Gay Pride and Prejudice (43 page)

“Why, if she came only to be polite and indifferent,” thought Elizabeth, “did she come at all?”

She could settle it in no way that gave her pleasure.

“She could be still amiable, still pleasing, to my uncle and aunt, and now to my sister; and why not to me? If she fears me, why come hither? If she no longer cares for me, why ignore me? Teasing, teasing, woman! I will think no more about her.”

Her resolution was for a short time involuntarily kept by the approach of her sister, who joined her with a cheerful look, which showed her better satisfied with their visitors, than Elizabeth.

“Now,” said she, “that this first meeting is over, I feel perfectly easy. I know my own strength, and I shall never be embarrassed again by his coming. I am glad he dines here on Tuesday. It will then be publicly seen that, on both sides, we meet only as common and indifferent acquaintances.”

“Yes, very indifferent indeed,” said Elizabeth, laughingly. “Oh, Jane, take care.”

“My dear Lizzy, you cannot think me so weak as to be in danger now?”

“I think you are in very great danger of making him as much in love with you as ever.”

***

They did not see the gentlemen and lady again till Tuesday; and Mrs. Bennet, in the meanwhile, was giving way to all the happy schemes, which the good humour and common politeness of Bingley, in half an hour’s visit, had revived.

On Tuesday there was a large party assembled at Longbourn; and the three who were most anxiously expected were in very good time. When they repaired to the dining-room, Elizabeth watched to see whether Bingley would take the place, which, in all their former parties, had belonged to him, by her sister. Her prudent mother, occupied by the same ideas, forbore to invite him to sit by herself. On entering the room, he seemed to hesitate; but Jane happened to look round, and happened to smile: It was decided. He placed himself by her.

Elizabeth, with a triumphant sensation, looked towards his friends. Caroline and Darcy both bore it with noble indifference, and she would have imagined that Bingley had received their sanction to be happy, had she not seen his eyes likewise turned towards Mr. Darcy in particular, with an expression of half-laughing alarm.

Bingley’s behaviour to Jane was such, during dinner time, as showed an admiration of her, which, though more guarded than formerly, persuaded Elizabeth that, if left wholly to himself, Jane’s happiness—and his own—would be speedily secured. Though she dared not depend upon the consequence, she yet received pleasure from observing his behaviour. It gave her all the animation that her spirits could boast; for she was in no cheerful humour. Miss Bingley and Mr. Darcy were seated together almost as far from her as the table could divide them. Darcy was on one side of her mother. She knew how little such a situation would give pleasure to either, or make either appear to advantage. She was not near enough to hear any of their discourse, but she could see how seldom they spoke to each other, and how formal and cold was their manner whenever they did. Her mother’s ungraciousness made the sense of what they owed him more painful to Elizabeth’s mind; and she would, at times, have given anything to be privileged to tell Darcy and Caroline that their kindness was neither unknown nor unfelt by the whole of the family.

She was in hopes that the evening would afford some opportunity of bringing her and Caroline together; that the whole of the visit would not pass away without enabling them to enter into something more of conversation than the mere ceremonious salutation attending Miss Bingley’s entrance. But the period that passed in the drawing-room before the gentlemen came afforded no such opportunity, as Elizabeth found herself set upon by a group of local ladies who desired to hear of her travels with her aunt and uncle. Caroline, who had seemed about to approach, instead veered toward another cluster that contained Jane and several of the Lucases. Elizabeth found this request for her performance burdensome to a degree that almost made her uncivil, and decided that a clearer opportunity to converse with Caroline would likely arise when the gentlemen joined them, when the other ladies would be distracted. Therefore she looked to their entrance as the point on which all her chance of pleasure for the evening must depend.

“If she does not come to me
then
,” said she, “I shall give her up forever.”

The gentlemen came; and she thought Caroline looked as if she would have answered her hopes; but, alas! The other ladies had crowded round the table where Jane and Elizabeth were pouring out the tea and coffee, in so close a confederacy that there was not a single vacancy near them that would admit of a chair.

Soon the gentlemen approached, hemming in the Bennet sisters even further. One of the girls moved closer to Elizabeth, and said in a whisper: “The men shan’t come and part us, I am determined. We want none of them; do we?”

While this was true enough, however, the clutch caused Caroline to remove to another part of the room. Elizabeth followed her with her eyes, envied everyone to whom she spoke, had scarcely patience enough to help anybody to coffee; and then was enraged against herself for being so silly!

“A woman who has once been refused! How could I ever be foolish enough to expect a renewal of her affection? Is there one among either sex who would not protest against such a weakness?”

She was a little revived, however, by Caroline’s bringing back her coffee cup herself; and she seized the opportunity of saying: “Are you also to stay at Netherfield for some three or four weeks?”

“Not at all,” said Caroline. “Darcy and I are wanted at Pemberley shortly, though we hope to be back down in good time. That is, if my brother is still here.” And she smiled faintly, her eye finding her brother lingering in the space near Jane, patiently awaiting her attentions.

“Ah,” said Elizabeth, feeling her spirits sink at this information. “Is Miss Darcy at Pemberley still?”

“Yes, she will remain there till Christmas.”

“And quite alone?”

“Mrs. Annesley is with her. Monsieur de Laurent is there as well.” She paused, her eyes searching Elizabeth’s face, and seemed as if she would say more. But Sir William Lucas approached just then and engaged them both in conversation about recent occurrences in the neighborhood, including the letting of another estate near Meryton to a Belgian family that had only just quit the continent.

Elizabeth responded as civilly as she could manage, her mind whirling with conjectures of what Caroline might have been about to tell her. But Darcy soon came over and joined the party, and then the two gentlemen and the lady walked away together as Elizabeth gazed after them in disappointment.

When the tea-things were removed, and the card-tables placed, the ladies all rose, and Elizabeth was then hoping to find her way to Caroline’s side to continue their conversation, when all her views were overthrown by seeing her fall a victim to Mrs. Bennet’s rapacity for whist players. Elizabeth now lost every expectation of pleasure. They were confined for the evening at different tables, and she had nothing to hope, but that Caroline’s eyes were so often turned toward her side of the room, as to make the lady play as unsuccessfully as herself.

Mrs. Bennet had designed to keep the Netherfield party to supper; but their carriage was unluckily ordered before any of the others, and she had no opportunity of detaining them. When Caroline said goodnight, her gaze fixed briefly and troublingly on Elizabeth’s face before she accompanied her friends from the house. Elizabeth only half paid attention to the rest of their guests, her spirits sunk lower than they had been in recent memory.

“Well, girls,” said Mrs. Bennet, as soon as they were left to themselves, “what say you to the day? I think everything has passed off uncommonly well, I assure you. The dinner was as well dressed as any I ever saw. The venison was roasted to a turn—and everybody said they never saw so fat a haunch. The soup was fifty times better than what we had at the Lucases’ last week; and even Mr. Darcy acknowledged, that the partridges were remarkably well done; and I suppose he has two or three French cooks at least. And, my dear Jane, I never saw you look in greater beauty. Mrs. Long said so too, for I asked her whether you did not. And what do you think she said besides? ‘Ah! Mrs. Bennet, we shall have her at Netherfield at last.’ She did indeed. I do think Mrs. Long is as good a creature as ever lived—and her nieces are very pretty behaved girls, and not at all handsome: I like them prodigiously.”

Mrs. Bennet, in short, was in very great spirits; she had seen enough of Bingley’s behaviour to Jane, to be convinced that she would get him at last; and her expectations of advantage to her family, when in a happy humour, were so far beyond reason, that she was quite disappointed at not seeing him there again the next day, to make his proposals.

“It has been a very agreeable day,” said Jane to Elizabeth. “The party seemed so well selected, so suitable one with the other. I hope we may often meet again.”

Elizabeth smiled.

“Lizzy, you must not do that. You must not suspect me. It mortifies me. I assure you that I have now learnt to enjoy his conversation as an agreeable and sensible young man, without having a wish beyond it. I am perfectly satisfied, from what his manners now are, that he never had any design of engaging my affection. It is only that he is blessed with greater sweetness of address, and a stronger desire of generally pleasing, than any other man.”

“You are very cruel,” said her sister; “you will not let me smile, yet are provoking me to it every moment.”

“How hard it is in some cases to be believed!”

“And how impossible in others!”

“But why should you wish to persuade me that I feel more than I acknowledge?”

“That is a question which I hardly know how to answer. We all love to instruct, though we can teach only what is not worth knowing. Forgive me; and if you persist in indifference, do not make me your confidante."

Chapter Fifty-Five

A
FEW DAYS AFTER THIS VISIT,
Mr. Bingley called again, alone. His friends had left him that morning, but were to return in ten days time. He sat with them above an hour, and was in remarkably good spirits. Mrs. Bennet invited him to dine with them; but, with many expressions of concern, he confessed himself engaged elsewhere.

“Next time you call,” said she, “I hope we shall be more lucky.”

He should be particularly happy at any time, etc. etc.; and if she would give him leave, would take an early opportunity of waiting on them.

“Can you come tomorrow?”

Yes, he had no engagement at all for tomorrow; and her invitation was accepted with alacrity.

He came, and in such very good time that the ladies were none of them dressed. In ran Mrs. Bennet to her daughter’s room, in her dressing gown, and with her hair half-finished, crying out: “My dear Jane, make haste and hurry down. He is come—Mr. Bingley is come. He is, indeed. Make haste, make haste. Here, Sarah, come to Miss Bennet this moment, and help her on with her gown. Never mind Miss Lizzy’s hair.”

“We will be down as soon as we can,” said Jane; “but I dare say Kitty is forwarder than either of us, for she went upstairs half an hour ago.”

“Oh, hang Kitty! What has she to do with it? Come be quick, be quick! Where is your sash, my dear?”

But when her mother was gone, Jane would not be prevailed on to go down without one of her sisters.

The same anxiety to get them by themselves was visible again in the evening. After tea, Mr. Bennet retired to the library, as was his custom, and Mary went up stairs to her instrument. Two obstacles of the five being thus removed, Mrs. Bennet sat looking and winking at Elizabeth and Catherine for a considerable time, without making any impression on them. Elizabeth would not observe her; and when at last Kitty did, she very innocently said, “What is the matter, Mamma? What do you keep winking at me for? What am I to do?”

“Nothing child, nothing. I did not wink at you.” She then sat still five minutes longer; but unable to waste such a precious occasion, she suddenly got up, and saying to Kitty, “Come here, my love, I want to speak to you,” took her out of the room. Jane instantly gave a look at Elizabeth which spoke her distress at such premeditation, and her entreaty that she would not give in to it. In a few minutes, Mrs. Bennet half-opened the door and called out: “Lizzy, my dear, I want to speak with you.”

Elizabeth was forced to go.

“We may as well leave them by themselves, you know,” said her mother, as soon as she was in the hall. “Kitty and I are going upstairs to sit in my dressing-room.”

Elizabeth made no attempt to reason with her mother, but remained quietly in the hall, till she and Kitty were out of sight, then returned into the drawing-room.

Mrs. Bennet’s schemes for this day were ineffectual. Bingley was everything that was charming, except the professed lover of her daughter. His ease and cheerfulness rendered him a most agreeable addition to their evening party; and he bore with the ill-judged officiousness of the mother, and heard all her silly remarks with a forbearance and command of countenance particularly grateful to the daughter. Elizabeth found herself meditating on how his features resembled those of his sister, and contented herself with gazing upon his countenance rather more than was typical of a disinterested observer. But he seemed not to notice anyone but Jane, and so Elizabeth could continue her secret vigil at will.

He scarcely needed an invitation to stay for supper; and before he went away, an engagement was formed, chiefly through his own and Mrs. Bennet’s means, for his coming in a few days to shoot with her husband. He had business in London on the morrow, he told them, but would be back the following evening at the latest, and would be happy to join Mr. Bennet the morning after his return.

After this day, Jane said no more of her indifference. Not a word passed between the sisters concerning Bingley; but Elizabeth went to bed in the happy belief that all must speedily be concluded, unless Mr. Darcy and Miss Bingley returned within the stated time. Seriously, however, she felt tolerably persuaded that all this must have taken place with that gentleman and lady’s concurrence.