It was the second week of May when Elizabeth, Jane, and Maria left London together for Hertfordshire.
As they approached the inn where Mr. Bennet’s carriage was supposed to meet them, they quickly spotted Kitty and Lydia looking out of an upstairs window.
The two younger girls had arrived more than an hour earlier.
They had spent the time happily visiting a shop across the street, watching the soldier standing guard, and preparing a salad and some cucumbers.
As soon as their sisters arrived, Kitty and Lydia proudly showed them a table covered with a simple meal of cold meat.
“Isn’t this nice?”
“What a wonderful surprise!”
“And we’re going to treat everyone,” Lydia added.
“But you’ll have to lend us the money because we’ve already spent ours at the shop.”
She held up one of her purchases.
“Look at this bonnet.”
“I don’t think it’s very pretty, but I thought I might as well buy it.”
“I’ll take it apart as soon as I get home and see if I can make it look better.”
Her sisters immediately told her how ugly it was.
Lydia did not seem bothered at all.
“Oh, there were two or three even uglier ones in the shop.”
“And once I buy some prettier satin and decorate it properly, I think it will look quite acceptable.”
“Besides, it doesn’t matter much what we wear this summer.”
“The regiment is leaving Meryton in two weeks.”
Elizabeth immediately looked up.
“Are they really?”
“They’re going to set up camp near Brighton.”
“I really want Papa to take all of us there for the summer!”
“It would be such a wonderful adventure.”
“And I don’t think it would cost much at all.”
“Mamma would love to go too.”
“Just imagine how miserable our summer will be if we stay here!”
Elizabeth kept her thoughts to herself.
Brighton, she thought.
A whole camp full of soldiers.
After what had already happened with one small regiment in Meryton, and all those monthly dances, it would be enough to completely ruin us.
Lydia suddenly leaned forward.
“Now I have some news for you.”
“What do you think?”
“It’s excellent news.”
“Really wonderful news.”
“And it’s about someone we all like.”
Jane and Elizabeth exchanged a quick look.
Elizabeth quietly told the waiter that he could leave.
Lydia laughed.
“There you go again with your seriousness and good manners.”
“You thought the waiter shouldn’t hear what I was about to say.”
“As if he cares!”
“I imagine he hears much worse things every day.”
“Anyway, he’s an ugly fellow. I’m glad he’s gone.”
“I’ve never seen such a long chin.”
“Now, about my news.”
“It’s about dear Wickham.”
“That was too important for the waiter to hear, wasn’t it?”
“There is no chance of Wickham marrying Mary King.”
“She has gone to stay with her uncle in Liverpool.”
“So Wickham is free!”
“And Mary King is free too,” Elizabeth replied.
“Free from making a foolish marriage because of her limited fortune.”
“She must be very foolish to leave if she really liked him,” Lydia said.
“But I hope neither of them was seriously attached,” Jane said.
“I know Wickham wasn’t.”
“I would bet on it.”
“He never cared about her at all.”
“Who could care about such an ugly little freckled girl?”
Elizabeth was shocked.
She would never have spoken so cruelly herself.
Yet she had to admit that she had once held almost the same thought about Mary King.
She had simply dressed her own prejudice up in nicer words.
After they finished eating, Jane and Elizabeth paid the bill.
The carriage was brought around.
It took some effort to fit everyone inside with all their trunks, bags, packages, and the extra things Kitty and Lydia had bought.
Lydia looked around happily.
“How wonderfully crowded we are!”
“I’m glad I brought my bonnet, even if it was only to give us another hatbox to squeeze in.”
“Now let’s make ourselves comfortable.”
“We can talk and laugh all the way home.”
“And first, I want to hear everything that happened while you were away.”
“Did you meet any interesting men?”
“Did you flirt with anyone?”
“I was hoping one of you would come home with a husband.”
“Jane is going to become an old maid soon.”
“She is almost twenty-three!”
“Good heavens! I would be terribly embarrassed if I wasn’t married before twenty-three.”
“Aunt Philips is desperate for all of you to find husbands.”
“She even says Lizzy should have married Mr. Collins.”
“But I don’t think that would have been much fun.”
“I would love to get married before any of you.”
“Then I could take you all to dances and act as your chaperone.”
“Oh, and we had such fun at Colonel Forster’s the other day!”
“Kitty and I were there for the day.”
“Mrs. Forster promised to have a little dance that evening.”
“By the way, she and I are very good friends.”
“She invited the two Harrington sisters.”
“Harriet was ill, so Pen had to come alone.”
“And do you know what we did?”
“We dressed Chamberlayne in a woman’s clothes and made him pretend to be a lady!”
“Can you imagine?”
“Only Colonel and Mrs. Forster, Kitty, and I knew about it.”
“We had to borrow one of Aunt Philips’s dresses.”
“You cannot imagine how convincing he looked!”
“When Denny, Wickham, Pratt, and some of the other officers arrived, none of them recognized him.”
“Good heavens, I laughed so much!”
“Mrs. Forster was laughing too.”
“I thought I was going to die.”
“Eventually, the men realized that something strange was going on.”
“And then they discovered the truth.”
Lydia continued telling stories about parties, jokes, and the officers.
Kitty kept adding her own little details.
Elizabeth tried not to listen.
Unfortunately, Wickham’s name appeared again and again in almost every conversation.
When they finally reached Longbourn, the family welcomed them warmly.
Mrs. Bennet was delighted to see that Jane still looked beautiful.
During dinner, Mr. Bennet told Elizabeth more than once,
“I’m glad you’ve come home, Lizzy.”
The dining room was unusually crowded.
Almost all the Lucases had come to welcome Maria and hear about her visit.
Lady Lucas spent much of dinner asking Maria about Charlotte’s health, household, and chickens.
Mrs. Bennet was busy with Jane.
She wanted to hear all about the latest fashions from her.
Then she immediately passed the information on to the younger Miss Lucases.
Meanwhile, Lydia spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear.
“Mary, I wish you had come with us!”
“We had so much fun!”
“On the way here, Kitty and I pulled down all the blinds and pretended nobody was inside the carriage.”
“I would have kept doing it the whole way if Kitty hadn’t become sick.”
“And when we reached the George, we behaved very generously.”
“We gave the other three a wonderful cold lunch.”
“We would have treated you too if you’d been there.”
“And getting back into the carriage was so funny!”
“I thought we’d never manage it.”
“I was laughing so hard I could hardly breathe.”
“And then we were so happy all the way home.”
“We talked and laughed so loudly that someone ten miles away could probably hear us!”
Mary answered with complete seriousness.
“My dear sister, I would never criticize such pleasures.”
“I am sure they are perfectly suitable for most young women.”
“But I must admit that they would not interest me.”
“I would much rather spend my time reading a good book.”
Lydia did not hear a word of this.
She rarely listened to anyone for more than a few seconds.
And when Mary spoke, Lydia almost never paid attention.
That afternoon, Lydia insisted that all the girls should walk to Meryton.
“Come on, let’s go and see what’s happening there.”
Elizabeth firmly refused.
She did not want anyone saying that the Bennet sisters could not stay home for even half a day without chasing after the officers.
But that was not her only reason.
She was afraid of seeing Wickham again.
She wanted to avoid him for as long as possible.
The thought of the regiment leaving Meryton soon was one of the few things that gave her real comfort.
In two weeks, they would be gone.
Once they left, Elizabeth hoped she would finally have nothing more to trouble her about Wickham.
She had only been home for a few hours when she realized that Lydia’s idea about Brighton was already being discussed by her parents.
Elizabeth immediately understood that her father had no intention of agreeing.
But Mr. Bennet’s answers were so vague and carefully noncommittal that Mrs. Bennet refused to give up hope.
She was disappointed many times.
Still, she continued to believe that she might eventually persuade him.