“Yes,” Mr. Darcy hissed sharply, “but that was only when I first saw her, for it is many months since I have considered her as one of the handsomest cats in the country.”
He then went away and Miss Bingley was left to all the satisfaction of having forced him to say what gave no one any pain but herself. Indeed, she would have preferred a shot from the vet to the sting of Mr. Darcy’s words.
Elizabeth soon saw that she was herself closely watched by Miss Bingley, and that she could not speak a word, especially to Miss Darcy, without calling her attention. This observation would not have prevented her from trying to talk to the latter, had they not been seated at an inconvenient distance; but she was not sorry to be spared the necessity of saying much. Her own thoughts were employing her. She expected every moment that some of the gentlemen would enter the room. She wished, she feared that the master of the house might be amongst them; and whether she wished or feared it most, she could scarcely determine.
. . .
While thus engaged, Elizabeth had a fair opportunity of deciding whether she most feared or wished for the appearance of Mr. Darcy, by the feelings which prevailed on his entering the room; and then, though but a moment before she had believed her wishes to predominate, she began to regret that he came.
ELIZABETH HAD BEEN disappointed during their visit to Derbyshire not to have received any letters from Jane. But she was rewarded on the third day of their stay by two fat letters from her sister. The first began with an account of balls (especially a knitted one acquired by Mrs. Philips, which had fresh catnip inside), bird hunts, and other delightful summer schemes. But the second letter contained intelligence of an alarming nature.
An express had come to Longbourn at midnight the night before, with news that Lydia had run away, had thrown herself utterly into the claws of—Wickham! They had not gone to Gretna Green, where they might have frolicked respectably, but were thought instead to be hiding in London!
An express came at midnight.
Poor Mrs. Bennet, imagining wild dogs, dark alleys, and all manner of dangers befalling her beloved kitten, had gone into hysterics upon hearing the dreadful news and taken to her bed (the covered one, where she felt safest).
“My father has gone off to London to recover Lydia,” wrote Jane, “and my mother is terrified lest Mr. Bennet and Wickham get into a cat fight, and Wickham attack him with a fatal bite!”
Jane concluded her letter by urging Elizabeth and the Gardiners to hurry home as soon as possible, as they were all in a terrible uproar, and Mrs. Bennet screeched and howled from morning until night.
Elizabeth was about to run out in pursuit of her aunt and uncle when the door opened and who should walk into the room but Mr. Darcy!
He looked startled at seeing her agitation, for Elizabeth was trembling more violently than she had when a strange human once picked her up whilst she was rambling on a country lane near Longbourn.
Mr. Darcy looked at her with deep concern.
“I must go at once to find my aunt and uncle!” cried Elizabeth.
“You are not well enough to go!” said Darcy. “Let me get the servant. May I fetch you a bowl of milk for your present relief?”
After a servant had been sent for her aunt and uncle, Elizabeth related the dreadful news of Lydia and Wickham.
“They are gone,” she cried, “and Lydia is lost to her friends and family forever—concealed no doubt, in the shadowy corners of London with that whiskered menace, Wickham. Oh, if only I had communicated to my family what he really was! It is entirely my fault,” mewed Elizabeth mournfully, “and now it is all too late!”
Darcy looked at her with more feeling than he was sensible of expressing.
“How is such a cat as Wickham to be worked on?” cried Elizabeth. “Lydia has no papers, no pedigree, nothing to tempt him. He will surely abandon her to the streets and sewers and she will be lost to us forever!”
Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner soon returned, and, with one last grave look, Darcy hastily bid Elizabeth goodbye.
I will never see him again, thought Elizabeth. And she had never felt, until now when it was too late, that she could have loved him. Fate, reflected Elizabeth, as she and her aunt and uncle climbed into the carriage to return to Longbourn, is even more perverse than cats!
Darcy made no answer. He seemed scarcely to hear her, and was walking up and down the room in earnest meditation; his brow contracted, his air gloomy. Elizabeth soon observed, and instantly understood it. Her power was sinking; every thing must sink under such a proof of family weakness, such an assurance of the deepest disgrace. She could neither wonder nor condemn, but the belief of his self-conquest brought nothing consolatory to her bosom, afforded no palliation of her distress. It was, on the contrary, exactly calculated to make her understand her own wishes; and never had she so honestly felt that she could have loved him, as now, when all love must be vain.
UPON REACHING LONGBOURN, Elizabeth eagerly dashed inside to greet Jane and learn whether she had received any fresh intelligence from their father about Lydia’s whereabouts in London. Jane replied that Mr. Bennet was in town but had no news of Lydia.
“But we are hoping to hear any day that they are safe at Gretna Green,” she said. Jane then produced a letter Lydia had left for Mrs. Forster when she ran away with Wickham.
Mrs. Bennet, meanwhile, was in a dreadful state. Her fur was matted and her “mews” pitiful and profuse. “If only Mr. Bennet had taken us all to Brighton, this would not have happened!” she cried. “Why did the Forsters ever let her out of their sight? I’m sure there was some great neglect on their side, for she is not the kind of cat to run away. And now,” she continued, “Mr. Bennet is gone away and I know he and Wickham will fight and Wickham will kill him! Then what is to happen to us all? The Collinses will turn us out and we will be left on our own to hunt mice in the hedgerows!”
Mr. Gardiner encouraged Mrs. Bennet to calm herself and assured her he would be in town the next day to assist Mr. Bennet in recovering Lydia.
“Oh, my dear brother,” replied Mrs. Bennet, “that is exactly what I could most wish for, and above all, keep Mr. Bennet from fighting with Wickham!”
Mr. Bennet will fight and Wickham will kill him!
“MY DEAR HARRIET,
“You will laugh when you know where I am gone, and I cannot help laughing myself at your surprise to-morrow morning, as soon as I am missed. I am going to Gretna Green, and if you cannot guess with who, I shall think you a simpleton, for there is but one man in the world I love, and he is an angel. I should never be happy without him, so think it no harm to be off. You need not send them word at Longbourn of my going, if you do not like it, for it will make the surprise the greater, when I write to them, and sign my name Lydia Wickham. What a good joke it will be! I can hardly write for laughing.
Pray make my excuses to Pratt, for not keeping my engagement, and dancing with him to-night. Tell him I hope he will excuse me when he knows all, and tell him I will dance with him at the next ball we meet, with great pleasure. I shall send for my clothes when I get to Longbourn; but I wish you would tell Sally to mend a great slit in my worked muslin gown, before they are packed up. Good bye. Give my love to Colonel Forster, I hope you will drink to our good journey.
“Your affectionate friend,
“LYDIA BENNET.”
MR. GARDINER SET off almost immediately for London in search of Lydia. He promised Mrs. Bennet to leave no rat uncornered (including Wickham himself) in his search for her, and to send Mr. Bennet home directly. The Bennet sisters were surprised that their mother did not appear gratified by this news, considering her anxiety about Mr. Bennet losing every one of his nine lives fighting with Wickham.
“What, is he coming home, and without poor Lydia?” cried Mrs. Bennet. “Who is to fight Wickham and make him marry her if he comes away?”
Mrs. Bennet could get no rest thinking of Wickham’s wicked deeds.
In the meantime, all of Meryton was bent on b
lackening Wick-ham’s character when, but a few months before, he had been the handsomest animal ever to grace the militia. Yet now there was nothing of an evil nature he was not guilty of. Poor Mrs. Bennet could get no rest thinking of Wickham’s wicked deeds—brawls, nightly assignations with all the female cats in the county, even chicken killings. Everyone began to find out that they had never trusted his appearance of goodness. Wickham and Lydia, it was concluded, were well concealed in London, for neither Uncle Gardiner nor Mr. Bennet had succeeded in discovering them.
While Mr. Bennet was in London, the Bennets received a letter from their cousin, Mr. Collins, consoling them on the irremediable calamity that had befallen their family. This letter was followed by another from Mr. Gardiner who wrote to tell them that Mr. Bennet would be home the following day.
When Mr. Bennet did return to Longbourn, he had all the appearance of his usual philosophic composure.
“If I should ever go to Brighton, I would behave better than Lydia,” announced Kitty, when they were having tea afterwards.
“You, go to Brighton?!” exclaimed Mr. Bennet. “I would not trust you so near it as Eastbourne for a hind quarter of pork! No, Kitty, I have at last learnt to be cautious and you will feel the effects of it. No cat in the militia is ever to enter into my house again, nor even to pass through the village. Balls will be absolutely prohibited, unless you roll them with one of your sisters. And you are never to stir out of doors till you can prove that you have spent ten minutes of every day in a rational manner.”
Kitty, who took all these threats in a serious light, mewed long and plaintively.
“Well, well,” said he, “do not make yourself unhappy. If you are a good kitten for the next ten years, I will take you to a review at the end of them.”
Mr. Bennet had all the appearance of his usual philosophic composure.
“MY DEAR SIR,
“I feel myself called upon, by our relationship, and my situation in life, to condole with you on the grievous affliction you are now suffering under, of which we were yesterday informed by a letter from Hertfordshire. Be assured, my dear Sir, that Mrs. Collins and myself sincerely sympathise with you, and all your respectable family, in your present distress, which must be of the bitterest kind, because proceeding from a cause which no time can remove. No arguments shall be wanting on my part, that can alleviate so severe a misfortune; or that may comfort you, under a circumstance that must be of all others most afflicting to a parent’s mind. The death of your daughter would have been a blessing in comparison of this. And it is the more to be lamented, because there is reason to suppose, as my dear Charlotte informs me, that this licentiousness of behaviour in your daughter, has proceeded from a faulty degree of indulgence, though, at the same time, for the consolation of yourself and Mrs. Bennet, I am inclined to think that her own disposition must be naturally bad, or she could not be guilty of such an enormity, at so early an age. Howsoever that may be, you are grievously to be pitied, in which opinion I am not only joined by Mrs. Collins, but likewise by Lady Catherine and her daughter, to whom I have related the affair. They agree with me in apprehending that this false step in one daughter, will be injurious to the fortunes of all the others, for who, as Lady Catherine herself condescendingly says, will connect themselves with such a family. And this consideration leads me moreover to reflect with augmented satisfaction on a certain event of last November; for had it been otherwise, I must have been involved in all your sorrow and disgrace. Let me then advise you, my dear Sir, to console yourself as much as possible, to throw off your unworthy child from your affection for ever, and leave her to reap the fruits of her own heinous offense.
“I am, dear Sir, etc., etc.”
SHORTLY AFTER MR. Bennet’s return, Jane and Elizabeth were stalking a squirrel in the shrubbery, when Hill, the housekeeper, came to tell them that an express letter had arrived for their father from London. The two sisters dashed off to find their father and learn what news he had received.
The letter was from Uncle Gardiner to say that Lydia and Wickham had been apprehended, and that for a modest sum (100 mice per annum, per animal), their union would be finalized in as a respectable manner as any cat could hope for. And, apparently, the whole had been accomplished by their uncle!
“There are two things I want to know,” said Mr. Bennet, frowning over the letter. “One is how much your uncle had to lay out to persuade Wickham to agree to these terms, and the other is, how am I ever going to repay him?”
When Mrs. Bennet heard the good news about her daughter, she became as violently exuberant (chasing an imaginary feather about her sitting room) as she had been alarmed and vexed before.
“But the feast, the wedding feast!” she cried.
She was proceeding to the particulars of chicken gizzards, mouse hearts, and fish heads, and would shortly have dictated some very plentiful orders had not Jane, though with some difficulty, persuaded her to wait till her father was at leisure to be consulted.
Elizabeth reflected that although with Wickham, Lydia could expect neither peaceful catnaps nor a prosperous home (for what humans would take them in now?), things had concluded much more advantageously than she had dared to hope only a few hours before.
After a slight preparation for good news, the letter was read aloud. Mrs. Bennet could hardly contain herself. As soon as Jane had read Mr. Gardiner’s hope of Lydia’s being soon married, her joy burst forth, and every following sentence added to its exuberance. She was now in an irritation as violent from delight, as she had ever been fidgetty from alarm and vexation. To know that her daughter would be married was enough. She was disturbed by no fear for her felicity, nor humbled by any remembrance of her misconduct.
“My dear, dear Lydia!” she cried. “This is delightful indeed!— She will be married!—I shall see her again!—She will be married at sixteen!—My good, kind brother!—I knew how it would be.—I knew he would manage everything! How I long to see her! and to see dear Wickham too! But the clothes, the wedding clothes! I will write to my sister Gardiner about them directly. Lizzy, my dear, run down to your father, and ask him how much he will give her. Stay, stay, I will go myself. Ring the bell, Kitty, for Hill. I will put on my things in a moment. My dear, dear Lydia!—How merry we shall be together when we meet!”
MR. BENNET HAD never dreamed that he and Mrs. Bennet would have no male offspring to cut off Mr. Collins’s end-tail. Because he had always believed he would one day have a male heir, Mr. Bennet had put aside neither mice nor money for bribing worthless toms to make his equally worthless daughter respectable. Yet now he was indebted to Uncle Gardiner for doing just that. And he had no idea what stores of dry food Mr. Gardiner had been compelled to lay out to accomplish it!
The news of Lydia and Wickham’s newly acquired respectability soon spread through the house and the neighborhood with equal rapidity. Mrs. Bennet, who had not stirred from her room in a fortnight, now leapt from her bed with alacrity and raced downstairs, where she immediately began speculating about homes in which Lydia and Wickham might reside.
“Haye Park might do,” cried she, “if the humans could quit it— or the great house at Stoke, if the pawing-room were larger; but Ashworth is too far off! I could not bear to have her ten miles from me; and as for Purrvis Lodge, the attics are dreadful. Not even the mice will go near them!”
Elizabeth now began to wish that Darcy had never learned of Lydia’s infamous elopement. But even if he were unaware of it, would he condescend to connect himself to such a family and to have Wickham as a brother-in-law? Elizabeth could not believe it and repined for his company and gentlemanly meows. She was convinced, now that it was too late, that he was the ideal match for her. Her lively disposition and playfulness must have intrigued and engaged him while his knowledge of mice and men would benefit her.
Lydia and Wickham were to be banished to the North of England. What a fate for poor Lydia! Mrs. Bennet could not resign herself to it. To make matters worse, Mr. Bennet was too an
gry with his daughter and Mr. Wickham to allow them to visit Long-bourn before they left for the North. But gradually Jane and Elizabeth persuaded him to allow the couple to visit, though Elizabeth could not imagine how Wickham could present himself to her mother and father with equanimity.
Random cat comments on The Jane Austen Cookbook.
[Elizabeth] began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man, who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes. It was an union that must have been to the advantage of both; by her ease and liveliness, his mind might have been softened, his manners improved; and from his judgement, information, and knowledge of the world, she must have received benefit of greater importance.
But no such happy marriage could now teach the admiring multitude what connubial felicity really was. An union of a different tendency, and precluding the possibility of the other, was soon to be formed in their family.
How Wickham and Lydia were to be supported in tolerable independence, she could not imagine. But how little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue, she could easily conjecture.
NOTHING COULD EQUAL Mrs. Bennet’s triumphant trills on receiving her dear Lydia and her now-dear Wickham at Long-bourn.
Elizabeth and Jane greeted Lydia in the hallway, after which Lydia raced about in a wilder manner than ever, demanding everyone’s attention and notice. Was she not the luckiest cat in the kingdom? She, the youngest sister, to have found such a handsome partner as Wickham! Did not all her sisters envy her? Mrs. Bennet was scarcely less wild and noisy than Lydia, while her husband stood by looking grave and silent.
Pride and Prejudice and Kitties Page 9
