After spending a week talking happily about love, marriage, and their future together, Mr. Collins had to leave his beloved Charlotte when Saturday arrived.
The separation was difficult for him, but he had plenty to look forward to.
He planned to prepare everything for Charlotte’s arrival as his bride. He had every reason to believe that, soon after his next visit to Hertfordshire, their wedding date would be decided.
That thought made him extremely happy.
Before leaving Longbourn, he said goodbye to everyone with the same seriousness as before.
He wished his cousins health and happiness once again and promised Mr. Bennet another letter expressing his gratitude.
The following Monday, Mrs. Bennet was delighted to welcome her brother and his wife.
Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner had come, as usual, to spend Christmas at Longbourn.
Mr. Gardiner was a sensible, well-mannered gentleman. He was far better educated and more reasonable than his sister.
The ladies at Netherfield would probably have been surprised that a man who earned his living through business could be so polished and pleasant.
Mrs. Gardiner was several years younger than Mrs. Bennet and Mrs. Philips.
She was kind, intelligent, elegant, and very popular with her nieces at Longbourn.
She was especially close to Jane and Elizabeth, who had often stayed with her in London.
As soon as Mrs. Gardiner arrived, she began handing out presents and talking about the latest fashions.
Once that was finished, she settled down to listen.
Mrs. Bennet had an enormous number of complaints.
She immediately began telling her sister how badly everything had gone since their last meeting.
“Everyone has treated us terribly,” she said.
“Two of my daughters nearly got married, and in the end nothing came of either situation.”
“I don’t blame Jane. If she could have married Mr. Bingley, she certainly would have.”
“But Lizzy!”
“Oh, sister, just think! Elizabeth could have been Mrs. Collins by now if she hadn’t been so stubborn.”
“He proposed to her right here in this room, and she refused him.”
“And now Lady Lucas will have a married daughter before I do.”
“And Longbourn is still legally tied up so that I cannot leave it to my daughters.”
“The Lucases are extremely clever when it comes to getting what they want.”
“They always think about themselves first.”
“I hate saying that about them, but it is true.”
“All this has made me so upset and miserable.”
“Still, your visit has come at exactly the right time. At least you have given me something pleasant to think about.”
“And I am very interested in what you told us about long sleeves being fashionable again.”
Mrs. Gardiner had already heard most of this from Jane and Elizabeth’s letters.
She gave her sister a brief reply and quickly changed the subject, partly to spare her nieces from hearing the same complaints again.
Later, when she was alone with Elizabeth, Mrs. Gardiner returned to the subject.
“It sounds as though Mr. Bingley might have been a very good match for Jane,” she said.
“I am sorry things did not work out.”
“But these things happen all the time.”
“A young man like Mr. Bingley can easily become interested in a pretty girl after knowing her for only a few weeks.”
“And if circumstances separate them, he may just as easily forget her.”
“So I suppose this kind of changeable affection is quite common.”
“That may be a comforting explanation,” Elizabeth replied, “but it doesn’t explain what happened to us.”
“This wasn’t simply an accident.”
“It is not very common for a wealthy young man to be deeply in love with a girl one week and then forget all about her a few days later simply because his friends interfere.”
“But you keep saying he was ‘deeply in love.’ That phrase can mean almost anything.”
“People use it for feelings that appear after half an hour of knowing someone, as well as for genuine love.”
“So tell me, how deeply was Mr. Bingley in love?”
“I have never seen anything more promising.”
“He became so absorbed in Jane that he hardly noticed anyone else.”
“Every time they met, his feelings seemed stronger.”
“At his own ball, he even ignored two or three young women who expected him to ask them to dance.”
“I spoke to him twice myself, and he was so distracted that he didn’t even answer me.”
“Could there be any clearer signs?”
“Isn’t being rude to everyone else practically proof that a man is in love?”
“Oh, certainly,” Mrs. Gardiner said with a smile.
“At least, that is the sort of love I imagine he felt.”
“Poor Jane.”
“I am sorry for her because, with her gentle nature, she may not recover very quickly.”
“It would almost have been better if this had happened to you, Lizzy.”
“You would probably have laughed about it and moved on much sooner.”
“But perhaps Jane would like to come back to London with us?”
“A change of surroundings might help her.”
“And getting away from home for a while may do her more good than anything else.”
Elizabeth was delighted by the suggestion.
She was sure Jane would happily accept.
“I hope Jane won’t allow anything connected with Mr. Bingley to influence her decision,” Mrs. Gardiner added.
“We live in a completely different part of London, and our social circles are entirely different.”
“As you know, we rarely go out.”
“So it is very unlikely that Jane and Mr. Bingley will meet unless he deliberately comes looking for her.”
“That is impossible,” Elizabeth replied.
“He is practically under his friend’s control now.”
“And Mr. Darcy would never allow him to visit Jane in our part of London.”
“My dear Aunt, how could you even suggest such a thing?”
“Mr. Darcy may have heard of Gracechurch Street, but I doubt he would consider it respectable enough to enter.”
“If he ever did, he would probably want to spend a month washing afterward.”
“And you can be sure that Mr. Bingley never goes anywhere without him.”
“Then that is all the better,” Mrs. Gardiner said.
“I hope they don’t meet at all.”
“But doesn’t Jane still write to Bingley’s sister?”
“She won’t be able to avoid seeing her.”
“She will stop the friendship completely.”
Elizabeth spoke as though she were absolutely certain.
But privately, she was not nearly so confident.
She still wondered whether Bingley’s feelings for Jane might return.
Perhaps his love had only been suppressed by his friends.
Perhaps, once he saw Jane again, her natural charm would be strong enough to overcome their influence.
In fact, Elizabeth sometimes thought this was quite possible.
Jane happily accepted her aunt’s invitation to London.
She was still thinking about the Bingleys, but she hoped that Caroline would not be living in the same house as her brother.
That way, Jane might occasionally visit Caroline without having to risk seeing Bingley.
The Gardiners stayed at Longbourn for a week.
There was something to do almost every day.
The Philipses, the Lucases, and the officers all provided invitations and visits.
Mrs. Bennet had planned so much entertainment for her brother and sister that they never once had a quiet family dinner.
Even when dinner was held at Longbourn, some of the officers were usually invited.
Wickham was almost always among them.
Mrs. Gardiner had noticed how warmly Elizabeth spoke about Wickham, so she began watching the two of them carefully.
She did not think they were seriously in love.
Still, it was obvious that they were attracted to each other.
That worried her.
She decided that she should speak to Elizabeth before leaving Hertfordshire and warn her about the danger of encouraging such a relationship.
Wickham gave Mrs. Gardiner another reason to enjoy his company.
About ten or twelve years earlier, before her marriage, she had spent a long period in the part of Derbyshire where Wickham had grown up.
Because of that, they knew many of the same people.
Wickham had not spent much time there since Mr. Darcy’s father died five years earlier.
Even so, he was able to give Mrs. Gardiner recent news about several of her old acquaintances.
Mrs. Gardiner had visited Pemberley before and had known of the late Mr. Darcy’s reputation.
This gave her and Wickham plenty to talk about.
She compared her own memories of Pemberley with Wickham’s detailed descriptions of the estate.
She also spoke warmly about the character of the late Mr. Darcy.
Both she and Wickham enjoyed these conversations.
After hearing Wickham’s story about how the present Mr. Darcy had supposedly treated him, Mrs. Gardiner tried to remember whether she had ever heard anything about Darcy’s personality when he was a boy.
She thought carefully for a while.
Then she became convinced that she remembered hearing that Fitzwilliam Darcy had once been known as a very proud and unpleasant child.