people! – What would I give to hear your strictures on them!’
‘Your conjecture is totally wrong, I assure you. My mind was more agreeably engaged. I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.’
Miss Bingley immediately fixed her eyes on his face, and desired he would tell her what lady had the credit of inspiring such reflections. Mr Darcy replied with great intrepidity,
‘Miss Elizabeth Bennet.’
‘Miss Elizabeth Bennet!’ repeated Miss Bingley. ‘I am all astonishment. How long has she been such a favourite? – and pray when am I to wish you joy?’
‘That is exactly the question which I expected you to ask. A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment. I knew you would be wishing me joy.’
‘Nay, if you are so serious about it, I shall consider the matter as absolutely settled. You will have a charming mother-in-law, indeed, and of course she will be always at Pemberley with you.’
He listened to her with perfect indifference while she chose to entertain herself in this manner; and as his composure convinced her that all was safe, her wit flowed long.
Mr Bennet’s property consisted almost entirely in an estate of two thousand a year, which, unfortunately for his daughters, was entailed, in default of heirs male, on a distant relation; and their mother’s fortune, though ample for her situation in life, could but ill supply the deficiency of his. Her father had been an attorney in Meryton, and had left her four thousand pounds.
She had a sister married to a Mr Philips, who had been a clerk to their father, and succeeded him in the business, and a brother settled in London in a respectable line of trade.
The village of Longbourn was only one mile from Meryton; a most convenient distance for the young ladies, who were usually tempted thither three or four times a week, to pay their duty to their aunt, and to a milliner’s shop just over the way. The two youngest of the family, Catherine and Lydia, were particularly frequent in these attentions; their minds were more vacant than their sisters’, and when nothing better offered, a walk to Meryton was necessary to amuse their morning hours and furnish conversation for the evening; and however bare of news the country in general might be, they always contrived to learn some from their aunt. At present, indeed, they were well supplied both with news and happiness by the recent arrival of a militia regiment in the neighbourhood; it was to remain the whole winter, and Meryton was the head quarters.
Their visits to Mrs Philips were now productive of the most interesting intelligence. Every day added something to their knowledge of the officers’ names and connexions. Their lodgings were not long a secret, and at length they began to know the officers themselves. Mr Philips visited them all, and this opened to his nieces a source of felicity unknown before. They could talk of nothing but officers; and Mr Bingley’s large fortune, the mention of which gave animation to their mother, was worthless in their eyes when opposed to the regimentals of an ensign.
After listening one morning to their effusions on this subject, Mr Bennet coolly observed,
‘From all that I can collect by your manner of talking, you must be two of the silliest girls in the country. I have suspected it some time, but I am now convinced.’
Catherine was disconcerted, and made no answer; but Lydia, with perfect indifference, continued to express her admiration of Captain Carter, and her hope of seeing him in the course of the day, as he was going the next morning to London.
‘I am astonished, my dear,’ said Mrs Bennet, ‘that you should be so ready to think your own children silly. If I wished to think slightingly of any body’s children, it should not be of my own, however.’
‘If my children are silly, I must hope to be always sensible of it.’
‘Yes – but as it happens, they are all of them very clever.’
‘This is the only point, I flatter myself, on which we do not agree. I had hoped that our sentiments coincided in every particular, but I must so far differ from you as to think our two youngest daughters uncommonly foolish.’
‘My dear Mr Bennet, you must not expect such girls to have the sense of their father and mother. When they get to our age, I dare say they will not think about officers any more than we do. I remember the time when I liked a red coat myself very well – and indeed so I do still at my heart; and if a smart young colonel, with five or six thousand a year, should want one of my girls, I shall not say nay to him; and I thought Colonel Forster looked very becoming the other night at Sir William’s in his regimentals.’
‘Mamma,’ cried Lydia, ‘my aunt says that Colonel Forster and Captain Carter do not go so often to Miss Watson’s as they did when they first came; she sees them now very often standing in Clarke’s library.’
Mrs Bennet was prevented replying by the entrance of the footman with a note for Miss Bennet; it came from Netherfield, and the servant waited for an answer. Mrs Bennet’s eyes sparkled with pleasure, and she was eagerly calling out, while her daughter read,
‘Well, Jane, who is it from? what is it about? what does he say? Well, Jane, make haste and tell us; make haste, my love.’
‘It is from Miss Bingley,’ said Jane, and then read it aloud.
My dear Friend,
If you are not so compassionate as to dine today with Louisa and me, we shall be in danger of hating each other for the rest of our lives, for a whole day’s tête-à-tête between two women can never end without a quarrel. Come as soon as you can on the receipt of this. My brother and the gentlemen are to dine with the officers.
Yours ever,
Caroline Bingley.
‘With the officers!’ cried Lydia. ‘I wonder my aunt did not tell us of that.’
‘Dining out,’ said Mrs Bennet, ‘that is very unlucky.’
‘Can I have the carriage?’ said Jane.
‘No, my dear, you had better go on horseback, because it seems likely to rain; and then you must stay all night.’
‘That would be a good scheme,’ said Elizabeth, ‘if you were sure that they would not offer to send her home.’
‘Oh! but the gentlemen will have Mr Bingley’s chaise to go to Meryton; and the Hursts have no horses to theirs.’
‘I had much rather go in the coach.’
‘But, my dear, your father cannot spare the horses, I am sure. They are wanted in the farm, Mr Bennet, are not they?’
‘They are wanted in the farm much oftener than I can get them.’
‘But if you have got them today,’ said Elizabeth, ‘my mother’s purpose will be answered.’
She did at last extort from her father an acknowledgment that the horses were engaged. Jane was therefore
