by Jane Austen
“This is a most unfortunate affair; and will probably be much talked of. But we must stem the tide of malice, and pour into the wounded bosoms of each other, the balm of sisterly consolation.”
Then, perceiving in Elizabeth no inclination of replying, she added, “Unhappy as the event must be for Lydia, we may draw from it this useful lesson; that loss of virtue37 in a female is irretrievable—that one false step involves her in endless ruin —that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful,38 —and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex.”
Elizabeth lifted up her eyes in amazement, but was too much oppressed39 to make any reply. Mary, however, continued to console herself with such kind of moral extractions from the evil40 before them.
In the afternoon,41 the two elder Miss Bennets were able to be for half an hour by themselves; and Elizabeth instantly availed herself of the opportunity of making many enquiries, which Jane was equally eager to satisfy. After joining in general lamentations over the dreadful sequel of this event, which Elizabeth considered as all but certain, and Miss Bennet could not assert to be wholly impossible; the former continued the subject, by saying, “But tell me all and every thing about it, which I have not already heard. Give me farther particulars. What did Colonel Forster say? Had they no apprehension of any thing before the elopement took place? They must have seen them together for ever.”
“Colonel Forster did own that he had often suspected some partiality, especially on Lydia's side, but nothing to give him any alarm. I am so grieved for him. His behaviour was attentive and kind to the utmost. He was coming to us, in order to assure us of his concern, before he had any idea of their not being gone to Scotland: when that apprehension first got abroad,42 it hastened his journey.”43
“And was Denny convinced that Wickham would not marry? Did he know of their intending to go off? Had Colonel Forster seen Denny himself?”
“Yes; but when questioned by him Denny denied knowing any thing of their plan, and would not give his real opinion about it. He did not repeat his persuasion of their not marrying—and from that, I am inclined to hope, he might have been misunderstood before.”44
“And till Colonel Forster came himself, not one of you entertained a doubt, I suppose, of their being really married?”
“How was it possible that such an idea should enter our brains! I felt a little uneasy —a little fearful of my sister's happiness with him in marriage, because I knew that his conduct had not been always quite right. My father and mother knew nothing of that, they only felt how imprudent a match it must be. Kitty then owned,45 with a very natural triumph on knowing more than the rest of us, that in Lydia's last letter, she had prepared her for such a step. She had known, it seems, of their being in love with each other, many weeks.”
“But not before they went to Brighton?”
“No, I believe not.”
“And did Colonel Forster appear to think ill of Wickham himself? Does he know his real character?”
“I must confess that he did not speak so well of Wickham as he formerly did. He believed him to be imprudent and extravagant. And since this sad affair has taken place, it is said, that he left Meryton greatly in debt; but I hope this may be false.”
“Oh, Jane, had we been less secret, had we told what we knew of him, this could not have happened!”
“Perhaps it would have been better;” replied her sister. “But to expose the former faults of any person, without knowing what their present feelings were, seemed unjustifiable. We acted with the best intentions.”46
“Could Colonel Forster repeat the particulars of Lydia's note to his wife?”
“He brought it with him for us to see.”
Jane then took it from her pocket-book,47 and gave it to Elizabeth. These were the contents:
My Dear Harriet, 48
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,49 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 he 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.50 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,51 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.52
“Oh! thoughtless, thoughtless Lydia!” cried Elizabeth when she had finished it. “What a letter is this, to be written at such a moment. But at least it shews, that she was serious in the object of her journey. Whatever he might afterwards persuade her to, it was not on her side a scheme of infamy53 My poor father! how he must have felt it!”
“I never saw any one so shocked. He could not speak a word for full ten minutes. My mother was taken ill immediately, and the whole house in such confusion!”
“Oh! Jane,” cried Elizabeth, “was there a servant belonging to it, who did not know the whole story before the end of the day?”
“I do not know.—I hope there was.—But to be guarded at such a time, is very difficult. My mother was in hysterics, and though I endeavoured to give her every assistance in my power, I am afraid I did not do so much as I might have done! But the horror of what might possibly happen, almost took from me my faculties.”
“Your attendance upon her, has been too much for you. You do not look well. Oh! that I had been with you, you have had every care and anxiety upon yourself alone.”
“Mary and Kitty have been very kind, and would have shared in every fatigue, I am sure, but I did not think it right for either of them. Kitty is slight and delicate, and Mary studies so much, that her hours of repose should not be broken in on. My aunt Philips came to Longbourn on Tuesday, after my father went away; and was so good as to stay till Thursday with me.54 She was of great use and comfort to us all, and Lady Lucas has been very kind; she walked here on Wednesday morning to condole with us, and offered her services, or any of her daughters, if they could be of use to us.”
“She had better have stayed at home,” cried Elizabeth; “perhaps she meant well, but, under such a misfortune as this, one cannot see too little of one's neighbours. Assistance is impossible; condolence, insufferable. Let them triumph over us at a distance, and be satisfied.”55
She then proceeded to enquire into the measures which her father had intended to pursue, while in town, for the recovery of his daughter.
“He meant, I believe,” replied Jane, “to go to Epsom,56 the place where they last changed horses, see the postilions,57 and try if any thing could be made out from them. His principal object must be, to discover the number of the hackney coach58 which took them from Clapham.59 It had come with a fare60 from London; and as he thought the circumstance of a gentleman and lady's removing from one carriage into another, might be remarked,61 he meant to make enquiries at Clapham. If he could any how discover at what house the coachman had before set down62 his fare, he determined to make enquiries there, and hoped it might not be impossible to find out the stand63 and number of the coach. I do not know of any other designs that he had formed: but he was in such a hurry to be gone, and his spirits so greatly discomposed, that I had difficulty in finding out even so much as this.”
1. It was still common at this time, when a man had seduced and thereby ruined a woman, for a close relation, or even a close friend, of the woman to step forward and challenge the man to a duel (
a duel resulting from this cause occurs in Sense and Sensibility). The death or injury that might result from the duel was considered a just punishment for the terrible wrong the man had committed. That duels occurred reasonably often is indicated by a letter of Jane Austen, in which she discusses a neighbor who suffered a bullet wound while traveling, and takes pains to explain why it must have been an accidental shooting and not the result of a duel (Nov. 8, 1800).
2. noticed: acknowledged, accepted.
3. This might be a significant deterrent to Wickham, except that, as is revealed shortly, he has decided to abandon the regiment. This would only require him to resign his commission, which could be done without any particular difficulty—or any financial penalty for him since he did not have to purchase his commission initially. Partly for this reason, the militia suffered from the frequent departure of its officers. Nor does Wickham, before any such resignation took effect, have to worry much about being charged with desertion, for in this period army discipline of officers tended to be lax and officers were often away without leave for extended periods.
4. presumption: ground for believing it. As indicated in the previous chapter, this presumption stems from the chaise being a standard vehicle for travel between towns and a hackney-coach being purely a vehicle for transportation within London.
5. Since Barnet is north of London, this would be the road they would take to go to Scotland. See p. 501, note 26, and map, p. 745.
6. Mrs. Gardiner refers to the device of private marriage already mentioned by Jane (see p. 500 and p. 501, note 29). This method would be more economical than going to Scotland because of the lower travel expenses; it would be less expeditious because it could only happen after more than three weeks, for it required a week's notice to the parish priest followed by three Sundays of banns-reading before it could occur.
7. Divorce was almost impossible at this time, especially for those who lacked great wealth. Hence Wickham, by marrying Lydia, could not make a more advantageous marriage in the future unless she happened to die.
8. Brothers, as young men and therefore better fighters, would be the logical candidates to challenge a seducer to a duel. Elizabeth's comment alludes to one of the main justifications of dueling, which is that the threat of a duel could deter a man from behaving dishonorably, or, in cases where it was too late for that, frighten him into trying to remedy the wrong. In cases of seduction, the remedy would be to marry the woman and thereby save her from ruin. In this instance, however, with Mr. Bennet as the only one to pose the threat of a duel, Wickham has little to force him into taking such a remedial step.
9. One sees that Elizabeth and the Gardiners, like everyone else, accepts completely the idea that Lydia's actions would constitute a terrible sin. Jane Austen gives every indication of sharing the idea herself: making Lydia such a foolish character is one piece of evidence for that. In her next novel, Mansfield Park, a female character will abandon her husband and will be similarly condemned by the other characters and by the author. In none of her novels does Jane Austen, in the manner of some later novelists, try to excuse, or even elicit sympathy for, a female character who loses her chastity before marriage or who commits adultery (a young woman who has been ruined by a seducer is mentioned in Sense and Sensibility, and with some degree of pity, but the character herself is never shown nor is any plea offered in her defense).
10. susceptibility to her feelings: Elizabeth's hesitation before choosing this phrase indicates that she is trying to find a relatively mild way of describing Lydia's lack of restraint.
11. lively: playful and lighthearted, as well as animated. This is a quality that also marks Elizabeth; Lydia, who refuses to be serious about anything, reveals the dangers of carrying it too far.
12. person: physical appearance.
13. address: manner of speaking.
14. Elizabeth is obviously thinking of herself. Lydia's action thus helps reinforce Elizabeth's sense of her own folly in being so captivated by Wickham earlier.
15. profligate: abandoned to vice.
16. mode of her intelligence: source of her information.
17. all alive: fully aroused.
18. colouring: blushing. Elizabeth's embarrassment presumably stems from her consciousness of knowing the whole story of Wickham's dealings with Darcy and Miss Darcy, and of not having informed the Gardiners of it.
19. Because Mrs. Bennet in particular is so eager to seize on any hint of a possible marriage for one of her daughters, and because the indiscretion of herself and some of her daughters means that any such hint would soon be the subject of gossip.
20. interesting: important.
21. This gives a sense of travel speeds. The distance, on roads existing then, would be approximately 140 to 150 miles, and they traveled from sometime in the middle of the previous day to around four or five o'clock on this day. Thus, assuming their stop for the night was relatively short, they would have averaged 7-8 miles per hour, which was close to the best speed of the time. Jane Austen always takes great pains to ensure that details of this sort are correct. In a letter commenting on a niece's novel, she declares that certain characters “must be two days going from Dawlish to Bath; they are nearly 100 miles apart” (Aug. 17, 1814).
22. Since a chaise, unlike other carriages, was normally used for longdistance travel, its sight would be especially likely to draw attention.
23. paddock: enclosed field or lawn, usually grazed by livestock, next to a house.
24. earnest: indication or pledge of what is to come.
25. apartment: room or set of rooms. “Apartment” frequently meant a combination bedroom and dressing room.
26. his directions: his addresses.
27. Mr. Bennet's dislike of writing has already been made clear. In this case, despite the gravity of the situation, he does no more than send one brief note giving the most basic information, something he has been particularly begged to do.
28. intelligence: news.
29. repaired: proceeded, made their way.
30. The prospect of a duel is also on Mrs. Bennet's mind. In fact, only a small portion of those who fought duels were killed or wounded, but it was still a possibility.
31. terrific: dreadful.
32. All the symptoms listed here are ones that were ascribed by medical writers to the nervous disorders Mrs. Bennet likes to complain of having. The tendency, seen so vividly in Mrs. Bennet, to complain about ailments or to fancy oneself ill, often as a way to draw attention or sympathy, is a frequent target of Jane Austen's satire. In her story “Catharine, or the Bower” a woman imagines, after being out briefly at night in July, that her exposure to the night air will cause her to remain ill until the following May. Emma and Persuasion both have important characters who worry excessively about their health, and her last writing, Sanditon (written while she was gravely ill herself), includes a trio of siblings for whom hypochondria is a way of life. Her letters also include a number of acerbic comments about people imagining themselves to be unwell; her own mother appears at times to have been of their number. In one letter she describes (though she admits it is an “ill-natured [sic] sentiment”) a woman who bears some resemblance to Mrs. Bennet: “the sort of woman who gives me the idea of being determined never to be well—& who likes her spasms & nervousness & the consequence they give her, better than anything else” (Sept. 25, 1813). In her own case Jane Austen seems to have lived up to her aversion to such attitudes and behavior, for her letters from the final, illness-racked year of her life show her maintaining an air of stoical calm, and trying to put the best face on matters to avoid distressing others.
33. warehouses: shops.
34. Only one servant of the household, presumably the housekeeper, is with Mrs. Bennet. Since servants are a prime means of spreading gossip, the absence of the other servants makes it less likely that bad family news divulged by Mrs. Bennet will make its way to others in the neighborhood.
35. her toilette: getting dressed.
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br /> 36. accents: tones, ways of speaking.
37. virtue: sexual chastity, considered the supreme virtue for a woman.
38. This last line derives from the novel Evelina by Fanny Burney, in which a wise character describes female virtue as being both brittle and beautiful. Jane Austen, who admired Fanny Burney, is not necessarily intending to criticize this idea by putting it in Mary's mouth. Her main point is to show Mary once again spouting cliches and repeating phrases and ideas from books, without any appreciation of how inappropriate her words are to the situation. She is obviously providing no sisterly consolation to Elizabeth by seeing a family tragedy as merely an opportunity to draw a useful lesson, a lesson that in fact everyone knows already since it was a commonplace of the time. The repetitiveness of Mary's language is also revealing: she is clearly engaged in padding because she actually has little to say.
39. oppressed: overwhelmed, depressed.
40. evil: misfortune, mischief, trouble. “Evil” generally had a less strong connotation than today.
41. afternoon: this would be after dinner.
42. got abroad: became generally or publicly known.
43. A person less innocent and forgiving than Jane could think of a less generous interpretation of Colonel Forster's, namely that his and his wife's negligence allowed the affair to develop but that, despite his probably suspecting something between Lydia and Wickham, he took no action until it was too late.
44. Of course, since Denny was not giving his real opinion of the matter, it does not make sense to base hopes upon what he said then. Denny could naturally fear the anger of his commanding officer, and therefore be inclined to downplay or deny whatever unpleasant truths he knew about a man whom he himself had introduced into the regiment.
