Page 35 of Hard Home

"It is a most extraordinary circumstance," he said, "that I should have been in the same room with the nephew of my patroness and not have known it. I shall make my apologies to him at the very earliest opportunity."

"You will find him," said Mr. Wickham pleasantly, "much easier to apologize to than to speak with."

The evening broke up at eleven. Elizabeth went home with her head full of Mr. Wickham, and could think of nothing else the whole way, and told Jane the entire history before she had her stays off.

She slept badly and woke with a headache and was heavy and cross until noon, and put it down to the negus and the lateness of the hour, and thought no more about it at all.

Chapter Seventeen

Elizabeth related to Jane the next day, what had passed between Mr. Wickham and herself. Jane listened with astonishment and concern; — she knew not how to believe that Mr. Darcy could be so unworthy of Mr. Bingley's regard; and yet, it was not in her nature to question the veracity of a young man of such amiable appearance as Wickham. — The possibility of his having really endured such unkindness, was enough to interest all her tender feelings; and nothing therefore remained to be done, but to think well of them both, to defend the conduct of each, and throw into the account of accident or mistake, whatever could not be otherwise explained.

"They have both," said she, "been deceived, I dare say, in some way or other, of which we can form no idea. Interested people have perhaps misrepresented each to the other. It is, in short, impossible for us to conjecture the causes or circumstances which may have alienated them, without actual blame on either side."

"Very true, indeed; — and now, my dear Jane, what have you got to say in behalf of the interested people who have probably been concerned in the business? — Do clearthemtoo, or we shall be obliged to think ill of somebody."

"Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion. My dearest Lizzy, do but consider in what a disgraceful light it places Mr. Darcy, to be treating his father's favorite in such a manner — one, whom his father had promised to provide for. It is impossible. No man of common humanity, no man who had any value for his character, could be capable of it. Can his most intimate friends be so excessively deceived in him? oh! no."

"I can much more easily believe Mr. Bingley's being imposed on, than that Mr. Wickham should invent such a history of himself as he gave me last night; names, facts, every thing mentioned without ceremony. If it be not so, let Mr. Darcy contradict it. Besides, there was truth in his looks."

"It is difficult indeed — it is distressing. — One does not know what to think."

"I beg your pardon; — one knows exactly what to think."

Jane was quiet for a moment, folding a shawl she had already folded.

"Lizzy. When you say there was truth in his looks. You do not mean that you thought so. You mean that you looked."

"I do."

"And what did it tell you?"

"That he was not lying," said Elizabeth. "Not in the smallest particular. Jane, I have never in my life seen a thing so plain. He is telling the truth as he knows it, entire, to the bottom."

"Yes," said Jane slowly. "That is what I do not understand, and I have been trying since you came in. Because that is not the same thing, is it? As his being right."

Elizabeth opened her mouth.

"You have always said it yourself," Jane went on, in her mild way, without the least idea that she was doing anything at all. "When you were sixteen and dreadful, you used to say that you could tell a liar in a room but not a fool, and that it was a great pity, because there were so many more of the second. And a man may believe a thing entirely and have been told it by somebody. Or have arrived at it himself, in the wrong order, when he was young. Or—"

"Jane."

"I only mean," said Jane, "that your gift tells you what a man is holding. It does not tell you where he got it."

Elizabeth stood at the window with her back to the room.

It was a very good objection. It was, she recognized with some annoyance, a great deal better than anything she had thought of herself; and she was in the act of assembling an answer to it, and had got as far as understanding that she had not got one, when Kitty came flying in to say that a carriage was at the gate and it was the Netherfield party, all of them, come in person.

The thought went out of Elizabeth's head like a candle in a draft, and did not come back for four months.

---

The two gentlemen and their sisters were shown in, and Bingley — who could have sent a servant with a card, and had spent some time that morning constructing reasons why he should not — delivered his invitation to the ball at Netherfield in person, and was very happy.

It was fixed for the following Tuesday.

The two ladies were delighted to see their dear friend again, called it an age since they had met, and repeatedly asked what she had been doing with herself since their separation. To the rest of the family they paid little attention; avoiding Mrs. Bennet as much as possible, saying not much to Elizabeth, and nothing at all to the others.

Mr. Bingley looked at Jane a great deal.