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- 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 authorizing 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.
[Illustration:
“Tenderly flirting”
[_Copyright 1894 by George Allen._]]
Had she known that 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 the
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 attentions 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 in 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
inquiry 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 were 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 that 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 on acquaintance.”
“Indeed!” cried 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
either his mind or 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 feelings 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 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
judgment 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 would not miss the
opportunity of enjoying herself as much as possible,--advice which there
was every reason to believe would be 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.
[Illustration:
The arrival of the
Gardiners
]
CHAPTER XLII.
[Illustration]
Had Elizabeth’s opinion been all drawn from her own