Page 49 of Hard Home

Elizabeth was crying, which she had not done in front of anybody since she was nineteen, and was extremely angry about it.

"Charlotte. Did you do this for me?"

Charlotte Lucas looked at her for a long moment.

"No," she said.

"Because if you—"

"No, Lizzy." Very flat. "I did it for a house with five bedchambers and four hundred a year and a pew of my own, and because I am seven-and-twenty and my father's fortune will be divided among five, and because in eleven years the only man who has ever proposed anything to me at all is that one. I will not have you make it beautiful. If you make it beautiful I shall haveto be grateful to you for the rest of my life and I would rather have the house."

"Very well."

"Very well."

They walked on a little.

"He will not be at any ball in this county again," said Charlotte, to the hedge. "That is all. I mention it because you will hear a great deal about him at Christmas and I would rather you heard that first."

Elizabeth said nothing whatever, and did not trust herself to, and they went up the mount and came down the other side talking about the weather and Maria's new gown and whether Sir William would insist upon the wedding being at the church rather than the chapel; and by the gate they were nearly themselves again, and it was ten years before either of them mentioned that field to the other.

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"I hope you will think well of it in time," said Charlotte at the gate. "You will come and see us in the spring. I shall want you very much, and I shall write and beg, and you will be obstinate for a month and then you will come, because Jane will tell you that you ought."

"I shall come," said Elizabeth.

"You will not like Rosings."

"I do not expect to like Rosings."

"You misunderstand me," said Charlotte. "I mean that you will beseenat Rosings, and that a great deal will be made of you, and that her Ladyship will ask you eleven questions in the first quarter of an hour and remember all your answers." She opened the gate. "You have never once in your life been the only interesting person in a room, Lizzy, and you are not going to enjoy it as much as you suppose."

She went home to Lucas Lodge to be congratulated by her mother for the ninth time that day.

And Elizabeth walked back to Longbourn across the fields, past the corner of Barrett's ground where the grass had gone the wrong color, which was now two hundred and twenty yards long and had reached the near side of the Meryton road, and which she did not look at, because she was thinking about her friend.

Chapter Twenty-Three

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 and Mrs. Philips, was an amiable, intelligent, elegant woman, and a great favorite with all her Longbourn nieces. Between the two eldest and herself especially, there subsisted a very particular regard. They had frequently been staying with her in town.

The first part of Mrs. Gardiner's business on her arrival, was to distribute her presents and describe the newest fashions. 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 on 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 not it 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.

Afterwards, when she was alone with Elizabeth, 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, that these sort of inconstancies are very frequent."

"An excellent consolation in its way," said Elizabeth, "but it will not do forus. We do not suffer byaccident."

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Christmas at Longbourn was as it always was, and better than usual, because there were officers in it.

Mr. Wickham dined there twice, and was made much of, and had a manner with Mr. Gardiner that was exactly right — deferential without servility, and interested in the London trade in a way that Mr. Gardiner, who was accustomed to gentlemen who pretended to be interested in it, found unexpectedly agreeable.