Dear Mr. Darcy: A Retelling of Pride and Prejudice
Page 26
My news is less exciting, but glorious nonetheless. I have chosen my wedding dress. Madame Chloe is to make it for me, after one of the fashions in La Belle Assemblée. It is in the latest Grecian style, with a high waist, a round neck, short sleeves and a sash. I am enclosing a sketch so that you can see how delicious it is. Mama and I are going to London tomorrow to buy the silk at Grafton House. We intend to stay there for a few days so that we can buy everything else I will need as well; all except my shoes, which I am having made here in Bath. They will be made of white silk to match the dress.
I never thought my wedding outfit would be half so fine. Indeed, there were times in the last few years when I thought I would have to dress in rags, but now that I am to marry a rich husband I can buy whatever I please. I am very vain, I dare say, but I am enjoying every minute of it.
We are going to have the ceremony in Bath. I did hope, when Elizabeth said Mr Bingley had left Netherfield, that he would give notice, then we could return there for a few months and I could be married from home. But although Mr Bingley stays away, it seems he does not want to relinquish his tenancy. I am disappointed for my own sake but I am pleased for Jane. I have quiet hopes that he keeps Netherfield Park because he wants to see her again, and wishes to continue his pursuit of her. Let us hope so, for never a dearer creature lived than Jane Bennet.
By the bye, do you have Elizabeth’s address? I know she is in Derbyshire with her aunt and uncle, and her last letter told me where she expected to be for the next week, but I have somehow misplaced it. Or, to tell the truth, my father burnt it with a pile of other papers in a fit of rage. I believe he thought it was a bill. You will tell from this that he is no better and that we all despair of him ever retrenching and conserving what little is left of his fortune. Luckily, I will soon be married and I will not have to worry about his temper any longer, nor his drinking nor his gambling nor anything else. I am very glad my dear Mr Wainwright has none of these vices; he is the most amiable man that ever lived and I am very much looking forward to being his wife.
If you have Elizabeth’s address, pray let me have it, for I want to send her a sketch of my wedding dress. I hope she is enjoying herself in Derbyshire. Indeed she must be, for her aunt and uncle are sensible, intelligent people and Derbyshire itself is very fine. After all the vicissitudes of her life over the last few months I am sure that no one deserves a little happiness more than Elizabeth, and I wish her a handsome husband, just like my Mr Wainwright.
Write to me soon,
Susan
Lady Lucas to Mrs Charlotte Collins
Lucas Lodge, Hertfordshire,
August 10
Charlotte, such news! Far be it from me to take pleasure in the misfortune of our neighbours, but the Bennets are disgraced! Lydia has done what I always said she would, and run away with one of the officers. You probably remember him, he was here before you married: a handsome fellow by the name of George Wickham. He was very charming to be sure, but there was something about him that was not quite right. I thought so at the time. ‘Depend upon it,’ I said to your father, ‘that man will come to a bad end.’ And now I am proved right, for not only has he run off with Lydia, he has left a mountain of debts behind. Mrs Bennet keeps to her room and will have no one but Hill to look after her, for fear the other servants will gossip, but it is impossible to keep such a thing quiet. I had it from the butcher’s boy, who had it from the Bennets’ maid. Mrs Bennet is in hysterics and even Mr Bennet is shaken out of his customary complacency.
I am sorry for them, of course, but they are sadly to blame. If they had looked after Lydia better, and not indulged her so much, it would have been a different tale. But Mrs Bennet would bring Lydia out when she was only fifteen, instead of waiting until she was sixteen as is customary, and then encouraged her in her wild ways. I am sure I would have been mortified if one of my daughters had flirted with all the officers in such a way, laughing and joking and getting up to who knows what kind of mischief. And then to let her go to Brighton, unguarded, with no one but Colonel and Mrs Forster to take care of her…it is no wonder she came by such an unhappy fate. If the Bennets had looked after her properly, as Sir William and I looked after you, she could have one day married a good and decent man like Mr Collins.
Ah, Mr Collins! You have done well, Charlotte, very well, with your marriage. Such a fine parsonage! And such a patroness! And the chimney piece at Rosings costing eight hundred pounds!
I am to visit Mrs Bennet again this afternoon, and I mean to take her some jam. I am sure there is nothing like it for making the world seem a brighter place and she will need it, poor woman, to comfort her in her family’s disgrace.
Your affectionate
Mother
Mrs Charlotte Collins to Miss Susan Sotherton
Hunsford, near Westerham, Kent,
August 11
Susan, have you not heard? There is great trouble in the Bennet household. Mama has written to me about it three times already. Elizabeth is once more at Longbourn, and Lydia has run away with George Wickham. It is the talk of the neighbourhood.
Mrs Bennet went off into hysterics and of course it was then impossible to keep it from the servants and it was all round Meryton in the hour. Mama went round to the Bennets’ at once, to condole with Mrs Bennet and to offer her services. She wrote to me of it as soon as she returned to Lucas Lodge. Poor Elizabeth and Jane! They have to bear the burden of it, for Kitty is no help and Mary is more interested in sermonizing than making herself useful. This will be a sore trial for our friends. It seems that Mr Wickham is not the man everyone thought him, for he has not paid his debts and it transpires that this is not his first attempt at seduction.
He was very attentive to Mary King when she inherited a fortune and he was also very attentive to Elizabeth at one time. Thank God she resisted him!
The latest news is that Mr Bennet has gone to London to try and find Lydia. I hope for everyone’s sake that she is soon discovered. But I must go, I hear Mr Collins’s step in the corridor. Alas! he was in the room when I read the first letter from Mama, and as I could not help exclaiming when I read of Lydia’s elopement, it was impossible for me to keep it from him. I fear he means to write to the Bennets, despite my best efforts to discourage him.
Your dear friend,
Charlotte
Miss Mary Bennet to Miss Lucy Sotherton
Longbourn, Hertfordshire,
August 11
Most noble Friend,
Let us rejoice that we have followed the path of womanly virtue and that we have not strayed into the wilderness of infamy that is the present abode of my sister Lydia, for she has run away with George Wickham. Let us give thanks that our studies have prepared us for the wickedness of men, so that we are warned against them, and that their blandishments have not succeeded in luring us from the tranquillity of our families to a certain doom.
My sister Elizabeth has returned home, summoned by Jane, and she is much chastened, for she sees now the sense of my studies, which she was inclined to deride. She sits with my mother and attempts to console her, but Mama is beyond consolation.
My father has gone to London to look for Lydia, and to make Wickham marry her, but I fear his efforts will be in vain. Mama expects Lydia to be found and talks often of Lydia’s marriage, but Lydia is not the sort of young lady that men marry. She is the sort of young lady that men run off with and then abandon to a life of poverty and vice.
I have memorised some of my extracts and I comforted my sisters by telling them that although it was a most unfortunate affair, and one which would be much talked of, we must stem the tide of malice and pour into the wounded bosoms of each other the balm of sisterly consolation.
Elizabeth was humbled into silence by my wise words, and, seeing how affected she was, I added that, unhappy as the event must be for Lydia, we could draw from it a useful lesson: that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable; that one false step involves her in endless ruin; that her reputat
ion is no less brittle than it is beautiful; and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex.
Elizabeth was speechless with admiration.
Mr Shackleton, too, who had learnt of the matter from my aunt, thought the sentiments very well expressed.
I have given him leave to copy them into his book of extracts.
Your sister in virtue,
Mary
Mr Gardiner to Mrs Gardiner
Gracechurch Street, London,
August 11
My dear wife,
You will be anxious to hear what little news I have, though I wish it could be more, and more to the point. However, I have found Mr Bennet and persuaded him to come to Gracechurch Street, so that we are both here now at home. He has already been to Epsom and Clapham to try and discover something from the hackney carriage drivers, though without gaining any satisfactory information, and he is now determined to enquire at all the principal hotels in town in case the young couple spent the night at one of them before procuring lodgings. I do not expect any success from this measure, but as he is eager to be doing something, I mean to assist him in pursuing it. I have tried to persuade him to leave London when it is done, but he will not hear of it. I wish he would return to Longbourn. There is nothing he can do here that I cannot do, and his agitation makes him ill suited to doing what little can be done. However, if he will not leave then he will not leave and I must hope for better things tomorrow. I will write again very soon and let you know how we go on.
Your loving husband,
EG
P.S. I have written to Colonel Forster to desire him to find out, if possible, from some of the young man’s intimates in the regiment, whether Wickham has any relations or connections who would be likely to know in what part of the town he has now concealed himself. If there were anyone that one could apply to, with a probability of gaining such a clue as that, it might be of essential consequence. At present we have nothing to guide us. Colonel Forster will, I dare say, do everything in his power to satisfy us on this head. But, on second thought, perhaps Lizzy could tell us what relations he has now living, better than any other person.
Mr Collins to Mr Bennet
Hunsford, near Westerham, Kent,
August 12
My dear Sir,
I feel myself called upon, by our relationship, and my situation in life, to condole with you on the grievous affliction you are now suffering under, of which we were yesterday informed by a letter from Hertfordshire. Be assured, my dear sir, that Mrs Collins and myself sincerely sympathise with you, and all your respectable family, in your present distress, which must be of the bitterest kind, because proceeding from a cause which no time can remove. No arguments shall be wanting on my part that can alleviate so severe a misfortune—or that may comfort you, under a circumstance that must be of all others most afflicting to a parent’s mind. The death of your daughter would have been a blessing in comparison of this. And it is the more to be lamented, because there is reason to suppose, as my dear Charlotte informs me, that this licentiousness of behaviour in your daughter has proceeded from a faulty degree of indulgence; though, at the same time, for the consolation of yourself and Mrs Bennet, I am inclined to think that her own disposition must be naturally bad, or she could not be guilty of such an enormity, at so early an age. Howsoever that may be, you are grievously to be pitied; in which opinion I am not only joined by Mrs Collins, but likewise by Lady Catherine and her daughter, to whom I have related the affair. They agree with me in apprehending that this false step in one daughter will be injurious to the fortunes of all the others, for who, as Lady Catherine herself condescendingly says, will connect themselves with such a family? And this consideration leads me moreover to reflect with augmented satisfaction on a certain event of last November, for had it been otherwise, I must have been involved in all your sorrow and disgrace. Let me advise you then, my dear sir, to console yourself as much as possible, to throw off your unworthy child from your affection forever, and leave her to reap the fruits of her own heinous offence.
I am, dear sir, your faithful servant,
William Collins
Miss Lucy Sotherton to Miss Mary Bennet
Bath, August 12
Hail!
I am saddened, nay grieved, to learn of the fate of your sister, but—may I say it?—not surprised. Many are the times I tried to tempt her back to the path of Athena by my sagacious reasoning and learned erudition, but she only laughed at me and said that she preferred men in pantaloons to women in pulpits. And now we see the end of the path of perdition, where your sister lies prostrate with grief, weeping over her lost virtue; or, worse yet, laughing in the face of virtue and drinking cheap spirits from the bottom of life’s grimiest bottle.
If news reaches you of Lydia’s ultimate fate, you will find a sympathetic listener in me, no matter how shocking that news might be; for too well do I know that you do not share in her immorality and that you have renounced the fleshpots for the pure world of wisdom where you and I, dearest friend, will reside for eternity.
Your faithful friend,
Lucy
Miss Mary Bennet to Miss Lucy Sotherton
Longbourn, Hertfordshire,
August 13
Most noble Friend,
Thank you for the noble sentiments expressed in your reply to my last and for your belief in my own unsullied virtue. I am continuing to write in my book of extracts, and my family now see the wisdom of it, indeed they are dumbstruck every time I open my book. If only they had paid more attention to their own education, they, too, could have had a ready store of solace close to hand.
The only one of my family to have emerged from this disaster in a favourable light is Mr Collins. He has written to my father and, Jane being instructed to open and read any letter that arrived in my father’s absence, I have had the pleasure of discovering its contents. It was a very sensible letter in which he has advised my father to throw off his unworthy child from his affection forever, and leave her to reap the fruits of her own heinous offence. His sentiments were so ably expressed that I have borrowed his letter and I have copied it into my book of extracts.
Your fellow sister along the path of wisdom and virtue,
Mary
Miss Lucy Sotherton to Miss Mary Bennet
Bath, August 14
Hail!
I am glad that you are continuing with your studies at this grievous time, but I must warn you that I detected in your letter a lingering admiration for your enticing cousin, Mr Collins. Let your sister’s fate serve as a warning. Mr Collins is not for you. He has given his hand elsewhere, and no matter how learned his discourse or how just his sentiments as he expresses his proper opprobrium of your sister’s fall, you must not sink into the pit of depravity by coveting your neighbour’s ox nor ass; not even when that ass is as alluring as Mr Collins.
With any other correspondent I would have to explain myself, dearest friend, but you will understand at once that I am alluding to the scriptures and that I am not likening your revered cousin to a farmyard animal; for his voice is the honeyed voice of reason and not the braying of a donkey. But no matter how soft his voice or how perspicacious his reasoning, he belongs to Mrs Collins, your erstwhile, if not wholly deserving, neighbour.
Take comfort, dear friend, in the history I am sending you, of an orphan lost in the forest. Arm yourself with her fortitude, and give thanks that your tragedies are not those of one whom the fates have abandoned, for you still have your parents, woeful though they may be, and a dear friend who will call your feet back to the straight and narrow whenever they are tempted to stray.
Your sister beneath the skin,
Lucy
Mr Gardiner to Mrs Gardiner
Gracechurch Street, London,
August 15
My dear wife,
I am sorry for the long gap between this letter and my last but I did not want to write again till I had received a
n answer from Colonel Forster; I only wish I had something of a more pleasant nature to send. Colonel Forster has made extensive enquiries but as far as he can discover, Wickham does not have a single relation with whom he kept up any connection, and it was certain that he has no near one living. His former acquaintances have been numerous; but since he has been in the militia, it does not appear that he was on terms of particular friendship with any of them. There was no one, therefore, who could be pointed out as likely to give any news of him. And in the wretched state of his own finances, there was a very powerful motive for secrecy, in addition to his fear of discovery by Lydia’s relations, for it has just transpired that he had left gaming debts behind him to a very considerable amount. Colonel Forster believes that more than a thousand pounds would be necessary to clear his expenses at Brighton. He owes a good deal in the town, but his debts of honour are still more formidable.
The only good news that I have to send is that I have persuaded Mr Bennet to return to Longbourn. He has been rendered spiritless by the ill-success of his endeavours and he has at last yielded to my entreaties, for which I am very grateful. He will be more use to his family in Meryton than he is here. I will continue the search and do everything in my power to discover the young couple.
I hope you will then feel free to return to Gracechurch Street. I believe that Jane and Elizabeth are over the worst of the shock, and once their father is home, they will have someone to support them through this time of trial.
Your loving husband,
EG
Mr Darcy to Colonel Fitzwilliam
Darcy House, London, August 17
My dear Henry,
Thank God you knew Mrs Younge’s address, for it is only that which allowed me to discover Wickham. I tried to persuade Miss Lydia to leave him, promising to escort her back to her family, but she refused my help and expressed her intention of staying with him. It was evident that she believed him when he said he would marry her, and she thought an elopement to Gretna Green was imminent, just as soon as he had raised the money for the carriage fare. Nothing I could say would change her mind and at last I could do nothing more for her than make him agree to marry her; although, I say ‘for her’ when in fact I did it all for Elizabeth. It was Elizabeth I thought of as I engaged with Wickham, and the thought of her suffering which forced me to continue long after I would have left him otherwise.