“Whatever I do is done in a hurry,” replied he.
Another day passes in the Bingley household, where Lizzy waits on her mildly ill sister Jane in the hopes of getting her to bond with the head of the house, Mr Charles Bingley.
This time, she sends a letter back home to their mother Mrs ‘Name Unknown’ Bennet to get her opinion on Jane’s situation. For the uninitiated, she was the one who hoped so fervently that Jane would have to stay at Netherfield Park when a downpour started, but did not imagine Jane would be caught in it and spend her time there solely in bed.
In any case, she turns up before Lizzy’s breakfast is done with two more of her daughters, presumably there either out of concern for Jane, or to make Mrs Bennet look like an excellent mother somehow. I do wonder how they got to Netherfield, and so quickly. If they took a carriage (and considering the amount of detail put into Lizzy’s walk there, I doubt they had a stroll), then I do wonder why Bingley doesn’t insist they take the bed bound girl home. Perhaps it’s one of those unspoken things, where each party plays by the arbitrary rules for an implied outcome, here being him and Jane growing closer, which is looking unlikely for the moment.
To her credit, Mrs Bennet is described as being “miserable” if she had discovered Jane in a terrible state, so she isn’t all that bad. She slips back into her false pretenses, thanking Jane’s having “such good friends” in the Ms Bingley’s, who have said nothing to her as far as I can tell in the last two days, with some really exaggerated and performative sympathy when out of Jane’s sight. They did give her a room, I suppose, but I feel it was Bingley’s choice more than theirs, what with it being his house.
Talk turns to him alluding to being somewhat unreliable when asked about the short lease on the house. If he decides to, he says, he would “be off in five minutes”. Since this is a romance novel, I doubt I’ll get my wish, but all signs point to Charles having something of a secret life from his business dealings to willingness to leave his home behind in minutes should he need to.
Lizzy chimes in with an admittedly more accurate assessment of him, and is revealed to be so utterly bored with her Regency-era life that intensely scrutinising the behaviours of the people around her is considered “wild”. When skimming through the chapter in advance, I assumed she had gone for a run at the very least. Consider me disappointed.
As ever, Darcy joins the conversation with a sneer aimed at those who live in the country and their low quantity of “intricate” and “amusing” characters. At least, that’s how Mrs Bennet, proud as ever, understood it. She counters by asserting that the “far pleasanter” countryside is full of oddballs and eccentrics on a par with those in the town, and how dare he say otherwise! With little luck, Lizzy points out that her mother misunderstood the good gentleman (My, how people change their minds on each other!) and asks if her friend Ms Lucas had been around if only to change the subject. The poor, naive fool. Nothing will stop Mrs Bennet from chatting about the ladies and gentlemen that surround her.
Nothing.
Here follows a little tirade on how Ms Charlotte had to leave early for what Mrs Bennet presumes to be doing the work of servants for the household, despite her father being a knight which I imagine comes with certain perks. She is 20, admittedly. No sooner does she put the entire Lucas family down as “plain” does she lift up her daughters, especially Jane. Even Mrs Lucas prefers Jane over her own children, she’ll have you know.
She brags that when “only fifteen” (looks like there is a line to even her quest to marry people off) a gentleman came around and took an interest in her. To her regret (Um... It was a different time, I guess?), this goes nowhere beyond a couple of sonnets written for Jane by the man, as was the way at the time. Lizzy blames the love failing thanks to a sonnet starving out the “thin sort of inclination”, though I blame it on the child not really being interested in the gentleman, even if she had been prepped to marry one like him.
The evening drags on and it’s time for Mrs Bennet to do the decorum dance with the Bingley’s where everyone is forced to get involved in thanking and apologising most profusely in an “unaffectedly civil” manner, as Austen puts it. Before they go back, one of the daughters that came with her, Lydia, demands Mr Bingley deliver on the ball he promised back when he moved in a few chapters ago. We learn that Lydia is apparently “a favourite” of her mother’s (Somewhere, Jane stirs in her sleep. She will not stand being usurped.), has “wild animal spirits”, whatever that means, that tend to draw a lot of attention to her. He assents gladly and we will presumably follow up on this in good time.
With the majority of the Bennets finally gone (Lizzy stays to keep watch over Jane), the Ms Bingleys are free to critique and pick apart their former guests behind their back. Mr Darcy declines to get involved, and receives a barb from them about Lizzy’s “fine eyes” as he confided in them about last time. Poor fellow.
Thoughts
- If this was a bit short, it’s because I read it first on my phone, where you can’t exactly
scribble random thoughts onto the pageannotate it - Was Mary/Catherine left out of the visit...or did they not care about Jane?!
- No character development today.
- Is Darcy going to fall victim to this teasing for the rest of the volume?
