Pride And Prejudice And Zombies

CHAPTER 25

AFTER A WEEK SPENT in professions of love and schemes of felicity, Mr. Collins was called from his amiable Charlotte by the arrival of Saturday. He took leave of his relations at Longbourn with as much solemnity as before; wished his fair cousins health and happiness again, and promised their father another letter of thanks.

On the following Monday, Mrs. Bennet had the pleasure of receiving her brother and his wife, who came as usual to spend the Christmas at Longbourn. Mr. Gardiner was a sensible, gentlemanlike man, greatly superior to his sister, as well by nature as education. The Netherfield ladies would have had difficulty in believing that a man who lived by trade, and within view of his own warehouses, could have been so well bred and agreeable. Mrs. Gardiner, who was several years younger than Mrs. Bennet, was an amiable, intelligent, elegant woman, and a great favourite with all her Longbourn nieces. Between the two eldest and herself especially, there subsisted a particular regard. She had often provided encouragement to continue their training when it had become too severe, and provided refuge when their mother’s derision of their “savage nature” became intolerable.

The first part of Mrs. Gardiner’s business on her arrival was to distribute her presents and describe the goings on in town; she spoke of subjects as diverse as new fashions and recent victories against the sorry stricken. When this was done she had a less active part to play. It became her turn to listen. Mrs. Bennet had many grievances to relate, and much to complain of. They had all been very ill-used since she last saw her sister. Two of her girls had been upon the point of marriage, and after all there was nothing in it.

“I do not blame Jane,” she continued, “for Jane would have got Mr. Bingley if she could. But Lizzy! Oh, sister! It is very hard to think that she might have been Mr. Collins’s wife by this time had it not been for her own perverseness. He made her an offer in this very room, and she refused him. The consequence of it is, that Lady Lucas will have a daughter married before I have, and that the Longbourn estate is just as much entailed as ever. The Lucases are very artful people indeed, sister. They are all for what they can get. I am sorry to say it of them, but so it is.”

Mrs. Gardiner, to whom the chief of this news had been given before, in the course of Jane and Elizabeth’s correspondence with her, made her sister a slight answer, and, in compassion to her nieces turned the conversation.

When alone with Elizabeth afterwards, she spoke more on the subject. “It seems likely to have been a desirable match for Jane,” said she. “I am sorry it went off. But these things happen so often! A young man, such as you describe Mr. Bingley, so easily falls in love with a pretty girl for a few weeks, and when accident separates them, so easily forgets her.”

“An excellent consolation in its way,” said Elizabeth, “but it will not do for us. It does not often happen that the interference of friends will persuade a young man of independent fortune to think no more of a girl whom he was violently in love with only a few days before.”

“Pray, how violent was Mr. Bingley’s love?”

“As violent as the monks of Dragon Mountain. Every time they met, it was more decided and remarkable.”

“Poor Jane! I am sorry for her, because, with her disposition, she may not get over it immediately. It had better have happened to you, Lizzy; you would have opened this Bingley’s stomach and strangled him with his own bowels, I suspect. Do you think she would be prevailed upon to go back to town with us? Change of scene might be of service-and perhaps a little relief from home may be as useful as anything.”

Elizabeth was exceedingly pleased with this proposal, and felt persuaded of her sister’s ready acquiescence. It was too long since her eyes had been filled with the delights of London; which, though quarantined by towering walls, and divided into sections by the King’s army, was still a city unrivaled in its ability to excite the senses.

“I hope,” added Mrs. Gardiner, “that no consideration with regard to this young man will influence her. We go out so little, that it is very improbable that they should meet at all, unless he comes to see her.”

“And that is quite impossible; for he is now in the custody of his friend, and Mr. Darcy would no more suffer him to call on Jane in Section Six East!”

“So much the better. I hope they will not meet at all.”

The Gardiners stayed a week at Longbourn. Mrs. Bennet had so carefully provided for the entertainment of her brother and sister that they did not once sit down to a family dinner. When the engagement was for home, some of the officers always made part of it-of which Mr. Wickham was sure to be one; and on these occasions, Mrs. Gardiner, rendered suspicious by Elizabeth’s warm commendation, narrowly observed them both. Their preference of each other was plain enough to make her a little uneasy; and she resolved to speak to Elizabeth on the subject before leaving Hertfordshire.

To Mrs. Gardiner, Wickham had one means of affording pleasure, unconnected with his general powers. About ten or a dozen years ago, before her marriage, she had spent a considerable time in that very part of Derbyshire to which he belonged. They had, therefore, many acquaintances in common; and though Wickham had been little there since the death of Darcy’s father, it was yet in his power to give her fresher intelligence of her former friends than she had been in the way of procuring.

Mrs. Gardiner had seen Mr. Darcy’s estate, Pemberley, and known the late Mr. Darcy by his reputation as a gentleman and powerful slayer of the undead. Here consequently was an inexhaustible subject of discourse. On being made acquainted with the present Mr. Darcy’s treatment of him, she tried to remember some of that gentleman’s reputed disposition, and was confident that she recollected having heard Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy formerly spoken of as a very proud, ill-natured boy.