Pride and Prejudice and Kitties, стр. 28

proceeding from a cause which no time can remove. No arguments shall be wanting on my part, that can alleviate so severe a misfortune; or that may comfort you, under a circumstance that must be of all others most afflicting to a parent’s mind. The death of your daughter would have been a blessing in comparison of this. And it is the more to be lamented, because there is reason to suppose, as my dear Charlotte informs me, that this licentiousness of behaviour in your daughter, has proceeded from a faulty degree of indulgence, though, at the same time, for the consolation of yourself and Mrs. Bennet, I am inclined to think that her own disposition must be naturally bad, or she could not be guilty of such an enormity, at so early an age. Howsoever that may be, you are grievously to be pitied, in which opinion I am not only joined by Mrs. Collins, but likewise by Lady Catherine and her daughter, to whom I have related the affair. They agree with me in apprehending that this false step in one daughter, will be injurious to the fortunes of all the others, for who, as Lady Catherine herself condescendingly says, will connect themselves with such a family. And this consideration leads me moreover to reflect with augmented satisfaction on a certain event of last November; for had it been otherwise, I must have been involved in all your sorrow and disgrace. Let me then advise you, my dear Sir, to console yourself as much as possible, to throw off your unworthy child from your affection for ever, and leave her to reap the fruits of her own heinous offense.

“I am, dear Sir, etc., etc.”

SHORTLY AFTER MR. Bennet’s return, Jane and Elizabeth were stalking a squirrel in the shrubbery, when Hill, the housekeeper, came to tell them that an express letter had arrived for their father from London. The two sisters dashed off to find their father and learn what news he had received.

The letter was from Uncle Gardiner to say that Lydia and Wickham had been apprehended, and that for a modest sum (100 mice per annum, per animal), their union would be finalized in as a respectable manner as any cat could hope for. And, apparently, the whole had been accomplished by their uncle!

“There are two things I want to know,” said Mr. Bennet, frowning over the letter. “One is how much your uncle had to lay out to persuade Wickham to agree to these terms, and the other is, how am I ever going to repay him?”

When Mrs. Bennet heard the good news about her daughter, she became as violently exuberant (chasing an imaginary feather about her sitting room) as she had been alarmed and vexed before.

“But the feast, the wedding feast!” she cried.

She was proceeding to the particulars of chicken gizzards, mouse hearts, and fish heads, and would shortly have dictated some very plentiful orders had not Jane, though with some difficulty, persuaded her to wait till her father was at leisure to be consulted.

Elizabeth reflected that although with Wickham, Lydia could expect neither peaceful catnaps nor a prosperous home (for what humans would take them in now?), things had concluded much more advantageously than she had dared to hope only a few hours before.

After a slight preparation for good news, the letter was read aloud. Mrs. Bennet could hardly contain herself. As soon as Jane had read Mr. Gardiner’s hope of Lydia’s being soon married, her joy burst forth, and every following sentence added to its exuberance. She was now in an irritation as violent from delight, as she had ever been fidgetty from alarm and vexation. To know that her daughter would be married was enough. She was disturbed by no fear for her felicity, nor humbled by any remembrance of her misconduct.

“My dear, dear Lydia!” she cried. “This is delightful indeed!— She will be married!—I shall see her again!—She will be married at sixteen!—My good, kind brother!—I knew how it would be.—I knew he would manage everything! How I long to see her! and to see dear Wickham too! But the clothes, the wedding clothes! I will write to my sister Gardiner about them directly. Lizzy, my dear, run down to your father, and ask him how much he will give her. Stay, stay, I will go myself. Ring the bell, Kitty, for Hill. I will put on my things in a moment. My dear, dear Lydia!—How merry we shall be together when we meet!”

MR. BENNET HAD never dreamed that he and Mrs. Bennet would have no male offspring to cut off Mr. Collins’s end-tail. Because he had always believed he would one day have a male heir, Mr. Bennet had put aside neither mice nor money for bribing worthless toms to make his equally worthless daughter respectable. Yet now he was indebted to Uncle Gardiner for doing just that. And he had no idea what stores of dry food Mr. Gardiner had been compelled to lay out to accomplish it!

The news of Lydia and Wickham’s newly acquired respectability soon spread through the house and the neighborhood with equal rapidity. Mrs. Bennet, who had not stirred from her room in a fortnight, now leapt from her bed with alacrity and raced downstairs, where she immediately began speculating about homes in which Lydia and Wickham might reside.

“Haye Park might do,” cried she, “if the humans could quit it— or the great house at Stoke, if the pawing-room were larger; but Ashworth is too far off! I could not bear to have her ten miles from me; and as for Purrvis Lodge, the attics are dreadful. Not even the mice will go near them!”

Elizabeth now began to wish that Darcy had never learned of Lydia’s infamous elopement. But even if he were unaware of it, would he condescend to connect himself to such a family and