五月里的第二个星期，三位年轻小姐一起从格雷斯丘奇街出发，前往赫特福德郡的某镇。当她们接近约定会合的本内特先生马车所在的客店时，立刻注意到，为了表明车夫的准时，基蒂和莉迪亚正从楼上一间餐室的窗口向外张望。这两个姑娘已经在那儿待了一个多小时，高高兴兴地逛了对面的女帽店，看了站岗的哨兵，还拌了一盘沙拉和黄瓜。
欢迎过姐姐们之后，她们得意地展示了一张摆着客店伙食房常备的冷肉的桌子，大声说：“这不错吧？这惊喜不让人愉快吗？”
“我们打算请你们全都吃，”莉迪亚补了一句，“可你们得借我们钱，因为我们刚在那边铺子里把钱花光了。”接着她亮出买来的东西——“瞧，我买了这顶帽子。我觉得它不太好看，但我想买也就买了。一回家我就把它拆开，看看能不能改得好看些。”
姐姐们嫌它丑，她满不在乎地接话：“哦，可铺子里还有两三顶丑得多的；等我买些颜色好看些的缎子来重新镶边，我想也就凑合了。再说，等——郡的民兵团离开梅里顿后，今年夏天穿什么也没大关系，他们再过两星期就走。”
“真的吗？”伊丽莎白极其满意地叫道。
“他们要去布赖顿附近扎营；我多希望爸爸夏天带咱们都去那儿！这计划多妙，我想几乎花不了什么钱。妈妈也巴不得去！想想看，不然咱们这个夏天该多惨！”
“是啊，”伊丽莎白想，“这计划可真‘妙’，一下子就够咱们受的。天哪！布赖顿，一营士兵，对咱们这些已经被一个可怜的民兵团和梅里顿的月度舞会搅得神魂颠倒的人！”
“我这儿有新闻给你们，”入座后莉迪亚说，“猜怎么着？好消息，天大的好消息，还说到一个咱们都喜欢的人。”
简和伊丽莎白交换了眼神，打发侍者不必留下。莉迪亚笑道：
“哎，这就是你们讲究体统、小心谨慎的样儿。你们以为侍者不能听，好像他在乎似的！我敢说他常听见比我要说的更难听的话。不过他长得真丑！走了也好。我从来没见过这么长的下巴。好，说正事：是关于亲爱的威克姆的；总不能让侍者听吧？威克姆绝不会娶玛丽·金了——这下你们放心！她去利物浦她舅舅家了，长住。威克姆安全了。”
“玛丽·金也安全了！”伊丽莎白补一句，“免得结一门不顾家财的亲。”
“她要是喜欢他，走掉可真傻。”
“但我希望两边都没深交情。”简说。
“我敢保他那边没有。我替他担保，他从来没把她放在心上。那种满脸雀斑的小东西，谁看得上？”
伊丽莎白一想，自己虽绝说不出这种粗话，可这粗俗念头，和她自己从前心里的想法竟差不多，不禁骇然。
吃过饭，年长的付了账，便叫马车；好容易安排停当，一行人带着所有箱子、针线袋、包裹，外加基蒂和莉迪亚不受欢迎的采购物，全坐了进去。
“挤得多好玩！”莉迪亚叫道，“幸亏我带了帽子，就为多一个帽盒好玩！好啦，咱们舒舒服服缩成一团，一路说笑回家。先说说你们走后都怎么了。见过中意的男人没？调情没？我本指望你们哪个先带个丈夫回来。简很快要成老姑娘了，我声明。她快二十三了！天！我要是二十三还没嫁，臊也要臊死。我姨母菲利普斯巴不得你们嫁人，你想都想不到。她说莉齐不如嫁了柯林斯先生；可我觉得那有什么好玩。天！我多想比你们都先嫁！然后我好带你们去所有舞会。天哪！前儿在福斯特上校家好玩死了！基蒂和我去那儿玩一天，福斯特太太说晚上小跳一场；（顺便说，福斯特太太和我是好朋友！）她请了哈林顿两姐妹；可哈丽特病了，所以彭只好自己来；你们猜咱们干吗？咱们把钱伯伦扮成女人，装小姐——想想多好玩！除了上校和福斯特太太、基蒂和我，没人知道，连我姨母也不知道，因为咱们逼着借了她一件袍子；你们想不出他扮得多像！等丹尼、威克姆、普拉特，还有两三个男人进来，压根没认出他。天！我笑得！福斯特太太也是。我差点笑死。这倒叫男人们起了疑，很快也就看破了。”
一路到朗伯恩，莉迪亚就靠基蒂提示添油加醋，拿这些聚会趣闻逗同伴。伊丽莎白能不听就不听，可威克姆的名字总免不了钻进耳朵。
家里接待十分亲切。本内特太太见简风采依旧，满心欢喜；饭桌上本内特先生不止一次主动对伊丽莎白说：
“莉齐，你回来我真高兴。”
餐室里人不少，卢卡斯家几乎全来了，既接玛丽亚，又听新闻；话题五花八门：卢卡斯夫人隔着桌子问玛丽亚长女安好和家禽；本内特太太两头忙，一边向坐得稍远的简打听时下时髦，一边又转述给小卢卡斯小姐们；莉迪亚嗓门比谁都高，正对愿听的人数落早上的乐事。
“哦，玛丽，”她说，“你跟咱们去多好，好玩死了！路上基蒂和我把帘子全拉上，装车里没人；要不是基蒂晕车，我就一路装到底。到了乔治客店，咱们可大方了，请另外三个吃了天底下最好的冷午餐，你要去也请。走的时候才好笑！我以为咱永远挤不上车。我笑得要死。回家一路多快活！又说又笑，十里外都听得见！”
玛丽极正经地答：“好妹妹，我绝无意贬低这种乐趣。多半女儿家自然喜欢。但我承认，我毫无兴趣。我宁可看书。”
这话莉迪亚半句没听进。她听人说话从不过半分钟，对玛丽向来不理。
下午莉迪亚催着别的姑娘去梅里顿看看大家，伊丽莎白坚决不允。不能让人说本内特家小姐回家不到半天就追军官。她反对还有一因：怕再见威克姆，打定主意能躲就躲。民兵团将走，对她真是说不出的安慰。再过两星期他们就走，走了她希望再不为他烦心。
回家没几时，她便发现莉迪亚在客店提过的布赖顿计划，父母正常提起。伊丽莎白一眼看出父亲绝无意让步；可他答话含糊敷衍，母亲虽常泄气，却总没死心。
It was the second week in May, in which the three young ladies set out
together from Gracechurch Street for the town of ----, in Hertfordshire;
and, as they drew near the appointed inn where Mr. Bennet’s carriage was
to meet them, they quickly perceived, in token of the coachman’s
punctuality, both Kitty and Lydia looking out of a dining-room upstairs.
These two girls had been above an hour in the place, happily employed
in visiting an opposite milliner, watching the sentinel on guard, and
dressing a salad and cucumber.
After welcoming their sisters, they triumphantly displayed a table set
out with such cold meat as an inn larder usually affords, exclaiming,
“Is not this nice? is not this an agreeable surprise?”
“And we mean to treat you all,” added Lydia; “but you must lend us the
money, for we have just spent ours at the shop out there.” Then showing
her purchases,--“Look here, I have bought this bonnet. I do not think it
is very pretty; but I thought I might as well buy it as not. I shall
pull it to pieces as soon as I get home, and see if I can make it up any
better.”
And when her sisters abused it as ugly, she added, with perfect
unconcern, “Oh, but there were two or three much uglier in the shop; and
when I have bought some prettier-coloured satin to trim it with fresh, I
think it will be very tolerable. Besides, it will not much signify what
one wears this summer, after the ----shire have left Meryton, and they
are going in a fortnight.”
“Are they, indeed?” cried Elizabeth, with the greatest satisfaction.
“They are going to be encamped near Brighton; and I do so want papa to
take us all there for the summer! It would be such a delicious scheme,
and I dare say would hardly cost anything at all. Mamma would like to
go, too, of all things! Only think what a miserable summer else we shall
have!”
“Yes,” thought Elizabeth; “_that_ would be a delightful scheme, indeed,
and completely do for us at once. Good Heaven! Brighton and a whole
campful of soldiers, to us, who have been overset already by one poor
regiment of militia, and the monthly balls of Meryton!”
“Now I have got some news for you,” said Lydia, as they sat down to
table. “What do you think? It is excellent news, capital news, and about
a certain person that we all like.”
Jane and Elizabeth looked at each other, and the waiter was told that he
need not stay. Lydia laughed, and said,--
“Ay, that is just like your formality and discretion. You thought the
waiter must not hear, as if he cared! I dare say he often hears worse
things said than I am going to say. But he is an ugly fellow! I am glad
he is gone. I never saw such a long chin in my life. Well, but now for
my news: it is about dear Wickham; too good for the waiter, is not it?
There is no danger of Wickham’s marrying Mary King--there’s for you! She
is gone down to her uncle at Liverpool; gone to stay. Wickham is safe.”
“And Mary King is safe!” added Elizabeth; “safe from a connection
imprudent as to fortune.”
“She is a great fool for going away, if she liked him.”
“But I hope there is no strong attachment on either side,” said Jane.
“I am sure there is not on _his_. I will answer for it, he never cared
three straws about her. Who _could_ about such a nasty little freckled
thing?”
Elizabeth was shocked to think that, however incapable of such
coarseness of _expression_ herself, the coarseness of the _sentiment_
was little other than her own breast had formerly harboured and fancied
liberal!
As soon as all had ate, and the elder ones paid, the carriage was
ordered; and, after some contrivance, the whole party, with all their
boxes, workbags, and parcels, and the unwelcome addition of Kitty’s and
Lydia’s purchases, were seated in it.
“How nicely we are crammed in!” cried Lydia. “I am glad I brought my
bonnet, if it is only for the fun of having another band-box! Well, now
let us be quite comfortable and snug, and talk and laugh all the way
home. And in the first place, let us hear what has happened to you all
since you went away. Have you seen any pleasant men? Have you had any
flirting? I was in great hopes that one of you would have got a husband
before you came back. Jane will be quite an old maid soon, I declare.
She is almost three-and-twenty! Lord! how ashamed I should be of not
being married before three-and-twenty! My aunt Philips wants you so to
get husbands you can’t think. She says Lizzy had better have taken Mr.
Collins; but _I_ do not think there would have been any fun in it. Lord!
how I should like to be married before any of you! and then I would
_chaperon_ you about to all the balls. Dear me! we had such a good piece
of fun the other day at Colonel Forster’s! Kitty and me were to spend
the day there, and Mrs. Forster promised to have a little dance in the
evening; (by-the-bye, Mrs. Forster and me are _such_ friends!) and so
she asked the two Harringtons to come: but Harriet was ill, and so Pen
was forced to come by herself; and then, what do you think we did? We
dressed up Chamberlayne in woman’s clothes, on purpose to pass for a
lady,--only think what fun! Not a soul knew of it, but Colonel and Mrs.
Forster, and Kitty and me, except my aunt, for we were forced to borrow
one of her gowns; and you cannot imagine how well he looked! When Denny,
and Wickham, and Pratt, and two or three more of the men came in, they
did not know him in the least. Lord! how I laughed! and so did Mrs.
Forster. I thought I should have died. And _that_ made the men suspect
something, and then they soon found out what was the matter.”
With such kind of histories of their parties and good jokes did Lydia,
assisted by Kitty’s hints and additions, endeavour to amuse her
companions all the way to Longbourn. Elizabeth listened as little as she
could, but there was no escaping the frequent mention of Wickham’s name.
Their reception at home was most kind. Mrs. Bennet rejoiced to see Jane
in undiminished beauty; and more than once during dinner did Mr. Bennet
say voluntarily to Elizabeth,----
“I am glad you are come back, Lizzy.”
Their party in the dining-room was large, for almost all the Lucases
came to meet Maria and hear the news; and various were the subjects
which occupied them: Lady Lucas was inquiring of Maria, across the
table, after the welfare and poultry of her eldest daughter; Mrs. Bennet
was doubly engaged, on one hand collecting an account of the present
fashions from Jane, who sat some way below her, and on the other,
retailing them all to the younger Miss Lucases; and Lydia, in a voice
rather louder than any other person’s, was enumerating the various
pleasures of the morning to anybody who would hear her.
“Oh, Mary,” said she, “I wish you had gone with us, for we had such fun!
as we went along Kitty and me drew up all the blinds, and pretended
there was nobody in the coach; and I should have gone so all the way, if
Kitty had not been sick; and when we got to the George, I do think we
behaved very handsomely, for we treated the other three with the nicest
cold luncheon in the world, and if you would have gone, we would have
treated you too. And then when we came away it was such fun! I thought
we never should have got into the coach. I was ready to die of laughter.
And then we were so merry all the way home! we talked and laughed so
loud, that anybody might have heard us ten miles off!”
To this, Mary very gravely replied, “Far be it from me, my dear sister,
to depreciate such pleasures. They would doubtless be congenial with the
generality of female minds. But I confess they would have no charms for
_me_. I should infinitely prefer a book.”
But of this answer Lydia heard not a word. She seldom listened to
anybody for more than half a minute, and never attended to Mary at all.
In the afternoon Lydia was urgent with the rest of the girls to walk to
Meryton, and see how everybody went on; but Elizabeth steadily opposed
the scheme. It should not be said, that the Miss Bennets could not be at
home half a day before they were in pursuit of the officers. There was
another reason, too, for her opposition. She dreaded seeing Wickham
again, and was resolved to avoid it as long as possible. The comfort to
_her_, of the regiment’s approaching removal, was indeed beyond
expression. In a fortnight they were to go, and once gone, she hoped
there could be nothing more to plague her on his account.
She had not been many hours at home, before she found that the Brighton
scheme, of which Lydia had given them a hint at the inn, was under
frequent discussion between her parents. Elizabeth saw directly that her
father had not the smallest intention of yielding; but his answers were
at the same time so vague and equivocal, that her mother, though often
disheartened, had never yet despaired of succeeding at last.
