CHAPTER 2 #4
Mrs. Bennet was now so perfectly in her element that Elizabeth began to feel the first fatigue of too much happiness badly governed.
It was all movement, expectation, management of looks, daughters, chairs, hopes, and consequence.
Yet she could not deny that the thing itself was pleasant.
Bingley’s affection was obvious; Jane’s happiness was trying to remain modest and failing in the attempt; Lydia and Kitty were in ecstasies over music and dancing; and Longbourn was, for one hour, almost cheerful enough to resemble a family.
The Netherfield visitors at last rose to go. Mr. Bingley took leave of Jane with visible reluctance and of Elizabeth with renewed pleasure, repeating the hope that she would remain in the country long enough to judge Hertfordshire less harshly than London had no doubt taught her to do.
Miss Bingley’s farewell to Elizabeth was all polish.
“I hope Longbourn will not detain you from town longer than you wish, Miss Elizabeth.”
“Longbourn has never detained me yet.”
“Then you are fortunate in your freedom.”
“Yes,” said Elizabeth, with a smile just mild enough to be civil. “I have begun to think so.”
Miss Bingley heard the money in that answer, though Elizabeth had not put it there.
Pom-Pom, from Elizabeth’s lap, watched them go with eyes full of unresolved censure and uttered, at the precise moment Miss Bingley passed the threshold, one sharp bark of such pointed dismissal that Lydia fell into a fit of laughter from which she did not soon recover.
“He has formed a view,” said Elizabeth.
“Then I hope,” said Mr. Bingley cheerfully, “that time may improve it.”
“It has not yet improved many of his.”
When the door had closed and the carriage rolled away, Mrs. Bennet began at once to relive every word, look, and syllable of Mr. Bingley’s concern for Jane.
Kitty and Lydia quarrelled over dances not yet assigned.
Mary believed the whole neighbourhood in peril of growing frivolous and said so, though in a tone which suggested she hoped to be contradicted.
Jane bore all felicitation with sweetness and embarrassment.
Elizabeth sat among them, amused, tired, and more than ever convinced that Jane, if left alone with Mr. Bingley and no superior intelligence to interrupt him, might very well be married before the year was out.
This was a happy thought; and because it was happy, Longbourn could not be expected to leave it undisturbed for long.
At dinner, when the first violence of the day’s excitement had subsided into a more stable chatter, Mr. Bennet, who had listened to the whole with intermittent attention and very little visible paternal emotion, helped himself to another glass of wine and said, as if mentioning the weather,
“By the by, we are to expect Mr. Collins within a fortnight.”
The table changed at once.
Mrs. Bennet brightened with the peculiar eagerness of a woman to whom unwelcome relatives are always welcome if they arrive with property attached.
“Mr. Collins! So soon? My dear Mr. Bennet, why did you not say so earlier?”
“I had no wish to interrupt your reflections on Mr. Bingley’s dances.”
“They were not his dances. They were his attentions. And Mr. Collins is not a subject to be neglected, for though he may prove an odious man, not having yet had the advantage of knowing him, he is at least connected with the estate in a way that every mother of daughters must regard.”
“No reason in the world,” said Mr. Bennet, “except his existence.”
Kitty asked whether Mr. Collins danced. Lydia hoped he did not preach. Mary, who saw no absurdity in cousinship but much in dancing, thought either quality might be borne separately but not together. Jane looked merely surprised.
Elizabeth, who knew enough of the name to feel her appetite diminish, set down her fork.
“So near as that?”
“He writes with every appearance of intention,” said Mr. Bennet. “I have no reason to suppose he will spare us.”
Mrs. Bennet gave a little shiver of consequence.
“He must be properly received. Whatever his situation, he is your cousin, girls; and though I own there is something most provoking in the circumstance of a man succeeding where so many deserving daughters must be disappointed, still one does not choose to quarrel with entails unless one can alter them, which I cannot. At least if he proves civil, there is no reason we should not be upon very good terms.”
“No reason in the world,” said Mr. Bennet, “except his conversation.”
Elizabeth said little more.
The day, which had begun in the uneasiness of return and swelled by degrees into Netherfield gaiety, closed upon that note of creeping domestic consequence which Longbourn always seemed able to produce whenever comfort had ventured too far into the room.
Jane had Bingley. Lydia had a ball. Mrs. Bennet had materials enough for agitation till breakfast. And somewhere on the road to Hertfordshire, as invisible yet as a storm still beyond the hill, Mr. Collins had begun his journey.
Elizabeth, going upstairs later with Pom-Pom beneath her arm and Mrs. Doddridge behind her carrying the candle with all the expression of a monument, thought that she had perhaps arrived at exactly the wrong moment.
Pom-Pom sneezed into her sleeve.
“Yes,” said Elizabeth softly. “I believe you may be right.”