Chapter 16
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It was the second week in May, in which the three
young ladies set out together from Gracechurch Street for the town
of———, in Hertfordshire; and, as they drew near the appointed inn
where Mr. Bennet’s carriage was to meet them, they quickly
perceived, in token of the coachman’s punctuality, both Kitty and
Lydia looking out of a dining-room up stairs. These two girls had
been above an hour in the place, happily employed in visiting an
opposite milliner, watching the sentinel on guard, and dressing a
salad and cucumber.
After welcoming their sisters, they triumphantly
displayed a table set out with such cold meat as an inn larder
usually affords, exclaiming, “Is not this nice? is not this an
agreeable surprise?”
“And we mean to treat you all,” added Lydia; “but
you must lend us the money, for we have just spent ours at the shop
out there.” Then showing her purchases,—“Look here, I have bought
this bonnet. I do not think it is very pretty; but I thought I
might as well buy it as not. I shall pull it to pieces as soon as I
get home, and see if I can make it up any better.”
And when her sisters abused it as ugly, she added,
with perfect unconcern, “Oh, but there were two or three much
uglier in the shop; and when I have bought some prettier-coloured
satin to trim it with fresh, I think it will be very tolerable.
Besides, it will not much signify what one wears this summer, after
the———shire have left Meryton, and they are going in a
fortnight.”
“Are they, indeed?” cried Elizabeth, with the
greatest satisfaction.
“They are going to be encamped near Brighton;ay and I
do so want papa to take us all there for the summer! It would be
such a delicious scheme, and I dare say would hardly cost any thing
at all. Mamma would like to go, too, of all things! Only think what
a miserable summer else we shall have!”
“Yes,” thought Elizabeth; “that would be a
delightful scheme, indeed, and completely do for us at once. Good
Heaven! Brighton and a whole campful of soldiers, to us, who have
been overset already by one poor regiment of militia, and the
monthly balls of Meryton!”
“Now I have got some news for you,” said Lydia, as
they sat down to table. “What do you think? It is excellent news,
capital news, and about a certain person that we all like.”
Jane and Elizabeth looked at each other, and the
waiter was told that he need not stay. Lydia laughed, and
said,—
“Aye, that is just like your formality and
discretion. You thought the waiter must not hear, as if he cared! I
dare say he often hears worse things said than I am going to say.
But he is an ugly fellow! I am glad he is gone. I never saw such a
long chin in my life. Well, but now for my news: it is about dear
Wickham; too good for the waiter, is not it? There is no danger of
Wickham’s marrying Mary King—there’s for you! She is gone down to
her uncle at Liverpool; gone to stay. Wickham is safe.”
“And Mary King is safe!” added Elizabeth; “safe
from a connection imprudent as to fortune.”
“She is a great fool for going away, if she liked
him.”
“But I hope there is no strong attachment on either
side,” said Jane.
“I am sure there is not on his. I will
answer for it he never cared three straws about her. Who
could about such a nasty little freckled thing?”
Elizabeth was shocked to think that, however
incapable of such coarseness of expression herself, the
coarseness of the sentiment was little other than her own
breast had formerly harboured and fancied liberal!
As soon as all had ate, and the elder ones paid,
the carriage was ordered; and, after some contrivance, the whole
party, with all their boxes, workbags,az and
parcels, and the unwelcome addition of Kitty’s and Lydia’s
purchases, were seated in it.
“How nicely we are crammed in!” cried Lydia. “I am
glad I bought my bonnet, if it is only for the fun of having
another band-box! Well, now let us be quite comfortable and snug,
and talk and laugh all the way home. And in the first place, let us
hear what has happened to you all since you went away. Have you
seen any pleasant men? Have you had any flirting? I was in great
hopes that one of you would have got a husband before you came
back. Jane will be quite an old maid soon, I declare. She is almost
three-and-twenty! Lord! how ashamed I should be of not being
married before three-and-twenty! My aunt Philips wants you so to
get husbands, you can’t think. She says Lizzy had better have taken
Mr. Collins; but I do not think there would have been any
fun in it. Lord! how I should like to be married before any of you!
and then I would chaperon you about to all the balls. Dear
me! we had such a good piece of fun the other day at Colonel
Forster’s! Kitty and me were to spend the day there, and Mrs.
Forster promised to have a little dance in the evening; (by the by,
Mrs. Forster and me are such friends!) and so she asked the
two Harringtons to come: but Harriet was ill, and so Pen was forced
to come by herself; and then, what do you think we did? We dressed
up Chamberlayne in woman’s clothes, on purpose to pass for a
lady,—only think what fun! Not a soul knew of it, but Colonel and
Mrs. Forster, and Kitty and me, except my aunt, for we were forced
to borrow one of her gowns; and you cannot imagine how well he
looked! When Denny, and Wickham, and Pratt, and two or three more
of the men came in, they did not know him in the least. Lord! how I
laughed! and so did Mrs. Forster. I thought I should have died. And
that made the men suspect something, and then they soon
found out what was the matter.”
With such kind of histories of their parties and
good jokes did Lydia, assisted by Kitty’s hints and additions,
endeavour to amuse her companions all the way to Longbourn.
Elizabeth listened as little as she could, but there was no
escaping the frequent mention of Wickham’s name.
Their reception at home was most kind. Mrs. Bennet
rejoiced to see Jane in undiminished beauty; and more than once
during dinner did Mr. Bennet say voluntarily to Elizabeth, —
“I am glad you are come back, Lizzy.”
Their party in the dining-room was large, for
almost all the Lucases came to meet Maria and hear the news; and
various were the subjects which occupied them: Lady Lucas was
enquiring of Maria, across the table, after the welfare and poultry
of her eldest daughter; Mrs. Bennet was doubly engaged, on one hand
collecting an account of the present fashions from Jane, who sat
some way below her, and on the other, retailing them all to the
younger Miss Lucases; and Lydia, in a voice rather louder than any
other person’s, was enumerating the various pleasures of the
morning to any body who would hear her.
“Oh, Mary,” said she, “I wish you had gone with us,
for we had such fun! as we went along Kitty and me drew up all the
blinds, and pretended there was nobody in the coach; and I should
have gone so all the way, if Kitty had not been sick; and when we
got to the George, I do think we behaved very handsomely, for we
treated the other three with the nicest cold luncheon in the world,
and if you would have gone, we would have treated you too. And then
when we came away it was such fun! I thought we never should have
got into the coach. I was ready to die of laughter. And then we
were so merry all the way home! we talked and laughed so loud, that
any body might have heard us ten miles off!”
To this, Mary very gravely replied, “Far be it from
me, my dear sister, to depreciate such pleasures. They would
doubtless be congenial with the generality of female minds. But I
confess they would have no charms for me. I should
infinitely prefer a book.”
But of this answer Lydia heard not a word. She
seldom listened to any body for more than half a minute, and never
attended to Mary at all.
In the afternoon Lydia was urgent with the rest of
the girls to walk to Meryton, and see how every body went on; but
Elizabeth steadily opposed the scheme. It should not be said, that
the Miss Bennets could not be at home half a day before they were
in pursuit of the officers. There was another reason, too, for her
opposition. She dreaded seeing Wickham again, and was resolved to
avoid it as long as possible. The comfort to her, of the
regiment’s approaching removal, was indeed beyond expression. In a
fortnight they were to go, and once gone, she hoped there could be
nothing more to plague her on his account.
She had not been many hours at home, before she
found that the Brighton scheme, of which Lydia had given them a
hint at the inn, was under frequent discussion between her parents.
Elizabeth saw directly that her father had not the smallest
intention of yielding; but his answers were at the same time so
vague and equivocal, that her mother, though often disheartened,
had never yet despaired of succeeding at last.