PRIDE & PREJUDICE: JANE AUSTEN: CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

Second week of May.  The three young ladies set out from Churchgate street for the town.  As they drew near the inn where Mr Bennet's carriage was to meet them, they saw Kitty and Lydia looking out of dining-room upstairs.  The two girls have been in the place above two hours visiting an opposite milliner, watching the sentinel on guard, and dressing a salad and cucumber. 

They welcomed their sisters, displayed a table set out with cold meet, which a inn larder usually affords, exclaiming, "Is not this nice? Is not this agreeable surprise?"

"And we mean to treat you all," added Lydia, "but you must lend us money, for we have just spent ours at the shop out there." Then showing her purchases, "Look here, I have bought this bonnet.  I do not think it is very pretty; but I thought I might as well put it.  I shall put it to pieces as soon as I get home, and see if I can make it up any better."

When her sisters abused it as ugly, she added with perfect unconcerned, "Oh! There were two or three much uglier in the shop, but when I bought some prettier coloured stain to trim it with fresh, I think it will be very tolerable.  Besides, it will not much signify what one wears in the summer, after the shire left Meryton, and they are going in a fortnight."

"Are they indeed!" cried Elizabeth, with great satisfaction.

"They are going to be encamped near Brighton, and I do so want papa to take us all there for the summer!  It would be such a delicious scheme; and I dare say would hardly cost anything at all.  Mamma would like to go too of all things!  Only think what a miserable summer else we shall have!" said Lydia.

"Yes," thought Elizabeth, "that would be a delightful scheme indeed, and completely do for us at once.  Good Heaven!  Brighton and a whole campful of soldiers, to us, who have been overset already by one poor regiment of militia, and the monthly balls of Meryton!"

"Now I have got some news for you," said Lydia, as they sat down at table.

"What do you think?  It is excellent news - capital news- and about a certain person we all like!"

Jane and Elizabeth looked at each other, and the waiter was told he need not say.  Lydia laughed, and said:

"Aye, that is just like your formality and discretion.  You thought the waiter must not hear, as if he cared!  I dare say he often cares worse things said than I am going to say.  Bu he is an ugly fellow!  I am glad he is gone.  I never saw such a long chin in my life.  Well, now for my news; it is about dear Wickham; too good for the waiter, is it not? There is no danger of Wickham's marrying Mary King.  There's for you!  She is gone down to her uncle at Liverpool: gone to stay, Wickham is safe."

"And Mary King is safe," added Elizabeth, "safe from a connection imprudent as to fortune."

"She is a great fool for going away, if she liked him."

"But I hope there is no strong attachment on either side," said Jane.

"I am sure there is not on his.  I will answer for it, he never cared three straws about her - who could about such a nasty little freckled thing?"

Elizabeth was shocked to think that.

As soon as all had ate, the elder ones paid, the carriage was ordered; and the whole party with their boxes, work-bags and parcels, and Kitty's and Lydia's purchases, were seated in it.

"How nicely we are all crammed in," cried Lydia.  "I am glad I bought the bonnet, if it is only for the fun of having another handbox!  Well, now let us be quite comfortable and snug, and talk and laugh all the way home.  Let us hear what has happened to you all since you went away.  Have you seen any pleasant men?  Have you had any flirting? I was in great hope that one of you would have got a husband before you came back.  Jane will be quite an old maid soon.  She is almost three and twenty!  Lord how ashamed I should be of not being married before three and twenty!  My aunt wants you so to get husbands, you can't think.  She says Lizzy had better have taken Mr Collins; but I do not, there would have been any fun in it.  Lord! how should I like to be married before any of you; and then I would chaperone you about to all the balls.  Dear me! We had such a good piece of fun the other day at Colonel Forster's. Kitty and me were to spend the day there, and Mrs Forster promised to have a little dance in the evening, and so she asked the two Harringtons to come, Harriet was ill, and so Pen was forced to come by herself; and then what do you think we did? We dressed up Chamberlain in women's clothes on purpose to pass for a lady, only think what fun.  Not a soul knew of it, but Colonel and Mrs Forster, and Kitty and me, except my aunt, for we were forced to borrow one of her gowns, and you cannot imagine how well he looked!  When Denny, and Wickham, and Pratt, and two or three of the men came in, they did not know him the least.  Lord! how I laughed, and so did Mrs Forster.  I thought I should have died.  And that made the men suspect something, and then they soon found out what was the matter."

Thus, the stories of the girls amused their companions all the way to Longbourn. Mrs Bennet rejoiced to see Jane in undiminished beauty, and during the dinner Mr Bennet said to Elizabeth: 

"I am glad you are come back, Lizzy."

Their party in the dining room was large, for all the Lucases came to meet Maria and hear the news. Lady Lucas inquired after the welfare and poultry of her eldest daughter. Mrs Bennet was collecting from Jane an account of current fashions and passing the same to the younger Lucases; and Lydia had to enumerate in louder voice the various pleasures of the morning to anybody who could hear her. Lydia continued her stories, but nobody listened, but she was not bothered of it.

In the afternoon, Lydia walked with other girls to Meryton to see how everybody went on.  Elizabeth did not go. She dreaded seeing Wickham again. Mr and Mrs Bennet engaged in a discussion about the Brighton scheme of which Lydia had given them a hint.

THE END