over which was the more likely, that he had come with his friend's permission or that he had grown bold enough to come without it.

Now and then she thought in this way. "It is hard that the poor man cannot come to a house which he has lawfully rented without raising all these guesses. I will leave him to himself."

Jane truly believed her own feelings to be what she had said they were. But in spite of those words, Elizabeth easily saw that waiting for Bingley's arrival affected her sister's spirits. Jane's mind was far more unsettled than Elizabeth had ever seen it before.

The matter that her parents had talked over so warmly about a year before was now brought up again.

"My dear, you will of course call on Mr. Bingley as soon as he comes," said Mrs. Bennet.

"No, I will not go. Last year you forced me to call on him, and you promised that if I went he would marry one of our daughters. But nothing came of it. I will not be sent on such a useless errand again."

His wife explained to him that when Mr. Bingley returned to Netherfield, such a mark of politeness from all the gentlemen of the neighborhood was absolutely necessary.

"I despise such manners," said he. "If he wants our company, let him come and find it. He knows where we live. I will not spend my hours running after my neighbors every time they go away and come back."

"Well, all I know is that it will be dreadfully rude of you if you do not call on him. But that will not stop me from asking him to dinner. I am determined to do it. We must have Mrs. Long and the Gouldings soon as well. That will make thirteen with ourselves, so there will be just room at the table for him."

Comforted by this resolution, Mrs. Bennet could bear her husband's rudeness better. But it was deeply humiliating to think that all their neighbors might see Mr. Bingley before they did. As the day of his coming drew near, Jane spoke to her sister.

"I begin to wish that he would not come at all. I could meet him with perfect indifference, so it would be nothing at all. But I can hardly bear to hear it talked of without ceasing. My mother means well, but she does not know how much her words make me suffer. No one can know it. How happy I shall be when his stay at Netherfield is over!"

"I wish I could say anything to comfort you," Elizabeth answered. "But it is wholly beyond my power. You must bear it yourself. Even the common pleasure of preaching patience to a sufferer is denied to me, because you always have so much patience already."

Mr. Bingley arrived. Mrs. Bennet, with the help of the servants, had the news before anybody else. So she made the time of her own worry and impatience as long as she could. She counted the days that must pass before she could send her invitation, and she thought that she would not see him before then. But on the third morning after his coming into Hertfordshire, she saw him from the window of her own room ride into the meadow and come toward the house.

She called her daughters in haste to share her joy. Jane resolutely kept her place at the table. Elizabeth went to the window to satisfy her mother. She looked out, saw Mr. Darcy coming with Mr. Bingley, and sat down again beside her sister.

"There is a gentleman with him, Mama," said Kitty. "Who can it be?"

"It must be some acquaintance or other, my dear. I am sure I do not know at all."

"Oh!" said Kitty. "It looks just like that man who used to be with him before. What was his name? That tall, proud man."

"Good heavens, it is Mr. Darcy! So it is indeed. Any friend of Mr. Bingley's will always be welcome in this house, of course. But if it were not for that, I must say that I hate the very sight of him."

Jane looked at Elizabeth with surprise and concern. She knew very little of their meeting in Derbyshire. So she felt for the awkwardness that her sister must feel in meeting him again almost for the first time since she received his letter of explanation. Both sisters were uncomfortable. Each felt for the other, and of course each felt for herself as well. Their mother went on with her talk of how she disliked Mr. Darcy, and of how she would be civil to him only because he was Mr. Bingley's friend. But neither sister listened. Elizabeth had a source of uneasiness that Jane could not begin to guess at. She had not yet had the courage to show her Mrs. Gardiner's letter, or to tell her that her own feelings toward Darcy had changed. To Jane, Mr. Darcy was only a man whose offer of marriage had been refused and whose worth she had failed to see. But to Elizabeth, who knew far more, he was the person to whom the whole family owed the greatest debt. Her own feeling for him was not as tender as Jane's feeling for Bingley, but she thought it at least as reasonable and as just. Her astonishment that he should come to Netherfield, to Longbourn, and seek her out again of his own will was almost as great as what she had felt when she first saw his altered manner in Derbyshire.

For a moment she was certain that his affection and his wishes were still unchanged, and the color that had left her face came back to it more brightly. A smile of delight lit her eyes. But Elizabeth would not be too sure.

"Let me first see how he behaves," she said to herself. "It will be time enough to hope after that."

Elizabeth sat working hard at her sewing to compose her mind. When the servant came to the door, an anxious curiosity drew her eyes to her sister's face. Before that she had not dared to lift her head at all. Jane was a little paler than usual, but she was calmer than Elizabeth had expected. When the gentlemen appeared, her color rose. Yet she received them with tolerable ease. There was no sign of resentment and no needless wish to please.

Elizabeth said as little to either of them as civility would allow, and she sat down again. She gave her sewing an eagerness that it did not often receive from her. She had allowed herself only one glance at Darcy. He looked serious, as he always did. He seemed more like what he had always been in Hertfordshire than what she had seen him at Pemberley. But perhaps he could not be before her mother what he had been before her uncle and aunt. It was a painful thought, but it was not an impossible one.

She had looked at Bingley too for a moment. It was only an instant, but she saw that he looked both pleased and embarrassed. Mrs. Bennet received Bingley very politely. She greeted his friend and spoke to him with nothing but a cold and formal politeness. The difference was so plain that both daughters were ashamed.

Elizabeth in particular was greatly distressed. For she knew that her mother owed to Mr. Darcy the rescue of her favorite daughter from a disgrace that could never have been undone. And yet her mother made this wrongheaded difference between the two men.

Darcy asked how Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner were doing. Elizabeth could not answer him without confusion. After that he said hardly anything at all. Perhaps he was silent because he was not seated beside her. But it had not been so in Derbyshire. There, when he could not speak to Elizabeth, he had spoken to her friends. But now several minutes passed without the sound of his voice. When Elizabeth could not master her curiosity and lifted her eyes to his face, she found that he looked at Jane as often as he looked at Elizabeth. And often he looked at nothing but the ground. It was plain that he was more thoughtful and less anxious to please than when they had last met. Elizabeth was disappointed, and she was angry with herself for being so.

"Could I expect anything else?" she said to herself. "And yet why did he come?"

Elizabeth was in no humor to talk with anyone but Darcy himself. But she had hardly the courage to speak to him.

She asked after his sister, but she could do no more.

"It has been a very long time since you went away, Mr. Bingley," said Mrs. Bennet.

He readily agreed that it had.

"I began to be afraid that you would never come back again. People did say that you meant to give the place up entirely at Michaelmas. But I hope that it is not true. A great many changes have happened in the neighborhood since you went away. Miss Lucas is married and settled, and one of my own daughters is married as well. I suppose that you have heard of it. Indeed, you must have seen it in the papers. I know that it was in The Times and in The Courier. But it was not put in as it ought to have been. It said only, 'Lately, Mr. George Wickham was married to Miss Lydia Bennet,' and there was not one word about her father, or where she lived, or anything else at all. It was my brother, Mr. Gardiner, who drew it up as well, and I cannot think how he came to write it so awkwardly. Did you see it?"

Bingley answered that he had, and he offered his congratulations. Elizabeth did not dare to lift her eyes. So she could not tell how Mr. Darcy looked.

Her mother went on. "It is a delightful thing, to be sure, to have a daughter well married. But at the same time, Mr. Bingley, it is very hard to have her taken away from me. The two of them have gone down to Newcastle, which they say is a great way to the north. I do not know how long they are to stay there. Wickham's regiment is there. You will have heard as well that he has left the militia and gone into the regulars. Thank heaven, he has some friends. Though perhaps he has not so many as he deserves."

Elizabeth knew that these words were aimed at Mr. Darcy. Her shame and her distress were so great that she could hardly keep her seat. But the words drew from her the effort to speak that nothing before had drawn. She asked Bingley how long he meant to stay in the country this time. He said that it would be a few weeks.

"When you have killed all your own birds at Netherfield, Mr. Bingley," said her mother, "I beg you will come here and shoot as many as you please on Mr. Bennet's land. I am sure that he will be very glad to do you that favor. He will keep all the best flocks of birds for you."

Elizabeth's misery grew greater at such needless and meddling attention. She felt certain that if the same fine prospect that had raised their spirits a year ago now appeared again, everything would hurry on to the same vexing end. In that moment she felt that years of happiness could not repay Jane or herself for such moments of painful confusion.

She said this to herself. "The dearest wish of my heart is never to be in the company of either of them again. Their society can give no pleasure that will make up for such misery as this! Let me never see either of the two of them again!"

But the misery for which years of happiness could not repay her was soon much lessened. For she saw how much her sister's beauty was rekindling the admiration of her former lover. When Bingley first came in, he had spoken very little to Jane. But every five minutes he seemed to give her more of his attention. He found her as handsome as she had been last year, and as good-natured and as free from affectation. She was only not quite so talkative as before. Jane wished that no change at all should be seen in her. And she truly believed that she talked as much as ever. But her mind was so busy that she did not always know when she was silent.

When the gentlemen rose to go, Mrs. Bennet remembered the politeness she had meant to show. She invited them to dine at Longbourn in a few days, and the two of them accepted.

She added this. "You owe me a visit, Mr. Bingley. When you went to town last winter, you promised to take a family dinner with us as soon as you came back. You see that I have not forgotten it. I assure you that I was very much disappointed when you did not come back and keep your word."

Bingley looked a little foolish at these words. He said something to show that he was sorry business had kept him away. The two of them went away.

Mrs. Bennet had a very strong wish to ask the two of them to stay and dine there that day. But although she always kept a very good table, she did not think that anything less than two courses could be good enough for a man on whom she had such eager designs. She felt that it must satisfy the appetite and the pride of one who had ten thousand a year.