by michael sand
Elizabeth sighed. “It is hopeless! — they will never be found. Mr Gardiner had much better preserve himself as well. Lydia is lost forever.”
“My dear, do not say so! We may fear the worst, but it is by no means fixed. Why should you be so certain of Wickham’s depravity as to believe that he would risk his own ruin, as well as Lydia’s? Disregarding every thing else, he knows that he could never be received into society after such an insult to his regiment. Why should you expect him to act so much against his own interest?” —
“Because I know his true character,” her niece replied with energy. “Wickham is a man with nothing to lose.”
Mrs Gardiner stared at her with such speaking astonishment, that Elizabeth felt obliged to offer some explanation. “When I was in Kent last spring, Colonel Fitzwilliam told me something of Wickham’s history. The Colonel knew him as a young man, and was acquainted with the particulars. It appears that the living left Mr Wickham was conditional on his behaviour, which did not justify its being given. And (colouring slightly) from another report I heard, it appears that Mr Wickham attempted an elopement once before. Fortunately, his plans were foiled at the last moment by the unexpected arrival of the young lady’s friends.”
Mrs Gardiner was gratified to receive so much information, but had hoped to receive more. From the time of their leaving Derbyshire, she had been wanting to learn what terms existed between her niece and Mr Darcy. Elizabeth had never spoken his name, and Mrs Gardiner had not wished to give rise to consciousness by mentioning him; but she admitted to herself that she was eat up with curiosity. Some particularity between the young people appeared undeniable; but what it might mean, and what effect the unfortunate situation of Lydia might have upon it, could only be guessed. Elizabeth was certainly oppressed by low spirits, but there was sufficient reason without needing to conjecture that Mr Darcy had any share in them. Mrs Gardiner had been in expectation of a letter soon following them from that source — and hoping that its arrival might elicit some intelligible reaction from Lizzy; but no letter had arrived. Mrs Gardiner was therefore obliged to be still her curiosity as best she could.
At that moment, the door opened, and Jane came in. “Oh, Aunt! I am sent to tell you that the coach is at the door. I have just been saying goodbye to the children. I am loath to hurry you away, but you must be starting if you are to be in time.”
Mrs Gardiner took a touching leave of her two favourite nieces, conscious that the present unhappy circumstance might never be susceptible of any greater felicity. When the coach was gone out of sight, Jane would have returned to Mrs Bennet’s room, but that Elizabeth induced her to walk with her in the copse. “You are looking pale. Give yourself a few minutes’ respite, I beg you. Then I shall come with you to my mother.” Jane allowed herself to be persuaded, and the sisters walked for some time in silence through the shrubberies. “My father will be home this afternoon,” Elizabeth then began. “I look forward to his arrival — and I dread it.”
“Oh! yes. What he must be feeling! How will he find the strength to face us, without having discovered Lydia!”
“It might be worse for us all if he had!”
Jane looked sadly. “I will not pretend to misunderstand you, Lizzy. If Lydia were to come home — when she comes home — I can hardly imagine what our house must be like. How unhappy Lydia will be, knowing the pain she has caused all her dear family.”
“That was not quite my meaning. You fear that Lydia shall have shame — I fear that she shall have none! — that she will be as insensible of the pain she has caused, as she was deaf to the dictates of virtue.”
“Oh! no. You cannot think so meanly of Lydia as that. Thoughtless she may be, — thoughtless she undoubtedly is; — but how could any body in Lydia’s situation not suffer under a continual blush from wretched consciousness!”
“You and I, Jane, shall suffer more from wretched consciousness, and be more continually under a blush than will our sister. As to imagining our future, I can do so only too well. Old maids, for who would want to marry us? — and after my father dies, in straitened circumstances, with a narrow income and no means of frightening the people who might despise us into some show of respect.”
“A narrow income may be our lot, Lizzy, but it need not make our minds narrow.”
“I hope you may be right; but a narrow income has a tendency to contract the mind and sour the temper; and who knows whether we may have the good fortune to avoid this fate, which has befallen so many others.”
“I shall fear no future hardship,” said Jane, with gentleness, “as long as we remain unparted.”
Elizabeth gazed at her sister with love and admiration. Jane was in no danger of having misfortune close her heart or ruin her spirits. What a comfort to have such a sister! “Your goodness is always setting me the example. Your strength and steadiness reprove my instability.”
“It is your goodness which lends me strength, Lizzy.”
“I can no more match your benevolence than a candle can match the sun. Come, (checking herself, and trying to be more lively,) let me go and be of use to my mother while I am in this penitential frame of mind.”
At the door to Mrs Bennet’s room, they met their Aunt Philips, who came every day to console her sister by repeating all the damning reports she had been able to gather about Wickham. “Oh! my dears — ” she exclaimed as they entered. “Have you heard?” — If Mrs Philips’s tales were to be believed, Wickham must have been the most unwearying reveller, and Meryton a scene of depravity to rival the Cities of the Plains. As she sat by her mother’s bed, listening with half an ear to the incessant flow of fretful complaint, Elizabeth could not help thinking, that there might be more rational ways to mourn catastrophe.
Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, and Kitty, were gathered in the dining-room, later that day, and tea was just bringing in, when they heard the noise of wheels on the sweep. Mr Bennet entered a few minutes afterwards. He strove to appear as usual, seating himself and giving them all the greeting, but saying nothing of Lydia; but Elizabeth, (who had not seen him for a month complete,) was shocked by the change. His hair, wind-blown from the journey, gave him a ruffled appearance; and there was that in his countenance, which shewed some consciousness, and seemed to suggest that his self-possession was as ruffled as his hair. Elizabeth had wished that they might be having a letter from him that week, but she had not been surprised to receive none. Her father was a negligent correspondent at best, disinclined to take the necessary exertion; and she had had but few letters from him at any time of separation, — though the few were good, for he expressed himself with wit and power on the occasions when he would write.
After a few minutes, Mr Bennet put down his cup, rose, and seeming at last to remember that he had not seen her for a month complete, asked Elizabeth to accompany him to his library. Elizabeth did so with some trepidation: the library was devoted to her father’s privacy; he seldom invited any one to join him there. Mr Bennet sat down at his writing table, and picked up a paper that was lying on it — a letter of condolence, from Mr Collins, which had arrived two days before, and which Jane had been authorized to open in his absence. As he ran his eye rapidly over its contents, Mr Bennet’s sardonic delight in reading anything from that source was alloyed on this occasion by unaccustomed anger.
“Bad news travels fast. — I see it is already gone into Kent. The chattering Lucases have been eager correspondents, I suppose, with such interesting news to pass on. Mr Collins writes to advise us to comfort ourselves by casting Lydia off for ever. How is that for Christian charity? — Oh! and he congratulates himself on his not having married you, as that would have involved him in our disgrace.”
He tossed the letter aside, and looked at her for some moments over his spectacles. Then,
“I ought, I suppose, to be very angry with you, Lizzy, for shewing so much more perspicacity in your judgement than I did in mine. The majority of mankind is little disposed to forgive those who have been proved right, a
nd superiority of judgement is generally allowed to be justifiable grounds for hatred. But I am not quite so unreasonable, I hope, as to be prejudiced against you for the warning you gave me against allowing Lydia to go to Brighton, which I so blindly disregarded.”
“Oh, Father, do not be so severe on yourself! How could you know what would happen?”
“Do not worry, Lizzy; my severity will not last. No man continues long contrite. Do you recall Dr Johnson’s friend, who could not be a philosopher because cheerfulness would break in? Men cease to be penitents for like reasons; custom — or self-regard — stales the edge of their remorse. It will be so with me, I daresay; I shall stop caring soon enough.”
Elizabeth had never seen her father so chastened. Her heart ached for him; he had always been her favourite parent. She felt close to him in style of mind — had always believed him nearly perfect; but now the thought must occur, that perhaps he might be deficient in important ways. In spite of some unavoidable pride in the compliment now offered, she could not help recalling the terms in which he had dismissed her warning: “Lydia will be in no danger — she is too poor to be a temptation.” Had there not been something more cynical in this reply than was quite allowable in a father? — a greater regard for wit than principle.
After a short silence,
“What (rather hesitatingly) do you think will become of Lydia?”
“Either we shall be unfortunate,” replied Mr Bennet, “and Lydia will never come home. — Or we shall be even more unfortunate and she will.”
Chapter Ten
The morning was far advanced when the coach carrying Mrs Gardiner and her children arrived in Gracechurch-street. Mrs Gardiner immediately sent the children up to the nursery, where they would be able to run off their long confinement, and make as much noise as they pleased. She was just sitting down to her tea, when Mr Gardiner hastily entered the room. “Had she had a tiring journey?” he asked, saluting her on the cheek.
“No journey could be tiring which took me from Longbourn. I was sorry to leave on Jane and Elizabeth’s account, — but Mrs Bennet! She has just cause to lament, but one may lament quietly and with equal sincerity. And poor Mr Bennet! — We had an hour in Staines while the horses were baiting, and I was shocked at his appearance. You did right to send him home; he would be wearing himself out in London. Had you difficulty to persuade him?”
“None at all. He was ready to go — only wanting to be urged.” Then, breaking off impatiently — “But I have momentous news! A visitor is waiting below, and you will never guess who it is. The last person!”
“Mr Darcy!” Mrs Gardiner immediately exclaimed. Her husband stared in amazement. — However had she guessed? “I hardly know myself. You said, the last person, and I immediately thought of Mr Darcy. Is not he the last person one would expect to meet in Gracechurch-street?”
“You do not sound very surprised (somewhat aggrieved). But perhaps I may astonish you after all. Wickham and Lydia have been discovered; they are to marry, — and it is all Mr Darcy’s doing. What have you to say now?”
Mrs Gardiner’s astonishment was then all that her husband could wish. Wickham and Lydia discovered! — and to be married! And all this connected with Mr Darcy! — How? And by what means? — Mr Gardiner begged his wife to contain herself in patience; she would soon know all. Mr Darcy had come to him soon after Mr Bennet’s departure that morning to say that he had news of Wickham and Lydia. What he had then told Mr Gardiner was so astounding, that he had earnestly requested Mr Darcy to return this afternoon, and repeat every thing in his wife’s hearing.
“And in truth, I want to hear it all again, myself, for I am at a loss to know what to think. He is in the drawing-room now.”
“Mr Darcy — in the drawing-room? (almost jumping from her chair.) Why did not you say so? Come! We must not keep him waiting.”
Mr Darcy was sitting with an open volume of the Rambler when Mr and Mrs Gardiner entered the room. He rose, setting the book down, and bowed. “Can this be true?” Mrs Gardiner exclaimed. “Are Lydia and Wickham truly to marry? It seems a miracle.”
“A miracle of purely human agency,” was Darcy’s reply.
“A miracle of your agency — so Mr Gardiner informs me. But how is it that you have come so wondrously to our rescue? How did you even know that we were in need of rescuing?”
That, — even more than how Lydia and Wickham had been brought to marry, — was the subject on which Mrs Gardiner was eager for intelligence. “Surely,” she thought, “he could only have learned of the event from Lizzy.”
Mr Darcy explained how he had called at their inn at Lambton just when the news from Brighton had burst upon Miss Bennet. To be guarded after so shocking a revelation was impossible; Miss Bennet must confide in some one, and Mr and Mrs Gardiner were gone out.
“Yes,” said Mrs Gardiner to herself. “But would she have revealed all this unless they had reached an understanding?” Shocked out of perfect propriety her niece might have been, but she was more likely to have run from the room than disclose the truth of an event she must otherwise wish to keep secret — unless it had been to some one she had felt able to confide in.
“I had presence of mind enough to send after you,” continued Mr Darcy. “And perhaps I should have done better to wait your return; but I was not perfectly myself at that moment — the news had shocked me almost as much as Miss Bennet. But as composure returned, two things became evident — that I was principally to blame for the calamity; and that I had an obligation to set it right. I therefore left Derbyshire, — I believe the day after you did yourselves.”
Mr Gardiner did not see how Mr Darcy could hold himself responsible for the misguided actions of two people so altogether lacking in principle and blind to propriety.
“It was owing to my mistaken pride that Wickham’s improbity was not generally known,” Mr Darcy replied. “If I had spoken out as I should have, it would have been impossible that any woman should place her trust in him.” Then, after some hesitation, — “It gives me the utmost pain to admit this — ”
“Do not distress yourself unnecessarily, Mr Darcy,” Mr Gardiner broke in quickly. “You owe us no explanation. You need not tell us any thing.”
Mrs Gardiner was not in perfect accord with her husband on this point. She was welcoming an explanation.
“I wish indeed,” said Darcy, “that I did not need to explain; and no obligation less than the present would induce me to do so. Wickham had attempted an elopement before — and his object then was my own sister. Wickham would have married her — she is a considerable heiress. It was mere chance that this evil fate was avoided. I happened to visit my sister at a vital juncture, and she immediately confessed every thing. The idea of the elopement had been Wickham’s, of course. She was not happy at the prospect — thought herself in love, indeed, but could not bear to hurt her family — to hurt me.”
Remembering what Elizabeth had told her that very morning, about a previous elopement of Wickham’s — “foiled at the last moment by the unexpected arrival of the young lady’s friends,” — Mrs Gardiner felt like an astronomer, whose hypothesis is confirmed by some heavenly conjunction. Or to use a most intelligible phrase, that she had succeeded in putting two and two together.
“My sister was saved by good fortune,” Mr Darcy went on, “and perhaps I was too shaken by the narrowness of the escape to think in a rational manner. I ought to have exposed Wickham. My principle reason for not doing so, — the reason, at least, which I principally avowed, — was the wish to avoid my sister’s being subjected to the censure of the uninformed.” But there had been another view influencing his decision. He had felt it beneath him to lay his private actions open to the world. — Why should he be required to justify them? — his character was to speak for itself.
“That was how I put it to myself. But perhaps, (in a tone of great sensibility,) the first of my motives — though the least acknowledged — was to prevent its being seen how I, too, had been de
ceived. To expose Wickham was to expose myself, — my faulty judgement and my abominable folly in entrusting my sister to those who did not deserve that trust.”
Such, Mr Darcy said, had been his views. But when he learned of the events at Brighton, he knew that he must endeavour to remedy an evil which had been brought on by himself. — And he had been so fortunate as to succeed: had discovered Wickham’s hiding place; had persuaded him to marry Lydia. If the banns were called to-morrow, they might be married on Monday fortnight.
“There is one thing unpleasant to mention, which cannot be avoided, however. Miss Bennet ought not to remain any longer in Mr Wickham’s company than can be helped. If you (addressing Mrs Gardiner) could find the charity to receive her into your house — ”
The Gardiners replied, (though not without an inward sigh,) that of course, Lydia must come to them. She had never been a favourite, even before these last, fatal events, but they would not evade their duty. Mr Gardiner had now an inquiry to make. Something had been glossed over, which he, as a man of business, could not continue to ignore. “May I ask, Mr Darcy, how you brought Mr Wickham to agree? He does not appear to be a man whose principles could be successfully appealed to. There must have been weightier arguments than those of morality.”
Mr Darcy attempted to answer by circumlocutions; but Mr Gardiner, who could be tenacious when business was involved, brought him at last to confess the arrangements he intended to make for Wickham and Lydia. Mrs Gardiner exclaimed at such generosity, so little deserved by its recipients; but Mr Gardiner looked troubled. He knew not at what figure an ensigncy was to be got these days, but he was certain that when Mr Wickham’s debts were super-added, together with the sum required to establish Lydia and Wickham in even a modest independence, a very great deal of money must be expended. The question must be asked — it could not be avoided — how much they were indebted to him? “Mr Bennet is not rich; but I doubt not that he and I together — ”