PRIDE & PREJUDICE: JANE AUSTEN: CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

With no greater events in the Longbourn family, January and February passed away.  March was to take Elizabeth to Hunsford.  She had not at first thought seriously of going there.  But Charlotte was depending on the plan, and she gradually considered it herself with greater pleasure and great certainty.  Absence had increased her desire for seeing Charlotte again, and weakened her disgust of Mr Collins.  There was novelty in the scheme, and a little change was not unwelcome for its own sake.  The journey would moreover give a peep at Jane, and as the time drew nearer she was thrilled.  Everything was settled according to Charlotte's plan.  She was to accompany sir William and his second daughter. The improvement of spending a night in London was added, and the plan became perfect as plan could be.
The only pain was, leaving her father, who little liked her going.

The farewell between herself and Mr Wickham was rather friendly.  Elizabeth had been the first to excite and deserve his attention. And she parted from him convinced that, whether married or single, he must always be her model of the amiable and and pleasing.

Her fellow travellers were Sir William Lucas and his daughter Maria. She was a good humoured girl, but was as empty headed as her father, and had nothing to say worth hearing, and were litsened to with as much delight as the rattle of a chaise.

It was a journey of only twenty four 
miles and they began it so early as to be in Gracechurch Street by noon.  They drove to Gardiner's door.  Jane was at the drawing room window, watching their arrival.  As they entered the passage Jane was there to welcome them.  Elizabeth, looking earnestly in her face was pleased to see it healthy and lovely as ever.  On the stairs were a troop of little boys and girls looking at her shyly.  All was joy and kindness.  The day passed pleasantly away; the morning in bustle and shopping, and the evening at one of the theatres.

Elizabeth then contrived to sit by her aunt.  The first object was Jane. She was more grieved than astonished to hear that though Jane struggled to support her spirits there were periods of dejection.  Mrs Gardiner gave her the particulars of Miss Bingley's visit in Gracechurch Street, and repeated conversations occuring at different times between Jane and herself, which proved that the former had, from her heart, given up the acquittance.

Mrs Gardiner then rallied her niece on Wickham's desertion, complimented her on bearing it so well.

"But my dear Elizabeth," she added, "what sort of girl is Miss King? I should be sorry to think our friend mercenary."

"Pray, my dear aunt, what is the difference in matrimonial affairs, between the mercenary and the prudent motive? Where does discretion end and avarice begin?  Last Christmas you were afraid of his marrying me, because it would be imprudent; and now, he is trying to get a girl with only ten thousand pounds, you want to find out that he is mercenary."

"If you will only tell me what sort of girl Miss King is, I shall know what to think."

"She is a very good kind of girl, I believe.  I know no harm of her."

"But he paid her not the smallest attention, till her grandfather's death made her a mistress of fortune."

"No - what should he?  If it were not allowable for him to gain my affections because I had no money, what occasion could there be for making love to a girl whom he did not care about, and who was equally poor?"

"But there seems an indelicacy in directing his attentions towards her soon after this event."

"A man in distress has no time for all those elegant decorums which other people may observe. If she does not object to it, why should we?"

"Her not objecting does not justify him. It only shows her being deficient in something herself - sense or feeling."

"Well, cried Elizabeth, "have it as you choose.  He shall be a mercenary and she shall be a fool."

"No, Lizzy, that is what I do not choose.  I should be sorry, you know, to think of ill of a young man, who has lived so long in Derbyshire."

"Oh! if that is all, I have a very poor opinion of young men who lived in Derbyshire; and their intimate friends who live in Hertfordshire are not much better.  I am sick of them all.  Thank Heaven! I am going tomorrow where I shall find out a man who has not one agreeable quality, who has neither manner nor sense to recommend him.  Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing."

"Take care, Lizzy, that speech savours strongly of disappointment."

Before they were seperated by the conclusion of the play, she had the unexpected happiness of an invitation to accompany her uncle and aunt in a tour of pleasure which they proposed taking in summer.

"We have not determined how far it shall carry us," said Mrs Gardiner, but, perhaps, to the Lakes."

Elizabeth readily accepted the invitation.  She was in ecstasy, imagining the course of the journey.  "What delight!  You give me fresh life and vigour," said she.

THE END 




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