The poor man had ridden three hours out from London, in a gloomy rain, only to be told that the woman he wished to speak to was in London herself.
We of course did what we could to refresh him, but the poor boy insisted on riding back at once to London, as soon as we gave him her address. I believe that he would not have given his poor horse a half hour’s rest if I had notinsistedthat the two of us speak. Fatherly duty and all — especially as I have a guilty conscience from how I mishandled a similar matter. I had him in the study, and I was in a proper mood to enjoy that ancient ritual of fatherhood, giving the suitor to my daughter’s hand as many anxious palpitations as his nature permitted.
By the way, that is no doubt the real reason for my annoyance overyourmarriage. Mr. Darcy’s character has too much of what the French call sang froid.
After offering a glass of brandy, and making him drink it, and a cigar, and making him smoke it, I asked our Mr. Bingley what his intentions towards my daughter, Miss Jane Bennet, were. Since he is to be our relation, I think it proper to claim him as “ours”, though he chiefly is Jane’s Mr. Bingley. He turned a delightful shade of red, looked down, looked up, looked to the side, looked at the ceiling, looked at me, and then said that he wished to talk to her.
“I had deduced that information, from your begging to see her,” replied I. “But upon which subject did you hope the conversation to revolve?”
The following involved too much hemming, hawing, and yet more embarrassed blushing to impose upon you in writing, or myself in memory — our Mr. Bingley has more of the temperament of a schoolgirl than a man of twenty and four ought to have, but besides that, I can make no complaint abouthim — After a long course of suffering, he managed to stammer out his hope to marry her, if she would say that she loved him, and that she would have him, and further he wished me to understand that his intentions were wholly honorable.
I questioned him about his disappearance — not simply for reasons of form, but because I was concerned. Mr. Bingley then confessed to having become convinced, for reasons he did not wish to specify, that Jane had been wholly indifferent to him, but that he had heard of late reason to think that was not true, and that he wished to ask her himself to find the truth.
“And what,” I asked, “had given you the notion that my daughter was in fact indifferent to you, and what, further, had given you now the notion that she was not.”
What followed was a matter of staring.
I managed to adopt the visage of the eagle-eyed father, prepared to defend his daughter with musket, ill-tempered hounds and muscled footmen. It was a delightful feeling. At last, he revealed that it wasyourhusband Mr. Darcy who gave himbothof these notions.Both!
What a delightful fellow.
And that shows another comedy of errors. Mr. Darcy first convinced his friend to abandon Jane, and then learning of his own mistake, and he had to journey three days, instead of three hours, to make matters correct.
This revelation also relieved some anxiety on my part, for I hold myself as having deduced what prompted that indecipherable line in your last letter to me saying “we have quarreled upon a matter that would only cause pain if more widely known.” I am sure you thought I would either understand, or at least not be concerned by that. Your assumption was incorrect, and I was most concerned.
You learned about your husband’s first interference with Jane, and as consequence of the quarrel he went off to correctmatters, which he now has, after some dithering. And we all are very grateful to him for doing so, even though the whole difficulty was his fault in the first place.
A good memory in such cases may be unpardonable, but you must decide for yourself whether you will remember the whole tale, or just its happy conclusion.
Mr. Darcy had sought Bingley out that very morning to inform him that he had been mistaken about Jane’s indifference, and the instant Bingley heard this, he set off to Longbourn to court the girl.
And so, I am now the one to inform you that Mr. Darcy’s matter of business which called him away from your side was real. A journey of three days solely, I assume, to tell Mr. Bingley that our Jane was not wholly insensible to Bingley’s charms. A task he might have avoided entirely had he been more cautious at first, and which he might have executed via letter had he been more sensible.
I fear that Mr. Bingley can be convinced to near anything by the influence of Mr. Darcy. Alas, Jane is also easily susceptible to the influence of those who she loves and trusts. They shall be so generous that they will go deeply into debt, and they will constantly be imposed upon by their friends, acquaintances, and even, I would say, enemies, except both members of the couple are too universally likable to have such creatures in their lives.
After having heard this from Bingley — and after I’d enforced sufficient delay for his horse to recover sufficiently to undertake a second journey in one day — I gave Bingley my blessing, contingent on Jane’s far more important approval, and penned a note for Bingley to take to Mr. Gardiner saying as much. I asked your uncle to negotiate the settlement as far as he could, as he is far better at such matters than I.
Bingley was off at once, no delay, no visit to the estate heheld in the neighborhood, simply back to London, and straight to Cheapside.
He had struck me as generally indecisive, but he put a partial lie to the notion yesterday. We received by post this afternoon a letter filled with Jane’s happy ecstasies on the promise of marriage between her and Bingley, and now I am obliged by your mother to take her and the girls to London to aid Jane in buying her trousseau. I had imagined Jane to be fully capable of buying her own clothes, especially with Mrs. Gardiner’s help, but I have been informed most firmly by your mother that I am wholly mistaken in the matter.
Alas, I cannot avoid town this year. If there is any book you cannot find in the famous library of Pemberley, tell me by writing, and I would take it as a kindness if you let me hunt it down in the bookstores of town, and send it as a gift to you.
We shall settle in town for several weeks, as your youngest sisters have had their heads too turned by those young officers that hang about the neighborhood. I have an eager longing for that day this summer when the regiment is to heigh off to new flirting grounds.
That Wickham fellow is the worst of them, making love to all and sundry, and especially to Lydia and Kitty, while spreading stories about your husband. I view his stories as unlikely to be true, but I should not spread them about myself, since he always insists that he would never wish to have these stories spread, because of his love for old Mr. Darcy.
If you think it wise, I will make a ruckus when we return to Longbourn, and ban Wickham from the village, on the strength of my universally known respect for your husband. I at least do not believe your Mr. Darcy to be any worse than the usual run of rich men, and this most recent matter makes me think him to be rather better than most. That is what I mean to say.
I know your quarrel is what in fact sent him to London, and that he did not come solely to speak to Mr. Bingley. I am sincerely sorry to see you at odds with your husband, and I sincerely hope that you will with time find a good way of living with him. A better one than the one that I have led with your mother. It works well enough for our temperaments, and I am happy enough, and I think she is as well, but I always hoped foryou,my beloved daughter, to have a true companionship of friendship and love with the partner of your life.
Perhaps this can be found with Mr. Darcy.
From Jane’s letter received yesterday, it appears he called at the Gardiners, and made a polite showing of himself. That you visited them three times, and him zero, in the time you were in London was a pointed message. Now that he has visited them strikes me as an attempt to send a different message — and he must hope for you to hear this new message.
Whatever resentment he may have had following your disagreements has not governed him to the point that he is unwilling to do us a great favor. We now know Mr. Darcy to be a man who listens to you, who can change his mind, and who will take solid and substantial action to repair the damage of his errors.
All these points speak well of him.
