To Make Sport for our Neighbours

by Ronald McGowan

  The rapture of Lydia on this occasion, her adoration of Mrs. Forster, the delight of Mrs. Bennet, and the mortification of Kitty, are scarcely to be described. Wholly inattentive to her sister's feelings, Lydia flew about the house in restless ecstasy, calling for every one's congratulations, and laughing and talking with more violence than ever; whilst the luckless Kitty continued in the parlour repining at her fate in terms as unreasonable as her accent was peevish.

  "I cannot see why Mrs. Forster should not ask me as well as Lydia," said she, "though I am not her particular friend. I have just as much right to be asked as she has, and more too, for I am two years older."

  In vain did Elizabeth attempt to make her reasonable, and Jane to make her resigned.

  This unlucky invitation made it almost impossible for me to maintain my objections and still keep my character as a loving, indulgent father. And, to tell the truth, the weeks of constant lamentation had made me long for some means of ending it forthwith. Had I known what would come of it, I should have hardened my heart, and borne all accusations of the blackest villainy and duplicity rather than agree to the proposal. But we are all possessed of divine wisdom after the event, are we not?

  When Elizabeth came to me advising me not to let her sister go, I should have seized upon the excuse this gave me. She represented to me all the improprieties of Lydia's general behaviour, the little advantage she could derive from the friendship of such a woman as Mrs. Forster, and the probability of her being yet more imprudent with such a companion at Brighton, where the temptations must be greater than at home.

  But my vanity would not let me give in to her entreaties.

  I heard her attentively, and then said,

  "Lydia will never be easy till she has exposed herself in some public place or other, and we can never expect her to do it with so little expense or inconvenience to her family as under the present circumstances."

  "If you were aware," said Elizabeth, "of the very great disadvantage to us all, which must arise from the public notice of Lydia's unguarded and imprudent manner; nay, which has already arisen from it, I am sure you would judge differently in the affair."

  "Already arisen!" I repeated "What, has she frightened away some of your lovers? Poor little Lizzy! But do not be cast down. Such squeamish youths as cannot bear to be connected with a little absurdity, are not worth a regret. Come, let me see the list of the pitiful fellows who have been kept aloof by Lydia's folly."

  "Indeed you are mistaken. I have no such injuries to resent. It is not of peculiar, but of general evils, which I am now complaining. Our importance, our respectability in the world, must be affected by the wild volatility, the assurance and disdain of all restraint which mark Lydia's character. Excuse me, for I must speak plainly, if you, my dear father, will not take the trouble of checking her exuberant spirits, and of teaching her that her present pursuits are not to be the business of her life, she will soon be beyond the reach of amendment. Her character will be fixed, and she will, at sixteen, be the most determined flirt that ever made herself and her family ridiculous. A flirt too, in the worst and meanest degree of flirtation; without any attraction beyond youth and a tolerable person; and from the ignorance and emptiness of her mind, wholly unable to ward off any portion of that universal contempt which her rage for admiration will excite. In this danger Kitty is also comprehended. She will follow wherever Lydia leads. Vain, ignorant, idle, and absolutely uncontrolled! Oh! my dear father, can you 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?"

  An impassioned speech, indeed! But I 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 any body. 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."

  I could tell that she did not agree with me, but I knew that she would not openly oppose me on that account, and I could think of no other way to stem Lydia’s perpetual effusions on the subject.

  I was, I admit it, too weak. I thought of nothing but of the easiest way of obtaining domestic peace. I excused myself with the thought that to reveal Elizabeth’s part in any refusal would be to put her in an impossible position with her sister. What would Lydia have thought, what would she have done? Had she known that her sister sought to tear her from such prospects as she had in view, 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, and she told me so ten times before breakfast every morning.

  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.

  The Forsters and a choice few of the other officers came to us for dinner that day. I had to do the decent with the colonel, and could not be following my daughters all about, but I could not help noticing that Elizabeth spent a good while in conversation with young Wickham.

  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.

  Chapter Twenty Six Arrivals and Departures

  The house was certainly much quieter without Lydia, although Kitty did her best to make up for her sister’s absence by moping and bewailing her lot at every opportunity.

  But I fear she does not have Lydia’s talent for that sort of thing, and all her efforts went unrewarded, and almost unnoticed.

  When Lydia went away, she promised to write very often and very minutely to her mother and Kitty; but her letters were always long expected, and always very short. Those to her mother, contained little else, than that they were just returned from the library, where such and such officers had attended them, and where she had seen such beautiful ornaments as made her quite wild; that she had a new gown, or a new parasol, which she would have described more fully, but was obliged to leave off in a violent hurry, as Mrs. Forster called her, and they were going to the camp, and from her correspondence with her sister, there was still less to be learnt, for her letters to Kitty, though rather longer, were much too full of lines under the words to be made public.

  After the first fortnight or three weeks of her absence, however, health, good humour and cheerfulness began to re-appear at Longbourn. Everything wore a happier aspect. The families who had been in town for the winter came back again, and summer finery and summer engagements arose. Mrs. Bennet was restored to her usual querulous serenity, and by the middle of June Kitty was so much recovered as to be able to enter Meryton without tears; an event of such happy promise as to make us hope, that by the following Christmas, she might be so tolerably reasonable as not to mention an officer above once a day, unless by some cruel and malic
ious arrangement at the war-office, another regiment should be quartered in Meryton.

  The time fixed for the beginning of Elizabeth’s Northern tour with the Gardiners was now fast approaching; and a fortnight only was wanting of it, when a letter arrived from Mrs. Gardiner, which at once delayed its commencement and curtailed its extent. Mr. Gardiner would be prevented by business from setting out till a fortnight later in July, and must be in London again within a month; and as that left too short a period for them to go so far, and see so much as they had proposed, or at least to see it with the leisure and comfort they had built on, they were obliged to give up the Lakes, and substitute a more contracted tour; and, according to the present plan, were to go no farther northward than Derbyshire. In that county, there was enough to be seen, to occupy the chief of their three weeks; and to Mrs. Gardiner it had a peculiarly strong attraction. The town where she had formerly passed some years of her life, and where they were now to spend a few days, was probably as great an object of her curiosity, as all the celebrated beauties of Matlock, Chatsworth, Dovedale, or the Peak.

  Elizabeth was excessively disappointed, so much so as to admit that she had set her heart on seeing the Lakes; and still thought there might have been time enough. But it was her business to be satisfied—and certainly it has always been her temper to be happy; and all was soon right again.

  The period of expectation was now doubled. Four weeks were to pass away before her uncle and aunt's arrival. But they did pass away, and Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, with their four children, did at length appear at Longbourn.

  The Gardiners stayed only one night at Longbourn, and set off the next morning with Elizabeth in pursuit of novelty and amusement.

  The house that they left was once more strangely bereft.

  Chapter Twenty-seven News from Brighton

  While one sister was enjoying the beauties of Derbyshire and another the delights of Brighton, we made shift at Longbourn to amuse ourselves somehow.

  The Gardiner children, two girls of six and eight years old, and two younger boys, were to be left under the particular care of their cousin Jane, who was their general favourite, and whose steady sense and sweetness of temper exactly adapted her for attending to them in every way—teaching them, playing with them, and loving them. This was all very well, but it left her very little time to console her poor father.

  Apart from that, for Mary and myself their absence made no great alteration. Mary had her books to console herself with, as had I, and I was also sustained by the occasional presence of Jane to provide intelligent conversation.

  Mrs. Bennet and Kitty, however, encouraged each other in their distress and mortification at being deprived of such indulgences. Such lamentations on the absence of a beloved sister, such encomia in praise of sea air, so many choruses about the unwisdom of being deprived of it for too long - all these were nicely calculated to move a heart of stone, but mine was of sterner stuff and resisted all blandishments.

  Seeing that the attractions of Brighton could never prevail, they then chose to bring its dangers to my attention.”

  “But just think, Mr. Bennet,” said my wife one morning after her usual observations about ozone and salt water, “ it is, after all, a military camp to which you have consigned your daughter. Why, anything could happen. How should you like it if the regiment were ordered elsewhere at a moment’s notice? How would poor Lydia fare then, without her family to look after her? Why they might be sent anywhere, and with no-one to rely upon but Colonel Foster she might find herself carried off with them, to who knows where! They might be sent off to fight, who knows? They might be sent to Spain!”

  “Ah, Spain!” I replied, “How horrible it is to have so many people killed there! And what a blessing that one cares for none of them!"

  “Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Bennet, that you would not care if your own daughter were sent to Spain and killed? I never thought to hear such words from you, Sir.”

  “Of course I should care if my daughter were sent to Spain and killed there. But as she has not been sent to Spain, and will not be sent to Spain, I must decline to consider the consequences of such an event.”

  Had I but known the consequences I should have to consider, I might well have settled for Spain.

  One fateful night brought a change in all our fortunes.

  An express came, just as we were all gone to bed, from Colonel Forster, to inform us that Lydia was gone off to Scotland with one of his officers; to own the truth, with Wickham! Imagine our surprise.

  To Kitty, however, it did not seem so wholly unexpected, although I was able to extract nothing from her that threw any real light upon the situation except an opinion that Mr. Wickham was a general favourite.

  Mrs. Bennet was in paroxysms of indecision, one moment rejoicing at the prospect of marrying one of her daughters, and the next lamenting her sad fate.

  Jane gave it as her opinion that, though it might be so imprudent a match on both sides, she was willing to hope the best, and that his character has been misunderstood. Thoughtless and indiscreet she could easily believe him, but this step marked nothing bad at heart. His choice must be disinterested at least, for he must know her father can give her nothing. Darling Jane, ever ready to see nothing but the good in people!

  But her good wishes were presently to be dashed, for the following day saw the arrival of Colonel Forster, who soon gave us to believe that, imprudent as a marriage between Mr. Wickham and our poor Lydia would be, we should now be anxious to be assured it had taken place, for there was but too much reason to fear they were not gone to Scotland.

  He had left Brighton the day before, not many hours after the express. Though Lydia's short letter to Mrs. Forster gave them to understand that they were going to Gretna Green, something was dropped by Denny expressing his belief that Wickham never intended to go there, or to marry Lydia at all, which was repeated to Colonel Forster, who instantly taking the alarm, set off from Brighton intending to trace their route. He did trace them easily to Clapham, but no farther; for on entering that place they removed into a hackney-coach and dismissed the chaise that brought them from Epsom. All that was known after this was, that they were seen to continue the London road.

  After making every possible enquiry on that side London, Colonel Forster came on into Hertfordshire, anxiously renewing those enquiries at all the turnpikes, and at the inns in Barnet and Hatfield, but without any success; no such people had been seen to pass through. With the kindest concern he came on to Longbourn, and broke his apprehensions to us in a manner most creditable to his heart.

  He appeared sincerely grieved and, of course, no-one could throw any blame on him and Mrs. Forster.

  Our distress at this news was very great. Mrs. Bennet and I could not help but believe the worst.

  Jane tried to console us, saying that many circumstances might make it more eligible for them to be married privately in town than to pursue their first plan; and even if he could form such a design against a young woman of Lydia's connections, which was not likely, could I suppose her so lost to every thing?

  Colonel Forster was not so disposed to depend upon their marriage; he shook his head when Jane expressed her hopes, and said he feared Wickham was not a man to be trusted. He also produced Lydia’s note to his wife.

  “My dear Harriet,

  "You will laugh when you know where I am gone, and I cannot help laughing myself at your surprise to-morrow morning, as soon as I am missed. I am going to Gretna Green, and if you cannot guess with who, I shall think you a simpleton, for there is but one man in the world I love, and he is an angel. I should never be happy without him, so think it no harm to be off. You need not send them word at Longbourn of my going, if you do not like it, for it will make the surprise the greater, when I write to them, and sign my name Lydia Wickham. What a good joke it will be! I can hardly write for laughing. Pray make my excuses to Pratt, for not keeping my engagement, and dancing with him to-night. Tell him I hope he will excuse me wh
en he knows all, and tell him I will dance with him at the next ball we meet, with great pleasure. I shall send for my clothes when I get to Longbourn; but I wish you would tell Sally to mend a great slit in my worked muslin gown, before they are packed up. Good bye. Give my love to Colonel Forster, I hope you will drink to our good journey.

  "Your affectionate friend,

  "Lydia Bennet.”

  The perusal of this missive did nothing to calm my fears, showing, as it did, how determinedly thoughtless and selfish my youngest daughter continued, even in these circumstances.

  Mrs. Bennet was in such an agony of conflicting emotions that she could not finish a sentence without contradicting herself at least once.

  “Lydia was a good girl, and would never do anything really wrong.”

  “Lydia was a thoughtless wretch, so to disregard the feelings of her loving mother.”

  “Mr. Wickham was such a pleasant young gentleman.”

  “Mr. Wickham was a black, conniving villain.”

  “All would end well, and we should soon welcome the newly-weds to our bosom.”

  “All would end ill, and we should never see our dear Lydia again.”

  There was only one thing to be done in the face of all these insurmountable difficulties, and so, with great ceremony and formality, my dear wife took to her bed, and comforted herself with the appropriate fit of the vapours.

  Chapter Twenty-eight Chasing Wild Geese.

  There was nothing else to be done. I must follow them myself, and make what efforts I could to track them down. I trusted Jane to write to her sister and the Gardiners, in Derbyshire, and made what preparations I could.

  Mrs. Bennet was as useful as ever in support of my efforts, sitting up in bed and clinging to my arm as I quitted her room for the carriage with this helpful remark –