“Thank you,” answers Lydia coolly, “for if you did I should certainly tell you all, and then Wickham would be angry.”
Elizabeth has to run away from the temptation. She has one resource, however; she can write and ask a private explanation from her kind aunt.
Elizabeth learns the whole truth, though Mrs. Gardiner does not conceal her surprise that the information is required in such a quarter. After Darcy’s parting from Elizabeth in Derbyshire, he had gone immediately to London—and, in fact, done everything. It was he who, through his previous acquaintance with Wickham’s habits and associates, had discovered the couple, and brought them to Mr. Gardiner’s knowledge. It was Darcy who had conducted all the negotiations—in fine, it was Darcy who had insisted on paying the necessary money—a thousand pounds for Wickham’s debts; another thousand to be settled, in addition to her own, on Lydia; and the purchase-money for her husband’s commission. The reason which Darcy had urged for being allowed to take the lead in the matter, and to furnish the money, was that it had been through his own unjustifiable reserve, and want of consideration for others, that Wickham’s character had not been known, so that he had been received and noticed in respectable society.
But Mr. Gardiner would not have yielded up his right of making some sacrifice for his niece—or, rather, for her family—had he not been persuaded that Mr. Darcy of Pemberley had even a nearer interest in the affair, by being either actually engaged, or on the point of being engaged, to Lydia Bennet’s sister Elizabeth. Indeed, Mrs. Gardiner is still so convinced of the truth of the impression, and of the happy prospects of one of her favourite nieces, in a marriage with a man of much worth, as well as of great social consideration, who only wants a little more liveliness—which a judicious choice of a wife may supply—that, in closing her letter, she gaily begs Elizabeth not to punish the writer’s presumption by excluding her from Pemberley, since she can never be quite happy till she has been all round the park—an expedition for which a low phaeton, with a nice pair of ponies, would be the very thing.
Elizabeth is greatly moved by the efforts and the sacrifices of feeling—still more than of money—which Darcy has made on Lydia’s behalf. It could not have been for Lydia alone. But when Elizabeth asks herself, Were the Gardiners right in arguing it was for her—Elizabeth’s—sake? she is met by the humbling reflection that the assistance he has rendered must, and ought to be, the last tribute paid by Darcy to a loyal, disinterested regard, which has proved in every way unfortunate. The idea of the proud, sensitive master of Pemberley voluntarily seeking to become the brother-in-law of Wickham, the son of his father’s steward—the man who has so wronged him and his, who has outraged Darcy’s every principle and instinct—the man whom of all others Darcy most abhors, and has reason to abhor—is not to be thought of for an instant. Yet Elizabeth is half-pleased, in the middle of her pain, to see how confidently her uncle and aunt have reckoned on her marriage with Darcy.
Mrs. Bennet is consoled for the Wickhams’ departure by the news, which quickly circulates in Meryton, that Mr. Bingley is coming down to Netherfield for the shooting. At once she resumes all her former projects for her eldest daughter, and poor Jane, in addition to the conflict in her own heart, has to submit to her mother’s pointedly looking at her, smiling at her, or shaking her head over her, every time the tenant of Netherfield’s name happens to be mentioned—which, for the present, is incessantly.
The old argument as to Mr. Bennett’s calling immediately at Netherfield is renewed.
Mr. Bennet stoutly refuses. “No, no; you forced me into visiting him last year, and promised me if I went to see him he should marry one of my daughters. But it ended in nothing, and I will not be sent on a fool’s errand again.”
In the middle of the doubts as to what brings Bingley back, and whether he comes with or without his friend’s gracious permission, Elizabeth thinks in her own merry way, “It is hard that this poor man cannot come to a house which he has legally hired without rousing all this speculation. I will leave him to himself.”
On the first morning after Bingley’s return into Hertfordshire, Mrs. Bennet has the joy of seeing him, from her dressing-room window, riding up the paddock to Longbourn House. She calls her daughters to share her exultation. Jane sits still. Elizabeth, to satisfy her mother, goes to the window; she looks, she sees Mr. Darcy with his friend, and sits down again by her sister.