Split (1)

train · 2.01k rows

text stringlengths 5 145k
Arklet 1, which had been sent up on Day 285, turned out to have a few teething problems with its maneuvering thrusters, and so the first bolo coupling in the history of the Cloud Ark took place between Arklet 2 and Arklet 3. Those had been launched on Days 296 and 300, respectively. These first three Arklets represented competing designs and so they all looked a little different. No matter; they were destined to be punched out in different factories and launched on different types of heavy-lift rockets from different spaceports, so minor variations in styling were to be expected. They all had the same general shape, though: a cylinder with domed end caps. That was for the ineluctable reason that they had to be pressurized in order to perform their basic function of keeping humans alive, and pressure sooner or later made everything round. Dinah thought that the pressure hulls looked like the big liquid propane tanks seen next to cabins and mobile homes in the rural mining camps where she had grown up. Others likened them to railway tanker cars, or stubby hot dogs. They were just big aluminum cans with domes welded onto the ends. The walls of the can had a thickness of about a millimeter. The domes were a bit sturdier. The thickest and strongest parts of the hull were in the places where the domes overlapped the ends of the can. The analogy was to a plastic soda bottle, whose thin walls could be crumpled in one hand when the lid was off, but which became amazingly stiff and strong when it was pressurized. Or at least that was what NASA was saying to people who were alarmed by the idea of living one millimeter away from the vacuum of space. The first three arklets were launched "naked" and smooth, but the hundreds to follow would come up clothed in translucent fabric jackets, pleated and wrinkled during the passage through the atmosphere, protected beneath fiberglass fairings. Once in space the blanket would be inflated to form a flexible outer hull somewhat larger than the inner one. It was in that inter-hull space where food would be grown, making use of sunlight that would diffuse through the fabric. It was not clear yet whether each arklet could be self-sufficient in terms of food production—probably not—but growing some food was better than growing none. Having some green stuff on board helped reduce the load on the CO2 scrubbers, and having water between humans and space helped stop some incoming radiation. One of the end caps sported a docking port, designated in NASA public-relations cant as the "front door." It was a bit of a misnomer since it was the only door. Once sealed up inside the pressure hull, the occupants could only get out of it by docking the arklet to something with breathable air on the other side of it. The opposite end of the arklet was called the "boiler room." Mounted outside of it was the trash-can-sized nuclear generator that supplied the arklet with power. Around that were various fittings for connection of plumbing lines, electrical mains, cooling equipment, and the like, none of which would ever be used except in the case when a number of arklets decided to dock themselves together and form a semipermanent cluster. Those sturdy, thick rings where the domes met the main body served as attachment points for anything of a structural nature—anything that would exert significant forces on the body of the arklet. Radiating from each of those rings were eight stubby, radial spokes, extending outward to halolike rings where thrusters and grappling equipment were attached. Those parts were shipped inside of the arklet, then, once it was in space, extracted through the docking port by spacewalkers and bolted on in zero gee. The halos also served to stiffen and stabilize the inflatable outer hull in arklets so equipped, but in the first three test units they just projected out into space like bicycle rims, studded with small thruster nozzles and laced through with plumbing. Spanning the distance between the "front door" halo and the "boiler room" halo was a single long spindly member, hinged at the "front" or forward end so that it could, on command, snap up and out, projecting sideways from the arklet for a distance of about ten meters. Mounted to the end of this arm were a camera, a target, and an electromechanical grappling device, collectively known as the Paw. A cable ran from the Paw back down the length of the arm to a reel near the docking port, where 250 meters of it were wound up like thread on a spool. The arm, the Paw, the rope, and the reel were all there to achieve a specific maneuver, never before attempted, denoted in official NASA engineering documents as the Bolo Coupling Operation but referred to everywhere else as the High Five. On Day 306, after Arklets 2 and 3 had been assembled and checked out, the first Bolo Coupling Operation was initiated. It happened several kilometers away from Izzy. It was done quietly and secretly, in case it failed, but lots of video was taken, in case it succeeded. The operation had many possible failure modes, which was engineering-speak meaning that it could go wrong in so many different ways that trying to think them all through was impossible. So each of the two arklets needed to have a qualified pilot: someone who understood orbital mechanics and spaceship propulsion well enough to bring an errant craft back in hand by manual control. Few such people had ever existed, and only four of them were aboard Izzy. Right now, down on the ground, thousands of young people selected in the Casting of Lots were learning how to do it by piloting virtual arklets in video game simulations, but none of those people was ready, or in orbit, yet. So Ivy ended up at the controls of Arklet 2, with Dinah as passenger and general assistant. Piloting Arklet 3 was a recent arrival, Markus Leuker, a Swiss air force pilot turned astronaut and a veteran of two previous missions to the ISS. His background piloting high-performance fighter jets through Alpine valleys seemed like a reasonable qualification for this job. His assistant was Wang Fuhua, one of the first Chinese taikonauts to have reached Izzy during the Pioneer days of a few months back. After a good night's sleep and a light breakfast, the four participants met in the Banana to go over the details one last time with engineers on the ground, then ascended a spoke into the weightless environment of H1 and glided up the Stack—the central axis of the space station—snaking through work bays and temporary supply dumps until they reached a docking node that, after a few twists and turns, led them into a hamster tube. One after the other they slithered down it. Dinah, in number three position behind Markus, found it difficult to keep up with him; the soles of his feet kept getting farther and farther away. "Just like scaling the Daubenhorn," he said at one point, "except without the annoyance of gravity!" "Is that a mountain?" Dinah asked, since the hamster tube was long, and she felt that a bit of light conversation would help ease the lump in her stomach. "Yes, a famous Klettersteig where I grew up—you must come and give it a try one of these days," Markus called back. A common error in etiquette, among people who had only recently arrived at Izzy, was to talk about Earth as a place that it was possible to go back to. As if this were a temporary mission like all of the previous ones. Dinah said nothing. Markus would realize his mistake, if he hadn't already. "Oh, well," he added. Yes, he had realized it. "What's a Klettersteig?" Dinah asked, trying to move on. "It is a mountain climb that is preengineered with cables, ladders, and so on." "To make it easier," Dinah guessed. "Oh, no. It is not easy. It is a way to take a climb that would be impossible, and make it merely extremely difficult." "Okay," Dinah said. "A good metaphor for what we are trying to do up here, then." "Yes, I suppose so!" Markus said, cheerfully enough. They came to a junction of hamster tubes, and after scrutinizing the felt-tipped annotations on the walls left by past travelers, they went their separate ways, Dinah leading Ivy to the right while Fuhua and Markus headed straight on. After passing three occupied docking ports, and exchanging perfunctory greetings with the people living in the capsules on the other sides, they came to the end of the hamster tube and passed through a docking port. They floated into a tubular space four meters in diameter and twelve meters long, illuminated by icy bluish-white LEDs. Its wall was a smooth cylinder of aluminum, striped with bar codes and stippled with batch numbers from the mill that had produced it. A long, straight weld ran up its length. At the far end, the curve of its "boiler room" dome, penetrated by many plumbing and electrical connections, was visible through a flat fiberglass grate—a disk of industrial catwalk material in a bilious shade of green. A ladder, made of the same material, extended "up" from there to the "front door," through which Dinah, and now Ivy, entered. It put Dinah immediately in mind of Markus with his talk of Klettersteigs. You didn't need to have a ladder unless you were expecting gravity, or a reasonable facsimile of it. The grate at the far end of the arklet was going to end up serving as the floor. Or as a floor—the lowermost story. The arklet was long enough to divide vertically into as many as five stories by inserting more of those grated disks. Cleats for that purpose were attached to the walls at regular intervals, but the grates hadn't been installed yet. Dinah pushed off against the top rung of the ladder and flew "down" until she could arrest her momentum against the boiler room grate, then spun herself about so that her feet were touching it and her head was pointed back "up" toward the front door. This brought her eyes level with several flat-panel screens that had been mounted to the walls. They served as status indicators and control panels for the equipment mounted to the outside of the dome. The little nuke was the only thing that mattered to them at the moment. It had a screen all to itself. Dinah woke it up with a tap. It refreshed itself with a graphical display, showing the temperature of the plutonium pellet at its core, its current output level, the RPMs and health metrics of the Stirling engine that converted its heat into electrical power, and the charge level of the batteries and of the supercapacitor that served as a buffer to store energy when it wasn't needed and release it when it was. Everything seemed normal there. Not much could really go wrong with these things. This one was brand new. She pivoted to another display that gave her information about the array of thrusters mounted to the halo just outside. Arklets were pretty short on windows; the only place you could see out was at the forward end, where a couple of small portholes had been let into the dome adjacent to the docking hardware. Just below one of them was what the engineers called a couch and what the casual observer would be more likely to describe as an expensive lawn chair that had somehow found its way into space. Ivy had already strapped herself into it and was waking up another bank of flat-panel screens there. Dinah could hear her murmuring into the microphone on her headset, which she had jacked into the assortment of plastic boxes that, in this context, passed for a control panel. She was running through a checklist with mission control and talking to Markus, who by now must be strapped in at the controls of Arklet 3. Gazing around, Dinah saw the gleam of a camera lens, no larger than a raven's eye, set into a tiny plastic pod on the wall in the middle of the arklet. Then, for no particular reason, she started crying. There'd been surprisingly little of this. Certain Morse code messages from Rufus were guaranteed to turn on the old waterworks. Ivy and Dinah permitted themselves to shed tears in each other's presence when no one else was around, and a few other people such as Luisa had joined that club more recently. But there was always something to do, some emergency to take care of, always people around watching. No privacy. This empty arklet was the largest volume of uninterrupted, unoccupied space that Dinah had been inside of since boarding the Soyuz capsule at Baikonur a year and a half ago. It seemed vast to her, and she felt alone in it, and she couldn't help herself. She knew that the camera was watching her and that she was being recorded on digital video that was being archived. Psychologists in Houston might be judging her fitness for duty at this very moment. But she didn't care. She'd stopped caring about what the people in Houston thought a long time ago. Once she started crying, it developed a kind of unstoppable momentum and she just had to let it run for a while. Her thoughts had begun to ramble away from her own family and situation and toward the Arkers who would live and die in tin cans like this one. If it didn't work—if the whole Cloud Ark idea was just a panacea, as some people suggested—then the last thoughts and impressions ever recorded by a human soul might take place in an environment exactly like this one. And maybe Dinah would be that soul. The problem with crying in zero gee was that tears didn't run down your cheeks. They built up in jiggling sacs around your eyes, and you had to shake them off or dab them away. Dinah didn't have anything to dab with—the plastic coveralls they wore were notoriously nonabsorbent—and so she just drifted in the bottom of the arklet, looking at the light from the control screens through bags of warm salt water. "Some assistant you are!" Ivy called back, after letting her go on for a few minutes. "Sorry," Dinah blurted out. "That was mission critical." "Try not to short out any of the equipment. Tears conduct electricity." "I think they made it all pee-proof. Remember, these things are designed for amateurs." "Tell me about it," Ivy snorted. "The user interface is so easy to use, I can't do anything." Something light whacked into Dinah's head. Through the tears she vaguely saw a white object caroming off the nuclear reactor's user-friendly control panel. Pawing it out of the air, her hands recognized it as a packet of tissues. A high-value black market item. She tore it open, pulled out a few sheets, and began the somewhat delicate process of soaking up the tear-globs without smashing them into sprays of equipment-shorting droplets. "I mean, my God, what would Markus think of you?" Ivy demanded. It took Dinah a few moments to catch up. "Him and me? You think?" "It is so obvious." After a thrilling first few weeks, things had kind of trailed off with Rhys. It was okay. Easy come, easy go. She had never seen him as a stable long-term prospect. The times they'd been living in, and the place they'd been living, weren't really conducive to long-term pair bonding. Luisa, wearing her anthropologist hat, had watched the spontaneous, mostly short-lived couplings of Izzy's inhabitants with a combination of dry amusement, scientific fascination, and frank, hilarious envy. "I don't know," Dinah said, "I see where you're going, but he seems a little Captain Kirk." "You need a little Captain Kirk in your..." "In my what?" "In your life. Rhys is too introspective." "Is that a euphemism of some kind?" "He's depressed." "Gosh, I wonder why." "No, not that way. Not about the world ending and everyone dying. I mean that when he's working on a project he's full of energy but when it's finished he just kind of collapses." On the tip of Dinah's tongue was a remark about how well that observation aligned with Rhys's lovemaking style, but she held back. "You realize that all of this is being recorded?" "Get used to it," Ivy said, and Dinah could sense her shrug from twelve meters away. "Hang on, gonna give the forward thrusters a little pop—backing out of our parking space." She wasn't kidding. The thrusters gave off something very like a bang when they went off. Dinah, who actually wasn't hanging on, felt a few moments of disorientation as the whole arklet moved backward around her while she remained motionless. The green grid dropped away from her and the front door approached—but all so slowly that she needed only to reach out and glide a hand along the ladder to control her relative motion. In a few seconds the forward end of the arklet reached her and she stopped herself against one of the struts of Ivy's couch. Next to it was a knot of straps and pads, like a rock-climbing harness, which Dinah now spent a couple of minutes untangling and climbing into. The bangs of the thrusters, the hisses and clicks of the associated plumbing, and Ivy's murmuring into the microphone served as accompaniment while she got herself strapped in and donned a headset of her own. That enabled her to hear the clipped military-style transmissions among Dinah, Markus, and their controller on Izzy. An engineer in Houston weighed in every few minutes with questions and observations. Once they had drifted well clear of Izzy, they initiated a programmed burn a few seconds long that took them to a slightly higher orbit. For a while they could see nothing but empty space through the windows. The sun must have risen over the Earth's limb, because bright round spots appeared on the wall. Ivy said, "I have Three on radar and am engaging MAP." That being the three-letter acronym for Monitored Autonomous Piloting. The operation they were about to perform—the High Five—was deemed way too ticklish to be handled by noob spaceship pilots. It had to be a robotic operation the whole way. But the algorithms, and the sensors that told them what was happening, were all brand new, so experienced pilots had to sit at the controls, watching through the window and taking over if and when the robo-pilot started acting screwy. The thrusters began to pop in a different rhythm, a patter of tiny firings very different from how a human being would operate them. The star field swung past the windows, the splotches of sunlight veered around the walls, and suddenly Arklet 3 rotated into view, a few hundred meters away. It too was flying under MAP, coming about until its front door was aimed their way. Dinah stifled the impulse to wave at Markus and Fuhua. It was unprofessional, and anyway they wouldn't be able to see her through the tiny porthole. A spindly white arm swung outward from the side of Arklet 3 and locked into position, extended off to one side. A few moments later they heard and felt their own arm actuating likewise, and watched an animation of it on a flat screen. "Bringing up the Paw camera," Dinah muttered, and tapped a control that flooded a screen with high-resolution video from a telephoto lens mounted at the end of the arm. This showed nothing, at first, but the blue limb of the Earth's atmosphere down in one corner. Then a targetlike pattern veered across the screen, slowed, and veered back. All of this was accompanied by more fidgety percussion from the thrusters. The feed was remarkably close, and clear. Comparing it to the direct view out the porthole, Dinah could see the target on the end of Arklet 3's extended arm, looking tiny from this distance. But the machine vision system now in control of their little spacecraft had found it, and recognized it, and... "We have a lock," Ivy said. "We see you, Three." "We see you, Two," Markus answered. "It proceeds." It proceeded with a longer firing of the aft thrusters that nudged them forward enough that Dinah could feel the pressure on her bottom, sense the straps of the harness tightening. The target flailed around some, but a few moments later, the lock was reestablished. Dinah could see Arklet 3 growing larger. Numbers on a screen, gauging the distance between the ships—or, to be precise, between the two ships' outstretched Paws—were counting down. "It is all nominal," Ivy said, but the last word was drowned out by a digital voice making an announcement over the arklet's rudimentary PA system: "Bolo Coupling Operation entering its terminal phase. Prepare for acceleration." And then in classic NASA style it counted down: "Five, four, three, two, one, grapple initiated." At "one" the test pattern on the screen disappeared in shadow, for it was too close now for the camera to even see it. The Paws of Arklet 2 and Arklet 3 slapped together, like runners exchanging a high five as they passed each other going opposite ways. Strange whiny noises propagated down the arm into the hard shell of the arklet. "Grappling achieved," said the voice. Dinah's ears finally identified the whiny noise as the sound of cable unwinding from a spool. She felt a lurch in her stomach as the arklet did a half somersault, reversing its direction so that it was pointed back at its bolo partner. As she knew, having studied this maneuver for weeks, the two arklets were now joined together by a cable. They had flown right past each other, but the tension in that cable had spun them around so that they were pointing toward each other again—she verified this with a glance out the window, which gave her a view of the nose of Arklet 3 slowly receding as it "backed away" from them. The spool of cable mounted next to its docking port was in motion, unwinding as the two craft gained distance from each other. In the exact center, the cables of Arklets 2 and 3 were clasped together by a coupling device that could be remotely disengaged whenever they made the decision to go their separate ways. "Congratulations, Bolo One," said the engineer down in Houston. "The first autonomously driven coupling of two spacecraft to create a rotating system for production of Earth-normal simulated gravity." Earth swung past beneath the other half of Bolo One and Dinah felt the awareness of her own throat that would culminate, five minutes from now, in vomiting. The two arklets were already swinging slowly around each other, producing a small amount of simulated gravity—even less than what they experienced in the Banana. But the MAP system wasn't satisfied with that. Once the two arklets were far enough apart not to take damage from each other's thruster exhaust, the system initiated a longer burn that, in combination with the slow unreeling of the cables, put their inner ears through some disturbing changes. The sound of the cable reels changed as automatic brakes engaged to slow their unwinding and avoid a damaging jerk at the end. Then there was silence for a few moments, and then another thruster burn—longer, and directed laterally, to speed up the bolo's rotational velocity. "Holy shit" was the only thing that Dinah could say for the first minute or two. They were experiencing one gee—Earth-normal gravity—for the first time in over a year. Markus, who'd only been in orbit for a few days, sounded great. To judge from what they were hearing in their headsets, he had unstrapped from his pilot's couch and was clambering all over Arklet 3 as if it were the Daubenhorn. Ivy and Dinah couldn't move for several minutes, and Dinah seriously entertained the possibility that she was dying. "Can you pass out while you're lying down?" she finally asked. "Remain in your positions," a voice from Houston was saying, dimly, distantly, as if shouting at them through a bullhorn from four hundred kilometers below. "It is a long fall to the bottom of that arklet." A long fall. Dinah had ceased to even think in terms of up and down. The concept of falling had become meaningless to her. When you were in orbit, you were always falling. But you never hit anything. She risked turning her head to look at the grate "below," and that was the trigger that forced her to reach for her barf bag.
Doob had known for a while that he was not the easiest guy to be related to. During his last ten weeks on Earth, however, he sometimes feared he was pushing his family's patience beyond human limits with his lust for camping. Until then, his idea of a satisfying outdoor experience had been to saunter out onto the terrace of a European hotel to smoke cigars and drink brandy. His duties as an astronomer sometimes called him to remote locations such as the summit of Mauna Kea, where he would dutifully go outside, freeze his ass off for a few minutes, remark on the awesomeness of the view and the clarity of the air, and then go back inside to sit behind a workstation and stare at images on a screen. Camping, and the outdoor life in general, simply hadn't been a part of the culture of his family, which tended to look with favor on being under a sound roof, in a heated space, behind locked doors, with plenty of food baking and frying in a modern, fully appointed kitchen. He had always admired his colleagues in the life and earth sciences who could hit the road on short notice with a fully stocked backpack and live rugged adventuresome lives in exotic locales. But he had admired them from a distance. His sojourn to Moses Lake with Henry had turned him into a late convert to the outdoor life, and left him with a considerable stock of state-of-the-art gear that he was strangely eager to use. The visit to Bhutan had also been a trigger. This had been preceded by a lengthy series of flights across the Pacific and a brief stay on an aircraft carrier: cramped, crowded, artificial environments not unlike where he would be spending the remainder of his days. Then, just for a blessed few hours, he had climbed out of that chopper into the high, cold, piney air of Bhutan, and gone for a ramble in the king's Land Rover, and hiked up a misty mountain that had struck him as being straight from a 1970s album cover. And he had done some introspection about the fact that he couldn't even take such a lovely place at face value but only liken it to such pop culture references. A few hours later he had been back on the aircraft carrier with Dorji and Jigme and about a hundred other Arkers who had been collected in a similar manner from Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal, various provinces of India, Sri Lanka, and scattered island groups. He had been struck by the contrast between how centered, how natural, how autochthonous the Bhutanese youths had looked when he had first seen them on the side of the cliff in their home country, and how lost they appeared in the painted steel companionway of an aircraft carrier, mixed up with other South Asians in equally colorful garb, all equally alienated from their native soil, all looking for a place to stow their priceless cultural artifacts. He had come home with the idea in his head that he needed to get a little bit of native soil on himself before getting shot up to a place where he would be every bit as lost and alienated as Dorji and Jigme had been aboard USS George H. W. Bush. Which seemed uncontroversial to him. But when he presented the plan to Tav over a cup of naval coffee in one of the aircraft carrier's eateries, Tav demurred. "You are totally overromanticizing dirt." Tav liked to play the devil's advocate. He and Doob had had many such conversations. Doob shrugged and said, "Let's say you're right. What's the worst that could happen if I get some dirt on me while I still have access to dirt?" "Tetanus?" "Before they started sending me to places like this, they made sure I was up to date on my shots." "No, seriously, I just don't buy it, Doob." "Buy what? What is it you think I'm trying to sell you?" "You're trying to sell me the idea that there is such a thing as a state of nature that humans were designed to live in. It is the 'dirt is good' hypothesis." "But obviously we evolved in rustic outdoor settings. Those places are, in some sense, natural to us." "But we did evolve, Doob. We're not animals. We evolved into organisms that could make things like this." Tav waved his free hand around at the painted-steel environs of the aircraft carrier. "And this." He raised his cup of coffee and clinked it against Doob's. "Which is a good thing, you're saying." "Compared to being torn apart by hyenas? Yeah, obviously it's a good thing." "Well, I'm not going to get torn apart by hyenas. I'm just going to go camping." Tav smiled in a way that seemed a little forced. You don't get what I'm saying, do you? He said, "Look, you know my views on the Singularity. On uploading." "I did blurb your book on the topic." "Yes, thank you for that." Tav was referring to the idea that the human brain could, in principle, be digitized and uploaded into a computer. That this would one day happen on a large scale. That it might actually have happened already—that we might all, in fact, be living in a giant digital simulation. Something occurred to Doob. "Is that why you were grilling the king about his views on reincarnation?" "That's part of it," Tav admitted. "Look, all I'm saying is that if you've gone where I've already gone, in terms of thinking about that—" "If you've drunk the Singularity Kool-Aid, in other words?" Doob said. "Yeah, Doob, as you know I've already done, then you've already made a fundamental break with trying to be Nature Boy. I am never going to be Nature Boy. I believe that the human mind is almost infinitely malleable and that people are going to adjust, within days or weeks, to life on the Cloud Ark. We will simply turn into a different civilization altogether from the one we grew up in. Our whole idea of nature will be forgotten. And a thousand years from now, people will go on 'camping trips' that will consist of sleeping in arklets, drinking Tang, and peeing into tubes just like their ancestors did." "To them," Doob said, "that'll be a back-to-nature experience." "I think that's how we will see it, yes," Tav said. Doob considered uttering the punch line to the famous joke: Who's "we," white man? But he thought better of it. For the next few weeks his duties had taken him to various other parts of the world, making what Mario the photographer referred to as "abduction runs" and conveying the victims to Arker training camps where they would spend the rest of their time on Earth playing elaborate video games about orbital mechanics. Tavistock Prowse showed up for some of these. When he wasn't doing that, he was making social media posts about the themes he had articulated in his conversation on the aircraft carrier. And when Doob clicked through to those posts he was always impressed by the number of people who were reading them. Tav was developing a following, and a reputation as an important thinker about the sociology of the upcoming space-based civilization. Whenever Doob got a few days' downtime, he would swoop down on a part of the country where one of his kids was living and grab them and take them camping. Henry had taken up residence at Moses Lake permanently, or as permanently as anything could be in this world. That was his youngest. Hadley, the girl in the middle, was in Berkeley; she'd been doing volunteer work for an organization in Oakland and had a lot of free time. Doob would drag her away on day hikes to Mount Tam or longer sojourns in the Sierras. Hesper, his oldest, lived outside of D.C. with her boyfriend, a military man stationed at the Pentagon. The Last Camping Trip happened in early October. Doob still had a few weeks left, but he knew he would spend most of it in training, or talking about training on TV. In the weeks to come he might be able to play hooky and go out on the occasional afternoon hike. But the fact of the matter was that the next time he bedded down in a sleeping bag, it would be in zero gravity, in the cozy environs of a windowless aluminum can. Perhaps sensing that, Amelia had flown out on the spur of the moment. Normally she'd have been teaching school at this point in the year, but the schedule had become fluid. It was difficult to sustain the illusion that education was of value for kids who would not live long enough to use it. They'd never take the standardized tests that they were prepping for. In a way, Amelia had said, this had led to a kind of renaissance in pedagogy. Free from the constraints of racking up high test scores or getting into colleges, students could learn for learning's sake—which was how it ought to be. The tick-tock curriculum had dissolved and been replaced by activities improvised from day to day by teachers and parents: hiking in the mountains, doing art projects about the Cloud Ark, talking with psychologists about death, reading favorite books. In one sense Amelia and her colleagues had never been more needed, never had such an opportunity to show their quality. At the same time, the routine had loosened up enough for Amelia to take a couple of days off, hop a plane to D.C., surprise Doob, and drive up into the mountains with him and Hesper and Enrique to enjoy the fall foliage. Doob had never made a real connection to Enrique—a half-black, half–Puerto Rican, all-American army sergeant from the Bronx. But now, sitting on the tailgate of a rented SUV, snuggled under a blanket with Amelia, looking out over a rolling mountain vista gorgeous with fall color, and waiting for some sausages to heat up on the hibachi, Doob felt as close to the guy as he could to anyone. Enrique seemed to sense the thawing in his mood. "What are you going to build up there?" he asked. It said something about how much Doob had changed in the last year that he didn't let out a derisive snort. His face did not even change, or so he told himself. He looked over at Amelia, sitting next to him, for confirmation. She'd been trying to help Doob out. For the kids, she explained. It doesn't matter what you think, Dubois, or what you feel. It's not about you. It's not even about science. Right now it's about telling the kids in my classroom what it is that they have to hope for. So shut up and get it done. These things were important. It wasn't just a matter of hiding what you really felt. If you hid your feelings well enough, it actually changed you. A few months ago Doob would have betrayed cynicism, possibly long enough for Enrique to notice it. And a few months before that he might have launched into a detailed explanation of why he was cynical, making it clear that the Cloud Ark was going to be an experiment in hastily improvised survival against nearly impossible odds. None of that happened. He looked at the faces of Enrique and of Hesper, lit on one side by blue twilight and on the other by the glow of the coals, and he answered the question. He answered it as if he were standing in front of a television camera streaming live to the Internet. "The resources up there are basically infinite. That was true even before the moon blew up. Now it has been busted open like a piñata. All it needs is to be shaped into the right architecture—enclosed habitations that we can fill with air and fertilize with the genetic heritage of the Earth. That's going to take a while, and we'll go through some tough times first. It's going to be tough emotionally when the Hard Rain hits and we have to say goodbye to all that was. And it's going to be tough afterward when the Arkers have to learn how to work together and make hard choices. By far the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced. But we'll survive. We'll use what's up there to build incubators for Our Heritage to live in, to grow, and to improve on what we brought with us. And eventually the day will come when we return. The Hard Rain won't last forever. Oh, it'll last for many lifetimes—as long as human civilization has existed until now. And what it is going to leave behind will be a hot and rocky wasteland. But by that point many generations will have devoted all of their hopes and their creative genius to the problem of remaking the world as well as, or better than, what we see here. We will come back. And that's the real answer, Enrique. Will we survive? Yeah. It'll be touch and go, but we will survive. Will we build space habitats? Absolutely. Small ones at first, big ones later. But that's not the real goal. The real goal will take thousands of years. The real goal is to build Earth again, and build it better." It was the first time he'd said it this way. But it wasn't the last. In the next few weeks—his last weeks on Earth—he'd say it again, to television cameras, to the president, to a stadium full of Arkers in training. All he knew at the time was that Enrique was nodding in a way that said It's going to be okay, Doob's got this, and Hesper was snuggling her head against Enrique's powerful shoulder, eyes gleaming, staring into the future that her father was conjuring with those words. Behind her, a meteor knifed across the twilight sky and exploded out over the Atlantic.
[ Cloud Ark ] "Today we're going to talk about what it really means to have a swarm of arklets in orbit," said famous astronomer and science pundit Doc Dubois. He was hovering in the center of Arklet 2, currently docked to Izzy. He was wearing a pressure suit with its helmet detached and slung under his arm. He was talking into one of the arklet's built-in high-def video cameras, trusting that some computer, somewhere, was recording the footage. "Cut," he said. Then he felt a little sheepish. He was producing and editing his own videos now, so he had just said "cut" to himself. In space, there were no video crews, photographers, production assistants, or makeup artists to follow you around. He rather liked it that way. But there was something to be said for having at least one other human in the room who could react to what you were saying. He needed Amelia there, silently shaking her head or nodding. Instead of which he tried to imagine that he was talking to the kids in her classroom in South Pasadena on a sunny Tuesday morning. He replayed his own dialogue in their ears. What it really means sounded skeptical. As if everything said on the topic heretofore had been a bunch of BS. And in orbit wasn't really necessary. Everyone knew that they were in orbit. "Today we're going to talk about what it means to have a swarm of arklets," he said. "In normal space, like on Earth, we use three numbers to tell where something is. Left-right, forward-back, up-down. The x, y, and z axes from your high school geometry class. Turns out that this doesn't work so well in orbit. Up here we need six numbers to fully specify what orbit an object, such as an arklet, happens to be in. Three for position. But another three for velocity. If you've got two objects that share the same six numbers, they're in the same place. Right now, my six numbers are the same as those of this arklet that I'm floating in, and so we're moving through space together. But if one or more of my numbers changed, you'd see me drifting." Doob had brought with him a small can of compressed air—a common convenience used by electronics technicians to blow dust away from things they were working on. He aimed it "down" toward the aft end of the arklet and pressed the button. Air hissed out and he began drifting "up" toward the front door. He raised a hand above his head in time to kill his upward motion against the forward bulkhead, then turned to look into a different camera. Good. It was the third time he'd attempted this, and he was running out of canned air. "I can't drift far, confined as I am to the pressure hull. But you can imagine that if I hadn't been able to stop—if I'd been out on a space walk—I might have drifted a long way. And what the science of orbital mechanics tells us is that no two objects in orbit can have the same six numbers, except in the special case I just showed you, where I was inside the hollow arklet so that both of our centers of gravity could coincide. An arklet, or any other object, that is off to the port side of Izzy, or to starboard, or to the zenith or nadir side of it, or forward or aft of it, has different numbers by definition. It's in a different orbit. And so it is going to drift." He mentally reviewed his notes. Here he had intended to be more specific about the nature of that drift. If it's in a higher orbit, it'll fall behind. If it's in a lower orbit, it'll race ahead. If it's off to one side or the other, it'll converge, then diverge, on a ninety-three-minute cycle. Only if it's directly forward, or directly aft, will it maintain the same relative position. But he thought maybe he could link that out to a different video, one with more graphics. Better to get to the point. "The moral of the story? In space, there is no such thing as formation flying. Physics will cause two nearby objects to drift closer together or farther away. If you want to preserve a formation, such as a swarm, you have only two options. Physically connect the arklets together, so that they become one object, or else use the thrusters to correct for the drift." There was another option, which was to put them in single file, like a train in space, but it didn't seem very swarmlike and so he left it out of the reckoning for now. Minutes after the video was posted, outraged YouTube commentators would be all over him, pointing out the error and attributing it to dishonesty, incompetence, and/or a conspiracy. His last task was to record a voice-over that would be played over footage of young Arkers training in huge industrial video arcades, thrown together for just that purpose in places like Houston and Baikonur. "It's not difficult to learn this stuff—any video gamer can pick it up in a few minutes. Just ask these young Arkers, brought together from all over the world, who've been honing their arklet piloting skills using precision simulators. Most of the time, of course, the arklets will be flying themselves, on autopilot. But if and when it's necessary for a human to take the controls, these young people will be ready for it." The task complete, he established a link between his tablet and the wireless network of this arklet and spent a few minutes moving video files around so that he could edit them later. Catching sight of himself in freeze-framed thumbnails, he was struck by the roundness of his face—a typical symptom of zero gee as the body retrained itself in how to distribute fluids through its tissues. Up here it was the mark of the newbie. Doob had been in space for six days; this was A+1.0, one year to the day since he had stood in the Athenaeum and watched the moon disintegrate. Arklet 2, now outmoded by newer models, was docked at the far end of a hamster tube on the port side of the big truss. Sooner or later it would probably be used for overflow storage or sleeping quarters. Doob passed through its docking port and began making his way down the hamster tube. As he'd learned on his way here, this was going to take a while; the tube was barely large enough to accommodate a svelte human in a polyester coverall. A large man in a pressure suit banged and scraped the whole way. And yet it was easier to do it with the suit on than to drag the empty suit behind you, or push it ahead of you, like a zero-gee murderer trying to dispose of a body. In a few minutes he was able to reach a node, right along Izzy's central axis, where he had more space to move around, and there he began taking the suit off. This was not a full-fledged space suit, which, with its huge backpack life support system, would have been much too bulky for the hamster tube. It was just a helmeted coverall of the type worn by high-altitude pilots. It had a leak, and so was useful only as a costume. Escaping from it developed into a sort of wrestling match, with a lot of cursing and drifting around, banging into walls. At an opportune moment, he felt a sharp tug on the rear collar of the suit. This pulled it down to the point where he could shrug out of it and get his arms free. "Thanks," he said, and then looked over his shoulder to see a familiar face gazing at him quizzically. "Aren't you a little short for a storm trooper?" "Moira?!" Doob said. He grabbed a handle on the wall so that he could spin himself around and get a better look. His glasses had gone askew during the wrestling match, so he poked them back up on his nose. It was her all right, suffering from a clear case of moon face. He had last seen Dr. Moira Crewe at the Crater Lake announcement, where she had been assisting her mentor, Clarence Crouch, the Nobel Prize–winning geneticist—the poor sod who had been given the job of explaining the Casting of Lots to the world. Since then Clarence had died of cancer in his Cambridge house, surrounded by biological samples and scientific memorabilia that would not long survive the onset of the Hard Rain. No doubt it had been a blessing for him. Doob had lost track of Moira after that, but of all the people on Earth she was one of the most obvious candidates for inclusion on the Cloud Ark. She was of West Indian ancestry, wearing her hair in finger-length dreadlocks that had adapted pretty well to zero gravity—better than white-people hair, for sure. Moon face had added a few years to her apparent age, but Doob knew her to be in her late twenties. Raised in a dodgy part of London, she'd gone to a posh school on scholarship and went on to earn a biology degree at Oxford. She had gone to Harvard for her Ph.D., working with a project there on de-extinction. Her general charisma, and an accent that Americans found charming, had made her into the most well-known spokesperson for that project. She had done TED talks and other public appearances describing her lab's efforts to bring the woolly mammoth back to life. After a brief sojourn in Siberia, working with a Russian oil billionaire who wanted to create a nature preserve stocked with formerly extinct megafauna, she had returned to the UK and begun postdoctoral work with Clarence. It was not the first time Doob had been pleasantly surprised to bump into a colleague who had, unbeknownst to him, been sent up to Izzy. It always raised an awkward point of etiquette. It was tempting to express delight and give the person a big hug, as you'd naturally do if you encountered them at a party in Cambridge or on the street in New York City. But none of them had come up here on a happy errand. And Moira anyway had a certain owlish way about her, a way of keeping her distance. And hugging people in zero gee was harder than it sounded. You had to get to them first. Doob held his arms out to his sides. "Hug," he said. She did the same. "Is that what one does here?" she asked. "It is not unheard of. Moira, PCA, it is good to see you up here." PCA was an abbreviation for "present circumstances aside" and had become a staple of Facebook, Twitter, and the like. "I had heard you'd come up," Moira said, "but it didn't quite register, as I've been awfully preoccupied." "I can only imagine," Doob said. "While I've been running around shilling for the Cloud Ark, you've probably been doing actual science, huh?" "Getting ready to do it might be more precise," she said. Her big brown eyes, behind a geeky but stylish pair of glasses, strayed in a direction. "Is that what they call forward?" she asked. "Yes." "Well, the place where I'm working is about as far forward as it's possible to get, because they want my lab to be sheltered by the big rock." "Amalthea." "Yes. And if we go there, I can show you a bit of what I've been up to. I feel I should offer you tea as well, but I don't know how to make it here." Doob smiled at her way of talking. She had been a fiend for theater at Oxford, and might have become an actress. Intensely conscious of the difference between the way her people in London talked and the way people talked at her school and at Oxford, she'd become good at switching between those accents for effect. "I'd be happy to have a look," he said. "I think I know the module you're talking about—I saw it docking a few days ago, and was curious."
He hooked the unoccupied pressure suit to the wall of Moira's lab and it hung there, an inanimate observer, as Moira showed him around. Never one for the life sciences, Doob couldn't understand everything she was saying to him, but he didn't care. Being able to relax and let someone else explain science to him was a welcome turnabout. "Do you know about the black-footed ferret?" she asked. "No," Doob said. "I think you can pretty much assume that my answer to all questions about biology and genetics is going to be in the negative." "Ninety percent of their diet was prairie dogs. Farmers killed almost all of the prairie dogs and so the population of black-footed ferrets crashed to the point where only seven remained. From that breeding stock, it was necessary to bring them back." "Wow, only seven... so inbreeding must have been an issue?" "We speak of heterozygosity," she said, "which just means the amount of genetic diversity within a species. In general, it's a good thing. If you have too little of it, then you start to see the sorts of problems that we associate with inbreeding." "But if the breeding stock is reduced to only seven... then that's all you have to work with, right?" "Not quite. Well, technically yes, I suppose. But by manipulating some of the genes, we can create heterozygosity artificially. As well as getting rid of some of the genetic defects that would otherwise propagate through the whole population." "Anyway," Doob said, "it's obviously of interest to us now." "If the Cloud Ark's as populous as they claim it's going to be, and if people come up with frozen sperm samples and ova and embryos and all of that, then the human population is probably all right. We'll have enough heterozygosity to make a go of it. My work here is going to be more concerned with nonhuman populations." "Meaning..." "Well, you've probably heard that we'll be growing algae as a way to generate oxygen. Which is only the start of a simple ecosystem that will have to be developed and grown, and become much less simple, over the years to come. Many of the plants and microorganisms that will make up that ecosystem will be cultivated from initially small breeding populations. We don't want to have a repeat of the Irish potato famine, or something analogous, with the plants we rely on to make it possible to breathe." "So your job will be to do with them what was done in the case of black-footed ferrets." "Part of my job, yes." "What's the other part?" "Being a sort of Victorian museum curator. Did you ever visit Clarence's home in Cambridge?" "No, I'm sorry to say. But I heard his collection was magnificent." "It was crammed with all of these stuffed birds and boxed beetles and mounted heads of beasts, gathered by Victorian gentleman-collector types in pith helmets, doing their bit for science on the fringes of the empire. Not scientists as we'd define them today but contributors to the scientific ideal. These things overflowed the museums and Clarence acquired them by the lorry-load, especially after Edwina died and couldn't forbid it. Anyway, I'm that person now, except that the samples are all digital, and they are all on these things." She tapped a thumb drive that was floating around her neck on a chain. "Or their rad-hard equivalents." She pronounced the technical term with a dubious and ironic tone of voice, suggesting that she and the International Space Station would take a while getting used to each other. "You know the general story—I've heard you talking about it on YouTube." She switched into a credible imitation of Doob's flat midwestern vowels: "'We can't send blue whales and sequoias up on the Cloud Ark. And even if we could, we couldn't keep them alive there. But we can send their DNA, encoded as strings of ones and zeroes.'" "You're going to put me out of a job," Doob said. "Good. Then I'll put you to work here," Moira said. "This is labor intensive as hell, and they're not sending me enough help." "I thought it was all automatic." "If the Agent had given us another couple of decades to improve our gene synthesis technology, it might have become so," Moira said. "As it is, we've been caught in a bit of a gawky adolescent phase. Yes, we can take one of these files"—she tapped the thumb drive around her neck—"and we can create a strand of DNA from it, beginning with a few simple precursor chemicals. But the amount of human intervention is still ridiculous." "I'm guessing that is some pretty high-level human intervention too." "My Jamaican grandfather worked in the engine room of a navy ship," Moira said, "which is how our family ended up in England. When I was a little girl, he took me on a tour of one of those ships, and we went down into the engine room, and I saw it, the engine, with all of the bits exposed; the bloody thing was naked and men had to go crawling around on it with oil cans, lubricating the bearings by hand and so on. That's a bit like where we are now with synthesizing whole genomes." "But for now," Doob said, "that's far in the future, right?" "Yes, thank God." "For now you're going to be tinkering with intact organisms." "Yes. Just so. Still quite difficult, but I think manageable." She looked around. The module in which they floated looked nothing like a lab. Everything was sealed up in plastic or aluminum cases, taped shut and labeled with yellow sticky notes. "Sorry," she said. "Underwhelming. Hardly worth the trip, is it?" "How can I help?" "Get me some fucking gravity," Moira said. Then she laughed. "Can you imagine trying to do tricks with liquids in zero gee? Because that's all a lab is." "It must look frustrating to you now," Doob said. "Everything in boxes, no gravity to make it all work." "I know, I know," she said. "I'm whingeing. They'll put this thing on a bolo, won't they?" "Maybe a third torus. Big enough to make something close to Earth-normal gravity. Lots of space to work in. A staff of eager Arkers." "That's your job now, isn't it?" Moira said. "Cheerleader for the Ark." "It was my ticket up here," Doob said. He could feel a little warmth creeping into his face, and cautioned himself not to say anything he was going to regret. "We all needed that ticket. Now that we have paid the price of admission, we need to make it work." Moira, perhaps sensing she'd gone a little too far, kept her silence and would not meet his gaze. "And as of today," he said, "we have one year."
On day 700, also known as a+1.335 (one year and 335 days since the destruction of the moon), the Cloud Ark, as seen from the Earth, looked like a bright bead strung on a silver chain. For the reasons that Dr. Dubois Jerome Xavier Harris had tried to articulate during his soliloquy aboard Arklet 2, back on A+1.0, it was expensive, in terms of propellant, to maintain an actual cloud or swarm of arklets around Izzy. Much cheaper and more reliable was to have them precede or follow the space station along the same orbital path, like a queue of ducklings with Mom in the middle. Once an arklet had found its place in that train, changing its position was a maneuver whose complications were a perennial source of surprise and consternation to newly arrived members of the so-called General Population. Arkies as such—people who had been selected in the Casting of Lots, who had spent up to two years in training for this mission, and who had been sent up here specifically to manage, and live in, arklets—understood it implicitly. As of Day 700, there were 1,276 of those, with about two dozen more coming up each day during the final surge of launches. New arrivals were assigned to empty arklets that awaited them at the head or the tail of the queue. These were launched on separate heavy-lift rockets about four times a day. Since an arklet consisted mostly of empty space, it weighed almost nothing compared to the lift capacity of a big rocket, and so they were always crammed from boiler room to front door with vitamins. These had to be extracted and stowed before the arklet could be occupied. Each arklet had its own unique manifest of stuff. Some of them were just full of compressed gas, such as nitrogen, which would later be used to fertilize crops. Others might be packed with enough diverse and seemingly random goods to open a space bazaar: medicines, cultural artifacts, micronutrients, tools, integrated circuits, spare parts for Stirling engines, Arkies' personal effects, and, in one notable case, a stowaway who was found dead on arrival. With the exception of the stowaway—who was stashed in the morgue with the rest of the deceased—all of these items had to be extracted, cataloged, and stowed appropriately. Each arklet had some onboard storage space, so to some extent the storage was distributed—that being a fundamental tenet of the whole swarm-based Arkitecture. Bulk materials like gases could be pumped into external tanks or bladders: little ones dangling from arklets, big ones distributed around Izzy's periphery where they could serve as extra shielding against radiation and micrometeoroids. So-called dry goods were likewise stashed in mesh bags that lived "outside" until such time as they were needed. Scarce and crowded "inside" space was reserved for organisms and goods that actually needed air and warmth. So, compared to the way it had looked a year ago, Izzy was spare and clean on the inside. Anyone who had not been chosen in the Casting of Lots and trained as an Arkie was categorized as General Population. There were 172 of those. The number grew only slowly, since most of the people who were qualified, and who were needed, ought to have been sent up a long time ago. Adding new members was attended by much political controversy down on the Earth. The Crater Lake Accord had ratified the general scheme of a Cloud Ark populated by those chosen in the Casting of Lots. It had been obvious, and uncontroversial, that experienced specialists were also needed, and so no one had quibbled over sending up the Scouts and the Pioneers. The concept of the General Population had been written into the Crater Lake Accord precisely to allow for that. People like Rhys Aitken, Luisa Soter, Dubois Harris, Moira Crewe, and Markus Leuker had been sent up under the "GPop clause" because they knew how to do things. For every one of them who got sent up, however, a hundred with similar qualifications were stranded on the ground, where some of them called their congressmen, chancellors, presidents, or dictators. The politics had become so involved as to throttle the incoming flow to a trickle. The remaining available GPop slots were being hoarded by national governments. They were being filled grudgingly and with byzantine premeditation. For Arkies and members of the GPop alike, it was easy to underestimate the "distance" separating Izzy from an arklet that was only a few kilometers ahead of or behind it in orbit. The difficulties entailed in moving from one arklet to another could be mitigated by physically docking arklets to a common structure, forcing them to fly in a rigid formation. Or so it might seem to people who had not been steeped in the laws of orbital mechanics. But the fact was that an arklet docked to the end of a truss far off to the port or the starboard wing of Izzy was not in a proper orbit at all. Left to its own devices—free, that is, of the constraints imposed, and the forces exerted, by the truss—it would converge on Izzy, cross through Izzy's orbit, diverge from it, turn around, and converge again, on the same ninety-three-minute cycle that clocked Izzy's orbits around the Earth. An arklet mounted "above" Izzy on the zenith would want to go "slower" and lag behind; one mounted "below" on the nadir would want to race ahead. To the extent that the truss structure prevented those things from happening—to the extent, in other words, that it succeeded in its basic function of holding all the modules and arklets in a fixed configuration—it was undergoing stress, exerting forces on those arklets to prevent them from doing what they wanted to do. Humans in those arklets would notice themselves drifting and bumping into the walls as their natural trajectories, as ordained by Sir Isaac Newton, were perturbed by the structure of Izzy. The larger Izzy grew, and the more arklets and modules were connected to her, the greater those forces became, and the closer she came to breaking. There was another, even more compelling reason for limiting Izzy's sprawl. She was taking shelter behind Amalthea. The space station's original orbit had been carefully chosen. Any lower, and the thicker air would make the orbit decay too fast. Any higher, and the danger from micrometeoroids would increase. That was because the rocks zipping around in space were subject to the same slow orbital decay as Izzy herself. Which was a good thing, since it dragged them down into the atmosphere and destroyed them, leaving clear space for Izzy to sail through. Her orbital altitude of four hundred kilometers was a Goldilocks compromise between "too much orbital decay for Izzy" and "enough orbital decay to sweep the sky of dangerous rocks." The attachment of Amalthea to Izzy's forward end a few years ago had changed all of that for the better. Orbital decay was less of a problem because of the rock's high ballistic coefficient, and micrometeoroids tended to get stopped by the massive nickel-iron cowcatcher. The White Sky, however, was going to put many more rocks into their path. Big ones could be detected from a distance and avoided, but little ones could do a lot of damage, and so the most important parts of Izzy needed to take shelter in the lee of Amalthea, crowding up against her aft surface. Some rocks might still come in from unexpected directions, but in general there would be a "prevailing wind" in the drift of lunar debris. Amalthea was aimed into it. But Amalthea couldn't protect any parts of Izzy that projected beyond its silhouette. Dinah and the rest of the Arjuna Expeditions crew had made some progress in "embiggening" the asteroid, carving out slabs of metal and then elevating them like flaps on an airplane wing to extend the sheltered envelope, but it could only get so big. At some point it had been necessary to draw a line under the expansion and "fix the envelope," meaning that Izzy took on a definite shape and size. This had occurred on A+1.233. Since then they had found ways to jam more modules inside that envelope, or, where that wasn't possible, to pack bags and bladders of stored material into gaps. And they had tacked on additional storage in the unprotected volume outside of that envelope. But nothing had been added to her before or since. She couldn't grow in the aft direction because Amalthea's protective shadow only extended back so far—bolides could "wrap around" in any direction, since they weren't in perfectly parallel trajectories. Anyway, boost engines were needed back there, and being in the path of rocket exhaust made standing in hellfire seem like a pleasant summer's day by comparison. Amalthea was now enveloped in scaffolding, anchored directly into the nickel-iron by connection points welded on, or drilled in, by Dinah's robots. A proboscis extended forward from that cloud of trusswork and supported a little cluster of radar and communication antennas. Forward of that, the closest arklets—seven of them, docked to a hexagonal framework—kept station about a kilometer away, far enough that the firings of their thrusters would not blast those antennas with jets of hot gas. Other heptads, as the seven-arklet clusters were called, were spaced ahead of that one at the same interval. Beyond a certain point these petered out and were replaced by triads—three arklets on a triangular frame—and beyond that were singletons. A similar tapering could be observed aft of Izzy, though the distance to the first heptad was greater, respecting the danger posed by Izzy's boost engines. These heptads and triads were a bit like Lego or Tinkertoy parts, making it possible to cluster arklets together without much ado; hamster tubes were laced through their trusses so that, once an arklet was docked, persons and material could be easily moved to other arklets on the same frame. Adapters were also floating around that would facilitate nose-to-nose coupling, but these had been found to be not as useful as the hep and tri frames. Farther out toward the ends of the train, it was not uncommon to see bolos. Each of these spun with its center of gravity—the grapple joining the two cables—tracking along the shared orbital path of Izzy and the other arklets. For now, though, almost all such coupling was for training purposes. Only about three weeks remained before the White Sky. The Arkies could survive that long in zero gravity. Formation of bolos and simulation of Earth-normal gravity was a practice intended for the long haul, when people might live their entire lives in arklets and would need gravity to build and preserve their bones, their eyesight, and other body parts that went bad in its absence. The Cloud Ark passed through a complete day/night cycle every ninety-three minutes. Time was arbitrary in space, so the ISS had long ago settled on Greenwich time, also known as UTC, as a reasonable compromise between Houston and Baikonur. The Cloud Ark had inherited that system, and Day 700 began at midnight at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, or A+1.335.0 in ark time. About one-third of the population woke up to begin a sixteen-hour shift. Others would wake up at A+1.335.8, or "dot 8," and at "dot 16." The system ensured that about two-thirds of the population was awake at any given time. Awake people needed more oxygen and generated more heat than sleeping people, so it put less of a strain on life support systems, and enabled the Cloud Ark to support more people, if the waking and sleeping cycles were staggered. A reason for the popularity of triads was that each of the three component arklets could operate on a different shift, observing its own artificially imposed period of darkness and quiet. In a heptad, the same basic scheme could be used, with two of the arklets asleep at any given time and the one in the middle of the hexagonal frame being "always on." Doob had requested, and been granted, a position in the third shift, meaning that he was basically operating in the same time zone as Amelia, Henry, and Hadley on the West Coast of the United States. He had awakened at dot 16 of the day before, or four in the afternoon in London, which was eight in the morning in Pasadena. So, at the stroke of A+1.335.0, when the first shift of that day began, he had been awake for eight hours and was feeling like a brief nap might do him good. But he knew that this would only make it more difficult to get to sleep at dot 8 and so decided, as usual, to gut it out. Finding that his brain was too addled to make any sense of the latest figures from Caltech on the continued exponential breakup of moon debris, he went to the "gym," which was a module containing several treadmills. To prevent their users from bouncing off them in zero gravity, these were equipped with waist belts and bungee cords that held the occupants "down," pressing their feet against the belt of the treadmill and forcing the legs to do some real work. Supposedly it was good for the bones and muscles. Amelia kept sending Doob emails asking him whether he'd exercised today, and he liked to make her happy by answering yes. A few minutes after he began his exercise routine he was joined by Luisa Soter, who had just awakened, as she was on the first shift. She liked to do her "jogging" first thing in the morning, so it was not the first time they had intersected in this way. Six treadmills had been mounted to the walls of this cylindrical module; the users' feet pointed outward and their heads projected in toward the center like spokes converging on a hub, bringing them rather close together and making conversation easy. For extroverted, social people like Doob and Luisa, this was a great setup; more solitary exercisers would don headphones and pointedly focus on a tablet or a book. "Did you go to Venezuela when you were out collecting Arkies?" Luisa asked him. The way she stressed the word "go" suggested that Venezuela was an obvious topic of conversation—the thing that well-informed persons would naturally begin talking about first thing in the morning. Doob didn't know why. He had heard a few people talking recently about Kourou, which was the place in French Guiana where the Europeans, and sometimes the Russians, launched big rockets into orbit. In the last two years it had become one of the most important launch sites for arklets and supply ships. So he had the vague sense that something was afoot there, something that people were concerned about. He had been focusing all of his attention in the other direction, on Peach Pit and its iron-rich "children." These were still visible, through increasingly thick clouds of rocky debris. When the White Sky happened they would vanish into a cloud of dirt, and he might not see them for a while. So he had been looking at PP1, PP2, and PP3 while the looking was still good, nailing down their exact orbital parameters, taking high-res photographs. PP3 was especially interesting. It was a congealed glob of mostly iron, similar in composition to Amalthea. It was some fifty kilometers in diameter. And it had a deep cleft on one side, comparable in size to the Grand Canyon, apparently formed by a collision that had rent its outer skin while it was partly congealed. Doob had begun calling PP3 Cleft. "Doob? You still with me?" Luisa asked. "I was going to say 'Earth to Doob, Earth to Doob,' but it doesn't apply anymore." "Sorry," he said. He had gone into a reverie thinking about that huge crevice on the side of Cleft, imagining what it must look like from the inside. "What was your question again?" "Venezuela," she said. "Did you do any of your 'abduction runs' there?" "No," he said. "Closest I came was Uruguay. Which isn't that close. And by that time I was pretty burned out." "Why were you burned out?" Typical Luisa! "Overscheduling?" she went on. "That is, was it physical burnout? Or more emotional/spiritual?" "I had just had it," he said. "It's hard. Taking young people—the best and the brightest—away from their families." "But it was for a good purpose, right?" "Luisa, where are you going with this?" "Are you aware of what is going on offshore of Kourou?" she asked in return. "No," he said flatly. "You've checked out," she said. "I talk to my family every day. But other than that? Yes, Luisa, I have checked out of planet Earth. Nice place. Lovely people. But I have to focus on what comes next." "So say we all," she said. "But one could argue that things happening in Old Earth's final three weeks could have repercussions on New Earth." "What's going on?" he asked. "Apparently not a single one of the seventy-five Venezuelans who were picked in the Casting of Lots has actually been sent into space," she said. "You know that the overall ratio has ended up being something like one in twenty," Doob said. Meaning that for every twenty candidates chosen in the worldwide Casting of Lots and brought to the training centers, only one had found a place up here in the Cloud Ark. Not a figure to be proud of. But it was the best they'd been able to do, and they hoped to bring the number down to more like one in fifteen, or even one in ten, with a last-minute surge of launches. "Yes. And the Venezuelans know that too. So they're saying that three or four of their seventy-five ought to have made it up here by now." "Statistically, that is not a valid—" "These people do not look like statisticians." "Politics." Doob sighed. Luisa chuckled. "I hear you, sugar. I'm not gonna say you're wrong. But I have to warn you that this is the word—'politics'—that nerds use whenever they feel impatient about the human realities of an organization." "And I've been in enough faculty meetings at Caltech to know how right you are," Doob said. "But I meant it in a different way. The way that the Venezuelans ran their selection program was overtly political. In most countries they took the Casting of Lots idea with a grain of salt. There was a random element, yes—but they also filtered for ability. The Venezuelans chose not to do that. So, they ended up sending in kids from the boondocks, truly chosen at random. Many of whom had fine personal qualities. If I had my way, we'd get some of them up here. But I'm not the one who is choosing. The people who are, are choosing on the basis of math ability and things like that. So it makes me sad that other people are in line ahead of the Venezuelans, but it doesn't surprise me." "Three weeks ago, boat people started squatting on Devil's Island," Luisa said, "refusing to move." "Isn't that a penal colony?" Doob asked. "Why would anyone—" "It used to be a French prison, yes," Luisa said. "Hasn't been for a long time. Hardly anyone lives there. But it's right under the flight path for launches out of Kourou. So, whenever there's a launch, they evacuate it." "It must be evacuated all the time then, given the amount of traffic." "For the last two years, yes. But then a bunch of people showed up there and camped out and refused to move." "I'm guessing that the French and the Russians went right on launching." In fact, Doob knew as much, since he saw arklets and supply ships coming up from Kourou all the time. "Yes. So the occupation was more of a symbolic gesture at that point." "These squatters were Venezuelans, I take it." "Yes. It is a fairly easy cruise along the coast from Venezuela to French Guiana—a few hundred kilometers." Something was itching in Doob's memory. "Does this have anything to do with the supply vessel that failed to show up yesterday?" "And the day before. There's been a two-day interruption, going on three, in launches out of Kourou." "A few squatters on Devil's Island can't explain that," Doob said. Then he added, as a joke, "Unless they have surface-to-air missiles." Luisa said nothing. "Are you shitting me?" Doob said. "It's not so much the ones on Devil's Island as the ones in the blockade," Luisa said. She handed her tablet to Doob. She'd pulled up what looked like an aerial photograph, probably shot out the window of a helicopter. In the foreground was the European Space Agency launch complex, which he'd seen before. It was separated from the Atlantic by a couple of kilometers of flat ground, banded with low, scrubby beach vegetation. In the distance was a trio of small islands, a few miles off the coast; he assumed that Devil's Island was one of them. The waters between the beach and the islands were choked with vessels: mostly small, but a few rusty freighters as well, a full-sized oil tanker that looked the worse for wear, and some ships that he could have sworn were military. "When was this taken?" Doob asked. "A few hours ago," Luisa said. "Are those naval vessels?" "The Venezuelan navy is coming out to maintain order," Luisa said. "And you weren't kidding about the surface-to-air missiles?" "The pirates who showed up in that oil tanker claimed that they had Stingers, and that they would use them against the next rocket that lifted off from Kourou." "That is nuts," Doob said. "Politics," Luisa said. "But we always knew it was going to happen, right?" "Good morning, Doctors," said a new voice: that of Ivy Xiao, entering the module to begin her own "morning" exercise routine. "Good morning, Doctor," said Luisa and Doob in unison, though for Doob it was afternoon. "Did I hear the P-word?" "Yes," Luisa said. "We were just talking about you, honey." Doob was appalled. But Ivy laughed delightedly. Ivy had been replaced, something like eight months ago, by Markus Leuker, the Swiss fighter pilot, mountain climber, and astronaut. Or, to put it more precisely, a new position had been created that made Ivy's post redundant. Izzy was no longer just Izzy; it was the combination of the Cloud Ark fleet plus the vastly enlarged complex that Izzy had turned into. As such, a new leadership structure was required. The person at the top of that structure would shortly become the most powerful leader in human history, in the sense that 100 percent of all people alive would be under his or her authority. It was an altogether different job from being the first among the twelve equals who had been manning the International Space Station of two years ago. Nevertheless, Ivy could have done it. Everyone who really knew her agreed on that much. They had replaced her anyway. It was partly a matter of global politics. Placing overall command of the Cloud Ark under a representative of the United States, Russia, or China would have been seen as a provocation by the two countries that had "lost." So it had to be someone from a small country. Preferably one that was seen as politically independent. This narrowed the list of candidates down to basically one: Markus Leuker. The dark horse being Ulrika Ek, the Swedish Arkitect and project manager, who had been launched up to Izzy at the same time as Markus—but on a different vehicle, in case one of them crashed. No one had ever really expected Ulrika to get picked, however. The choice was explained in terms of Markus's dynamic leadership style, his charisma, and other such buzzwords that, as everyone understood, boiled down to the fact that he was a man. Ivy had failed, in the eyes of the Russians and of many in the NASA hierarchy, by not taking a firmer hand with Sean Probst. That wasn't the only complaint they had about her, but it was the one around which everything else had crystallized. Once everyone had begun to see her as the overly book-smart, well-meaning but week-kneed technocrat, everything she did had been viewed through that lens. Dinah's rescue of Tekla had been examined under what doctors called "the retrospectoscope" and been deemed a failure on Ivy's part to enforce necessary discipline. New arrivals to the Cloud Ark, prepped by Internet comment threads and television pundits to see Ivy as a weak leader, began finding ways to make that into a self-fulfilling prophecy. The success of the Bolo One test, which in other circumstances might have bolstered her, came to be viewed as an almost literal handoff of authority from Ivy to Markus. Presented with some choice opportunities to say supportive things about Ivy, Ulrika had declined to do so, and it wasn't clear whether that was mere absentmindedness or an attempt to cement her position as number two. In any case it was all squarely in the realm of Politics. Doob had avoided bringing it up around Ivy, not wanting to raise an awkward topic, and so he found it horrifying when Luisa went straight to it, and fascinating when Ivy laughed. People. "What is on your docket for today?" Luisa asked. "Looking at spreadsheets," Ivy said. "Trying to figure out the consequences of losing Kourou." "That is one monkey wrench we didn't need," Doob said. "To be sure," Ivy said, "but in a weird way, I'm almost..." and she trailed off. "Glad? Relieved?" Luisa guessed. "It's like the starting gun finally went off," Ivy said. "We've been prepping for this for almost two years. Awaiting the disaster. Waiting for all hell to break loose. And now it has. Just not in the way we expected." "What were you expecting?" Luisa asked. "That we'd get hit by a bolide and take a lot of casualties," Ivy said. "Instead something unexpected happened. Which is good training, in a way." "How's your sweetie?" Luisa asked. Doob shut off his treadmill and unbuckled the padded belt that connected him to the bungee cords. He was the only man in a room where two women were talking about one of their boyfriends. He knew his cue to make himself scarce. "He went dark on me two days ago," Ivy said. "Which means he's probably underwater." "I'm sure he'll pop up for air soon," Luisa said. "Can he send email when the submarine is submerged? I know nothing about it." "There are ways—" Ivy said, but by that time Doob was floating out of the module. He made his way aft down the Stack to H2, then clambered down a spoke into the rotating torus T2, which Rhys Aitken had been sent up to build. Gravity in it was one-eighth of Earth-normal. Originally designed as a space hotel for tourists, it had never been quite up to the requirements placed on it by the Cloud Ark project, and so Rhys had been put in charge of building a larger one, concentric with T2, and inevitably called T3. Never one to rest on his laurels, he had invented a completely new system for building it. Unsurprisingly to Dinah, this had consisted of assembling a long loop of high-tech chain and setting it in motion around T2, then adding stuff onto it incrementally. It spun around the same hub at the same RPMs, but because it was bigger, its simulated gravity was a little stronger, about equal to that on the moon. It housed the closest thing the Cloud Ark had to a bridge: a segment of T3 about ten meters long, used by Markus as his headquarters. Attempts had been made to dignify it with names such as "command center," but at the end of the day it was just an upgraded version of the Banana: a conference room with some television screens and power feeds for tablet computers. Izzy didn't have a helm. It didn't have controls as such. No big wheel to turn for steering it through space, no throttle. Just a bewildering assortment of thrusters controlled through a web interface that could be pulled up on any tablet, provided you had the right password. So, the control room, the bridge, the command center could be anywhere. People had ended up calling the room Markus had chosen the Tank. Adjoining it on one side was a smaller office that served as Markus's sanctum sanctorum. Next to the Tank on the other side was a larger room with a number of cubicles, bizarrely like a suburban office park, where people supporting Markus could sit and work. It had been called the Cube Farm for about ten minutes and was now simply called the Farm. Adjoining the Farm on the other side was a maze of cramped rooms where one could obtain food or use the toilet. Doob had found that the Farm was frequently the least crowded place on Izzy, just because it didn't occur to people to go there. The gravity was good for his bones and the availability of coffee and toilets were obvious pluses. So he tended to swing by a couple of times a day, get a beverage, see what was happening, and, if things were quiet, grab a vacant carrel and do some work. He got there at about dot 2. The walls of the Farm, and of the adjoining Tank, were lined with projection screens, known in NASA-speak as Situational Awareness Monitors. They acted as windows onto various parts of the Cloud Ark and its environs. One was showing the Earth below them, another the cloud of debris that had been the moon, another the approach of a supply module from Cape Canaveral getting ready to dock, another the progress of a bolo coupling drill being conducted by some newly arrived Arkies several kilometers aft. Some just displayed statistics and bar charts. The biggest, at the far end of the Farm, was occupied mostly by a grainy video feed from some part of the Earth where it was dark. A label superimposed at the bottom identified it as 'Kourou, French Guiana'. Once Doob had that information to work with, he could make out the general scene: a galaxy of lights from the thousands of boats that had joined the "People's Justice Blockade," and in the background the much more orderly precincts of the spaceport, where an Ariane stood on one pad and a Soyuz on the other, ready to launch, but still unable to do so because of the threat of those Stingers. The silhouette of a military chopper passed between the camera and the lights of the launch complex. This was a twenty-four-hour news network. The crawl running across the bottom of the screen was being updated every few minutes by the current BFR, or Bolide Fragmentation Rate, which had started out at zero on A+0 and been climbing ever since then; this was the number that, when it caromed through the bend in its exponential curve, would signal the onset of the White Sky. The networks had been tracking it obsessively. There was an app for it. A bar in Boston had begun offering end-of-the-world drink specials whenever the BFR broke through certain milestones, and the promotion had been copied widely. Above the crawl was a smaller video inset showing an empty lectern in the White House Briefing Room. Apparently they were expecting some sort of announcement. Doob sat in one of the carrels, spent a few minutes checking email, and then tried to get back to his main task, which was to write a memo about the distribution of metal-rich moon fragments, how they might be reached and exploited, and why that should be interesting to the management of the Cloud Ark. He was only a few sentences in, however, when movement on the big Situational Awareness Monitor caught his eye, and he looked up into the eyes of the president of the United States. She was staring into the camera, or rather the teleprompter screen in front of the camera, and delivering some sort of terse announcement. She looked pissed off. Pinned to her lapel was a loop of ribbon. All the important people had been wearing these for the last few weeks, and they had become popular among the hoi polloi as a gesture of solidarity with the mission of the Cloud Ark. Selecting the color scheme had consumed resources equivalent to the gross domestic product of a medium-sized country. They had settled on a thin red line down the center, symbolizing the bloodline of the human race, flanked by bands of white, symbolizing starlight, flanked by bands of green, symbolizing the ecosystem that would keep the Arkies alive, flanked by bands of blue, symbolizing water, and, finally, edged by bands of black, symbolizing space. The discussion had been as lively as the results were complicated. Black symbolized death to Westerners, white symbolized it to Chinese, and so on. This design offended everybody. It had gotten loose on the Internet as the "official" ribbon design even though the commission charged with designing it had become hopelessly deadlocked and was still evaluating twelve different candidate designs submitted by schoolchildren from around the globe. Factories in Bangladesh had been repurposed to hurl this stuff out by the linear kilometer, they had shown up in kiosks and souvenir shops from Times Square to Tiananmen Square, and the world's leaders had bowed to the verdict and begun wearing them. The president had attached hers using a lapel pin consisting of a simple disk of turquoise rimmed in platinum. The blue disk on the white field was meant to echo Crater Lake amid the snows of November; it was a visual emblem of the Crater Lake Accord, and the closest thing that the Cloud Ark had to a flag. The sound had been turned down, so Doob couldn't hear what J.B.F. was saying, but he could guess it well enough, and a few seconds later the highlights began to show up in the crawl at the bottom of the screen. The so-called People's Justice Blockade was no grass-roots movement but an operation planned and carried out by the Venezuelan government. It was a reprehensible political stunt that was actively interfering with the all-important building of the Cloud Ark. It was not true, as some had been whispering and the Venezuelan president was now openly saying, that the White Sky was a hoax. The blockade was not, as its sympathizers would have you believe, a peaceful civil disobedience protest; armed intruders had begun landing on the beaches of French Guiana a few hours ago, and were now being held at bay by the French Foreign Legion, bolstered by a multinational force including United States and Russian marines. Doob, doing his best to tune it out, couldn't defeat the irrational feeling that J.B.F. was staring directly at him: a feeling he had come up here partly to get away from. One of the PR flacks down in Houston reached him over a video chat link that Doob had not had the presence of mind to disable. He talked Doob into spending the next hour writing a little homily about how everyone down on Earth needed to unite behind the all-important mission of the Cloud Ark, and detailing how the Kourou blockade was affecting that. Doob wanted in the worst way to tell this guy to get lost, but he had a soft spot for people who had only three weeks to live. Doob called Ivy—for Izzy had its own cell-phone system now—and got her to supply a few hard quotable numbers, which he rounded off and typed into his script. He then devoted a minute to psyching himself up to adopt the Doc Dubois persona. Formerly the ruin of his first marriage, the basis of his livelihood, and his ticket to the Cloud Ark, Doc Dubois was a person he rarely had to be anymore. That guy seemed as dated as a character from a 1970s television serial. Getting into the persona was nearly as cumbersome as donning a space suit. It required an extra cup of coffee with sugar. When he felt he was ready, he turned on his tablet's video camera, identified himself as Doc Dubois, greeted the people of Earth, and read his little script. When he was finished, he emailed the file down to Houston. Then he tried to go back to his memo, but he became distracted when the Situational Awareness Monitor flashed up a red BREAKING NEWS banner and began to show footage of indistinct flashes against a dark background. Some sort of hostilities had broken out on the ground in French Guiana, between the perimeter of the spaceport and the beach. The French Foreign Legion was participating in what might be the last battle ever fought. But the television news cameras couldn't get anywhere near the action, so the coverage mostly consisted of journalists interviewing each other about how little they knew. In the middle of all that, the flack in Houston got back to him and asked if he could please relocate to a part of Izzy where zero gravity prevailed, and rerecord the little pep talk. Conspiracy theorists were saying that the Cloud Ark didn't really exist and that it was actually just a bunch of movie sets in the Nevada desert. Whenever they saw video from parts of the space station with simulated gravity, they cited it as evidence, and added millions of friends and followers to their social media profiles. Doob said he'd see what he could do, and departed from the Farm. Nothing was going on here anyway; Markus wasn't around at the moment. He ascended a spoke to H2 and thus entered zero gravity. H2 had been the aft-most piece of the Stack—the train of modules that ran up Izzy's central axis—until several weeks ago when the Caboose had been launched up from Kourou and mated to its aft end. The main purpose of the Caboose was to house a large rocket engine, burning hydrogen and oxygen, which would do most of the work of boosting Izzy's orbit. It wasn't possible to extend Izzy any farther back because, beyond that point, anything tacked onto it would no longer reside safely within Amalthea's protective envelope. And indeed there had been long discussions of contingency plans for the case where the Caboose took a hit and its engine was destroyed. Putting his back to the Caboose, Doob began to drift forward up the Stack. H2 led to H1, which led in turn to the old Zvezda module. This had formerly sported small photovoltaic panels to its port and starboard sides, but these—like most of Izzy's solar panels—had been folded up and removed to make space for other construction. During an intermediate stage of the Arkitects' labors, power had come not from photovoltaics but from little nukes, the same as those on the ark-lets. These still protruded from attachment points all over the space station, aglow with red LEDs meant as a warning to spacewalkers and pilots. And they still produced a significant amount of power and served as a valuable backup. But most of the station's power now came from a full-fledged nuclear reactor, adapted from those used on submarines, which was mounted on a long stick that projected to nadir from the Caboose. There were a number of reasons why a big power plant might be needed, but the most important of these was to produce rocket propellant by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. And this explained why the reactor was where it was. The Caboose housed the big boost engine that was Izzy's largest consumer of propellant. And it was also the central nexus of the Shipyard complex, where smaller vehicles could be assembled from a kit of parts. Once assembled, they too would need propellant. Zvezda's forward terminus was a docking station with ports to the zenith and nadir sides, where scientific laboratories had been connected back before Zero. This tradition had been preserved, in a way, by turning that docking site into Grand Central station for work related to the Cloud Ark's primary function of preserving the Earth's heritage. If Doob went "up" in the zenith direction, he entered a long module whose main purpose was to support multiple docking ports where other vessels could be, and had been, attached. In general these were crammed with priceless cultural relics, but some of them also supported server farms where digital recordings were stored. Certain relics were easier than others to send into space; the Magna Carta had made it up here, but Michelangelo's David was still on the ground. Considerable effort had gone into sealing up heavy relics in "everything-proof vaults" and leaving them on the bottom of the oceans, or in deep mine shafts, but Doob had long since lost track of the progress of that undertaking. If instead Doob went "down" in the nadir direction, he entered a similar three-dimensional maze of modules. Most of these were devoted to storage of genetic material: seeds, sperm samples, eggs, and embryos. All of these needed to be kept cold, which in space wasn't too difficult; it was primarily a matter of shielding the storage containers from sunlight, which could be done with a featherweight piece of metallized Mylar film, and secondarily a matter of just preventing the warmth of surrounding objects from seeping into the samples. Doob always paused when passing by that hatch. He was not a spiritual man, but he could not humanly ignore the fact that his potential fourth child, the embryo he and Amelia had created, was in there somewhere. Along with tens of thousands of other fertilized embryos waiting to be thawed out and implanted in human wombs. He passed into Zarya, which was the next module forward in the Stack. Having been mildly spooked by thinking about embryos, he now had a vague intention of going into the Woo-Woo Pod to rerecord his video. This was a spherical inflated structure, ten meters in diameter, with several large domed windows. It was accessed from Zarya via a hamster tube on the nadir side, so it was aimed at the Earth. Ulrika Ek had drawn the ire of every religious group on the planet by refusing to provide separate places of worship for every single one of them in the Cloud Ark. Instead of sending up a church pod, a synagogue pod, a mosque pod, etc., she had provided this one structure, which was something like the interfaith chapel at an airport in that all the different religions had to share it. Internal projectors would display crosses, Stars of David, or what have you on its interior surfaces, depending on what sort of service was happening there at the moment. It had a long, cumbersome, politically correct name, but someone had dubbed it the Woo-Woo Pod and the name had stuck. That someone paused for a few moments at the entrance to the hamster tube that led to it, and detected the haunting tonalities of the Muslim call to prayer. Too bad. He'd thought that the Pod might actually be a good backdrop for the message he was meant to deliver. But he would have to find another place. Directly across, a hatch led into the rambling group of modules that served as Izzy's sick bay. This had consumed much of the space formerly used by the port-side solar panels. At its farthest extremity, blocked off by an insulated hatch, was the surplus module that had been used as Izzy's morgue and graveyard since the first Scout launch on A+0.29, when two of the cosmonauts had been found dead on arrival. The terrific mortality rate of those first few weeks had half filled this thing with freeze-dried bodies. Since then, fourteen more had died of various causes: one of a subarachnoid hemorrhage that could just as well have happened on the ground, one of a heart attack, two of suicide, two of equipment failure, four just a few days ago in the sudden depressurization of an arklet struck by a bolide. Those, plus the dead stowaway, were all stored in the morgue. The whereabouts of the other four fatalities could only be guessed at. One was a spacewalker who had simply disappeared. The remaining three had been sleeping in a Shenzhou spacecraft docked to the end of a hamster tube, which had been struck by a bolide the size of a coffee table and essentially vaporized. Performing his video surrounded by free-floating, freeze-dried corpses would shut up the "truthers" but otherwise had nothing to recommend it. On the opposite "wing," where the starboard solar panels had once operated, was a roughly symmetrical arrangement of modules used by the General Population for miscellaneous living and working purposes. These connected to the Stack mostly by way of the old American modules: Unity, Destiny, and Harmony. Consequently, there tended to be a lot of humans flying around in those modules, getting from one part of the space station to another or clustering for the equivalent of watercooler chats. Beyond Harmony was Node X. NASA liked to give these things names by organizing contests for schoolchildren, which was how Harmony had ended up being called that, but the Node X naming project had been defunded before achieving a result, so Node X it was. It had never really found a purpose, so it had become the place where the life sciences gear was stored—or rather the central connector to which the life sciences modules had docked, one by one, as they had been sent up. This part of the Stack was very close to Amalthea, and accordingly well protected, and so it was a good place to store that irreplaceable equipment during the wait for it to become useful. Doob poked his head into several of those modules, hoping to encounter Moira, then remembered that, London girl that she was, she was on third shift, not due to wake up for another three hours—it was about dot 5, predawn in London. Beyond Node X was the considerably larger SCRUM, which was literally bolted onto Amalthea at its forward end. So it was the forward-most thing in the Stack. Before Zero it had been nearly deserted. Since then it had grown and developed into the space-based headquarters of Arjuna Expeditions. People called it the Mining Colony. They had plugged in more modules until all of its ports were occupied, and then they had begun to attach scaffolding and additional modules—rigid and inflatable—directly to the aft surface of Amalthea. It was around now that Doob forgot entirely about the task that the flack in Houston had assigned him, and decided to hang out here for a little while and see what was going on. By all rights this ought to have been his favorite part of the Cloud Ark. Yet he never visited, because coming here put him in mind of politics, which stressed him out and distracted him. His earlier conversation with Luisa had brought home to him, however, that ignoring politics might not be the wisest long-term strategy. He might not care about politics, but politics cared about him. And besides, the people who actually worked here—people like Dinah—were terrific. He had no problem with them personally. He should spend more time with them. Right now he was three hours short of the end of his waking cycle. This was the rough equivalent of mid-evening. Time to kick back and grab a beer. No better people to do that with than miners. The Mining Colony was political for two reasons. First of all and most obviously, it had originated from a public-private partnership of which the private half was Arjuna Expeditions—Sean Probst's company. Which had been all well and good until he had burst into H2, raised hackles, and ruffled feathers all over the place. Secondly, but much more murkily, there seemed to exist some kind of fundamental disagreement about what the Cloud Ark was supposed to be and how it was expected to develop in the years following the White Sky. Was it going to stay in place, i.e., remain in the same basic orbit? Transition to some other orbit? Would it stay together as a compact swarm or spread out? Or would it split up into two or more distinct swarms that would try different things? Arguments could be made for all of the above scenarios and many more, depending on what actually happened in the Hard Rain. Since the Earth had never before been bombarded by a vast barrage of lunar fragments, there was no way to predict what it was going to be like. Statistical models had been occupying much of Doob's time because they had a big influence on which scenarios might be most worth preparing for. To take a simplistic example, if the moon could be relied on to disassemble itself into pea-sized rocks, then the best strategy was to remain in place and not worry too much about maneuvering. It was hard to detect a pea-sized bolide until it was pretty close, by which time it was probably too late to take evasive action. A strike from a rock that size would perforate an arklet or a module of Izzy, but not destroy it; people might get hurt and stuff might get broken, but the worst case was that a whole module or arklet would be destroyed with the loss of a few lives. On the other hand, in the more likely scenario where the Hard Rain included rocks the size of cars, houses, and mountains, detection from a distance would be easier. Evasive action would be not only feasible, but obligatory. Or at least it was obligatory for Izzy. For a single arklet, it didn't matter whether it got struck by a rock the size of a baseball or one the size of a stadium. It was equally dead in either case. Izzy, on the other hand, could survive the first of these with the loss of a few modules, but the second would obliterate the whole space station and probably lead to the slow death of the entire Cloud Ark. Izzy had to be capable of maneuvering out of a large bolide's path. "Maneuvering" conjured images, in nontechnical minds, of football players weaving among their opponents in an open field. What the Arkitects had in mind was considerably more sedate. Izzy would never be agile. Even if she were, maneuvering in that sense would waste a lot of fuel. If an incoming rock big enough to destroy her were detected long enough in advance, she could get out of its path with a thruster burn so deft that most of her population would not even know it had happened. So, the optimistic view of how this was going to work was that Izzy would remain in something close to her current orbit, with occasional taps on the thrusters that would move her out of the way of any dangerous bolides hours or days in advance of the projected collision. The analogy was made to an ocean liner gliding through a field of icebergs, avoiding them with course changes so subtle that the passengers in the dining room wouldn't even see the wine shifting in their crystal stemware. There was, inevitably, a more pessimistic vision in which Izzy was more like an ox blundering across an eight-lane highway in heavy traffic. Depending on who was making the analogy, the ox might or might not be blindfolded and/or crippled. Which of these analogies was closer to the truth boiled down to a statistical argument in which were braided together assumptions about the range and distribution of bolide sizes, the amount of variation in their trajectories, how well the long-range radars worked, and how good the algorithms were at sorting out all the different bogeys and deciding which ones were dangerous. Somewhere in the middle, between the ocean liner and the blind ox, was the football player pushing the wheelbarrow. It didn't matter whether "football" for you was soccer or the American sport played by men in helmets. In either case you were meant to envision a player trying to weave a path downfield among defenders. A skilled player could succeed at this when running unencumbered but would fail if obliged to push a wheelbarrow with a boulder in it. The boulder, of course, was Amalthea, and the wheelbarrow was the asteroid mining complex that had been constructed around it. If this analogy were the one closest to the truth, then the wheelbarrow would have to be abandoned. The image was sufficiently clear, and sufficiently alarming, that some had begun to argue for ditching Amalthea as far back as Day 30. More levelheaded analysts pointed out that if the ocean liner analogy applied, there was no need to take such drastic action, and if Izzy were a blind, crippled ox on a freeway, there was no point anyway. Doob had his own bias, a bias frankly rooted in a certain frozen embryo, which was that the Mining Colony should be preserved at all costs. When he tried to filter out that bias and to look at the models and the data in a completely objective way, he concluded that the jury was still out. So, technical discussions of the matter tended to be unproductive, except insofar as they revealed the biases that the participants had brought into the room with them. And here was where it started to get difficult for him personally, because he couldn't understand why anyone would harbor a bias different from his own. Why would anyone not want to keep the Mining Colony? What were they thinking? How could the Cloud Ark, and the human race, have a future without those tools and capabilities? In any case the controversy had ramifications that extended into many seemingly mundane aspects of the Cloud Ark program. If Izzy was going to maneuver with Amalthea attached to it, then the structure holding the rock to the space station needed to be strong. To put it another way, the stronger it was, the more heroic maneuvers could be achieved without breaking it. The ability to perform such maneuvers made the survival of Izzy more likely, and so requests for additional structural work had a kind of self-justifying force. Conversely, a weaker structure limited maneuvering ability and increased the odds that they would have to jettison the Mining Colony in order to survive. And why dump scarce resources into beefing up a subassembly that was going to be abandoned anyway? A similar dynamic obtained in the case of propellant. More of it was needed to maneuver an Izzy with a big rock on it, which meant less of it for the arklets, limiting their autonomy and operating range. Thus physics drove politics to the extremes of "ditch the rock now" or "keep the rock at all costs." The Mining Colony now comprised eight modules, plus an inflatable dome that was attached directly to the asteroid. The robots had spent several weeks welding a three-meter-diameter ring onto a circular groove that they had prepared on Amalthea's surface. The inflatable had been mated to it about a hundred days ago, and filled with breathable atmosphere. It was not quite a shirtsleeves environment, since the asteroid was cold and chilled the air in the dome. And many of the robots' normal operations produced gases that were toxic, or at least irritating. But that wasn't the point of having a dome. The point was to recapture and reuse the gases used by the robots' plasma torches, making it possible to excavate and reshape the asteroid much faster than had been possible in the early days, when all of those gases had leaked away into space. Since then Dinah's complement of robots had been heavily reinforced by newer and better versions of the same basic models that had been shipped up from Earth. And Dinah herself was now managing a crew of twelve, working in shifts around the clock. They'd been expanding the tunnel she had carved into the asteroid long ago to protect her circuit boards from cosmic rays, making slow progress on hollowing out the asteroid, carrying bits of metal away to a bigger and better smelter that was turning them into steel. Since there was no real place for it in Izzy's master plan, they'd been putting that steel to work in reinforcing Amalthea's structural connection to Izzy, feeding back into the political argument again. Doob glided through a few of the Mining Colony's modules, asking people where Dinah was, and got noncommittal answers. When he made a move in the direction of her shop, he sensed an uptick in nervous tension, and did not understand why until Markus Leuker emerged, greeted him personally, and engaged him in friendly, inconsequential chitchat. Stalling for time, as Doob understood, so that Dinah could have a few minutes to herself. It had been known for several months that Dinah had been having sex with Markus, an activity referred to on Izzy as "climbing the Daubenhorn." Two other women were known to have attained that summit, not long after Markus's arrival, but since then Dinah had had him all to herself. By the standards of earthbound organizations, be they corporate or military, it was an eyebrow-raising violation of ethical standards for the boss to be sleeping with a subordinate. But a month from now every living human would technically be one of Markus's subordinates, so he either had to break the rules or be celibate for the rest of his life. No one who knew him very well saw the latter as a realistic option, unless he were to have his testicles surgically removed (a procedure that certain people on Izzy were longing to see performed). That being the case, there was a certain logic in his having settled, quite early, on Dinah. It might be unethical, but at least everyone knew where matters stood. Dinah was no one's idea of a pushover; no sane person could be worried that she was in any way feeling pressured or harassed. And on the other side of that coin, people seemed to feel more comfortable knowing that Dinah was not on the prowl. By the mundane standards of Izzy gossip, her dalliance with Rhys Aitken had been sensational, their eventual breakup a big story, detailed in London tabloids. After that she'd been unable to have coffee with any male crew member without stirring up more whispers. Being unequivocally in the bag with Markus was a lot simpler. And yet it still had to be treated as if it weren't happening, which was why Markus and Doob had to take part in this charade. "I don't know if you heard," Doob told him, "but fighting has broken out on the ground, between the spaceport and the beach." It was clear that Markus hadn't heard, which was hardly surprising given that (a) it wasn't his problem and (b) he'd been occupied. He was, understandably, quite relaxed at the moment, and it took a while for him to bring his formidable powers of concentration to bear on the matter at hand. "I can't believe they will let it go on like that," he said. "The president made a statement. She looked like she was eating bolts." "A government run by doomed persons is nothing to trifle with," Markus said, "but I suppose the same could be said of the Venezuelans." He sighed. "I wonder if we should just accommodate some Venezuelan Arkies. There must be a few bright sparks." "That would have worked a couple of days ago," Doob said, "but now it's turned into one of those 'we don't negotiate with terrorists' things." A trace of a dry smile came over Markus's lips. He had washed his face with the towelettes they all used; Doob could smell the industrial fragrance with which they were permeated. "Of course," he said, "it wouldn't do to set a precedent that might be abused during the next three weeks." The joke, such as it was, would have been completely unacceptable when uttered in public, or even in a meeting, and so this was a way of saying to Doob, You are in my confidence. Doob wasn't a leader, but he was fascinated by people who were, and how they went about their work. "Ivy's figuring out the ramifications of not having those arklets, those supplies." "Thank God for Ivy," Markus said. Since winning command of the Cloud Ark he had never lost an opportunity to praise her—another skill that Doob reckoned must be inculcated into leaders in whatever mysterious Leader Academy churned them out. More likely it was an instinct. "Well, my day begins," Markus continued. "Thank you for the briefing." Markus, like a lot of the Europeans, ran on third shift, which meant that he was, in fact, beginning his day a couple of hours early. "Mine is winding down," Doob said. "I thought I would get drunk with some miners." "No better people for it," Markus said with a wink. "I believe Dinah will be out in a minute. I think she would enjoy seeing you." With that Markus pulled his phone from the pocket of his coverall and turned his attention to its screen while using the other hand to pull himself out of this module and down the Stack. Doob was left floating in the middle of the SCRUM. The only thing between him and Dinah was a privacy curtain. He was about to say "Knock knock!" when he heard a string of beeps emerge from a speaker on the other side. An incoming Morse code transmission, which he had not the skill to understand. To that point Dinah had been quiescent, but he now heard her going into movement, peeling herself out of her sleeping bag. He thought better of bothering her just now, and decided to check his own email.
She ran on first shift, which meant that this was midafternoon for her: traditionally a time when she began to feel a little drowsy even when Markus had not just been helping her relax. She felt that going fully to sleep would be a bad idea, partly because she had work to do and partly because it would lead to more gossip than was happening already. She could hear Markus chitchatting with Dubois Harris on the other side of the curtain. She knew that he was stalling for her, giving her some time to pull herself together; she was duly appreciative, and she made the most of it, gliding in the liminal zone between dozing and waking until her radio began to beep. She knew immediately that this was not Rufus; she could tell as much by the "fist" of the transmission. It was faint and it was clearly not the work of an experienced ham. Her eyes opened as a thought came to her: maybe this was the source known as the Space Troll. That term had originated with Rufus, who had first mentioned it several days ago: Have you heard from the Space Troll yet? It was his name for a transmitter that he had begun picking up recently, and it matched what Dinah was hearing now. She ejected herself from the bag, turned up the volume on the receiver, and listened while pulling on a T-shirt and some drawstring pants. The signal sounded as if it was coming in from a home-brew transmitter. The owner had a sketchy understanding of the practices and etiquette of the CW (Morse code–using) radio world. His dots and dashes were perfectly formed, and came rapidly, as much as proving that he was using a computer keyboard and an app that automatically converted keystrokes into Morse. He was sending out a lot of QRKs and QRNs, which were queries about the strength of his own signal and the degree to which it was being interfered with. So, he seemed a little insecure about the quality of his equipment. According to Rufus, as soon as you started transmitting back to the Space Troll he would shoot back a spate of QRSes, meaning "please transmit more slowly," further proof that he was a novice using a computer keyboard to form the groups, but not very good at deciphering what came back. He transmitted on one frequency only, which was the one that Rufus had, until a year ago, generally used to contact Dinah. This had become known to the Internet in the wake of a human interest story about the MacQuarie family, and so for a few weeks it had been damned near unusable as every CW ham on the planet had tried to use it to contact Dinah. Then word had gotten around that the MacQuaries père et fille weren't using it anymore and it had gone pretty silent, except for a few people who apparently hadn't gotten the memo, such as the Space Troll. Anyway, Rufus had gone back to monitoring that frequency again and Dinah was now doing likewise. She had not personally heard any transmissions from the Space Troll. This was not remarkable. Her antenna was nothing compared to the one that Rufus had installed above his mine, and her receiver was something out of a fifth-grade science project. Except when Izzy was passing over his meridian, she and Rufus would naturally "hear" different stations. According to Rufus, having a conversation with the Space Troll required patience or a sense of humor. The fact that novice hams were screwing around on the radio, which would have driven Rufus into a spasm of righteous fury a few years ago, now just seemed like a sign of the times. Of course people were getting interested in amateur radio; the Internet was expected to go down as soon as the Hard Rain started. And of course many of them were novices. When they finally did begin an intelligible conversation, Rufus would send QTH, which meant "where are you?" and would get back QET. This was an unofficial Q code, a sort of corny joke meaning "not on planet Earth." And that was why Rufus called this guy the Space Troll. Because, among other oddities, he didn't have a call sign, or at least didn't use one. The signal she was hearing now was QRA QET, repeated every few seconds; it meant, basically, "Hello, this is E.T., is anyone listening?" Dinah generally kept the transmit side of her rig turned off when not in use. She turned it on now, but kept her hand well clear of the brass telegraph key. Lurking and listening were harmless, but as soon as she touched that thing, the Space Troll would hear an answering beep, and then she might never be rid of him. More likely, though, was that the Space Troll would give up after a while. Then she could transmit to Rufus, who'd be coming up over the horizon in a few minutes, and let him know that she too had heard from the mysterious "extraterrestrial." It would be good for a laugh, and a few minutes' distraction. Her father sounded like he could use some of both. It had long since become obvious that he and a number of his mining industry friends had mounted a serious operation to prepare for an extended stay beneath the surface of the Earth. They were hardly the only ones to think that way; people were digging holes in the ground all over the world. Most of them would be dead within hours or days of the beginning of the Hard Rain. Constructing an underground complex that could sustain itself for thousands of years was an operation of which few, if any, organizations were capable. Most of those were governmental or military. But if any private group could do it, it was Rufus and his network. The sorts of questions he had been asking her for the last two years left nothing to the imagination. To the extent that the experts on Izzy knew anything about long-term sustainability of artificial ecosystems, Rufus now knew it too. Distracted by thinking about Rufus and his mine, Dinah became aware that the Space Troll's transmission had changed. Instead of the familiar QRA QET, it now began with QSO, which in this context meant "can you communicate with... ?" This was followed by an unfamiliar call sign, which she didn't recognize as such because it was so long: a string of digits and letters that didn't follow any of the standard conventions for radio call signs. The third time this transmission was repeated, she wrote it down: twelve characters in all, a basically random assortment of digits and letters. But she did notice that all the letters were in the range A through F. Which was a strong hint that this was a number expressed in hexadecimal notation: a system typically used by computer programmers. The fact that it had twelve digits was also a clue. The network chips used by almost all computer systems had unique addresses in that format: twelve hexadecimal digits. And here was where Dinah got a weird feeling on the back of her neck, because the first few digits in that string looked familiar to her. Network interface chips were produced in large batches, with unique addresses assigned to each chip in sequence. So, just as all Fords rolling off the assembly line in a given week might have serial numbers beginning with the same few characters, all the network chips in a given batch would start with the same few hex digits. Some of Dinah's chips were cheap off-the-shelf hardware made for terrestrial use, but she also had some rad-hard ones, which she hoarded in a shielded box in a drawer beneath her workstation. She opened that drawer, pulled out that box, and took out a little green PC board, about the size of a stick of gum, with an assortment of chips mounted to it. Printed in white capital letters directly on the board was its MAC address. And its first half-dozen digits matched those in the transmission coming from the Space Troll. She reached for the key and coded in QSO, meaning, in this context, "yes, I can communicate with..." and then keyed in the full MAC address of the little board in her hand—different from the one in the original transmission. It was a way of saying, "no, I can't communicate with the one you mentioned, but I can communicate with this other one." QSB, came the answer back. "Your signals are fading." Then QTX 46, which she guessed meant something like "Will you be available on this frequency forty-six minutes from now?" As anyone on Izzy would understand, this meant "I will call you back when you have orbited around to the other side of the planet." QTX 46, she answered back. "Yes." They were passing over the terminator, currently dividing the Pacific into a day side and a night side.
This was a transmission from Rufus, loud and clear. She looked out the window to see the West Coast of North America creeping over the horizon toward them, identifiable as a pattern of lights delineating the conurbations of the Fraser Delta, Puget Sound, the Columbia River, San Francisco Bay. Which meant that Alaska had line of sight to Izzy. "Knock knock!" came the voice of Dubois Harris through the curtain. He'd been waiting there a long time. "Come in," Dinah said, and keyed back a brief transmission to Rufus making a joke about the Space Troll and telling him she would be in touch later. She checked the world clock app on her computer screen. It was shortly before dot 7, therefore 7:00 A.M. in London, therefore ten in the evening for Rufus in Alaska. A somewhat distracted and scattered conversation followed, Dinah trying to maintain a train of thought with Doob while fielding sporadic, peremptory interruptions from Rufus. "Something kinda weird just happened on the radio," she said. "Do you want a drink? It's evening for you, right?" "I pretty much always want one," Doob said. "Let's not worry about it. What's up?" Dinah related the story. Doob looked distracted at first, perhaps because of all the ham radio jargon, but focused when she showed him the MAC addresses. "The simplest explanation," he pointed out, "is that it's a troll, just messing with you." "But how would a troll know those MAC addresses? We don't give those out—we don't want our robots getting hacked from the ground." "The PR people have come through here, haven't they? Taking pictures of you and your robot lab. Mightn't it be the case that a picture got snapped when you had that box open, and some of those PC boards visible?" "There's no gravity in here, Doob. I can't leave things lying around on my desk." "Because," Doob said, "obviously what's going on here is that someone wants to talk to you through a private channel—" "And they are proving their identity by mentioning numbers that could be known only to a few people. I get it." "And all I'm saying is that a really sophisticated troll would look for some detail like that, in the background of a NASA publicity photo, as a way to fool you." "Noted," Dinah said. "But I doubt it." "Who do you think it is, then?" "Sean Probst," Dinah said. "I think it's the Ymir expedition." Doob got a distracted look. "Man, I haven't thought about those guys in ages."
It was strange that a story as epic and as dramatic as the voyage of Ymir could go forgotten, but those were the times they lived in. The ship had stopped communicating and then disappeared against the backdrop of the sun about a month after its departure from low Earth orbit (LEO) around Day 126. A few sightings on optical telescopes had confirmed that it had transitioned into a heliocentric orbit, which might have happened accidentally or as the planned result of a controlled burn. Assuming it was following its original plan, Ymir should then have made almost two full loops around the sun. Since its orbit was well inside of Earth's—the perihelion was halfway between the orbits of Venus and Mercury—it would have done this in just a little more than a year, grazing the orbit of Greg's Skeleton—Comet Grigg-Skjellerup—a couple of hundred days ago. But this would have occurred when it was on the far side of the sun from the Earth, making it difficult to observe. The next event would have been a small matter of impregnating the comet's core, or a piece of it, with an exposed nuclear reactor on the end of a stick, and then turning it on to generate thrust by blowing a plume of steam out the entry hole. They would have done a large "burn"—pulling out the reactor's control blades, powering it up, and releasing a plume of steam—that would have altered the comet's trajectory by about one kilometer per second, enough to put it on a collision course with Earth, or at least with L1, a couple of hundred days later. The timing was awkward, and many had griped about it, wondering why Sean hadn't gone after some other comet, or plotted some other course that might have brought it home a little sooner. But people who knew their way around the solar system understood that it was near-miraculous good fortune for any comet core to be in a position to be grappled and moved in such a short span of time. The hasty shake-and-bake nature of the Ymir expedition, which had stirred up so much controversy, had been forced by the implacable timeline of celestial mechanics. Time, tide, and comets waited for no man. And even if it had been possible to bring a comet back sooner, it would have been reckless, and politically impossible. What if the calculations were wrong and the comet slammed into the Earth? So, the plan of the Ymir expedition was the only one that could have worked. If, indeed, it were working at all. And since much of the action—the rendezvous with the comet and the "burn" of the nuke-powered, steam-fueled engine—had occurred while it was on the far side of the sun, this had been very much in doubt until a couple of months ago, when astronomical observations had proved conclusively that Comet Grigg-Skjellerup had changed its course—something that could only have happened as the result of human intervention. The comet was headed right for them. It would have triggered mass panic on Earth had Earth not already been doomed. Since then they had watched its orbit converging slowly with that of Earth, and plotted the time when it would disappear against the sun once more as it reached L1. The reactor would then have to be powered up again, as a huge "burn" would be needed to synchronize Ymir's orbit with Earth's and pilot it through L1 to a long ellipse that would bring it their way.
"When are they supposed to hit L1?" "Any time... but it's going to be a long burn, they might sort of grease it in over a period of a few days rather than trying to do one sharp impulse." "Makes sense," Doob said. "One high-gee maneuver might cause the ice to break apart. When was the last time they communicated?" "On the X band? The real radio? A few weeks after they left. Almost two years ago. But clearly they're still alive. So it must have been radio failure." "Well, let's go with that theory," Doob suggested. "Jury-rigging a new radio that would transmit over such a distance would be kind of hopeless. The best they could hope for would be to cook something up that might work when they got closer... and to settle for lower bandwidth." "My dad used to talk about spark gap transmitters," Dinah said. "It was a technology they used—" "Back before transistors and vacuum tubes. Yes!" Doob said.
"They took some of my robots with them," Dinah said. "All they would have to do is jot down the MAC addresses on those units' interface boards, and they'd have sort of a crude proof of identity. As a matter of fact..." and she began to pull up some of the records she had made, almost two years ago, of the robots and part numbers issued to Sean and his crew. Within a few minutes she was able to verify that the MAC address that had come in via Morse code a few minutes ago matched one on a robot that had been taken to Ymir. "Who has access to the file you just consulted?" Doob asked, still in devil's advocate mode. "Are you kidding? You know how Sean is with the encryption and everything? All of this stuff is locked down. I mean, I'm sure the NSA could get in, but not some random prankster." "Just checking," Doob said. "It seems awfully roundabout, is all I'm saying. Why doesn't he just broadcast something like 'Hey, Dinah, it's me, Sean, my radio's busted'? That would seem easier." "You have to know Sean," Dinah said. "Look. Anything he sends out over that channel is getting broadcast to basically the entire Earth. It's going to go up on the Internet... everyone's going to know his business. He has no idea what the situation is. There's no Internet up there and his radio's been out for a long time. He doesn't even know if anyone is alive up here. Or if there's been a military coup or something. He doesn't want to come back here if we've turned into the Klingon Empire." "I think you're right," Doob said. "He's going to ease into it, test the waters." Forty-five minutes later Dinah was taking down a new message from QET. It started with RTFM5, then the number 00001, and went on as an apparently meaningless series of random letters. "The only part I understand is 'read the fucking manual,'" Dinah said, "followed by the number five." "Did he bring any manuals up with him?" "He brought a bunch of stuff," Dinah said, "from the engineers in Seattle, and left some of it here..." "You have a faraway look in your eye, Dinah..." "I remember asking him, 'Why did you print that stuff out, why not use thumb drives like everyone else,' and he said, 'Owning your own space company brings some perks,'" Dinah said. She found them after a few minutes' rummaging in storage bins: half a dozen three-ring binders, volumes 1 through 6 of the Arjuna Expeditions Employee Manual. The entire stack was a foot thick. Doob whistled. "Given the cost per pound of launching stuff into space, this is probably worth more than the Gutenberg Bible that showed up last week." They went straight to volume 5, which for the most part looked like any other corporate employee manual. But in between the sexual harassment policy and the dress code was a half-inch-thick stack of pages with no readable content at all. Random sequences of capital letters had been printed all over them, in groups of five, column after column, row after row, all the way down each page. Each of these pages had a different number at its top, beginning with 00001. "This is the boy adventure secret code shit that Larz always used," Dinah said. "But I'll be damned if I know—" "I'm embarrassed to say that I know exactly what this is," Doob said. "These are one-time pads. It's the simplest code there is—but the most difficult to break, if you do it right. But you have to have this." And he rattled page 00001 in his hand. Once Doob had explained how it worked, Dinah was able to begin decrypting the message by hand, but in a few minutes Doob had written a Python script that made it easy to finish the job. "I came here thinking I was going to have a drink and a chat about asteroid mining," he said. "Oh, stop grumbling—this is way more interesting!" Dinah said.
"There were six in the original crew, right?" Doob asked. "Something must have happened," Dinah said. "Maybe they hit a rock or something, damaged the antenna, lost some people. Maybe the radiation got to them." "Well, it sounds like they are coming back," Doob said. "Yeah, unless—" "Unless what?" "Unless he just wants to hang out at L1. That would be a hell of a lot safer. I don't think any moon shards are going to make it out that far." Doob reread the message. "You're right," he said. "All he says is that they're thrusting. Nothing about transferring back to low Earth orbit. Then he asks for a situation report." He put his hands over his face and rubbed it. "I'm fading," he announced. "I should be Skyping my family right now." "Get outta here," Dinah said. "I can work on the report. And I can encrypt it, now that you showed me how it works." Doob pushed off and drifted to the exit, then caught himself and turned back. "I could figure this out myself," he said, "but it's late. Maybe you know off the top of your head. If Sean goes into that transfer orbit from L1 to here, how long before he shows up?" "Thirty-seven days," Dinah said. "About seventeen days into the Hard Rain," Doob said. "Awkward timing." Dinah looked back at him. She didn't say a word, but he knew what she was thinking: If only awkward timing were the worst of our problems. "Okay," Doob said. "Thanks, Dinah." "Next time," she said, and made a drinky-drinky motion with her thumb and pinkie. "Next time," he agreed, and pushed through the curtain. Dinah checked the time. Now that she knew roughly where Ymir was, she understood the timing of the transmissions. During a certain part of each ninety-three-minute orbit, Izzy was on the wrong side of the Earth, and couldn't receive Sean's signal. Following each blackout period was a window during which they could talk. They had just burned a window taking down his transmission and decrypting it, and were about to go into blackout again. During that span of time Dinah should be able to write a short message and get it encrypted using the next one-time pad. What to write wasn't entirely clear. She could provide some obvious data like the number of arklets currently in orbit, the number of people, how many robots she had up and running. But she suspected that Sean wanted a different kind of information. He wanted to know what would happen were he to show up, thirty-seven days from now, with a mountain of ice. The Cloud Ark could use it, that was for sure. Likewise, Sean needed the Cloud Ark; two guys on a spaceship pushing a giant ball of ice was not a sustainable civilization. But Sean was going to be cagey. He was going to want something. He would want to make a deal. He would want to make a deal with Dinah's boyfriend. One step at a time. Just sending him a few basic stats would occupy the next transmission window. Rather than driving herself crazy worrying about the longer game, Dinah focused on that through the next blackout period, writing up a message as tersely as possible and then encrypting it using Doob's Python script. The L1 point of the Earth-sun system was located on a straight line between those two bodies. Ymir, for all practical purposes, was at L1. So, generally speaking, when Izzy swung around the dark side of the Earth and emerged into the sunlight, it meant that they could "see" L1, and communicate with Ymir. This next occurred at about 7:30 A.M. Greenwich time, which happened to be sunrise in London. Dinah, gazing down out her little window, was able to see the terminator—the dividing line between the day and night sides of Earth—creeping over the Thames estuary down below, and lighting up a few tall spires in the London financial district. Then she turned to her telegraph key, established contact with Ymir, and tapped out her message. This ended up consuming the entire transmission window. She had to send the characters very slowly, because Sean wasn't very good at reading Morse code. And because the message was encrypted, he wasn't able to guess missing letters from context, and so every letter had to be read clearly. By the time she was finished, Izzy had swung almost halfway around the world and was about to plunge back into night. She finished her transmission with TBC, which she hoped they would understand as "to be continued," then went right back to work writing and encrypting a supplement. She was getting ready to open another broadcast window, a little before 9:00 A.M. London time or "dot 9" in Izzy-speak, when Ivy floated in without knocking. "I want to look out your window," she announced. "That's fine," Dinah said. "What's up?" Because obviously something was up. Ivy's face looked funny. And she had said "your window," not "your window." "What's so special about my window?" Dinah asked. "It's next to you," Ivy said. "Is everything okay?" Dinah asked. Because clearly everything wasn't. Her first thought was that the Morse code transmissions had been intercepted and that Dinah was in trouble. But if that were the case, Ivy would not be in here asking to look out her window. She looked at her friend. Ivy went immediately to the window and then positioned herself to look down at the Earth. By now the terminator had advanced to the point where it had lit up the easternmost bulge of South America. Izzy was about to cross the equator, which was almost directly below them. "I heard from Cal," Ivy said. She said it without the usual note of pleasure in her voice. "That's good. I thought his boat was underwater." "It was until a couple of hours ago." "They popped up?" "They popped up." "Where?" "Down there," Ivy said. "How do you know?" Dinah asked. "Surely he's not beaming you his coordinates." "I can tell," Ivy said. "By putting two and two together." "What did he say?" "He said to prepare for some launches out of Kourou." "They're going to reopen the spaceport?" Ivy gasped. Dinah glided over and got right behind Ivy, hugging her and hooking her chin over Ivy's shoulder so that she could share the same viewing angle. They knew where Kourou was; they looked at it all the time, and sometimes even saw the bright plumes of rocket engines on the launch pads. What Ivy had reacted to was a little different. Sparks of light were appearing along the coast, spreading, and fading. A barrage of them, peppered across the interval between the beach and Devil's Island. "What the hell are those?" Dinah asked. "Are those nukes?" "I don't know," Ivy said. Then Dinah's question was answered by a much brighter light that flared along the coast to the northwest, fading slightly to a luminescent ball that tumbled upward toward space. "I think that was a nuke," Ivy said. "We just nuked... Venezuela?" It took a few moments for their eyes to readjust. That was just as well, since their minds had to do some adjusting as well. Once the light had faded, they could see that the mushroom cloud was actually offshore of the Venezuelan landmass, a few miles out to sea. "A demonstration shot? Visible from Caracas?" Dinah asked. "Partly that," Ivy said. "But yesterday they were saying that the whole Venezuelan navy was headed for Kourou to restore order. I'll bet that navy no longer exists." "The smaller fireballs? Near the spaceport?" "I'm going to guess fuel-air explosives. They would do almost as much damage as tactical nukes without contaminating the launch site." Ivy had shrugged loose from Dinah's embrace and turned around so that her back was to the window. They were now hovering close to each other. Dinah finally got it. "You said that Cal's boat had popped up. That it was on the surface. That he knew something. You think—" "I know," Ivy mouthed. Cal had received the order, direct from J.B.F., and he had launched the nuke. He'd probably launched cruise missiles with fuel-air devices as well. People assumed that Ivy and Dinah had grown apart in the last year—but then, people had assumed that they were at odds to begin with. There was no point in trying to keep track of what people imagined. Ivy's loss of her position to Dinah's boyfriend hadn't made matters any simpler. But things had never been bad between them. Just complicated. Ivy was pretty articulate, but there wasn't a lot about the current situation that could be talked through. After a few minutes, though, she found a way. "I guess what sucks is that all I'm going to have of him is memories," Ivy said, "and I was trying to cultivate some good ones to carry with me." She wasn't exactly crying, but her voice had gone velvety. "You know he had no choice," Dinah said. "The chain of command is still in effect." "Of course I understand that," Ivy said. "Still. It's just not what I wanted." "We knew it was going to get ugly," Dinah said. Her radio started beeping. "Speaking of which..." "Who the hell is that?" Ivy asked. "Sean Probst," Dinah said. "He's back." Ivy hung out in Dinah's shop for a while as Dinah laboriously keyed out the second half of her situation report. By the time South America had passed from view, long trails of black smoke were streaking northeast from the burning wreckage of the People's Justice Blockade and casting shadows on the wrinkled skin of the Atlantic. Bright sparks had appeared over Kourou again, but now they were the incandescent plumes of solid boosters chucking heavy-lift vehicles into the sky. "Back in business," Ivy said. "I guess I better revise those spreadsheets." "You think Cal is still on the surface? Still reachable?" "I doubt it," Ivy said, in a tone of voice that suggested she wouldn't know what to say to him. "I don't think it's standard practice to launch a nuclear missile and then just hang out."
Certain aspects of cloud ark culture were more objectionable than others to Dr. Moira Crewe. She just didn't think it decent to live in a place where there were no coffee shops to have breakfast in when she woke up, and no public houses in which to socialize at day's end. This was partly the result of overcrowding; partly because people lived on three different shifts, so there was no unanimity as to when morning and evening fell; and partly because the place had been hastily designed by American and Russian engineers who were blind to the importance of such things. She'd had a number of good chats about it with Luisa, who understood, and they had formed a sort of vague resolution to do something about it once the Hard Rain had begun and the Cloud Ark had settled into some kind of long-term routine. Moira's dream was to be the proprietor of an establishment, perhaps constructed in a single arklet, that would serve that purpose. But she had not yet worked out how to get the timing just right. Of course, she knew that she had much more important duties: the responsibility of perpetuating the human race, and most other species, was largely on her shoulders. It wouldn't do for her to spend hours every day pulling espresso shots and wiping down counters. They didn't even have the capability, yet, of growing coffee or barley in space, so the supply of consumables was going to run out pretty damned soon and her pub would end up serving Tang. But it was a dream. And in the meantime she could use the coffee room adjacent to the Farm as a sort of R & D laboratory. Arising each day at dot 8, she would make her way back to H2, descend a spoke to the T3 torus, make herself a cup of reprehensible freeze-dried coffee and a little bowl of equally bad freeze-dried oatmeal, and then go to a little conference table in the middle of the Farm and have a sit. As often as not she would be joined by other sleepy-eyed third shifters. Markus Leuker was one of them, and generally too busy to just sit and drink coffee with people, but he would make time for her occasionally. Konrad Barth sometimes joined her, as did Rhys Aitken, and from time to time Tekla would show up. Of these, Tekla was the most curious and interesting case, on more than one level. To put it bluntly, she was of a different social caste. Moira, Doob, Konrad, Rhys, and many of the other members of the General Population were the sorts of people who might once have encountered each other at TED or Davos, or appeared together on panels at think tanks. Not Tekla. Her curious career as one of the rare female members of the Russian military, an Olympic athlete, a test pilot, and a cosmonaut certainly made her interesting enough to be invited to a TED-like conference, but her lack of fluency in English and a certain degree of social awkwardness would have ruled her out as a presenter. The lacerations she had suffered during her escape from the crippled Luk had been sewn up by amateurs. On Earth she'd have gone straight into the care of a plastic surgeon, but on Izzy she'd just accepted the results. Moira wished she spoke better Russian so that she could talk to Tekla about her ideas regarding appearance and grooming. The facial scars put her well outside the norms of feminine beauty and she had doubled down by electing to keep the buzz cut. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, she was, to put it bluntly, kind of hot. Moira hated to say it. But hotness was a part of the human condition and it was pointless to pretend that it did not exist. Moira herself was largely heterosexual. When younger she had slept with two different women, one in the English Cambridge and one in the Massachusetts Cambridge. This had been perfectly all right and she in no way regretted it, but it had required an awful lot of thinking. Way too much cerebration about gender and queer theory had preceded and succeeded those brief moments of passion, and those relationships had faded from her life. It had occurred to her, in spite of efforts to keep such thoughts at bay, that Tekla would be an altogether different style of partner, and she had to admit that she found this pretty interesting. There was an entire story about Tekla's sexuality that had begun a few weeks after her rescue with some kind of elaborate soap opera, a love triangle or quadrangle involving both men and women, loosely enshrined in the oral history of Izzy but not something Moira had ever cared to learn more about. The gist of it was that after a few months Tekla had begun openly sleeping with other women, eliciting vast amounts of analysis and commentary and drama. The analysis had tended to come from gender theorists talking about the somewhat uncomfortable fact that Tekla was an athlete who had looked kind of butch even when she had been glammed up for the Olympics and looked a hell of a lot more so now. Her coming out (though she had never formally done so) thus tended to reinforce existing stereotypes about female athletes. The commentary came from millions of idiots on the Internet. And the drama occurred in Tekla's relationships with the other Russians, who constituted a powerful bloc on the space station. This had faded as they'd gotten used to it, as more people of various nationalities and sexualities had joined the Cloud Ark, and as everyone had focused their attentions on larger problems. But it had turned Tekla into a curious, solitary creature, socially distant from the only people with whom she could carry on a fluent conversation. The expectation among politically correct academic-leftist observers had been that she would undergo a personal transformation and become like an academic leftist, but she seemed to have retained the same basic attitude about order and discipline that had made her a Scout in the first place and that had led her to putting Sean Probst in an arm lock and offering to choke him out. Sitting across the table from her, drinking her coffee and picking at her oatmeal, Moira idly wondered whether Tekla was aware of the fact that there was a whole genre of Internet fan pornography devoted to imaginary couplings, more or less sadomasochistic, between her and Sean Probst. In any case Tekla's tendency to occasionally sit with Moira during breakfast seemed like, if not a direct invitation, then at least a preliminary gambit. Preoccupied with such thoughts, Moira was oblivious at first to the fact that the Farm was suddenly crowded with people looking at the big Situational Awareness Monitor above the end of the table where she and Tekla were having their breakfast. The viewing angle was awkward, and so she had to change her position to get a good look. It was a news channel showing scraps of cell-phone video that had been spliced together to approximate a story. At the beginning of the story the People's Justice Blockade was riding at anchor in the waters between the beach and Devil's Island, just beginning to catch the pink light of dawn. At the end of the story the sun was shining on a churned slurry of crushed hulls and floating corpses visible through gaps between dreadlocks of smoke. In the middle were glimpses of black motes droning in from the sea and fantastic bubbles of flame spreading to envelop vast areas before they burst and disappeared, leaving behind wreckage that looked like it had been beaten with sledgehammers and doused with napalm. From there the video would loop to sterile three-dimensional renderings of missile submarines and cruise missiles, and footage of the White House Briefing Room, where the president had made a short statement before turning matters over to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Other world leaders were chiming in from Downing Street, the Kremlin, Berlin. All of which was pretty compelling in and of itself until, just at the moment when Moira was going to look away to her oatmeal, something bright caught her eye on the screen, and she looked back to see video of a mushroom cloud rising over an ocean. "Did I miss something?" Moira asked. "That didn't look like a meteorite strike." "Nuke," Tekla said. Moira looked at her. Tekla's gaze, which some found chilly, was fixed on Moira's face. Moira didn't find it chilly at all. Tekla, for once, glanced away shyly. "Venezuela," she added. "Navy is no longer a problem. Rockets are launched again." She shrugged. She was wearing a tank top. Moira couldn't stop looking at her deltoids. She had to stop doing that. "On the beach it was fuel-air bombs," Tekla continued. "Extrimmly destructive." Tekla leaned back in her chair and draped an arm casually over the back of the empty chair next to her. "What is your opinion, Dr. Crewe?" "Please, call me Moira." "Sorry. Russian formality." Tekla was, maybe, cagier than she looked. She anticipated that someone like Dr. Crewe would be horrified by the fact that we were now nuking people. She wanted to get it out in the open right away, while it was still fresh. Lost in contemplation of the structure of Tekla's arm, Moira was startled when a large, strongly built man slammed down into the chair next to her. She looked over to see that it was Markus Leuker. He placed a cup of coffee on the table in front of him and contemplated it for a moment, almost pointedly not looking at the video screens with their infinite multiangled replays of mushroom clouds and briefing rooms. Then he turned and looked at Moira, greeting her with raised eyebrows and a nod, and then giving Tekla the same treatment. So Moira was absolved from having to answer Tekla's question. Markus answered it, even though no one had asked him. "I know that I am at somewhat of a disadvantage here because I am a speaker of German, and so there is certain baggage. So. Yes. The baggage is acknowledged. I see the awkwardness of it. The delicacy. But—" "Did you know it was going to happen?" Moira asked him. "No, it comes as a complete surprise to me." Moira nodded. "But, had they asked for my opinion, I would have said yes," Markus said. "They are all going to die anyway," Tekla said, nodding. It struck Moira, just then, that Markus and Tekla were quite comfortable with each other. It made sense. Markus would not be the least bit troubled by Tekla's sexuality; on the contrary, it would make things much simpler for a man like him if he knew she were unavailable. He was an ex–military pilot; so was she. Naturally they would tend to view certain things in the same way. For a while, during the Cloud Ark's first year, Tekla had been a sort of itinerant laborer. It might seem strange that a space station could support a person with no particular job. But none of the Scouts had really been expected to survive, so none of them had been sent up with long-term roles in mind. Her alienation from the Russians who took the brunt of the spacewalking work had led her to try her hand at a number of different tasks. She knew the interior of Izzy as well as anyone, but she also knew how to operate the controls of an arklet, and she could put on a space suit and go out and weld things in space. Her period of wandering in the wilderness seemed to have ended when Markus had taken over. Moira was no longer precisely certain what it was that Tekla did for a living. But she now had the clear sense that Tekla was working for Markus directly, that he was trusting her to do something. "They're all going to die, yes," said another voice. "But we're not." It was Luisa. She came up behind Tekla and wordlessly asked permission to use the chair on which the Russian had draped her arm. Tekla not only gave it but rose to her feet and pulled the chair out as a courtesy. "We're not all going to die, or at least that's what I'm hoping," Luisa went on, "and we have all just seen this happen. It's in our memories now. And not just that. But in a few hours we'll be taking deliveries from Kourou, reaping the benefits of having used fuel-air explosives and nuclear weapons against people who were basically defenseless. It's in our DNA now." Her eyes flicked toward Moira. "If you'll pardon the poetic imagery, Dr. Crewe." Moira gave her a little smile and nodded. Markus said, "So, do you disagree with it?" "No," Luisa said. "Let's be clear, Markus, I have baggage too. I'm a brown Spanish speaker from South America. I devoted years of my life to hanging out with refugees on boats. And I'm a Jew. That's my baggage, okay?" "Understood," Markus said. "I'm not down there, I don't know what advice J.B.F. was getting, what she knew that we don't." "So what is your point?" Markus asked, crisply but politely. "We have no laws. No rights. No constitution. No legal system, no police." Markus and Tekla looked at each other across the table. It was not a sneaky look, or a guilty look, or a conniving look. But it was a significant look. "It is being worked on," Markus said. He wasn't kidding; ever since the Crater Lake Accord had been signed, a whole think tank full of constitutional scholars had been toiling away on it in The Hague, and one of them was now resident up here. "I know it is," Luisa answered, "and it is very important to me that atrocities such as what we're seeing on these screens don't somehow infect that process. This cannot be business as usual." Markus and Tekla, still looking at each other, seemed to arrive at a mutual decision to say nothing. Moira's phone vibrated. Looking at its screen she saw that she had an appointment in fifteen minutes. She excused herself from what had become a very strange kaffeeklatsch. Oh well, perhaps it had cured her of some sentimental ideas. She had walked in aspiring to somehow re-create the experience of breakfasting in a sidewalk café in Europe and instead been treated to half an hour of nuclear warfare, mass incineration of protesters, and serious ethical discourse, mixed in with a suddenly keen sexual tension between her and Tekla. Like quite a few other people on the Cloud Ark, she hadn't had sex since she had come up here. Many whose consciences were unencumbered by the existence of doomed spouses or fiancés on the ground had figured out a way to make it happen, but many others were not getting any. This couldn't possibly last. A couple of docked capsules had been set aside for conjugal visits, and everyone knew of quiet places around the space station where you could do it. Moira didn't have anyone down on the ground. She had abstained for lack of anyone up here, and just because it was the least sexy place you could possibly imagine. But it was starting to get to her. One of the items on her long-term to-do list, actually, was to come up with a policy for how to handle pregnancy aboard the Cloud Ark. Since pregnant people weren't fundamentally that different from those who weren't, what that really boiled down to was how to handle babies. The assumption made by the Arkitects was that this was going to be an orderly process, and that anyone who got pregnant would do so with the intent of having the embryo frozen so that it could be implanted later, when conditions were better for raising little ones. Having now spent the better part of a year up here, Moira doubted this. The Arkitects were, she felt, underestimating the cultural difference between the General Population and the Arkies. Until a few months ago they'd been referred to as Arkers, and, in all official communications, they still were. Then someone had coined the term "Arkies," and, in one of those only-on-the-Internet viral phenomena, it had swept across the planet in about twenty-four hours and become universal. A few sensitive Arkansas historians had registered objections, but they had been steamrolled. The Arkies were just kids, and they had surprisingly little exposure to the GPop. The arklets they lived in couldn't really change their positions in the swarm. Moving from one arklet to the next was nearly impossible—it was an epic journey in a space suit, requiring some fancy tricks with orbital mechanics. Small utility spacecraft, called Flivvers, were available to squire people around, but there were only so many of them, and qualified pilots were few. Markus, following suggestions from Luisa, had tried to make up for this by "stirring the pot," meaning that about 10 percent of the Arkies at any given time were living and working aboard Izzy. But most of the time, most of them were stranded in individual arks or on triads or heptads, their only connection to the General Population being through videoconferencing ("Scape"), social media ("Spacebook"), and other tech that had been transplanted from the earthbound world. Moira would be astonished if some girls weren't pregnant already, but no one had approached her about getting an embryo frozen. And any normal person who followed Moira forward through Zvezda and "down" into the cold storage facility would understand why. There was nothing about this place that tickled the nerve endings that mattered to people who wanted to start families. It was clinical/industrial to a degree that was almost laughable. But by the same token she hoped it would seem impressive to the new arrivals, who showed up right on time for their appointment. They had arrived several hours ago on a passenger capsule launched from Cape Canaveral: long enough for their antinausea meds to kick in and for them to pull themselves together a little bit. It was a small contingent from the Philippines: a scientist who had been working on genetically modified strains of rice, a sociologist who had been working with Filipino sailors who spent their whole lives on cargo freighters—she'd be working with Luisa, presumably—and a pair of Arkies who, judging from looks, were from ethnic groups as different as Icelanders were from Sicilians. One of them was carrying the inevitable beer cooler. As Moira knew perfectly well—for she did this at least once a day—it contained sperm, ova, and embryos collected from donors scattered around the country of origin—in this case, the Philippines. She accepted it with due ceremony, like a Japanese businessman taking another's business card, and flipped the lid open for inspection. A few chunks of dry ice were still visible on the bottom; good. The finger-sized vials were all contained within a hexagonal cage. She sampled some of them with a pistol-shaped infrared thermometer and verified that none of them had thawed out. Then, after putting on some cotton gloves to protect her skin from the cold, she pulled a few out and spot-checked them just to verify that they had been sealed, labeled, and bar-coded in accordance with the procedures specified in the Third Technical Supplement to the Crater Lake Accord, Volume III, Section 4, Paragraph 11. They had. She'd have expected nothing less from Dr. Miguel Andrada, the geneticist. She also guessed that Dr. Andrada suspected, at some level, that none of these samples had a snowball's chance in hell of ever developing into sentient life-forms, but this was not a subject to talk about now. For the benefit of the others, Moira gave a little canned speech, trying to make it sound spontaneous, thanking them and, by extension, the people of the Philippines for having entrusted her and the Cloud Ark with these most precious contributions, and hinting, without promising, at a future in which a cornucopia of vibrant humanity would spring forth from each little plastic vial. It was expected that these people would go forth now to their arklets and text or Facebook the news down to their friends and family at home. The promise in those words was meant to keep people on Earth from getting too rambunctious while they waited for the end; and if that failed, as it had in the case of Venezuela, well, J.B.F. could just nuke them. "May I see how it all works?" Dr. Andrada asked, after the rest of his delegation had been sent on their way. So it was just the two of them now, hovering in a long, slim docking module that projected to the nadir side. "Below" them its far end was sealed off by a hatch with a keypad. Most of Izzy was open to anyone who wanted to wander in and poke around; they didn't get a lot of riffraff. But the HGA, the Human Genetic Archive, had a kind of quasi-sacred status and was kept under the digital equivalent of lock and key. Dr. Andrada was a small, wiry man with prominent cheekbones. Like some other ag geneticists Moira had known, he had a callused, tanned, leathery look, the result of spending a lot of time in experimental plots, digging in actual dirt. Except for a nice pair of eyeglasses he could have passed for a farmer anywhere in Southeast Asia. But he had a Ph.D. from UC Davis and had been on the fast track for a Nobel Prize before the Agent had intervened. "Of course," Moira said. "I'd fancy a chat anyway, about how we're going to grow things other than humans up here." "We need to talk about that," Dr. Andrada agreed. She drifted down, performing a slow somersault so that she could address the keypad, and punched the button that turned on the iris scanner. After a few moments, the device agreed that she was Dr. Moira Crewe and unlocked the hatch. Bracing herself with a handle on the wall, she pulled it open, then allowed herself to drift through into the docking module beyond. There was barely room in this for both her and Dr. Andrada. White LEDs came on automatically. Clipped to the wall was a simple nylon web belt with a few small electronic gadgets holstered in it. Moira took this and buckled it around her waist. They had entered through the hatch on the module's zenith side. To port and starboard were openings that had been sealed off by round plastic shields. Each of these had a handle projecting from its center. The closest to Moira was the one on the port side, so she grabbed the handle, squeezed it to release a latch, and then pulled it out of the way. Dr. Andrada flinched at the frigid air that washed into the space in its wake. They were looking down a straight tube about ten meters long, large enough for one person to work comfortably, or for two to pass each other if they didn't mind bumping bodies. Its walls were studded with long neat rows of smaller hatches about as wide as a splayed human hand, each with its own little handle. Hundreds of them. Closer to the entrance these bore neat machine-printed labels and bar codes; farther away they were blank. Next to each one of them was a blue LED; these provided the space's only illumination. "Would you like to do the honors?" Moira said. "If I don't freeze to death first!" Dr. Andrada said. "Space is cold," Moira said. "We rely on that." She gave him a minute to put on the cotton gloves, then opened the cooler and held it out. He removed the little rack containing the samples. Moira zapped its bar code with a handheld scanner from her belt. Dr. Andrada pulled himself into the cold storage module and began to drift deeper into it, gingerly prodding the walls in a way that marked him out as a new arrival to zero gravity. "Take the first one that's unlabeled," Moira said. "Leave the door open, please." Dr. Andrada coughed as the chilly air made his throat spasm. He opened one of the small hatches and slid the sample rack into it. In the meantime Moira was using a handheld printer to generate a sticker identifying the sample in English, in Filipino, and in a machine-readable bar code language. Once Dr. Andrada had returned to the central module, she went up to the open hatch, verified that the sample rack was properly seated in the tubular cavity beyond, then closed the hatch and affixed the sticker to its front. Printed on the hatch was a unique identification number and a bar code conveying the same thing, which she zapped and then double-checked. The LED next to this hatch had turned red, signaling that the compartment's temperature was too high. While Moira checked her work, it turned yellow, which suggested the cold was "soaking in." Later she'd pull it up on the screen of her tablet and verify that it had gone blue. She flew back out to the docking module and grabbed the round shield that sealed off the cold store. "Now you know what these are for," she said. "Thermal insulation." She snapped the shield back into place. "I could open the other one," she offered, "but you would see the same thing." "Thank you anyway," said Dr. Andrada, "but I have never been so cold in my life!" They went back "up" to Zvezda and then proceeded forward to the complex of modules where most of the genetic engineering gear was stored. There was nothing to see here but boxes. They could just as easily have gone aft to one of the tori, but Moira knew from experience that new arrivals didn't benefit from switching back and forth between zero gee and simulated gravity. Through the nice eyeglasses, Dr. Andrada was giving Moira a look that she read as polite but skeptical. Fair enough. She decided to broach what was probably on his mind. "Forgive me that bit of ceremony," she said. "I have done it once or twice a day for a year. I'm as much priestess as scientist. You're meant to blog it, of course. To tell the people down below that you personally hand-carried the samples all the way from Manila to a cold storage location on Izzy." "Yes, I understand that. I will do so." He paused, signaling a change in topic. "It is not exactly decentralized." Moira nodded. "If that thing gets hit with a rock ten minutes from now, all of the samples are destroyed." "Yes. That is my concern." "Mine as well. It all boils down to statistics and mathematics. For now, there aren't that many rocks, and we can see them and avoid them if necessary. Keeping all the eggs in one basket..." "And sperm," Dr. Andrada said, in what had become the oldest joke in Moira's personal universe. "... is actually a safer bet, for the next couple of weeks, than trying to distribute them among all of those arklets. But there is a plan, Dr. Andrada, for so distributing them, which will be triggered when the BFR breaks through a certain threshold." He nodded. "Please call me Miguel." "Miguel. Moira, if you would." "Yes. Now, you know why I was chosen to come up here." "You figured out a way to make photosynthesis in rice more efficient by transplanting genes from maize. Greenpeace destroyed your research facility in the Philippines but you kept the project alive anyway, in Singapore. Starting shortly after Zero you began developing strains of that rice adapted for cultivation in low-gee hydroponic environments." "Sprice," Miguel said, with an ever-so-slight roll of the eyes. The term, a contraction of Space Rice, had been coined by an enthusiastic reporter for the Straits Times and become an unkillable staple of tabloid headlines and Internet comment threads. "Do you understand, Moira, that it cannot grow without some amount of simulated gravity? There has to be an up and a down or the root system cannot develop. In this it is more difficult than algae, which doesn't care." "Oh, we're all going to be eating algae for a long time," Moira said. "Sprice will come later, after we have constructed more environments that rotate to make gravity. And then, Miguel, then!" "Then what?" Miguel asked. "Sprew." "Sprew?" "Space brew," Moira said. "It's not as good as barley, but you can make beer from rice in a pinch."
"Tap," Markus said. he had to say it because he couldn't do it. The traditional way for a wrestler to tell his training partner that an unbreakable submission hold had been achieved was by tapping him or her on the hand, arm, leg, or whatever could be reached. But Markus couldn't reach anything. Tekla had both of his arms controlled. She let go of him moments before they drifted into the padded wall of the Circus—a large, mostly empty module reserved for exercise—and they raised their hands to absorb the impact. Watching interestedly from the far side of the Circus were Jun Ueda, an engineer named Tom Van Meter, Bolor-Erdene, and Vyacheslav Dubsky. The three men were taciturn. Bolor-Erdene, who was nothing if not enthusiastic, permitted herself three claps, then stopped when it became clear that no one else was joining in. "Okay," Vyacheslav said. "Seeing is believing. It is possible to perform Sambo in zero gravity." His eyes flicked in the direction of the others. "Or jujitsu, or wrestling, or bökh, I presume." "Obviously there are no throws. None of that shifting of the weight that is so important on the ground," Markus said. Jun nodded. "It is a subset. A little bit like ground fighting. But without the ground." Tom Van Meter, who'd been a collegiate wrestler en route to an engineering degree at Iowa, turned himself around to face the padded wall, then tried delivering a punch. In spite of his considerable size and strength, it landed weakly and sent him drifting backward across the module. "We experimented with that too," Markus said. "Punches are problematic." Just before striking the opposite wall, Tom flung both arms outward and slapped the mat to absorb energy. "If you're in a torus, or a bolo, all the usual stuff is going to work," he said. "But you're right, martial arts in zero gee is a new frontier." "Once you have come to grapple," Tekla said, "not so different." "The Cloud Ark is equipped with a dozen Tasers," Markus said. "I did not request these. They were here when I arrived. No one knows about them. I am not comfortable with having some persons go around with sidearms—even if they are just Tasers—while everyone else is unarmed. And yet. We have a population of two thousand or so. There is no town on Earth of such a population that does not have police. There will be crimes. Disputes." "What does the Constitution say about police?" Bolor-Erdene asked. "I haven't read it." All of the others laughed, appreciating her. "No one has read the bloody thing, Bo; it is this thick when you print it out!" Markus said, holding his thumb and index finger two inches apart. "Written by committee, as you would expect." "To be clear, Markus," said Jun. "You are not suggesting—" "No, Jun, I am not saying we ignore it. Believe me, I am screaming at these guys every day to make it simpler, to give us the, what do you call it—" "Cliff's Notes," Tom said. "Yes. Before we fall off the cliff. A simple owner's manual. But somewhere in there, a police force is mentioned. I grepped it. They will have to be citizen police at first—no professionals. I have studied your personnel records. I know that you are all trained in some sort of wrestling. Wrestling is the only form of organized violence that is actually usable aboard a space station, short of absolutely crazy shit." "How about stick fighting?" Tom asked. "I knew you would ask because your CV mentions a little bit of escrima," Markus said. "It is a reasonable idea. I have a question, though." "Yes?" "Do you see any sticks?" "Maybe we could grow some trees," Bo suggested. "That will take a while," Markus returned. "And so I am simply asking you this, to spend a little bit of time each day getting together in this module to practice wrestling. It might come in handy."
Doob had slept so poorly he suspected he hadn't slept at all. But the clock said it was about dot 15. When he'd climbed into his sack it had said dot 9. He must have dozed off for a while. But he didn't know when. His nightly videoconference with Amelia hadn't gone well. It hadn't gone badly—they hadn't raised their voices, or come to tears—but at first it had been all about what had just happened in Kourou, and after that there'd been a failure to connect. He'd noticed the same thing with Henry. They were running out of things to say to each other. That was ghastly, but it was true. His family members were all preparing to meet their maker in two or three or four weeks. The government had been handing out free euthanasia pills to anyone who wanted them; thousands had already swallowed them and bodies overflowed the morgues. Mass graves were being dug with end loaders. Meanwhile, Doob was preparing for—to be blunt, to be honest—the greatest adventure of his life. He wished, at some level, that they were already dead. He had spoken those seemingly unspeakable words to Luisa several days ago and she had nodded. "Happens all the time," she said, "with caregivers of terminal Alzheimer's patients, or similar cases. An enormous sense of shame and guilt comes with it." "But Amelia doesn't have Alzheimer's, she's—" "Doesn't matter. Seeing her, talking to her, makes you feel bad. And at some level, your brain wants the thing that makes you feel bad to go away. Simplest reaction in the world. Doesn't make you a bad person. Doesn't mean you have to give in to it." Those thoughts had led to more tossing and turning—if those were the right words for not being able to sleep in a loose sack in zero gravity—as he had wrestled with the question of "When?" Predicting it on Day 720, plus or minus a few, had been all well and good back on Day 360. But Day 700 was now approaching its end, and the "plus or minus" thing was seriously bothering him. Lately they'd narrowed it down to "plus or minus three days," but that was in response to political pressure. It wasn't a legit scientific move. And it meant something different to scientists. Laypersons understood it as "certainly between 717 and 723." Scientists would instead say that if you could repeat the experiment of blowing up the moon a large number of times, and keep track of the time-to-White-Sky separately in each case, the numbers would fall into a normal distribution, a bell-shaped curve, with about two-thirds of the instances falling within that range. Which meant that the remainder would fall outside of that range—and some would fall well outside of it. It was not out of the question that it could happen tomorrow—that it could be happening right now—while Doob floated in a goddamned sack. So when Dinah came and woke him up just after dot 15, he wasn't angry at her. More relieved. Basic politeness prevented him from saying so, but she looked a wreck. Not in the sense of being over-the-top emotional. Just drained and beat up. "You know about Guiana?" she asked him over her shoulder as they wended their way back to the Mining Colony. "Yeah." "Okay." She said nothing further until they were in her shop. Doob could see the wreckage of old-school communication all over the place: many sheets of paper taped to the available surfaces, dull pencils drifting around, loose pages from the "employee manual" with blocks of characters crossed out. "I had to tell Sean to knock it off," she admitted. "I'm used up. Can't do it anymore. Need to get some sleep. This shit is difficult, you have to be precise. Keying slow enough for Sean to copy the transmission is like walking slow." "Walking slow?" "You know," Dinah said. "Anyone can walk at a normal pace. That's easy. But when you have to walk at half speed, like because you're accompanying someone who has trouble getting around? It's exhausting." "Got it." "When I started to beg off, he changed his topic. To that point it was all, 'Hey, what's going on, how many people are on the Ark?' but when I applied a little time pressure he started talking about sensitivity analysis." Doob laughed. "Wow," Dinah said, looking at him keenly. "Not the reaction I expected." "I've been awake for hours thinking about it," Doob said. "So you know what he means? Because I'm just a dumb clodhopper, I had to ask him." "I assume he means, how certain are we really that it's going to happen on Day 720? And just how unstable is the system?" "Yep, that's what he means." "The closer we get, the more it's like a nuclear reactor about to go critical, or, well—" "Pick your metaphor, I get it," Dinah said. "Anything that's that unstable can be set off by random noise in the system. Things that we inherently cannot predict. Pretty soon it's going to be so on edge that just looking at it funny will set it off. We just don't know which rock is going to trigger the avalanche." Dinah considered it for a few moments, then broke eye contact and looked at her radio. "Sean does," she said. "I'm not sure I heard that correctly," Doob said, after a long, groping pause. "The Eight Ball," she said. "That's what Sean calls it. It's a rock you don't know about. One you can't see coming. It's too dark, too far away." "Dinah, I'm confused—are we talking about a hypothetical asteroid here, or—" "No. A specific one. A real one. Look, Doob, you know that Arjuna Expeditions has been putting up cubesats for years. We have hundreds of eyes in the sky, drifting around taking pictures of near-Earth asteroids, cataloging them, recording their orbital parameters with as much precision as we can manage. Well, apparently he's been lying awake at night thinking about the same stuff as you. The extreme instability of the debris cloud. Its sensitivity to any kind of perturbation. And he had the bright idea: Why not search through Arjuna's secret database of asteroids to see whether any bad actors were going to be passing through the middle of the lunar debris cloud during the next couple of weeks, when it's on such a hair trigger?" "He has that database with him?" "Sure, whatever, it's just a spreadsheet." "So he opened that spreadsheet and did that analysis?" "Yeah. Doob, listen, I'm piecing this together from circumstantial evidence. You've seen how spotty the communication is." "Understood." "But I think he did that analysis and found an asteroid, which he is calling the Eight Ball. I assume it's low-albedo." "Black. As eight balls are," Doob said. "I don't know anything about its size or its orbital parameters, any of that. But Sean thinks it's going to pass right through the middle of the cloud in about six hours." "Six hours?!" "And that it has enough kinetic energy to be, well, interesting." Doob was thinking about Amelia. About those emotions that had kept him awake earlier. Predictably, everything had now been reversed and he was terrified that she and Henry and Hesper and Hadley were all about to die. Dinah misinterpreted this as him making astronomical calculations in his head. "I'm going to go and get six hours of sleep," she said. "Good night." "Good night, Dinah," Doob said.
It was about dot 16, shift change time, the equivalent of four in the afternoon for third shifters. So, Markus was approaching the end of what, for any normal earthbound person, would be his workday. Of course, like almost everyone else in the Cloud Ark, he worked the whole time he was awake. Even his recreational activities—such as martial arts practice in the Circus—had a larger purpose. So the "afternoon" shift change and end of his "workday" were purely formal observances. Nevertheless, he was in the habit of using this time of day for dealing with what used to be called paperwork. And as part of that he had invited to his little private office off of the Tank the Only Lawyer in Space, Salvatore Guodian. Son of a Singaporean Chinese father and an Italian countess whose parents had gone to that city-state as tax exiles, he had been educated in a school for mostly British expats, matriculated at Berkeley, dropped out after one and a half years to join a tech startup, lost his shirt, bummed around to various other startups, finally made some money, become interested in the law, essentially bought his way into law school despite not having a bachelor's degree, worked for fifteen years at the Los Angeles, Singapore, Sydney, Beijing, London, and Dubai offices of a white-shoe law firm, been passed over for partnership, resigned, ridden his bicycle across China, moved to San Francisco, and become the general counsel of a digital currency trading firm while in his spare time volunteering for a nonprofit cyber rights organization and going out into the desert to launch very large home-brew rockets to the edge of space. Sal, as he was universally known, had been one of the first people chosen to work on the Constitution of the Cloud Ark, and so had spent a year and a half at The Hague before getting "yanked," as the expression went, and launched up here. He was forty-seven years old but in dim light could have passed for thirty. As a way to deal with the exigencies of zero-gee life, and a surrender to a receding hairline, he had taken to wearing a short vacubuzz. This was the easiest thing to do with hair in space. The vacubuzzer was a machine that combined the functions of an electric trimmer and an industrial shop vac. Haircuts were self-serve and consumed about thirty seconds if you were unusually fastidious. Earplugs were recommended. In his halcyon days Sal had sported a luxuriant head of long, wavy black hair and a widow's peak that had brought out his Italian heritage, but with a vacubuzz he looked almost purely Chinese. He spoke seven languages, and he came closer than any living human to having the entire Cloud Ark Constitution—or CAC, as he called it—in his brain. If Markus had anything to say about it—which he did—then Sal would very soon combine in one person the functions of attorney general, head prosecutor, justice of the peace, and chief justice of the supreme court. Sal laughed. He had great teeth. "You realize that those roles are completely incompatible. They are intended to be one another's mutual adversaries in a lot of ways." "Then you can appoint other people to fill them. Look, Sal, we are talking about a bootstrapping process. We have to start somewhere." "Let's war-game it," Sal said. "A male Arkie from Outer Bizarristan rapes a female Arkie from Andorra. It happens in a place where we don't have any cameras." "There are very few such places," Markus pointed out. "Okay, fine. It happens in an arklet. Or so the victim claims. She goes to sick bay, where medical evidence is gathered." "Do we even have rape kits?" Markus asked. "How should I know?" Sal returned. "But we should get some. Anyway, based on that, in some countries a judge might issue a warrant enabling the police to look at the video records from that arklet. Because in some countries, Markus, people have a right to privacy and you can't just be surveilling them all the time." "And what is the situation here?" "It's fascinating that you don't even know, but I'll tell you that the CAC recognizes certain rights that, however, may be abrogated or curtailed during periods of simplified administrative procedures and structures." "PSAPS," Markus said. "That, I know about. It is a euphemism for martial law." Sal looked somewhere between pained and amused. "May I suggest you stop thinking about it that way—or, failing that, never say it out loud." "But nevertheless—" "A better analogy might be the authority a captain wields over a ship at sea. The captain can do things, like preside over marriage ceremonies or order someone confined to quarters, that would not be acceptable if the same ship were tied up to a pier in Manhattan." "Look, I do not have time now to war-game a whole prosecution of a hypothetical rape," Markus said, glancing at his wristwatch—Swiss, naturally, and made specifically for him by a famous Geneva company, as a sort of legacy, a way of saying we existed once, and here is what magnificent things we were capable of. "I want to talk about something very basic, very fundamental, which is: How do I have authority? Or if I am replaced by Ivy or Ulrika, how does she have authority?" Sal didn't quite see where he was going. "Authority meaning..." When this elicited no response other than impatient muttering, Sal tried: "Authority can mean many different things, Markus." "In this case I am not speaking of moral authority or leadership qualities or any of that stuff. I do not mean the theoretical loyalty that Arkies have to the so-called captain of the ship. I mean, what happens if we go to arrest the rapist from Outer Bizarristan, and he decides to put up a fight, and his friends decide that they are going to fight with him?" Sal, to this point, had been viewing the conversation as an enjoyable exercise in legal theory. He now looked more serious. "You're talking about power. What it really means. What it really is." "Yes." "It's an old question. A pharaoh, a medieval king, the mayor of New York City, they all have to think about the same thing." "Yes," Markus said again. "When you give an order, what assurance do you have that it will be carried out? That is the essential question of power." "Jawohl, counselor!" "Normally here I would speak to you about moral authority and loyalty and all of that. But you have already ruled this out." "When push comes to shove, as the English expression has it—" "The traditional answer has always been that the king has his guard, the mayor his chief of police, the commander his military police, or what have you. And it is their ability to physically coerce others that is the ultimate foundation of the leader's power." "Now you're talking. And what is that for me, under the CAC?" "You understand," Sal said, "that the more you actually call upon such persons to coerce, the less power you have, in a way. It is an admission of failure." "Sal," Markus said, "how long have you been up here?" "Two hundred and some days." "How many hours have we spent talking about the CAC?" "I have no idea, probably a hundred hours over that time." "And of that, how much time have we spent talking about this one thing?" Sal checked his own watch. "Maybe fifteen minutes." "So, based on that allocation of time," Markus said, "maybe you can see that this is not all that important to me in the big scheme of things. But it is important, Sal. When the moment comes when I have to arrest a criminal who is being protected by his comrades, I must have an answer. I must know what to do. I must be prepared. This is what I do. This is why I have this job." Someone was knocking on the door to Markus's office, which was unusual. Markus ignored it for now. "Under PSAPS you can deputize specific people to enforce your decisions using appropriate levels of physical coercion. Once we get out of PSAPS..." "How soon do you think that is going to happen?" Markus's tone of voice suggested he had his own opinions on the matter. "If we are lucky enough to survive? It will be years," Sal said. "So we must confine ourselves to PSAPS for this discussion," Markus said. Then he hollered at the door, "Just a minute!" Then, back to Sal: "Appropriate levels of physical coercion, what does that mean? Who decides?" "Well," Sal said, "if you make me attorney general, head prosecutor, justice of the peace, and chief justice of the supreme court, I guess I do." "If someone gets Tased, and his heart stops, and he dies, is that appropriate?" "Jesus Christ, Markus, what has gotten into you?" "I am war-gaming," Markus said. "Trying to be prepared. You should do it too. Not with hypothetical rape cases but with what is likely to start happening soon." He held Sal's gaze until Sal answered with a nod. Then he aimed his voice at the door. "All right! Come in!" "Door" was a landlubber term for what, on a boat or a spaceship, would be called a hatch. A convention had developed where, in a part of Izzy that had simulated gravity, it was referred to as a door. In the floaty bits, it was called a hatch. The door opened to reveal Dubois Jerome Xavier Harris. The look on his face, combined with the mere fact that he had interrupted Markus during a meeting in his private office, suggested that something serious was happening. Markus's mind jumped straight to the most obvious explanation: "Is the president nuking people again?" Dr. Harris looked startled by the suggestion, then shook it off. No, it wasn't that. "Does this meeting require privacy?" Markus asked, with a look at Sal. Sal stood up, volunteering to make himself scarce. But Dr. Harris just got a bemused look. "It concerns the least private thing that ever happened, or ever will," he said. "So no thank you. I have reason to believe that the timetable has just been pushed up very significantly. There is a chance that the White Sky could happen as soon as six hours from now." He checked his watch. "Call it five." Markus's eye flicked to a display on the wall. "I see no uptick in the BFR." "It will be triggered by the passage of an asteroid through the cloud." "Does anyone on the ground know?" "It depends on to what extent this office is under surveillance." "So, your information does not come from the ground." "No. It comes from deep space." "Via encrypted Morse code?" Markus inquired casually. He and Sal exchanged a look. Their conversation had begun, an hour ago, with reading a memo from J.B.F. complaining about such transmissions and demanding that action be taken. It was in discussing how to take such action, and whether the White House had any authority in the matter, that Markus and Sal had wandered into their more general discussion of power. Which was how Markus liked it, for now. Because if someone was sending mysterious encrypted Morse code transmissions from Izzy, it had to be his girlfriend. And he wasn't going to arrest her. People would howl about conflict of interest: people who would be dead soon, people who had no way to enforce their authority here. Unless they had planted, among the Arkies or the General Population, fifth columnists with orders to execute a coup d'état if necessary. "Markus?" Dr. Harris asked. "Are you hearing me? Do you understand what I just said?" "I beg your pardon, Dr. Harris, I just got distracted thinking about the kind of things that Sal is supposed to think about." "Feel free to delegate some of that," Sal said. "I know it's not your strong suit, but—" "Close the door, please," Markus said. Dr. Harris did. "I am reasonably sure of no surveillance in here." "Noted." "It is Dinah, isn't it, Doob?" Markus asked. Doob nodded. "She's talking to Sean Probst over an encrypted channel." Markus shook his head admiringly. "What a girl! My god, she is trouble." Doob and Sal were silent. During their silence, Markus thumbed out a one-word text message to Tekla. "Sal," Markus said, "I declare PSAPS." "I don't think we are yet authorized to—" "Who is going to stop us?" Doob and Sal, again, were silent on the matter. "Is Julia—I do not call her the president anymore—going to nuke us?" He was continuing to thumb out messages as he talked. "She, or the Russians, or the Chinese, might have other ways of removing you from your position—" "I have thought about this," Markus said. "About the possibility that there are plants. Military guys with Tasers or whatever. Waiting for such an order. I have talked to Fyodor, to Sheng, to Zeke, trying to sound them out, to get a feel for it." "Markus," Doob said, "with respect, I don't think that this is what you ought to be focusing on right now." "Which is why I am delegating the constitutional side of it to Sal and the operational side of it to her." Markus nodded toward the door, which had swung open without a knock. Tekla glided through and closed it behind her. "We don't have to announce to the whole world that we are going to PSAPS. We have five hours in which to begin preparations, quietly. I will contact Moira, and tell her that we must begin preparations to disperse the genetic samples to the arklets. I will tell Ulrika that we must pull the trigger on the Surge." By this, Markus meant a long-planned burst of launches that was supposed to happen in the few days' grace period between the White Sky and the onset of the Hard Rain. "We can be working on these things quietly. Five hours from now, it will happen or it will not. If it does not, we go back to as we were and consider this a dress rehearsal." The door opened again, this time after a knock, and in came a young man named Steve Lake, preceded by his laptop and followed by his dreadlocks. For Steve, in his year and a half aboard Izzy, had not succumbed to the vacubuzzer's siren song, but he had gotten tired of messing with his long hair and had allowed it to congeal into red ropes. Formerly employed by a consulting firm in northern Virginia that hired hackers to do secret work for intelligence agencies, he had been yanked and sent up to support Spencer Grindstaff, the networks and communications specialist who'd been one of Izzy's original crew on Zero. Spencer was an NSA man through and through, recruited straight out of MIT to work on spooky crypto stuff. Steve seemed to be an altogether different sort of character. He looked a bit mystified just now. "Steve," Markus said. "It is time for us to have a conversation about power." Steve's brow furrowed. "You mean, electrical power or—" "The other kind." "Okay, and is this going to be, like, an abstract philosophical discussion or—" "No, it is going to conclude with me telling you, under my PSAPS authority, to change all of the passwords and keys for Izzy's control systems." "Wow!" Steve said. "Shouldn't you be talking to Spencer then? Because he's above me in the org chart." "I am familiar with the org chart," Markus said. "Under PSAPS I have the authority to change it." "What is this PSAPS thing you keep talking about, Markus?" "Sal will explain it later. For now, we may set it aside. Fundamentally we speak of your loyalty, your allegiance. I think that Spencer is extremely loyal to powers that be on the ground. I do not wish to put him in an impossible bind. He will later come with us, or he will not. You I believe to be a different kind of fellow. I ask you, in effect, to now become loyal to the Cloud Ark and the Cloud Ark alone. Not to Washington. Not to Houston. And to accept the authority of whoever is the boss of the Cloud Ark. Which for now is me." "Okay." "You're supposed to think about it first, Steve. Not just say okay." "I've been thinking about it for a while. But I have to tell you, there might be back doors. I can change all the codes I know about. The ones I don't know about are a different matter." "Then we shall just have to be vigilant."
[ White Sky ] Doob couldn't guess how many times during his life he had noted a cottony tuft of cloud in a blue sky, then looked up hours later to discover that it had developed into a bank of clouds that covered the sun and told of a change in the weather. Such phenomena happened too slowly for the mind to discern them as happening at all. During the last hours of A+1.335, something like that occurred in the cloud of lunar debris that had been hanging in the sky for the last seven hundred days. Later they would watch the movies of it in time-lapse, compressing a day's changes into a minute of video, and it would look like an explosion. Or an epidemic of explosions. If you watched the video carefully enough, frame by frame, you could see it progress from one part of the cloud to the next as the Eight Ball shot through. Like a particle lancing through a cloud chamber, it was invisible save for the trail of consequences it left in its wake. A few months earlier it might have passed through without touching anything, but today the density of rocks in the cloud was such that it could not avoid smashing into some of them on its way through. Doob, making a crude statistical calculation, put the likely number of collisions at ten, plus or minus five. Not a large number in a cloud that now contained millions of rocks, but enough to push the system, trembling on the precipice of an exponential explosion, over the edge. Around its unseen track the White Sky took form and fury. The cloud bloomed and evoluted like cream in coffee, spreading and paling, though from place to place one could see fresh bursts as rocks hurled out in earlier collisions found distant targets and touched off smaller chain reactions of their own. In places it took on a cellular structure as curved detonation fronts spread, contacted others, and merged into lacy foams of white arcs. It had an austere, monochromatic beauty about it. There was no fire and no light other than what cold sunlight the rocks bounced back to the eye. Later, when they began to enter the atmosphere, there would be fire and plenty of it. But for now the world was ending in a fractal blooming of dust and gravel, an apocalypse in a gravel quarry. "You pretty much nailed it," someone told Doob, "when you called it the White Sky." "Being right does not always bring satisfaction," he said. The Bolide Fragmentation Rate shot up through all meaningful thresholds within a few hours of the Eight Ball's arrival and Doob stopped paying attention to it. The number was probably wrong now. It was just an estimate, produced by a consortium of observatories based on the amount and distribution of light coming out of the cloud. All the assumptions that went into its calculation had now become obsolete. He tried aiming his optical telescope at where PP1 and PP2 and Cleft—the large, metal-rich children of Peach Pit—ought to be, but saw nothing except, possibly, some local highlights in the density of the cloud, perhaps caused by rocks dashing themselves to pieces on the steely surfaces of those dark bolides. He wondered if he would ever see them again. He no longer had an accurate visual memory of the size of the moon in the sky, and so he could not estimate how many times larger the cloud was. Of course, he could look those numbers up and calculate it. But he didn't really care what the numbers said. The full moon had always been the same size, but sometimes it looked huge and sometimes it looked small, depending on how close it was to the horizon, and on factors that were purely psychological or aesthetic. To all but a few of the people on the night side of Earth, looking up at the cloud, those factors were the only ones that mattered. He wanted to know how big it looked to them; he wanted to know how it felt. He wanted to see it over the Chino Hills from the courtyard of the Caltech Athenaeum, which was where he had last seen the moon, a few minutes before Zero, and to know how it was to stand there on terra firma and to see it and to know it was death coming. Like most people, he had drawn up a list of everyone in the world he needed to say goodbye to, then gone through it and ruthlessly weeded out 90 percent of the names, since there wasn't time. And then, during his last few months on Earth, he had sought out and said goodbye to the ones he needed to see in person. From orbit he had said goodbye to others on videoconferencing links or with carefully written email messages. Once he had said goodbye to a given person, he avoided communicating with them again. It was awkward to go out for a last night of drinking with a colleague, reminisce and cry and hug and say farewell, and then find yourself emailing the same person two months later with a question about their latest observations. Consequently, his scope of acquaintances had steadily narrowed as he had worked his way down the list. By this point he was down to his wife and his children. Reaching them became a lot more difficult after the Eight Ball had done its work. The volume of communications between Izzy and the ground was limited by the total bandwidth of the station's antennas and radios. Personal communications had lower priority than operations, and operations were peaking as the final surge of launches was prepared. Or, as Dinah called it, the Splurge. Doob sent text messages to Amelia and the kids all the time; they sat in the delivery queue for minutes or hours, and half of them never got sent at all. Just when he was about to give up hope, he'd get a message back from Henry or Hadley or Hesper. Sending those messages, and seeing the responses, became more important than sleeping, so he "broke shift," as the saying went, and dozed whenever he could, lying on the floor of the Farm or just putting his head down on a table like a kindergarten kid, his phone right next to his face so he'd feel it jump when anything came through. It finally became clear to him, maybe twenty-four hours after he had given the news about the Eight Ball to Markus, that he was never going to communicate with his loved ones again save through sporadic and unpredictable texts. Anything he needed to say to them directly, he ought to have said before. Which should not have come as news; he had been telling himself for a long time that you had to act as if each conversation might be the last. This did not stop him from reviewing his final video chats with each one of them, on the evening of Day 700, and wishing he'd said certain things. How does it look from up there? Henry texted him. Doob checked the time. It was night in Moses Lake. He imagined Henry sitting out on that crappy old couch that they'd moved out of the house in Seattle, drinking a beer between work shifts, watching the White Sky reach out for him like a spectral hand. Doob didn't know what to say. I think I am seeing some spread along the orbital axis—the beginnings of rings, he texted back. I meant Earth, Henry returned. Doob went looking for a place where he could look down at Earth through a real window—not one of those damned Situational Awareness Monitors. This ended up being the Woo-Woo Pod. It was pretty crowded. Izzy was about to swing over the terminator from day into night. Even over the brightly lit Pacific they could see what looked like hairline scratches in the pellucid shell of the atmosphere: the white trails left by incoming bolides. Above the dark side of the Earth these became arcs of blue fire that sometimes forked, and sometimes ended in red bursts when they made it all the way to the ground. In other words, it looked the way it had looked the day before, and the day before that. This level of meteorite activity would have been the most amazing astronomical event in human history had it happened suddenly, two years ago. But beginning with the first big rock that had plowed into Peru just a few days after Zero, the ambient level of bolide strikes had steadily crept upward. People had adjusted to it. Some had posted red-faced self-portraits after suffering "bolide burn," meaning an acute case of sunburn caused by exposure to the ultraviolet light emitted by meteor trails in the nearby sky. Looking down at you now, Doob texted. He wanted to add Wish I was there but it would have been stupid. Looks like a big one coming in over southern BC. I see it, Henry returned. Feeling its heat. Busy there? You know it. Racking and stacking the big boys, getting ready for the Surge. Doob wondered how it worked. What was to prevent desperate people from rushing the launch pads, trying to cram themselves aboard the last of those big boys? Like the last chopper out of Saigon, people dangling from the skids as soldiers punched them in the face. Or was he underestimating human nature? Maybe it was all perfectly orderly down there. I need you here. That one was from Markus. Reluctantly, Doob pushed himself away from the window and got turned toward the tube that would conduct him back to the Stack. From there he would make his way back to T3, where Markus was presumably hanging out in the Tank— Markus Leuker was hovering directly in front of him, face illuminated by the blue light of a phone. He turned it off and slid it into his pocket. "I don't mean that I need you in the same room as I," he said. "I mean that I need your brain here, in space, on the Cloud Ark, not down there. Your family is dead, Dr. Harris." "Dead. But still talking," Doob said, feeling the start of a slow burn that might lead to him punching Markus in the nose, if only he could get to a place with gravity. "What is it you think they would most like to hear back from you?" Markus asked. "Lovey-dovey stuff? They know you love them. Were I in their position, you know what I would like to hear? I would like to hear 'Sorry, my darling, but I am very busy just now ensuring the survival of our species.' May I suggest you text something in that vein and then join me in the Tank; we have matters to discuss." And Markus Leuker, using one of the ropes that were strung across the Woo-Woo Pod as handholds, propelled himself toward the exit. As he passed through into the tube, Doob saw his silhouette against the circle of light, a Da Vinci Man, just for a moment. Then two others swung in behind him and spoiled the effect. That detail caught his attention. Markus now had an entourage. Or perhaps a bodyguard.
[ Hard Rain ] Like any good storm, the hard rain began with a sudden thunderclap: a kilometer-wide rock that lit up eastern Europe with eerie, silent flashes as it skidded in across the upper atmosphere before digging into thick air somewhere around Odessa. Its trail set fire to dry leaves and combustible litter in the Crimea, then painted a long brushstroke of burning buildings and forests across the northeast rim of the Black Sea, ending with a long elliptical crater in the steppe between Krasnodar and Stavropol. The former city was first set on fire by radiant heat from the sky and then flattened by a blast wave. The latter got only the blast, followed by a rain of ejecta. Both disappeared from human ken. After a few hours' respite, smaller bolides began to come down. They landed all over the world, but most often in the lower latitudes, close to the equator. Having been told, long in advance, that this would be the case, many people had moved toward the poles in recent months, prompting Rufus MacQuarie and his friends, family, and associates to establish a defensive perimeter around their works in the Brooks Range. That was a terrible place in November. The only refugees likely to make it up that far would be well equipped and well prepared, but those were exactly the kinds of uninvited visitors that Rufus didn't want creeping around. Unencumbered by the limits on bandwidth that applied to all the other radios in the Cloud Ark, Rufus and Dinah had kept up their Morse code correspondence during the three-day "grace period" between the White Sky and the Hard Rain. Rufus was still transmitting from his truck, which he had parked before the entrance to the mine. He had considered erecting a larger antenna on the top of the mountain and hooking it up to an underground transmitter via armored cables, but Dinah, after surveying the predicted effects of the Hard Rain, had told him not to waste his time. Ivy had said goodbye to the Maternal Organism several days earlier, immediately before the Morg had swallowed her government-issue euthanasia pill. The one person on Earth she was still in touch with was Cal, aboard his submarine, keeping station on the surface offshore of the Norfolk Naval Base, out where the water got blue enough to facilitate a deep dive when the time came. In those days Ivy's main link to her family came through music. For the Morg had given five-year-old Ivy a choice between becoming the best pianist in Southern California or the best violinist in Southern California, and Ivy had opted for the violin. She had never become the best in Southern California, or even close to it, but she had played in various youth orchestras and developed some familiarity with the classical orchestral repertoire. She had a violin aboard Izzy, which she would tune up and play from time to time. When the Bolide Fragmentation Rate shot up through a certain level on Day 701, marking the formal beginning of the White Sky, a number of cultural organizations launched programs that they had been planning since around the time of the Crater Lake announcement. Many of these were broadcast on shortwave radio, and so Ivy had her pick of programs from Notre Dame, Westminster Abbey, St. Patrick's Cathedral, the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, Tiananmen Square, the Potala Palace, the Great Pyramids, the Wailing Wall. After sampling all of them she locked her radio dial on Notre Dame, where they were holding the Vigil for the End of the World and would continue doing so until the cathedral fell down in ruins upon the performers' heads and extinguished all life in the remains of the building. She couldn't watch it, since video bandwidth was scarce, but she could imagine it well: the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, its ranks swollen by the most prestigious musicians of the Francophone world, all dressed in white tie and tails, ball gowns and tiaras, performing in shifts around the clock, playing a few secular classics but emphasizing the sacred repertoire: masses and requiems. The music was marred by the occasional thud, which she took to be the sonic booms of incoming bolides. In most cases the musicians played right through. Sometimes a singer would skip a beat. An especially big boom produced screams and howls of dismay from the audience, blended with the clank and clatter of shattered stained glass raining to the cathedral's stone floor. But for the most part the music played sweetly, until it didn't. Then there was nothing. Paris is gone, she texted. Through the military systems, which were patched in with NASA's, she could still communicate with Cal. Dive bbs, he answered. Which by itself was pretty enigmatic, but she knew its meaning: the submarine had to dive below the surface for a little while, to avoid some danger, but he expected he'd be back soon. But he might be wrong about that. She might never hear from him again. She decided it was long past time. She texted him a message that he would find waiting when and if his boat returned to the surface: I release you from your vow. Then she felt a strange wave pass through her body, almost as if she were in a submarine in the Atlantic when a pressure wave rolled through from some distant meteor strike. She assumed it was an emotional reaction to what she had just done. But then she noticed that every loose floating object in her workspace was drifting in the same direction, toward the wall against which she had braced her back. Pops and creaks and groans propagated through Izzy. The space station was accelerating gently, at just a fraction of a gee. The thrusters must be firing. The lights had turned red. The PA speaker in her module emitted a slight pop as it came on. "Alert," said a synthesized voice. "All personnel should now be awake and at stations for urgent swarm maneuver. This is not a drill." So it had happened. They had been practicing this for months. But this was the first real Streaker Alert. It meant that a bolide had been detected by SI—the Sensor Integration team—on an unusual trajectory that might pose a danger to Izzy unless the course was corrected slightly. Her first, nervous impulse was to look out the window toward Amalthea. The big rock was still there. The maneuver hadn't caused it to snap off. But this was Ship thinking: placing top priority on Izzy. She, and everyone else, needed to get in the mental groove of Cloud thinking. The majority of the population lived on arklets. Izzy's purpose was to help the arklets survive. So she wrenched her gaze away from the window—an antiquated thing, that—and brought up a display on her tablet showing the disposition of every vessel in the Cloud Ark. It was an app called Parambulator. It was not a literal rendering of what the cloud looked like, though you could make it show you that if you clicked the right menus. Parambulator was a tour de force of data visualization that would only make sense to people like Ivy, Doob, and most of the Arkies, who had spent a lot of time learning about orbital mechanics. Starting with empirical observations from Lina Ferreira and other mathematically sophisticated biologists, mathematicians like Zhong Hu had extrapolated swarm algorithms from three to six dimensions and physicists like Ivy had figured out how to make these algorithms work under the special constraints of orbital mechanics. In general, every vessel in the cloud was shown as a dot on a three-dimensional scatter plot showing information about its orbit. Six numbers—the orbital parameters, or, as everyone up here had begun to call them, the params—were required to convey everything about an orbit. Only three could be visualized in any given plot. So that was where the user-interface legerdemain came into play, and where someone like Ivy had to pay attention and engage all available brain cells. But the gist of it was that each arklet was a projectile that could strike Izzy, or another arklet, if its params were wrong. In a hypothetical, extremely simple Cloud Ark consisting of only two arklets, only one calculation needed to be performed: namely, the calculation that answered the question "Will Arklet 1 bang into Arklet 2 if both stay on their current courses?" In a three-arklet cloud, it was also necessary to figure out whether Arklet 1 would collide with Arklet 3, and whether 2 and 3 were going to collide. So, that was a total of three calculations. If the cloud expanded to four arklets, six calculations were needed, and so on. In mathematical terms these were known as triangular numbers, a kind of binomial coefficient, but the bottom line was that the number of calculations went up rapidly with the number of arklets in the cloud. For a hundred-arklet cloud it was 4,950 calculations, for a thousand-arklet cloud, about half a million. It would have flummoxed the simple computers of Apollo days but was nothing by modern standards—provided that accurate information could be had about each arklet's orbit. An old-school, centralized approach would have been for all the arklets to report their params to a computer on Izzy, which would then do all the calculations and report the results. The reliability of that process could be improved if Izzy's radars, observing the arklets and plotting their movements, filled in gaps in the data. And indeed something like that was happening all the time, not just on one computer on Izzy but on several. But this, again, was Ship thinking. Cloud thinking dictated that each arklet make those observations and do those calculations separately. The computer on a single arklet—call it Arklet X— might not have all the information needed to track every single one of the other arklets in the cloud, but it could identify the ones most likely to be a danger and focus on those. Others, as well as the central processors on Izzy, could assist it by sending messages to the effect of "You might not be aware of it, but you are possibly in danger from Arklet Y and might want to move it to the top of your list of things to keep an eye on." To which it might reply "Thank you, but I'm not getting good params for Arklet Y because Izzy is blocking my view on the radar." The cloud would then respond by in some sense becoming aware that Arklets X and Y needed to know more about each other's params and giving a higher priority to making that happen. The cloud, in other words, became not just a physical cloud of flying objects in space but a computational cloud as well, a free-floating, self-regulating Internet. The function of Parambulator was to give its users an Olympian perspective on all that was happening in that network, and at some level all you really needed to know about it was that scary things were shown in red. Ivy looked at it now, more in curiosity than in alarm, since they had been practicing maneuvers for weeks and she thought she knew what to expect. Whenever Izzy fired her thrusters and changed her params, red propagated through the scatter plots like a drop of blood in a glass of water. All the free arklets, and all the ones connected to bolos or to heptads or triads, now needed to evaluate their params and see whether they were in danger of colliding with Izzy. Or—almost as bad—of drifting away so far that they could never get back to the swarm, a condition shown by a yellow dot in the display. It was a simple matter for any given arklet to plot a new course that would avoid both of those fates. Much more complicated was for three hundred arklets to do it at the same time without banging into each other. So a kind of negotiation had to take place, based not on awaiting commands from Izzy but on observing what "nearby" arklets were doing and coordinating the firing of thrusters with them to minimize the amount of red showing up on the plot. It was necessary to place the word "nearby" in scare quotes because it had a different meaning in this swarm than it did to a bird in a flock. To a bird, nearby meant just that. To things maneuvering in the six-dimensional parameter space of orbital mechanics, "nearby" meant "any set of params that is potentially interesting to me in the next few minutes," and it could apply to objects that were currently too far away to be noticed. Once that was accounted for, however, the arklets could do as birds did when flying in flocks. In the simulations that they had seen shortly after the concept had been proposed, it had looked astonishingly like the behavior of schooling fish. And the reality of it, which had only been implemented in the last few months of round-the-clock launches from Kourou, Baikonur, Canaveral, et al., answered well to those simulations. It just happened more slowly in real time. It was happening now, in response to Izzy's course change. The red only spread so far, then began to recede, first fraying around the edges, then dying off in patches. A few dots went yellow, then corrected themselves as they caught up. Ivy's expectation, based on the last few months' tests and exercises, was that the last few red dots would turn white very soon and cease to be a concern. But this didn't happen. Some remained stubbornly red. Spinning the plot around, looking at it in various modes, she zeroed in on those dots and queried them. Almost all of them were cargo modules or passenger capsules that had been launched during the Splurge: the last-minute effort made by all the spacefaring nations of the world to launch every last rocket they had capable of reaching orbit. Her phone buzzed. A message had come back from Cal; his boat must have resurfaced. > What's that supposed to mean? He had only just now seen her last text. > It means we are no longer engaged. That seemed a little blunt, so she added. > You need to find some nice mermaid. After a minute he answered. > Crying. > I was going to do the same. Your odds considerably better. She answered "Bullcrap", which was an old joke between them. When she had first met him at Annapolis, he had been such a straight arrow that he was unable to speak the word "bullshit." > SAB = Straight Arrow Babe came back. > SAB is sad :( Why did you dive? > Big surface wave came through. Bad news for East Coast. > Who tells you? Do you have a chain? Meaning chain of command. One rung left above me. Then, after a pause, POTUS has gone dark. She typed in Thank God for that and hesitated before sending it. But the world was coming to an end; she didn't have to worry about repercussions. She hit Send. She'd never talked to Cal about what had happened on Day 700: the fuel-air devices, the nuclear warhead. But she was certain it had been his finger on the button. May God have mercy on her soul, Cal answered, and she knew the subtext: and may He have mercy on mine. This exchange of messages was interrupted by one from Markus: need u. She pocketed the phone to free her hands for movement through Izzy, maneuvered through the maze of habitation modules to the Stack, and headed aft, bound for the Tank. The trip down the Stack took no time at all. A week ago she would have had to maneuver around people clumped in twos and threes for conversation. Since Markus had declared PSAPS, this had changed; one of his edicts had been that the Stack must be kept clear for rapid movement of essential personnel. Right now it was as empty as she'd ever seen it. Down in the Zvezda module she saw some comings and goings, and recognized, for a moment, the spiky profile of Moira's hair. She would be busy making preparations to disperse the Human Genetic Archive to the cloud, a project that in and of itself was at least as complicated as anything happening with swarms and params. Essential personnel indeed. Luisa popped into view down in H1 and propelled herself up the Stack like she meant business. After nearly colliding with one of Moira's helpers, she let her momentum carry her up into Zarya, then stopped hard at the entrance to the tube that led to the Woo-Woo Pod. She looked into it for a few moments, evaluating, then made a decision and pulled herself into it. Ivy passed by the same location a few moments later, slowed for a moment, and glanced down the length of the tube. It was possible to see straight down its length, across the spherical Pod, and through its windows to the Earth. Normally this meant the blue light of the oceans and the white light of clouds and ice caps. Sometimes, a lot of green when they were passing over well-watered parts of the world, or some yellow when over the Sahara. Right now the light was orange because the Earth was on fire. People were screaming down there in the Pod. Luisa must have been sent there to calm people down. Ivy was almost drawn in by a sort of magnetic power of fascination. Earth looked as if some god had attacked it with a welder's torch, slashing away at it and leaving thin trails of incandescence. Some of these were red and steady: things burning on the ground. Others were blinding bluish-white and evanescent: trails drawn through the atmosphere by meteorites. She fancied she could almost feel the warmth radiating from the planet. Markus needed her. She couldn't help the screaming people down in the Pod. She turned her head aft and pushed on. Hovering in the entrance to the genetic storage modules, Moira was ticking off items on her tablet, listening, dead faced, to something on a large pair of headphones. She noticed Ivy. She peeled a headphone away from one ear and aimed it at her. Ivy recognized a cappella music, medieval polyphony. "King's College is holding up rather well," she said. "Do you know the piece?" "I'm certain I've heard it before, but I can't place it," Ivy said. "Allegri's 'Miserere mei, Deus,'" Moira said. Thanks to the Morg's insistence that she take Latin, Ivy knew what it meant: Have mercy on me, O God. "It's beautiful." "They would sing it at Tenebrae, in the wee hours, as they extinguished the candles one by one." "Thank you, Moira." "Thank you, Ivy." A minute later she was in T3. As always, she stood flat-footed for a moment to get the feel of simulated gravity, then headed toward the Farm and the Tank. Passing through the utility section she considered getting herself a cup of coffee. Then she felt shock and shame over the fact that she was thinking about coffee while her planet was being set on fire. Then she poured herself a cup of coffee anyway and stepped into the Farm. This was crowded. Most of the Situational Awareness Monitors were showing status displays relating to the functions of the Cloud Ark. The big one at the head of the room was just showing a view of Earth through a camera aimed in that direction. But the video image had nothing like the impact of seeing it directly through the windows of the Woo-Woo Pod. The arc-light intensity of the streaking bolides was reduced to a blurry flare of maxed-out pixels. Out of habit she wondered why they didn't change the channel to CNN, or Al Jazeera, or one of the other full-time news networks. Then she remembered what was happening. She proceeded to the door that led into the Tank. Flanking it was a pair of people who were doing nothing—just standing there. Odd. She noticed that both of them had unfamiliar devices slung from their belts. She realized that they were Tasers. Before she could fully adjust to that, one of them—she recognized him now as Tom Van Meter, an engineer and sort of a jock—nodded politely and opened the door for her. The Tank was a quarter the size of the Farm, just a medium-sized conference room with, at the moment, six people seated around the table working on tablets or laptops. At its far end was the door leading to Markus's office. This was ajar. Ivy went through it, and for the first time since coming to Izzy three years earlier, she felt ill at ease doing so, as if someone might jump out and Tase her. But Markus was sitting there talking to Doob. "Have you been watching Parambulator?" Markus asked her. "Yes. After we made that course change, a few minutes ago." "The performance of the cloud was not everything we could have hoped for." "There were some stragglers." "Still are," Doob said, and drew her attention to a projection screen on the wall. "It looked like they were all new arrivals," Ivy said. "Cargo modules, passenger carriers from the Splurge. I'm assuming they haven't logged on to the cloud yet, are not with the program." "That is all true but it is dangerous nonetheless," Markus said. "Of course it is." "It is distracting me." "I'll take care of it." "As far as bolides are concerned, the systems are working okay and Doob is keeping an eye out for anomalies. But I need to delegate to you, Ivy, this problem of the stragglers." "Consider it done." "We will destroy them if we have to." "How would you even do that, Markus? We don't have photon torpedoes." "We have a module full of freeze-dried dead people," Markus reminded her, "that we need to jettison anyway. And I would be happy to jettison it in the direction of any straggler that is threatening the Cloud Ark." "I will keep that in mind," Ivy said, "as a bargaining chip." Luisa entered, looking a little wild, her face wet with tears. "Luisa?" Markus said politely. "Did you find out what was going on in the Vu-Vu Pod?" "A few people getting very emotional," Luisa said, "as you would expect. Nothing dangerous. Whoever called that in as a disturbance was being a little paranoid." "Thank you for investigating it." "Speaking of which—you have armed guards posted outside the door to the Tank!" "I will speak briefly to that, because I am busy," Markus said. "My feelings about it are basically the same as yours. But I am not here to express my personal feelings but to carry out certain operations to the best of my ability. I didn't want to be the king of the universe. Nevertheless, now I am. Everything I have ever seen in the history of human civilization, disagreeable as it might seem, says that someone in my position needs to have security." Luisa's face suggested that she could make all kinds of objections to that. But she got the better of it, and just let out a sigh. "We will talk about it later," she said. "Good." "Do you know what is happening down there?" "I can guess what is happening. It is none of my concern." "Understood. But I think that the king of the universe needs to make an announcement pretty soon." "I have one prepared," Markus said. "Oh, yes, of course you would have one prepared. When were you thinking of delivering it? Because there are a lot of people who need to be calmed down." "Is one of those people you, Luisa?" Markus asked the question clinically, but not unkindly. Luisa drew herself up. Ivy braced herself for a sharp reaction, but then a change came over Luisa's face as she saw that Markus was merely asking for information. Not being snide. "Yes," she answered. "A few minutes ago, Manhattan was struck by a hundred-foot wall of water. I presume that the same is true of most of the East Coast. I was listening to the service from St. Patrick's Cathedral when it went off the air." Markus nodded and changed the display on the projection screen to a live view of Earth. Ivy was shocked by how far the fire had spread during the few minutes she'd been in here. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and discovered a series of messages from Cal, sent during the last several minutes. > Hey > You busy? > OK I guess you got pulled away > In case we get cut off I love you > Will look for a mermaid like you said but no substitute 4 u > Lost contact with Norfolk. No chain above me > Holy crap it is getting hot > Diving > Bye And the last message in the series was a photograph snapped on his cell phone's camera. It took Ivy a minute of panning and zooming to figure out what she was seeing. Cal had taken the photo while standing in the conning tower of his boat, looking straight up the ladder at the open hatch above him. This provided a tunnel-vision view of a disk of sky. The sky was on fire. In his other hand he was holding up his engagement ring—a simple band of polished titanium. He was holding it between his thumb and index finger, shooting the picture through the ring, making it concentric with the disk of the burning sky. She looked up. Someone had spoken her name. "Mine just faded away," Doob told her. "I beg your pardon, Dr. Harris?" Ivy said, the Morg's manners triumphing over all circumstances. "I had been gearing up for these final goodbyes with Amelia, with my kids," Doob said. He spoke quietly, without marked emotion, as if relating a mildly surprising anecdote. "But, you know, the communications just broke down slowly over a couple of days, and there was never really a goodbye." "Very well," Markus said, "I will make the announcement."
Dinah was keying this in, thankful that Morse code still worked when your vision was blurred by tears and your voice choked by sobs, when a voice came out of a speaker. It was Markus's voice: "This is Markus Leuker." "I know who you are," she answered. But then she understood that Markus was speaking on the all-Ark PA system, which supposedly reached into every corner of Izzy as well as to all of the arklets. They had tested it a few times with prerecorded messages, but never actually used it. Markus considered the thing a relic of the twentieth century, and detested it; communications ought to be targeted, busy people ought not to be interrupted by disembodied voices barking from speakers. "The Cloud Ark Constitution is now in effect." Dinah drew breath, knowing what this meant. Markus spelled it out anyway. "This means that all nation-states of Earth, and their governments and constitutions, no longer exist. Their military and civilian chains of command are no more. Oaths you may have taken to them, allegiances you may have held, loyalties you may have felt, citizenships you may have had are now and forever dissolved. The rights granted you by the Cloud Ark Constitution, no more and no less, are your rights. The laws and responsibilities of the Cloud Ark Constitution now bind you. You are citizens of a new nation now, the only nation. Long may it endure."
Rufus's transmission was getting scratchy. Dinah wiped her eyes and looked out her window to see Earth encircled by a belt of fire. The trails of the incoming meteorites, once a pattern of bright scratches in the air, had merged into a blinding continuum of superheated air that had set fire to anything on the surface capable of burning. Since more of the rocks were coming in around the equator, the belt of radiance and fire was brightest there; but north and south of it, long swaths of the surface were aflame, and the belt was widening to envelop the high latitudes of Canada and South America.
She wasn't sure how many times she keyed that in. She pulled herself out of her sobs, later, by imagining what had happened: her brothers, Bob and Ed, dressed in silver fireman suits, rushing out of the mine's entrance to haul Dad out of the old pickup truck, wrapping him in the space blanket to keep him from being broiled by the sky, and dragging him inside. An inch-thick steel plate being slammed across the doorway, the welders going to work laying down fat fillets made to last five thousand years. Once that was done, the heavy machinery fired up, shoving tons of rock and gravel up against the steel plate to bolster it against any shock waves powerful enough to punch it out of its frame. Then silence, save maybe for the distant thuds of meteorite strikes, and sitting around the table to say grace and tuck into the first of fifteen thousand or so meals that the MacQuaries and their descendants would have to prepare and eat if they were ever to escape from that tomb. They had five hundred people down there, and, at least on paper, enough food-growing capacity to keep that many alive. Exactly how you made that a sustainable proposition wasn't clear to Dinah; she hadn't bothered Rufus for every last little detail of his plan. Markus's announcement was continuing. He was telling everyone what they already knew, which was that Earth was over, and that the great dying that they had been expecting for the last two years was now in the past. Everyone knew it, but someone had to say it. He asked for 704 seconds of silence: one second for each of the days that had passed since Zero. About twelve minutes. All nonessential duties would be suspended during that time, and it would be the sole responsibility of the survivors to think, and remember, and mourn. After that, they must put Earth in the past, as a thing that had once been, and apply their minds to what was now. Drawn up into a fetal position, Dinah hovered alone in the middle of her shop, listening to weird squeals and hisses coming out of her radio's speaker. Alone of all the people in the Cloud Ark, she knew that her family was still alive, and might go on being alive for a long time. It was not clear to her whether this was better or worse than simply knowing that they were dead. All she had to go on was DO US PROUD, her father's final transmission. Morse code didn't leave a paper trail, or an email thread on the screen of your tablet. She would never be able to scroll back and reread the exchange she'd just had with Rufus. She hoped she'd said the right things and that he'd remember it well, and that he would tell the others about it at dinner this evening. She tried then to mourn for all the others who had died, but it was too big. Emotionally, it was little different from reading about a great war that had happened a hundred years ago. Which maybe was Markus's whole point. Even though the dying was still going on, they had to force themselves to think about it like the Irish potato famine, or like what had happened to the peoples of the New World when Columbus had arrived and infected them with a slew of deadly diseases. Regret, even horror were appropriate. But detachment was necessary. They all had 704 seconds in which to effect that detachment. So Dinah thought about what exactly would be entailed in doing Rufus MacQuarie proud. There was a simple answer, which had to do with doing the right thing, being honorable, upholding a few rough-and-ready ethical standards. A sort of frontier code of conduct. All of which was easy to understand if not always quite so easy to live up to. But Rufus was not a cowboy, and he certainly wasn't a preacher. He was a miner: a delver, a demolisher, a builder, a businessman. If he lived by a simple code of ethics, it was not an end in itself, but a way to get something done without selling his soul or destroying his reputation. It was a tool to be wielded like a shovel or a stick of dynamite. Tools were for building things; and pride was something you could feel after the fact, when you stood back, looked at what you had built, and passed it on to your children. Dinah could spend the rest of her life living by her word, giving everyone a fair shake, and all of that. Rufus would no doubt approve of all those things. But it was not the charge he had given her. He had told her, though not in so many words, to get busy building a future. "Are you about finished?" She turned her head to see Ivy hanging in the SCRUM, looking at Dinah through the hatch. "We're only, like, two hundred seconds into the—" "Markus said I could skip it. He sent me on a mission. I need your help," Ivy said. "Bitch." "Slut." "Shall we?"
"Remember when the internet was new, and some people in your life just didn't get it?" Ivy asked. She was preceding Dinah through the seemingly endless maze of docked modules and hamster tubes, headed toward the periphery of Izzy. "People in my world got it pretty fast. You don't know many miners, do you?" "Not in my world. We had these throwbacks who would do stuff like printing their emails out on paper to read them, or asking you for your goddamn fax number two decades after you had thrown away your fax machine." They were hurtling through an otherwise perfectly silent space station, still only about five minutes into the twelve minutes of silence. Faces in open hatches would turn to look at them in shock, then recognize them and go back to mourning, praying, meditating, or whatever it was that they were doing. Dinah understood that this was terribly important but was secretly pleased that Ivy had given her dispensation to get to work. "How does that apply to—" "The system works—Parambulator and all of that—as long as every ship in the Cloud Ark is playing by those rules. Logged on to the system, communicating with the agreed-on protocols, obeying the dictates of the swarm. If even one is just hanging out and doing its own thing, well, it might as well be a meteoroid, in terms of its destructive potential." "We've got one of those?" "A few of them. But one in particular that is causing havoc." "Any collisions yet, or—" "No, but every time it draws near it triggers an explosion of red in Parambulator and a hundred arklets have to burn fuel to alter their courses. It's like the whole Cloud Ark is turning somersaults around the movements of this one ship." "What is it?" "Optically it's an X-37." "Fits," Dinah said. "Yeah," Ivy said. Translation: someone had looked at the craft through a telescope and thought it looked like a Boeing X-37 Orbital Test Vehicle, which resembled a miniature Space Shuttle. It was so miniature, in fact, that it couldn't carry any crew; it had a cargo bay that accounted for most of its fuselage. It had been developed by DARPA in the late 1990s and early 2000s when it had become obvious that the Space Shuttle was going to be phased out and they needed a small, easily launched vehicle that could go up and, by remote control, perform maintenance tasks on the United States' fleet of military satellites. Since then it had come in for very little actual use, but when it was used, it was for black-budget spook stuff that Dinah and Ivy wouldn't know about. It was a footnote in history, obsolescent, not designed for the requirements of the Cloud Ark. It had probably been launched into orbit by some trigger-happy launch crew that just wanted to send up everything they could. With a sufficient amount of sifting through old emails they might be able to find some record of who had launched it, and what, if any, cargo was aboard; but for now it was easier to just go and look at the damned thing. Nearly all the engineering that had gone into it had been devoted to the problem of reentry. Most of its proudest features were therefore useless to them. Approaching the end of a side-stack, they were able to see through the round orifice of a port into the vehicle docked to its far side: a Flivver, or Flexible Light Intracloud Vehicle. These had begun showing up a few months ago; they were the jeeps of the Cloud Ark, the small utility vehicles used to move people and valuable stuff from one arklet to another, or between an arklet and Izzy. Because they didn't have to operate in the atmosphere, they had the same general utilitarian look as the arklets. But the pressure hull was smaller in diameter, and instead of an inflatable outer hull the Flivver had more practical stuff: two different styles of docking ports, an airlock big enough to accommodate a human in an Orlan, a robot arm, lights, thrusters. At Dinah's suggestion they had studded the pressure hull with attachment points that a Grabb could latch on to; this made it possible for each Flivver to carry its own complement of Grabbs, Siwis, Buckies, and Nats, which swarmed all over it like crabs, remoras, and sea lice. Instead of being limited by the hard-engineered capabilities of the robot arm, the Flivver was constrained only by the imagination and ingenuity of the programmer inside, telling the robots what to do. The silvery burr of Tekla's head poked out in front of them; apparently she'd been dispatched to assist with closing the hatch and undocking the Flivver. She'd been waiting in the adjacent DC, or docking compartment, which was just a small side module tacked on to serve as an airlock and provide a little extra space for personnel in cases like this. She drew her head back in to make space as Ivy and then Dinah cruised by her. As soon as those two were inside the Flivver, Tekla emerged and exchanged a nod with Ivy. "Lamprey is in airlock and is functioning," Tekla said, and closed the hatch. Dinah had some ambivalent feelings about Tekla, but there was no one she'd rather work with in a case like this. She was all business; she got the job done without useless conversation or touch-feely stuff. Dinah closed the Flivver's hatch and began going through the undocking sequence while Ivy, strapped into the vehicle's pilot seat, ran down the preexcursion checklist. Befitting a craft that had been designed in a hurry to be Flexible and Light, this wasn't that lengthy, and so Flivver 3—one of a fleet of eight—was under way before Markus's 704 seconds of silence had quite expired. Dinah strapped into a jump seat beside Ivy's. The Flivver's front end dome consisted largely of windows, bolstered by a sturdy web of curved aluminum struts, so from behind Ivy looked like a bombardier seated in the glass nose of a World War II bomber. She touched the controls and made the craft rotate in a way that caused Earth to pass beneath them, and then the resemblance became stronger. Dinah was reminded of a painting Rufus had shown her, depicting a bomber flying over a burning city, red light flooding into the plane from below. The same effect held now, save that the firestorm covered most of the surface of the Earth. "I can feel the warmth on my face," Ivy said. Dinah couldn't think of anything useful to say to that. During their passage from her shop to the Flivver she had forgotten about the fact that the Earth was burning, and she didn't enjoy being reminded of it. Instead she tried to focus on the red light emanating coolly from the screen of her tablet, which was running Parambulator. Flivver 3 had been picked up on the swarm's collective sensorium and identified as a bogey that might potentially collide with as many as a hundred different arklets if it stayed on its current course. Rather than controlling its thrusters directly, which would lead at best to confusion and at worse to a chain-reaction disaster, Ivy was negotiating a solution with the rest of the Cloud Ark, telling it where she wanted to go and finding a way of getting there that would minimize the amount of maneuvering demanded of all the others. It was not a speedy way of getting around, and indeed ran at right angles to the fighter-jockey ethos of many of the ex-military types who had come up here in the astronaut and cosmonaut corps. But as they got farther away from Izzy they were able to move into orbits that caused minimal consternation to the rest of the cloud, and move in a more direct way to rendezvous with the wayward X-37. This had been placed, by whoever the hell had launched it, in an orbit with the same period and plane as the Cloud Ark, but with somewhat greater eccentricity. The orbit of Izzy, and hence of the Cloud Ark, was almost perfectly circular. The X-37's was more oval, meaning that about half of the time it was "beneath" the Cloud Ark and the rest of the time it was "above," but twice during each ninety-three-minute orbit it crossed through, each time touching off the havoc that was wasting so much propellant and causing so much annoyance to Markus. Right now it was "above" and due to cross over in another twenty minutes. "Any bolides we need to worry about before I focus on this?" Ivy asked her. "Nothing in particular," Dinah said, meaning that there was nothing so big as to force the entire Cloud Ark to make a course change. "Let's make this fast then," Ivy said, and went over to manual control. For they were now far enough away from the Cloud Ark that she could execute solo maneuvers without making Parambulator screens turn solid red. "Can you scope it?" Dinah spent a minute refamiliarizing herself with the user interface for the optical telescope mounted to the Flivver's nose; this was an electronic eyeball about the size of an orange. The controls were intuitive, but getting it to aim at a particular bogey took a bit of doing. Soon enough, though, she was able to see something white and bright. She locked on to it and zoomed in. From longer zoom it was clearly a winged craft with a black nose, like the Shuttle of old, but it seemed to have taken on added parts. Zooming in further she was able to see that the cargo bay doors that constituted most of the X-37's "back" had been opened at some point after it had reached orbit. Its payload had then been lifted out of the bay using the built-in robotic arm, which was still holding it, frozen in position. The payload was almost as big as the X-37 itself; it was yet another dome-ended cylinder. But unlike a Flivver or an arklet, it lacked thrusters or any sort of visible power source. It was just a burnished aluminum capsule, gleaming white on one side from sunshine, red below where it reflected the planetary firestorm. Ivy was looking at it too, dividing her attention between the Flivver's status displays and the window running this optical feed. "Can you get more detail on the forward end? There's a fitting there that might be a—" "Yeah," Dinah said, zooming in and panning to center it. "That's a docking port all right." "Well, I guess we're being invited to dock with it," Ivy said. "It's weird. I don't like it." "I agree," Ivy said, "but we can't come back later. That thing is tiny. Less than four feet in diameter. If there's humans in there, they are running out of stuff to breathe." "Why would they send a human up in something like that?" "It's some plan that went awry. An email didn't get answered, a transmission got garbled, now these people are marooned and probably waiting to die." Ivy spoke brusquely, a little irked by Dinah's questions. Dinah heard thrusters pop and felt them nudging her around as Ivy maneuvered. She knew better than to distract her friend when her brain had gone into orbital mechanics mode. She unbuckled herself from the jump seat and moved to the docking port on the Flivver's "top" surface, steadying herself by reaching out to grab the adjacent handles whenever Ivy effected a little course adjustment. Within a few minutes Ivy had matched orbits, maneuvered the Flivver into the right attitude, and driven it straight onto the capsule's docking port. "Got a positive mate," Dinah remarked. She activated a valve that flooded the little space between the Flivver's hatch and the capsule's with air. "Here goes nothing." She opened the Flivver's hatch. She was now looking at the outside of the capsule's hatch, which, until a few seconds earlier, had been exposed to space. A strange detail: taped to the aluminum hatch was an ordinary sheet of 8½ x 11 inch North American printer paper. On this had been printed a color image: a yellow ring encircling a blue disk lined with stars. Spread-eagled on its center, an eagle with a red-and-white-striped shield. The printer that had spat this thing out had been low on cyan ink and so the image was strangely banded and discolored. Exposure to space hadn't done it any favors either. Even though the United States had only ceased to exist a few minutes earlier—declared extinct by Markus under the authority granted him by the Cloud Ark Constitution—this image already seemed as old and quaint to Dinah as a pilgrim or a musketeer. She heard a mechanism activating on the other side of it. "It's aliiiive!" she called. Then, in spite of this effort at jocularity, she held her breath. The hatch swung open to reveal a haggard, space-bloated, sickly green face, hair floating around it in disarray. But the eyes in that face were as cold and hard as ever, and they were fixed on Dinah. "Dinah," the woman said. It was her voice, more than her face, that Dinah recognized. "Even in these tragic circumstances, what a relief to see a familiar face." "Madam Pres—" Dinah began. Then she caught herself. "Julia." Julia Bliss Flaherty looked as if she didn't appreciate one bit being addressed that way. Ivy was using the thrusters quite a bit. Now that the Flivver, the capsule, and the X-37 were all joined together mechanically into a single object, it was possible—though awkward—to maneuver them into sync with the Cloud Ark and clean up all of that Parambulator red. There was some lurching. Julia was getting knocked around a little, learning she had to keep a grip on those handles. Random stuff, including some filled barf bags and a large number of what looked like red marbles, were careering around inside her tiny capsule. Looking through it during a moment when Julia had been flung to one side, Dinah saw a man floating in the far end of the capsule. He was bloody, and he was kind of floppy too. He was dressed in the remains of a navy-blue suit. He was not the ex–First Gentleman. "I'm sorry for your loss," Dinah said. "Who the hell is that?" Ivy was shouting. "Markus wants to know if we have survivors." "My loss?" Julia asked. "Your husband," Dinah said. "He took the pill," Julia announced, "in the limo." "Oh my god." "I'll need your help getting Mr. Starling squared away. He's too big for me to move." "No, he isn't," Dinah said. "I beg your pardon?" Julia said sharply. "You're in zero gee," Dinah pointed out. "So he's not too big for you to move. But I can still help you if you want." "If you would be so kind," Julia said. She got a hand over the rim of the hatch while reaching out with the other for a shoulder bag, and looked expectantly at Dinah, who was still blocking her path. Dinah looked at the back of Ivy's head. "Julia Bliss Flaherty requests permission to come aboard." Julia let out a hiss of exasperation. "Granted," Ivy said. "One casualty on the way too," Dinah said, and cleared out of Julia's way. Julia launched herself through the hatch too hard, flew across the Flivver, and slammed into the far side of it elbow and shoulder first. "Augh!" she cried. But Dinah didn't think she was hurt, and so she pushed through into the capsule. One of those red marbles was drifting toward her face and she reached out with a hand to brush it away before realizing that it was blood. Pete Starling was suffering from a number of lacerations, as if he'd been in a stick fight or a car crash. He was groggy, and gagging on blood—probably from a broken nose—which he would cough out explosively when it got in the way of his breathing. Dinah grasped the lapel of his jacket, trying to find a usable handhold. When she pulled on it, the front of the coat came away from Starling's chest for a moment, revealing an empty shoulder holster. No matter now. She planted her feet, put her back into it, and got him stretched out in the middle of the capsule, head aimed toward the docking port, drifting slowly in that direction. She was looking to Julia to reach through and pull her companion through the hole. But Julia, banged up from her first attempt to move, was still flailing around, learning the basics of zero gee locomotion the hard way. Dinah was at the back of the capsule, staring at Pete's feet, which were kicking weakly. One of his feet was stocking clad; the other still wore an expensive-looking leather shoe. She grabbed a foot with each hand and tried to push him toward the docking port, but he reacted against it. He had no idea what was going on, didn't understand that he was in space, didn't like having his feet grabbed. She moved forward, got her waist between his knees, hugged him around the thighs, squeezing his legs together to either side of her body, and tried to get him re-aimed toward the port. She heard a sharp pop and felt warm wet stuff all over her arms. More of it had splashed up her throat, all the way to the point of her chin. She smelled shit and heard a loud hissing noise. Pete Starling jerked once and then went limp. She looked up toward the source of the hiss and saw starlight through a jagged hole in the skin of the capsule. The hole was about the size of a man's thumb. Triangles of metal were bent back away from it. On second thought, the hissing was coming from two places at once. Another hole had been punched in the other side of the capsule. Pete Starling's body was between the two holes. The middle of his torso was just a rib-lined crater. Blood was hurtling out of it and accelerating through both holes. Her ears had popped several times already. She looked down the length of the capsule at Julia, who had finally gotten herself properly oriented and was looking into the hatch, wild eyed, utterly confused. "Julia," Dinah said, "we've been struck by a small bolide. We're losing air, but not that fast. Pete's dead. He's in my way. If you could reach through and grab him by the collar and pull him toward you—" The conversation, and her view of Julia's face, was cut off by the Flivver's hatch swinging shut.
Any curve you could make by slicing a cone with a plane—A circle, an ellipse, a parabola, or a hyperbola—could be the shape of an orbit. For practical purposes, though, all orbits were ellipses. And most of the naturally occurring orbits in the solar system—those of the planets around the sun, or of moons around planets—were ellipses so round as to be indistinguishable, by the naked eye, from circles. This was not because nature especially favored circles. It was because highly elongated elliptical orbits tended not to last for very long. As a body in a highly eccentric orbit went rocketing in toward the central body and executed a hairpin turn at the periapsis—the point of closest approach—it was subject to tidal forces that could break it up. It might strike the central body's atmosphere or, in the case of heliocentric orbits, come too close to the sun's heat and suffer thermal damage. If it survived the plunge through periapsis, it would fly out on a long trajectory that would take it across the orbits of other bodies. After rounding the turn at apoapsis—the point of maximum distance—it would cycle back across the same set of orbits on its way back in toward the center. The solar system was sparse, and so the odds that it would strike, or come close to, any given planet or asteroid on any given circuit were small. But over astronomical spans of time, the likelihood of a close encounter or a collision was high. Collision would, of course, result in a meteorite strike on the planet and the destruction of the formerly orbiting body. A mere close encounter would perturb the body's orbit into a new and different ellipse, or possibly into a hyperbola, which would eject it from the solar system altogether. The sun still maintained a stable of comets and asteroids in highly eccentric orbits, but their number dwindled over time, and they were rare events to astronomers. In its early aeons the solar system had been a much more chaotic place, with a wider range of orbits, but the processes mentioned had gradually swept it clean and, by a kind of natural selection, produced a system in which nearly everything was moving in an almost circular orbit. What was true of the solar system as a whole had also been true of the Earth-moon system. The moon had circled the Earth in a nearly circular orbit. From time to time, a wandering stone from deep space would blunder in through a libration point and get captured into a geocentric orbit, but sooner or later it would hit the moon, hit the Earth, or be ejected by a close encounter with one of those bodies. Thus had the moon swept Earth's skies for billions of years and protected it from most big meteor strikes, making it a suitable place for the development of complex ecosystems and civilizations. All the rocks that made up the White Sky had once shared the moon's orbit, and most of them, for the time being, remained at a safe distance of about four hundred thousand kilometers. Their orbits, for now, were of low eccentricity, meaning that they were nearly circular. However, the vast number of chaotic interactions within the White Sky had spawned a diversity of orbits. Some of those orbits were highly eccentric, meaning that their apogees might be far away, but their perigees were close to the Earth: close enough to get caught up in its atmosphere or to strike it directly. Any rock whose orbit was eccentric enough to come near the Earth could also come near Izzy. In general, rocks in such orbits were moving at about eleven thousand meters per second when they were that close to Earth. A bolide the size of a peppercorn, moving at that velocity, would have the same kinetic energy as a high-powered rifle bullet. Of course, high-powered bullets were designed to strike things with great force and do damage in a predictable way, while moon rocks weren't designed at all. So the results of collisions could be unpredictable. What had probably happened in this case was that a rock closer in size to a chickpea, and packing the energy of several rifle bullets, had punched through the wall of the capsule but, in so doing, fractured into several pieces that had sprayed outward across the capsule's volume in a narrow cone, striking Pete Starling's body something like a shotgun blast but with much more total kinetic energy. Most of that energy had gone into his flesh and caused him to basically explode. The largest single piece of the original rock had kept going through his body, or perhaps missed him entirely, and punched its way out through the opposite side of the capsule. If the rock had passed a couple of meters to either side, it would have missed them entirely and they wouldn't even have known it was there. In the Earth's atmosphere, of course, it would have been a different story. The rock would have dissolved in a bright streak, turning most of its kinetic energy into heat. The air in its immediate vicinity would have gotten warmer for a bit. Had it happened at night, keen observers might have seen a streak of light. When the same thing happened on a large scale, all over the Earth, the air became so hot that it glowed, as it was doing now. In any case Dinah now found herself locked into a capsule, lit only by a few strips of white LEDs that were darkened by blood spatter, as the air leaked out of it. She had, of course, been drilling for events such as this one for a significant part of her life. One of the first things they taught you was that the air wasn't really leaking out as quickly as you thought. Only so much air could get through a small hole. Nevertheless, plugging those holes was life-or-death. So Dinah's first move, once she had recovered from surprise, was to shove Pete Starling's remains up toward the larger of the two holes: the one through which the bolide had entered. With a wet sucking sound his bloody flesh sealed that hole. Her ears now enabled her to find the smaller exit hole, which was about the size of her pinkie. She slapped her bloody hand over it. The hiss stopped and she immediately felt a space hickey beginning to form where the Big Hoover was trying to pull her flesh out into the void. It hurt, but not that badly. She listened for a few moments until she was satisfied that there were no other hissing noises—no other leaks. A bloody bandage floated past. She snatched it out of the air, peeled her hand away from the hole, and stuffed it in there. Some of it got sucked out into space, but then it formed into a wad that moved no further. The hole was still hissing, though, so she grabbed an empty plastic bag and shaped that over the irregular mound of wet gauze. The vacuum sucked it inward and created a nearly airtight seal. A softer hiss, more of a whooshing noise, emanated from the "back" of the capsule. Dinah's ears felt a change in pressure, but they didn't pop—suggesting that the pressure had just increased. She knew nothing about this capsule, but she did know how simple life support systems worked, and she knew that they would likely contain a store of compressed oxygen that would be bled in to compensate for what was being turned into CO2 in the occupants' bodies and absorbed by the scrubbers. The mechanism was probably trying to compensate for the air that had just been voided into space, bringing the pressure back up to normal. If that were the case, then it should now be possible to open the hatch on the Flivver. Dinah floated toward it, reached through the capsule's open hatch, and rapped on the metal, leaving bloody knuckle prints. Nothing happened for a moment, and so she rapped out SOS: three dots, three dashes, three dots. The hatch opened to reveal Ivy's face. "My. Goodness. Gracious," she said. "Thanks, sister," Dinah said, and vaulted through as Ivy got out of the way—partly just to be accommodating but largely, Dinah assumed, to avoid getting smeared with the bodily fluids of Julia's late science advisor. Julia herself was strapped into one of the jump seats, buckled over into a fetal position suffering from the dry heaves, and keeping an eye on Dinah out of the corner of her eye. Welcome to space! was on the tip of Dinah's tongue, but she managed to stifle it. "While you were, uh, busy, we flew through the Cloud Ark again. We have about forty-five minutes now on its nadir side," Ivy said. "Should be enough," Dinah said. She strapped herself into the other jump seat, wiped her hands on her thighs, and pulled her laptop close. Holding it down with the heels of her hands so it wouldn't float away, she brought up the set of interface windows that she used to communicate with robots. Over the course of a few seconds, the laptop established communication with all the robots that were within range—which is to say, that were riding along on the outside of this Flivver. Meanwhile she pulled down a folding arm with a mitten-like contraption on its end. This was the interface for the Flivver's external robot arm. "Pop the airlock for me, sweetie?" she said. "Already done, hon," Ivy returned. In her peripheral vision she could see Julia's eyes swiveling back and forth, reacting to this exchange. She tried to ignore Julia in spite of—perhaps because of—her weird talent for demanding attention, and focused on the video feed from the camera on the end of the robot arm. The airlock's round orifice grew larger as she reached toward it, revealing the device Tekla had stashed inside. The Lamprey was a box with a blinking light on it. On the side facing the airlock door it sported a lug, or handle. With the hand on the robot arm, Dinah was able to grapple this easily and pull the device out into the light. "Any reason not to just 'biner it onto the X-37's arm?" she asked. "Can't think of any." "What is it you're doing?" Julia asked. "Deorbiting that piece of space junk before it kills someone." "That piece of space junk happens to be carrying the earthly remains of a brave man who gave his life in the name of—" Dinah said, "Ivy, you want to take this or should I?" "I'll do it. You're busy," Ivy said. Dinah could hear her twisting around in the pilot's seat to look at Julia. She spoke as follows: "Julia. Shut up. If you say another fucking word I'll stave your fucking head in and put your corpse out the airlock. Nothing about this is acceptable. Starting with the fact that you are flapping your gums, posing a distraction to Dinah while she is carrying out a difficult mission-critical operation to protect the Cloud Ark. You just attempted to countermand a direct order from Markus, who is in charge of everything here under the PSAPS clause of the Cloud Ark Constitution. You are up here illegally. The Crater Lake Accord specifically barred the sending of national leaders to the Cloud Ark. You have violated that commitment and found a way to be launched up here anyhow, and judging from the looks of it there was no end of dirty dealing along the way. Your vehicle approached the Cloud Ark in a manner incompatible with our safety and security procedures, endangering the lives of everyone up here, and forcing arklets and Izzy itself to expend priceless and irreplaceable fuel to perform evasive maneuvers. We were sent here on an emergency basis, placing ourselves in harm's way and expending more scarce resources to clean up the mess that you created by your cowardly and dishonorable act. For all of these reasons I am commanding you, by my authority as the commander of this vessel, to remain silent until we have docked safely at Izzy." "Very well," Julia said. Dinah looked up from her work to see Ivy and Julia glaring at each other. "I'm sorry," Julia said. "You really are asking for it," Dinah told her. And then she went back to work. She had already accomplished much during Ivy's soliloquy. The task at hand was to somehow attach the Lamprey to the X-37. The connection didn't have to look good but it did have to be solid. Back in the days when every maneuver had been planned years in advance by NASA, this would have been a several-hours-long operation making use of custom-designed hardware. But lately the people of the Cloud Ark had been obliged to get good at lassoing random pieces of floating space junk, and so she ended up using a more highly evolved version of the trick that Rhys had come up with for reining in Tekla's Luk. On that occasion, Dinah had fashioned a whip by chaining Siwis together. It had worked, but it was much heavier and more complicated than it needed to be. After the completion of T3 had left Rhys with some free time on his hands, he had begun tinkering with surplus Nats. Being old and obsolete, these were big, clunky, slow, and stupid compared to the new models—which was fine for Rhys's purposes. He had turned them into a new kind of robot that he dubbed the Flynk, for flying link, and taught them to be really good at forming themselves up into chains and then doing the sorts of maneuvers in space that his great-great-great-great-uncle John, and Herr Professor Kucharski of Berlin, could only have dreamed about. There was much room for creativity here, but he had focused most of his efforts on problems that needed to be solved all the time. Such as precisely the one Dinah needed to solve right now. The robot arm of the X-37 was sticking awkwardly out into space, an obvious target for grappling. A chain with a free end would whip around it easily, just as Rhys had once ensnared Dinah's index finger with his necklace. All Dinah needed was a suitable chain. She happened to have one: a necklace of third-generation Flynks spiraled around the Flivver's hull, ready for use. One end of it was already connected to the Lamprey. By invoking some computer code she was able to set the rest of it into motion, unwinding itself from around the Flivver and snaking out into free space, forming a U-shaped bend, or Knickstelle, that was aimed at the X-37's robot arm. "Ready to undock now," she said. Ivy had moved back to the port through which their guest had entered. "Undocking," she said, and began running through the checklist that undocked the Flivver from the X-37. Dinah meanwhile moved up to the pilot's console and punched in a programmed series of thruster burns. As soon as Ivy confirmed separation, Dinah executed the program, effecting a small delta vee that made them back away from the X-37. The Knickstelle went into motion, as if the chain were passing around an invisible pulley, and began to propagate away from the Flivver and toward the X-37. Presently the chain's end whipped around the robot arm and spiraled about it several times before grapplers on the Flynks found each other and engaged, lashing the chain into place for good. Dinah released the Lamprey from the grip of the Flivver's robot arm. The Flynk chain, still following a canned program, pulled the Lamprey in and made it fast to the X-37. The Flynk chain, the X-37, and the Lamprey were now a single object, and would remain thus until they were destroyed. Dinah brought up the interface that controlled the Lamprey. This was a fire-and-forget device, but someone did have to fire it. She spun a control wheel that adjusted the box's attitude, aiming its business end in a safe direction. Getting things out of orbit was almost as complicated as launching them. Once a thing was in a legitimate, stable orbit, you couldn't just drop it toward the Earth. It would stay in orbit indefinitely unless you slowed it down. Slowing it down generally meant using thrusters, which meant spending fuel. The Lamprey was a simple alternative. "We're undocked," Ivy announced, moving back forward to the pilot's chair. "Gonna nudge us free." A couple of pops from the thrusters signaled that they were gaining some distance from the X-37. Ivy spun the Flivver around so that they could see the X-37 perhaps a hundred meters away, floating upside down above the burning Earth, the elbow of its arm projecting toward the nadir, the Lamprey strapped to it and blinking. "Okay, the Lamprey is giving me all green thingies. I see no red thingies. So I am activating it in three... two... one... now." Dinah tapped the Deorbit button. Most of the Lamprey—the entire box—jumped away, headed toward Earth, propelled by white plumes of solid rocket exhaust. After a couple of seconds the motors burned themselves out and the box continued to coast away, unreeling a wire behind it. This came to a stop a minute later, dangling half a kilometer below the X-37, and pulled taut by tidal force. "We have positive current flow in the tether," Dinah reported. "So it's working." The wire, sweeping through Earth's magnetic field on its orbit, was picking up a weak electrical current, creating a force that would slow the X-37 down. The effect was slight, but within a few hours the X-37's orbit would decay to the point where it no longer posed a danger to the Cloud Ark, and in days or weeks it would descend into the atmosphere and be annihilated. Twenty minutes remained before the Flivver's orbit would next cross Izzy's. But the physical separation was only a few tens of kilometers and they were still "on swarm," meaning that the Flivver's computer was talking to the Cloud Ark network and searching parameter space for the safest and most efficient way to reintegrate with it and to dock. That, plus the Lamprey's success in moving the X-37 out of the way, ought to have cleared up most of the red that had been maculating Parambulator displays at the time of their departure. But when Dinah and Ivy turned their attention back to those screens, they looked worse than before. It was not immediately clear why. Parambulator was a beautiful thing from the standpoint of mathematics and data visualization, but there were times when you just wanted to know what the hell was happening. You wanted a narrative. A text came through on Ivy's phone. It was from Markus. She read it out loud. "Approach using visual observation and manual control," it said. "Warning: collision debris." "Already?!" Dinah exclaimed. It wasn't a good start if they'd already suffered a bolide strike a couple of hours into the Hard Rain. "It was fratricide," Ivy said, still reading. "Looks like an arklet got cornered." Getting cornered was a problem that had arisen in simulations. The swarm as a whole would look for solutions that would prevent arklets from banging into each other with minimum expenditure of propellant. In a pinch, of course, it was okay to burn a lot of propellant to avoid a collision. But there were situations where a collision was going to happen no matter what, and there was nothing to do for it but choose the least damaging outcome. Getting cornered wasn't supposed to happen; everything about Parambulator was supposed to prevent it. But the number of possible scenarios was infinite and nothing was ever certain. "A controlled collision," Ivy said, "no fatalities. But then some follow-on. Still being evaluated. There might be loose debris drifting around. That's why he wants me to fly it in manually." "What kind of debris?" Dinah asked. "Hard stuff or—" "Thermal protection, looks like," Ivy said. "So that's good." Apparently one of the modules, or an arklet, had lost some of the layers of reflective foil and insulation that were used to shield it from the heat of the sun. The stuff was feather light and so probably didn't pose much of a threat to the Flivver. But it would look huge on radar and make Parambulator go crazy. Ivy, in the pilot's chair, was monopolizing the only window. Dinah didn't like flying blind, so she pulled up the interface for the Flivver's eyeball camera. Julia began to make a weird repetitive noise, a sort of wet, gurgling drone. She was snoring. "Long day for her, I guess," Ivy remarked. "Yeah." Dinah had no precedents to tell her how she should feel toward the ex-president at a time like this. On the one hand, her behavior had been reprehensible. On the other, she had, within the last few hours, lost her husband, her daughter, her country, and her job. With a few moments' panning around, Dinah was able to center Izzy in the camera's frame, then zoom in. Izzy was on the night side of the Earth just now. In normal times—or what used to be normal—it would have been dark, but now she was lit up from below by the red glow of the atmosphere, punctuated from time to time by bluish flashes, like lightning strikes, as large bolides plowed into the air three hundred kilometers below. Of course, Dinah had never seen Izzy so illuminated, and it took a bit of getting used to. From a distance Izzy looked fine, but at higher magnification Dinah began to see visual noise that gradually resolved into drifting bits of debris—the shredded thermal protection that Ivy had mentioned. Izzy had become unfathomably complicated in the last two years. Dinah rarely saw it from a distance, so she didn't have a strong sense of what was normal. But the more she zoomed in, the more certain she became that something weird had happened on the nadir side, near the junction of Zvezda and Zarya. Complicated though she might be, Izzy was complicated in a way that was orderly, stiff, and stable. The one exception to that rule was Amalthea, but even that had become more regular as the Mining Colony's robots had reshaped it. What Dinah was zooming in on now was messy, and it was unstable: big expanses of thermal shielding material that had been torn loose and were now stirring randomly in the nearly imperceptible wind. At a glance, it did not look like a serious matter. "Serious" would have meant a hull breach, air erupting from a hole, perhaps dragging debris, or even human bodies, along with it. "I'm thinking maybe a grazing impact at most," Dinah reported. "A near miss between an arklet, or something, and the nadir side of Zvezda. Destroyed some thermal shielding but caused little if any structural damage." "They are reporting zero serious casualties," Ivy said. "Some bumps and sprains aboard an arklet. So maybe you're right." "Maybe," Dinah said. For they had now drawn close enough that the camera could provide more detail. What had been exposed by the damage to the thermal shielding looked unfamiliar to her at first glance: a big T-shaped construct that jutted out to the nadir side of the Stack like a pair of handlebars. It was studded with many long neat rows of small, identical objects, gleaming in the occasional flashes from below. Finally it all snapped into place in her head: she was looking at Moira's thing. The HGA, the Human Genetic Archive. Moira had given her a tour once, but that had been from the inside, or enclosed and pressurized part of it. Now Dinah was seeing the same thing from the outside. Until now, this had always been concealed from view by the thermal shielding. Once that was torn away, its internal structure could be seen: the rows and rows of hexagonal sample racks, each carrying its load of deep-frozen sperm, ova, or embryos, waiting in the near-absolute-zero cold and dark of space. "How has Moira been doing with the dispersal project?" Dinah asked, forcing her voice to sound relaxed. "Well... obviously, the schedule got compressed when we learned about the Eight Ball. Just like all of our other preparations did. But I guess my real answer is that I don't know," Ivy said. Ymir "... And then the force of the vacuum caught hold of the hatch, and to my horror I saw it slam shut right in front of me! I tried to pull it back open, but the suction was too strong. I cannot tell you, Markus, how helpless and guilty I felt when I realized that Dinah was trapped on the other side." Markus's eyes went to Ivy. He had been listening to Julia for a long time, and needed a break. Ivy threw her hands up. "I was trying to fly this ungainly contraption. I didn't really understand what was happening even when Julia tried to explain it to me." "Yes," Markus said, "I can't believe you were able to fly that thing at all. People will be talking about it a hundred years from now." Assuming people still exist, Dinah thought. Ivy was just regarding Markus, blinking slowly, looking for signs that he was being sarcastic. He wasn't. The Markus bluntness worked both ways: he could blurt out astonishingly generous compliments as easily as he could cut and burn you with his words. "It sure used up all of my brain," Ivy said. They were sitting around the conference table in the Tank. Markus had not used the term "inquest" to describe this meeting, but that was clearly what it was. Or as close as they would ever get, in any case, to a formal determination of what had happened yesterday. It had gotten off to a reasonably brisk start with a summary from Markus, then gone off the rails as Julia had insisted on telling her story "from the beginning"—which turned out to mean from the moment she had woken up in the White House next to her late husband and gone down to breakfast with her late daughter, straight through to the end of the world, and her hastily arranged launch into orbit, some thirty-six hours later. Along the way had been a sequence of mishaps and coincidences just shaggy enough to be somewhat plausible. No liar could fabricate such a story. The narration had lasted for the better part of an hour despite Markus's increasingly frequent and obvious glances at his Swiss watch, and left all the others in a strange combination of spellbound, bored, horrified, and bemused. She seemed to believe that they would actually care about all of her interactions with those dead people on that dead planet. It was a common enough mistake among new arrivals. In her case it was magnified considerably by the fact that she was used to being the president. Everyone was always happy to sit and listen to the most powerful person in the world. "Thank God," Julia said, "that we were able to—" "Yes," Markus said, cutting her off. Plainly he did not wish to hear any more from Julia. But just as plainly he was a little reluctant to move on to the next part of the story. Everyone seemed to be pointedly not looking at Moira. "Thank you, Julia," Markus said, in a tone that made it clear she was free to leave now. Julia looked a bit startled. "But we haven't heard from Dr. Crewe yet." "But we have heard from you," Markus pointed out. The point sank in. Julia didn't like it. "Very well," she said, standing up carefully. "As I mentioned before, Markus, I am eager to make myself useful in any way that I can." "It is so noted," Markus said. He looked across the table, deadpan, at Ivy. Dinah knew what they were both thinking: You are worse than useless here—which is why you were never invited. "Thank you, Julia." The ex-president turned away from the table. She stopped before the door leading into the Farm and turned back toward Markus one last time with a sad-puppy look on her face, perhaps expecting him to just slap his thigh and laugh at the joke and warmly invite her back to her seat. When this failed to happen, a transformation came over her face that Dinah found mildly frightening to watch. What would it be like, she wondered, to be nuking people one day, and, less than a week later, to be asked to leave a meeting? Evidently it did not put Julia in the best of moods. J.B.F. turned her back on them, as much to hide her face as to find the way out, and opened the door. During the few moments it was open, Dinah caught sight of a young woman in an Islamic-style face veil standing just outside of it, waiting. The bottom half of her face was covered, but her eyes brightened and her body language was warm as she saw Julia emerging. Julia reached out to her affectionately and laid a hand on the small of her back as she turned. The two of them walked away shoulder to shoulder as the door closed. Remaining in the Tank were Markus, Dinah, Ivy, Moira, Salvatore Guodian, and Zhong Hu, an applied mathematician who was their head theorist when it came to swarm dynamics. Others knew more about orbital mechanics and rocket engines—the old-school techniques for managing individual space vehicles' trajectories—but Hu, a specialist in complex systems, was the main architect of Parambulator, and the only person who could quite understand and explain what went wrong, or right, in a swarm. He'd spent most of his life in Beijing, but with enough time in Western universities to get along fine in English. In response to a nod from Markus, he said, "I have evaluated what happened. As we already know, there was a cornering event leading to a bump." This being the polite term for a mild collision between arklets. "But still, Arklet 214 had enough control authority that it could have avoided the second event." "Then why didn't it?" Markus asked. "The algorithm predicted a near miss and so it took no action beyond routine attitude corrections. The human operator was distracted and disoriented and so was reluctant to correct course manually." "I can't fault the human," Markus said, "since we have warned them so many times about the consequences of flying by hand. But what went wrong with the algorithm?" "Nothing went wrong with it," Hu said. "It had bad data. I will show you." With a few taps on his tablet he brought up a three-dimensional model of Izzy on the big screen above the conference table. To a first approximation, this seemed reasonably up to date; it depicted modules and space vehicles that had been added to the complex only within the last couple of days. "This is the model that the system was using yesterday for collision avoidance." Dragging his finger around on his tablet, he rotated the model on the screen so that they were looking at the nadir side. He zoomed in on the distinctive "handlebar" shape of the Human Genetic Archive: the pair of cold storage units projecting to port and starboard below the Zvezda module. The view was much the same as what Dinah had seen from the Flivver the day before. "Hang on, is this the exact model? Is this everything?" Ivy asked. "Yes," Hu said. "This doesn't include the thermal protection," she pointed out. "That adds at least a meter to the collision envelope." "That is correct," Hu said. "In that sense, this model is obsolete. We have replaced it now with an upgraded version." As all understood, this was no one's fault. The Arkitects had been struggling for almost two years to keep their three-dimensional model of Izzy up to date and accurate: a nearly impossible task when it changed every day. Soft goods like thermal protection blankets tended to get a lower priority. Humans, looking at the model, would mentally add those. Computers weren't that smart. "Still," Markus said, "we take the model with a grain of salt. No arklet should ever pass that close." "Let me show you what happened," Hu said, and brought up a video, shot from an external camera apparently mounted on one of the trusses. The Human Genetic Archive and its surrounding blanket of thermal protection were not centered in the frame—they were down in the lower right corner. So the camera angle wasn't ideal. But they could see what happened. The arklet approached, creeping in gradually from the port side with closing velocity no greater than a slow walk. "Is this real time?" Sal asked. "Yes. Because it was an extremely low-speed approach it was not viewed as terribly dangerous." "It looks like it's going to be a near miss," Sal said. "It was—until this," Hu said, and freeze-framed the video. It wasn't easy to make out, but they could see a tiny flash on the forward halo of Arklet 214. "The thruster fires—a small course correction under automatic control." He stepped it forward. The flash faded but expanded into a dim gray cloud. "Exhaust gases. Expanding rapidly but moving quite fast." He stepped it forward several more frames until they could see the thermal protection blanket recoiling from the impact of the gas. A seam parted between two adjoining blankets and one of them flailed out like a rag caught in a wind gust. Hu let the video run now, and they saw the arklet's rear halo snag on the loose blanket and rip it away, exposing the Human Genetic Archive to the orange radiance of Earth's atmosphere. Ivy said, "If that thruster hadn't fired at the wrong moment—" Hu nodded. "Arklet 214 would have passed underneath with two meters to spare. Not a margin to be proud of. But it would have been enough." After a pause, Hu added, "The HGA's thermal protection system could have been designed better." Another pause in which everyone else waited to see who would be the first to laugh. If it weren't for dark humor, they'd have no humor at all. Hu seemed to sense it. "What I mean is that it was engineered for normal thermal loads." "Meaning sunshine," Dinah said. "Yes. Not for radiant heat shining up from the atmosphere below it." "The same thing is true of many parts of Izzy, of course," Markus said. "We are having thermal overloads all over the place now. Moira, what's the damage?" Dinah had to give Markus credit for a kind of finesse for the offhanded way he dropped the question in. Moira, who had been quiet through the whole meeting, took a moment to snap out of her reverie. "Well," she finally said, "as Hu said, the thermal protection system—" "Was bad," Markus said. "We know." "There was no backup system." Markus said, "Of course not. The cooling system for the HGA was the rest of the universe. We do not expect to have a backup system for the rest of the universe. We can rely upon it to be cold most of the time." "Because of the accelerated schedule, caused by the Eight Ball—" "Stop," Dinah said. Everyone looked at her. "Let's get this over with," she said. "Look. When I was fourteen, one of my dad's mines collapsed and killed eleven employees. It was terrible. He never really got better. Of course, he wanted to know what had happened. It turned out to be a long story. One thing led to another, which led to another... the individual steps all made sense, but no one could have seen the whole thing coming. Of course, he still felt responsible, but he wasn't, in any normal sense of that word. "So here's what happened," Dinah went on. "Sean Probst started an asteroid mining company that sent up a bunch of cubesats and gathered a lot of data about near-Earth asteroids, which he kept secret. He took the database with him on his mission to Greg's Skeleton. His radio got hit by a rock and destroyed, so he couldn't communicate. At the last minute, when it was basically too late, he had the idea to look at the database. He learned about the Eight Ball. He alerted me, I alerted Doob, Doob alerted everyone else, and we pushed up the schedule for everything. Moira pulled the trigger on the project, which had been planned for over a year, to disperse the HGA samples to the arklets. Like every other project in the history of the universe, it went slowly at first because all kinds of snags came up. And not only that, but all of the Flivvers were spoken for and all of the space suits were busy, because of the Splurge. So not much got moved. It was obviously safer to keep the samples in cold storage in the HGA while all of these logistical problems got sorted out. The Splurge happened and a lot of random shit got launched in our general direction and made Parambulator light up like crazy. Arklets were getting cornered on a pretty regular basis. We almost lost a couple. Ivy and I took off in the Flivver to fetch Julia and probably added a lot of other noise and chaos to that problem. Then, the thing we just watched happened. Arklet 214 tore most of the badly designed thermal protection system off of the HGA and exposed it to the direct radiance of the Earth's atmosphere. The samples all warmed up before replacement thermal protection could be jury-rigged. All of those samples have been destroyed. Right, Moira?" Moira, apparently not trusting her ability to speak, nodded. "Okay," Dinah said. "So I think that what Markus is really asking is how many of the samples in the HGA actually got moved to safe cold storage in other locations before this happened. In other words, how many survived?" Moira cleared her throat and said, in a faint voice, "About three percent of them." "Okay. I only have one other question," Markus said. "Have you talked to Doob?" "I'm sure he suspects," Moira said, "but I have not officially broken the news to him. I wanted to be absolutely sure first." "Are you sure now?" "Yes." Markus nodded and spent a few moments thumbing something into his phone. "I am inviting him to join me and Moira here immediately," he said. Everyone who was not Markus or Moira stood up to leave. Markus held up his hand to stay them. "Before you go, let me say something about the Human Genetic Archive that was lost." He then paused for effect, until everyone was looking at him. "It was always bullshit," he said. Everyone took a moment to consider it. "Are you going to tell Doob that?" Ivy asked. "Of course not," Markus said, "but the real purpose of the HGA was politics on Old Earth." "Is that what we're calling it now? Old Earth?" Sal asked, fascinated. "That's what I am calling it," Markus said, "in the increasingly rare moments when I actually think about it." "Thank you, Markus," Moira said.
He had known, of course. Izzy's complexity was so great as to belie its tiny size: a few hundred people sorted into a volume the size of a few jetliners. News traveled fast. Everyone had known within a few hours that the Human Genetic Archive had been almost completely destroyed. He was in the Tank with Markus and Moira. They were gazing across the table at him, patiently awaiting some kind of reaction. "Look," he finally said, "Doc Dubois is no more. That was a persona, you understand? Just an act. I'm a private person. I do not spontaneously emote. Especially when people are watching me and expecting it. A year from now, when I'm alone, when I least expect it, I'll break down in sobs over this. But not now. It's not that I don't feel. But my feelings are my own." "I am very sorry that it happened," Moira said. "Thanks," Doob said, "but let me say what all of us are thinking. Seven billion people died yesterday. Compared to that, the loss of some genetic samples is nothing. The embryo that Amelia and I created together, and that I brought up here with me... well, that was a special favor that J.B.F. granted me as an incentive to come up here. No one else got that kind of special treatment. It was unfair. I knew it. I accepted it anyway. So here we are." "Yes," Markus said. "Here we are. Going forward—" "But I'm not sure I agree with you," Doob said, "that the HGA was so insignificant." Markus bridled his impatience and raised his eyebrows. Doob looked at Moira. "What was the term you used? Heterozygosity?" "Yes," Moira said. "The stated purpose of the HGA was to ensure a sufficiently diverse genetic basis for the human race." "Sounds important to me," Doob said. "What am I missing?" "We have tens of thousands of human genomes recorded in digital form. From all different parts of the world." "So there's your heterozygosity. That's what you're saying," Doob prompted her. "That's why"—he glanced at Markus—"the HGA wasn't really needed." "Yes, but there's a but," Moira said. "Okay, what's the but?" "The digitized sequences, as I'm sure you'll understand, are only useful so long as we have the equipment needed to transcribe them into functional chromosomes in viable human cells. By contrast, to make use of a sperm sample, all we need is a turkey baster and some lube. But to make use of a DNA sequence stored on a thumb drive, we need—" "All of the equipment in your lab," Doob said. Moira looked a bit impatient. "What you are referring to as my lab bears the same relationship to a proper lab as some ones and zeroes on a thumb drive does to a living human. It is a collection of crated equipment that cannot even be unpacked and used in zero gravity. And even if we set it all up and turned it all on, it would be useless without a staff of Ph.D.-level molecular biologists." "Really? Useless?" Markus asked. Moira sighed. "For small-scale work, one sample at a time, well, that is easier. But to reconstruct a genetically diverse human population—" "But, Moira," Markus said, "we cannot do that anyway until so many other things are in place. A large population cannot live in arklets eating algae. We need to establish a viable and safe colony first. Then, we build your lab. Then, we create a more diverse ecosystem: better food, greater stability. Only then do we even begin to worry about the heterozygosity of the human population. Until that time, we have more than enough people to create healthy non-inbred children just by the usual process of fucking each other." "That is all true," Moira said. "And that is the basis of my statement that the HGA was bullshit," Markus concluded. "You're saying," Doob said, "that if we had all of the prerequisites in place—the colony, the ecosystem, the talent—needed to actually exploit the HGA—" "—we would no longer need it, yes, this is my point!" Markus said. "Can we please stop wasting time on it now?" "How would you prefer to be spending time, Markus?" Moira asked, giving Markus an amused, owlish look through her glasses. "Talking about how to get there. How to realize that situation we were just talking of." "And how might I contribute to that, given that the HGA is ninety-seven percent destroyed and none of my equipment will be usable for a long time?" "I want to talk of preserving that equipment," Markus said, "preserving it against all hazards, and then getting it to a safe situation where we can one day construct this laboratory you speak of." "It's about as safe as we can make it, isn't that so?" Moira asked. "It was given a sort of privileged position off of Node X—quite close to Amalthea. It's not living dangerously, the way we are at the moment." She was referring to the notion, frequently discussed by Arkitects, of the Cone of Protection that supposedly existed in the lee of Amalthea. To the extent that the paths of incoming bolides were predictable, Amalthea could be pointed into them and used as a sort of battering ram. The forward surface of the asteroid would take a beating—but a solid slug of ancient nickel and iron could survive quite a lot. Anything situated up against its aft surface would be sheltered against virtually all hazards. But the protected zone did not, of course, stretch back infinitely far. The farther you lagged behind Amalthea, the more likely you were to get hit by a bolide coming in from an off angle. The Mining Colony was in the safest position, since, by its nature, it had to be right up against the asteroid. Almost as safe was the cluster of modules connected to Node X, immediately aft of the SCRUM, which was where all of Moira's gear had been stashed. Behind that, the protected zone narrowed, a long acute cone, finally disappearing altogether somewhere aft of the Caboose. When Moira joked about "living dangerously" she referred to the fact that T3, the third torus, in which they were sitting now, was rather wide and rather far aft, placing it close to the limits of that cone. Efforts had been made to beef up its shielding, but it was still at higher risk than many other parts of Izzy. Markus nodded. "Your stuff is pretty safe. But it would be safer if we moved it inside of Amalthea. I have talked to Dinah about it. She says that they could mine out cavities and store things of great importance there." A silence while Doob and Moira pondered it. On one level, Markus's proposal was perfectly obvious. Of course anything would be safer inside of a huge metal asteroid. On another level, it had ramifications. As of a few days ago—pre–White Sky, the last time anyone had been able to think straight—the fate of Amalthea and the Mining Colony had still been subject to debate. Was the asteroid the boulder in the wheelbarrow that had to be dumped? Or was it the aegis that would shelter the entire human race? The argument had come down to statistics. They just didn't have enough data to make a decision. By suggesting that Moira's equipment be moved into the interior of Amalthea, Markus seemed to be committing to a specific course of action. It was a course that Doob instinctively agreed with. But it was a bit strange for a man like Markus to just decide on a course of action before the numbers were in. Or did he know something Doob didn't? Moira, in any case, went first. "What if we Dump and Run?" She was referring to a gambit, frequently discussed and war-gamed, in which Amalthea would be cut loose and abandoned, and Izzy, lightweight but unprotected, would boost herself to a higher orbit with fewer bolides flying around in it. "Then we would simply have to move all of that stuff back to Node X first," Markus said. "Or wherever we felt was safest." This elicited a searching look from Moira. Markus held up his hands. "But I take your point. I am increasingly biased against Dump and Run." "You know how I feel about the Swarmamentalists," Moira said. She was referring to another of the basic gambits, Pure Swarm, in which everything—presumably including Moira's lab—would be distributed among arklets, which would then collectively move to higher orbit. People and goods would move among them through a decentralized market-based economy. "Listen," Markus said, "now that everyone below is dead, and we don't have to put up so much with bullshit, you will find that Hu and the others have a more nuanced view than they were letting on before." He referred to the fact that Zhong Hu, as the foremost swarm theorist and the brains behind Parambulator, was assumed to be a Swarmamentalist. Doob nodded. It still took some effort to remind himself that the millions of Internet commentators arguing for this or that strategy were all ghosts now. "You know something," Doob blurted out. Then, as the thought was coming into his head, he added, "From Dinah. The radio." "Yes," Markus said. "Ymir is coming in hot, high, and heavy." He surrounded those three words with air quotes. "What does that mean?" Moira asked. "She's made of ice, how can she be hot?" "She is approaching with a high closing velocity. Not unmanageable. But... somewhat exciting." "And 'high'?" Doob prompted him. "Sean also transmitted his params," Markus said. "It would seem that he did us a large favor. He executed the plane change while it was still easy to do so, way out around L1." "So when he says he's coming in high," Doob said, "he means that Ymir has a high orbital inclination—close to ours?" "Very close to ours," Markus confirmed. "He is dropping this big chunk of ice into our lap." "So," Moira said, "on top of everything else, Sean Probst is now preparing to dive-bomb us with a comet?" "A piece of one." "A big piece," Doob guessed, "if he specified 'heavy.'" "The number was impressive." As Markus said this, he shifted toward Doob and looked him in the eye. "Oh wow," Doob said. "Is it enough for the Big Ride?" "If we can get Ymir to rendezvous with Izzy, then yes," Markus said. "It is more than enough." The Big Ride was the third of the basic options. It meant to boost Izzy in its entirety—Amalthea and all—to a much higher orbit. It had been considered implausible because of the amount of propellant that would be needed. Not just implausible but—absent the timely return of Ymir—physically impossible. Despairing of Sean's chances, its supporters had lately tended to suggest scaled-down variants, such as reshaping a small percentage of Amalthea into bolide deflectors and ditching most of its mass. "Including the plane change?" Doob asked. A trace of a smile came onto Markus's face. He knew exactly what Doob was thinking. For, unable to get Cleft out of his head, Doob had shown pictures of his favorite piece of the moon to Markus, to Konrad, to Ulrika and Ivy and some of the others who seemed to make up the informal power structure of the Cloud Ark. "Let me be clear," Markus said. "When I speak of the Big Ride, I mean it for real. We take all of Amalthea with us. We raise the orbit to the moon's. We change the plane. We circularize. And we end up safe and sound in Cleft." "And Ymir carries enough water for that mission?" "Yes," Markus said, "if we can control her and bring her in." "Isn't that Sean Probst's job?" Moira asked. "Not anymore," Markus said. "The information I just imparted to you was in Sean's final transmission." Moira and Doob looked at him sharply. "The health situation has been not so good, for a long time," Markus explained. "Sean was the last member of the expedition to die." "Are you saying that Ymir is a ghost ship?!" Doob asked. "Yes." "And there's no way to remote-control her," Moira guessed. "Unfortunately Dinah's Morse code cannot help us in that regard," Markus agreed. "So someone has to go and—" "Someone has to go and land on that fucking big piece of ice," Markus said, "and get inside of Ymir and restart the nuclear reactor and commit the final burns that will bring her into sync with Izzy." "Who the hell—" Doob began, but Markus cut him off by pointing to himself. He did this in a somewhat awkward fashion that, deliberately or not, looked like a pantomime of suicide by handgun. He said, "I am placing Ivy in command of Izzy and the Cloud Ark tomorrow. I am assembling a crew that will depart in a MIV and make a rendezvous with Ymir. We will board her and manually execute the procedures needed to bring her under control and get her payload to Izzy. We will then use what is left of the ice to raise Izzy's orbit—and we will bring Amalthea with us on the Big Ride." "That's... major," Moira said. "Who knows? When were you going to announce it?" "I just decided it now." Markus sighed. "Listen, it is the only way. In my heart I always considered Dump and Run and Pure Swarm both to be too risky. What happened with the HGA just makes this more obvious. The only wise course is the Big Ride. It will take a long time—two years or something. But during all that time the most important resources can be sheltered within Amalthea. And by that I mean you and your equipment, Moira. You can have whatever resources you need from the Mining Colony to create a safe location for the genetics lab." "Okay," Moira said, "I'll talk to Dinah." "Talk to whomever she delegates," Markus said. "Dinah is going to have to come with me on the expedition. I need her to deal with all of those verdammt robots." "How can I help?" Doob asked. He wondered if Markus might dragoon him as well, and was torn between being afraid of that and tremendously excited. "Figure out how we are going to do it," Markus said, after considering it for a few moments. "Lay in a course for Cleft." "Yes," Doob said. "I'll do that." The little boy in him was crestfallen that he wasn't going on the adventure. Then he reminded himself that he was already part of the biggest adventure ever, and that, so far, it had been altogether miserable.
All conversations worth having about space voyages were couched in terms of "delta vee," meaning the increase or decrease in velocity that had to be imparted to a vehicle en route. For, in a common bit of mathematical shorthand, the Greek letter delta was used to mean "the amount of change in..." and V was the obvious abbreviation for velocity. The words "delta vee," then, were what you heard when engineers read those symbols aloud. Since velocity was measured in meters per second, so was delta vee. The delta vees bandied about in spaceflight discussions tended to be large by the standards of what Markus was now calling Old Earth. The speed of sound, for example—a.k.a. Mach 1—was three hundred and some meters per second, and most earthbound people would consider it awfully damned fast. But it hardly rose to the notice of most people who talked about space missions. A common delta vee benchmark had been the amount needed to get something from an Old Earth launch pad to an orbit like Izzy's. This was some 7,660 meters per second, or more than twenty-two times the speed of sound: an impossible figure for any object that had to fight its way through an atmosphere. Once a vehicle had reached the vacuum of space, though, things became simpler: rocket engines worked more efficiently, drag and aerodynamic buffeting were absent, and the consequences of failure weren't invariably catastrophic. Getting it from point A to point B was a matter of hitting it with the right delta vee at the right time. Sean Probst's delta vee history, from his departure from Earth until his departure from life, had gone something like this. The launch from terra firma to Izzy on Day 68 had required a delta vee of 7,660 m/s according to a naive calculation; but as any old space hand would know, losses due to atmospheric friction and the need to push back against gravity would have elevated the practical number to more like 8,500 or 9,000. Once he had collected Larz and most of Dinah's robots, Sean had needed to execute a plane-change maneuver to get from the Izzy orbit—which was angled at about fifty-six degrees to the equator—to the equatorial orbit in which Ymir was being assembled. This was one of those circumstances in which human intuition got it all wrong. The Izzy orbit and the Ymir orbit did not seem all that different in most respects. Both of them were a few hundred kilometers above the atmosphere. Both were essentially circular (as opposed to elliptical). And both went in the same direction around the Earth. The only real difference between them was that they were at different angles. And yet the delta vee required to get from one to the other was large enough that it had been necessary to launch a separate rocket, carrying nothing but extra propellant, just to refuel Sean's vehicle in preparation for the plane-change burn. Once Ymir had been assembled, a delta vee of some 3,200 m/s had been needed to place her in a very elongated elliptical orbit that had taken her out to L1. En route, the plane-change problem had once again reared its head. Essentially everything in the solar system, including Comet Grigg-Skjellerup, was confined to a flat disk centered on the sun. The imaginary plane through that disk was called the ecliptic. Conveniently for people who liked seasons, but not so good for interplanetary travelers, Earth's axis and equator were angled with respect to the ecliptic by 23.5 degrees, and so Ymir's initial orbit had been off-kilter by that amount. Fortunately, plane-change maneuvers were much less "expensive" (meaning they required a lot less delta vee) when they were performed far away; and Ymir was, of course, going very far away. So, they had done the plane change out at L1 range, as part of the same burn, totaling some 2,000 m/s, that took her out through the L1 gate into heliocentric orbit. That orbit, more than a year later, had intersected that of Comet Grigg-Skjellerup. As Ymir had drawn near to the comet core, she had used another 2,000 m/s of delta vee to sync her orbit with its. All of these maneuvers, up to the arrival at Grigg-Skjellerup, had been achieved by using Ymir's rocket engines, which were altogether conventional: they burned propellants (fuel and oxidizer) in a chamber, making hot gas, which was vented out of a nozzle to produce thrust. The final burn had emptied her propellant tanks, so this was a one-way journey unless the nuclear propulsion system could then be turned on. No engine had ever been made that was capable of pushing a comet core around the solar system at any appreciable speed. For that, they had needed to embed the nuke-on-a-stick into the heart of the ice payload, construct an ice nozzle behind it, and then pull out the control blades, causing the reactor's sixteen hundred fuel rods to become very hot. Ice turned to water, then steam, which shot out the nozzle and produced an amount of thrust actually capable of making a difference. So a few months had then been consumed disassembling Ymir and integrating its parts into a chunk of ice carved off the three-kilometer ball. The question might have been asked: Why just a piece of it? Why not bring the whole comet core back, if water was so desirable? What was the point of sending a large nuclear reactor into space if you weren't going to use it? And the answer lay in the fact that even a large nuclear reactor did not even come close to having enough power to move such a big piece of ice. The mission would have lasted more than a century, assuming the existence of some kind of a miracle reactor that could operate at full power for that long. In order to get this done in any reasonable amount of time, they could only bring back the bare minimum of ice needed to rendezvous with Izzy and accomplish the Big Ride. In any case, Sean and his surviving band had used the nuclear engine to impart a delta vee of about 1,000 m/s to the shard they had carved off Greg's Skeleton, thereby placing it into a somewhat different orbit that had, a few months later, glided into L1. Sean had remained alive just long enough to yank out the control blades one last time and execute a delta vee that had basically reversed the maneuver they'd used to leave the L1 gate almost two years earlier. This had simultaneously brought Ymir into geocentric orbit while executing, as cheaply as possible, the plane change needed to enable a later rendezvous with Izzy. A couple of days later Sean had tapped out the "coming in hot, high, and heavy" message and dropped dead. Of what, they could only conjecture. The retrieval team that was now being organized by Markus was going to use a MIV, or Modular Improvised Vehicle, assembled from a kit of parts: a sort of Lego set for the construction of spaceships, neatly sorted on a stack of modules, collectively known as the Shipyard, connected to the Caboose. The Shipyard was a generally T-shaped contraption. One arm of the T's crossbar, projecting from the port side of the Caboose, was studded with MIV parts. The opposite arm was a cluster of spherical tanks surrounding a collection of splitters. These used electrical power to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, and piped them to chillers, which refrigerated the gases until they became cryogenic liquids that could be stored in the bulging tanks. So much for the T's crossbar. Its long vertical stroke was a truss terminated by a nuclear reactor: not a small RTG like the ones on the arklets, but a true reactor, originally designed to power a submarine, considerably souped up for this task. Markus dubbed the Shipyard's first product New Caird, after a small boat that had been used in Shackleton's expedition to Antarctica. She was assembled and made ready for use in ten days: about one-third of the time they estimated it would take for Ymir to arc in from L1 and make her closest pass to Earth. To design, assemble, and test such a vehicle so quickly would have been unthinkable two years ago. During the interval between Zero and the White Sky, however, the engineering staffs of several earthbound space agencies and private space companies had foreseen the future need to jury-rig space vehicles from standard parts such as arklet hulls and existing rocket engines, and had provided a kit of parts, lists of procedures, and some basic designs that could be adapted to serve particular needs. In effect, New Caird had been designed a year ago by a large team of engineers on the ground, all but three of whom were now dead. Those three had been sent up to join the General Population. Building on their predecessors' work, they were able to produce a general design—enough to begin pulling the bits together, anyway—within a few hours of Markus's decision. Details emerged from their CAD systems as they were needed over the following week and a half, and the necessary parts and modules were shuttled about the Shipyard until the new vehicle was ready. New Caird would have to execute one burn to reach an orbit that would intersect Ymir's and another to match her velocity, so that the crew could board the ghost ship and take the helm. The total "mission delta vee" for that journey, from its departure from the docking port on Izzy to its arrival at a similar docking port on Ymir, was some 8,000 meters per second. The conversation turned now to mass ratio: a figure second only to delta vee in its importance to space mission planning. It simply meant how much propellant the vehicle needed at the start of the journey in order to effect all the required delta vees. Laypersons tended to substitute "fuel" or "gas" for "propellant," making the obvious analogy to the stuff that had been burned by the engines of cars and airplanes. It wasn't a bad analogy, but it was incomplete. In addition to fuel, most rocket engines needed some kind of oxygen-rich chemical (ideally, just pure oxygen) with which to burn it. Cars and planes had simply used air. Rockets stored the oxidizer in a separate tank from the fuel until the moment of use. The two chemicals were collectively referred to as "propellant," and their combined weight and volume tended to dominate space vehicle design in a way that hadn't been true of, say, automobiles, whose gas tanks had been small compared to their overall size. A convenient figure for characterizing that was the mass ratio, which was how much the vehicle weighed at the beginning (including the propellant) divided by how much it weighed at the end, when all the tanks had been emptied. If you knew how good the engine was, and how much delta vee you needed, then the mass ratio could be calculated using a simple formula named after the Russian scientist Tsiolkovskii, who was credited with having worked it out. It was an exponential: a fact that explained almost everything about the economics and technology of spaceflight. For if you found yourself on the wrong side of that exponential equation, you were completely screwed. When the relevant numbers for the Ymir retrieval mission were jacked into the Tsiolkovskii equation, the result was a mass ratio of about seven, meaning that for every kilogram of stuff—Markus, Dinah, other personnel, miscellaneous robots, etc.—that they wanted to arrive safely at the docking port of Ymir, they needed to allow for six kilograms of propellant at the moment of departure from Izzy. This wasn't all that difficult to achieve, especially for a vehicle that would never be exposed to the rigors of passage through the atmosphere. The payload in this case was a single arklet hull that had been augmented with a "side" door: an airlock that could accommodate one person in a space suit. Other than that, it had been stripped to the minimum complement of equipment needed to keep a crew of four alive for a few days. To its mass, of course, needed to be added that of the actual humans and their food and other essentials. The lightness of a bare arklet hull was startling; the newer hulls, made of overwrapped composites, weighed in at eighty kilograms. Stripped of everything that made it comfortable and inhabitable over the long term, and including the "side door," the maneuvering thrusters, and a reasonable supply of thruster propellant, the mass of New Caird was about ten times that. The humans weighed three hundred kilograms. The rocket motor that would be doing all the important burns weighed another two thousand. So, in round numbers, the payload mass—the stuff that actually had to get delivered to the docking port of Ymir—was some thirty-five hundred kilograms. The mass ratio of seven meant that its propellant load, at the beginning, was going to be some twenty-one thousand kilograms of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. The Shipyard had been stocked with several cryogenic propellant tanks of various sizes, some designed to hold LH2 (liquid hydrogen) and others built to the somewhat different specifications needed in the case of LOX (liquid oxygen). The chosen tanks were bolted together in a stack with the rocket engine mounted "below" and thermal protection wrapped all about. New Caird proper—the arklet with the humans in it—projected forward on a scrap of scaffolding just long enough that her maneuvering thrusters wouldn't damage any of the other parts when they came on. While the MIV was being constructed, twenty-one thousand kilograms of water had to be split into hydrogen and oxygen, chilled to cryogenic temperatures, and stored. The Shipyard's port side already had some LH2 and LOX premade. In general, though, they tended not to keep a lot of them on hand, because they were tiresome substances to work with. The demand was supplied by the naval reactor on the Shipyard's long arm, which was brought up to full power for the first time since it had been launched, piece by heavy piece, from Cape Canaveral on a series of heavy-lift rockets. Pumping juice down heavy cables to the splitters, it was able to turn twenty-one tons of water into gases and chill the gases to cryogenic temperatures while the other preparations were being made. This was a lot of water—roughly fourteen liters of it for every surviving human. The Cloud Ark recycled water, of course, and was far from running out of the stuff. Nonetheless, the idea of taking that much of it and spewing it into outer space, never to be recovered, gave many people pause: especially the Dump and Run partisans. There was a strong counterargument, which was that New Caird's objective was to take possession and control over a piece of frozen water that weighed as much as Izzy herself, including the giant piece of iron to which Izzy was attached (and would continue to be, if the Big Ride advocates had their way). Once New Caird had reached her, Ymir could presumably be slowed down, and brought to a rendezvous with Izzy, by firing her engine. And that was a primitive beast, but it had a basically infinite supply of energy in the nuclear reactor, and a vast stock of propellant in the form of ice. The "steampunk" propulsion system had much lower efficiency, however, than a properly engineered rocket motor. Consequently, the mass ratio that would be needed to slow Ymir down from the high-speed elliptical orbit with which it was falling into Earth's gravity well, to match the much slower, circular orbit of Izzy, was about thirty-four, which meant that 97 percent of the ice currently attached to Ymir was going to be melted, turned into steam, and jetted out its makeshift nozzle just to slow it down. The remaining 3 percent, however, would still weigh as much as Izzy and Amalthea put together. Split into hydrogen and oxygen, it would supply the rocket fuel needed to power the Big Ride, all the way up to Cleft.
"I didn't expect it to be black," Dinah said. She was hearing her own voice as if down a mile-long sewer pipe. She was pretty sure she had lost consciousness a minute ago. Maybe she wasn't all the way back yet. Markus was slow in responding. Maybe he had blacked out too. Maybe he was just distracted. "Comet cores are covered in—" "Stinky black stuff, yeah, I know that, Markus. Remember who I am?" "Sorry. Not enough blood in brain." "But this is just a shard that Sean broke off of Grigg-Skjellerup. Why's it all covered?" "I don't know," Markus said. They were looking at Ymir from a distance of ten kilometers and closing. They were viewing her on their tablets, through a zoomed-in video camera. Vyacheslav Dubsky, floating closest to New Caird's forward end, put his face to the vessel's tiny window and searched the black sky for the black ship, but the squint on his face suggested it was still too far away for naked eyes to be of much use. "Maybe he was doing us a favor," Dinah said. "The black stuff has all kinds of goodies on it. Carbon, obviously. But also nitrogen, potassium—" "Micronutrients," Markus said, "that the Cloud Ark will be needing." "So maybe he used the robots to scrape some of it off Greg's Skeleton, and loaded up on the gunk," Dinah speculated. "We will know soon," Vyacheslav said. "Presumably he left a document." "Which we will not be alive to read, unless we stick the landing," Markus pointed out, "so no more chatter from now on, please. Slava—" and he broke into a string of bad Russian meaning something like I trade places with you now. Vyacheslav responded in equally bad German. Both men were perfectly fluent in English. But they made a private joke of butchering each other's languages, ostensibly as part of a project to preserve Old Earth's linguistic heritage. Markus then added, "The rest of you, buckle up." With the deft movements of one who had been in space for two years, Vyacheslav glided aft. He was one of the veteran Russian spacewalkers who had come up to Izzy way back on A+0.17, in the first launch after the moon had blown up. He had been a mainstay of the Scout and Pioneer eras, racking up more time in a suit than anyone, wearing out three Orlans. He was a little worn out too, being sallow and gaunt compared to the strapping hero who had emerged two years ago from the same Soyuz that had carried Rhys and Bolor-Erdene. Markus replaced him at the forward window and buckled himself into the pilot's seat. Behind that was a row of three acceleration couches, mounted on a frame that spanned a diameter of the arklet's hull. Dinah was loosely belted in on the port side. A few minutes ago she had been tightly belted in. She had not adjusted the straps. The entire couch, and its supporting truss, had been deformed by the same burst of gee forces that had left her so woozy. To starboard was Jiro Suzuki, a nuclear engineer who had been involved with the design of Ymir's nuclear reactor core. It wasn't clear whether he was conscious; but then it never was with Jiro. Vyacheslav, the fourth member of New Caird's complement, settled into the middle position and pulled the top straps of the five-point harness over his shoulders. A staccato burst sounded from the gamma spectrometer—the modern equivalent of a Geiger counter—floating in front of Jiro's face. Then the Eenspektor, as they called this device in butchered Russian, dropped back into the normal sporadic patter. Radiation was striking the Eenspektor—and their bodies—all the time, at random moments and in no particular pattern. Sometimes there would be a little burst, and that part of the mind that liked to see meaning in everything would identify it as an event. But then it would die away and be forgotten. That was just the way of the universe, and of the human psyche. There was a lot more radiation in space than there had been down on the ground, but all the survivors had long since come to terms with that, and Jiro had dialed down the sensitivity on his Eenspektor so that it wasn't screaming at them all the time. If it started screaming in the next few minutes, it wouldn't be because of some faraway cosmic event. It would be because of a radiation leak from Ymir. "Starting to see the exhaust trail," Markus commented. "Can you see it on video? It's faint. The sunlight hits it perfectly a few hundred meters aft of the nozzle bell." He was referring to a thread of steam that emerged from Ymir all the time, even when her engine wasn't powered up. This was how Konrad and Doob and the other astronomers aboard Izzy had been able to track the ship's course using their optical telescopes, and to verify that the params encoded in Sean's last transmission had been accurate. Wispy as it was, the steam trail reflected more light than did the ship itself. It was created by the slow, steady boiling of ice caused by the latent radioactivity in the ship's fuel rods. When the control blades were pulled out and the reactor operated full blast—which was almost never—it produced four gigawatts of thermal power by splitting uranium and plutonium into smaller nuclei, many of which were themselves unstable isotopes. As these fission fragments decayed into "daughters" and "granddaughters," heat continued to be generated even when the reactor had been shut down. There was nothing that could stop it, so some loss of ice, in the form of this tenuous trail of steam, was unavoidable. It was okay. Ymir had plenty more where that came from, and Sean would have allowed for it in his calculations. Sean, never the most emotionally sharing kind of guy, further throttled by his makeshift radio, had not supplied details as to what had killed him and his crew. Had it been some kind of disastrous problem with the reactor core, he probably would have given them a heads-up. For that matter, Ymir wouldn't have made it this far if the system hadn't been basically working. So Jiro was not coming into this thing expecting a total nightmare. But there was no telling. No one spoke for several minutes as Markus monitored their approach and occasionally touched the controls, spanking New Caird into a slightly different course. They had gotten here by means of two large burns. The first, and smaller, had placed them into an ellipse that had shot beyond the orbit of the former moon. After several days of weightless coasting away from the Earth, they had succumbed to the force of gravity, looped lazily around, and begun to fall back again toward the burning planet. This had been timed in such a way that, about a day later, they would be overtaken by Ymir, coming in on a roughly parallel track. But Ymir was traveling much faster—coming in hot, as Sean had told them—basically because it had been falling in toward the Earth from an extremely high starting place, gathering speed relentlessly for weeks. Left unmolested, Ymir would come screaming in toward Earth with a relative velocity of some twelve thousand meters per second, make a hairpin turn just a few kilometers shy of a catastrophic encounter with the glowing atmosphere, then go hurtling back outward again, not to return for a couple of months. Eventually her orbit would decay to the point where she would get dragged down by the atmosphere and destroyed. At any rate she would have flashed by New Caird too quickly even to be seen, her relative velocity faster than that of a rifle bullet, had New Caird not just matched her velocity by making a long, precisely timed burn of her main engine. The four members of the crew were still recovering from this. The vehicle's main engine was oversized—the kit of MIV parts from which she'd been built only had so many options—and so the gee forces had been impressive at the beginning of the burn and brutal toward the end, as the lavish expenditure of propellant had made her lighter and lighter compared to the engine's formidable thrust. If Dinah had blacked out for a few seconds, why, maybe that was just as well, given that they had aimed themselves almost squarely at the Earth and then launched themselves at it as if on a suicide run. This was necessary in order to go where Ymir was going, but added up to maybe a little more excitement than she really was in the mood for at this moment in her life. Earth was, of course, completely unrecognizable. From this distance it was about the size of a tangerine held at arm's length, and about the same color. Formerly a cool blue-and-white lake in the cosmos, it now hung there like a blob of molten steel thrown out by a welder's torch. In the belt between the tropics, where most of the Hard Rain was falling, it glowed orange. The color faded and reddened to a kind of sullen brown around the poles, and the whole planet continually sparkled with the bluish light of vaporizing and exploding bolides. In a few days it would blot out half of the sky for a hectic few minutes while they slingshotted around it. By that time, they needed to have Ymir's main propulsion up and running so that they could execute the huge braking burn that would slow her down to the same velocity as Izzy. It was crazy. It was a crazy plan. The crushingly high acceleration that they had survived at the end of the big burn a few minutes ago was a physical reminder that they had only taken enough propellant to sync New Caird with Ymir. If they failed in their basic mission—if they couldn't dock with Ymir and get her engine working—they had no way of getting back to Izzy, save perhaps by the utterly insane measure of diving into Earth's atmosphere on their next pass and using the air to slow them down. Dinah had been a little slow to absorb the full meaning of the little ship's name. The James Caird was a small boat that Shackleton had used to make a desperate run for help to save the remnant of his failed South Pole expedition. They had aimed it at South Georgia Island, a speck on the map, in the knowledge that if they didn't hit it spot on, the prevailing winds would never allow them to turn around and make another try. She wondered if that very craziness wasn't Markus attempting to make a point. The overall situation of the human race was, of course, ludicrously desperate. Doob had been the first to point this fact out in public, two years ago. Planning and preparation had consumed the time since. The work had been hasty, improvised, and politically inflected, but fundamentally it had been a well-ordered and methodical engineering project. As it had to be. But its plodding bureaucratic nature had a kind of lulling effect. How many times in the last two years had Dinah leaned back from a screen full of code and forcibly reminded herself of what was going on, and how bad it was? Unable to keep that squarely in their minds, the fifteen hundred or so survivors tended to live from one day to the next and keep doing what they had done the day before. Of all people, Sean Probst had been the least susceptible to that; he had seen what needed to be done almost immediately, and he had made efforts to do it that had been fantastically strenuous and, in the end, fatal. With his final transmission he had passed that responsibility on to Markus. Dinah suspected that Markus had stepped away from his position at the top of the org chart, and set out on this mission, partly to set an example for everyone else. And if that was true, bringing Dinah along was to make a point as well. He would spare no one, play no favorites. Markus broke the silence once during the approach: "Definitely a shard. As you said. Not snowball. Not candle." "I agree," Dinah said. She could see its shape clearly enough, now, on the screen of her tablet. Unlike normal ships, which carried their propellant in tanks, Ymir was a big chunk of solid propellant—ice—inhabited by a sort of parasitical infestation of equipment whose purpose was to convert that propellant into thrust. Not knowing exactly what he would find on Comet Grigg-Skjellerup, Sean had come equipped with more than one alternative architecture for putting Ymir together. If the comet core had turned out to be a loose ball of ice-dust, then he'd have had to scoop out what he needed and pack it into something like a snowball, giving Ymir a spherical shape with the reactor embedded in its center. Another option would have been to fashion a long cylinder of ice and plant the reactor in one end of it, then "burn" it forward, consuming the ice en route, like a candle. What they were seeing now looked more like the third architecture, which was the shard. It suggested that, upon his rendezvous with Grigg-Skjellerup, Sean had found it made up of at least one fairly hard and solid crystal that could be relied on to hold itself together structurally during the maneuvers to come. He had split the shard off from the main body of the comet and planted the reactor system somewhere near its middle, then embedded the rest of his ship—the part where the humans lived—in what would become its nose. If the equipment had worked as planned, then executing the "burns"—i.e., pulling out the control blades to place the reactor into operation and make steam—had been a matter of sending signals to actuators embedded in the core: motors that would move the rods, valves that would control the flow of steam and water, and so forth. Implicit in all of this was a hell of a lot of robot activity, which was why Sean had taken the extraordinary step of traveling personally to Izzy to clean out Dinah's supply of them before proceeding to his rendezvous with Ymir. The reactor had to be fed with ice. Because ice was a solid, it couldn't flow through tubes. Robots had to mine ice from the shard and transfer it to a feed system: a set of augers that would move it into the reactor chamber to be melted and vaporized. A Siwi robot could move a lot of material in a hurry by embedding its "tail" in the ice and then using a whirring mill on its "head" to throw off a fountain of fine shavings that could be collected and carried off by Nats. The long intervals of time between burns could be used to store up a supply of shredded ice in hoppers that would feed the augers. Downstream of the engine, robots were also needed to maintain the shape of the rocket nozzle. This was a long duct with a wide mouth on the aft face of the shard, tapering to a narrow throat near the reactor. The throat had been constructed on Earth and launched up with the reactor. It was made of a corrosion-resistant alloy called Inconel. Any other material would rapidly wear out from the hot steam blasting through it. Conditions in the long spreading bell of the nozzle, however, were more benign, and so it worked fine for that to be sculpted from ice. Nonetheless, it changed its shape as it was used. Deeper in, where the exhaust was hot, it grew wider as its walls were melted by the torrent of steam. Closer to the exit, where the exhaust had cooled to below freezing, it accumulated on the walls and narrowed the passage. So robots had to scuttle around reshaping the nozzle. This was a fine task for the Nats that Larz had experimented with in Seattle. Finally there was a third "crew" of robots living on the exterior surface of the shard, trying to keep it from falling apart by embedding fibrous reinforcement in the outer layer of ice and wrapping cables and nets around it, somewhat like a butcher tying up a roast to prevent it from collapsing in the oven. This was a good match for the capabilities of the Grimmed (steel-armored) robots, which were mostly Grabbs. All of these robots needed power, of course. They could store a little of it in batteries, but those had to be recharged. Some of them collected energy from sunlight; others had to converge from time to time on one of Ymir's little nuclear generators to sip electricity. The general picture was that Ymir would not be anything like the traditional idea of a spaceship, in the sense of an orderly, symmetrical piece of architecture. It would be more like a flying robotic anthill, constructed out of a natural found object. The robots crawling around on and in it had general instructions as to what they were supposed to be doing, but could make their own judgments from moment to moment to avoid collision with other robots, or from hour to hour as to when they needed to recharge their batteries. Or that had been the general scheme, anyway. Since there'd been no guessing what Sean would find, there'd been no way of coming up with any plan worthy of that name. Instead they had sent him up with tools, resources, and ingenuity. Dinah, Markus, Vyacheslav, and Jiro were about to inherit the tools and the resources. Jiro's Eenspektor made steadily more noise as they approached, but the growth was slow enough that their minds didn't quite register it. Jiro did not seem alarmed by the level of radioactivity, but Dinah didn't know how to interpret that. Earlier in the mission, she had probed him for some general background about what to expect. "If it's very bad, we all just lose consciousness and the mission fails," he'd said. "The flux of radiation just shuts down our nerves, our sphincters open, we never even know it's happening." "In that case," Markus had pointed out, somewhat testily, "there is little point in discussing that scenario." "If all four of us throw up," Jiro had continued, "and, say, one or more of us gets diarrhea, then we have hours to live. In that case we should just transmit a warning to Izzy and encourage them to send a second mission. In the meantime, maybe we can transmit some useful information to them. Eenspektor data, pictures, et cetera." "Noted," Markus had said. "If, say, one of us throws up, then it means that half of us will probably die, and so we have some chance of accomplishing the mission. If no one is barfing, then none of us is likely to die, at least over a time span of weeks." "Thanks for that," Dinah had said, and tried to put it out of her mind. Now that they were actually approaching Ymir, however, it was coming back to her, and she was trying to convince herself that she wasn't feeling any nausea. "I am going to traverse the nozzle mouth in about thirty seconds," Markus announced. "Roger," Jiro said, and then switched off his Eenspektor altogether. He pulled up a window on the screen of his tablet. "Switching to the external gamma spec now." Suddenly Ymir was filling the window. It was dead ahead of them. The glowing Earth, a third of a million kilometers away, "set" below its black horizon as they sidled in behind it. Markus had placed them on a trajectory that would slowly cross that of Ymir, bringing them laterally across the ice ship's aft end. Dinah's older relatives might have described Ymir as having a sugarloaf shape, meaning a cone with a blunted tip. If so, this sugarloaf had been splashed with boiling water and attacked with a screwdriver in several places, giving it a scarred, irregular form. But it clearly had a fat end and a narrow end. These were about half a kilometer apart. The fat end, which was beginning to swing across their field of view, was a couple of hundred meters wide. It had a big circular hole in it, which was the outlet of the ice nozzle. New Caird could have flown into that hole and followed it almost all the way up to the throat before running out of room. And perhaps they would do so later, if they could find no other way in. But for now they were just going to make a lazy swing across it. The edge of the hole was blurry because of the evanescent steam cloud leaking out of it. This looked not so much like rocket exhaust as like breath emerging from someone's mouth on a cold day. It didn't so much block their view as soften it. But the visual landscape of space was one of intense contrasts, and so it was impossible to see down into the nozzle bell, even when they were squarely in the middle of the cavernous hole. It was just a black disk—like staring into the muzzle of a rifle. Hair-thin needles of frost grew on the window as the steam condensed. Jiro focused intensely on his tablet until they had drifted past the midway point, then seemed to draw back into himself. He switched his Eenspektor back on. It was making a lot more noise than it had a few minutes ago, but this gradually diminished as they traversed beyond the nozzle exit and across the wide base of the sugarloaf. With a tap on the thrusters Markus got them moving forward with respect to Ymir. Earth "rose" on her other side. New Caird moved up alongside the shard, headed for her forward end. "What's the verdict, Jiro?" Markus asked, when he was satisfied with how things were going. "Based on the gamma spec," Jiro said, "I would say that at least one of the fuel rods ruptured. Not at the beginning, when the rods were new, and not recently, when they were full of fission fragments and daughters, but somewhere in between. Could be worse, could be better." A memory came back to Dinah. "One of Sean's last messages said he was thrusting at full power." Jiro shrugged. "This reactor contains sixteen hundred fuel rods, grouped in assemblies of forty, so the failure of a single rod wouldn't measurably affect performance. Even the ruptured rod still makes power, remember. It's just that it would be spewing fuel fleas, fragments, and daughters into the rocket exhaust. We would expect to see a mixture of alpha, beta, and gamma—which is just what the Eenspektor is reporting." Dinah was no nuclear physicist, but she'd had enough radiation facts drilled into her to get the gist. Gamma was high-energy light. It would pass through just about anything. So, bad news, good news: It was hard to shield against the stuff. But most of it passed right through your body without interacting—that is, without doing damage. It made scary noises on the Eenspektor. Betas were free-flying electrons. They were easy to shield against. Good news, bad news: You could stop them with a little bit of water or plastic. But by the same token, if they came into contact with your body they were certain to break something inside of you. Alphas were helium nuclei, four thousand times as massive as betas, moving at relativistic speed. They could not pass quietly through matter any more than cannonballs could, but they did a lot of damage to whatever they hit. In order to detect anything other than gamma, Jiro had been forced to switch over to equipment mounted on the outside of New Caird, since alpha and beta couldn't penetrate the hull. And by looking at the energies of the various particles striking that equipment he had been able to diagnose conditions inside the reactor. Since she could no longer see Ymir out the front window, Dinah focused on the slivers of frost that had grown on the glass. These were rapidly sublimating into space, and would be gone in a few more minutes. She'd found them beautiful until Jiro had made them aware that they were probably contaminated. "Any residual beta now?" she asked. "We are well clear of the nozzle and the plume," Jiro said, a little taken aback. "I mean, did we pick up any contamination on that flyby?" "It is back down to background levels," Jiro said. "But the detector would only 'see' sources on its side of the hull. We will have to do a more thorough survey later." "Get a load of this," Markus said, and punched in a maneuver that swung New Caird around ninety degrees. They were now flying "sideways," their nose aimed directly at Ymir, which was only about a hundred meters away from them. She more than filled the window. Her narrow end—her bow, if you wanted to think of her as a ship—was a hill of dirty ice. A few fine structures suggested that humans had been at work there: some structural netting, some cables, a glinting wire that might have been the radio aerial. But it wasn't obvious, yet, where they were actually going to dock. "It is really buried," Markus observed. He didn't have to explain that "it" was the command module—the part of Ymir that had life support systems. It ought to be reachable through a docking port. But they weren't seeing anything. They had known—because it was part of the plan—that Sean and his crew would have buried it in the ice, to protect them from radiation and from rocks. They looked to have buried it deep. Dinah's tablet was running a terminal window, a simple programmer's interface that just displayed lines of text. For the last little while, this had shown only a blinking cursor, but now it came alive and began to display cryptic, one-line messages. "Picking up some new bot sigs," she reported. These were the digital signatures of robots, pinging the universe to find out what, if anything, was listening. New Caird had shipped with a complement of robots of various types, but she knew all of their sigs and was filtering them out of this terminal window. Anything that showed up here was, by process of elimination, from Ymir's complement of robots. Like the clicks on Jiro's Eenspektor, these came up sporadically and in bursts. "At least twenty... so I am going to filter out the Nats," she said, typing in a command. Being so numerous, Nats tended to overload the screen. "Okay, in addition to a pretty well-developed Nat swarm I have half a dozen Grabbs and at least that many Siwis." "Any clues in their names?" Markus asked. It was possible to give each robot a unique name, which would show up on its sig. By default these were just automatically generated serial numbers, but they could be manually changed. "Well," Dinah said, "here is a Grimmed Grabb whose name is 'Hello I am right on top of the docking port,' which seems promising." "Can you make it flash?" "Hang on." Dinah established a connection to 'Hello I am right on top of the docking port' and, after quickly checking its status, told it to blink its LEDs until further notice. Before she even looked up from her screen she could tell, by subvocal exclamations from the others, that it had worked. "I see it very clearly," Markus said. Some pops and bangs sounded from the thrusters as he adjusted New Caird's attitude. They were now flying in nearly perfect sync with Ymir, looking at the flashing Grabb from a distance of maybe five meters. It was anchored into the surface of the shard in an area that was relatively free of the black stuff. "Aim the light down into the ice, please? And put it on continuously?" Markus requested. The Grabb's LEDs were mounted on snaky stalks that could be aimed. Dinah made it happen. When next she looked up through the window, she could see the silhouette of the Grabb centered in a nimbus of white light, produced by its aiming its lights directly into the ice. A sharp white disk was visible in the center of that silvery cloud. It was blurred by the ice, but they all recognized it for what it was: a docking port, buried at least a meter deep. "Did anyone bring an ice pick?" Jiro asked. It was not like him to make a joke, but Dinah was happy to take humor from any quarter at this point. "Slava," Markus said, "you're up. Dinah, maybe you can help by bringing more of the robots to the area." By entering a fairly simple command, Dinah was able to summon every Grabb and Siwi in range, telling them, in effect, "Figure out a way to get closer to 'Hello I am right on top of the docking port' and don't bother me with the details." By the time Vyacheslav was suited up, enough of these had drawn near that she was able to clinch several of them together and form a temporary construct that "reached" up from the surface of the ice to grapple New Caird, first in one location and subsequently in two more. So, even though they had not been able to dock yet, they at least had a mechanical link to Ymir that would prevent them from drifting away. Other robots, including 'Hello', meanwhile busied themselves carving a hole in the ice "down" toward the buried docking port. Vyacheslav exited through New Caird's airlock, clambered down a stack of robots to the surface, and then made his way toward the site. Since the gravity of Ymir was negligible, Vyacheslav's "weight" here was about half a gram, and the faintest contact with the surface would send him rebounding off into space. So instead of walking he had to rely on some sort of anchor fixed into the ice. Dinah was able to send two of New Caird's Grabbs scuttling along ahead of him. These had been engineered for movement on ice, and could rapidly anchor themselves by melting and refreezing it with their footpads. All Slava had to do was follow them and hold on to them. Once he had reached the mouth of the hole he was able to embed anchors and carabiner himself into place. Then he speeded up the work of the robots by scooping out more ice, more quickly, than they were capable of moving with their little claws. Not knowing what to expect, they had brought with them a small arsenal of improvised ice-mining tools, including a Craftsman garden shovel that had mysteriously made its way up from a Sears, Roebuck in an Old Earth mall. Slava put it to work. Meanwhile Markus was sending a status report back to the Cloud Ark, and Jiro was doing more typing than seemed necessary just for taking notes. He was communicating with someone, or, more likely, something. Dinah was tempted to ask what, but there was only one plausible answer: he had established contact with the computer that controlled the reactor core. Markus seemed to have come to the same conclusion. "Jiro?" he asked. "News from the belly of the beast?" "It's alive," Jiro said, in what might have been either awkward phrasing, or a second consecutive joke. "I am trying to make sense of the logs. There is a lot of repetitive material." "Error messages?" Markus asked, making the obvious guess. "Not so much. It is robot stuff. Status reports." Dinah moved over one seat and had a look. Though she couldn't tell exactly what was going on, her general read tallied with Jiro's. Lots of robots had been working away, executing variations on the same small set of programmed behaviors, pumping out occasional status reports—and, yes, some error messages—that had generated a log too vast for any human to read. They would have to sort it out later by writing a computer script that would crawl through it, accumulating statistics and looking for patterns. "Could you scroll to the top, please?" she asked. She wanted to know the date and time of the first log entry. "I checked it," Jiro said. "Right around the time of Sean's last transmission." So Sean, probably knowing that he was at death's door, had told the robots to do something, and to keep doing it, until they were ordered to stop. Since the outer surface of the shard was pretty quiet, this probably related to some internal work hidden beneath the surface. "Mining fuel, probably," Dinah guessed. Then, before Jiro could object to the incorrect choice of words, "Propellant, that is." Vyacheslav exposed the docking port. Using a combination of taps on New Caird's thrusters, some pushing and pulling by the robots, and Vyacheslav simply grabbing the spacecraft and nudging it this way and that, they inserted her "front door" docking port into the little crater that Vyacheslav and the robots had excavated, and mated it with that of Ymir's buried command module. Slava then had to reenter New Caird through its side airlock. By sounds conducted through the hull they could track his progress as he climbed into the chamber, closed the outer hatch, and activated the system that would fill the lock with air. In the meantime, Markus was able to make contact with the computers on the other side of the port, and verify that there was breathable air and other amenities. It was damned cold, though: about twenty degrees below freezing. "That was Sean doing us a favor," Markus said. "He turned the thermostat down before he died. His body will be frozen solid." For Ymir had no lack of power from its nuclear generators, and its electrical systems were still working. Markus entered a command that would turn the command module's environmental systems back on and bring the temperature back up. He pressurized the tiny space between Ymir's hatch and New Caird's. Then he opened the latter. They were all looking now at the slightly domed exterior surface of the hatch that would lead into Ymir's command module. Someone had written on it with a felt-tipped marker. He had drawn the trefoil symbol used to warn of radiation hazards and beneath it had written the Greek letters alpha, beta, and gamma. Then, as a darkly humorous doodle, he had added a crude skull and crossbones. Markus was the first to recover. He spiraled out of the pilot's chair and propelled himself aft to the inner hatch of the airlock. There he punched a virtual button on a screen, which had the effect of locking the inner hatch. He was not letting Vyacheslav come in. He reached up with one hand and adjusted his headset. "Slava," he said, "can you hear me? Good. Listen. We have contamination. You may have picked some of it up on your space suit. Before you come inside, I would like you to go over to Jiro's external radiation detector and see if we pick anything up." Jiro was already scanning the hatch with his Eenspektor, fortunately without results. Outside they could hear Vyacheslav cycling the airlock again and clambering back out. Using external handholds on the hull he made his way to the place where the external gamma spec was mounted, and devoted a couple of minutes to turning this way and that, directly in front of them, paying particular attention to his gloves, his knees, his boots—anything that had come into contact with the ice. No bursts of radiation were noticed, and so he was given clearance to go back to the airlock and enter New Caird. They had brought warm clothes, which seemed advisable when going on a journey to a huge piece of ice. Jiro put his on. Dinah reached for the stuff sack in which she had stored hers, but Markus held up a restraining hand. She noticed he was making no effort to dress for the occasion. Jiro was going down there alone. "I am going to overpressurize us a little bit," Markus said, working with an interface on his pad. Dinah felt pressure building against her eardrums. Markus didn't explain himself, and didn't have to: they wanted clean air from New Caird to waft into Ymir, as opposed to potentially contaminated air coming in here. Jiro then pulled a disposable one-piece bunny suit over his cold-weather gear. For they had come prepared to find the ship contaminated. He slung his Eenspektor over the outside of the bunny suit. Dinah handed him a respirator mask, so that he wouldn't breathe radioactive dust into his lungs, and he pulled it on over the bunny suit's hood and checked it for a good seal against his face. He pivoted into the space between the ships, operated the external latch on Ymir's hatch, and jerked forward slightly as the overpressure in New Caird pushed it open. He let himself drift into the command module, then got himself turned around so that his feet were oriented toward the "floor." Meanwhile Markus pulled the hatch closed behind him. Vyacheslav by now had emerged from the airlock. He, Dinah, and Markus were listening to Jiro's breathing on their headsets. "Sean bled to death," Jiro announced.
Ymir's command module was arklet-sized. of course, that went for almost everything now in space, since an arklet was just the biggest object that could be launched into orbit on the top of a heavy-lift booster. Some arklets were "tunnel," meaning that they were laid out in a "horizontal" orientation, meant to lie flat, as it were, like railroad tank cars, with a single long floor running from end to end. This was good if you wanted a large open space, but tended to be a less efficient use of available volume. The command module of Ymir, like that of New Caird, was "silo," meaning that it was oriented in a "vertical" way, diced into a number of round stories—typically four or five—joined by a ladder. Each story was a fat disk of space about four meters in diameter, big enough for one room that would be considered large by space travel standards, but more often divided into smaller compartments. Ymir was a five-story silo, meaning that it had low ceilings that must have made it a claustrophobic place in which to spend a two-year journey. The first story Jiro had entered, being closest to the surface with its cosmic ray and bolide hazards, was a single room. On the plans, it was supposed to be used for storage of things like food, scrubber cartridges, robot parts, and tools. After a few minutes Jiro was able to set up a video link from a camera mounted to his head. They watched it on their tablets. The frozen body of Sean Probst was floating in a sleep sack that had been zip-tied to the ceiling. The porous fabric was stained dark brown. Very little of it had not been soaked with blood. Bumping lightly against him was an old-school Geiger counter, tethered by another zip tie. The word BUSTED had been written on it with the same felt-tip pen used to make the sign. After sweeping Sean's body and the rest of the level with his Eenspektor, Jiro floated down the gangway to the next level "down." The noise of the Eenspektor built steadily. "Oh, turn the fucking sound off," Markus said, and it went quiet. It would now display the counts per minute on its little screen, which only Jiro could see, but they wouldn't hear the clicks. The next story was a sort of general meeting, dining, and muster room, mostly open space lined with storage lockers. The third, or middle, story was divided into sleeping compartments, toilets, and showers. The fourth was a laboratory and workshop space. Those functions continued down into the fifth and bottom-most story. "Cold here," Jiro said, as he reached the bottom level. "Suddenly a lot of beta." "Okay," Markus muttered, "so the contamination is there. On the fifth level down." It was cold, as they soon saw, because someone had left the door open: a manhole in the middle of the floor, big enough for a person in a space suit to climb through it and into a round shaft leading straight down into the ice. The entire length of the shaft was illuminated by white LEDs. "That is remarkable," Markus said. Jiro descended into the tunnel headfirst and began to propel himself along it by the simple expedient of pulling on a knotted rope that had been fixed into its wall by ice anchors. He moved tentatively at first, then more rapidly. "There is a hatch at the far end—a hundred meters away, maybe," Jiro said. "Radiation?" Markus asked. "Not so much," Jiro said. "I do not think this was the route of the contamination." The hatch at the end was adorned with a more formal rendering of the radiation hazard symbol. They all knew what was on the other side of it: a small pressurized module that was physically connected to the guts of the reactor. Jiro elected not to go through, instead turning around for a return to the command module. Then he turned back suddenly, and swept the beam of his headlamp across the ice wall of the tunnel. Some long slender object was embedded in the ice. Two long slender objects. Two human bodies. Dinah gasped as she recognized Larz's strawberry-blond hair. Without making any comment, Jiro made his way back "up" the tunnel to the lower level of the command module. He turned his attention to a locker near the hatch. Its door was open. Mining tools and space suit parts were floating around in it. Others had spilled out into the room and were drifting around aimlessly, pushed by currents of air. "Jiro," Markus said, "talk." "Strong beta from here," Jiro said. "This is where the contamination came from." He drifted back up to the common room and found a garbage bag in a cabinet, then returned to the bottom level and went to work sorting through the tools and the clothing, holding each of them in turn up to the Eenspektor as he focused on its screen. From time to time he would grimace at the results and push the item into the garbage bag. Dinah, Markus, and Vyacheslav waited in New Caird for an hour, pretending to pass the time with tasks on the screens of their tablets. Then they heard Jiro's voice again: "Prepare to put something out the airlock!" he was shouting. It took them all a few moments to understand Jiro's thinking. New Caird and the command module of Ymir now formed a closed system. Since the latter was completely embedded in ice, the only way to remove something from that system—to take out the radioactive garbage—was to put it out New Caird's airlock. There were some distant thuds. Dinah floated forward and opened the hatch to be greeted by a garbage bag, filled to the dimensions of a beach ball, and all wrapped up in duct tape. Propelled by a shove from Jiro, this entered New Caird. Dinah pushed it up to Markus, who intercepted it and tapped it sideways into the airlock. Vyacheslav slammed the hatch behind it. Then they heard a hiss, indicating that the lock had cycled. The bundle was now adrift in space. Jiro's head, then the rest of him came through the port. He had stripped off the bunny suit and the respirator and presumably stuffed them into the garbage bag. He was sweaty and exhausted. "Just like old times, my friend?" Markus said, referring to Jiro's earlier career running cleanup at Fukushima. "I don't miss it," Jiro said. It was warm in the command module now, so they didn't need the parkas. But they all used bunny suits when they went into Ymir, and stripped them off before going back into New Caird. Contamination was "sneaky," as Jiro put it. The beta emitted by a microscopic speck of fallout could be hidden from the Eenspektor's view by just about any random obstacle—and the command module was cluttered with those. So Jiro's initial sweep was no guarantee that tiny beta-emitting particles weren't still hidden in there. If such particles found their way into a lung, or the digestive tract, fatal radiation damage was likely to result. He had, though, identified a space suit glove on the lower level as being heavily contaminated, and found lower levels of contamination on some other odds and ends that had gone into that garbage bag and out the airlock. With luck all serious sources of contamination had now been removed. Before it had time to thaw, Vyacheslav took Sean's body down from the ceiling. Slava wasn't a life scientist, but he was a jack-of-all-trades. Bundled up in parka and moon suit, he cut the sleep sack open as Jiro stood over him with the Eenspektor. He performed a cursory exam, then wrapped the body back into the sleep sack. He maneuvered it to the lower level, threaded it through the manhole in the middle of the floor, and then pushed it down the tunnel to the end, where Larz and the other crew member had been buried. There, he stashed Sean's body against the ice wall. Somewhat ruining their appetite, he reported on the findings of this impromptu autopsy as they got ready to eat a meal in the common room. "Sean bled to death out of his asshole," he reported. "He had an internal rupture of the bowel." "I picked up some beta through his belly," Jiro added. "He was very emaciated at the end." "Meaning?" Markus asked. "He swallowed a particle of fuel. Probably a fuel flea that got loose and somehow was tracked in here." "Fuel flea?" Jiro had used the term before. No one else knew what it meant. It had gone in one ear and out the other, just another bit of the tech jargon that was so ubiquitous on Izzy. Now that fuel fleas were killing people, it was time to learn about them. "A tiny piece of uranium or plutonium that has gotten loose from a ruptured rod. As it throws off alpha particles, it zigs and zags around the room—conservation of momentum. So it hops around like a flea. The point is, it is small and it makes a lot of alpha. It lodged in a diverticulum in his bowel. It burned through his bowel wall and started a bleed that could not stop." Everyone pushed back their food. "Okay," Markus said. "We eat in New Caird." Once they had finished their meal, Markus told everyone that they needed to sleep, since they had a busy few days ahead of them. Jiro volunteered to take the first watch, and so the rest of them slept while Jiro stayed up going through logs and notebooks, assembling a picture of all that had happened on Ymir's journey. Suddenly they had a lot of space to spread out in. Dinah was tempted to retreat to the far end of the New Caird and get some privacy, but Markus insisted that everyone sleep down in the command module. New Caird might be free of radioactive contamination, but it was exposed to the direct hazards of space. A bolide strike would kill anyone in it. Whereas a beta-emitting particle, inhaled into the lung, would take days or weeks to incapacitate the victim—time during which they could do useful work. So Vyacheslav ended up sleeping in one of the berths on Ymir's crew accommodation level, while Dinah and Markus shared another. Somewhat to her surprise, they actually managed to have sex, a thing that had occurred only once since the White Sky. It was a sly surprise, not the athletic banging around that they had enjoyed the first few times they had done it, back in the good old days when the Hard Rain had seemed far in the future and the Cloud Ark had still felt like an isolated research colony. Ymir, now separated from the rest of the human race by millions of kilometers' distance and several thousand meters per second of delta vee, now had some of that old feel to it. And despite the ghoulish scene that had greeted them on arrival, Dinah liked it here—it was the space equivalent of one of Rufus's old mining camps—and didn't really want to go back. But they were supposed to be saving the human race, not enjoying an exotic holiday, so she tried to get some sleep. When Markus's alarm went off five hours later she peeled out of the bag they'd been sleeping in and did her best to clean up and get into some fresh clothes. Ymir had long ago turned into a smelly bachelor pad, short on toiletries, and, as they discovered while rooting around in the common area, on food. Sean had definitely been killed by the fuel flea in his gut, but he had likely been weakened before then by malnutrition, and even by lack of oxygen. For the systems that the crew had been using to replenish Ymir's air supply were not in the best condition. The new arrivals were awakened twice during their sleep cycle by alarms from the life support system, which Jiro silenced and dealt with. When they were all awake, they ate food from the stores they had brought with them and listened to a briefing from Jiro. "Let me tell you what happened to this expedition," he said. And then he told them the story as he had pieced it together from the logs left behind by the dead. The failure of the radio, shortly after the beginning of the mission, had been caused by a defective part for which there was no replacement: a simple, stupid oversight. The longest leg of the trip—the year and a half spent coasting from the L1 gate to Grigg-Skjellerup—had consisted of lengthy stretches of boredom interrupted by occasional panics, most of which had to do with the life support system. This was based on using sunlight to grow algae, a process that worked well in the lab but had turned out to be difficult to sustain on Ymir. The newest arklets in the Cloud Ark had benefited, in this respect, from lessons learned operating such systems in the time since Zero, but Ymir had been built and launched very early, using systems that now seemed painfully out of date. Once they had reached "Greg's Skeleton" and thereby gotten access to vast amounts of water, they'd been able to make oxygen by splitting H2O, and life had improved. Until then, however, they'd been oxygen hungry and tense, trying to keep their consumption of air and food to a minimum by floating listlessly in their sacks watching the same DVDs over and over again. Health, and mental status, had suffered. They broke the shard from Grigg-Skjellerup using small mining charges planted by hand, or by robots programmed by Larz. Into its nose they embedded the command module, making themselves comparatively safe from cosmic radiation and bolides for the first time since the beginning of the mission. Life began to improve. They started excavating the access tunnel into the core. Into the aft end of the shard they inserted the reactor system, letting it melt its way into the ice. Around it, in the heart of the shard, they began to excavate a cavity and sculpt out hoppers: containers designed to hold broken-up ice produced by the mining robots. Twelve augers—long, spiraling ice movers, like the ones used to transport grain into elevators—were set up to convey that loose ice from the hoppers into the space surrounding the warm reactor vessel, where it would melt and be pumped into the core itself. Meanwhile, a separate corps of robots worked on the outside of the shard, melting the ice a little bit at a time, mixing it with the fibrous material they'd brought with them, and letting it refreeze into the much tougher material known as pykrete. The "steampunk" propulsion system had basically worked as planned—though not without a lot of tinkering and head scratching—on the first "burn" that had put it on the course back to L1. There had, however, been some problems with the augers that were used to feed ice into the reactor chamber. The augers received their inputs of ice from hoppers that had to be filled up by "mining" solid ice from the inside of the shard, a process for which robots were well suited, and so nothing worked at all without the assistance of a small army of robots conveying flakes of ice from mine head to hopper like ants dismantling a loaf of sugar. This part of it had actually worked. But some of the pieces of ice being mined by the robots had little rocks in them. These jammed the augers. Jams could often be repaired by operating the auger in reverse for a short time, but sometimes a robot, or even a person in a space suit, had to be sent to pry a rock out of the mechanism. An auger accident had led to the death of one member of the crew. During the months between that first burn and their arrival at L1, Larz did some programming work on the robots, trying to teach them not to collect rocky ice. They conducted a number of system tests intended to make sure that the problems they'd experienced the first time around wouldn't be repeated during the critical second burn. These ranged from small-scale tests on individual robots all the way up to full dress rehearsals where the entire system would be energized and the reactor turned on to generate thrust for a few minutes. It had been during the first of those dress rehearsals when something had gone wrong in the core, resulting in damage to the jacket of a fuel rod. Jiro had an idea as to what had gone wrong. Ymir's reactor used water—the melted ice of the comet core—as its moderator. In nuclear engineering, that meant a medium that slowed down the neutrons hurled out by fission reactions, making them more likely to stick around long enough to trigger more such reactions. In the absence of an effective moderator, the neutrons would mostly escape from the system without doing anything useful. Between being as dead as a doornail and running out of control was a narrow band of normal and healthy power output in which basically all commercial reactor operations happened. The essential problem with Ymir's reactor was that its moderator—being a naturally occurring substance—was impure and unpredictable. The water that flooded into the chamber for the first dress rehearsal had been melted from ice a few months earlier, around the time of the initial "burn," and had been sitting in the plumbing system ever since then. There, it had been in contact with rocks and grit that had made it through the augers. It had leached various minerals out of that rock, and become something other than pure water. When the reactor was started and the pumps turned on, that impure water was drawn through screens and filters intended to exclude all the debris. But it was nonetheless impure water, and when introduced to the core, it failed to perform its function as a moderator. The reactor was sluggish to get going. With the advantage of hindsight, it could be seen that its neutron economy was suppressed, poisoned by the impurities in the water. Overreacting to the slow start, the operators had pulled the control blades out farther than they would have otherwise. But once the first rush of impure water had been flushed through the system and blown out the nozzle, it had been replaced by relatively pure water, only just now melted from the ice. The reactor's power had surged, producing a sudden buildup of fission products inside the fuel rods. Some of those would have been gases such as krypton and argon. The gases would have created pressure. Fuel rods were engineered to withstand it, but one of them had failed and ruptured. Possibly it had left the factory in excellent condition but been damaged en route by a nanometeoroid that had left a microscopic flaw. In any case, for whatever reason, the rod burst open and began to spill out the highly radioactive "daughters" of nuclear fission, which had become mixed with the steam being blasted out the rocket's nozzle. Most of the fallout had, therefore, dissipated into space. But the whole point of a rocket nozzle was to convert the thermal energy in the gas—its heat—into velocity. The faster the steam went, the colder it got, until the steam near the nozzle exit was so cold that it actually began to condense into snow. Tiny particles of fallout made excellent nuclei around which a snowflake might begin to form. Some of that snow had stuck to the ice walls of the nozzle bell. The most likely explanation for what had happened next was that one of the robots crawling around in that area maintaining the shape of the nozzle had become contaminated with a mixture of alpha-emitting fuel fleas and beta-emitting daughters, and tracked the material to a location where it had been transferred to the glove of a space suit—possibly by a mechanism as simple as a spacewalker reaching down to brush some ice from the claw of a Grabb, or planting a foot in a location where a contaminated Grabb had stepped. The contamination had then been brought into the command module when the spacewalker came indoors. They might not even have known about the burst fuel rod, so they might not have been checking for contamination. Or, as suggested by Sean's note, their Geiger counters might have broken down, one by one, rendering them blind to the presence of radioactivity in their environment. In any case, the particles had spread around the command module. Some men had inhaled them, some had swallowed them. They hadn't been healthy to begin with. In any case, the good news, if it could be so called, was that the reactor and the engine basically worked. The improvements Larz had made to the robots' mining programs had led to fewer rocks in the hoppers, and fewer jammed augers, during the L1 burn. Since then, Nats had been crawling around in the hoppers identifying rocks that had sneaked in anyway, and pushing them away from the augers. The damage to the fuel rod would have been a major catastrophe by Old Earth standards—had it happened on an earthbound reactor. Here, it was messy, and had already been fatal to a few. But everything still worked. Yes, the New Caird expedition would be bringing a radioactive disaster right into the middle of the Cloud Ark, but once they drew close enough they would jettison the reactor and let it fall into the atmosphere. Forty-eight hours, give or take a few minutes, now remained before Earth would loom huge below them, and the nadir surface of the shard would sweat and steam as the radiant heat shining up from the incandescent air softened, melted, and vaporized the ice. It was then that they would have to pull out the control blades and execute Ymir's next big burn. First they would have to spin the whole ship around so that she was flying "backward," her nozzle bell pointed in the direction of movement. For the delta vee they needed was a negative one—a braking, as opposed to accelerating, burn. For spin moves, all spaceships were equipped with thrusters, not powerful enough to impart big delta vees but capable of rotating the ship as a whole into the desired attitude so that the main engine was pointing in the right direction. As a rule the thrusters were more effective when they were situated out toward the "corners" of the vehicle, where they could exert more leverage and crowbar the thing around with minimal thrust. Not knowing what they were going to find at Grigg-Skjellerup, the mission planners for Ymir had packed aboard a collection of modular thruster assemblies that basically consisted of little rocket engines, propellant tanks, wireless control links, and hardware for anchoring them into ice. A cursory survey of Ymir and a look at the dead crew's records made it clear that Sean and his crew had embedded those packages into the ice at suitable locations: one complex up at the nose with nozzles aiming in four perpendicular directions, and four more spaced around the fattest part of the shard. Now that New Caird was docked, her engine could also be put to use in getting Ymir spun around. But this one maneuver—a 180-degree flip, which would have seemed comparatively simple in a small craft such as an arklet—was fraught with difficulties and complications in something as huge and asymmetrical as Ymir. Anticipating a need to use the thrusters, Dinah sent robots out to inspect them during that first "morning," and Vyacheslav suited up and went out to do a bit of troubleshooting on a propellant line that had somehow become kinked. But so ponderous were the shard's movements that the actual rotation, end-over-end, consumed eight hours, and tweaking it into precisely the right orientation then took another six. Whereupon Markus announced that all of their assumptions were probably wrong anyway. "The atmosphere is too big," he said. He had been staring pensively, for a long time, at a string of emails from Izzy. Dinah felt a spear go through her heart. After all that had happened in the last couple of years, it was remarkable that she still had it in her to react in that way to bad news. It seemed to be some kind of built-in psychological program, triggered by phrases like "your mother has cancer," "there's been an explosion in the mine," or what Markus had just said. They had known, from very early in the planning of the Cloud Ark, that the Hard Rain would heat up the air—all of the air, all over the world. When air got hotter, it expanded. The atmosphere had only one direction in which it could expand: out into space. So, whatever drag Izzy felt from the traces of air at its accustomed altitude of some four hundred kilometers was bound to get worse as the atmosphere reached upward. How hot the air would get, how much it would expand, and how heavy the drag would get were questions of colossal import that, however, simply could not be answered until the Hard Rain actually started. As Doob always put it, the experiment of blowing up the moon had never been attempted before. The most they could do was wait and perform observations. Which was exactly what they had been doing ever since the Hard Rain had begun. But Markus had been distracted for most of that time, and was only now absorbing the latest results. For the Cloud Ark, of course, there were plans to cover various contingencies. In the easy case where the atmosphere didn't expand that much and the drag wasn't too bad, they didn't have to do much. In the more difficult case—which was apparently the way the experiment was now shaping up—they had no choice other than to raise the orbit of every vessel they had—Izzy herself, and each arklet. The delta vees involved were not that large; three hundred meters per second sufficed to nearly double the orbital altitude and get them well clear of the danger zone. Each arklet had its own engine and enough of a propellant supply to accomplish that. For Izzy, matters were a little more complicated. If they were willing to ditch Amalthea they could get three hundred meters per second pretty easily. Bringing Amalthea along for the ride, however, increased the propellant requirements enormously. All of which had long ago been anticipated by mission planners. This was how the Dump and Run strategy had been dreamed up in the first place. So it would be easy for the arklets to get clear of the thickening atmosphere by abandoning Izzy, at least for the time being, and jumping to higher orbit. Their drag problems would be solved. But in so doing they would lose the ability to shelter behind Amalthea and begin to take damage from bolides. Exactly how much damage depended on how thick and fast the rocks were coming in, and what the distribution of sizes was—another one of those questions of colossal import that couldn't be answered until the Hard Rain had actually started and data had been gathered. And, so far, the data were too thin to make any real determination. With a few spectacular exceptions, bolide impacts and casualties had been light. But this didn't mean it would remain thus. The White Sky was an ever-changing phenomenon. The explosive uptick in the Bolide Fragmentation Rate that had signaled its onset was still ongoing. The distribution of rock sizes and orbital parameters would continue changing for thousands of years. Trends could be observed, and predictions could be made, but beyond a certain point it was guesswork. At any rate, Markus had rolled the dice on the gambit that they were now executing. If it worked, and they could slow Ymir down enough to mate her with Izzy, then the Big Ride strategy became possible, and the arklets could climb to higher and safer altitudes behind the shelter of Amalthea's metal and Ymir's ice. The one part of that plan that Markus apparently had not considered until now was that the atmosphere was too big. In truth, it wouldn't have made a difference if he had considered it. The crucial decision had been made and executed weeks ago by Sean Probst, when he had laid in a course at L1 and executed the burn that had placed Ymir on its current trajectory. This was an ellipse with a very low perigee. That was a sound idea from an orbital mechanics point of view in that the steam engine would have maximum leverage at that point—it was the natural place to make a burn and effect a transition to a low circular orbit matching Izzy's. But, sick and exhausted from his two-year odyssey, isolated from the latest scientific discourse by radio failure, Sean might have overlooked the expansion of the atmosphere when making his calculations. "Are we going in?" Vyacheslav asked. This being a polite euphemism for the scenario where Ymir got so deep, and slowed down so much, that it burned up and became just another streak of blue light against the lambent background of the pyrosphere. "We are more likely to skip, I think," Markus said. Meaning that Ymir might bounce off the atmosphere like a flat rock skimming across a pond. "With unpredictable results. But I cannot be sure. All I am saying is that this is not going to be the mission plan that Sean had in his mind. It is going to be something else. Something maybe a little more exciting."
Anticipating that Camila might be on her toes—she had already survived one attempt—the gunman had crouched behind the rear of her school bus, sawed-off shotgun at the ready, and waited for her to emerge. A narrow stretch of pavement separated the vehicle's side door from the entrance of her school, so he didn't have much margin for error. He jumped the gun, as it were, springing out into the open while Camila was still negotiating the descent to the street; the long hem of her burqa was apt to get caught on her foot as it probed for the running board, so she had to take it slowly. The delay saved her life. Alerted by a schoolteacher standing in the building's doorway, Camila turned back into the bus. Rather than hitting her full in the face, the shotgun blast raked the left side of her jaw, removing eleven teeth, tearing away much of her cheek, and causing massive structural damage to her jaw. Surgeons in Karachi and, later, London had saved most of the functions of her tongue, rebuilt her mandible from pieces of bone carved from her pelvis, and fitted her with a set of artificial teeth. After a world tour raising money for girls' education in Afghanistan and the tribal regions of Pakistan, Camila had been granted permanent asylum in Holland. Dutch plastic surgeons, funded by charitable donations from all over the world, had gotten to work repairing the cosmetic damage. This was a long-term project that had been interrupted by Camila's selection as one of the Dutch candidates for the Cloud Ark. No one believed that this was a random outcome of the Casting of Lots. Clearly the Dutch authorities had placed their thumb on the scale and seen to it that she was chosen, as a rebuke to some conservative Muslim countries who had refused to nominate female Arkers unless given assurance that arrangements would be made for them to live in orbital purdah. Camila was well suited to serve that symbolic purpose, since she had not adopted Western ways. She dressed conservatively and wore the head scarf and the face veil. She was coy, however, as to whether the purpose of the face veil was submission to the demands of religion or to hide her disfigurement. She had pulled it down several times to display the scars to television cameras, and when she had dined at the White House she had gone uncovered in the dining room, by prearrangement with her hostess, the president of the United States. Julia's startling arrival in the Cloud Ark had therefore led to a reunion between the forty-four-year-old ex-president and the eighteen-year-old refugee. To call it joyous or even happy would have been wrong given the circumstances. It was a fact of human nature, though, that some people just got on well with each other. This had clearly been the case during that dinner at the White House and was no less true in Camila's abode, Arklet 174, which was where Julia ended up lodging after she had recovered from her eventful flight up and gone through a bit of basic training in how to live in space. Arklet 174 belonged to a heptad, or a cluster of seven arklets all connected to a hexagonal frame; it and five other arklets surrounded a seventh, which was positioned in the middle of the hexagon, where it served as a twenty-four-hour-a-day common room and working area for the people who lived in the others. Four to five people were assigned to each of those, and two more had been shoehorned into small private cabins at the boiler room end of the central arklet, so the total population of the heptad, including Julia, was twenty-nine. This increased to thirty when Spencer Grindstaff managed to hitch a ride on a Flivver that was bringing a spare part and a technician from Izzy to fix a problem in one of the arklets' thrusters. The technician returned to Izzy when he was finished, but Spencer stayed, and talked his way into a berth on Arklet 215. There was a tendency for arklets within a group to become segregated by sex over time, as the populations sorted themselves out; 215, which was predominantly male, ran on the same shift as 174, which was all-female. They both ran on second shift, which, for reasons that were now purely historical, tended to be culturally American. They slept from dot 8 to dot 16. First shift was Asian and third shift was European. The cultural shadings were perpetuated by food: the warm odors that greeted one's nostrils upon entering the common space first thing in the "morning," the tastes one could expect to savor in the "evening." Since space food was lacking in variety, this was largely a matter of spices. The second shifters had their little bottles of Tabasco, the first shifters had plastic packets of curry powder, and so on. "Ganging" was the term used by the Arkitects to denote this clustering of arklets into formations of three or seven: triads and heptads. It helped simplify Parambulator's job by reducing the total number of separate objects that needed to be tracked. It gave Arkies more living space to roam around in, and provided some redundancy in the case of a bolide strike. They didn't like to form anything larger than a heptad, though. "Spencer, I am fully aware that I am out of my depth here," Julia said, "but I don't understand the upper limit of seven. I was assured, during my early briefings, that any number of arklets could in principle be ganged. Limiting it to seven seems arbitrary. Which suggests that some deeper agenda might be behind it." "One moment please, Madam President," Spencer said. He was doing rather a lot of typing. "You really shouldn't call me that," Julia returned, though her tone of voice was indulgent. Spencer smacked his laptop's Enter key, then leaned back slightly and adjusted his glasses. His eyes jumped around to various parts of the screen. Then he looked up, and, in a clearer tone of voice, announced, "It's all shut down." "The surveillance, you mean." "Situational Awareness Network," he corrected her, and winked. "Surveillance to you and me. It's like living in the Nixon White House. Old reference. You wouldn't understand. Now, where was I?" Camila knew. She hadn't taken her eyes off Julia the whole time; she was on top of it. "The agenda behind the seven-arklet limit?" "Yes, thank you, Camila. I don't buy their arguments. To me it feels, rather, like a way of atomizing the population. Keeping the Arkies from cohering into their own polity—a polity that might serve as a wholesome and desirable counterweight to the central dominance of the power structure on Izzy. Speaking of which, Spencer, I want to say how much I appreciate the work you have done in... managing things... on the IT front. As just now. Giving us the freedom to talk among ourselves without the SAN recording our every word and gesture." Spencer nodded as if to say all in a day's work. It was dot 18, the beginning of the workday for second shifters. They were in Arklet 215, home to Spencer, three other men, and a woman. The others had gone to breakfast in the common area, to exercise, or to work. Spencer, Julia, and Camila had been joined by a guest: Zeke Petersen, who had arrived by space suit and was still clad in his thermal coverall. He looked mildly agog. Sensing this, Julia turned toward him with a smile. "Major Petersen," she said, "it is so good you were able to join us. Though I am new to space, I have some understanding of how difficult it is to simply drop by and say hello, as it were." "Well, technically I am no longer a major, since that would imply the existence of a military," Zeke said, "but if we are going to use extinct titles as a courtesy, then I'll just thank you for your hospitality, Madam President." Madam President was a little while parsing that and wasn't sure if she liked it. Nervous at the silence, Zeke went on: "I'll apologize in advance that I can't stay for very long. I'm here with a specific job to do, and once it's done, I need to move on." "Inspecting Arklet 174 for possible damage from a microbolide strike," Julia said. "Yes, ma'am." "I called it in yesterday. I could have sworn I heard a loud banging noise. It scared me to death. But there doesn't seem to be any damage. And the more time goes by the more I wonder if I just imagined it. Space is a noisy environment. I hadn't expected that. The thrusters are so loud when they come on. Maybe it was nothing more than that. I would feel so embarrassed if I summoned you all the way out here to no purpose." "Summoned me?" Zeke asked, a little bewildered. "The Incident Report System is an automatic queue; the assignments are handed out at random." Julia exchanged a mischievous look with Spencer. "You and Spencer have been together on Izzy for more than two years," she said. "I'm sure you've come to appreciate his skills—as have I." Zeke looked just a bit queasy. "So you got in and manipulated the queue?" "Old habits die hard," Julia said. "I'm accustomed to working with people I know and trust. If an inspection of my arklet is required, and someone has to do it, then why not have that someone be a person I have met before? Since the assignments are handed out at random, as you say, it might as well be you." "Well," Zeke said, "since you put it that way, I'm glad to be able to catch up with you for a few minutes, Madam President. Just saying that I'll have to complete the full inspection anyway, so we can close the loop on your report." "Of course, and I'll bet it will go quickly," Julia answered with a wink. "Zeke, you are a member of the General Population, are you not?" "Of course," Zeke said. "As an original member of the ISS crew, that's naturally..." but then his eyes strayed toward Spencer and his voice trailed off. Julia smiled. "An awkward topic has come up, and it's best to face it with absolute transparency. Despite being a longtime, trusted member of the ISS crew, Spencer here has been removed from the General Population and demoted to the status of an Arkie." "I wouldn't look at it as a demotion," Zeke began. Julia silenced him with a dismissive fluttering of the fingers. These were still manicured. Camila had been doing her nails for her. "We all know it was a demotion. Markus sprang it on Spencer when he got news of the Eight Ball and saw what was coming. Oh yes, I've been filled in on all of the carefully laid plans that Markus set into motion when his sweetheart so conveniently gave him the news. Had word of it reached us at the White House, I don't know how I would have reacted—but we were busy protecting Kourou, and supporting Markus as best we knew how. Spencer here, after all those years of patient service, was replaced by that hacker boy—" "Steve Lake?" Zeke asked. Julia's eyes darted to Camila, who nodded. "Yes," Julia said, "Steve Lake. I guess he's quite clever, but obviously no competition for Spencer." "Are they in competition?" Zeke asked. "In a sense yes, when we Arkies are exposed to the all-seeing eye of SAN, and the GPop is permitted to have some semblance of privacy." "It depends on where you are in the space station," Zeke began, but then trailed off. "I wouldn't know, since I've been permitted to spend very little time there. Oh, I know the official justification. I'm not qualified to be a member of the GPop. By process of elimination, that makes me an Arkie. Fine. But that doesn't mean I can't maintain a degree of social connection with old friends who are so privileged." Julia reached out and clasped Zeke's hand briefly. "To be sure," Zeke said, "and I think that as time goes on those two populations will cease to be thought of as separate groups." "I know that is the official dogma," Julia said, amused. "But most of that social interaction is not going to be through face-to-face visits." "So I'm told. Hard to envision how the populations will merge as long as that is the case." "Most of it is going to be happening through Spacebook and Scape and whatnot," Zeke went on, referring to the Cloud Ark versions of popular Internet communication apps. "At least until—" "Until we all ascend into heaven and live happily ever after as one big friendly Ark," Julia said. "Zeke, you know space operations better than anyone. What is your opinion of the strategy that Markus has been foisting on us? The Big Ride? Even the name seems a bit suggestive, doesn't it, of... I don't know what." She exchanged a look with Camila, who giggled at the witticism. Zeke looked around. "You don't need to worry about that," Julia reassured him. "About what?" "Markus's surveillance network." "SAN? I wasn't worried about it," Zeke protested. "Just thinking." "About what, pray tell? Major Petersen, all kidding aside, I really am quite keen to hear your opinions as an expert." "To tell you the truth, I'm thinking about how thin the walls of this pressure hull are," Zeke said. "When you called in that bolide strike yesterday, you sounded pretty alarmed—I heard the message. Well, you had every reason to be alarmed. I do this for a living now—I go out and inspect these craters, big and small, that are piling up on our equipment. I patch holes, repair stuff that's broken, and twice now I've had to handle fatalities. It's no joke. If Markus sees an opportunity for us to ascend into heaven, as you put it, behind the shelter of Amalthea, well, I think it's worth a try." "Is Amalthea going to shelter us from the thickening atmosphere? Camila here has been reading the technical reports for me, which Spencer has been so good as to download from the server. She tells me it's quite serious." "The expansion of the atmosphere? It's damn serious," Zeke said. "But Izzy's ballistic coefficient, with Amalthea attached, is huge. She can plow through some pretty thick air, and the rock will absorb all the heat. And arklets can ride along in her wake, like bicyclists drafting behind a truck." "All of the arklets?" Zeke swallowed. "No. She doesn't make a big enough bow wave to shield all of the arklets. Unless they fly so close together that Parambulator goes nuts." "This is the part of Markus's plan that I can't understand," Julia said. "What is to happen to all of the arklets that are not afforded the privilege of nestling into Amalthea's wake?" "I don't know all the details of the plan," Zeke said. "It is fluid." "Meaning, it's not really a plan," Julia said. "It depends on when Ymir gets back. What kind of condition she's in. How much ice she has. Then we'll make a plan." "And is that to be a dictatorial process? Under the, whatever it's called—the martial law thing?" "PSAPS," Camila said. Zeke shrugged. "I don't think Markus is going to put it up for a vote. He'll get together with his brain trust and they'll decide." "Why bother consulting the brain trust?" Julia asked, as if the idea were a fascinating novelty. "To bring in different perspectives... make sure they're not missing anything." "Are there any Arkies in this brain trust, or are we expected to meekly accept its verdict?" Zeke was flummoxed. Had he been given the ability to rewind and replay the conversation, he would see that he'd been outmaneuvered. Lacking that perspective, he was tongue-tied for now. Julia wasn't. "I ask only because I've been getting to know a lot of Arkies. I have nothing else to do. No duties. No applicable skills. I find that many of them crave a bit of society. It's a natural human need, just as much as sleep and exercise. So I talk to them—in person here on our little heptad, or through the channels you mentioned, the Spacebook and the Scape. These young people find it at least a novelty to have a conversation with a lonely and bored ex-president. My point being, Major Petersen, that our system worked. The Casting of Lots and the training camps produced the brightest collection of young talent it has ever been my privilege to encounter. They are brimming over with energy and ideas. These are the scarcest resources in our universe right now—scarcer than water, scarcer than living space. And as such I'd consider it a shame if their energy was wasted and their ideas were not taken into account by whatever smoke-filled room Markus assembles to make his plan—assuming he even survives what sounds to me like a somewhat harebrained endeavor."
The crew of the original James Caird had used celestial navigation to find their way across hundreds of leagues of stormy seas to the coast of South Georgia Island. The crew of the New Caird would have to do something similar. It was easier for them. The navigator on James Caird had had no choice but to await breaks in the ever-present cloud cover and snatch observations when he could, comparing them against a mechanical chronometer that he hoped was still telling true time. New Caird had better timepieces and a better view of the sky. In place of a sextant, they had a device consisting of a wide-angle lens and a high-resolution image sensor that could tell what direction it was aimed in just by comparing what it saw to an astronomical database stored in its memory. So they knew precisely how they were oriented in space, and how that orientation was shifting as the giant shard of ice to which they were attached progressed through the inexorable mathematics of its long ellipse. That, combined with direct measurements of Earth's position, enabled Markus to calculate the parameters of their orbit and to reckon, with precision that grew each time he rechecked the figures, exactly how low they were going to go. Whenever Izzy was on their side of the planet, which was about half the time, they were able to get the latest figures from Doob concerning the expansion of the atmosphere. It was in combining those two sets of figures that pure Newtonian mechanics began to break down. For, in a traditional calculation of a space vehicle's trajectory, one assumed no atmosphere and no extraneous forces resulting from it. But there was now no denying that Ymir would be going low enough to scrape the air. At a minimum, this meant it would experience some drag that would throw it off the course that Sean Probst had laid in. As these things went, drag wasn't that difficult to calculate. Its effect on their course could be estimated. But because the ice shard wasn't a symmetrical body, coming in straight, it was also going to generate some lift. Not a lot of lift—nothing like an airplane wing—but some. If that lift got aimed in the wrong direction it would make Ymir veer downward, like a stricken airplane going into its death spiral. But if they aimed it up, it would ease their passage by pushing them away from the Earth into an altitude where air was thinner. They would lose the benefit of lift then and drift back downward, but as the air got thicker, the lift would resume and push them back up. They might skip off the atmosphere several times during the hectic half hour when they were slingshotting around the world. The results would have been difficult to predict even if Ymir had been a traditional vehicle with a fixed and regular shape. But the shard was irregular. They didn't have time to measure it and to feed the data into an aerodynamics simulator, so they could only guess how much lift it was going to produce. And when its leading edge and its underside began to plow through the air—even though the air might be so thin as to be indistinguishable, for most purposes, from a vacuum—it was going to heat up. Steam would rise from it, producing some amount of upward thrust, and its shape would change. So even if they had been able to simulate the shard's aerodynamics, its lift and its drag, those numbers would quickly have become wrong during its first encounter with the upper air. Compared with all of those complexities, the fact that Ymir would be flying backward while operating a damaged, experimental nuclear propulsion system at maximum power seemed like a mere detail. Faced with so many imponderables, a well-managed aerospace engineering project would have called a halt to all further work and devoted several years to analyzing the problem down to its minutest detail, exposing pieces of ice to the blast of hypersonic wind tunnels, building simulations, and war-gaming possible alternative strategies. But by the time Markus understood the general shape of the problem, they had twenty-four hours remaining to perigee. The tangerine Earth had grown to the size of an orange. No power wielded by humans could prevent Ymir from passing around it and scraping the atmosphere. They couldn't even ditch. New Caird, detached from Ymir, didn't have enough propellant in her tanks to materially change her course and would end up going on the same ride anyway. So Markus made a reasonable guess as to what would be a good angle of attack—the orientation that Ymir would adopt vis-à-vis the atmosphere—and initiated a program of thruster firings that, over the course of half a day, swung the ponderous shard around into the position he deemed best. Ymir's "stern" was now aimed in the direction of movement, the huge mouth of the nozzle aimed forward so that it could make the all-important braking burn. But she was now twisted about her long axis in such a way that New Caird, still docked up near the "bow," and projecting from the side of the shard at approximately a right angle, was on the zenith. This meant that during the passage of the high atmosphere her view of the Earth below would be blocked by Ymir, the nozzle of her engine pointed "up" toward the stars. Firing that engine would therefore tend to rotate the bow downward and the stern up, an attitude likely to produce more lift and help get Ymir out of trouble. Were the shard to tumble the other direction, it could end up in a position that would yield much more drag and much less lift, pulling the whole contraption deep into the atmosphere. In effect New Caird had been reduced to the status of a small attitude control thruster. It was a thruster that could only push in one direction, and so Markus had picked out the direction most likely to be useful if things began to go sideways. Vyacheslav would ride it out in New Caird's pilot's seat, from which he would enjoy an arm's length, tunnel-vision view of some dirty, five-billion-year-old ice. He would wait for a verbal command from Markus, ensconced in Ymir's common room, to fire New Caird's main propulsion if needed. All of this was mere background noise to Dinah, who was entirely consumed with coordinating the efforts of robots. The number of Nats was in the tens of thousands. They could only be talked to collectively, as swarms. Trying to address and control them one by one, while theoretically possible, was a mug's game. Their general task was to morph the shard. One swarm would be working on the inner surface of the nozzle bell. At the moment, all of those were out on the back end of the shard, sunning themselves to build up their internal reserves of power. At a signal from Dinah they would all converge on the circular maw of the nozzle, climb down into the bell, and spread out to reshape it as needed during the burn. They'd be running a program that Larz had developed and tweaked. So all Dinah really needed to do was to turn them on. Likewise, the smallest of the three swarms was down inside the ice hoppers, running Larz's program for keeping rocks away from the augers. Working in the dark, these had to sip power from electrical taps that Ymir's crew had installed for that purpose. The largest of the three swarms, though, was responsible for sculpting the interior of the big shard as it was hollowed out. By the time the journey to Izzy was finished, most of the ice would have been fed into the hoppers and blown out the nozzle, leaving a hollowed-out shell with just enough internal structure to hold the reactor in place and maintain some semblance of a nozzle bell. This was not as crazy as it sounded, for two reasons. First, it was what miners had done since time immemorial. They didn't just hollow out mountains, since that would lead to collapse. They sculpted the mountains into structurally sound architectural systems, complete with pillars, arches, and vaults. This was just that, except that the material was ice, and the forces in general were not as large. Secondly, most of the shard's interior was of little consequence from a structural engineering standpoint. There was a reason why airplanes and race cars had been hollow shells—all skin and no bones. Most structural forces were naturally transmitted through the outermost layer of the vehicle, so that was the best place to put the strength. Enough strength on the outside made it possible to leave the inside hollow. Ice, of course, wasn't the best material to work with. It was brittle. But the Ymir expedition had shipped out carrying a large supply of high-strength plastic cord, net, fabric, and loose fiber. And during the months that it had been coasting in from Grigg-Skjellerup, Larz's robots had been at work converting ice into pykrete. That outer layer of visually black ice was no longer ice per se, but a synthetic material with much better structural properties. Frozen, it could stop bullets. Melted and strained, it would separate into water, artificial fibers, and black crud from the dawn of the solar system. In any case the larger robots—the Grabbs and the Siwis—responsible for doing most of the heavy material removal on the inside could scrape to within a few meters of that outer skin without compromising Ymir's structure. It was the responsibility of the third Nat swarm to clean up after them and maintain the internal pillars and webs that would keep the reactor and the hoppers suspended in the middle of the hollow shard. This swarm-based ice-sculpting algorithm had been Larz's invention, and he'd had a couple of years in which to perfect it, but Dinah was in charge of it now, and had a lot of learning to do between now and when she became fully responsible for it. Outnumbered by the Nats, but responsible for moving a much larger tonnage of ice, were the hundred or so Grabbs and Siwis, now mostly stationed at the ready around the shard's interior. Most of these were general-purpose robots with some added-on bits that made them good at moving on ice, but there were also half a dozen Leatherface machines: upsized Grabbs with shovel-studded chain saws for limbs, made to move a lot of ice in a hurry. These were so good at their jobs that they tended to destroy their surroundings, so they had to move frequently. Each one had to be followed around by an entourage of smaller robots cleaning up its mess and getting it anchored to fresh locations. In theory it was all just a big computer program that, when executed, would smoothly convert the solid hill of ice into something like a walnut with the meat removed: a thick, pockmarked outer shell with an organic internal system of ribs, veins, and webs. As with any other computer program, it might run perfectly when Dinah started it. But it might just as well go sideways, perhaps in a manner that wasn't obvious at first. So situational awareness was going to be a big part of her task. Interesting as it might be to look out the window and watch the Earth screaming by at twenty-four thousand miles per hour, she would need to keep her head down, searching through a roar of weak and ambiguous signals for signs that something was going awry. She liked to imagine that her days as a little girl in a mining camp, sitting in front of a radio console trying to pick out Morse code signals from far away, through static and crosstalk, might have prepared her for it in some way.
A few minutes into his scape conversation with J.B.F., Doob realized that, two years ago, he had done his job too well. He'd gone into that meeting at Camp David with the mission of getting the president to understand the exponential breakup of the moon that was going to wipe out life on the Earth's surface. Putting on his Doc Dubois hat, he had coined the terms White Sky and Hard Rain as easy-to-grasp handles on phenomena that, truth be told, were much more complicated. Dr. Harris was now wishing that the late Doc Dubois had never opened his big fat mouth. He was in a corner of the Farm that, since the departure of New Caird, had developed into a sort of bullpen where he and Konrad and some of the other orbital mechanics geeks hung out. The Farm had always operated something like a high school cafeteria, with different cliques habitually sitting in certain areas, and now those choices were hardening, becoming a part of Izzy's unwritten procedure manual. Anyway, they had printed out charts and plots representing, in more or less abstract form, everything that they knew about the ongoing development of the lunar debris cloud and what it might mean for the future of the Cloud Ark. The expenditure of paper and printer ink had been somewhat lavish. Two generations from now, if any humans survived, they would look on this heap of documents with some combination of disgust and amazement. Because paper was going to be scarce by then, and they would view its use for such purposes in roughly the same way as Americans of the twenty-first century had viewed the use of sperm whale oil to fuel streetlamps. But then life would get better, forests of genetically engineered trees would grow in vast rotating space colonies, paper would become plentiful, and these sad yellowed scraps would be displayed in a museum as evidence of the privations suffered by the Arkers.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters. "My dear Mr. Bennet," said his lady to him one day, "have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?" Mr. Bennet replied that he had not. "But it is," returned she; "for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it." Mr. Bennet made no answer. "Do not you want to know who has taken it?" cried his wife, impatiently. "You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it." This was invitation enough. "Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and foura to see the place, and was so much delighted with it that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he is to take possession before Michaelmas,b and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week." "What is his name?" "Bingley." "Is he married or single?" "Oh, single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year.1 What a fine thing for our girls!" "How so? how can it affect them?" "My dear Mr. Bennet," replied his wife, "how can you be so tiresome? You must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them." "Is that his design in settling here?" "Design! nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very likely that he may fall in love with one of them, and therefore you must visit him as soon as he comes." "I see no occasion for that. You and the girls may go, or you may send them by themselves, which perhaps will be still better, for as you are as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley might like you the best of the party." "My dear, you flatter me. I certainly have my share of beauty, but I do not pretend to be any thing extraordinary now. When a woman has five grown up daughters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty." "In such cases, a woman has not often much beauty to think of." "But, my dear, you must indeed go and see Mr. Bingley when he comes into the neighbourhood." "It is more than I engage for, I assure you." "But consider your daughters. Only think what an establishment it would be for one of them. Sir William and Lady Lucas are determined to go, merely on that account; for in general, you know, they visit no new comers. Indeed you must go, for it will be impossible for us to visit him, if you do not." "You are over scrupulous, surely. I dare say Mr. Bingley will be very glad to see you; and I will send a few lines by you to assure him of my hearty consent to his marrying whichever he chooses of the girls; though I must throw in a good word for my little Lizzy." "I desire you will do no such thing. Lizzy is not a bit better than the others; and I am sure she is not half so handsome as Jane, nor half so good-humoured as Lydia. But you are always giving her the preference." "They have none of them much to recommend them," replied he: "they are all silly and ignorant like other girls; but Lizzy has something more of quickness than her sisters." "Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such a way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my poor nerves." "You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least." "Ah, you do not know what I suffer." "But I hope you will get over it, and live to see many young men of four thousand a year come into the neighbourhood." "It will be no use to us, if twenty such should come, since you will not visit them." "Depend upon it, my dear, that when there are twenty, I will visit them all." Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts,c sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three-and-twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character. Her mind was less difficult to develope. She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented, she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news.
Mr. Bennet was among the earliest of those who waited on Mr. Bingley. He had always intended to visit him, though to the last always assuring his wife that he should not go; and till the evening after the visit was paid she had no knowledge of it. It was then disclosed in the following manner. Observing his second daughter employed in trimming a hat, he suddenly addressed her with,— "I hope Mr. Bingley will like it, Lizzy." "We are not in a way to know what Mr. Bingley likes," said her mother, resentfully, "since we are not to visit." "But you forget, mamma," said Elizabeth, "that we shall meet him at the assemblies, and that Mrs. Long has promised to introduce him." "I do not believe Mrs. Long will do any such thing. She has two nieces of her own. She is a selfish, hypocritical woman, and I have no opinion of her." "No more have I," said Mr. Bennet; "and I am glad to find that you do not depend on her serving you." Mrs. Bennet deigned not to make any reply; but, unable to contain herself, began scolding one of her daughters. "Don't keep coughing so, Kitty, for heaven's sake! Have a little compassion on my nerves. You tear them to pieces." "Kitty has no discretion in her coughs," said her father; "she times them ill." "I do not cough for my own amusement," replied Kitty, fretfully. "When is your next ball to be, Lizzy?"2 "To-morrow fortnight." "Ay, so it is," cried her mother, "and Mrs. Long does not come back till the day before; so, it will be impossible for her to introduce him, for she will not know him herself." "Then, my dear, you may have the advantage of your friend, and introduce Mr. Bingley to her." "Impossible, Mr. Bennet, impossible, when I am not acquainted with him myself; how can you be so teasing?" "I honour your circumspection. A fortnight's acquaintance is certainly very little. One cannot know what a man really is by the end of a fortnight. But if we do not venture, somebody else will; and after all, Mrs. Long and her nieces must stand their chance; and, therefore, as she will think it an act of kindness, if you decline the office, I will take it on myself." The girls stared at their father. Mrs. Bennet said only, "Nonsense, nonsense!" "What can be the meaning of that emphatic exclamation?" cried he. "Do you consider the forms of introduction, and the stress that is laid on them, as nonsense? I cannot quite agree with you there. What say you, Mary? for you are a young lady of deep reflection, I know and read great books, and make extracts."d Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how. "While Mary is adjusting her ideas," he continued, "let us return to Mr. Bingley." "I am sick of Mr. Bingley," cried his wife. "I am sorry to hear that; but why did not you tell me so before? If I had known as much this morning, I certainly would not have called on him. It is very unlucky; but as I have actually paid the visit, we cannot escape the acquaintance now." The astonishment of the ladies was just what he wished; that of Mrs. Bennet perhaps surpassing the rest; though when the first tumult of joy was over, she began to declare that it was what she had expected all the while. "How good it was in you, my dear Mr. Bennet. But I knew I should persuade you at last. I was sure you loved your girls too well to neglect such an acquaintance. Well, how pleased I am! and it is such a good joke, too, that you should have gone this morning, and never said a word about it till now." "Now, Kitty, you may cough as much as you choose," said Mr. Bennet; and, as he spoke, he left the room, fatigued with the raptures of his wife. "What an excellent father you have, girls," said she, when the door was shut. "I do not know how you will ever make him amends for his kindness; or me either, for that matter. At our time of life, it is not so pleasant, I can tell you, to be making new acquaintance every day; but for your sakes, we would do any thing. Lydia, my love, though you are the youngest, I dare say Mr. Bingley will dance with you at the next ball." "Oh," said Lydia, stoutly, "I am not afraid; for though I am the youngest, I'm the tallest." The rest of the evening was spent in conjecturing how soon he would return Mr. Bennet's visit, and determining when they should ask him to dinner.
Not all that Mrs. Bennet, however, with the assistance of her five daughters, could ask on the subject, was sufficient to draw from her husband any satisfactory description of Mr. Bingley. They attacked him in various ways; with barefaced questions, ingenious suppositions, and distant surmises; but he eluded the skill of them all; and they were at last obliged to accept the second-hand intelligence of their neighbour, Lady Lucas. Her report was highly favourable. Sir William had been delighted with him. He was quite young, wonderfully handsome, extremely agreeable, and, to crown the whole, he meant to be at the next assembly with a large party. Nothing could be more delightful! To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love; and very lively hopes of Mr. Bingley's heart were entertained. "If I can but see one of my daughters happily settled at Netherfield," said Mrs. Bennet to her husband, "and all the others equally well married, I shall have nothing to wish for." In a few days Mr. Bingley returned Mr. Bennet's visit, and sat about ten minutes with him in his library. He had entertained hopes of being admitted to a sight of the young ladies, of whose beauty he had heard much; but he saw only the father. The ladies were somewhat more fortunate, for they had the advantage of ascertaining, from an upper window, that he wore a blue coat and rode a black horse. An invitation to dinner was soon afterwards despatched; and already had Mrs. Bennet planned the courses that were to do credit to her housekeeping, when an answer arrived which deferred it all. Mr. Bingley was obliged to be in town the following day, and consequently unable to accept the honour of their invitation, &c. Mrs. Bennet was quite disconcerted. She could not imagine what business he could have in town so soon after his arrival in Hertfordshire; and she began to fear that he might be always flying about from one place to another, and never settled at Netherfield as he ought to be. Lady Lucas quieted her fears a little by starting the idea of his being gone to London only to get a large party for the ball; and a report soon followed that Mr. Bingley was to bring twelve ladies and seven gentlemen with him to the assembly. The girls grieved over such a number of ladies; but were comforted the day before the ball by hearing, that instead of twelve, he had brought only six with him from London, his five sisters and a cousin. And when the party entered the assembly-room, it consisted of only five all together; Mr. Bingley, his two sisters, the husband of the eldest, and another young man. Mr. Bingley was good-looking and gentlemanlike: he had a pleasant countenance, and easy, unaffected manners. His sisters were fine women, with an air of decided fashion. His brother-in-law, Mr. Hurst, merely looked the gentleman; but his friend, Mr. Darcy, soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien, and the report, which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a-year. The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud, to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend. Mr. Bingley had soon made himself acquainted with all the principal people in the room: he was lively and unreserved, danced every dance, was angry that the ball closed so early, and talked of giving one himself at Netherfield. Such amiable qualities must speak for themselves. What a contrast between him and his friend! Mr. Darcy danced only once with Mrs. Hurst and once with Miss Bingley, declined being introduced to any other lady, and spent the rest of the evening in walking about the room, speaking occasionally to one of his own party. His character was decided. He was the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, and every body hoped that he would never come there again. Amongst the most violent against him was Mrs. Bennet, whose dislike of his general behaviour was sharpened into particular resentment, by his having slighted one of her daughters. Elizabeth Bennet had been obliged, by the scarcity of gentlemen, to sit down for two dances; and during part of that time, Mr. Darcy had been standing near enough for her to overhear a conversation between him and Mr. Bingley, who came from the dance for a few minutes to press his friend to join it. "Come, Darcy," said he, "I must have you dance. I hate to see you standing about by yourself in this stupid manner. You had much better dance." "I certainly shall not. You know how I detest it, unless I am particularly acquainted with my partner. At such an assembly as this, it would be insupportable. Your sisters are engaged, and there is not another woman in the room whom it would not be a punishment to me to stand up with." "I would not be so fastidious as you are," cried Bingley, "for a kingdom! Upon my honour, I never met with so many pleasant girls in my life as I have this evening; and there are several of them, you see, uncommonly pretty." "You are dancing with the only handsome girl in the room," said Mr. Darcy, looking at the eldest Miss Bennet. "Oh, she is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld! But there is one of her sisters sitting down just behind you, who is very pretty, and I dare say very agreeable. Do let me ask my partner to introduce you." "Which do you mean?" and turning round, he looked for a moment at Elizabeth, till, catching her eye, he withdrew his own, and coldly said, "She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt me; and I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men. You had better return to your partner and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your time with me." Mr. Bingley followed his advice. Mr. Darcy walked off; and Elizabeth remained with no very cordial feelings towards him. She told the story, however, with great spirit among her friends; for she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in any thing ridiculous. The evening altogether passed off pleasantly to the whole family. Mrs. Bennet had seen her eldest daughter much admired by the Netherfield party. Mr. Bingley had danced with her twice, and she had been distinguished by his sisters. Jane was as much gratified by this as her mother could be, though in a quieter way. Elizabeth felt Jane's pleasure. Mary had heard herself mentioned to Miss Bingley as the most accomplished girl in the neighbourhood; and Catherine and Lydia had been fortunate enough to be never without partners, which was all that they had yet learnt to care for at a ball. They returned, therefore, in good spirits to Longbourn, the village where they lived, and of which they were the principal inhabitants. They found Mr. Bennet still up. With a book, he was regardless of time; and on the present occasion he had a good deal of curiosity as to the event of an evening which had raised such splendid expectations. He had rather hoped that all his wife's views on the stranger would be disappointed; but he soon found that he had a very different story to hear. "Oh, my dear Mr. Bennet," as she entered the room, "we have had a most delightful evening, a most excellent ball. I wish you had been there. Jane was so admired, nothing could be like it. Every body said how well she looked; and Mr. Bingley thought her quite beautiful, and danced with her twice. Only think of that, my dear: he actually danced with her twice; and she was the only creature in the room that he asked a second time. First of all, he asked Miss Lucas. I was so vexed to see him stand up with her; but, however, he did not admire her at all; indeed, nobody can, you know; and he seemed quite struck with Jane as she was going down the dance. So he enquired who she was, and got introduced, and asked her for the two next. Then, the two third he danced with Miss King, and the two fourth with Maria Lucas, and the two fifth with Jane again, and the two sixth with Lizzy, and the Boulanger e—" "If he had had any compassion for me," cried her husband, impatiently, "he would not have danced half so much! For God's sake, say no more of his partners. Oh that he had sprained his ankle in the first dance!" "Oh, my dear," continued Mrs. Bennet, "I am quite delighted with him. He is so excessively handsome! and his sisters are charming women. I never in my life saw any thing more elegant than their dresses. I dare say the lace upon Mrs. Hurst's gown—" Here she was interrupted again. Mr. Bennet protested against any description of finery. She was therefore obliged to seek another branch of the subject, and related, with much bitterness of spirit and some exaggeration, the shocking rudeness of Mr. Darcy. "But I can assure you," she added, "that Lizzy does not lose much by not suiting his fancy; for he is a most disagreeable, horrid man, not at all worth pleasing. So high and so conceited, that there was no enduring him! He walked here, and he walked there, fancying himself so very great! Not handsome enough to dance with! I wish you had been there, my dear, to have given him one of your set-downs. I quite detest the man."
When Jane and Elizabeth were alone, the former, who had been cautious in her praise of Mr. Bingley before, expressed to her sister how very much she admired him. "He is just what a young man ought to be," said she, "sensible, good-humoured, lively; and I never saw such happy manners! so much ease, with such perfect good breeding!" "He is also handsome," replied Elizabeth, "which a young man ought likewise to be if he possibly can. His character is thereby complete." "I was very much flattered by his asking me to dance a second time. I did not expect such a compliment." "Did not you? I did for you. But that is one great difference between us. Compliments always take you by surprise, and me never. What could be more natural than his asking you again? He could not help seeing that you were about five times as pretty as every other woman in the room. No thanks to his gallantry for that. Well, he certainly is very agreeable, and I give you leave to like him. You have liked many a stupider person." "Dear Lizzy!" "Oh, you are a great deal too apt, you know, to like people in general. You never see a fault in any body. All the world are good and agreeable in your eyes. I never heard you speak ill of a human being in my life." "I would wish not to be hasty in censuring any one; but I always speak what I think." "I know you do; and it is that which makes the wonder. With your good sense, to be so honestly blind to the follies and nonsense of others! Affection of candour is common enough; one meets with it every where. But, to be candid without ostentation or design,—to take the good of every body's character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad,—belongs to you alone. And so, you like this man's sisters, too, do you? Their manners are not equal to his." "Certainly not, at first; but they are very pleasing women when you converse with them. Miss Bingley is to live with her brother and keep his house; and I am much mistaken if we shall not find a very charming neighbour in her." Elizabeth listened in silence, but was not convinced: their behaviour at the assembly had not been calculated to please in general; and with more quickness of observation and less pliancy of temper than her sister, and with a judgment, too, unassailed by any attention to herself, she was very little disposed to approve them. They were, in fact, very fine ladies; not deficient in good-humour when they were pleased, nor in the power of being agreeable where they chose it; but proud and conceited. They were rather handsome; had been educated in one of the first private seminaries in town; had a fortune of twenty thousand pounds; were in the habit of spending more than they ought, and of associating with people of rank; and were, therefore, in every respect entitled to think well of themselves, and meanly of others. They were of a respectable family in the north of England; a circumstance more deeply impressed on their memories than that their brother's fortune and their own had been acquired by trade. Mr. Bingley inherited property to the amount of nearly a hundred thousand pounds from his father, who had intended to purchase an estate, but did not live to do it. Mr. Bingley intended it likewise, and sometimes made choice of his county; but, as he was now provided with a good house and the liberty of a manor,f it was doubtful to many of those who best knew the easiness of his temper, whether he might not spend the remainder of his days at Netherfield, and leave the next generation to purchase. His sisters were very anxious for his having an estate of his own; but though he was now established only as a tenant, Miss Bingley was by no means unwilling to preside at his table; nor was Mrs. Hurst, who had married a man of more fashion than fortune, less disposed to consider his house as her home when it suited her. Mr. Bingley had not been of age two years when he was tempted, by an accidental recommendation, to look at Netherfield House. He did look at it, and into it, for half an hour; was pleased with the situation and the principal rooms, satisfied with what the owner said in its praise, and took it immediately. Between him and Darcy there was a very steady friendship, in spite of a great opposition of character. Bingley was endeared to Darcy by the easiness, openness, and ductility of his temper, though no disposition could offer a greater contrast to his own, and though with his own he never appeared dissatisfied. On the strength of Darcy's regard, Bingley had the firmest reliance, and of his judgment the highest opinion. In understanding, Darcy was the superior. Bingley was by no means deficient; but Darcy was clever. He was at the same time haughty, reserved, and fastidious; and his manners, though well bred, were not inviting. In that respect his friend had greatly the advantage. Bingley was sure of being liked wherever he appeared; Darcy was continually giving offence. The manner in which they spoke of the Meryton assembly was sufficiently characteristic. Bingley had never met with pleasanter people or prettier girls in his life; every body had been most kind and attentive to him; there had been no formality, no stiffness; he had soon felt acquainted with all the room; and as to Miss Bennet, he could not conceive an angel more beautiful. Darcy, on the contrary, had seen a collection of people in whom there was little beauty and no fashion, for none of whom he had felt the smallest interest, and from none received either attention or pleasure. Miss Bennet he acknowledged to be pretty; but she smiled too much. Mrs. Hurst and her sister allowed it to be so; but still they admired her and liked her, and pronounced her to be a sweet girl, and one whom they should not object to know more of. Miss Bennet was therefore established as a sweet girl; and their brother felt authorised by such commendation to think of her as he chose.
Within a short walk of Longbourn lived a family with whom the Bennets were particularly intimate. Sir William Lucas had been formerly in trade in Meryton, where he had made a tolerable fortune, and risen to the honour of knighthood by an address to the king during his mayoralty.3 The distinction had, perhaps, been felt too strongly. It had given him a disgust to his business and to his residence in a small market town; and, quitting them both, he had removed with his family to a house about a mile from Meryton, denominated from that period Lucas Lodge; where he could think with pleasure of his own importance, and, unshackled by business, occupy himself solely in being civil to all the world. For though elated by his rank, it did not render him supercilious; on the contrary, he was all attention to everybody. By nature inoffensive, friendly, and obliging, his presentation at St. James's had made him courteous. Lady Lucas was a very good kind of woman, not too clever to be a valuable neighbour to Mrs. Bennet. They had several children. The eldest of them, a sensible, intelligent young woman, about twenty-seven, was Elizabeth's intimate friend. That the Miss Lucases and the Miss Bennets should meet to talk over a ball was absolutely necessary; and the morning after the assembly brought the former to Longbourn to hear and to communicate. "You began the evening well, Charlotte," said Mrs. Bennet, with civil self-command, to Miss Lucas. "You were Mr. Bingley's first choice." "Yes; but he seemed to like his second better." "Oh, you mean Jane, I suppose, because he danced with her twice. To be sure that did seem as if he admired her— indeed, I rather believe he did—I heard something about it—but I hardly know what—something about Mr. Robinson." "Perhaps you mean what I overheard between him and Mr. Robinson: did not I mention it to you? Mr. Robinson's asking him how he liked our Meryton assemblies, and whether he did not think there were a great many pretty women in the room, and which he thought the prettiest? and his answering immediately to the last question, Oh, the eldest Miss Bennet, beyond a doubt: there cannot be two opinions on that point." "Upon my word! Well, that was very decided, indeed—that does seem as if—but, however, it may all come to nothing, you know." "My overhearings were more to the purpose than yours, Eliza," said Charlotte. "Mr. Darcy is not so well worth listening to as his friend, is he? Poor Eliza! to be only just tolerable." "I beg you will not put it into Lizzy's head to be vexed by his ill-treatment, for he is such a disagreeable man that it would be quite a misfortune to be liked by him. Mrs. Long told me last night that he sat close to her for half an hour without once opening his lips." "Are you quite sure, ma'am? Is not there a little mistake?" said Jane. "I certainly saw Mr. Darcy speaking to her." "Ay, because she asked him at last how he liked Netherfield, and he could not help answering her; but she said he seemed very angry at being spoke to." "Miss Bingley told me," said Jane, "that he never speaks much unless among his intimate acquaintance. With them he is remarkably agreeable." "I do not believe a word of it, my dear. If he had been so very agreeable, he would have talked to Mrs. Long. But I can guess how it was; every body says that he is ate up with pride, and I dare say he had heard somehow that Mrs. Long does not keep a carriage, and had come to the ball in a hack chaise."g "I do not mind his not talking to Mrs. Long," said Miss Lucas, "but I wish he had danced with Eliza." "Another time, Lizzy," said her mother, "I would not dance with him, if I were you." "I believe, ma'am, I may safely promise you never to dance with him." "His pride," said Miss Lucas, "does not offend me so much as pride often does, because there is an excuse for it. One cannot wonder that so very fine a young man with family, fortune, every thing in his favour, should think highly of himself. If I may so express it, he has a right to be proud." "That is very true," replied Elizabeth, "and I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine." "Pride," observed Mary, who piqued herself upon the solidity of her reflections, "is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed, that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or other, real or imaginary. Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity to what we would have others think of us." "If I were as rich as Mr. Darcy," cried a young Lucas, who came with his sisters, "I should not care how proud I was. I would keep a pack of foxhounds, and drink a bottle of wine every day." "Then you would drink a great deal more than you ought," said Mrs. Bennet; "and if I were to see you at it, I should take away your bottle directly." The boy protested that she should not; she continued to declare that she would, and the argument ended only with the visit.
The ladies of Longbourn soon waited on those of Netherfield. The visit was returned in due form. Miss Bennet's pleasing manners grew on the good-will of Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley; and though the mother was found to be intolerable, and the younger sisters not worth speaking to, a wish of being better acquainted with them was expressed towards the two eldest. By Jane this attention was received with the greatest pleasure; but Elizabeth still saw superciliousness in their treatment of every body, hardly excepting even her sister, and could not like them; though their kindness to Jane, such as it was, had a value, as arising, in all probability, from the influence of their brother's admiration. It was generally evident, whenever they met, that he did admire her; and to her it was equally evident that Jane was yielding to the preference which she had begun to entertain for him from the first, and was in a way to be very much in love; but she considered with pleasure that it was not likely to be discovered by the world in general, since Jane united with great strength of feeling, a composure of temper and an uniform cheerfulness of manner, which would guard her from the suspicions of the impertinent. She mentioned this to her friend, Miss Lucas. "It may, perhaps, be pleasant," replied Charlotte, "to be able to impose on the public in such a case; but it is sometimes a disadvantage to be so very guarded. If a woman conceals her affection with the same skill from the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him; and it will then be but poor consolation to believe the world equally in the dark. There is so much of gratitude or vanity in almost every attachment, that it is not safe to leave any to itself. We can all begin freely—a slight preference is natural enough; but there are very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement. In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels. Bingley likes your sister undoubtedly; but he may never do more than like her, if she does not help him on." "But she does help him on, as much as her nature will allow. If I can perceive her regard for him, he must be a simpleton, indeed, not to discover it too." "Remember, Eliza, that he does not know Jane's disposition as you do." "But if a woman is partial to a man, and does not endeavour to conceal it, he must find it out." "Perhaps he must, if he sees enough of her. But though Bingley and Jane meet tolerably often, it is never for many hours together; and as they always see each other in large mixed parties, it is impossible that every moment should be employed in conversing together. Jane should therefore make the most of every half hour in which she can command his attention. When she is secure of him, there will be leisure for falling in love as much as she chooses." "Your plan is a good one," replied Elizabeth, "where nothing is in question but the desire of being well married; and if I were determined to get a rich husband, or any husband, I dare say I should adopt it. But these are not Jane's feelings; she is not acting by design. As yet she cannot even be certain of the degree of her own regard, nor of its reasonableness. She has known him only a fortnight. She danced four dances with him at Meryton; she saw him one morning at his own house, and has since dined in company with him four times. This is not quite enough to make her understand his character." "Not as you represent it. Had she merely dined with him, she might only have discovered whether he had a good appetite; but you must remember that four evenings have been also spent together—and four evenings may do a great deal." "Yes: these four evenings have enabled them to ascertain that they both like Vingt-un better than Commerce;h but with respect to any other leading characteristic, I do not imagine that much has been unfolded." "Well," said Charlotte, "I wish Jane success with all my heart; and if she were married to him to-morrow, I should think she had as good a chance of happiness as if she were to be studying his character for a twelvemonth. Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other, or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life." "You make me laugh, Charlotte; but it is not sound. You know it is not sound, and that you would never act in this way yourself." Occupied in observing Mr. Bingley's attentions to her sister, Elizabeth was far from suspecting that she was herself becoming an object of some interest in the eyes of his friend. Mr. Darcy had at first scarcely allowed her to be pretty: he had looked at her without admiration at the ball; and when they next met, he looked at her only to criticise. But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she had hardly a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though he had detected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness. Of this she was perfectly unaware: to her he was only the man who made himself agreeable nowhere, and who had not thought her handsome enough to dance with. He began to wish to know more of her; and, as a step towards conversing with her himself, attended to her conversation with others. His doing so drew her notice. It was at Sir William Lucas's, where a large party were assembled. "What does Mr. Darcy mean," said she to Charlotte, "by listening to my conversation with Colonel Forster?" "That is a question which Mr. Darcy only can answer." "But if he does it any more, I shall certainly let him know that I see what he is about. He has a very satirical eye, and if I do not begin by being impertinent myself, I shall soon grow afraid of him." On his approaching them soon afterwards, though without seeming to have any intention of speaking, Miss Lucas defied her friend to mention such a subject to him, which immediately provoking Elizabeth to do it, she turned to him and said,— "Did not you think, Mr. Darcy, that I expressed myself uncommonly well just now, when I was teasing Colonel Forster to give us a ball at Meryton?" "With great energy; but it is a subject which always makes a lady energetic." "You are severe on us." "It will be her turn soon to be teased," said Miss Lucas. "I am going to open the instrument, Eliza, and you know what follows." "You are a very strange creature by way of a friend!—always wanting me to play and sing before any body and every body! If my vanity had taken a musical turn, you would have been invaluable; but as it is, I would really rather not sit down before those who must be in the habit of hearing the very best performers." On Miss Lucas's persevering, however, she added, "Very well; if it must be so, it must." And gravely glancing at Mr. Darcy, "There is a very fine old saying, which every body here is of course familiar with—'Keep your breath to cool your porridge,'—and I shall keep mine to swell my song." Her performance was pleasing, though by no means capital. After a song or two, and before she could reply to the entreaties of several that she would sing again, she was eagerly succeeded at the instrument by her sister Mary, who having, in consequence of being the only plain one in the family, worked hard for knowledge and accomplishments, was always impatient for display. Mary had neither genius nor taste; and though vanity had given her application, it had given her likewise a pedantic air and conceited manner, which would have injured a higher degree of excellence than she had reached. Elizabeth, easy and unaffected, had been listened to with much more pleasure, though not playing half so well; and Mary, at the end of a long concerto, was glad to purchase praise and gratitude by Scotch and Irish airs, at the request of her younger sisters, who, with some of the Lucases, and two or three officers, joined eagerly in dancing at one end of the room. Mr. Darcy stood near them in silent indignation at such a mode of passing the evening, to the exclusion of all conversation, and was too much engrossed by his own thoughts to perceive that Sir William Lucas was his neighbour, till Sir William thus began:— "What a charming amusement for young people this is, Mr. Darcy! There is nothing like dancing, after all. I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished societies." "Certainly, sir; and it has the advantage also of being in vogue amongst the less polished societies of the world: every savage can dance." Sir William only smiled. "Your friend performs delightfully," he continued, after a pause, on seeing Bingley join the group; "and I doubt not that you are an adept in the science yourself, Mr. Darcy." "You saw me dance at Meryton, I believe, sir." "Yes, indeed, and received no inconsiderable pleasure from the sight. Do you often dance at St. James's?" "Never, sir." "Do you not think it would be a proper compliment to the place?" "It is a compliment which I never pay to any place if I can avoid it." "You have a house in town, I conclude." Mr. Darcy bowed. "I had once some thoughts of fixing in town myself, for I am fond of superior society; but I did not feel quite certain that the air of London would agree with Lady Lucas." He paused in hopes of an answer: but his companion was not disposed to make any; and Elizabeth at that instant moving towards them, he was struck with the notion of doing a very gallant thing, and called out to her,— "My dear Miss Eliza, why are not you dancing? Mr. Darcy, you must allow me to present this young lady to you as a very desirable partner. You cannot refuse to dance, I am sure, when so much beauty is before you." And, taking her hand, he would have given it to Mr. Darcy, who, though extremely surprised, was not unwilling to receive it, when she instantly drew back, and said with some discomposure to Sir William,— "Indeed, sir, I have not the least intention of dancing. I entreat you not to suppose that I moved this way in order to beg for a partner." Mr. Darcy, with grave propriety, requested to be allowed the honour of her hand, but in vain. Elizabeth was determined; nor did Sir William at all shake her purpose by his attempt at persuasion. "You excel so much in the dance, Miss Eliza, that it is cruel to deny me the happiness of seeing you; and though this gentleman dislikes the amusement in general, he can have no objection, I am sure, to oblige us for one half hour." "Mr. Darcy is all politeness," said Elizabeth, smiling. "He is, indeed: but, considering the inducement, my dear Miss Eliza, we cannot wonder at his complaisance; for who would object to such a partner?" Elizabeth looked archly, and turned away. Her resistance had not injured her with the gentleman, and he was thinking of her with some complacency, when thus accosted by Miss Bingley,— "I can guess the subject of your reverie." "I should imagine not." "You are considering how insupportable it would be to pass many evenings in this manner,—in such society; and, indeed, I am quite of your opinion. I was never more annoyed! The insipidity, and yet the noise;—the nothingness, and yet the self-importance of all these people! What would I give to hear your strictures on them!" "Your conjecture is totally wrong, I assure you. My mind was more agreeably engaged. I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow." Miss Bingley immediately fixed her eyes on his face, and desired he would tell her what lady had the credit of inspiring such reflections. Mr. Darcy replied with great intrepidity,— "Miss Elizabeth Bennet." "Miss Elizabeth Bennet!" repeated Miss Bingley. "I am all astonishment. How long has she been such a favourite? and pray when am I to wish you joy?" "That is exactly the question which I expected you to ask. A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment. I knew you would be wishing me joy." "Nay, if you are so serious about it, I shall consider the matter as absolutely settled. You will have a charming mother-in-law, indeed, and of course she will be always at Pemberley with you." He listened to her with perfect indifference, while she chose to entertain herself in this manner; and as his composure convinced her that all was safe, her wit flowed long.
Mr. Bennet's property consisted almost entirely in an estate of two thousand a year, which, unfortunately for his daughters, was entailed, in default of heirs male, on a distant relation;4 and their mother's fortune, though ample for her situation in life, could but ill supply the deficiency of his. Her father had been an attorney in Meryton, and had left her four thousand pounds. She had a sister married to a Mr. Philips, who had been a clerk to their father, and succeeded him in the business, and a brother settled in London in a respectable line of trade. The village of Longbourn was only one mile from Meryton; a most convenient distance for the young ladies, who were usually tempted thither three or four times a week, to pay their duty to their aunt, and to a milliner's shopi just over the way. The two youngest of the family, Catherine and Lydia, were particularly frequent in these attentions: their minds were more vacant than their sisters', and when nothing better offered, a walk to Meryton was necessary to amuse their morning hours and furnish conversation for the evening; and, however bare of news the country in general might be, they always contrived to learn some from their aunt. At present, indeed, they were well supplied both with news and happiness by the recent arrival of a militiaj regiment in the neighbourhood; it was to remain the whole winter, and Meryton was the head-quarters. Their visits to Mrs. Philips were now productive of the most interesting intelligence. Every day added something to their knowledge of the officers' names and connections. Their lodgings were not long a secret, and at length they began to know the officers themselves. Mr. Philips visited them all, and this opened to his nieces a source of felicity unknown before. They could talk of nothing but officers; and Mr. Bingley's large fortune, the mention of which gave animation to their mother, was worthless in their eyes when opposed to the regimentals of an ensign.k After listening one morning to their effusions on this subject, Mr. Bennet coolly observed,— "From all that I can collect by your manner of talking, you must be two of the silliest girls in the country. I have suspected it some time, but I am now convinced." Catherine was disconcerted, and made no answer; but Lydia, with perfect indifference, continued to express her admiration of Captain Carter, and her hope of seeing him in the course of the day, as he was going the next morning to London. "I am astonished, my dear," said Mrs. Bennet, "that you should be so ready to think your own children silly. If I wished to think slightingly of any body's children, it should not be of my own, however." "If my children are silly, I must hope to be always sensible of it." "Yes; but as it happens, they are all of them very clever." "This is the only point, I flatter myself, on which we do not agree. I had hoped that our sentiments coincided in every particular, but I must so far differ from you as to think our two youngest daughters uncommonly foolish." "My dear Mr. Bennet, you must not expect such girls to have the sense of their father and mother. When they get to our age, I dare say they will not think about officers any more than we do. I remember the time when I liked a red coat myself very well—and, indeed, so I do still at my heart; and if a smart young colonel, with five or six thousand a year, should want one of my girls, I shall not say nay to him; and I thought Colonel Forster looked very becoming the other night at Sir William's in his regimentals." "Mamma," cried Lydia, "my aunt says that Colonel Forster and Captain Carter do not go so often to Miss Watson's as they did when they first came; she sees them now very often standing in Clarke's library."l Mrs. Bennet was prevented replying by the entrance of the footman with a note for Miss Bennet; it came from Netherfield, and the servant waited for an answer. Mrs. Bennet's eyes sparkled with pleasure, and she was eagerly calling out, while her daughter read,— "Well, Jane, who is it from? What is it about? What does he say? Well, Jane, make haste and tell us; make haste, my love." "It is from Miss Bingley," said Jane, and then read it aloud.
If you are not so compassionate as to dine to-day with Louisa and me, we shall be in danger of hating each other for the rest of our lives; for a whole day's tête-à-tête between two women can never end without a quarrel. Come as soon as you can on the receipt of this. My brother and the gentlemen are to dine with the officers. Yours ever,
"With the officers!" cried Lydia: "I wonder my aunt did not tell us of that." "Dining out," said Mrs. Bennet; "that is very unlucky." "Can I have the carriage?" said Jane. "No, my dear, you had better go on horseback, because it seems likely to rain; and then you must stay all night." "That would be a good scheme," said Elizabeth, "if you were sure that they would not offer to send her home." "Oh, but the gentlemen will have Mr. Bingley's chaise to go to Meryton; and the Hursts have no horses to theirs." "I had much rather go in the coach." "But, my dear, your father cannot spare the horses, I am sure. They are wanted in the farm, Mr. Bennet, are not they?" "They are wanted in the farm much oftener than I can get them." "But if you have got them to-day," said Elizabeth, "my mother's purpose will be answered." She did at last extort from her father an acknowledgment that the horses were engaged; Jane was therefore obliged to go on horseback, and her mother attended her to the door with many cheerful prognostics of a bad day. Her hopes were answered; Jane had not been gone long before it rained hard. Her sisters were uneasy for her, but her mother was delighted. The rain continued the whole evening without intermission; Jane certainly could not come back. "This was a lucky idea of mine, indeed!" said Mrs. Bennet, more than once, as if the credit of making it rain were all her own. Till the next morning, however, she was not aware of all the felicity of her contrivance. Breakfast was scarcely over when a servant from Netherfield brought the following note for Elizabeth:—
I find myself very unwell this morning, which, I suppose, is to be imputed to my getting wet through yesterday. My kind friends will not hear of my returning home till I am better. They insist also on my seeing Mr. Jones—therefore do not be alarmed if you should hear of his having been to me—and, excepting a sore-throat and headache, there is not much the matter with me.
"Well, my dear," said Mr. Bennet, when Elizabeth had read the note aloud, "if your daughter should have a dangerous fit of illness, if she should die, it would be a comfort to know that it was all in pursuit of Mr. Bingley, and under your orders." "Oh, I am not at all afraid of her dying. People do not die of little trifling colds. She will be taken good care of. As long as she stays there, it is all very well. I would go and see her, if I could have the carriage." Elizabeth, feeling really anxious, was determined to go to her, though the carriage was not to be had; and as she was no horsewoman, walking was her only alternative. She declared her resolution. "How can you be so silly," cried her mother, "as to think of such a thing, in all this dirt! You will not be fit to be seen when you get there." "I shall be very fit to see Jane—which is all I want." "Is this a hint to me, Lizzy," said her father, "to send for the horses?" "No, indeed. I do not wish to avoid the walk. The distance is nothing, when one has a motive; only three miles. I shall be back by dinner." "I admire the activity of your benevolence," observed Mary, "but every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and, in my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion to what is required." "We will go as far as Meryton with you," said Catherine and Lydia. Elizabeth accepted their company, and the three young ladies set off together. "If we make haste," said Lydia, as they walked along, "perhaps we may see something of Captain Carter before he goes." In Meryton they parted: the two youngest repaired to the lodgings of one of the officers' wives, and Elizabeth continued her walk alone, crossing field after field at a quick pace, jumping over stiles and springing over puddles with impatient activity, and finding herself at last within view of the house, with weary ankles, dirty stockings, and a face glowing with the warmth of exercise. She was shown into the breakfast-parlour, where all but Jane were assembled, and where her appearance created a great deal of surprise. That she should have walked three miles so early in the day, in such dirty weather, and by herself, was almost incredible to Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley; and Elizabeth was convinced that they held her in contempt for it. She was received, however, very politely by them; and in their brother's manners there was something better than politeness; there was good-humour and kindness. Mr. Darcy said very little, and Mr. Hurst nothing at all. The former was divided between admiration of the brilliancy which exercise had given to her complexion, and doubt as to the occasion's justifying her coming so far alone. The latter was thinking only of his breakfast. Her enquiries after her sister were not very favourably answered. Miss Bennet had slept ill, and though up, was very feverish, and not well enough to leave her room. Elizabeth was glad to be taken to her immediately; and Jane, who had only been withheld by the fear of giving alarm or inconvenience, from expressing in her note how much she longed for such a visit, was delighted at her entrance. She was not equal, however, to much conversation; and when Miss Bingley left them together, could attempt little beside expressions of gratitude for the extraordinary kindness she was treated with. Elizabeth silently attended her. When breakfast was over, they were joined by the sisters; and Elizabeth began to like them herself, when she saw how much affection and solicitude they showed for Jane. The apothecarym came; and having examined his patient, said, as might be supposed, that she had caught a violent cold, and that they must endeavour to get the better of it; advised her to return to bed, and promised her some draughts. The advice was followed readily, for the feverish symptoms increased, and her head ached acutely. Elizabeth did not quit her room for a moment, nor were the other ladies often absent; the gentlemen being out, they had in fact nothing to do elsewhere. When the clock struck three, Elizabeth felt that she must go; and very unwillingly said so. Miss Bingley offered her the carriage, and she only wanted a little pressing to accept it, when Jane testified such concern in parting with her, that Miss Bingley was obliged to convert the offer of the chaise into an invitation to remain at Netherfield for the present. Elizabeth most thankfully consented, and a servant was despatched to Longbourn, to acquaint the family with her stay, and bring back a supply of clothes.
At five o'clock the two ladies retired to dress, and at half past six Elizabeth was summoned to dinner. To the civil enquiries which then poured in, and amongst which she had the pleasure of distinguishing the much superior solicitude of Mr. Bingley's, she could not make a very favourable answer. Jane was by no means better. The sisters, on hearing this, repeated three or four times how much they were grieved, how shocking it was to have a bad cold, and how excessively they disliked being ill themselves; and then thought no more of the matter: and their indifference towards Jane, when not immediately before them, restored Elizabeth to the enjoyment of all her original dislike. Their brother, indeed, was the only one of the party whom she could regard with any complacency. His anxiety for Jane was evident, and his attentions to herself most pleasing; and they prevented her feeling herself so much an intruder as she believed she was considered by the others. She had very little notice from any but him. Miss Bingley was engrossed by Mr. Darcy, her sister scarcely less so; and as for Mr. Hurst, by whom Elizabeth sat, he was an indolent man, who lived only to eat, drink, and play at cards, who, when he found her prefer a plain dish to a ragout,n had nothing to say to her. When dinner was over, she returned directly to Jane, and Miss Bingley began abusing her as soon as she was out of the room. Her manners were pronounced to be very bad indeed, —a mixture of pride and impertinence: she had no conversation, no style, no taste, no beauty. Mrs. Hurst thought the same, and added,— "She has nothing, in short, to recommend her, but being an excellent walker. I shall never forget her appearance this morning. She really looked almost wild." "She did indeed, Louisa. I could hardly keep my countenance. Very nonsensical to come at all! Why must she be scampering about the country, because her sister had a cold? Her hair so untidy, so blowzy!" "Yes, and her petticoat; I hope you saw her petticoat, six inches deep in mud, I am absolutely certain; and the gown which had been let down to hide it not doing its office." "Your picture may be very exact, Louisa," said Bingley; "but this was all lost upon me. I thought Miss Elizabeth Bennet looked remarkably well when she came into the room this morning. Her dirty petticoat quite escaped my notice." "You observed it, Mr. Darcy, I am sure," said Miss Bingley; "and I am inclined to think that you would not wish to see your sister make such an exhibition." "Certainly not." "To walk three miles, or four miles, or five miles, or whatever it is, above her ankles in dirt, and alone, quite alone! what could she mean by it? It seems to me to show an abominable sort of conceited independence, a most country-town indifference to decorum." "It shows an affection for her sister that is very pleasing," said Bingley. "I am afraid, Mr. Darcy," observed Miss Bingley, in a half whisper, "that this adventure has rather affected your admiration of her fine eyes." "Not at all," he replied: "they were brightened by the exercise." A short pause followed this speech, and Mrs. Hurst began again,— "I have an excessive regard for Jane Bennet,—she is really a very sweet girl,—and I wish with all my heart she were well settled. But with such a father and mother, and such low connections, I am afraid there is no chance of it." "I think I have heard you say that their uncle is an attorney in Meryton." "Yes; and they have another, who lives somewhere near Cheapside."o "That is capital," added her sister; and they both laughed heartily. "If they had uncles enough to fill all Cheapside," cried Bingley, "it would not make them one jot less agreeable." "But it must very materially lessen their chance of marrying men of any consideration in the world," replied Darcy. To this speech Bingley made no answer; but his sisters gave it their hearty assent, and indulged their mirth for some time at the expense of their dear friend's vulgar relations. With a renewal of tenderness, however, they repaired to her room on leaving the dining-parlour, and sat with her till summoned to coffee. She was still very poorly, and Elizabeth would not quit her at all, till late in the evening, when she had the comfort of seeing her asleep, and when it appeared to her rather right than pleasant that she should go down stairs herself. On entering the drawing-room, she found the whole party at loo,p and was immediately invited to join them; but suspecting them to be playing high, she declined it, and making her sister the excuse, said she would amuse herself, for the short time she could stay below, with a book. Mr. Hurst looked at her with astonishment. "Do you prefer reading to cards?" said he; "that is rather singular." "Miss Eliza Bennet," said Miss Bingley, "despises cards. She is a great reader, and has no pleasure in any thing else." "I deserve neither such praise nor such censure," cried Elizabeth; "I am not a great reader, and I have pleasure in many things." "In nursing your sister I am sure you have pleasure," said Bingley; "and I hope it will soon be increased by seeing her quite well." Elizabeth thanked him from her heart, and then walked towards a table where a few books were lying. He immediately offered to fetch her others; all that his library afforded. "And I wish my collection were larger for your benefit and my own credit; but I am an idle fellow; and though I have not many, I have more than I ever look into." Elizabeth assured him that she could suit herself perfectly with those in the room. "I am astonished," said Miss Bingley, "that my father should have left so small a collection of books. What a delightful library you have at Pemberley, Mr. Darcy!" "It ought to be good," he replied: "it has been the work of many generations." "And then you have added so much to it yourself—you are always buying books." "I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these." "Neglect! I am sure you neglect nothing that can add to the beauties of that noble place. Charles, when you build your house, I wish it may be half as delightful as Pemberley." "I wish it may." "But I would really advise you to make your purchase in that neighbourhood, and take Pemberley for a kind of model. There is not a finer county in England than Derbyshire." "With all my heart: I will buy Pemberley itself, if Darcy will sell it." "I am talking of possibilities, Charles." "Upon my word, Caroline, I should think it more possible to get Pemberley by purchase than by imitation." Elizabeth was so much caught by what passed, as to leave her very little attention for her book; and soon laying it wholly aside, she drew near the card-table, and stationed herself between Mr. Bingley and his eldest sister, to observe the game. "Is Miss Darcy much grown since the spring?" said Miss Bingley: "will she be as tall as I am?" "I think she will. She is now about Miss Elizabeth Bennet's height, or rather taller." "How I long to see her again! I never met with any body who delighted me so much. Such a countenance, such manners, and so extremely accomplished for her age. Her performance on the piano-forte is exquisite." "It is amazing to me," said Bingley, "how young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are." "All young ladies accomplished! My dear Charles, what do you mean?" "Yes, all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover screens, and net purses.q I scarcely know any one who cannot do all this; and I am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time, without being informed that she was very accomplished." "Your list of the common extent of accomplishments," said Darcy, "has too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no otherwise than by netting a purse or covering a screen; but I am very far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I cannot boast of knowing more than half a dozen in the whole range of my acquaintance that are really accomplished." "Nor I, I am sure," said Miss Bingley. "Then," observed Elizabeth, "you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman." "Yes; I do comprehend a great deal in it." "Oh, certainly," cried his faithful assistant, "no one can be really esteemed accomplished, who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and, besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved." "All this she must possess," added Darcy; "and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading." "I am no longer surprised at your knowing only six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing any." "Are you so severe upon your own sex, as to doubt the possibility of all this?" "I never saw such a woman. I never saw such capacity, and taste, and application, and elegance, as you describe, united." Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley both cried out against the injustice of her implied doubt, and were both protesting that they knew many women who answered this description, when Mr. Hurst called them to order, with bitter complaints of their inattention to what was going forward. As all conversation was thereby at an end, Elizabeth soon afterwards left the room. "Eliza Bennet," said Miss Bingley, when the door was closed on her, "is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the other sex by undervaluing their own; and with many men, I dare say, it succeeds: but, in my opinion, it is a paltry device, a very mean art." "Undoubtedly," replied Darcy, to whom this remark was chiefly addressed, "there is meanness in all the arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation. Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable." Miss Bingley was not so entirely satisfied with this reply as to continue the subject. Elizabeth joined them again only to say that her sister was worse, and that she could not leave her. Bingley urged Mr. Jones's being sent for immediately; while his sisters, convinced that no country advice could be of any service, recommended an express to town for one of the most eminent physicians. This she would not hear of; but she was not so unwilling to comply with their brother's proposal; and it was settled that Mr. Jones should be sent for early in the morning, if Miss Bennet were not decidedly better. Bingley was quite uncomfortable: his sisters declared that they were miserable. They solaced their wretchedness, however, by duets after supper, while he could find no better relief to his feelings than by giving his housekeeper directions that every possible attention might be paid to the sick lady and her sister.
Elizabeth passed the chief of the night in her sister's room, and in the morning had the pleasure of being able to send a tolerable answer to the enquiries which she very early received from Mr. Bingley by a housemaid, and some time afterwards from the two elegant ladies who waited on his sisters. In spite of this amendment, however, she requested to have a note sent to Longbourn, desiring her mother to visit Jane, and form her own judgment of her situation. The note was immediately despatched, and its contents as quickly complied with. Mrs. Bennet, accompanied by her two youngest girls, reached Netherfield soon after the family breakfast. Had she found Jane in any apparent danger, Mrs. Bennet would have been very miserable; but being satisfied on seeing her that her illness was not alarming, she had no wish of her recovering immediately, as her restoration to health would probably remove her from Netherfield. She would not listen, therefore, to her daughter's proposal of being carried home; neither did the apothecary, who arrived about the same time, think it at all advisable. After sitting a little while with Jane, on Miss Bingley's appearance and invitation, the mother and three daughters all attended her into the breakfast parlour. Bingley met them with hopes that Mrs. Bennet had not found Miss Bennet worse than she expected. "Indeed I have, sir," was her answer. "She is a great deal too ill to be moved. Mr. Jones says we must not think of moving her. We must trespass a little longer on your kindness." "Removed!" cried Bingley. "It must not be thought of. My sister, I am sure, will not hear of her removal." "You may depend upon it, madam," said Miss Bingley with cold civility, "that Miss Bennet shall receive every possible attention while she remains with us." Mrs. Bennet was profuse in her acknowledgments. "I am sure," she added, "if it was not for such good friends, I do not know what would become of her, for she is very ill indeed, and suffers a vast deal, though with the greatest patience in the world, which is always the way with her, for she has, without exception, the sweetest temper I ever met with. I often tell my other girls they are nothing to her. You have a sweet room here, Mr. Bingley, and a charming prospect over that gravel walk. I do not know a place in the country that is equal to Netherfield. You will not think of quitting it in a hurry, I hope, though you have but a short lease." "Whatever I do is done in a hurry," replied he; "and therefore if I should resolve to quit Netherfield, I should probably be off in five minutes. At present, however, I consider myself as quite fixed here." "That is exactly what I should have supposed of you," said Elizabeth. "You begin to comprehend me, do you?" cried he, turning towards her. "Oh yes—I understand you perfectly." "I wish I might take this for a compliment; but to be so easily seen through, I am afraid, is pitiful." "That is as it happens. It does not necessarily follow that a deep, intricate character is more or less estimable than such a one as yours." "Lizzy," cried her mother, "remember where you are, and do not run on in the wild manner that you are suffered to do at home." "I did not know before," continued Bingley, immediately, "that you were a studier of character. It must be an amusing study." "Yes; but intricate characters are the most amusing. They have at least that advantage." "The country," said Darcy, "can in general supply but few subjects for such a study. In a country neighbourhood you move in a very confined and unvarying society." "But people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them for ever." "Yes, indeed," cried Mrs. Bennet, offended by his manner of mentioning a country neighbourhood. "I assure you there is quite as much of that going on in the country as in town." Every body was surprised; and Darcy, after looking at her for a moment, turned silently away. Mrs. Bennet, who fancied she had gained a complete victory over him, continued her triumph,— "I cannot see that London has any great advantage over the country, for my part, except the shops and public places. The country is a vast deal pleasanter, is not it, Mr. Bingley?" "When I am in the country," he replied, "I never wish to leave it; and when I am in town, it is pretty much the same. They have each their advantages, and I can be equally happy in either." "Ay, that is because you have the right disposition. But that gentleman," looking at Darcy, "seemed to think the country was nothing at all." "Indeed, mamma, you are mistaken," said Elizabeth, blushing for her mother. "You quite mistook Mr. Darcy. He only meant that there was not such a variety of people to be met with in the country as in town, which you must acknowledge to be true." "Certainly, my dear, nobody said there were; but as to not meeting with many people in this neighbourhood, I believe there are few neighbourhoods larger. I know we dine with four-and-twenty families." Nothing but concern for Elizabeth could enable Bingley to keep his countenance. His sister was less delicate, and directed her eye towards Mr. Darcy with a very expressive smile. Elizabeth, for the sake of saying something that might turn her mother's thoughts, now asked her if Charlotte Lucas had been at Longbourn since her coming away. "Yes, she called yesterday with her father. What an agreeable man Sir William is, Mr. Bingley—is not he? so much the man of fashion! so genteel and so easy! He has always something to say to every body. That is my idea of good-breeding; and those persons who fancy themselves very important and never open their mouths quite mistake the matter." "Did Charlotte dine with you?" "No, she would go home. I fancy she was wanted about the mince-pies. For my part, Mr. Bingley, I always keep servants that can do their own work; my daughters are brought up differently. But every body is to judge for themselves, and the Lucases are a very good sort of girls, I assure you. It is a pity they are not handsome! Not that I think Charlotte so very plain; but then she is our particular friend." "She seems a very pleasant young woman," said Bingley. "Oh dear, yes; but you must own she is very plain. Lady Lucas herself has often said so, and envied me Jane's beauty. I do not like to boast of my own child, but to be sure, Jane—one does not often see any body better looking. It is what every body says. I do not trust my own partiality. When she was only fifteen there was a gentleman at my brother Gardiner's in town so much in love with her, that my sister-in-law was sure he would make her an offer before we came away. But, however, he did not. Perhaps he thought her too young. However, he wrote some verses on her, and very pretty they were." "And so ended his affection," said Elizabeth, impatiently. "There has been many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way. I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!" "I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love,"5 said Darcy. "Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Every thing nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away." Darcy only smiled; and the general pause which ensued made Elizabeth tremble lest her mother should be exposing herself again. She longed to speak, but could think of nothing to say; and after a short silence Mrs. Bennet began repeating her thanks to Mr. Bingley for his kindness to Jane, with an apology for troubling him also with Lizzy. Mr. Bingley was unaffectedly civil in his answer, and forced his younger sister to be civil also, and say what the occasion required. She performed her part, indeed, without much graciousness, but Mrs. Bennet was satisfied, and soon afterwards ordered her carriage. Upon this signal, the youngest of her daughters put herself forward. The two girls had been whispering to each other during the whole visit; and the result of it was, that the youngest should tax Mr. Bingley with having promised on his first coming into the country to give a ball at Netherfield. Lydia was a stout, well-grown girl of fifteen, with a fine complexion and goodhumoured countenance; a favourite with her mother, whose affection had brought her into public at an early age. She had high animal spirits, and a sort of natural self-consequence, which the attentions of the officers, to whom her uncle's good dinners and her own easy manners recommended her, had increased into assurance. She was very equal, therefore, to address Mr. Bingley on the subject of the ball, and abruptly reminded him of his promise; adding, that it would be the most shameful thing in the world if he did not keep it. His answer to this sudden attack was delightful to her mother's ear. "I am perfectly ready, I assure you, to keep my engagement; and, when your sister is recovered, you shall, if you please, name the very day of the ball. But you would not wish to be dancing while she is ill." Lydia declared herself satisfied. "Oh yes—it would be much better to wait till Jane was well; and by that time, most likely, Captain Carter would be at Meryton again. And when you have given your ball," she added, "I shall insist on their giving one also. I shall tell Colonel Forster it will be quite a shame if he does not." Mrs. Bennet and her daughters then departed, and Elizabeth returned instantly to Jane, leaving her own and her relations' behaviour to the remarks of the two ladies and Mr. Darcy; the latter of whom, however, could not be prevailed on to join in their censure of her, in spite of all Miss Bingley's witticisms on fine eyes.
The day passed much as the day before had done. Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley had spent some hours of the morning with the invalid, who continued, though slowly, to mend; and, in the evening, Elizabeth joined their party in the drawing-room. The loo table, however, did not appear. Mr. Darcy was writing, and Miss Bingley, seated near him, was watching the progress of his letter, and repeatedly calling off his attention by messages to his sister. Mr. Hurst and Mr. Bingley were at piquet,r and Mrs. Hurst was observing their game. Elizabeth took up some needlework, and was sufficiently amused in attending to what passed between Darcy and his companion. The perpetual commendations of the lady either on his hand-writing, or on the evenness of his lines, or on the length of his letter, with the perfect unconcern with which her praises were received, formed a curious dialogue, and was exactly in unison with her opinion of each. "How delighted Miss Darcy will be to receive such a letter!" He made no answer. "You write uncommonly fast." "You are mistaken. I write rather slowly." "How many letters you must have occasion to write in the course of a year! Letters of business, too! How odious I should think them!" "It is fortunate, then, that they fall to my lot instead of to yours." "Pray tell your sister that I long to see her." "I have already told her so once, by your desire." "I am afraid you do not like your pen. Let me mend it for you. I mend pens remarkably well." "Thank you—but I always mend my own." "How can you contrive to write so even?" He was silent. "Tell your sister I am delighted to hear of her improvement on the harp, and pray let her know that I am quite in raptures with her beautiful little design for a table, and I think it infinitely superior to Miss Grantley's." "Will you give me leave to defer your raptures till I write again? At present I have not room to do them justice." "Oh, it is of no consequence. I shall see her in January. But do you always write such charming long letters to her, Mr. Darcy?" "They are generally long; but whether always charming, it is not for me to determine." "It is a rule with me, that a person who can write a long letter with ease cannot write ill." "That will not do for a compliment to Darcy, Caroline," cried her brother, "because he does not write with ease. He studies too much for words of four syllables. Do not you, Darcy?" "My style of writing is very different from yours." "Oh," cried Miss Bingley, "Charles writes in the most careless way imaginable. He leaves out half his words, and blots the rest." "My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them; by which means my letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents." "Your humility, Mr. Bingley," said Elizabeth, "must disarm reproof." "Nothing is more deceitful," said Darcy, "than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast." "And which of the two do you call my little recent piece of modesty?" "The indirect boast; for you are really proud of your defects in writing, because you consider them as proceeding from a rapidity of thought and carelessness of execution, which, if not estimable, you think at least highly interesting. The power of doing any thing with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance. When you told Mrs. Bennet this morning, that if you ever resolved on quitting Netherfield you should be gone in five minutes, you meant it to be a sort of panegyric, of compliment to yourself; and yet what is there so very laudable in a precipitance which must leave very necessary business undone, and can be of no real advantage to yourself or any one else?" "Nay," cried Bingley, "this is too much, to remember at night all the foolish things that were said in the morning. And yet, upon my honour, I believed what I said of myself to be true, and I believe it at this moment. At least, therefore, I did not assume the character of needless precipitance merely to show off before the ladies." "I dare say you believed it; but I am by no means convinced that you would be gone with such celerity. Your conduct would be quite as dependent on chance as that of any man I know; and if, as you were mounting your horse, a friend were to say, 'Bingley, you had better stay till next week,' you would probably do it—you would probably not go—and, at another word, might stay a month." "You have only proved by this," cried Elizabeth, "that Mr. Bingley did not do justice to his own disposition. You have shown him off now much more than he did himself." "I am exceedingly gratified," said Bingley, "by your converting what my friend says into a compliment on the sweetness of my temper. But I am afraid you are giving it a turn which that gentleman did by no means intend; for he would certainly think the better of me, if, under such a circumstance, I were to give a flat denial, and ride off as fast as I could." "Would Mr. Darcy then consider the rashness of your original intention as atoned for by your obstinacy in adhering to it?" "Upon my word, I cannot exactly explain the matter—Darcy must speak for himself." "You expect me to account for opinions which you choose to call mine, but which I have never acknowledged. Allowing the case, however, to stand according to your representation, you must remember, Miss Bennet, that the friend who is supposed to desire his return to the house and the delay of his plan, has merely desired it, asked it without offering one argument in favour of its propriety." "To yield readily—easily—to the persuasion of a friend is no merit with you." "To yield without conviction is no compliment to the understanding of either." "You appear to me, Mr. Darcy, to allow nothing for the influence of friendship and affection. A regard for the requester would often make one readily yield to a request, without waiting for arguments to reason one into it. I am not particularly speaking of such a case as you have supposed about Mr. Bingley. We may as well wait, perhaps, till the circumstance occurs, before we discuss the discretion of his behaviour thereupon. But in general and ordinary cases between friend and friend, where one of them is desired by the other to change a resolution of no very great moment, should you think ill of that person for complying with the desire, without waiting to be argued into it?" "Will it not be advisable, before we proceed on this subject, to arrange with rather more precision the degree of importance which is to appertain to this request, as well as the degree of intimacy subsisting between the parties?" "By all means," cried Bingley: "let us hear all the particulars, not forgetting their comparative height and size; for that will have more weight in the argument, Miss Bennet, than you may be aware of. I assure you that if Darcy were not such a great tall fellow, in comparison with myself, I should not pay him half so much deference. I declare I do not know a more awful object than Darcy, on particular occasions, and in particular places; at his own house especially, and of a Sunday evening, when he has nothing to do." Mr. Darcy smiled; but Elizabeth thought she could perceive that he was rather offended, and therefore checked her laugh. Miss Bingley warmly resented the indignity he had received, in an expostulation with her brother for talking such nonsense. "I see your design, Bingley," said his friend. "You dislike an argument, and want to silence this." "Perhaps I do. Arguments are too much like disputes. If you and Miss Bennet will defer yours till I am out of the room, I shall be very thankful; and then you may say whatever you like of me." "What you ask," said Elizabeth, "is no sacrifice on my side; and Mr. Darcy had much better finish his letter." Mr. Darcy took her advice, and did finish his letter. When that business was over, he applied to Miss Bingley and Elizabeth for the indulgence of some music. Miss Bingley moved with alacrity to the piano-forte, and after a polite request that Elizabeth would lead the way, which the other as politely and more earnestly negatived, she seated herself. Mrs. Hurst sang with her sister; and while they were thus employed, Elizabeth could not help observing, as she turned over some music books that lay on the instrument, how frequently Mr. Darcy's eyes were fixed on her. She hardly knew how to suppose that she could be an object of admiration to so great a man; and yet that he should look at her because he disliked her was still more strange. She could only imagine, however, at last, that she drew his notice because there was a something about her more wrong and reprehensible, according to his ideas of right, than in any other person present. The supposition did not pain her. She liked him too little to care for his approbation. After playing some Italian songs, Miss Bingley varied the charm by a lively Scotch air; and soon afterwards Mr. Darcy, drawing near Elizabeth, said to her,— "Do not you feel a great inclination, Miss Bennet, to seize such an opportunity of dancing a reel?"s She smiled, but made no answer. He repeated the question, with some surprise at her silence. "Oh," said she, "I heard you before; but I could not immediately determine what to say in reply. You wanted me, I know, to say 'Yes,' that you might have the pleasure of despising my taste; but I always delight in overthrowing those kinds of schemes, and cheating a person of their premeditated contempt. I have, therefore, made up my mind to tell you, that I do not want to dance a reel at all; and now despise me if you dare." "Indeed I do not dare." Elizabeth, having rather expected to affront him, was amazed at his gallantry: but there was a mixture of sweetness and archness in her manner which made it difficult for her to affront any body; and Darcy had never been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her. He really believed that, were it not for the inferiority of her connections, he should be in some danger. Miss Bingley saw, or suspected, enough to be jealous; and her great anxiety for the recovery of her dear friend Jane received some assistance from her desire of getting rid of Elizabeth. She often tried to provoke Darcy into disliking her guest, by talking of their supposed marriage, and planning his happiness in such an alliance. "I hope," said she, as they were walking together in the shrubbery the next day, "you will give your mother-in-law a few hints, when this desirable event takes place, as to the advantage of holding her tongue; and if you can compass it, do cure the younger girls of running after the officers. And, if I may mention so delicate a subject, endeavour to check that little something, bordering on conceit and impertinence, which your lady possesses." "Have you any thing else to propose for my domestic felicity?" "Oh yes. Do let the portraits of your uncle and aunt Philips be placed in the gallery at Pemberley. Put them next to your great uncle the judge. They are in the same profession, you know; only in different lines. As for your Elizabeth's picture, you must not attempt to have it taken, for what painter could do justice to those beautiful eyes?" "It would not be easy, indeed, to catch their expression; but their colour and shape, and the eyelashes, so remarkably fine, might be copied." At that moment they were met from another walk by Mrs. Hurst and Elizabeth herself. "I did not know that you intended to walk," said Miss Bingley, in some confusion, lest they had been overheard. "You used us abominably ill," answered Mrs. Hurst, "running away without telling us that you were coming out." Then taking the disengaged arm of Mr. Darcy, she left Elizabeth to walk by herself. The path just admitted three. Mr. Darcy felt their rudeness, and immediately said,— "This walk is not wide enough for our party. We had better go into the avenue." But Elizabeth, who had not the least inclination to remain with them, laughingly answered,— "No, no; stay where you are. You are charmingly grouped, and appear to uncommon advantage. The picturesque would be spoilt by admitting a fourth. Good-by." She then ran gaily off, rejoicing as she rambled about, in the hope of being at home again in a day or two. Jane was already so much recovered as to intend leaving her room for a couple of hours that evening.
When the ladies removed after dinner Elizabeth ran up to her sister, and seeing her well guarded from cold, attended her into the drawing-room, where she was welcomed by her two friends with many professions of pleasure; and Elizabeth had never seen them so agreeable as they were during the hour which passed before the gentlemen appeared. Their powers of conversation were considerable. They could describe an entertainment with accuracy, relate an anecdote with humour, and laugh at their acquaintance with spirit. But when the gentlemen entered, Jane was no longer the first object; Miss Bingley's eyes were instantly turned towards Darcy, and she had something to say to him before he had advanced many steps. He addressed himself directly to Miss Bennet with a polite congratulation: Mr. Hurst also made her a slight bow, and said he was "very glad;" but diffuseness and warmth remained for Bingley's salutation. He was full of joy and attention. The first half hour was spent in piling up the fire, lest she should suffer from the change of room; and she removed, at his desire, to the other side of the fireplace, that she might be farther from the door. He then sat down by her, and talked scarcely to any one else. Elizabeth, at work in the opposite corner, saw it all with great delight. When tea was over Mr. Hurst reminded his sister-in-law of the card-table—but in vain. She had obtained private intelligence that Mr. Darcy did not wish for cards; and Mr. Hurst soon found even his open petition rejected. She assured him that no one intended to play, and the silence of the whole party on the subject seemed to justify her. Mr. Hurst had, therefore, nothing to do, but to stretch himself on one of the sofas and go to sleep. Darcy took up a book: Miss Bingley did the same; and Mrs. Hurst, principally occupied in playing with her bracelets and rings, joined now and then in her brother's conversation with Miss Bennet. Miss Bingley's attention was quite as much engaged in watching Mr. Darcy's progress through his book, as in reading her own; and she was perpetually either making some enquiry, or looking at his page. She could not win him, however, to any conversation; he merely answered her question and read on. At length, quite exhausted by the attempt to be amused with her own book, which she had only chosen because it was the second volume of his, she gave a great yawn and said, "How pleasant it is to spend an evening in this way! I declare, after all, there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library." No one made any reply. She then yawned again, threw aside her book, and cast her eyes round the room in quest of some amusement; when hearing her brother mentioning a ball to Miss Bennet, she turned suddenly towards him and said,— "By the by, Charles, are you really serious in meditating a dance at Netherfield? I would advise you, before you determine on it, to consult the wishes of the present party; I am much mistaken if there are not some among us to whom a ball would be rather a punishment than a pleasure." "If you mean Darcy," cried her brother, "he may go to bed, if he chooses, before it begins—but as for the ball, it is quite a settled thing; and as soon as Nicholls has made white soupt enough I shall send round my cards." "I should like balls infinitely better," she replied, "if they were carried on in a different manner; but there is something insufferably tedious in the usual process of such a meeting. It would surely be much more rational if conversation instead of dancing made the order of the day." "Much more rational, my dear Caroline, I dare say; but it would not be near so much like a ball." Miss Bingley made no answer; and soon afterwards got up and walked about the room. Her figure was elegant, and she walked well; but Darcy, at whom it was all aimed, was still inflexibly studious. In the desperation of her feelings she resolved on one effort more; and, turning to Elizabeth, said,— "Miss Eliza Bennet, let me persuade you to follow my example, and take a turn about the room. I assure you it is very refreshing after sitting so long in one attitude." Elizabeth was surprised, but agreed to it immediately. Miss Bingley succeeded no less in the real object of her civility: Mr. Darcy looked up. He was as much awake to the novelty of attention in that quarter as Elizabeth herself could be, and unconsciously closed his book. He was directly invited to join their party, but he declined it; observing, that he could imagine but two motives for their choosing to walk up and down the room together, with either of which motives his joining them would interfere. What could he mean? She was dying to know what could be his meaning—and asked Elizabeth whether she could at all understand him? "Not at all," was her answer; "but, depend upon it, he means to be severe on us, and our surest way of disappointing him will be to ask nothing about it." Miss Bingley, however, was incapable of disappointing Mr. Darcy in any thing, and persevered, therefore, in requiring an explanation of his two motives. "I have not the smallest objection to explaining them," said he, as soon as she allowed him to speak. "You either choose this method of passing the evening because you are in each other's confidence, and have secret affairs to discuss, or because you are conscious that your figures appear to the greatest advantage in walking: if the first, I should be completely in your way; and if the second, I can admire you much better as I sit by the fire." "Oh, shocking!" cried Miss Bingley. "I never heard any thing so abominable. How shall we punish him for such a speech?" "Nothing so easy, if you have but the inclination," said Elizabeth. "We can all plague and punish one another. Tease him—laugh at him. Intimate as you are, you must know how it is to be done." "But upon my honour I do not. I do assure you that my intimacy has not yet taught me that. Tease calmness of temper and presence of mind! No, no; I feel he may defy us there. And as to laughter, we will not expose ourselves, if you please, by attempting to laugh without a subject. Mr. Darcy may hug himself." "Mr. Darcy is not to be laughed at!" cried Elizabeth. "That is an uncommon advantage, and uncommon I hope it will continue, for it would be a great loss to me to have many such acquaintance. I dearly love a laugh." "Miss Bingley," said he, "has given me credit for more than can be. The wisest and best of men,—nay, the wisest and best of their actions,—may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke." "Certainly," replied Elizabeth, "there are such people, but I hope I am not one of them. I hope I never ridicule what is wise or good. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies, do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can. But these, I suppose, are precisely what you are without." "Perhaps that is not possible for any one. But it has been the study of my life to avoid those weaknesses which often expose a strong understanding to ridicule." "Such as vanity and pride." "Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride—where there is a real superiority of mind—pride will be always under good regulation." Elizabeth turned away to hide a smile. "Your examination of Mr. Darcy is over, I presume," said Miss Bingley; "and pray what is the result?" "I am perfectly convinced by it that Mr. Darcy has no defect. He owns it himself without disguise." "No," said Darcy, "I have made no such pretension. I have faults enough, but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for. It is, I believe, too little yielding; certainly too little for the convenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of others so soon as I ought, nor their offences against myself. My feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost is lost for ever." "That is a failing, indeed!" cried Elizabeth. "Implacable resentment is a shade in a character. But you have chosen your fault well. I really cannot laugh at it. You are safe from me." "There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome." "And your defect is a propensity to hate every body." "And yours," he replied, with a smile, "is wilfully to misunderstand them." "Do let us have a little music," cried Miss Bingley, tired of a conversation in which she had no share. "Louisa, you will not mind my waking Mr. Hurst." Her sister made not the smallest objection, and the piano-forte u was opened; and Darcy, after a few moments' recollection, was not sorry for it. He began to feel the danger of paying Elizabeth too much attention.
In consequence of an agreement between the sisters, Elizabeth wrote the next morning to her mother, to beg that the carriage might be sent for them in the course of the day. But Mrs. Bennet, who had calculated on her daughters remaining at Netherfield till the following Tuesday, which would exactly finish Jane's week, could not bring herself to receive them with pleasure before. Her answer, therefore, was not propitious, at least not to Elizabeth's wishes, for she was impatient to get home. Mrs. Bennet sent them word that they could not possibly have the carriage before Tuesday; and in her postscript it was added, that if Mr. Bingley and his sister pressed them to stay longer, she could spare them very well. Against staying longer, however, Elizabeth was positively resolved—nor did she much expect it would be asked; and fearful, on the contrary, of being considered as intruding themselves needlessly long, she urged Jane to borrow Mr. Bingley's carriage immediately, and at length it was settled that their original design of leaving Netherfield that morning should be mentioned, and the request made. The communication excited many professions of concern; and enough was said of wishing them to stay at least till the following day to work on Jane; and till the morrow their going was deferred. Miss Bingley was then sorry that she had proposed the delay; for her jealousy and dislike of one sister much exceeded her affection for the other. The master of the house heard with real sorrow that they were to go so soon, and repeatedly tried to persuade Miss Bennet that it would not be safe for her—that she was not enough recovered; but Jane was firm where she felt herself to be right. To Mr. Darcy it was welcome intelligence: Elizabeth had been at Netherfield long enough. She attracted him more than he liked; and Miss Bingley was uncivil to her, and more teasing than usual to himself. He wisely resolved to be particularly careful that no sign of admiration should now escape him—nothing that could elevate her with the hope of influencing his felicity; sensible that, if such an idea had been suggested, his behaviour during the last day must have material weight in confirming or crushing it. Steady to his purpose, he scarcely spoke ten words to her through the whole of Saturday; and though they were at one time left by themselves for half an hour, he adhered most conscientiously to his book, and would not even look at her. On Sunday, after morning service, the separation, so agreeable to almost all, took place. Miss Bingley's civility to Elizabeth increased at last very rapidly, as well as her affection for Jane; and when they parted, after assuring the latter of the pleasure it would always give her to see her either at Longbourn or Netherfield, and embracing her most tenderly, she even shook hands with the former Elizabeth took leave of the whole party in the liveliest spirits. They were not welcomed home very cordially by their mother. Mrs. Bennet wondered at their coming, and thought them very wrong to give so much trouble, and was sure Jane would have caught cold again. But their father, though very laconic in his expressions of pleasure, was really glad to see them; he had felt their importance in the family circle. The evening conversation, when they were all assembled, had lost much of its animation, and almost all its sense, by the absence of Jane and Elizabeth. They found Mary, as usual, deep in the study of thorough bassv and human nature; and had some new extracts to admire, and some new observations of thread-bare morality to listen to. Catherine and Lydia had information for them of a different sort. Much had been done, and much had been said, in the regiment since the preceding Wednesday; several of the officers had dined lately with their uncle; a private had been flogged, and it had actually been hinted that Colonel Forster was going to be married.
I hope, my dear," said Mr. Bennet to his wife, as they were at breakfast the next morning, "that you have ordered a good dinner to-day, because I have reason to expect an addition to our family party." "Who do you mean, my dear? I know of nobody that is coming, I am sure, unless Charlotte Lucas should happen to call in; and I hope my dinners are good enough for her. I do not believe she often sees such at home." "The person of whom I speak is a gentleman and a stranger." Mrs. Bennet's eyes sparkled. "A gentleman and a stranger! It is Mr. Bingley, I am sure. Why, Jane—you never dropped a word of this—you sly thing! Well, I am sure I shall be extremely glad to see Mr. Bingley. But—good Lord! how unlucky! there is not a bit of fish to be got to-day. Lydia, my love, ring the bell. I must speak to Hill this moment." "It is not Mr. Bingley," said her husband; "it is a person whom I never saw in the whole course of my life." This roused a general astonishment; and he had the pleasure of being eagerly questioned by his wife and five daughters at once. After amusing himself some time with their curiosity, he thus explained:—"About a month ago I received this letter, and about a fortnight ago I answered it; for I thought it a case of some delicacy, and requiring early attention. It is from my cousin, Mr. Collins, who, when I am dead, may turn you all out of this house as soon as he pleases." "Oh, my dear," cried his wife, "I cannot bear to hear that mentioned. Pray do not talk of that odious man. I do think it is the hardest thing in the world, that your estate should be entailed away from your own children; and I am sure, if I had been you, I should have tried long ago to do something or other about it." Jane and Elizabeth attempted to explain to her the nature of an entail. They had often attempted it before: but it was a subject on which Mrs. Bennet was beyond the reach of reason; and she continued to rail bitterly against the cruelty of settling an estate away from a family of five daughters, in favour of a man whom nobody cared any thing about. "It certainly is a most iniquitous affair," said Mr. Bennet; "and nothing can clear Mr. Collins from the guilt of inheriting Longbourn. But if you will listen to his letter, you may, perhaps, be a little softened by his manner of expressing himself." "No, that I am sure I shall not; and I think it was very impertinent of him to write to you at all, and very hypocritical. I hate such false friends. Why could not he keep on quarrelling with you, as his father did before him?" "Why, indeed, he does seem to have had some filial scruples on that head, as you will hear." "HUNSFORD, NEAR WESTERHAM, KENT, 15TH OCTOBER"
The disagreement subsisting between yourself and my late honoured father always gave me much uneasiness; and, since I have had the misfortune to lose him, I have frequently wished to heal the breach: but, for some time, I was kept back by my own doubts, fearing lest it might seem disrespectful to his memory for me to be on good terms with any one with whom it had always pleased him to be at variance.—"There, Mrs. Bennet." —My mind, however, is now made up on the subject; for, having received ordination at Easter, I have been so fortunate as to be distinguished by the patronage of the Right Honourable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, widow of Sir Lewis de Bourgh, whose bounty and beneficence has preferred me tow the valuable rectory of this parish, where it shall be my earnest endeavourto demean myself with grateful respect towards her Ladyship, and be ever ready to perform those rites and ceremonies which are instituted by the Church of England. As a clergyman, moreover, I feel it my duty to promote and establish the blessing of peace in all families within the reach of my influence; and on these grounds I flatter myself that my present overtures of good will are highly commendable, and that the circumstance of my being next in the entail of Longbourn estate will be kindly overlooked on your side, and not lead you to reject the offered olive branch. I cannot be otherwise than concerned at being the means of injuring your amiable daughters, and beg leave to apologise for it, as well as to assure you of my readiness to make them every possible amends; but of this hereafter. If you should have no objection to receive me into your house, I propose myself the satisfaction of waiting on you and your family, Monday, November 18th, by four o'clock, and shall probably trespass on your hospitality till the Saturday se'nightx following, which I can do without any inconvenience, as Lady Catherine is far from objecting to my occasional absence on a Sunday, provided that some other clergyman is engaged to do the duty of the day. I remain, dear sir, with respectful compliments to your lady and daughters, your well-wisher and friend,
"At four o'clock, therefore, we may expect this peacemaking gentleman," said Mr. Bennet, as he folded up the letter. "He seems to be a most conscientious and polite young man, upon my word; and, I doubt not, will prove a valuable acquaintance, especially if Lady Catherine should be so indulgent as to let him come to us again." "There is some sense in what he says about the girls, however; and, if he is disposed to make them any amends, I shall not be the person to discourage him." "Though it is difficult," said Jane, "to guess in what way he can mean to make us the atonement he thinks our due,6 the wish is certainly to his credit." Elizabeth was chiefly struck with his extraordinary deference for Lady Catherine, and his kind intention of christening, marrying, and burying his parishioners whenever it were required. "He must be an oddity, I think," said she. "I cannot make him out. There is something very pompous in his style. And what can he mean by apologising for being next in the entail? We cannot suppose he would help it, if he could. Can he be a sensible man, sir?" "No, my dear; I think not. I have great hopes of finding him quite the reverse. There is a mixture of servility and self-importance in his letter which promises well. I am impatient to see him." "In point of composition," said Mary, "his letter does not seem defective. The idea of the olive branch perhaps is not wholly new, yet I think it is well expressed." To Catherine and Lydia neither the letter nor its writer were in any degree interesting. It was next to impossible that their cousin should come in a scarlet coat, and it was now some weeks since they had received pleasure from the society of a man in any other colour. As for their mother, Mr. Collins's letter had done away much of her ill-will, and she was preparing to see him with a degree of composure which astonished her husband and daughters. Mr. Collins was punctual to his time, and was received with great politeness by the whole family. Mr. Bennet indeed said little; but the ladies were ready enough to talk, and Mr. Collins seemed neither in need of encouragement, nor inclined to be silent himself. He was a tall, heavy-looking young man of five-and-twenty. His air was grave and stately, and his manners were very formal. He had not been long seated before he complimented Mrs. Bennet on having so fine a family of daughters, said he had heard much of their beauty, but that, in this instance, fame had fallen short of the truth; and added, that he did not doubt her seeing them all in due time well disposed of in marriage. This gallantry was not much to the taste of some of his hearers; but Mrs. Bennet, who quarrelled with no compliments, answered most readily,— "You are very kind, sir, I am sure; and I wish with all my heart it may prove so; for else they will be destitute enough. Things are settled so oddly." "You allude, perhaps, to the entail of this estate." "Ah, sir, I do indeed. It is a grievous affair to my poor girls, you must confess. Not that I mean to find fault with you, for such things I know are all chance in this world. There is no knowing how estates will go when once they come to be entailed." "I am very sensible, madam, of the hardship to my fair cousins, and could say much on the subject, but that I am cautious of appearing forward and precipitate. But I can assure the young ladies that I come prepared to admire them. At present I will not say more, but, perhaps, when we are better acquainted—" He was interrupted by a summons to dinner; and the girls smiled on each other. They were not the only objects of Mr. Collins's admiration. The hall, the dining-room, and all its furniture, were examined and praised; and his commendation of every thing would have touched Mrs. Bennet's heart, but for the mortifying supposition of his viewing it all as his own future property. The dinner, too, in its turn, was highly admired; and he begged to know to which of his fair cousins the excellence of its cookery was owing. But here he was set right by Mrs. Bennet, who assured him, with some asperity, that they were very well able to keep a good cook, and that her daughters had nothing to do in the kitchen. He begged pardon for having displeased her. In a softened tone she declared herself not at all offended; but he continued to apologise for about a quarter of an hour.
During dinner, Mr. Bennet scarcely spoke at all; but when the servants were withdrawn, he thought it time to have some conversation with his guest, and therefore started a subject in which he expected him to shine, by observing that he seemed very fortunate in his patroness. Lady Catherine de Bourgh's attention to his wishes, and consideration for his comfort, appeared very remarkable. Mr. Bennet could not have chosen better. Mr. Collins was eloquent in her praise. The subject elevated him to more than usual solemnity of manner; and with a most important aspect he protested that "he had never in his life witnessed such behaviour in a person of rank—such affability and condescension, 7 as he had himself experienced from Lady Catherine. She had been graciously pleased to approve of both the discourses which he had already had the honour of preaching before her. She had also asked him twice to dine at Rosings, and had sent for him only the Saturday before, to make up her pool of quadrilley in the evening. Lady Catherine was reckoned proud by many people, he knew, but he had never seen any thing but affability in her. She had always spoken to him as she would to any other gentleman; she made not the smallest objection to his joining in the society of the neighbourhood, nor to his leaving his parish occasionally for a week or two to visit his relations. She had even condescended to advise him to marry as soon as he could, provided he chose with discretion; and had once paid him a visit in his humble parsonage, where she had perfectly approved all the alterations he had been making, and had even vouchsafed to suggest some herself,—some shelves in the closets up stairs." "That is all very proper and civil, I am sure," said Mrs. Bennet, "and I dare say she is a very agreeable woman. It is a pity that great ladies in general are not more like her. Does she live near you, sir?" "The garden in which stands my humble abode is separated only by a lane from Rosings Park, her Ladyship's residence." "I think you said she was a widow, sir? has she any family?" "She has one only daughter, the heiress of Rosings, and of very extensive property." "Ah," cried Mrs. Bennet, shaking her head, "then she is better off than many girls. And what sort of young lady is she? Is she handsome?" "She is a most charming young lady, indeed. Lady Catherine herself says that, in point of true beauty, Miss de Bourgh is far superior to the handsomest of her sex; because there is that in her features which marks the young woman of distinguished birth. She is unfortunately of a sickly constitution, which has prevented her making that progress in many accomplishments which she could not otherwise have failed of, as I am informed by the lady who superintended her education, and who still resides with them. But she is perfectly amiable, and often condescends to drive by my humble abode in her little phaetonz and ponies." "Has she been presented? I do not remember her name among the ladies at court." "Her indifferent state of health unhappily prevents her being in town; and by that means, as I told Lady Catherine myself one day, has deprived the British court of its brightest ornament. Her Ladyship seemed pleased with the idea; and you may imagine that I am happy on every occasion to offer those little delicate compliments which are always acceptable to ladies. I have more than once observed to Lady Catherine, that her charming daughter seemed born to be a duchess; and that the most elevated rank, instead of giving her consequence, would be adorned by her. These are the kind of little things which please her Ladyship, and it is a sort of attention which I conceive myself peculiarly bound to pay." "You judge very properly," said Mr. Bennet; "and it is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are the result of previous study?" "They arise chiefly from what is passing at the time; and though I sometimes amuse myself with suggesting and arranging such little elegant compliments as may be adapted to ordinary occasions, I always wish to give them as unstudied an air as possible." Mr. Bennet's expectations were fully answered. His cousin was as absurd as he had hoped; and he listened to him with the keenest enjoyment, maintaining at the same time the most resolute composure of countenance, and, except in an occasional glance at Elizabeth, requiring no partner in his pleasure. By teatime, however, the dose had been enough, and Mr. Bennet was glad to take his guest into the drawing-room again, and when tea was over, glad to invite him to read aloud to the ladies. Mr. Collins readily assented, and a book was produced; but on beholding it (for every thing announced it to be from a circulating library) he started back, and, begging pardon, protested that he never read novels. Kitty stared at him, and Lydia exclaimed. Other books were produced, and after some deliberation he chose Fordyce's Sermons.aa Lydia gaped as he opened the volume; and before he had, with very monotonous solemnity, read three pages, she interrupted him with,— "Do you know, mamma, that my uncle Philips talks of turning away Richard? and if he does, Colonel Forster will hire him. My aunt told me so herself on Saturday. I shall walk to Meryton to-morrow to hear more about it, and to ask when Mr. Denny comes back from town." Lydia was bid by her two eldest sisters to hold her tongue; but Mr. Collins, much offended, laid aside his book, and said,— "I have often observed how little young ladies are interested by books of a serious stamp, though written solely for their benefit. It amazes me, I confess; for certainly there can be nothing so advantageous to them as instruction. But I will no longer importune my young cousin." Then turning to Mr. Bennet, he offered himself as his antagonist at backgammon. Mr. Bennet accepted the challenge, observing that he acted very wisely in leaving the girls to their own trifling amusements. Mrs. Bennet and her daughters apologised most civilly for Lydia's interruption, and promised that it should not occur again, if he would resume his book; but Mr. Collins, after assuring them that he bore his young cousin no ill-will, and should never resent her behaviour as any affront, seated himself at another table with Mr. Bennet, and prepared for backgammon.
Mr. Collins was not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature had been but little assisted by education or society; the greatest part of his life having been spent under the guidance of an illiterate and miserly father; and though he belonged to one of the universities, he had merely kept the necessary terms without forming at it any useful acquaintance.ab The subjection in which his father had brought him up had given him originally great humility of manner; but it was now a good deal counteracted by the self-conceit of a weak head, living in retirement, and the consequential feelings of early and unexpected prosperity. A fortunate chance had recommended him to Lady Catherine de Bourgh when the living of Hunsford was vacant; and the respect which he felt for her high rank, and his veneration for her as his patroness, mingling with a very good opinion of himself, of his authority as a clergyman, and his right as a rector, made him altogether a mixture of pride and obsequiousness, self-importance and humility. Having now a good house and very sufficient income, he intended to marry; and in seeking a reconciliation with the Longbourn family he had a wife in view, as he meant to choose one of the daughters, if he found them as handsome and amiable as they were represented by common report. This was his plan of amends—of atonement—for inheriting their father's estate; and he thought it an excellent one, full of eligibility and suitableness, and excessively generous and disinterested on his own part. His plan did not vary on seeing them. Miss Bennet's lovely face confirmed his views, and established all his strictest notions of what was due to seniority; and for the first evening she was his settled choice. The next morning, however, made an alteration; for in a quarter of an hour's tête-à-tête with Mrs. Bennet before breakfast, a conversation beginning with his parsonage-house, and leading naturally to the avowal of his hopes, that a mistress for it might be found at Longbourn, produced from her, amid very complaisant smiles and general encouragement, a caution against the very Jane he had fixed on. "As to her younger daughters, she could not take upon her to say—she could not positively answer—but she did not know of any prepossession;—her eldest daughter she must just mention—she felt it incumbent on her to hint, was likely to be very soon engaged." Mr. Collins had only to change from Jane to Elizabeth—and it was soon done—done while Mrs. Bennet was stirring the fire. Elizabeth, equally next to Jane in birth and beauty, succeeded her of course. Mrs. Bennet treasured up the hint, and trusted that she might soon have two daughters married; and the man whom she could not bear to speak of the day before was now high in her good graces. Lydia's intention of walking to Meryton was not forgotten: every sister except Mary agreed to go with her; and Mr. Collins was to attend them, at the request of Mr. Bennet, who was most anxious to get rid of him, and have his library to himself; for thither Mr. Collins had followed him after breakfast, and there he would continue, nominally engaged with one of the largest folios in the collection, but really talking to Mr. Bennet, with little cessation, of his house and garden at Hunsford. Such doings discomposed Mr. Bennet exceedingly. In his library he had been always sure of leisure and tranquillity; and though prepared, as he told Elizabeth, to meet with folly and conceit in every other room in the house, he was used to be free from them there: his civility, therefore, was most prompt in inviting Mr. Collins to join his daughters in their walk; and Mr. Collins, being in fact much better fitted for a walker than a reader, was extremely well pleased to close his large book, and go. In pompous nothings on his side, and civil assents on that of his cousins, their time passed till they entered Meryton. The attention of the younger ones was then no longer to be gained by him. Their eyes were immediately wandering up in the street in quest of the officers, and nothing less than a very smart bonnet indeed, or a really new muslin in a shop window, could recall them. But the attention of every lady was soon caught by a young man, whom they had never seen before, of most gentlemanlike appearance, walking with an officer on the other side of the way. The officer was the very Mr. Denny, concerning whose return from London Lydia came to enquire, and he bowed as they passed. All were struck with the stranger's air, all wondered who he could be; and Kitty and Lydia, determined if possible to find out, led the way across the street, under pretence of wanting something in an opposite shop, and fortunately had just gained the pavement, when the two gentlemen, turning back, had reached the same spot. Mr. Denny addressed them directly, and entreated permission to introduce his friend, Mr. Wickham, who had returned with him the day before from town, and, he was happy to say, had accepted a commission in their corps. This was exactly as it should be; for the young man wanted only regimentals to make him completely charming. His appearance was greatly in his favour: he had all the best parts of beauty, a fine countenance, a good figure, and very pleasing address. The introduction was followed up on his side by a happy readiness of conversation—a readiness at the same time perfectly correct and unassuming; and the whole party were still standing and talking together very agreeably, when the sound of horses drew their notice, and Darcy and Bingley were seen riding down the street. On distinguishing the ladies of the group, the two gentlemen came directly towards them, and began the usual civilities. Bingley was the principal spokesman, and Miss Bennet the principal object. He was then, he said, on his way to Longbourn on purpose to enquire after her. Mr. Darcy corroborated it with a bow, and was beginning to determine not to fix his eyes on Elizabeth, when they were suddenly arrested by the sight of the stranger; and Elizabeth happening to see the countenance of both as they looked at each other, was all astonishment at the effect of the meeting. Both changed colour, one looked white, the other red. Mr. Wickham, after a few moments, touched his hat—a salutation which Mr. Darcy just deigned to return. What could be the meaning of it? It was impossible to imagine; it was impossible not to long to know. In another minute Mr. Bingley, but without seeming to have noticed what passed, took leave and rode on with his friend. Mr. Denny and Mr. Wickham walked with the young ladies to the door of Mr. Philips's house, and then made their bows, in spite of Miss Lydia's pressing entreaties that they would come in, and even in spite of Mrs. Philips's throwing up the parlour window, and loudly seconding the invitation. Mrs. Philips was always glad to see her nieces; and the two eldest, from their recent absence, were particularly welcome; and she was eagerly expressing her surprise at their sudden return home, which, as their own carriage had not fetched them, she should have known nothing about, if she had not happened to see Mr. Jones's shop-boy in the street, who had told her that they were not to send any more draughts to Netherfield because the Miss Bennets were come away, when her civility was claimed towards Mr. Collins by Jane's introduction of him. She received him with her very best politeness, which he returned with as much more, apologising for his intrusion, without any previous acquaintance with her, which he could not help flattering himself however might be justified by his relationship to the young ladies who introduced him to her notice. Mrs. Philips was quite awed by such an excess of good breeding; but her contemplation of one stranger was soon put an end to by exclamations and enquiries about the other, of whom, however, she could only tell her nieces what they already knew, that Mr. Denny had brought him from London, and that he was to have a lieutenant's commission in the———shire. She had been watching him the last hour, she said, as he walked up and down the street, and had Mr. Wickham appeared, Kitty and Lydia would certainly have continued the occupation; but unluckily no one passed the windows now except a few of the officers, who, in comparison with the stranger, were become "stupid, disagreeable fellows." Some of them were to dine with the Philipses the next day, and their aunt promised to make her husband call on Mr. Wickham, and give him an invitation also, if the family from Longbourn would come in the evening. This was agreed to; and Mrs. Philips protested that they would have a nice comfortable noisy game of lottery tickets,ac and a little bit of hot supper afterwards. The prospect of such delights was very cheering, and they parted in mutual good spirits. Mr. Collins repeated his apologies in quitting the room, and was assured, with unwearying civility, that they were perfectly needless. As they walked home, Elizabeth related to Jane what she had seen pass between the two gentlemen; but though Jane would have defended either or both, had they appeared to be wrong, she could no more explain such behaviour than her sister. Mr. Collins on his return highly gratified Mrs. Bennet by admiring Mrs. Philips's manners and politeness. He protested that, except Lady Catherine and her daughter, he had never seen a more elegant woman; for she had not only received him with the utmost civility, but had even pointedly included him in her invitation for the next evening, although utterly unknown to her before. Something he supposed might be attributed to his connection with them, but yet he had never met with so much attention in the whole course of his life.
As no objection was made to the young people's engagement with their aunt, and all Mr. Collins's scruples of leaving Mr. and Mrs. Bennet for a single evening during his visit were most steadily resisted, the coach conveyed him and his five cousins at a suitable hour to Meryton; and the girls had the pleasure of hearing, as they entered the drawing-room, that Mr. Wickham had accepted their uncle's invitation, and was then in the house. When this information was given, and they had all taken their seats, Mr. Collins was at leisure to look around him and admire, and he was so much struck with the size and furniture of the apartment, that he declared he might almost have supposed himself in the small summer breakfast parlour at Rosings; a comparison that did not at first convey much gratification; but when Mrs. Philips understood from him what Rosings was, and who was its proprietor, when she had listened to the description of only one of Lady Catherine's drawing-rooms, and found that the chimney-piece alone had cost eight hundred pounds, she felt all the force of the compliment, and would hardly have resented a comparison with the housekeeper's room. In describing to her all the grandeur of Lady Catherine and her mansion, with occasional digressions in praise of his own humble abode, and the improvements it was receiving, he was happily employed until the gentlemen joined them; and he found in Mrs. Philips a very attentive listener, whose opinion of his consequence increased with what she heard, and who was resolving to retail it all among her neighbours as soon as she could. To the girls, who could not listen to their cousin, and who had nothing to do but to wish for an instrument, and examine their own indifferent imitations of chinaad on the mantel-piece, the interval of waiting appeared very long, It was over at last, however. The gentlemen did approach; and when Mr. Wickham walked into the room, Elizabeth felt that she had neither been seeing him before, nor thinking of him since, with the smallest degree of unreasonable admiration. The officers of the———shire were in general a very creditable, gentlemanlike set, and the best of them were of the present party; but Mr. Wickham was as far beyond them all in person, countenance, air, and walk, as they were superior to the broad-faced stuffy uncle Philips, breathing port wine, who followed them into the room. Mr. Wickham was the happy man towards whom almost every female eye was turned, and Elizabeth was the happy woman by whom he finally seated himself; and the agreeable manner in which he immediately fell into conversation, though it was only on its being a wet night, and on the probability of a rainy season, made her feel that the commonest, dullest, most threadbare topic might be rendered interesting by the skill of the speaker. With such rivals for the notice of the fair, as Mr. Wickham and the officers, Mr. Collins seemed to sink into insignificance; to the young ladies he certainly was nothing; but he had still at intervals a kind listener in Mrs. Philips, and was, by her watchfulness, most abundantly supplied with coffee and muffin. When the card tables were placed, he had an opportunity of obliging her, in return, by sitting down to whist.ae "I know little of the game at present," said he, "but I shall be glad to improve myself; for in my situation of life———" Mrs. Philips was very thankful for his compliance, but could not wait for his reason. Mr. Wickham did not play at whist, and with ready delight was he received at the other table between Elizabeth and Lydia. At first there seemed danger of Lydia's engrossing him entirely, for she was a most determined talker; but being likewise extremely fond of lottery tickets, she soon grew too much interested in the game, too eager in making bets and exclaiming after prizes, to have attention for any one in particular. Allowing for the common demands of the game, Mr. Wickham was therefore at leisure to talk to Elizabeth, and she was very willing to hear him, though what she chiefly wished to hear she could not hope to be told, the history of his acquaintance with Mr. Darcy. She dared not even mention that gentleman. Her curiosity, however, was unexpectedly relieved. Mr. Wickham began the subject himself. He enquired how far Netherfield was from Meryton; and, after receiving her answer, asked in a hesitating manner how long Mr. Darcy had been staying there. "About a month," said Elizabeth; and then, unwilling to let the subject drop, added, "he is a man of very large property in Derbyshire, I understand." "Yes," replied Wickham; "his estate there is a noble one. A clear ten thousand per annum. You could not have met with a person more capable of giving you certain information on that head than myself—for I have been connected with his family, in a particular manner, from my infancy." Elizabeth could not but look surprised. "You may well be surprised, Miss Bennet, at such an assertion, after seeing, as you probably might, the very cold manner of our meeting yesterday. Are you much acquainted with Mr. Darcy?" "As much as I ever wish to be," cried Elizabeth, warmly. "I have spent four days in the same house with him, and I think him very disagreeable." "I have no right to give my opinion," said Wickham, "as to his being agreeable or otherwise. I am not qualified to form one. I have known him too long and too well to be a fair judge. It is impossible for me to be impartial. But I believe your opinion of him would in general astonish—and, perhaps, you would not express it quite so strongly any where else. Here you are in your own family." "Upon my word I say no more here than I might say in any house in the neighbourhood, except Netherfield. He is not at all liked in Hertfordshire. Every body is disgusted with his pride. You will not find him more favourably spoken of by any one." "I cannot pretend to be sorry," said Wickham, after a short interruption, "that he or that any man should not be estimated beyond their deserts; but with him I believe it does not often happen. The world is blinded by his fortune and consequence, or frightened by his high and imposing manners, and sees him only as he chooses to be seen." "I should take him, even on my slight acquaintance, to be an ill-tempered man." Wickham only shook his head. "I wonder," said he, at the next opportunity of speaking, "whether he is likely to be in this country much longer." "I do not at all know; but I heard nothing of his going away when I was at Netherfield. I hope your plans in favour of the ———shire will not be affected by his being in the neighbourhood." "Oh no—it is not for me to be driven away by Mr. Darcy. If he wishes to avoid seeing me, he must go. We are not on friendly terms, and it always gives me pain to meet him, but I have no reason for avoiding him but what I might proclaim to all the world—a sense of very great ill usage, and most painful regrets at his being what he is. His father, Miss Bennet, the late Mr. Darcy, was one of the best men that ever breathed, and the truest friend I ever had; and I can never be in company with this Mr. Darcy without being grieved to the soul by a thousand tender recollections. His behaviour to myself has been scandalous; but I verily believe I could forgive him any thing and every thing, rather than his disappointing the hopes and disgracing the memory of his father." Elizabeth found the interest of the subject increase, and listened with all her heart; but the delicacy of it prevented further enquiry. Mr. Wickham began to speak on more general topics, Meryton, the neighbourhood, the society, appearing highly pleased with all that he had yet seen, and speaking of the latter, especially, with gentle but very intelligible gallantry. "It was the prospect of constant society, and good society," he added, "which was my chief inducement to enter the———shire. I know it to be a most respectable, agreeable corps; and my friend Denny tempted me further by his account of their present quarters, and the very great attentions and excellent acquaintance Meryton had procured them. Society, I own, is necessary to me. I have been a disappointed man, and my spirits will not bear solitude. I must have employment and society. A military life is not what I was intended for, but circumstances have now made it eligible. The church ought to have been my profession—I was brought up for the church; and I should at this time have been in possession of a most valuable living, had it pleased the gentleman we were speaking of just now." "Indeed!" "Yes—the late Mr. Darcy bequeathed me the next presentation of the best living in his gift. He was my godfather, and excessively attached to me. I cannot do justice to his kindness. He meant to provide for me amply, and thought he had done it; but when the living fell, it was given elsewhere." "Good heavens!" cried Elizabeth; "but how could that be? How could his will be disregarded? Why did not you seek legal redress?" "There was just such an informality in the terms of the bequest as to give me no hope from law. A man of honour could not have doubted the intention, but Mr. Darcy chose to doubt it—or to treat it as a merely conditional recommendation, and to assert that I had forfeited all claim to it by extravagance, imprudence, in short, any thing or nothing. Certain it is that the living became vacant two years ago, exactly as I was of an age to hold it, and that it was given to another man; and no less certain is it, that I cannot accuse myself of having really done any thing to deserve to lose it. I have a warm, unguarded temper, and I may perhaps have sometimes spoken my opinion of him, and to him, too freely. I can recall nothing worse. But the fact is, that we are very different sort of men, and that he hates me." "This is quite shocking! He deserves to be publicly disgraced." "Some time or other he will be—but it shall not be by me. Till I can forget his father, I can never defy or expose him." Elizabeth honoured him for such feelings, and thought him handsomer than ever as he expressed them. "But what," said she, after a pause, "can have been his motive? what can have induced him to behave so cruelly?" "A thorough, determined dislike of me—a dislike which I cannot but attribute in some measure to jealousy. Had the late Mr. Darcy liked me less, his son might have borne with me better; but his father's uncommon attachment to me irritated him, I believe, very early in life. He had not a temper to bear the sort of competition in which we stood—the sort of preference which was often given me." "I had not thought Mr. Darcy so bad as this—though I have never liked him, I had not thought so very ill of him—I had supposed him to be despising his fellow-creatures in general, but did not suspect him of descending to such malicious revenge, such injustice, such inhumanity as this!" After a few minutes' reflection, however, she continued,—"I do remember his boasting one day, at Netherfield, of the implacability of his resentments; of his having an unforgiving temper. His disposition must be dreadful." "I will not trust myself on the subject," replied Wickham; "I can hardly be just to him." Elizabeth was again deep in thought, and after a time exclaimed, "To treat in such a manner the godson, the friend, the favourite of his father!" She could have added, "A young man, too, like you, whose very countenance may vouch for your being amiable." But she contented herself with—"And one, too, who had probably been his own companion from childhood, connected together, as I think you said, in the closest manner." "We were born in the same parish, within the same park; the greatest part of our youth was passed together: inmates of the same house, sharing the same amusements, objects of the same parental care. My father began life in the profession which your uncle, Mr. Philips, appears to do so much credit to; but he gave up every thing to be of use to the late Mr. Darcy, and devoted all his time to the care of the Pemberley property. He was most highly esteemed by Mr. Darcy, a most intimate, confidential friend. Mr. Darcy often acknowledged himself to be under the greatest obligations to my father's active superintendence; and when, immediately before my father's death, Mr. Darcy gave him a voluntary promise of providing for me, I am convinced that he felt it to be as much a debt of gratitude to him as of affection to myself." "How strange!" cried Elizabeth. "How abominable! I wonder that the very pride of this Mr. Darcy has not made him just to you. If from no better motive, that he should not have been too proud to be dishonest—for dishonesty I must call it." "It is wonderful," replied Wickham; "for almost all his actions may be traced to pride; and pride has often been his best friend. It has connected him nearer with virtue than any other feeling. But we are none of us consistent; and in his behaviour to me there were stronger impulses even than pride." "Can such abominable pride as his have ever done him good?" "Yes; it has often led him to be liberal and generous; to give his money freely, to display hospitality, to assist his tenants, and relieve the poor. Family pride, and filial pride, for he is very proud of what his father was, have done this. Not to appear to disgrace his family, to degenerate from the popular qualities, or lose the influence of the Pemberley House, is a powerful motive. He has also brotherly pride, which, with some brotherly affection, makes him a very kind and careful guardian of his sister; and you will hear him generally cried up as the most attentive and best of brothers." "What sort of a girl is Miss Darcy?" He shook his head. "I wish I could call her amiable. It gives me pain to speak ill of a Darcy; but she is too much like her brother,—very, very proud. As a child, she was affectionate and pleasing, and extremely fond of me; and I have devoted hours and hours to her amusement. But she is nothing to me now. She is a handsome girl, about fifteen or sixteen, and, I understand, highly accomplished. Since her father's death her home has been London, where a lady lives with her, and superintends her education." After many pauses and many trials of other subjects, Elizabeth could not help reverting once more to the first, and saying,— "I am astonished at his intimacy with Mr. Bingley. How can Mr. Bingley, who seems good-humour itself, and is, I really believe, truly amiable, be in friendship with such a man? How can they suit each other? Do you know Mr. Bingley?" "Not at all." "He is a sweet-tempered, amiable, charming man. He cannot know what Mr. Darcy is." "Probably not; but Mr. Darcy can please where he chooses. He does not want abilities. He can be a conversible companion if he thinks it worth his while. Among those who are at all his equals in consequence, he is a very different man from what he is to the less prosperous. His pride never deserts him; but with the rich he is liberal-minded, just, sincere, rational, honourable, and, perhaps, agreeable,—allowing something for fortune and figure." The whist party soon afterwards breaking up, the players gathered round the other table, and Mr. Collins took his station between his cousin Elizabeth and Mrs. Philips. The usual enquiries as to his success were made by the latter. It had not been very great; he had lost every point: but when Mrs. Philips began to express her concern thereupon, he assured her, with much earnest gravity, that it was not of the least importance; that he considered the money as a mere trifle, and begged she would not make herself uneasy. "I know very well, madam," said he, "that when persons sit down to a card table they must take their chance of these things,—and happily I am not in such circumstances as to make five shillings any object. There are, undoubtedly, many who could not say the same; but, thanks to Lady Catherine de Bourgh, I am removed far beyond the necessity of regarding little matters." Mr. Wickham's attention was caught; and after observing Mr. Collins for a few moments, he asked Elizabeth in a low voice whether her relation were very intimately acquainted with the family of De Bourgh. "Lady Catherine de Bourgh," she replied, "has very lately given him a living. I hardly know how Mr. Collins was first introduced to her notice, but he certainly has not known her long." "You know of course that Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Lady Anne Darcy were sisters; consequently that she is aunt to the present Mr. Darcy." "No, indeed, I did not. I knew nothing at all of Lady Catherine's connections. I never heard of her existence till the day before yesterday." "Her daughter, Miss de Bourgh, will have a very large fortune, and it is believed that she and her cousin will unite the two estates." This information made Elizabeth smile, as she thought of poor Miss Bingley. Vain indeed must be all her attentions, vain and useless her affection for his sister and her praise of himself, if he were already self-destined to another. "Mr. Collins," said she, "speaks highly both of Lady Catherine and her daughter; but from some particulars that he has related of her Ladyship; I suspect his gratitude misleads him; and that, in spite of her being his patroness, she is an arrogant, conceited woman." "I believe her to be both in a great degree," replied Wickham: "I have not seen her for many years; but I very well remember that I never liked her, and that her manners were dictatorial and insolent. She has the reputation of being remarkably sensible and clever; but I rather believe she derives part of her abilities from her rank and fortune, part from her authoritative manner, and the rest from the pride of her nephew, who chooses that every one connected with him should have an understanding of the first class." Elizabeth allowed that he had given a very rational account of it, and they continued talking together with mutual satisfaction till supper put an end to cards, and gave the rest of the ladies their share of Mr. Wickham's attentions. There could be no conversation in the noise of Mrs. Philips's supper party, but his manners recommended him to every body. Whatever he said, was said well; and whatever he did, done gracefully. Elizabeth went away with her head full of him. She could think of nothing but of Mr. Wickham, and of what he had told her, all the way home; but there was not time for her even to mention his name as they went, for neither Lydia nor Mr. Collins were once silent. Lydia talked incessantly of lottery tickets, of the fishaf she had lost and the fish she had won; and Mr. Collins, in describing the civility of Mr. and Mrs. Philips, protesting that he did not in the least regard his losses at whist, enumerating all the dishes at supper, and repeatedly fearing that he crowded his cousins, had more to say than he could well manage before the carriage stopped at Longbourn House.
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 clear them, too, 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 favourite 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." But Jane could think with certainty on only one point,—that Mr. Bingley, if he had been imposed on, would have much to suffer when the affair became public. The two young ladies were summoned from the shrubbery, where this conversation passed, by the arrival of some of the very persons of whom they had been speaking; Mr. Bingley and his sisters came to give their personal invitation for the long expected ball at Netherfield, which 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. They were soon gone again, rising from their seats with an activity which took their brother by surprise, and hurrying off as if eager to escape from Mrs. Bennet's civilities. The prospect of the Netherfield ball was extremely agreeable to every female of the family. Mrs. Bennet chose to consider it as given in compliment to her eldest daughter, and was particularly flattered by receiving the invitation from Mr. Bingley himself, instead of a ceremonious card. Jane pictured to herself a happy evening in the society of her two friends, and the attentions of their brother; and Elizabeth thought with pleasure of dancing a great deal with Mr. Wickham, and of seeing a confirmation of every thing in Mr. Darcy's look and behaviour. The happiness anticipated by Catherine and Lydia depended less on any single event, or any particular person; for though they each, like Elizabeth, meant to dance half the evening with Mr. Wickham, he was by no means the only partner who could satisfy them, and a ball was, at any rate, a ball. And even Mary could assure her family that she had no disinclination for it. "While I can have my mornings to myself," said she, "it is enough. I think it is no sacrifice to join occasionally in evening engagements. Society has claims on us all; and I profess myself one of those who consider intervals of recreation and amusement as desirable for every body." Elizabeth's spirits were so high on the occasion, that, though she did not often speak unnecessarily to Mr. Collins, she could not help asking him whether he intended to accept Mr. Bingley's invitation, and, if he did, whether he would think it proper to join in the evening's amusement; and she was rather surprised to find that he entertained no scruple whatever on that head, and was very far from dreading a rebuke, either from the Archbishop or Lady Catherine de Bourgh, by venturing to dance. "I am by no means of opinion, I assure you," said he, "that a ball of this kind, given by a young man of character, to respectable people, can have any evil tendency; and I am so far from objecting to dancing myself, that I shall hope to be honoured with the hands of all my fair cousins in the course of the evening; and I take this opportunity of soliciting yours, Miss Elizabeth, for the two first dances especially; a preference which I trust my cousin Jane will attribute to the right cause, and not to any disrespect for her." Elizabeth felt herself completely taken in. She had fully proposed being engaged by Wickham for those very dances; and to have Mr. Collins instead!—her liveliness had been never worse timed. There was no help for it, however. Mr. Wickham's happiness and her own was perforce delayed a little longer, and Mr. Collins's proposal accepted with as good a grace as she could. She was not the better pleased with his gallantry, from the idea it suggested of something more. It now first struck her, that she was selected from among her sisters as worthy of being the mistress of Hunsford Parsonage, and of assisting to form a quadrille table at Rosings, in the absence of more eligible visiters. The idea soon reached to conviction, as she observed his increasing civilities towards herself, and heard his frequent attempt at a compliment on her wit and vivacity; and though more astonished than gratified herself by this effect of her charms, it was not long before her mother gave her to understand that the probability of their marriage was exceedingly agreeable to her. Elizabeth, however, did not choose to take the hint, being well aware that a serious dispute must be the consequence of any reply. Mr. Collins might never make the offer, and, till he did, it was useless to quarrel about him. If there had not been a Netherfield ball to prepare for and talk of, the younger Miss Bennets would have been in a pitiable state at this time; for from the day of the invitation to the day of the ball there was such a succession of rain as prevented their walking to Meryton once. No aunt, no officers, no news could be sought after; the very shoe-rosesag for Netherfield were got by proxy. Even Elizabeth might have found some trial of her patience in weather which totally suspended the improvement of her acquaintance with Mr. Wickham; and nothing less than a dance on Tuesday could have made such a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday endurable to Kitty and Lydia.
Till Elizabeth entered the drawing-room at Netherfield, and looked in vain for Mr. Wickham among the cluster of red coats there assembled, a doubt of his being present had never occurred to her. The certainty of meeting him had not been checked by any of those recollections that might not unreasonably have alarmed her. She had dressed with more than usual care, and prepared in the highest spirits for the conquest of all that remained unsubdued of his heart, trusting that it was not more than might be won in the course of the evening. But in an instant arose the dreadful suspicion of his being purposely omitted, for Mr. Darcy's pleasure, in the Bingleys' invitation to the officers; and though this was not exactly the case, the absolute fact of his absence was pronounced by his friend Mr. Denny, to whom Lydia eagerly applied, and who told them that Wickham had been obliged to go to town on business the day before, and was not yet returned; adding, with a significant smile,— "I do not imagine his business would have called him away just now, if he had not wished to avoid a certain gentleman here." This part of his intelligence, though unheard by Lydia, was caught by Elizabeth; and, as it assured her that Darcy was not less answerable for Wickham's absence than if her first surmise had been just, every feeling of displeasure against the former was so sharpened by immediate disappointment, that she could hardly reply with tolerable civility to the polite enquiries which he directly afterwards approached to make. Attention, forbearance, patience with Darcy, was injury to Wickham. She was resolved against any sort of conversation with him, and turned away with a degree of ill-humour which she could not wholly surmount even in speaking to Mr. Bingley, whose blind partiality provoked her. But Elizabeth was not formed for ill-humour; and though every prospect of her own was destroyed for the evening, it could not dwell long on her spirits; and, having told all her griefs to Charlotte Lucas, whom she had not seen for a week, she was soon able to make a voluntary transition to the oddities of her cousin, and to point him out to her particular notice. The two first dances, however, brought a return of distress: they were dances of mortification. Mr. Collins, awkward and solemn, apologising instead of attending, and often moving wrong without being aware of it, gave her all the shame and misery which a disagreeable partner for a couple of dances can give. The moment of her release from him was ecstasy. She danced next with an officer, and had the refreshment of talking of Wickham, and of hearing that he was universally liked. When those dances were over, she returned to Charlotte Lucas, and was in conversation with her, when she found herself suddenly addressed by Mr. Darcy, who took her so much by surprise in his application for her hand, that, without knowing what she did, she accepted him. He walked away again immediately, and she was left to fret over her own want of presence of mind: Charlotte tried to console her. "I dare say you will find him very agreeable." "Heaven forbid! That would be the greatest misfortune of all! To find a man agreeable whom one is determined to hate! Do not wish me such an evil." When the dancing recommenced, however, and Darcy approached to claim her hand, Charlotte could not help cautioning her, in a whisper, not to be a simpleton, and allow her fancy for Wickham to make her appear unpleasant in the eyes of a man of ten times his consequence. Elizabeth made no answer, and took her place in the set, amazed at the dignity to which she was arrived in being allowed to stand opposite to Mr. Darcy, and reading in her neighbours' looks their equal amazement in beholding it. They stood for some time without speaking a word; and she began to imagine that their silence was to last through the two dances, and, at first, was resolved not to break it; till suddenly fancying that it would be the greater punishment to her partner to oblige him to talk, she made some slight observation on the dance. He replied, and was again silent. After a pause of some minutes, she addressed him a second time, with— "It is your turn to say something now, Mr. Darcy. I talked about the dance, and you ought to make some kind of remark on the size of the room, or the number of couples." He smiled, and assured her that whatever she wished him to say should be said. "Very well; that reply will do for the present. Perhaps, by and by, I may observe that private balls are much pleasanter than public ones; but now we may be silent." "Do you talk by rule, then, while you are dancing?" "Sometimes. One must speak a little, you know. It would look odd to be entirely silent for half an hour together; and yet, for the advantage of some, conversation ought to be so arranged, as that they may have the trouble of saying as little as possible." "Are you consulting your own feelings in the present case, or do you imagine that you are gratifying mine?" "Both," replied Elizabeth, archly; "for I have always seen a great similarity in the turn of our minds. We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the éclat of a proverb." "This is no very striking resemblance of your own character, I am sure," said he. "How near it may be to mine, I cannot pretend to say. You think it a faithful portrait undoubtedly." "I must not decide on my own performance." He made no answer, and they were again silent till they had gone down the dance, when he asked her if she and her sisters did not very often walk to Meryton? She answered in the affirmative, and, unable to resist the temptation, added, "When you met us there the other day, we had just been forming a new acquaintance." The effect was immediate. A deeper shade of hauteur overspread his features, but he said not a word, and Elizabeth, though blaming herself for her own weakness, could not go on. At length Darcy spoke, and in a constrained manner said, "Mr. Wickham is blessed with such happy manners as may ensure his making friends—whether he may be equally capable of retaining them, is less certain." "He has been so unlucky as to lose your friendship," replied Elizabeth with emphasis, "and in a manner which he is likely to suffer from all his life." Darcy made no answer, and seemed desirous of changing the subject. At that moment Sir William Lucas appeared close to them, meaning to pass through the set to the other side of the room; but on perceiving Mr. Darcy, he stopped with a bow of superior courtesy to compliment him on his dancing and his partner. "I have been most highly gratified indeed, my dear sir. Such very superior dancing is not often seen. It is evident that you belong to the first circles. Allow me to say, however, that your fair partner does not disgrace you, and that I must hope to have this pleasure often repeated, especially when a certain desirable event, my dear Miss Eliza," (glancing at her sister and Bingley), "shall take place. What congratulations will then flow in! I appeal to Mr. Darcy:—but let me not interrupt you, sir. You will not thank me for detaining you from the bewitching converse of that young lady whose bright eyes are also upbraiding me." The latter part of this address was scarcely heard by Darcy; but Sir William's allusion to his friend seemed to strike him forcibly, and his eyes were directed with a very serious expression towards Bingley and Jane, who were dancing together. Recovering himself, however, shortly, he turned to his partner, and said, "Sir William's interruption has made me forget what we were talking of." "I do not think we were speaking at all. Sir William could not have interrupted any two people in the room who had less to say for themselves. We have tried two or three subjects already without success, and what we are to talk of next I cannot imagine." "What think you of books?" said he, smiling. "Books oh! no. I am sure we never read the same, or not with the same feelings." "I am sorry you think so; but if that be the case, there can at least be no want of subject. We may compare our different opinions." "No—I cannot talk of books in a ball-room; my head is always full of something else." "The present always occupies you in such scenes—does it?" said he, with a look of doubt. "Yes, always," she replied, without knowing what she said, for her thoughts had wandered far from the subject, as soon afterwards appeared by her suddenly exclaiming, "I remember hearing you once say, Mr. Darcy, that you hardly ever forgave, that your resentment once created was unappeasable. You are very cautious, I suppose, as to its being created." "I am," said he, with a firm voice. "And never allow yourself to be blinded by prejudice?" "I hope not." "It is particularly incumbent on those who never change their opinion, to be secure of judging properly at first." "May I ask to what these questions tend?" "Merely to the illustration of your character," said she, endeavouring to shake off her gravity. "I am trying to make it out." "And what is your success?" She shook her head, "I do not get on at all. I hear such different accounts of you as puzzle me exceedingly." "I can readily believe," answered he gravely, "that reports may vary greatly with respect to me; and I could wish, Miss Bennet, that you were not to sketch my character at the present moment, as there is reason to fear that the performance would reflect no credit on either." "But if I do not take your likeness now, I may never have another opportunity." "I would by no means suspend any pleasure of yours," he coldly replied. She said no more, and they went down the other dance and parted in silence; on each side dissatisfied, though not to an equal degree, for in Darcy's breast there was a tolerable powerful feeling towards her, which soon procured her pardon, and directed all his anger against another. They had not long separated, when Miss Bingley came towards her, and with an expression of civil disdain thus accosted her:—"So, Miss Eliza, I hear you are quite delighted with George Wickham! Your sister has been talking to me about him, and asking me a thousand questions; and I find that the young man forgot to tell you, among his other communications, that he was the son of old Wickham, the late Mr. Darcy's steward. Let me recommend you, however, as a friend, not to give implicit confidence to all his assertions; for as to Mr. Darcy's using him ill, it is perfectly false, for, on the contrary, he has been always remarkably kind to him, though George Wickham has treated Mr. Darcy in a most infamous manner. I do not know the particulars, but I know very well that Mr. Darcy is not in the least to blame, that he cannot bear to hear George Wickham mentioned, and that though my brother thought he could not well avoid including him in his invitation to the officers, he was excessively glad to find that he had taken himself out of the way. His coming into the country at all is a most insolent thing, indeed, and I wonder how he could presume to do it. I pity you, Miss Eliza, for this discovery of your favourite's guilt; but really, considering his descent, one could not expect much better." "His guilt and his descent appear by your account to be the same," said Elizabeth angrily, "for I have heard you accuse him of nothing worse than of being the son of Mr. Darcy's steward, and of that, I can assure you, he informed me himself." "I beg your pardon," replied Miss Bingley, turning away with a sneer. "Excuse my interference: it was kindly meant." "Insolent girl!" said Elizabeth to herself. "You are much mistaken if you expect to influence me by such a paltry attack as this. I see nothing in it but your own wilful ignorance and the malice of Mr. Darcy." She then sought her eldest sister, who had undertaken to make inquiries on the same subject of Bingley. Jane met her with a smile of such sweet complacency, a glow of such happy expression, as sufficiently marked how well she was satisfied with the occurrences of the evening. Elizabeth instantly read her feelings, and at that moment solicitude for Wickham, resentment against his enemies, and everything else, gave way before the hope of Jane's being in the fairest way for happiness. "I want to know," said she, with a countenance no less smiling than her sister's, "what you have learnt about Mr. Wickham. But perhaps you have been too pleasantly engaged to think of any third person; in which case you may be sure of my pardon." "No," replied Jane, "I have not forgotten him; but I have nothing satisfactory to tell you. Mr. Bingley does not know the whole of his history, and is quite ignorant of the circumstances which have principally offended Mr. Darcy; but he will vouch for the good conduct, the probity, and honour of his friend, and is perfectly convinced that Mr. Wickham has deserved much less attention from Mr. Darcy than he has received; and I am sorry to say that by his account as well as his sister's, Mr. Wickham is by no means a respectable young man. I am afraid he has been very imprudent, and has deserved to lose Mr. Darcy's regard." "Mr. Bingley does not know Mr. Wickham himself?" "No; he never saw him till the other morning at Meryton." "This account then is what he has received from Mr. Darcy. I am satisfied. But what does he say of the living?" "He does not exactly recollect the circumstances, though he has heard them from Mr. Darcy more than once, but he believes that it was left to him conditionally only." "I have not a doubt of Mr. Bingley's sincerity," said Elizabeth warmly; "but you must excuse my not being convinced by assurances only. Mr. Bingley's defence of his friend was a very able one, I dare say; but since he is unacquainted with several parts of the story, and has learnt the rest from that friend himself, I shall venture still to think of both gentlemen as I did before." She then changed the discourse to one more gratifying to each, and on which there could be no difference of sentiment. Elizabeth listened with delight to the happy, though modest hopes which Jane entertained of Bingley's regard, and said all in her power to heighten her confidence in it. On their being joined by Mr. Bingley himself, Elizabeth withdrew to Miss Lucas; to whose inquiry after the pleasantness of her last partner she had scarcely replied, before Mr. Collins came up to them, and told her with great exultation that he had just been so fortunate as to make a most important discovery. "I have found out," said he, "by a singular accident, that there is now in the room a near relation of my patroness. I happened to overhear the gentleman himself mentioning to the young lady who does the honours of this house the names of his cousin Miss de Bourgh, and of her mother Lady Catherine. How wonderfully these sort of things occur! Who would have thought of my meeting with, perhaps, a nephew of Lady Catherine de Bourgh in this assembly! I am most thankful that the discovery is made in time for me to pay my respects to him, which I am now going to do, and trust he will excuse my not having done it before. My total ignorance of the connection must plead my apology." "You are not going to introduce yourself to Mr. Darcy!" "Indeed I am. I shall entreat his pardon for not having done it earlier. I believe him to be Lady Catherine's nephew. It will be in my power to assure him that her ladyship was quite well yesterday se'nnight." Elizabeth tried hard to dissuade him from such a scheme, assuring him that Mr. Darcy would consider his addressing him without introduction as an impertinent freedom, rather than a compliment to his aunt; that it was not in the least necessary there should be any notice on either side; and that if it were, it must belong to Mr. Darcy, the superior in consequence, to begin the acquaintance. Mr. Collins listened to her with the determined air of following his own inclination, and, when she ceased speaking, replied thus:—"My dear Miss Elizabeth, I have the highest opinion in the world of your excellent judgment in all matters within the scope of your understanding; but permit me to say, that there must be a wide difference between the established forms of ceremony amongst the laity, and those which regulate the clergy; for, give me leave to observe that I consider the clerical office as equal in point of dignity with the highest rank in the kingdom—provided that a proper humility of behaviour is at the same time maintained. You must therefore allow me to follow the dictates of my conscience on this occasion, which leads me to perform what I look on as a point of duty. Pardon me for neglecting to profit by your advice, which on every other subject shall be my constant guide, though in the case before us I consider myself more fitted by education and habitual study to decide on what is right than a young lady like yourself." And with a low bow he left her to attack Mr. Darcy, whose reception of his advances she eagerly watched, and whose astonishment at being so addressed was very evident. Her cousin prefaced his speech with a solemn bow, and though she could not hear a word of it, she felt as if hearing it all, and saw in the motion of his lips the words "apology," "Hunsford," and "Lady Catherine de Bourgh." It vexed her to see him expose himself to such a man. Mr. Darcy was eyeing him with unrestrained wonder, and when at last Mr. Collins allowed him time to speak, replied with an air of distant civility. Mr. Collins, however, was not discouraged from speaking again, and Mr. Darcy's contempt seemed abundantly increasing with the length of his second speech, and at the end of it he only made him a slight bow, and moved another way. Mr. Collins then returned to Elizabeth. "I have no reason, I assure you," said he, "to be dissatisfied with my reception. Mr. Darcy seemed much pleased with the attention. He answered me with the utmost civility, and even paid me the compliment of saying that he was so well convinced of Lady Catherine's discernment as to be certain she could never bestow a favour unworthily. It was really a very handsome thought. Upon the whole, I am much pleased with him." As Elizabeth had no longer any interest of her own to pursue, she turned her attention almost entirely on her sister and Mr. Bingley; and the train of agreeable reflections which her observations gave birth to, made her perhaps almost as happy as Jane. She saw her in idea settled in that very house, in all the felicity which a marriage of true affection could bestow; and she felt capable, under such circumstances, of endeavouring even to like Bingley's two sisters. Her mother's thoughts she plainly saw were bent the same way, and she determined not to venture near her, lest she might hear too much. When they sat down to supper, therefore, she considered it a most unlucky perverseness which placed them within one of each other; and deeply was she vexed to find that her mother was talking to that one person (Lady Lucas) freely, openly, and of nothing else but of her expectation that Jane would be soon married to Mr. Bingley. It was an animating subject, and Mrs. Bennet seemed incapable of fatigue while enumerating the advantages of the match. His being such a charming young man, and so rich, and living but three miles from them, were the first points of self-gratulation; and then it was such a comfort to think how fond the two sisters were of Jane, and to be certain that they must desire the connection as much as she could do. It was, moreover, such a promising thing for her younger daughters, as Jane's marrying so greatly must throw them in the way of other rich men; and lastly, it was so pleasant at her time of life to be able to consign her single daughters to the care of their sister, that she might not be obliged to go into company more than she liked. It was necessary to make this circumstance a matter of pleasure, because on such occasions it is the etiquette; but no one was less likely than Mrs. Bennet to find comfort in staying at home at any period of her life. She concluded with many good wishes that Lady Lucas might soon be equally fortunate, though evidently and triumphantly believing there was no chance of it. In vain did Elizabeth endeavour to check the rapidity of her mother's words, or persuade her to describe her felicity in a less audible whisper; for, to her inexpressible vexation, she could perceive that the chief of it was overheard by Mr. Darcy, who sat opposite to them. Her mother only scolded her for being nonsensical. "What is Mr. Darcy to me, pray, that I should be afraid of him? I am sure we owe him no such particular civility as to be obliged to say nothing he may not like to hear." "For heaven's sake, madam, speak lower. What advantage can it be to you to offend Mr. Darcy? You will never recommend yourself to his friend by so doing!" Nothing that she could say, however, had any influence. Her mother would talk of her views in the same intelligible tone. Elizabeth blushed and blushed again with shame and vexation. She could not help frequently glancing her eye at Mr. Darcy, though every glance convinced her of what she dreaded; for though he was not always looking at her mother, she was convinced that his attention was invariably fixed by her. The expression of his face changed gradually from indignant contempt to a composed and steady gravity. At length, however, Mrs. Bennet had no more to say; and Lady Lucas, who had been long yawning at the repetition of delights which she saw no likelihood of sharing, was left to the comforts of cold ham and chicken. Elizabeth now began to revive. But not long was the interval of tranquillity; for, when supper was over, singing was talked of, and she had the mortification of seeing Mary, after very little entreaty, preparing to oblige the company. By many significant looks and silent entreaties, did she endeavour to prevent such a proof of complaisance, but in vain; Mary would not understand them; such an opportunity of exhibiting was delightful to her, and she began her song. Elizabeth's eyes were fixed on her with most painful sensations, and she watched her progress through the several stanzas with an impatience which was very ill rewarded at their close; for Mary, on receiving, amongst the thanks of the table, the hint of a hope that she might be prevailed on to favour them again, after the pause of half a minute began another. Mary's powers were by no means fitted for such a display; her voice was weak, and her manner affected. Elizabeth was in agonies. She looked at Jane, to see how she bore it; but Jane was very composedly talking to Bingley. She looked at his two sisters, and saw them making signs of derision at each other, and at Darcy, who continued, however, impenetrably grave. She looked at her father to entreat his interference, lest Mary should be singing all night. He took the hint, and when Mary had finished her second song, said aloud, "That will do extremely well, child. You have delighted us long enough. Let the other young ladies have time to exhibit." Mary, though pretending not to hear, was somewhat disconcerted; and Elizabeth, sorry for her, and sorry for her father's speech, was afraid her anxiety had done no good. Others of the party were now applied to. "If I," said Mr. Collins, "were so fortunate as to be able to sing, I should have great pleasure, I am sure, in obliging the company with an air; for I consider music as a very innocent diversion, and perfectly compatible with the profession of a clergyman. I do not mean, however, to assert that we can be justified in devoting too much of our time to music, for there are certainly other things to be attended to. The rector of a parish has much to do. In the first place, he must make such an agreement for tithes as may be beneficial to himself and not offensive to his patron. He must write his own sermons; and the time that remains will not be too much for his parish duties, and the care and improvement of his dwelling, which he cannot be excused from making as comfortable as possible. And I do not think it of light importance that he should have attentive and conciliatory manners towards everybody, especially towards those to whom he owes his preferment. I cannot acquit him of that duty; nor could I think well of the man who should omit an occasion of testifying his respect towards anybody connected with the family." And with a bow to Mr. Darcy, he concluded his speech, which had been spoken so loud as to be heard by half the room. Many stared—many smiled; but no one looked more amused than Mr. Bennet himself, while his wife seriously commended Mr. Collins for having spoken so sensibly, and observed in a half-whisper to Lady Lucas, that he was a remarkably clever, good kind of young man. To Elizabeth it appeared that, had her family made an agreement to expose themselves as much as they could during the evening, it would have been impossible for them to play their parts with more spirit or finer success; and happy did she think it for Bingley and her sister that some of the exhibition had escaped his notice, and that his feelings were not of a sort to be much distressed by the folly which he must have witnessed. That his two sisters and Mr. Darcy, however, should have such an opportunity of ridiculing her relations, was bad enough, and she could not determine whether the silent contempt of the gentleman, or the insolent smiles of the ladies, were more intolerable. The rest of the evening brought her little amusement. She was teased by Mr. Collins, who continued most perseveringly by her side, and though he could not prevail with her to dance with him again, put it out of her power to dance with others. In vain did she entreat him to stand up with somebody else, and offer to introduce him to any young lady in the room. He assured her, that as to dancing, he was perfectly indifferent to it; that his chief object was by delicate attentions to recommend himself to her, and that he should therefore make a point of remaining close to her the whole evening. There was no arguing upon such a project. She owed her greatest relief to her friend Miss Lucas, who often joined them, and good-naturedly engaged Mr. Collins's conversation to herself. She was at least free from the offence of Mr. Darcy's further notice; though often standing within a very short distance of her, quite disengaged, he never came near enough to speak. She felt it to be the probable consequence of her allusions to Mr. Wickham, and rejoiced in it. The Longbourn party were the last of all the company to depart, and, by a manœuvre of Mrs. Bennet, had to wait for their carriage a quarter of an hour after everybody else was gone, which gave them time to see how heartily they were wished away by some of the family. Mrs. Hurst and her sister scarcely opened their mouths, except to complain of fatigue, and were evidently impatient to have the house to themselves. They repulsed every attempt of Mrs. Bennet at conversation, and by so doing threw a languor over the whole party, which was very little relieved by the long speeches of Mr. Collins, who was complimenting Mr. Bingley and his sisters on the elegance of their entertainment, and the hospitality and politeness which had marked their behaviour to their guests. Darcy said nothing at all. Mr. Bennet, in equal silence, was enjoying the scene. Mr. Bingley and Jane were standing together, a little detached from the rest, and talked only to each other. Elizabeth preserved as steady a silence as either Mrs. Hurst or Miss Bingley; and even Lydia was too much fatigued to utter more than the occasional exclamation of "Lord, how tired I am!" accompanied by a violent yawn. When at length they arose to take leave, Mrs. Bennet was most pressingly civil in her hope of seeing the whole family soon at Longbourn, and addressed herself particularly to Mr. Bingley, to assure him how happy he would make them by eating a family dinner with them at any time, without the ceremony of a formal invitation. Bingley was all grateful pleasure, and he readily engaged for taking the earliest opportunity of waiting on her, after his return from London, whither he was obliged to go the next day for a short time. Mrs. Bennet was perfectly satisfied, and quitted the house under the delightful persuasion that, allowing for the necessary preparations of settlements, new carriages, and wedding clothes, she should undoubtedly see her daughter settled at Netherfield in the course of three or four months. Of having another daughter married to Mr. Collins, she thought with equal certainty, and with considerable, though not equal, pleasure. Elizabeth was the least dear to her of all her children; and though the man and the match were quite good enough for her, the worth of each was eclipsed by Mr. Bingley and Netherfield.
The next day opened a new scene at Longbourn. Mr. Collins made his declaration in form. Having resolved to do it without loss of time, as his leave of absence extended only to the following Saturday, and having no feelings of diffidence to make it distressing to himself even at the moment, he set about it in a very orderly manner, with all the observances, which he supposed a regular part of the business. On finding Mrs. Bennet, Elizabeth, and one of the younger girls together, soon after breakfast, he addressed the mother in these words: "May I hope, madam, for your interest with your fair daughter Elizabeth, when I solicit for the honour of a private audience with her in the course of this morning?" Before Elizabeth had time for anything but a blush of surprise, Mrs. Bennet instantly answered, "Oh dear!—yes—certainly. I am sure Lizzy will be very happy—I am sure she can have no objection. Come, Kitty, I want you upstairs." And, gathering her work together, she was hastening away, when Elizabeth called out: "Dear madam, do not go. I beg you will not go. Mr. Collins must excuse me. He can have nothing to say to me that anybody need not hear. I am going away myself." "No, no, nonsense, Lizzy. I desire you will stay where you are." And upon Elizabeth's seeming really, with vexed and embarrassed looks, about to escape, she added: "Lizzy, I insist upon your staying and hearing Mr. Collins." Elizabeth would not oppose such an injunction—and a moment's consideration making her also sensible that it would be wisest to get it over as soon and as quietly as possible, she sat down again, and tried to conceal, by incessant employment, the feelings which were divided between distress and diversion. Mrs. Bennet and Kitty walked off, and as soon as they were gone Mr. Collins began. "Believe me, my dear Miss Elizabeth, that your modesty, so far from doing you any disservice, rather adds to your other perfections. You would have been less amiable in my eyes had there not been this little unwillingness; but allow me to assure you, that I have your respected mother's permission for this address. You can hardly doubt the purport of my discourse, however your natural delicacy may lead you to dissemble; my attentions have been too marked to be mistaken. Almost as soon as I entered the house, I singled you out as the companion of my future life. But before I am run away with by my feelings on this subject, perhaps it would be advisable for me to state my reasons for marrying—and, moreover, for coming into Hertfordshire with the design of selecting a wife, as I certainly did." The idea of Mr. Collins, with all his solemn composure, being run away with by his feelings, made Elizabeth so near laughing, that she could not use the short pause he allowed in any attempt to stop him farther, and he continued: "My reasons for marrying are, first, that I think it a right thing for every clergyman in easy circumstances (like myself) to set the example of matrimony in his parish; secondly, that I am convinced it will add very greatly to my happiness; and thirdly—which perhaps I ought to have mentioned earlier, that it is the particular advice and recommendation of the very noble lady whom I have the honour of calling patroness. Twice has she condescended to give me her opinion (unasked too!) on this subject; and it was but the very Saturday night before I left Hunsford—between our pools at quadrille, while Mrs. Jenkinson was arranging Miss de Bourgh's footstool, that she said, 'Mr. Collins, you must marry. A clergyman like you must marry. Choose properly, choose a gentlewoman for my sake; and for your own, let her be an active, useful sort of person, not brought up high, but able to make a small income go a good way. This is my advice. Find such a woman as soon as you can, bring her to Hunsford, and I will visit her.' Allow me, by the way, to observe, my fair cousin, that I do not reckon the notice and kindness of Lady Catherine de Bourgh as among the least of the advantages in my power to offer. You will find her manners beyond anything I can describe; and your wit and vivacity, I think, must be acceptable to her, especially when tempered with the silence and respect which her rank will inevitably excite. Thus much for my general intention in favour of matrimony; it remains to be told why my views were directed to Longbourn instead of my own neighbourhood, where I assure you there are many amiable young women. But the fact is, that being, as I am, to inherit this estate after the death of your honoured father (who, however, may live many years longer), I could not satisfy myself without resolving to choose a wife from among his daughters, that the loss to them might be as little as possible, when the melancholy event takes place—which, however, as I have already said, may not be for several years. This has been my motive, my fair cousin, and I flatter myself it will not sink me in your esteem, And now nothing remains for me but to assure you in the most animated language of the violence of my affection. To fortune I am perfectly indifferent, and shall make no demand of that nature on your father, since I am well aware that it could not be complied with; and that one thousand pounds in the 4 per cents,ah which will not be yours till after your mother's decease, is all that you may ever be entitled to. On that head, therefore, I shall be uniformly silent; and you may assure yourself that no ungenerous reproach shall ever pass my lips when we are married." It was absolutely necessary to interrupt him now. "You are too hasty, sir," she cried. "You forget that I have made no answer. Let me do it without further loss of time. Accept my thanks for the compliment you are paying me. I am very sensible of the honour of your proposals, but it is impossible for me to do otherwise than decline them." "I am not now to learn," replied Mr. Collins, with a formal wave of the hand, "that it is usual with young ladies to reject the addresses of the man whom they secretly mean to accept, when he first applies for their favour; and that sometimes the refusal is repeated a second or even a third time. I am, therefore, by no means discouraged by what you have just said, and shall hope to lead you to the altar ere long." "Upon my word, sir," cried Elizabeth, "your hope is rather an extraordinary one after my declaration. I do assure you that I am not one of those young ladies (if such young ladies there are) who are so daring as to risk their happiness on the chance of being asked a second time. I am perfectly serious in my refusal. You could not make me happy, and I am convinced that I am the last woman in the world who would make you so. Nay, were your friend Lady Catherine to know me, I am persuaded she would find me in every respect ill qualified for the situation." "Were it certain that Lady Catherine would think so," said Mr. Collins, very gravely—"but I cannot imagine that her Ladyship would at all disapprove of you. And you may be certain that when I have the honour of seeing her again I shall speak in the highest terms of your modesty, economy, and other amiable qualifications." "Indeed, Mr. Collins, all praise of me will be unnecessary. You must give me leave to judge for myself, and pay me the compliment of believing what I say. I wish you very happy and very rich, and by refusing your hand, do all in my power to prevent your being otherwise. In making me the offer, you must have satisfied the delicacy of your feelings with regard to my family, and may take possession of Longbourn estate whenever it falls, without any self-reproach. This matter may be considered, therefore, as finally settled." And rising as she thus spoke, she would have quitted the room, had not Mr. Collins thus addressed her,— "When I do myself the honour of speaking to you next on the subject, I shall hope to receive a more favourable answer than you have now given me; though I am far from accusing you of cruelty at present, because I know it to be the established custom of your sex to reject a man on the first application, and, perhaps, you have even now said as much to encourage my suit as would be consistent with the true delicacy of the female character." "Really, Mr. Collins," cried Elizabeth, with some warmth, "you puzzle me exceedingly. If what I have hitherto said can appear to you in the form of encouragement, I know not how to express my refusal in such a way as may convince you of its being one." "You must give me leave to flatter myself, my dear cousin, that your refusal of my addresses are merely words of course. My reasons for believing it are briefly these:—It does not appear to me that my hand is unworthy your acceptance, or that the establishment I can offer would be any other than highly desirable. My situation in life, my connections with the family of De Bourgh, and my relationship to your own, are circumstances highly in my favour; and you should take it into further consideration that, in spite of your manifold attractions, it is by no means certain that another offer of marriage may ever be made you. Your portion is unhappily so small, that it will in all likelihood undo the effects of your loveliness and amiable qualifications. As I must, therefore, conclude that you are not serious in your rejection of me, I shall choose to attribute it to your wish of increasing my love by suspense, according to the usual practice of elegant females." "I do assure you, sir, that I have no pretensions whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man. I would rather be paid the compliment of being believed sincere. I thank you again and again for the honour you have done me in your proposals, but to accept them is absolutely impossible. My feelings in every respect forbid it. Can I speak plainer? Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart." "You are uniformly charming!" cried he with an air of awkward gallantry; "and I am persuaded that, when sanctioned by the express authority of both your excellent parents, my proposals will not fail of being acceptable." To such perseverance in wilful self-deception Elizabeth would make no reply, and immediately and in silence withdrew; determined, that if he persisted in considering her repeated refusals as flattering encouragement, to apply to her father, whose negative might be uttered in such a manner as must be decisive, and whose behaviour at least could not be mistaken for the affectation and coquetry of an elegant female.
Mr. Collins was not left long to the silent contemplation of his successful love; for Mrs. Bennet, having dawdled about in the vestibule to watch for the end of the conference, no sooner saw Elizabeth open the door and with quick step pass her towards the staircase, than she entered the breakfast-room, and congratulated both him and herself in warm terms on the happy prospect of their nearer connection. Mr. Collins received and returned these felicitations with equal pleasure, and then proceeded to relate the particulars of their interview, with the result of which he trusted he had every reason to be satisfied, since the refusal which his cousin had steadfastly given him would naturally flow from her bashful modesty and the genuine delicacy of her character. This information, however, startled Mrs. Bennet: she would have been glad to be equally satisfied that her daughter had meant to encourage him by protesting against his proposals, but she dared not to believe it, and could not help saying so. "But depend upon it, Mr. Collins," she added, "that Lizzy shall be brought to reason. I will speak to her about it myself directly. She is a very headstrong, foolish girl, and does not know her own interest; but I will make her know it." "Pardon me for interrupting you, madam," cried Mr. Collins; "but if she is really headstrong and foolish, I know not whether she would altogether be a very desirable wife to a man in my situation, who naturally looks for happiness in the marriage state. If, therefore, she actually persists in rejecting my suit, perhaps, it were better not to force her into accepting me, because, if liable to such defects of temper, she could not contribute much to my felicity." "Sir, you quite misunderstand me," said Mrs. Bennet, alarmed. "Lizzy is only headstrong in such matters as these. In every thing else she is as good-natured a girl as ever lived. I will go directly to Mr. Bennet, and we shall very soon settle it with her, I am sure." She would not give him time to reply, but hurrying instantly to her husband, called out, as she entered the library,— "Oh, Mr. Bennet, you are wanted immediately; we are all in an uproar. You must come and make Lizzy marry Mr. Collins, for she vows she will not have him; and if you do not make haste he will change his mind and not have her." Mr. Bennet raised his eyes from his book as she entered, and fixed them on her face with a calm unconcern which was not in the least altered by her communication. "I have not the pleasure of understanding you," said he, when she had finished her speech. "Of what are you talking?" "Of Mr. Collins and Lizzy. Lizzy declares she will not have Mr. Collins, and Mr. Collins begins to say that he will not have Lizzy." "And what am I to do on the occasion? It seems a hopeless business." "Speak to Lizzy about it yourself. Tell her that you insist upon her marrying him." "Let her be called down. She shall hear my opinion." Mrs. Bennet rang the bell, and Miss Elizabeth was summoned to the library. "Come here, child," cried her father as she appeared. "I have sent for you on an affair of importance. I understand that Mr. Collins has made you an offer of marriage. Is it true?" Elizabeth replied that it was. "Very well—and this offer of marriage you have refused?" "I have, sir." "Very well. We now come to the point. Your mother insists upon your accepting it. Is it not so, Mrs. Bennet?" "Yes, or I will never see her again." "An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do." Elizabeth could not but smile at such a conclusion of such a beginning; but Mrs. Bennet, who had persuaded herself that her husband regarded the affair as she wished, was excessively disappointed. "What do you mean, Mr. Bennet, by talking in this way? You promised me to insist upon her marrying him." "My dear," replied her husband, "I have two small favours to request. First, that you will allow me the free use of my understanding on the present occasion; and, secondly, of my room. I shall be glad to have the library to myself as soon as may be." Not yet, however, in spite of her disappointment in her husband, did Mrs. Bennet give up the point. She talked to Elizabeth again and again; coaxed and threatened her by turns. She endeavoured to secure Jane in her interest, but Jane, with all possible mildness, declined interfering; and Elizabeth sometimes with real earnestness, and sometimes with playful gaiety, replied to her attacks. Though her manner varied, however, her determination never did. Mr. Collins, meanwhile, was meditating in solitude on what had passed. He thought too well of himself to comprehend on what motive his cousin could refuse him; and though his pride was hurt, he suffered in no other way. His regard for her was quite imaginary; and the possibility of her deserving her mother's reproach prevented his feeling any regret. While the family were in this confusion, Charlotte Lucas came to spend the day with them. She was met in the vestibule by Lydia, who, flying to her, cried in a half whisper, "I am glad you are come, for there is such fun here! What do you think has happened this morning? Mr. Collins has made an offer to Lizzy, and she will not have him." Charlotte had hardly time to answer before they were joined by Kitty, who came to tell the same news; and no sooner had they entered the breakfast-room, where Mrs. Bennet was alone, than she likewise began on the subject, calling on Miss Lucas for her compassion, and entreating her to persuade her friend Lizzy to comply with the wishes of all her family. "Pray do, my dear Miss Lucas," she added, in a melancholy tone; "for nobody is on my side, nobody takes part with me; I am cruelly used, nobody feels for my poor nerves." Charlotte's reply was spared by the entrance of Jane and Elizabeth. "Aye, there she comes," continued Mrs. Bennet, "looking as unconcerned as may be, and caring no more for us than if we were at York, provided she can have her own way. But I tell you what, Miss Lizzy, if you take it into your head to go on refusing every offer of marriage in this way, you will never get a husband at all—and I am sure I do not know who is to maintain you when your father is dead. I shall not be able to keep you—and so I warn you. I have done with you from this very day. I told you in the library, you know, that I should never speak to you again, and you will find me as good as my word. I have no pleasure in talking to undutiful children. Not that I have much pleasure indeed in talking to any body. People who suffer as I do from nervous complaints can have no great inclination for talking. Nobody can tell what I suffer! But it is always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied." Her daughters listened in silence to this effusion, sensible that any attempt to reason with or soothe her would only increase the irritation. She talked on, therefore, without interruption from any of them till they were joined by Mr. Collins, who entered with an air more stately than usual, and on perceiving whom, she said to the girls,— "Now, I do insist upon it, that you, all of you, hold your tongues, and let Mr. Collins and me have a little conversation together." Elizabeth passed quietly out of the room, Jane and Kitty followed, but Lydia stood her ground, determined to hear all she could; and Charlotte, detained first by the civility of Mr. Collins, whose enquiries after herself and all her family were very minute, and then by a little curiosity, satisfied herself with walking to the window and pretending not to hear. In a doleful voice Mrs. Bennet thus began the projected conversation: —"Oh, Mr. Collins." "My dear madam," replied he, "let us be for ever silent on this point. Far be it from me," he presently continued, in a voice that marked his displeasure, "to resent the behaviour of your daughter. Resignation to inevitable evils is the duty of us all: the peculiar duty of a young man who has been so fortunate, as I have been, in early preferment; and, I trust, I am resigned. Perhaps not the less so from feeling a doubt of my positive happiness had my fair cousin honoured me with her hand; for I have often observed, that resignation is never so perfect as when the blessing denied begins to lose somewhat of its value in our estimation. You will not, I hope, consider me as showing any disrespect to your family, my dear madam, by thus withdrawing my pretensions to your daughter's favour, without having paid yourself and Mr. Bennet the compliment of requesting you to interpose your authority in my behalf. My conduct may, I fear, be objectionable in having accepted my dismission from your daughter's lips instead of your own; but we are all liable to error. I have certainly meant well through the whole affair. My object has been to secure an amiable companion for myself, with due consideration for the advantage of all your family; and if my manner has been at all reprehensible, I here beg leave to apologise."
The discussion of Mr. Collins's offer was now nearly at an end, and Elizabeth had only to suffer from the uncomfortable feelings necessarily attending it, and occasionally from some peevish allusion of her mother. As for the gentleman himself, his feelings were chiefly expressed, not by embarrassment or dejection, or by trying to avoid her, but by stiffness of manner, and resentful silence. He scarcely ever spoke to her; and the assiduous attentions which he had been so sensible of himself were transferred for the rest of the day to Miss Lucas, whose civility in listening to him was a seasonable relief to them all, and especially to her friend. The morrow produced no abatement of Mrs. Bennet's ill humour or ill health. Mr. Collins was also in the same state of angry pride. Elizabeth had hoped that his resentment might shorten his visit, but his plan did not appear in the least affected by it. He was always to have gone on Saturday, and to Saturday he still meant to stay. After breakfast, the girls walked to Meryton, to enquire if Mr. Wickham were returned, and to lament over his absence from the Netherfield ball. He joined them on their entering the town, and attended them to their aunt's, where his regret and vexation and the concern of every body were well talked over. To Elizabeth, however, he voluntarily acknowledged that the necessity of his absence had been self-imposed. "I found," said he, "as the time drew near, that I had better not meet Mr. Darcy;—that to be in the same room, the same party with him for so many hours together, might be more than I could bear, and that scenes might arise unpleasant to more than myself." She highly approved his forbearance; and they had leisure for a full discussion of it, and for all the commendation which they civilly bestowed on each other, as Wickham and another officer walked back with them to Longbourn, and during the walk he particularly attended to her. His accompanying them was a double advantage; she felt all the compliment it offered to herself; and it was most acceptable as an occasion of introducing him to her father and mother. Soon after their return, a letter was delivered to Miss Bennet: it came from Netherfield, and was opened immediately. The envelope contained a sheet of elegant, little, hot-pressed paper,ai well covered with a lady's fair, flowing hand; and Elizabeth saw her sister's countenance change as she read it, and saw her dwelling intently on some particular passages. Jane recollected herself soon; and putting the letter away, tried to join, with her usual cheerfulness, in the general conversation: but Elizabeth felt an anxiety on the subject which drew off her attention even from Wickham; and no sooner had he and his companion taken leave, than a glance from Jane invited her to follow her up stairs. When they had gained their own room, Jane, taking out her letter, said, "This is from Caroline Bingley: what it contains has surprised me a good deal. The whole party have left Netherfield by this time, and are on their way to town: and without any intention of coming back again. You shall hear what she says." She then read the first sentence aloud, which comprised the information of their having just resolved to follow their brother to town directly, and of their meaning to dine that day in Grosvenor Street, where Mr. Hurst had a house. The next was in these words:—"I do not pretend to regret any thing I shall leave in Hertfordshire except your society, my dearest friend; but we will hope, at some future period, to enjoy many returns of that delightful intercourse we have known, and in the meanwhile may lessen the pain of separation by a very frequent and most unreserved correspondence. I depend on you for that." To these high-flown expressions Elizabeth listened with all the insensibility of distrust; and though the suddenness of their removal surprised her, she saw nothing in it really to lament: it was not to be supposed that their absence from Netherfield would prevent Mr. Bingley's being there; and as to the loss of their society, she was persuaded that Jane must soon cease to regard it in the enjoyment of his. "It is unlucky," said she, after a short pause, "that you should not be able to see your friends before they leave the country. But may we not hope that the period of future happiness, to which Miss Bingley looks forward, may arrive earlier than she is aware, and that the delightful intercourse you have known as friends will be renewed with yet greater satisfaction as sisters? Mr. Bingley will not be detained in London by them." "Caroline decidedly says that none of the party will return into Hertfordshire this winter. I will read it to you. " 'When my brother left us yesterday, he imagined that the business which took him to London might be concluded in three or four days; but as we are certain it cannot be so, and at the same time convinced that when Charles gets to town he will be in no hurry to leave it again, we have determined on following him thither, that he may not be obliged to spend his vacant hours in a comfortless hotel. Many of my acquaintance are already there for the winter: I wish I could hear that you, my dearest friend, had any intention of making one in the crowd, but of that I despair. I sincerely hope your Christmas in Hertfordshire may abound in the gaieties which that season generally brings; and that your beaux will be so numerous as to prevent your feeling the loss of the three of whom we shall deprive you.' "It is evident by this," added Jane, "that he comes back no more this winter." "It is only evident that Miss Bingley does not mean he should." "Why will you think so? It must be his own doing; he is his own master. But you do not know all. I will read you the passage which particularly hurts me. I will have no reserves from you. 'Mr. Darcy is impatient to see his sister; and, to confess the truth, we are scarcely less eager to meet her again. I really do not think Georgiana Darcy has her equal for beauty, elegance, and accomplishments; and the affection she inspires in Louisa and myself is heightened into something still more interesting from the hope we dare to entertain of her being hereafter our sister. I do not know whether I ever before mentioned to you my feelings on this subject, but I will not leave the country without confiding them, and I trust you will not esteem them unreasonable. My brother admires her greatly already; he will have frequent opportunity now of seeing her on the most intimate footing; her relations all wish the connection as much as his own; and a sister's partiality is not misleading me, I think, when I call Charles most capable of engaging any woman's heart. With all these circumstances to favour an attachment, and nothing to prevent it, am I wrong, my dearest Jane, in indulging the hope of an event which will secure the happiness of so many?' What think you of this sentence, my dear Lizzy?" said Jane, as she finished it. "Is it not clear enough? Does it not expressly declare, that Caroline neither expects nor wishes me to be her sister; that she is perfectly convinced of her brother's indifference; and that if she suspects the nature of my feelings for him she means (most kindly!) to put me on my guard. Can there be any other opinion on the subject?" "Yes, there can; for mine is totally different. Will you hear it?" "Most willingly." "You shall have it in a few words. Miss Bingley sees that her brother is in love with you, and wants him to marry Miss Darcy. She follows him to town in the hope of keeping him there, and tries to persuade you that he does not care about you." Jane shook her head. "Indeed, Jane, you ought to believe me. No one who has ever seen you together can doubt his affection; Miss Bingley, I am sure, cannot: she is not such a simpleton. Could she have seen half as much love in Mr. Darcy for herself, she would have ordered her wedding clothes. But the case is this:—we are not rich enough or grand enough for them; and she is the more anxious to get Miss Darcy for her brother, from the notion that when there has been one intermarriage, she may have less trouble in achieving a second; in which there is certainly some ingenuity, and I dare say it would succeed if Miss De Bourgh were out of the way. But, my dearest Jane, you cannot seriously imagine that, because Miss Bingley tells you her brother greatly admires Miss Darcy, he is in the smallest degree less sensible of your merit than when he took leave of you on Tuesday; or that it will be in her power to persuade him that, instead of being in love with you, he is very much in love with her friend." "If we thought alike of Miss Bingley," replied Jane, "your representation of all this might make me quite easy. But I know the foundation is unjust. Caroline is incapable of wilfully deceiving any one; and all that I can hope in this case is, that she is deceived herself." "That is right. You could not have started a more happy idea, since you will not take comfort in mine: believe her to be deceived, by all means. You have now done your duty by her, and must fret no longer." "But, my dear sister, can I be happy, even supposing the best, in accepting a man whose sisters and friends are all wishing him to marry elsewhere?" "You must decide for yourself," said Elizabeth; "and if, upon mature deliberation, you find that the misery of disobliging his two sisters is more than equivalent to the happiness of being his wife, I advise you, by all means, to refuse him." "How can you talk so?" said Jane, faintly smiling; "you must know, that, though I should be exceedingly grieved at their disapprobation, I could not hesitate." "I did not think you would; and that being the case, I cannot consider your situation with much compassion." "But if he returns no more this winter, my choice will never be required. A thousand things may arise in six months." The idea of his returning no more Elizabeth treated with the utmost contempt. It appeared to her merely the suggestion of Caroline's interested wishes; and she could not for a moment suppose that those wishes, however openly or artfully spoken, could influence a young man so totally independent of every one. She represented to her sister, as forcibly as possible, what she felt on the subject, and had soon the pleasure of seeing its happy effect. Jane's temper was not desponding; and she was gradually led to hope, though the diffidence of affection sometimes overcame the hope, that Bingley would return to Netherfield, and answer every wish of her heart. They agreed that Mrs. Bennet should only hear of the departure of the family, without being alarmed on the score of the gentleman's conduct; but even this partial communication gave her a great deal of concern, and she bewailed it as exceedingly unlucky that the ladies should happen to go away just as they were all getting so intimate together. After lamenting it, however, at some length, she had the consolation of thinking that Mr. Bingley would be soon down again, and soon dining at Longbourn; and the conclusion of all was the comfortable declaration, that, though he had been invited only to a family dinner, she would take care to have two full courses.
The Bennets were engaged to dine with the Lucases; and again, during the chief of the day, was Miss Lucas so kind as to listen to Mr. Collins. Elizabeth took an opportunity of thanking her. "It keeps him in good humour," said she, "and I am more obliged to you than I can express." Charlotte assured her friend of her satisfaction in being useful, and that it amply repaid her for the little sacrifice of her time. This was very amiable; but Charlotte's kindness extended farther than Elizabeth had any conception of:—its object was nothing less than to secure her from any return of Mr. Collins's addresses, by engaging them towards herself. Such was Miss Lucas's scheme; and appearances were so favourable, that when they parted at night, she would have felt almost sure of success if he had not been to leave Hertfordshire so very soon. But here she did injustice to the fire and independence of his character; for it led him to escape out of Longbourn House the next morning with admirable sliness, and hasten to Lucas Lodge to throw himself at her feet. He was anxious to avoid the notice of his cousins, from a conviction that, if they saw him depart, they could not fail to conjecture his design, and he was not willing to have the attempt known till its success could be known likewise; for, though feeling almost secure, and with reason, for Charlotte had been tolerably encouraging, he was comparatively diffident since the adventure of Wednesday. His reception, however, was of the most flattering kind. Miss Lucas perceived him from an upper window as he walked towards the house, and instantly set out to meet him accidentally in the lane. But little had she dared to hope that so much love and eloquence awaited her there. In as short a time as Mr. Collins's long speeches would allow, every thing was settled between them to the satisfaction of both; and as they entered the house, he earnestly entreated her to name the day that was to make him the happiest of men; and though such a solicitation must be waved for the present, the lady felt no inclination to trifle with his happiness. The stupidity with which he was favoured by nature must guard his courtship from any charm that could make a woman wish for its continuance; and Miss Lucas, who accepted him solely from the pure and disinterested desire of an establishment, cared not how soon that establishment were gained. Sir William and Lady Lucas were speedily applied to for their consent; and it was bestowed with a most joyful alacrity. Mr. Collins's present circumstances made it a most eligible match for their daughter, to whom they could give little fortune; and his prospects of future wealth were exceedingly fair. Lady Lucas began directly to calculate, with more interest than the matter had ever excited before, how many years longer Mr. Bennet was likely to live; and Sir William gave it as his decided opinion, that whenever Mr. Collins should be in possession of the Longbourn estate, it would be highly expedient that both he and his wife should make their appearance at St. James's. The whole family in short were properly overjoyed on the occasion. The younger girls formed hopes of coming outaj a year or two sooner than they might otherwise have done; and the boys were relieved from their apprehension of Charlotte's dying an old maid. Charlotte herself was tolerably composed. She had gained her point, and had time to consider of it. Her reflections were in general satisfactory. Mr. Collins, to be sure, was neither sensible nor agreeable: his society was irksome, and his attachment to her must be imaginary. But still he would be her husband. Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object: it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and, however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want. This preservative she had now obained; and at the age of twenty-seven, without having ever been handsome, she felt all the good luck of it. The least agreeable circumstance in the business was the surprise it must occasion to Elizabeth Bennet, whose friendship she valued beyond that of any other person. Elizabeth would wonder, and probably would blame her; and though her resolution was not to be shaken, her feelings must be hurt by such a disapprobation. She resolved to give her the information herself; and therefore charged Mr. Collins, when he returned to Longbourn to dinner, to drop no hint of what had passed before any of the family. A promise of secrecy was of course very dutifully given, but it could not be kept without difficulty; for the curiosity excited by his long absence burst forth in such very direct questions on his return, as required some ingenuity to evade, and he was at the same time exercising great self-denial, for he was longing to publish his prosperous love. As he was to begin his journey too early on the morrow to see any of the family, the ceremony of leave-taking was performed when the ladies moved for the night; and Mrs. Bennet, with great politeness and cordiality, said how happy they should be to see him at Longbourn again, whenever his other engagements might allow him to visit them. "My dear madam," he replied, "this invitation is particularly gratifying, because it is what I have been hoping to receive; and you may be very certain that I shall avail myself of it as soon as possible." They were all astonished; and Mr. Bennet, who could by no means wish for so speedy a return, immediately said,— "But is there not danger of Lady Catherine's disapprobation here, my good sir? You had better neglect your relations than run the risk of offending your patroness." "My dear sir," replied Mr. Collins, "I am particularly obliged to you for this friendly caution, and you may depend upon my not taking so material a step without her Ladyship's concurrence." "You cannot be too much on your guard. Risk any thing rather than her displeasure; and if you find it likely to be raised by your coming to us again, which I should think exceedingly probable, stay quietly at home, and be satisfied that we shall take no offence." "Believe me, my dear sir, my gratitude is warmly excited by such affectionate attention; and, depend upon it, you will speedily receive from me a letter of thanks for this as well as for every other mark of your regard during my stay in Hertfordshire. As for my fair cousins, though my absence may not be long enough to render it necessary, I shall now take the liberty of wishing them health and happiness, not excepting my cousin Elizabeth." With proper civilities, the ladies then withdrew; all of them equally surprised to find that he meditated a quick return. Mrs. Bennet wished to understand by it that he thought of paying his addresses to one of her younger girls, and Mary might have been prevailed on to accept him. She rated his abilities much higher than any of the others: there was a solidity in his reflections which often struck her; and though by no means so clever as herself, she thought that, if encouraged to read and improve himself by such an example as hers, he might become a very agreeable companion. But on the following morning every hope of this kind was done away. Miss Lucas called soon after breakfast, and in a private conference with Elizabeth related the event of the day before. The possibility of Mr. Collins's fancying himself in love with her friend had once occurred to Elizabeth within the last day or two: but that Charlotte could encourage him seemed almost as far from possibility as that she could encourage him herself; and her astonishment was consequently so great as to overcome at first the bounds of decorum, and she could not help crying out,— "Engaged to Mr. Collins! my dear Charlotte, impossible!" The steady countenance which Miss Lucas had commanded in telling her story gave way to a momentary confusion here on receiving so direct a reproach; though, as it was no more than she expected, she soon regained her composure, and calmly replied,— "Why should you be surprised, my dear Eliza? Do you think it incredible that Mr. Collins should be able to procure any woman's good opinion, because he was not so happy as to succeed with you?" But Elizabeth had now recollected herself; and, making a strong effort for it, was able to assure her, with tolerable firmness, that the prospect of their relationship was highly grateful to her, and that she wished her all imaginable happiness. "I see what you are feeling," replied Charlotte: "you must be surprised, very much surprised, so lately as Mr. Collins was wishing to marry you. But when you have had time to think it all over, I hope you will be satisfied with what I have done. I am not romantic, you know. I never was. I ask only a comfortable home; and, considering Mr. Collins's character, connections, and situation in life, I am convinced that my chance of happiness with him is as fair as most people can boast on entering the marriage state." Elizabeth quietly answered "undoubtedly;" and, after an awkward pause, they returned to the rest of the family. Charlotte did not stay much longer; and Elizabeth was then left to reflect on what she had heard. It was a long time before she became at all reconciled to the idea of so unsuitable a match. The strangeness of Mr. Collins's making two offers of marriage within three days was nothing in comparison of his being now accepted. She had always felt that Charlotte's opinion of matrimony was not exactly like her own; but she could not have supposed it possible that, when called into action, she would have sacrificed every better feeling to worldly advantage. Charlotte, the wife of Mr. Collins, was a most humiliating picture! And to the pang of a friend disgracing herself and sunk in her esteem was added the distressing conviction that it was impossible for that friend to be tolerably happy in the lot she had chosen.
Elizabeth was sitting with her mother and sisters, reflecting on what she had heard, and doubting whether she was authorised to mention it, when Sir William Lucas himself appeared, sent by his daughter to announce her engagement to the family. With many compliments to them, and much self-gratulation on the prospect of a connection between the houses, he unfolded the matter,—to an audience not merely wondering, but incredulous; for Mrs. Bennet, with more perseverance than politeness, protested he must be entirely mistaken; and Lydia, always unguarded and often uncivil, boisterously exclaimed,— "Good Lord! Sir William, how can you tell such a story? Do not you know that Mr. Collins wants to marry Lizzy?" Nothing less than the complaisance of a courtier could have borne without anger such treatment: but Sir William's good-breeding carried him through it all; and though he begged leave to be positive as to the truth of his information, he listened to all their impertinence with the most forbearing courtesy. Elizabeth, feeling it incumbent on her to relieve him from so unpleasant a situation, now put herself forward to confirm his account, by mentioning her prior knowledge of it from Charlotte herself; and endeavoured to put a stop to the exclamations of her mother and sisters, by the earnestness of her congratulations to Sir William, in which she was readily joined by Jane, and by making a variety of remarks on the happiness that might be expected from the match, the excellent character of Mr. Collins, and the convenient distance of Hunsford from London. Mrs. Bennet was, in fact, too much overpowered to say a great deal while Sir William remained; but no sooner had he left them than her feelings found a rapid vent. In the first place, she persisted in disbelieving the whole of the matter; secondly, she was very sure that Mr. Collins had been taken in; thirdly, she trusted that they would never be happy together; and, fourthly, that the match might be broken off. Two inferences, however, were plainly deduced from the whole: one, that Elizabeth was the real cause of all the mischief; and the other, that she herself had been barbarously used by them all; and on these two points she principally dwelt during the rest of the day. Nothing could console and nothing appease her. Nor did that day wear out her resentment. A week elapsed before she could see Elizabeth without scolding her: a month passed away before she could speak to Sir William or Lady Lucas without being rude; and many months were gone before she could at all forgive their daughter. Mr. Bennet's emotions were much more tranquil on the occasion, and such as he did experience he pronounced to be of a most agreeable sort; for it gratified him, he said, to discover that Charlotte Lucas, whom he had been used to think tolerably sensible, was as foolish as his wife, and more foolish than his daughter! Jane confessed herself a little surprised at the match but she said less of her astonishment than of her earnest desire for their happiness; nor could Elizabeth persuade her to consider it as improbable. Kitty and Lydia were far from envying Miss Lucas, for Mr. Collins was only a clergyman; and it affected them in no other way than as a piece of news to spread at Meryton. Lady Lucas could not be insensible of triumph on being able to retort on Mrs. Bennet the comfort of having a daughter well married; and she called at Longbourn rather oftener than usual to say how happy she was, though Mrs. Bennet's sour looks and ill-natured remarks might have been enough to drive happiness away. Between Elizabeth and Charlotte there was a restraint which kept them mutually silent on the subject; and Elizabeth felt persuaded that no real confidence could ever subsist between them again. Her disappointment in Charlotte made her turn with fonder regard to her sister, of whose rectitude and delicacy she was sure her opinion could never be shaken, and for whose happiness she grew daily more anxious, as Bingley had now been gone a week, and nothing was heard of his return. Jane had sent Caroline an early answer to her letter, and was counting the days till she might reasonably hope to hear again. The promised letter of thanks from Mr. Collins arrived on Tuesday, addressed to their father, and written with all the solemnity of gratitude which a twelve-month's abode in the family might have prompted. After discharging his conscience on that head, he proceeded to inform them, with many rapturous expressions, of his happiness in having obtained the affection of their amiable neighbour, Miss Lucas, and then explained that it was merely with the view of enjoying her society that he had been so ready to close with their kind wish of seeing him again at Longbourn, whither he hoped to be able to return on Monday fortnight; for Lady Catherine, he added, so heartily approved his marriage, that she wished it to take place as soon as possible, which he trusted would be an unanswerable argument with his amiable Charlotte to name an early day for making him the happiest of men. Mr. Collins's return into Hertfordshire was no longer a matter of pleasure to Mrs. Bennet. On the contrary, she was as much disposed to complain of it as her husband. It was very strange that he should come to Longbourn instead of to Lucas Lodge; it was also very inconvenient and exceedingly troublesome. She hated having visitors in the house while her health was so indifferent, and lovers were of all people the most disagreeable. Such were the gentle murmurs of Mrs. Bennet, and they gave way only to the greater distress of Mr. Bingley's continued absence. Neither Jane nor Elizabeth were comfortable on this subject. Day after day passed away without bringing any other tidings of him than the report which shortly prevailed in Meryton of his coming no more to Netherfield the whole winter; a report which highly incensed Mrs. Bennet, and which she never failed to contradict as a most scandalous falsehood. Even Elizabeth began to fear—not that Bingley was indifferent—but that his sisters would be successful in keeping him away. Unwilling as she was to admit an idea so destructive of Jane's happiness, and so dishonourable to the stability of her lover, she could not prevent its frequently recurring. The united efforts of his two unfeeling sisters and of his overpowering friend, assisted by the attractions of Miss Darcy and the amusements of London, might be too much, she feared, for the strength of his attachment. As for Jane, her anxiety under this suspense was, of course, more painful than Elizabeth's: but whatever she felt she was desirous of concealing; and between herself and Elizabeth, therefore, the subject was never alluded to. But as no such delicacy restrained her mother, an hour seldom passed in which she did not talk of Bingley, express her impatience for his arrival, or even require Jane to confess that if he did not come back she should think herself very ill used. It needed all Jane's steady mildness to bear these attacks with tolerable tranquillity. Mr. Collins returned most punctually on the Monday fortnight, but his reception at Longbourn was not quite so gracious as it had been on his first introduction. He was too happy, however, to need much attention; and, luckily for the others, the business of love-making relieved them from a great deal of his company. The chief of every day was spent by him at Lucas Lodge, and he sometimes returned to Longbourn only in time to make an apology for his absence before the family went to bed. Mrs. Bennet was really in a most pitiable state. The very mention of any thing concerning the match threw her into an agony of ill-humour, and wherever she went she was sure of hearing it talked of. The sight of Miss Lucas was odious to her. As her successor in that house, she regarded her with jealous abhorrence. Whenever Charlotte came to see them, she concluded her to be anticipating the hour of possession; and whenever she spoke in a low voice to Mr. Collins, was convinced that they were talking of the Longbourn estate, and resolving to turn herself and her daughters out of the house as soon as Mr. Bennet was dead. She complained bitterly of all this to her husband. "Indeed, Mr. Bennet," said she, "it is very hard to think that Charlotte Lucas should ever be mistress of this house, that I should be forced to make way for her, and live to see her take my place in it!" "My dear, do not give way to such gloomy thoughts. Let us hope for better things. Let us flatter ourselves that I may be the survivor." This was not very consoling to Mrs. Bennet; and, therefore, instead of making any answer, she went on as before. "I cannot bear to think that they should have all this estate. If it was not for the entail, I should not mind it." "What should not you mind?" "I should not mind any thing at all." "Let us be thankful that you are preserved from a state of such insensibility." "I never can be thankful, Mr. Bennet, for any thing about the entail. How any one could have the conscience to entail away an estate from one's own daughters I cannot understand; and all for the sake of Mr. Collins, too! Why should he have it more than any body else?" "I leave it to yourself to determine," said Mr. Bennet. Volume the Second
Miss Bingley's letter arrived, and put an end to doubt. The very first sentence conveyed the assurance of their being all settled in London for the winter, and concluded with her brother's regret at not having had time to pay his respects to his friends in Hertfordshire before he left the country. Hope was over, entirely over; and when Jane could attend to the rest of the letter, she found little, except the professed affection of the writer, that could give her any comfort. Miss Darcy's praise occupied the chief of it. Her many attractions were again dwelt on; and Caroline boasted joyfully of their increasing intimacy, and ventured to predict the accomplishment of the wishes which had been unfolded in her former letter. She wrote also with great pleasure of her brother's being an inmate of Mr. Darcy's house, and mentioned with raptures some plans of the latter with regard to new furniture. Elizabeth, to whom Jane very soon communicated the chief of all this, heard it in silent indignation. Her heart was divided between concern for her sister and resentment against all others. To Caroline's assertion of her brother's being partial to Miss Darcy, she paid no credit. That he was really fond of Jane, she doubted no more than she had ever done; and much as she had always been disposed to like him, she could not think without anger, hardly without contempt, on that easiness of temper, that want of proper resolution, which now made him the slave of his designing friends, and led him to sacrifice his own happiness to the caprice of their inclinations. Had his own happiness, however, been the only sacrifice, he might have been allowed to sport with it in whatever manner he thought best; but her sister's was involved in it, as she thought he must be sensible himself. It was a subject, in short, on which reflection would be long indulged, and must be unavailing. She could think of nothing else; and yet, whether Bingley's regard had really died away, or were suppressed by his friend's interference; whether he had been aware of Jane's attachment, or whether it had escaped his observation; whatever were the case, though her opinion of him must be materially affected by the difference, her sister's situation remained the same, her peace equally wounded. A day or two passed before Jane had courage to speak of her feelings to Elizabeth; but at last, on Mrs. Bennet's leaving them together, after a longer irritation than usual about Netherfield and its master, she could not help saying,— "Oh that my dear mother had more command over herself; she can have no idea of the pain she gives me by her continual reflections on him. But I will not repine. It cannot last long. He will be forgot, and we shall all be as we were before." Elizabeth looked at her sister with incredulous solicitude, but said nothing. "You doubt me," cried Jane, slightly colouring; "indeed you have no reason. He may live in my memory as the most amiable man of my acquaintance, but that is all. I have nothing either to hope or fear, and nothing to reproach him with. Thank God, I have not that pain. A little time, therefore—I shall certainly try to get the better——" With a stronger voice she soon added, "I have this comfort immediately, that it has not been more than an error of fancy on my side, and that it has done no harm to any one but myself." "My dear Jane," exclaimed Elizabeth, "you are too good. Your sweetness and disinterestedness are really angelic; I do not know what to say to you. I feel as if I had never done you justice, or loved you as you deserve." Miss Bennet eagerly disclaimed all extraordinary merit, and threw back the praise on her sister's warm affection. "Nay," said Elizabeth, "this is not fair. You wish to think all the world respectable, and are hurt if I speak ill of any body. I only want to think you perfect, and you set yourself against it. Do not be afraid of my running into any excess, of my encroaching on your privilege of universal good-will. You need not. There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of either merit or sense. I have met with two instances lately: one I will not mention, the other is Charlotte's marriage. It is unaccountable! in every view it is unaccountable!" "My dear Lizzy, do not give way to such feelings as these. They will ruin your happiness. You do not make allowance enough for difference of situation and temper. Consider Mr. Collins's respectability, and Charlotte's prudent, steady character. Remember that she is one of a large family; that as to fortune, it is a most eligible match; and be ready to believe, for every body's sake, that she may feel something like regard and esteem for our cousin." "To oblige you, I would try to believe almost any thing, but no one else could be benefited by such a belief as this; for were I persuaded that Charlotte had any regard for him, I should only think worse of her understanding than I now do of her heart. My dear Jane, Mr. Collins is a conceited, pompous, narrow-minded, silly man: you know he is, as well as I do; and you must feel, as well as I do, that the woman who marries him cannot have a proper way of thinking. You shall not defend her, though it is Charlotte Lucas. You shall not, for the sake of one individual, change the meaning of principle and integrity, nor endeavour to persuade yourself or me, that selfishness is prudence, and insensibility of danger security for happiness." "I must think your language too strong in speaking of both," replied Jane; "and I hope you will be convinced of it, by seeing them happy together. But enough of this. You alluded to something else. You mentioned two instances. I cannot misunderstand you; but I entreat you, dear Lizzy, not to pain me by thinking that person to blame, and saying your opinion of him is sunk. We must not be so ready to fancy ourselves intentionally injured. We must not expect a lively young man to be always so guarded and circumspect. It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than it does." "And men take care that they should." "If it is designedly done, they cannot be justified; but I have no idea of there being so much design in the world as some persons imagine." "I am far from attributing any part of Mr. Bingley's conduct to design," said Elizabeth; "but without scheming to do wrong, or to make others unhappy, there may be error, and there may be misery. Thoughtlessness, want of attention to other people's feelings, and want of resolution, will do the business." "And do you impute it to either of those?" "Yes; to the last. But if I go on, I shall displease you by saying what I think of persons you esteem. Stop me whilst you can." "You persist, then, in supposing his sisters influence him." "Yes, in conjunction with his friend." "I cannot believe it. Why should they try to influence him? They can only wish his happiness; and if he is attached to me, no other woman can secure it." "Your first position is false. They may wish many things besides his happiness: they may wish his increase of wealth and consequence; they may wish him to marry a girl who has all the importance of money, great connections, and pride." "Beyond a doubt, they do wish him to choose Miss Darcy," replied Jane; "but this may be from better feelings than you are supposing. They have known her much longer than they have known me; no wonder if they love her better. But, whatever may be their own wishes, it is very unlikely they should have opposed their brother's. What sister would think herself at liberty to do it, unless there were something very objectionable? If they believed him attached to me, they would not try to part us; if he were so, they could not succeed. By supposing such an affection, you make every body acting unnaturally and wrong, and me most unhappy. Do not distress me by the idea. I am not ashamed of having been mistaken—or, at least, it is slight, it is nothing in comparison of what I should feel in thinking ill of him or his sisters. Let me take it in "the best light, in the light in which it may be understood." Elizabeth could not oppose such a wish; and from this time Mr. Bingley's name was scarcely ever mentioned between them. Mrs. Bennet still continued to wonder and repine at his returning no more; and though a day seldom passed in which Elizabeth did not account for it clearly, there seemed little chance of her ever considering it with less perplexity. Her daughter endeavoured to convince her of what she did not believe herself, that his attentions to Jane had been merely the effect of a common and transient liking, which ceased when he saw her no more; but though the probability of the statement was admitted at the time, she had the same story to repeat every day. Mrs. Bennet's best comfort was, that Mr. Bingley must be down again in the summer. Mr. Bennet treated the matter differently. "So, Lizzy," said he one day, "your sister is crossed in love, I find. I congratulate her. Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then. It is something to think of, and gives her a sort of distinction among her companions. When is your turn to come? You will hardly bear to be long outdone by Jane. Now is your time. Here are officers enough at Meryton to disappoint all the young ladies in the country. Let Wickham be your man. He is a pleasant fellow, and would jilt you creditably." "Thank you, sir, but a less agreeable man would satisfy me. We must not all expect Jane's good fortune." "True," said Mr. Bennet; "but it is a comfort to think that, whatever of that kind may befall you, you have an affectionate mother who will always make the most of it." Mr. Wickham's society was of material service in dispelling the gloom which the late perverse occurrences had thrown on many of the Longbourn family. They saw him often, and to his other recommendations was now added that of general unreserve. The whole of what Elizabeth had already heard, his claims on Mr. Darcy, and all that he had suffered from him, was now openly acknowledged and publicly canvassed; and every body was pleased to think how much they had always disliked Mr. Darcy before they had known any thing of the matter. Miss Bennet was the only creature who could suppose there might be any extenuating circumstances in the case unknown to the society of Hertfordshire: her mild and steady candour always pleaded for allowances, and urged the possibility of mistakes; but by every body else Mr. Darcy was condemned as the worst of men.
After a week spent in professions of love and schemes of felicity, Mr. Collins was called from his amiable Charlotte by the arrival of Saturday. The pain of separation, however, might be alleviated on his side, by preparations for the reception of his bride, as he had reason to hope, that shortly after his next return into Hertfordshire, the day would be fixed that was to make him the happiest of men. He took leave of his relations at Longbourn with as much solemnity as before; wished his fair cousins health and happiness again, and promised their father another letter of thanks. On the following Monday, Mrs. Bennet had the pleasure of receiving her brother and his wife, who came, as usual, to spend the Christmas at Longbourn. Mr. Gardiner was a sensible, gentlemanlike man, greatly superior to his sister, as well by nature as education. The Netherfield ladies would have had difficulty in believing that a man who lived by trade, and within view of his own warehouses, could have been so well bred and agreeable. Mrs. Gardiner, who was several years younger than Mrs. Bennet and Mrs. Philips, was an amiable, intelligent, elegant woman, and a great favourite with all her Longbourn nieces. Between the two eldest and herself, especially, there subsisted a very particular regard. They had frequently been staying with her in town. The first part of Mrs. Gardiner's business on her arrival was to distribute her presents and describe the newest fashions. When this was done, she had a less active part to play. It became her turn to listen. Mrs. Bennet had many grievances to relate, and much to complain of. They had all been very ill used since she last saw her sister. Two of her girls had been on the point of marriage, and after all there was nothing in it. "I do not blame Jane," she continued, "for Jane would have got Mr. Bingley if she could. But, Lizzy! Oh, sister! it is very hard to think that she might have been Mr. Collins's wife by this time, had not it been for her own perverseness. He made her an offer in this very room, and she refused him. The consequence of it is, that Lady Lucas will have a daughter married before I have, and that Longbourn estate is just as much entailed as ever. The Lucases are very artful people indeed, sister. They are all for what they can get. I am sorry to say it of them, but so it is. It makes me very nervous and poorly, to be thwarted so in my own family, and to have neighbours who think of themselves before any body else. However, your coming just at this time is the greatest of comforts, and I am very glad to hear what you tell us of long sleeves." Mrs. Gardiner, to whom the chief of this news had been given before, in the course of Jane and Elizabeth's correspondence with her, made her sister a slight answer, and in compassion to her nieces turned the conversation. When alone with Elizabeth afterwards, she spoke more on the subject. "It seems likely to have been a desirable match for Jane," said she. "I am sorry it went off. But these things happen so often! A young man, such as you describe Mr. Bingley, so easily falls in love with a pretty girl for a few weeks, and when accident separates them so easily forgets her, that these sort of inconstancies are very frequent." "An excellent consolation in its way," said Elizabeth; "but it will not do for us. We do not suffer by accident. It does not often happen that the interference of friends will persuade a young man of independent fortune to think no more of a girl whom he was violently in love with only a few days before." "But that expression of 'violently in love' is so hackneyed, so doubtful, so indefinite, that it gives me very little idea. It is as often applied to feelings which arise only from a half hour's acquaintance as to a real, strong attachment. Pray, how violent was Mr. Bingley's love?" "I never saw a more promising inclination; he was growing quite inattentive to other people, and wholly engrossed by her. Every time they met, it was more decided and remarkable. At his own ball he offended two or three young ladies by not asking them to dance; and I spoke to him twice myself without receiving an answer. Could there be finer symptoms? Is not general incivility the very essence of love?" "Oh yes! of that kind of love which I suppose him to have felt. Poor Jane! I am sorry for her, because, with her disposition, she may not get over it immediately. It had better have happened to you, Lizzy; you would have laughed yourself out of it sooner. But do you think she would be prevailed on to go back with us? Change of scene might be of service—and perhaps a little relief from home may be as useful as any thing." Elizabeth was exceedingly pleased with this proposal, and felt persuaded of her sister's ready acquiescence. "I hope," added Mrs. Gardiner, "that no consideration with regard to this young man will influence her. We live in so different a part of town, all our connections are so different, and, as you well know, we go out so little, that it is very improbable they should meet at all, unless he really comes to see her." "And that is quite impossible; for he is now in the custody of his friend, and Mr. Darcy would no more suffer him to call on Jane in, such a part of London! My dear aunt, how could you think of it? Mr. Darcy may perhaps have heard of such a place as Gracechurch Street,ak but he would hardly think a month's ablution enough to cleanse him from its impurities, were he once to enter it; and depend upon it, Mr. Bingley never stirs without him." "So much the better. I hope they will not meet at all. But does not Jane correspond with his sister? She will not be able to help calling." "She will drop the acquaintance entirely." But in spite of the certainty in which Elizabeth affected to place this point, as well as the still more interesting one of Bingley's being withheld from seeing Jane, she felt a solicitude on the subject which convinced her, on examination, that she did not consider it entirely hopeless. It was possible, and sometimes she thought it probable, that his affection might be reanimated, and the influence of his friends successfully combated by the more natural influence of Jane's attractions. Miss Bennet accepted her aunt's invitation with pleasure; and the Bingleys were no otherwise in her thoughts at the same time than as she hoped, by Caroline's not living in the same house with her brother, she might occasionally spend a morning with her, without any danger of seeing him. The Gardiners staid a week at Longbourn; and what with the Philipses, the Lucases, and the officers, there was not a day without its engagement. Mrs. Bennet had so carefully provided for the entertainment of her brother and sister, that they did not once sit down to a family dinner. When the engagement was for home, some of the officers always made part of it, of which officers Mr. Wickham was sure to be one; and on these occasions Mrs. Gardiner, rendered suspicious by Elizabeth's warm commendation of him, narrowly observed them both. Without supposing them, from what she saw, to be very seriously in love, their preference of each other was plain enough to make her a little uneasy; and she resolved to speak to Elizabeth on the subject before she left Hertfordshire, and represent to her the imprudence of encouraging such an attachment. To Mrs. Gardiner, Wickham had one means of affording pleasure, unconnected with his general powers. About ten or a dozen years ago, before her marriage, she had spent a considerable time in that very part of Derbyshire to which he belonged. They had, therefore, many acquaintance in common; and, though Wickham had been little there since the death of Darcy's father, five years before, it was yet in his power to give her fresher intelligence of her former friends than she had been in the way of procuring. Mrs. Gardiner had seen Pemberley, and known the late Mr. Darcy by character perfectly well. Here, consequently, was an inexhaustible subject of discourse. In comparing her recollection of Pemberley with the minute description which Wickham could give, and in bestowing her tribute of praise on the character of its late possessor, she was delighting both him and herself. On being made acquainted with the present Mr. Darcy's treatment of him, she tried to remember something of that gentleman's reputed disposition, when quite a lad, which might agree with it; and was confident, at last, that she recollected having heard Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy formerly spoken of as a very proud, ill-natured boy.
Mrs. Gardiner's caution to Elizabeth was punctually and kindly given on the first favourable opportunity of speaking to her alone: after honestly telling her what she thought, she thus went on:— "You are too sensible a girl, Lizzy, to fall in love merely because you are warned against it; and, therefore, I am not afraid of speaking openly. Seriously, I would have you be on your guard. Do not involve yourself, or endeavour to involve him, in an affection which the want of fortune would make so very imprudent. I have nothing to say against him: he is a most interesting young man; and if he had the fortune he ought to have, I should think you could not do better. But as it is—you must not let your fancy run away with you. You have sense, and we all expect you to use it. Your father would depend on your resolution and good conduct, I am sure. You must not disappoint your father." "My dear aunt, this is being serious indeed." "Yes, and I hope to engage you to be serious likewise." "Well, then, you need not be under any alarm. I will take care of myself, and of Mr. Wickham too. He shall not be in love with me, if I can prevent it." "Elizabeth, you are not serious now." "I beg your pardon. I will try again. At present I am not in love with Mr. Wickham; no, I certainly am not. But he is, beyond all comparison, the most agreeable man I ever saw—and if he becomes really attached to me—I believe it will be better that he should not. I see the imprudence of it. Oh, that abominable Mr. Darcy! My father's opinion of me does me the greatest honour; and I should be miserable to forfeit it. My father, however, is partial to Mr. Wickham. In short, my dear aunt, I should be very sorry to be the means of making any of you unhappy; but since we see every day that where there is affection young people are seldom withheld, by immediate want of fortune, from entering into engagements with each other, how can I promise to be wiser than so many of my fellow-creatures, if I am tempted, or how am I even to know that it would be wisdom to resist? All that I can promise you, therefore, is not to be in a hurry. I will not be in a hurry to believe myself his first object. When I am in company with him, I will not be wishing. In short, I will do my best." "Perhaps it will be as well if you discourage his coming here so very often. At least you should not remind your mother of inviting him." "As I did the other day," said Elizabeth, with a conscious smile; "very true, it will be wise in me to refrain from that. But do not imagine that he is always here so often. It is on your account that he has been so frequently invited this week. You know my mother's ideas as to the necessity of constant company for her friends. But really, and upon my honour, I will try to do what I think to be wisest; and now I hope you are satisfied." Her aunt assured her that she was; and Elizabeth having thanked her for the kindness of her hints, they parted,—a wonderful instance of advice being given on such a point without being resented. Mr. Collins returned into Hertfordshire soon after it had been quitted by the Gardiners and Jane; but as he took up his abode with the Lucases, his arrival was no great inconvenience to Mrs. Bennet. His marriage was now fast approaching; and she was at length so far resigned as to think it inevitable, and even repeatedly to say, in an ill-natured tone, that she "wished they might be happy." Thursday was to be the wedding day, and on Wednesday Miss Lucas paid her farewell visit; and when she rose to take leave, Elizabeth, ashamed of her mother's ungracious and reluctant good wishes, and sincerely affected herself, accompanied her out of the room. As they went down stairs together, Charlotte said,— "I shall depend on hearing from you very often, Eliza." "That you certainly shall." "And I have another favour to ask. Will you come and see me?" "We shall often meet, I hope, in Hertfordshire." "I am not likely to leave Kent for some time. Promise me, therefore, to come to Hunsford." Elizabeth could not refuse, though she foresaw little pleasure in the visit. "My father and Maria are to come to me in March," added Charlotte, "and I hope you will consent to be of the party. Indeed, Eliza, you will be as welcome to me as either of them." The wedding took place: the bride and bridegroom set off for Kent from the church door, and every body had as much to say or to hear on the subject as usual. Elizabeth soon heard from her friend, and their correspondence was as regular and frequent as it ever had been: that it should be equally unreserved was impossible. Elizabeth could never address her without feeling that all the comfort of intimacy was over; and, though determined not to slacken as a correspondent, it was for the sake of what had been rather than what was. Charlotte's first letters were received with a good deal of eagerness: there could not but be curiosity to know how she would speak of her new home, how she would like Lady Catherine, and how happy she would dare pronounce herself to be; though, when the letters were read, Elizabeth felt that Charlotte expressed herself on every point exactly as she might have foreseen. She wrote cheerfully, seemed surrounded with comforts, and mentioned nothing which she could not praise. The house, furniture, neighbourhood, and roads, were all to her taste, and Lady Catherine's behaviour was most friendly and obliging. It was Mr. Collins's picture of Hunsford and Rosings rationally softened; and Elizabeth perceived that she must wait for her own visit there, to know the rest. Jane had already written a few lines to her sister, to announce their safe arrival in London; and when she wrote again, Elizabeth hoped it would be in her power to say something of the Bingleys. Her impatience for this second letter was as well rewarded as impatience generally is. Jane had been a week in town, without either seeing or hearing from Caroline. She accounted for it, however, by supposing that her last letter to her friend from Longbourn had by some accident been lost. "My aunt," she continued, "is going to-morrow into that part of the town, and I shall take the opportunity of calling in Grosvenor Street."al She wrote again when the visit was paid, and she had seen Miss Bingley. "I did not think Caroline in spirits," were her words, "but she was very glad to see me, and reproached me for giving her no notice of my coming to London. I was right, therefore; my last letter had never reached her. I enquired after their brother, of course. He was well, but so much engaged with Mr. Darcy, that they scarcely ever saw him. I found that Miss Darcy was expected to dinner: I wish I could see her. My visit was not long, as Caroline and Mrs. Hurst were going out. I dare say I shall soon see them here." Elizabeth shook her head over this letter. It convinced her that accident only could discover to Mr. Bingley her sister's being in town. Four weeks passed away, and Jane saw nothing of him. She endeavoured to persuade herself that she did not regret it; but she could no longer be blind to Miss Bingley's inattention. After waiting at home every morning for a fortnight, and inventing every evening a fresh excuse for her, the visitor did at last appear; but the shortness of her stay, and, yet more, the alteration of her manner, would allow Jane to deceive herself no longer. The letter which she wrote on this occasion to her sister will prove what she felt. "My dearest Lizzy will, I am sure, be incapable of triumphing in her better judgment, at my expense, when I confess myself to have been entirely deceived in Miss Bingley's regard for me. But, my dear sister, though the event has proved you right, do not think me obstinate if I still assert, that, considering what her behaviour was, my confidence was as natural as your suspicion.I do not at all comprehend her reason for wishing to be intimate with me; but if the same circumstances were to happen again, I am sure I should be deceived again. Caroline did not return my visit till yesterday; and not a note, not a line, did I receive in the mean time. When she did come, it was very evident that she had no pleasure in it; she made a slight, formal apology for not calling before, said not a word of wishing to see me again, and was in every respect so altered a creature, that when she went away I was perfectly resolved to continue the acquaintance no longer. I pity, though I cannot help blaming her. She was very wrong in singling me out as she did; I can safely say, that every advance to intimacy began on her side. But I pity her, because she must feel that she has been acting wrong, and because I am very sure that anxiety for her brother is the cause of it. I need not explain myself farther; and though we know this anxiety to be quite needless, yet if she feels it, it will easily account for her behaviour to me; and so deservedly dear as he is to his sister, whatever anxiety she may feel on his behalf is natural and amiable. I cannot but wonder, however, at her having any such fears now, because, if he had at all cared about me, we must have met long, long ago. He knows of my being in town, I am certain, from something she said herself; and yet it would seem, by her manner of talking, as if she wanted to persuade herself that he is really partial to Miss Darcy. I cannot understand it. If I were not afraid of judging harshly, I should be almost tempted to say, that there is a strong appearance of duplicity in all this. But I will endeavour to banish every painful thought, and think only of what will make me happy, your affection, and the invariable kindness of my dear uncle and aunt. Let me hear from you very soon. Miss Bingley said something of his never returning to Netherfield again, of giving up the house, but not with any certainty. We had better not mention it. I am extremely glad that you have such pleasant accounts from our friends at Hunsford. Pray go to see them, with Sir William and Maria. I am sure you will be very comfortable there.
This letter gave Elizabeth some pain; but her spirits returned as she considered that Jane would no longer be duped, by the sister at least. All expectation from the brother was now absolutely over. She would not even wish for any renewal of his attentions. His character sunk on every review of it; and as a punishment for him, as well as a possible advantage to Jane, she seriously hoped he might really soon marry Mr. Darcy's sister, as, by Wickham's account, she would make him abundantly regret what he had thrown away. Mrs. Gardiner about this time reminded Elizabeth of her promise concerning that gentleman, and required information; and Elizabeth had such to send as might rather give contentment to her aunt than to herself. His apparent partiality had subsided, his attentions were over, he was the admirer of some one else. Elizabeth was watchful enough to see it all, but she could see it and write of it without material pain. Her heart had been but slightly touched, and her vanity was satisfied with believing that she would have been his only choice, had fortune permitted it. The sudden acquisition of ten thousand pounds was the most remarkable charm of the young lady to whom he was now rendering himself agreeable; but Elizabeth, less clear-sighted perhaps in this case than in Charlotte's, did not quarrel with him for his wish of independence. Nothing, on the contrary, could be more natural; and while able to suppose that it cost him a few struggles to relinquish her, she was ready to allow it a wise and desirable measure for both, and could very sincerely wish him happy. All this was acknowledged to Mrs. Gardiner; and, after relating the circumstances, she thus went on:—"I am now convinced, my dear aunt, that I have never been much in love; for had I really experienced that pure and elevating passion, I should at present detest his very name, and wish him all manner of evil. But my feelings are not only cordial towards him, they are even impartial towards Miss King. I cannot find out that I hate her at all, or that I am in the least unwilling to think her a very good sort of girl. There can be no love in all this. My watchfulness has been effectual; and though I should certainly be a more interesting object to all my acquaintance were I distractedly in love with him, I cannot say that I regret my comparative insignificance. Importance may sometimes be purchased too dearly. Kitty and Lydia take his defection much more to heart than I do. They are young in the ways of the world, and not yet open to the mortifying conviction that handsome young men must have something to live on, as well as the plain."
With no greater events than these in the Longbourn family, and otherwise diversified by little beyond the walks to Meryton, sometimes dirty and sometimes cold, did January and February pass away. March was to take Elizabeth to Hunsford. She had not at first thought very seriously of going thither; but Charlotte, she soon found, was depending on the plan, and she gradually learned to consider it herself with greater pleasure as well as greater certainty. Absence had increased her desire of seeing Charlotte again, and weakened her disgust of Mr. Collins. There was novelty in the scheme; and as, with such a mother and such uncompanionable sisters, home could not be faultless, a little change was not unwelcome for its own sake. The journey would, moreover, give her a peep at Jane; and, in short, as the time drew near, she would have been very sorry for any delay. Every thing, however, went on smoothly, and was finally settled according to Charlotte's first sketch. She was to accompany Sir William and his second daughter. The improvement of spending a night in London was added in time, and the plan became perfect as plan could be. The only pain was in leaving her father, who would certainly miss her, and who, when it came to the point, so little liked her going, that he told her to write to him, and almost promised to answer her letter. The farewell between herself and Mr. Wickham was perfectly friendly; on his side even more. His present pursuit could not make him forget that Elizabeth had been the first to excite and to deserve his attention, the first to listen and to pity, the first to be admired; and in his manner of bidding her adieu, wishing her every enjoyment, reminding her of what she was to expect in Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and trusting their opinion of her—their opinion of every body—would always coincide, there was a solicitude, an interest which she felt must ever attach her to him with a most sincere regard; and she parted from him convinced, that, whether married or single, he must always be her model of the amiable and pleasing. Her fellow-travellers the next day were not of a kind as make her think him less agreeable. Sir William Lucas, and his daughter Maria, a good-humoured girl, but as empty-headed as himself, had nothing to say that could be worth hearing, and were listened to with about as much delight as the rattle of the chaise. Elizabeth loved absurdities, but she had known Sir William's too long. He could tell her nothing new of the wonders of his presentation and knighthood; and his civilities were worn out like his information. It was a journey of only twenty-four miles, and they began it so early as to be in Gracechurch Street by noon. As they drove to Mr. Gardiner's door, Jane was at a drawing-room window watching their arrival: when they entered the passage, she was there to welcome them, and Elizabeth, looking earnestly in her face, was pleased to see it healthful and lovely as ever. On the stairs were a troop of little boys and girls, whose eagerness for their cousin's appearance would not allow them to wait in the drawing-room, and whose shyness, as they had not seen her for a twelvemonth, prevented their coming lower. All was joy and kindness. The day passed most pleasantly away; the morning in bustle and shopping, and the evening at one of the theatres. Elizabeth then contrived to sit by her aunt. Their first subject was her sister; and she was more grieved than astonished to hear, in reply to her minute enquiries, that though Jane always struggled to support her spirits, there were periods of dejection. It was reasonable, however, to hope that they would not continue long. Mrs. Gardiner gave her the particulars also of Miss Bingley's visit in Gracechurch Street, and repeated conversations occurring at different times between Jane and herself, which proved that the former had, from her heart, given up the acquaintance. Mrs. Gardiner then rallied her niece on Wickham's desertion, and complimented her on bearing it so well. "But, my dear Elizabeth," she added, "what sort of girl is Miss King? I should be sorry to think our friend mercenary." "Pray, my dear aunt, what is the difference in matrimonial affairs, between the mercenary and the prudent motive? Where does discretion end, and avarice begin? Last Christmas you were afraid of his marrying me, because it would be imprudent; and now, because he is trying to get a girl with only ten thousand pounds, you want to find out that he is mercenary." "If you will only tell me what sort of girl Miss King is, I shall know what to think." "She is a very good kind of girl, I believe. I know no harm of her." "But he paid her not the smallest attention till her grandfather's death made her mistress of this fortune?" "No—why should he? If it were not allowable for him to gain my affections, because I had no money, what occasion could there be for making love to a girl whom he did not care about, and who was equally poor?" "But there seems indelicacy in directing his attentions towards her so soon after this event." "A man in distressed circumstances has not time for all those elegant decorums which other people may observe. If she does not object to it, why should we?" "Her not objecting does not justify him. It only shows her being deficient in something herself—sense or feeling." "Well," cried Elizabeth, "have it as you choose. He shall be mercenary, and she shall be foolish." "No, Lizzy, that is what I do not choose. I should be sorry, you know, to think ill of a young man who has lived so long in Derbyshire." "Oh, if that is all, I have a very poor opinion of young men who live in Derbyshire; and their intimate friends who live in Hertfordshire are not much better. I am sick of them all. Thank Heaven! I am going tomorrow where I shall find a man who has not one agreeable quality, who has neither manner nor sense to recommend him. Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing, after all." "Take care, Lizzy; that speech savours strongly of disappointment." Before they were separated by the conclusion of the play, she had the unexpected happiness of an invitation to accompany her uncle and aunt in a tour of pleasure which they proposed taking in the summer. "We have not quite determined how far it shall carry us," said Mrs. Gardiner; "but, perhaps, to the Lakes."8 No scheme could have been more agreeable to Elizabeth, and her acceptance of the invitation was most ready and grateful. "My dear, dear aunt," she rapturously cried, "what delight! what felicity! You give me fresh life and vigour. Adieu to disappointment and spleen. What are men to rocks and mountains? Oh, what hours of transport we shall spend! And when we do return, it shall not be like other travellers, without being able to give one accurate idea of any thing. We will know where we have gone—we will recollect what we have seen. Lakes, mountains, and rivers, shall not be jumbled together in our imaginations; nor, when we attempt to describe any particular scene, will we begin quarelling about its relative situation. Let our first effusions be less insupportable than those of the generality of travellers."
Every object in the next day's journey was new and interesting to Elizabeth; and her spirits were in a state of enjoyment; for she had seen her sister looking so well as to banish all fear for her health, and the prospect of her northern tour was a constant source of delight. When they left the high road for the lane to Hunsford, every eye was in search of the Parsonage, and every turning expected to bring it in view. The palingam of Rosings park was their boundary on one side. Elizabeth smiled at the recollection of all that she had heard of its inhabitants. At length the Parsonage was discernible. The garden sloping to the road, the house standing in it, the green pales and the laurel hedge, every thing declared they were arriving. Mr. Collins and Charlotte appeared at the door, and the carriage stopped at the small gate, which led by a short gravel walk to the house, amidst the nods and smiles of the whole party. In a moment they were all out of the chaise, rejoicing at the sight of each other. Mrs. Collins welcomed her friend with the liveliest pleasure, and Elizabeth was more and more satisfied with coming, when she found herself so affectionately received. She saw instantly that her cousin's manners were not altered by his marriage: his formal civility was just what it had been; and he detained her some minutes at the gate to hear and satisfy his enquiries after all her family. They were then, with no other delay than his pointing out the neatness of the entrance, taken into the house; and as soon as they were in the parlour, he welcomed them a second time, with ostentatious formality, to his humble abode, and punctually repeated all his wife's offers of refreshment. Elizabeth was prepared to see him in his glory; and she could not help fancying that in displaying the good proportion of the room, its aspect and its furniture, he addressed himself particularly to her, as if wishing to make her feel what she had lost in refusing him. But though every thing seemed neat and comfortable, she was not able to gratify him by any sigh of repentance; and rather looked with wonder at her friend, that she could have so cheerful an air with such a companion. When Mr. Collins said any thing of which his wife might reasonably be ashamed, which certainly was not unseldom, she involuntarily turned her eye on Charlotte. Once or twice she could discern a faint blush; but in general Charlotte wisely did not hear. After sitting long enough to admire every article of furniture in the room, from the sideboard to the fender,an to give an account of their journey, and of all that had happened in London, Mr. Collins invited them to take a stroll in the garden, which was large and well laid out, and to the cultivation of which he attended himself. To work in his garden was one of his most respectable pleasures; and Elizabeth admired the command of countenance with which Charlotte talked of the healthfulness of the exercise, and owned she encouraged it as much as possible. Here, leading the way through every walk and cross walk, and scarcely allowing them an interval to utter the praises he asked for, every view was pointed out with a minuteness which left beauty entirely behind. He could number the fields in every direction, and could tell how many trees there were in the most distant clump. But of all the views which his garden, or which the country or the kingdom could boast, none were to be compared with the prospect of Rosings, afforded by an opening in the trees that bordered the park nearly opposite the front of his house. It was a handsome modern building, well situated on rising ground. From his garden, Mr. Collins would have led them round his two meadows; but the ladies, not having shoes to encounterthe remains of a white frost, turned back; and while Sir William accompanied him, Charlotte took her sister and friend over the house, extremely well pleased, probably, to have the opportunity of showing it without her husband's help. It was rather small, but well built and convenient; and every thing was fitted up and arranged with a neatness and consistency, of which Elizabeth gave Charlotte all the credit. When Mr. Collins could be forgotten, there was really a great air of comfort throughout, and by Charlotte's evident enjoyment of it, Elizabeth supposed he must be often forgotten. She had already learnt that Lady Catherine was still in the country. It was spoken of again while they were at dinner, when Mr. Collins joining in, observed,— "Yes, Miss Elizabeth, you will have the honour of seeing Lady Catherine de Bourgh on the ensuing Sunday at church, and I need not say you will be delighted with her. She is all affability and condescension, and I doubt not but you will be honoured with some portion of her notice when service is over. I have scarcely any hesitation in saying that she will include you and my sister Maria in every invitation with which she honours us during your stay here. Her behaviour to my dear Charlotte is charming. We dine at Rosings twice every week, and are never allowed to walk home. Her Ladyship's carriage is regularly ordered for us. I should say, one of her Ladyship's carriages, for she has several." "Lady Catherine is a very respectable, sensible woman, indeed," added Charlotte, "and a most attentive neighbour." "Very true, my dear, that is exactly what I say. She is the sort of woman whom one cannot regard with too much deference." The evening was spent chiefly in talking over Hertfordshire news, and telling again what had been already written; and when it closed, Elizabeth, in the solitude of her chamber, had to meditate upon Charlotte's degree of contentment, to understand her address in guiding, and composure in bearing, with her husband, and to acknowledge that it was all done very well. She had also to anticipate how her visit would pass, the quiet tenour of their usual employments, the vexatious interruptions of Mr. Collins, and the gaieties of their intercourse with Rosings. A lively imagination soon settled it all. About the middle of the next day, as she was in her room getting ready for a walk, a sudden noise below seemed to speak the whole house in confusion; and, after listening a moment, she heard somebody running up stairs in a violent hurry, and calling loudly after her. She opened the door and met Maria in the landing-place, who, breathless with agitation, cried out,— "Oh, my dear Eliza! pray make haste and come into the dining-room, for there is such a sight to be seen! I will not tell you what it is. Make haste, and come down this moment." Elizabeth asked questions in vain; Maria would tell her nothing more; and down they ran into the dining-room, which fronted the lane, in quest of this wonder; it was two ladies stopping in a low phaeton at the garden gate. "And is this all?" cried Elizabeth. "I expected at least that the pigs were got into the garden, and here is nothing but Lady Catherine and her daughter!" "La! my dear," said Maria, quite shocked at the mistake, "it is not Lady Catherine. The old lady is Mrs. Jenkinson, who lives with them. The other is Miss De Bourgh. Only look at her. She is quite a little creature. Who would have thought she could be so thin and small!" "She is abominably rude to keep Charlotte out of doors in all this wind. Why does she not come in?" "Oh, Charlotte says she hardly ever does. It is the greatest of favours when Miss De Bourgh comes in." "I like her appearance," said Elizabeth, struck with other ideas. "She looks sickly and cross. Yes, she will do for him very well. She will make him a very proper wife." Mr. Collins and Charlotte were both standing at the gate in conversation with the ladies; and Sir William, to Elizabeth's high diversion, was stationed in the doorway; in earnest contemplation of the greatness before him, and constantly bowing whenever Miss De Bourgh looked that way. At length there was nothing more to be said; the ladies drove on, and the others returned into the house. Mr. Collins no sooner saw the two girls then he began to congratulate them on their good fortune, which Charlotte explained by letting them know that the whole party was asked to dine at Rosings the next day.
Mr. Collins's triumph, in consequence of this invitation, was complete. The power of displaying the grandeur of his patroness to his wondering visitors, and of letting them see her civility towards himself and his wife, was exactly what he had wished for; and that an opportunity of doing it should be given so soon was such an instance of Lady Catherine's condescension as he knew not how to admire enough. "I confess," said he, "that I should not have been at all surprised by her Ladyship's asking us on Sunday to drink tea and spend the evening at Rosings. I rather expected, from my knowledge of her affability, that it would happen. But who could have foreseen such an attention as this? Who could have imagined that we should receive an invitation to dine there (an invitation, moreover, including the whole party,) so immediately after your arrival?"—"I am the less surprised at what has happened," replied Sir William, "from that knowledge of what the manners of the great really are, which my situation in life has allowed me to acquire. About the court, such instances of elegant breeding are not uncommon." Scarcely any thing was talked of the whole day or next morning but their visit to Rosings. Mr. Collins was carefully instructing them in what they were to expect, that the sight of such rooms, so many servants, and so splendid a dinner, might not wholly overpower them. When the ladies were separating for the toilette, he said to Elizabeth,— "Do not make yourself uneasy, my dear cousin, about your apparel. Lady Catherine is far from requiring that elegance of dress in us which becomes herself and daughter. I would advise you merely to put on whatever of your clothes is superior to the rest, there is no occasion for any thing more. Lady Catherine will not think the worse of you for being simply dressed. She likes to have the distinction of rank preserved." While they were dressing, he came two or three times to their different doors, to recommend their being quick, as Lady Catherine very much objected to be kept waiting for her dinner. Such formidable accounts of her Ladyship, and her manner of living, quite frightened Maria Lucas, who had been little used to company; and she looked forward to her introduction at Rosings with as much apprehension as her father had done to his presentation at St. James's. As the weather was fine, they had a pleasant walk of about half a mile across the park. Every park has its beauty and its prospects; and Elizabeth saw much to be pleased with, though she could not be in such raptures as Mr. Collins expected the scene to inspire, and was but slightly affected by his enumeration of the windows in front of the house, and his relation of what the glazing altogether had originally cost Sir Lewis de Bough. When they ascended the steps to the hall, Maria's alarm was every moment increasing, and even Sir William did not look perfectly calm. Elizabeth's courage did not fail her. She had heard nothing of Lady Catherine that spoke her awful from any extraordinary talents or miraculous virtue, and the mere stateliness of money and rank she thought she could witness without trepidation. From the entrance hall, of which Mr. Collins pointed out, with a rapturous air, the fine proportion and finished ornaments, they followed the servants through an ante-chamber to the room where Lady Catherine, her daughter, and Mrs. Jenkinson were sitting. Her Ladyship, with great condescension, arose to receive them; and as Mrs. Collins had settled it with her husband that the office of introduction should be hers, it was performed in a proper manner, without any of those apologies and thanks which he would have thought necessary. In spite of having been at St. James's, Sir William was so completely awed by the grandeur surrounding him, that he had but just courage enough to make a very low bow, and take his seat without saying a word; and his daughter, frightened almost out of her senses, sat on the edge of her chair, not knowing which way to look. Elizabeth found herself quite equal to the scene, and could observe the three ladies before her composedly. Lady Catherine was a tall, large woman, with strongly-marked features, which might once have been handsome. Her air was not conciliating, nor was her manner of receiving them such as to make her visitors forget their inferior rank. She was not rendered formidable by silence: but whatever she said was spoken in so authoritative a tone as marked her self-importance, and brought Mr. Wickham immediately to Elizabeth's mind; and from the observation of the day altogether, she believed Lady Catherine to be exactly what he had represented. When, after examining the mother, in whose countenance and deportment she soon found some resemblance of Mr. Darcy, she turned her eyes on the daughter, she could almost have joined in Maria's astonishment at her being so thin and so small. There was neither in figure nor face any likeness between the ladies. Miss De Bourgh was pale and sickly: her features, though not plain, were insignificant; and she spoke very little, except in a low voice, to Mrs. Jenkinson, in whose appearance there was nothing remarkable, and who was entirely engaged in listening to what she said, and placing a screenao in the proper direction before her eyes. After sitting a few minutes, they were all sent to one of the windows to admire the view, Mr. Collins attending them to point out its beauties, and Lady Catherine kindly informing them that it was much better worth looking at in the summer. The dinner was exceedingly handsome, and there were all the servants, and all the articles of plate which Mr. Collins had promised; and, as he had likewise foretold, he took his seat at the bottom of the table, by her Ladyship's desire, and looked as if he felt that life could furnish nothing greater. He carved, and ate, and praised with delighted alacrity; and every dish was commended first by him, and then by Sir William, who was now enough recovered to echo whatever his son-in-law said, in a manner which Elizabeth wondered Lady Catherine could bear. But Lady Catherine seemed gratified by their excessive admiration, and gave most gracious smiles, especially when any dish on the table proved a novelty to them. The party did not supply much conversation. Elizabeth was ready to speak whenever there was an opening, but she was seated between Charlotte and Miss De Bourgh—the former of whom was engaged in listening to Lady Catherine, and the latter said not a word to her all dinner-time. Mrs. Jenkinson was chiefly employed in watching how little Miss De Bourgh ate, pressing her to try some other dish, and fearing she was indisposed. Maria thought speaking out of the question, and the gentlemen did nothing but eat and admire. When the ladies returned to the drawing room, there was little to be done but to hear Lady Catherine talk, which she did without any intermission till coffee came in, delivering her opinion on every subject in so decisive a manner as proved that she was not used to have her judgment controverted. She enquired into Charlotte's domestic concerns familiarly and minutely, and gave her a great deal of advice as to the management of them all; told her how every thing ought to be regulated in so small a family as hers, and instructed her as to the care of her cows and her poultry. Elizabeth found that nothing was beneath this great lady's attention, which could furnish her with an occasion of dictating to others. In the intervals of her discourse with Mrs. Collins, she addressed a variety of questions to Maria and Elizabeth, but especially to the latter, of whose connections she knew the least, and who, she observed to Mrs. Collins, was a very genteel, pretty kind of girl. She asked her at different times how many sisters she had, whether they were older or younger than herself, whether any of them were likely to be married, whether they were handsome, where they had been educated, what carriage her father kept, and what had been her mother's maiden name? Elizabeth felt all the impertinence of her questions, but answered them very composedly. Lady Catherine then observed, — "Your father's estate is entailed on Mr. Collins, I think? For your sake," turning to Charlotte, "I am glad of it; but otherwise I see no occasion for entailing estates from the female line. It was not thought necessary in Sir Lewis de Bourgh's family. Do you play and sing, Miss Bennet?" "A little." "Oh then—some time or other we shall be happy to hear you. Our instrument is a capital one, probably superior to—you shall try it some day. Do your sisters play and sing?" "One of them does." "Why did not you all learn? You ought all to have learned. The Miss Webbs all play, and their father has not so good an income as yours. Do you draw?" "No, not at all." "What, none of you?" "Not one." "That is very strange. But I suppose you had no opportunity. Your mother should have taken you to town every spring for the benefit of masters." "My mother would have no objection, but my father hates London." "Has your governess left you?" "We never had any governess." "No governess! How was that possible? Five daughters brought up at home without a governess! I never heard of such a thing. Your mother must have been quite a slave to your education." Elizabeth could hardly help smiling as she assured her that had not been the case. "Then who taught you? who attended to you? Without a governess, you must have been neglected." "Compared with some families, I believe we were; but such of us as wished to learn never wanted the means. We were always encouraged to read, and had all the masters that were necessary. Those who chose to be idle certainly might." "Aye, no doubt: but that is what a governess will prevent; and if I had known your mother, I should have advised her most strenuously to engage one. I always say that nothing is to be done in education without steady and regular instruction, and nobody but a governess can give it. It is wonderful how many families I have been the means of supplying in that way. I am always glad to get a young person well placed out. Four nieces of Mrs. Jenkinson are most delightfully situated through my means; and it was but the other day that I recommended another young person, who was merely accidentally mentioned to me, and the family are quite delighted with her. Mrs. Collins, did I tell you of Lady Metcalfe's calling yesterday to thank me? She finds Miss Pope a treasure. 'Lady Catherine,' said she, 'you have given me a treasure.' Are any of your younger sisters out, Miss Bennet?" "Yes, ma'am, all." "All! What, all five out at once? Very odd! And you only the second. The younger ones out before the elder are married! Your younger sisters must be very young?" "Yes, my youngest is not sixteen. Perhaps she is full young to be much in company. But really, ma'am, I think it would be very hard upon younger sisters that they should not have their share of society and amusement, because the elder may not have the means or inclination to marry early. The last born has as good a right to the pleasures of youth as the first. And to be kept back on such a motive! I think it would not be very likely to promote sisterly affection or delicacy of mind." "Upon my word," said her Ladyship, "you give your opinion very decidedly for so young a person. Pray, what is your age?" "With three younger sisters grown up," replied Elizabeth, smiling, "your Ladyship can hardly expect me to own it." Lady Catherine seemed quite astonished at not receiving a direct answer; and Elizabeth suspected herself to be the first creature who had ever dared to trifle with so much dignified impertinence. "You cannot be more than twenty, I am sure,—therefore you need not conceal your age." "I am not one-and-twenty." When the gentlemen had joined them, and tea was over, the card tables were placed. Lady Catherine, Sir William, and Mr. and Mrs. Collins sat down to quadrille; and as Miss De Bourgh chose to play at cassino,ap the two girls had the honour of assisting Mrs. Jenkinson to make up her party. Their table was superlatively stupid. Scarcely a syllable was uttered that did not relate to the game, except when Mrs. Jenkinson expressed her fears of Miss De Bourgh's being too hot or too cold, or having too much or too little light. A great deal more passed at the other table. Lady Catherine was generally speaking—stating the mistakes of the three others, or relating some anecdote of herself. Mr. Collins was employed in agreeing to every thing her Ladyship said, thanking her for every fish he won, and apologising if he thought he won too many. Sir William did not say much. He was storing his memory with anecdotes and noble names. When Lady Catherine and her daughter had played as long as they chose, the tables were broken up, the carriage was offered to Mrs. Collins, gratefully accepted, and immediately ordered. The party then gathered round the fire to hear Lady Catherine determine what weather they were to have on the morrow. From these instructions they were summoned by the arrival of the coach; and with many speeches of thankfulness on Mr. Collins's side, and as many bows on Sir William's, they departed. As soon as they had driven from the door, Elizabeth was called on by her cousin to give her opinion of all that she had seen at Rosings, which, for Charlotte's sake, she made more favourable than it really was. But her commendation, though costing her some trouble, could by no means satisfy Mr. Collins, and he was very soon obliged to take her Ladyship's praise into his own hands.
Sir William staid only a week at Hunsford; but his visit was long enough to convince him of his daughter's being most comfortably settled, and of her possessing such a husband and such a neighbour as were not often met with. While Sir William was with them, Mr. Collins devoted his mornings to driving him out in his gig,aq and showing him the country: but when he went away, the whole family returned to their usual employments, and Elizabeth was thankful to find that they did not see more of her cousin by the alteration; for the chief of the time between breakfast and dinner was now passed by him either at work in the garden, or in reading and writing, and looking out of window in his own book room, which fronted the road. The room in which the ladies sat was backwards. Elizabeth at first had rather wondered that Charlotte should not prefer the dining parlour for common use; it was a better sized room, and had a pleasanter aspect: but she soon saw that her friend had an excellent reason for what she did, for Mr. Collins would undoubtedly have been much less in his own apartment had they sat in one equally lively; and she gave Charlotte credit for the arrangement. From the drawing-room they could distinguish nothing in the lane, and were indebted to Mr. Collins for the knowledge of what carriages went along, and how often especially Miss De Bourgh drove by in her phaeton, which he never failed coming to inform them of, though it happened almost every day. She not unfrequently stopped at the Parsonage, and had a few minutes' conversation with Charlotte, but was scarcely ever prevailed on to get out. Very few days passed in which Mr. Collins did not walk to Rosings, and not many in which his wife did not think it necessary to go likewise; and till Elizabeth recollected that there might be other family livings to be disposed of, she could not understand the sacrifice of so many hours. Now and then they were honoured with a call from her Ladyship, and nothing escaped her observation that was passing in the room during these visits. She examined into their employments, looked at their work, and advised them to do it differently; found fault with the arrangement of the furniture, or detected the housemaid in negligence; and if she accepted any refreshment, seemed to do it only for the sake of finding out that Mrs. Collins's joints of meat were too large for her family. Elizabeth soon perceived, that though this great lady was not in the commission of the peacear for the county, she was a most active magistrate in her own parish, the minutest concerns of which were carried to her by Mr. Collins; and whenever any of the cottagers were disposed to be quarrelsome, discontented, or too poor, she sallied forth into the village to settle their differences, silence their complaints, and scold them into harmony and plenty. The entertainment of dining at Rosings was repeated about twice a week; and, allowing for the loss of Sir William, and there being only one card-table in the evening, every such entertainment was the counterpart of the first. Their other engagements were few; as the style of living of the neighbourhood in general was beyond the Collinses' reach. This, however, was no evil to Elizabeth, and upon the whole she spent her time comfortably enough: there were half hours of pleasant conversation with Charlotte, and the weather was so fine for the time of year, that she had often great enjoyment out of doors. Her favourite walk, and where she frequently went while the others were calling on Lady Catherine, was along the open grove which edged that side of the park where there was a nice sheltered path, which no one seemed to value but herself, and where she felt beyond the reach of Lady Catherine's curiosity. In this quiet way the first fortnight of her visit soon passed away. Easter was approaching, and the week preceding it was to bring an addition to the family at Rosings, which in so small a circle must be important. Elizabeth had heard, soon after her arrival, that Mr. Darcy was expected there in the course of a few weeks; and though there were not many of her acquaintance whom she did not prefer, his coming would furnish one comparatively new to look at in their Rosings parties, and she might be amused in seeing how hopeless Miss Bingley's designs on him were, by his behaviour to his cousin, for whom he was evidently destined by Lady Catherine; who talked of his coming with the greatest satisfaction, spoke of him in terms of the highest admiration, and seemed almost angry to find that he had already been frequently seen by Miss Lucas and herself. His arrival was soon known at the Parsonage; for Mr. Collins was walking the whole morning within view of the lodges opening into Hunsford Lane, in order to have the earliest assurance of it; and after making his bow as the carriage turned into the park, hurried home with the great intelligence. On the following morning he hastened to Rosings to pay his respects. There were two nephews of Lady Catherine to require them, for Mr. Darcy had brought with him a Colonel Fitzwilliam, the younger son of his uncle, Lord—; and, to the great surprise of all the party, when Mr. Collins returned, the gentlemen accompanied him. Charlotte had seen them from her husband's room, crossing the road, and immediately running into the other, told the girls what an honour they might expect, adding,— "I may thank you, Eliza, for this piece of civility. Mr. Darcy would never have come so soon to wait upon me." Elizabeth had scarcely time to disclaim all right to the compliment before their approach was announced by the door-bell, and shortly afterwards the three gentlemen entered the room. Colonel Fitzwilliam, who led the way, was about thirty, not handsome, but in person and address most truly the gentleman. Mr. Darcy looked just as he had been used to look in Hertfordshire, paid his compliments, with his usual reserve, to Mrs. Collins; and whatever might be his feelings towards her friend, met her with every appearance of composure. Elizabeth merely courtesied to him, without saying a word. Colonel Fitzwilliam entered into conversation directly, with the readiness and ease of a well-bred man, and talked very pleasantly; but his cousin, after having addressed a slight observation on the house and garden to Mrs. Collins, sat for some time without speaking to any body. At length, however, his civility was so far awakened as to enquire of Elizabeth after the health of her family. She answered him in the usual way; and, after a moment's pause, added,— "My eldest sister has been in town these three months. Have you never happened to see her there?" She was perfectly sensible that he never had: but she wished to see whether he would betray any consciousness of what had passed between the Bingleys and Jane; and she thought he looked a little confused as he answered that he had never been so fortunate as to meet Miss Bennet. The subject was pursued no farther, and the gentlemen soon afterwards went away.
Colonel Fitzwilliam's manners were very much admired at the Parsonage, and the ladies all felt that he must add considerably to the pleasure of their engagements at Rosings. It was some days, however, before they received any invitation thither, for while there were visitors in the house they could not be necessary; and it was not till Easter-day, almost a week after the gentlemen's arrival, that they were honoured by such an attention, and then they were merely asked on leaving church to come there in the evening. For the last week they had seen very little of either Lady Catherine or her daughter. Colonel Fitzwilliam had called at the Parsonage more than once during the time, but Mr. Darcy they had only seen at church. The invitation was accepted, of course, and at a proper hour they joined the party in Lady Catherine's drawingroom. Her Ladyship received them civilly, but it was plain that their company was by no means so acceptable as when she could get nobody else; and she was, in fact, almost engrossed by her nephews, speaking to them, especially to Darcy, much more than to any other person in the room. Colonel Fitzwilliam seemed really glad to see them: any thing was a welcome relief to him at Rosings; and Mrs. Collins's pretty friend had, moreover, caught his fancy very much. He now seated himself by her, and talked so agreeably of Kent and Hertfordshire, of travelling and staying at home, of new books and music, that Elizabeth had never been half so well entertained in that room before; and they conversed with so much spirit and flow as to draw the attention of Lady Catherine herself, as well as of Mr. Darcy. His eyes had been soon and repeatedly turned towards them with a look of curiosity; and that her Ladyship, after a while, shared the feeling, was more openly acknowledged, for she did not scruple to call out,— "What is that you are saying, Fitzwilliam? What is it you are talking of? What are you telling Miss Bennet? Let me hear what it is." "We are speaking of music, madam," said he, when no longer able to avoid a reply. "Of music! Then pray speak aloud. It is of all subjects my delight. I must have my share in the conversation, if you are speaking of music. There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient. And so would Anne, if her health had allowed her to apply. I am confident that she would have performed delightfully. How does Georgiana get on, Darcy?" Mr. Darcy spoke with affectionate praise of his sister's proficiency. "I am very glad to hear such a good account of her," said Lady Catherine; "and pray tell her from me, that she cannot expect to excel, if she does not practise a great deal." "I assure you, madam," he replied, "that she does not need such advice. She practises very constantly." "So much the better. It cannot be done too much; and when I next write to her, I shall charge her not to neglect it on any account. I often tell young ladies, that no excellence in music is to be acquired without constant practice. I have told Miss Bennet several times, that she will never play really well, unless she practises more; and though Mrs. Collins has no instrument, she is very welcome, as I have often told her, to come to Rosings every day, and play on the piano-forte in Mrs. Jenkinson's room. She would be in nobody's way, you know, in that part of the house." Mr. Darcy looked a little ashamed of his aunt's ill breeding, and made no answer. When coffee was over, Colonel Fitzwilliam reminded Elizabeth of having promised to play to him; and she sat down directly to the instrument. He drew a chair near her. Lady Catherine listened to half a song, and then talked, as before, to her other nephew; till the latter walked away from her, and moving with his usual deliberation towards the piano-forte, stationed himself so as to command a full view of the fair performer's countenance. Elizabeth saw what he was doing, and at the first convenient pause turned to him with an arch smile, and said,— "You mean to frighten me, Mr. Darcy, by coming in all this state to hear me. But I will not be alarmed though your sister does play so well. There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me." "I shall not say that you are mistaken," he replied, "because you could not really believe me to entertain any design of alarming you; and I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know, that you find great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which, in fact, are not your own." Elizabeth laughed heartily at this picture of herself, and said to Colonel Fitzwilliam, "Your cousin will give you a very pretty notion of me, and teach you not to believe a word I say. I am particularly unlucky in meeting with a person so well able to expose my real character, in a part of the world where I had hoped to pass myself off with some degree of credit. Indeed, Mr. Darcy, it is very ungenerous in you to mention all that you knew to my disadvantage in Hertfordshire—and, give me leave to say, very impolitic too—for it is provoking me to retaliate, and such things may come out as will shock your relations to hear." "I am not afraid of you," said he, smilingly. "Pray let me hear what you have to accuse him of," cried Colonel Fitzwilliam. "I should like to know how he behaves among strangers." "You shall hear then—but prepare for something very dreadful. The first time of my ever seeing him in Hertfordshire, you must know, was at a ball—and at this ball, what do you think he did? He danced only four dances! I am sorry to pain you, but so it was. He danced only four dances, though gentlemen were scarce; and, to my certain knowledge, more than one young lady was sitting down in want of a partner. Mr. Darcy, you cannot deny the fact." "I had not at that time the honour of knowing any lady in the assembly beyond my own party." "True; and nobody can ever be introduced in a ball room. Well, Colonel Fitzwilliam, what do I play next? My fingers wait your orders." "Perhaps," said Darcy, "I should have judged better had I sought an introduction, but I am ill qualified to recommend myself to strangers." "Shall we ask your cousin the reason of this?" said Elizabeth, still addressing Colonel Fitzwilliam. "Shall we ask him why a man of sense and education, and who has lived in the world, is ill qualified to recommend himself to strangers?" "I can answer your question," said Fitzwilliam, "without applying to him. It is because he will not give himself the trouble." "I certainly have not the talent which some people possess," said Darcy, "of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done." "My fingers," said Elizabeth, "do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women's do. They have not the same force or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault—because I would not take the trouble of practising. It is not that I do not believe my fingers as capable as any other woman's of superior execution." Darcy smiled and said, "You are perfectly right. You have employed your time much better. No one admitted to the privilege of hearing you can think any thing wanting. We neither of us perform to strangers." Here they were interrupted by Lady Catherine, who called out to know what they were talking of. Elizabeth immediately began playing again. Lady Catherine approached, and, after listening for a few minutes, said to Darcy,— "Miss Bennet would not play at all amiss if she practised more, and could have the advantage of a London master. She has a very good notion of fingering, though her taste is not equal to Anne's. Anne would have been a delightful performer, had her health allowed her to learn." Elizabeth looked at Darcy to see how cordially he assented to his cousin's praise: but neither at that moment nor at any other could she discern any symptom of love; and from the whole of his behaviour to Miss De Bourgh she derived this comfort for Miss Bingley, that he might have been just as likely to marry her, had she been his relation. Lady Catherine continued her remarks on Elizabeth's performance, mixing with them many instructions on execution and taste. Elizabeth received them with all the forbearance of civility; and at the request of the gentlemen remained at the instrument till her Ladyship's carriage was ready to take them all home.
Elizabeth was sitting by herself the next morning, and writing to Jane, while Mrs. Collins and Maria were gone on business into the village, when she was startled by a ring at the door, the certain signal of a visitor. As she had heard no carriage, she thought it not unlikely to be Lady Catherine; and under that apprehension was putting away her half-finished letter, that she might escape all impertinent questions, when the door opened, and to her very great surprise Mr. Darcy, and Mr. Darcy only, entered the room. He seemed astonished too on finding her alone, and apologised for his intrusion, by letting her know that he had understood all the ladies to be within. They then sat down, and when her enquiries after Rosings were made, seemed in danger of sinking into total silence. It was absolutely necessary, therefore, to think of something; and in this emergence recollecting when she had seen him last in Hertfordshire, and feeling curious to know what he would say on the subject of their hasty departure, she observed,— "How very suddenly you all quitted Netherfield last November, Mr. Darcy! It must have been a most agreeable surprise to Mr. Bingley to see you all after him so soon; for, if I recollect right, he went but the day before. He and his sisters were well, I hope, when you left London?" "Perfectly so, I thank you." She found that she was to receive no other answer; and, after a short pause, added,— "I think I have understood that Mr. Bingley has not much idea of ever returning to Netherfield again?" "I have never heard him say so; but it is probable that he may spend very little of his time there in future. He has many friends, and he is at a time of life when friends and engagements are continually increasing." "If he means to be but little at Netherfield, it would be better for the neighbourhood that he should give up the place entirely, for then we might possibly get a settled family there. But, perhaps, Mr. Bingley did not take the house so much for the convenience of the neighbourhood it as for his own, and we must expect him to keep or quit it on the same principle." "I should not be surprised," said Darcy, "if he were to give it up as soon as any eligible purchase offers." Elizabeth made no answer. She was afraid of talking longer of his friend; and, having nothing else to say, was now determined to leave the trouble of finding a subject to him. He took the hint, and soon began with, "This seems a very comfortable house. Lady Catherine, I believe, did a great deal to it when Mr. Collins first came to Hunsford." "I believe she did—and I am sure she could not have bestowed her kindness on a more grateful object." "Mr. Collins appears very fortunate in his choice of a wife." "Yes, indeed; his friends may well rejoice in his having met with one of the very few sensible women who would have accepted him, or have made him happy if they had. My friend has an excellent understanding—though I am not certain that I consider her marrying Mr. Collins as the wisest thing she ever did. She seems perfectly happy, however; and, in a prudential light, it is certainly a very good match for her." "It must be very agreeable to her to be settled within so easy a distance of her own family and friends." "An easy distance do you call it? It is nearly fifty miles." "And what is fifty miles of good road? Little more than half a day's journey. Yes, I call it a very easy distance." "I should never have considered the distance as one of the advantages of the match," cried Elizabeth. "I should never have said Mrs. Collins was settled near her family." "It is a proof of your own attachment to Hertfordshire. Any thing beyond the very neighborhood of Longbourn, I suppose, would appear far." As he spoke there was a sort of smile, which Elizabeth fancied she understood; he must be supposing her to be thinking of Jane and Netherfield, and she blushed as she answered,— "I do not mean to say that a woman may not be settled too near her family. The far and the near must be relative, and depend on many varying circumstances. Where there is fortune to make the expense of travelling unimportant, distance becomes no evil. But that is not the case here. Mr. and Mrs. Collins have a comfortable income, but not such a one as will allow of frequent journeys—and I am persuaded my friend would not call herself near her family under less than half the present distance." Mr. Darcy drew his chair a little towards her, and said, "You cannot have a right to such very strong local attachment. You cannot have been always at Longbourn." Elizabeth looked surprised. The gentleman experienced some change of feeling; he drew back his chair, took a newspaper from the table, and glancing over it, said, in a colder voice,— "Are you pleased with Kent?" A short dialogue on the subject of the country ensued, on either side calm and concise—and soon put an end to by the entrance of Charlotte and her sister, just returned from their walk. The tête-à-tête surprised them. Mr. Darcy related the mistake which had occasioned his intruding on Miss Bennet, and after sitting a few minutes longer without saying much to any body, went away. "What can be the meaning of this?" said Charlotte, as soon as he was gone. "My dear Eliza, he must be in love with you, or he would never have called on us in this familiar way." But when Elizabeth told of his silence, it did not seem very likely, even to Charlotte's wishes, to be the case; and, after various conjectures, they could at last only suppose his visit to proceed from the difficulty of finding any thing to do, which was the more probable from the time of year. All field sports were over. Within doors there was Lady Catherine, books, and a billiard table, but gentlemen cannot be always within doors; and in the nearness of the Parsonage, or the pleasantness of the walk to it, or of the people who lived in it, the two cousins found a temptation from this period of walking thither almost every day. They called at various times of the morning, sometimes separately, sometimes together, and now and then accompanied by their aunt. It was plain to them all that Colonel Fitzwilliam came because he had pleasure in their society, a persuasion which of course recommended him still more; and Elizabeth was reminded by her own satisfaction in being with him, as well as by his evident admiration of her, of her former favourite, George Wickham; and though, in comparing them; she saw there was less captivating softness in Colonel Fitzwilliam's manners, she believed he might have the best informed mind. But why Mr. Darcy came so often to the Parsonage it was more difficult to understand. It could not be for society, as he frequently sat there ten minutes together without opening his lips; and when he did speak, it seemed the effect of necessity rather than of choice—a sacrifice to propriety, not a pleasure to himself. He seldom appeared really animated. Mrs. Collins knew not what to make of him. Colonel Fitzwilliam's occasionally laughing at his stupidity proved that he was generally different, which her own knowledge of him could not have told her; and as she would have liked to believe this change the effect of love, and the object of that love her friend Eliza, she set herself seriously to work to find it out: she watched him whenever they were at Rosings, and whenever he came to Hunsford; but without much success. He certainly looked at her friend a great deal, but the expression of that look was disputable. It was an earnest, steadfast gaze, but she often doubted whether there were much admiration in it, and sometimes it seemed nothing but absence of mind. She had once or twice suggested to Elizabeth the possibility of his being partial to her, but Elizabeth always laughed at the idea; and Mrs. Collins did not think it right to press the subject, from the danger of raising expectations which might only end in disappointment; for in her opinion it admitted not of a doubt, that all her friend's dislike would vanish, if she could suppose him to be in her power. In her kind schemes for Elizabeth, she sometimes planned her marrying Colonel Fitzwilliam. He was, beyond comparison, the pleasantest man: he certainly admired her, and his situation in life was most eligible; but, to counterbalance these advantages, Mr. Darcy had considerable patronage in the church, and his cousin could have none at all.
More than once did Elizabeth, in her ramble within the park, unexpectedly meet Mr. Darcy. She felt all the perverseness of the mischance that should bring him where no one else was brought; and, to prevent its ever happening again, took care to inform him, at first, that it was a favourite haunt of hers. How it could occur a second time, therefore, was very odd! Yet it did, and even the third. It seemed like wilful ill-nature, or a voluntary penance; for on these occasions it was not merely a few formal enquiries and an awkward pause and then away, but he actually thought it necessary to turn back and walk with her. He never said a great deal, nor did she give herself the trouble of talking or of listening much; but it struck her in the course of their third rencountre that he was asking some odd unconnected questions—about her pleasure in being at Hunsford, her love of solitary walks, and her opinion of Mr. and Mrs. Collins's happiness; and that in speaking of Rosings, and her not perfectly understanding the house, he seemed to expect that whenever she came into Kent again she would be staying there too. His words seemed to imply it. Could he have Colonel Fitzwilliam in his thoughts? She supposed, if he meant any thing, he must mean an allusion to what might arise in that quarter. It distressed her a little, and she was quite glad to find herself at the gate in the palesas opposite the Parsonage. She was engaged one day, as she walked, in re-perusing Jane's last letter, and dwelling on some passages which proved that Jane had not written in spirits, when, instead of being again surprised by Mr. Darcy, she saw, on looking up, that Colonel Fitzwilliam was meeting her. Putting away the letter immediately, and forcing a smile, she said,— "I did not know before that you ever walked this way." "I have been making the tour of the park," he replied, "as I generally do every year, and intended to close it with a call at the Parsonage. Are you going much farther?" "No, I should have turned in a moment." And accordingly she did turn, and they walked towards the Parsonage together. "Do you certainly leave Kent on Saturday?" said she. "Yes—if Darcy does not put it off again. But I am at his disposal. He arranges the business just as he pleases." "And if not able to please himself in the arrangement, he has at least great pleasure in the power of choice. I do not know any body who seems more to enjoy the power of doing what he likes than Mr. Darcy." "He likes to have his own way very well," replied Colonel Fitzwilliam. "But so we all do. It is only that he has better means of having it than many others, because he is rich, and many others are poor. I speak feelingly. A younger son, you know, must be inured to self-denial and dependence." "In my opinion, the younger son of an earl can know very little of either. Now, seriously, what have you ever known of self-denial and dependence? When have you been prevented by want of money from going wherever you chose, or procuring any thing you had a fancy for?" "These are home questions—and perhaps I cannot say that I have experienced many hardships of that nature. But in matters of greater weight, I may suffer from the want of money. Younger sons cannot marry where they like." "Unless where they like women of fortune, which I think they very often do." "Our habits of expense make us too dependent, and there are not many in my rank of life who can afford to marry without some attention to money." "Is this," thought Elizabeth, "meant for me?" and she coloured at the idea; but, recovering herself, said in a lively tone, "And pray, what is the usual price of an earl's younger son? Unless the elder brother is very sickly, I suppose you would not ask above fifty thousand pounds." He answered her in the same style, and the subject dropped. To interrupt a silence which might make him fancy her affected with what had passed, she soon afterwards said,— "I imagine your cousin brought you down with him chiefly for the sake of having somebody at his disposal. I wonder he does not marry, to secure a lasting convenience of that kind. But, perhaps, his sister does as well for the present; and, as she is under his sole care, he may do what he likes with her." "No," said Colonel Fitzwilliam, "that is an advantage which he must divide with me. I am joined with him in the guardianship of Miss Darcy." "Are you, indeed? And pray what sort of a guardian do you make? Does your charge give you much trouble? Young ladies of her age are sometimes a little difficult to manage; and if she has the true Darcy spirit, she may like to have her own way." As she spoke, she observed him looking at her earnestly; and the manner in which he immediately asked her why she supposed Miss Darcy likely to give them any uneasiness, convinced her that she had somehow or other got pretty near the truth. She directly replied,— "You need not be frightened. I never heard any harm of her; and I dare say she is one of the most tractable creatures in the world. She is a very great favourite with some ladies of my acquaintance, Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley. I think I have heard you say that you know them." "I know them a little. Their brother is a pleasant, gentleman-like man—he is a great friend of Darcy's." "Oh yes," said Elizabeth, drily—"Mr. Darcy is uncommonly kind to Mr. Bingley, and takes a prodigious deal of care of him." "Care of him! Yes, I really believe Darcy does take care of him in those points where he most wants care. From something that he told me in our journey hither, I have reason to think Bingley very much indebted to him. But I ought to beg his pardon, for I have no right to suppose that Bingley was the person meant. It was all conjecture." "What is it you mean?" "It is a circumstance which Darcy of course could not wish to be generally known, because if it were to get round to the lady's family, it would be an unpleasant thing." "You may depend upon my not mentioning it." "And remember that I have not much reason for supposing it to be Bingley. What he told me was merely this: that he congratulated himself on having lately saved a friend from the inconveniences of a most imprudent marriage, but without mentioning names or any other particulars; and I only suspected it to be Bingley from believing him the kind of young man to get into a scrape of that sort, and from knowing them to have been together the whole of last summer." "Did Mr. Darcy give you his reasons for this interference?" "I understood that there were some very strong objections against the lady." "And what arts did he use to separate them?" "He did not talk to me of his own arts," said Fitzwilliam, smiling. "He only told me what I have now told you." Elizabeth made no answer, and walked on, her heart swelling with indignation. After watching her a little, Fitzwilliam asked her why she was so thoughtful. "I am thinking of what you have been telling me," said she. "Your cousin's conduct does not suit my feelings. Why was he to be the judge?" "You are rather disposed to call his interference officious?" "I do not see what right Mr. Darcy had to decide on the propriety of his friend's inclination; or why, upon his own judgment alone, he was to determine and direct in what manner that friend was to be happy. But," she continued, recollecting herself, "as we know none of the particulars, it is not fair to condemn him. It is not to be supposed that there was much affection in the case." "That is not an unnatural surmise," said Fitzwilliam; "but it is lessening the honour of my cousin's triumph very sadly." This was spoken jestingly, but it appeared to her so just a picture of Mr. Darcy, that she would not trust herself with an answer; and, therefore, abruptly changing the conversation, talked on indifferent matters till they reached the Parsonage. There, shut into her own room, as soon as their visitor left them, she could think without interruption of all that she had heard. It was not to be supposed that any other people could be meant than those with whom she was connected. There could not exist in the world two men over whom Mr. Darcy could have such boundless influence. That he had been concerned in the measures taken to separate Mr. Bingley and Jane, she had never doubted; but she had always attributed to Miss Bingley the principal design and arrangement of them. If his own vanity, however, did not mislead him, he was the cause, his pride and caprice were the cause, of all that Jane had suffered, and still continued to suffer. He had ruined for a while every hope of happiness for the most affectionate, generous heart in the world; and no one could say how lasting an evil he might have inflicted. "There were some very strong objections against the lady," were Colonel Fitzwilliam's words; and these strong objections probably were, her having one uncle who was a country attorney, and another who was in business in London. "To Jane herself," she exclaimed, "there could be no possibility of objection,—all loveliness and goodness as she is! Her understanding excellent, her mind improved, and her manners captivating. Neither could any thing be urged against my father, who, though with some peculiarities, has abilities which Mr. Darcy himself need not disdain, and respectability which he will probably never reach." When she thought of her mother, indeed, her confidence gave way a little; but she would not allow that any objections there had material weight with Mr. Darcy, whose pride, she was convinced, would receive a deeper wound from the want of importance in his friend's connections than from their want of sense; and she was quite decided, at last, that he had been partly governed by this worst kind of pride, and partly by the wish of retaining Mr. Bingley for his sister. The agitation and tears which the subject occasioned brought on a headache; and it grew so much worse towards the evening that, added to her unwillingness to see Mr. Darcy, it determined her not to attend her cousins to Rosings, where they were engaged to drink tea. Mrs. Collins, seeing that she was really unwell, did not press her to go, and as much as possible prevented her husband from pressing her; but Mr. Collins could not conceal his apprehension of Lady Catherine's being rather displeased by her staying at home.
When they were gone, Elizabeth, as if intending to exasperate herself as much as possible against Mr. Darcy, chose for her employment the examination of all the letters which Jane had written to her since her being in Kent. They contained no actual complaint, nor was there any revival of past occurrences, or any communication of present suffering. But in all, and in almost every line of each, there was a want of that cheerfulness which had been used to characterise her style, and which, proceeding from the serenity of a mind at ease with itself, and kindly disposed towards every one, had been scarcely ever clouded. Elizabeth noticed every sentence conveying the idea of uneasiness, with an attention which it had hardly received on the first perusal. Mr. Darcy's shameful boast of what misery he had been able to inflict gave her a keener sense of her sister's sufferings. It was some consolation to think that his visit to Rosings was to end on the day after the next, and a still greater, that in less than a fortnight she should herself be with Jane again, and enabled to contribute to the recovery of her spirits, by all that affection could do. She could not think of Darcy's leaving Kent without remembering that his cousin was to go with him; but Colonel Fitzwilliam had made it clear that he had no intentions at all, and, agreeable as he was, she did not mean to be unhappy about him. While settling this point, she was suddenly roused by the sound of the door bell; and her spirits were a little fluttered by the idea of its being Colonel Fitzwilliam himself, who had once before called late in the evening, and might now come to enquire particularly after her. But this idea was soon banished, and her spirits were very differently affected, when, to her utter amazement, she saw Mr. Darcy walk into the room. In a hurried manner he immediately began an enquiry after her health, imputing his visit to a wish of hearing that she were better. She answered him with cold civility. He sat down for a few moments, and then getting up walked about the room. Elizabeth was surprised, but said not a word. After a silence of several minutes, he came towards her in an agitated manner, and thus began:— "In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." Elizabeth's astonishment was beyond expression. She stared, coloured, doubted, and was silent. This he considered sufficient encouragement, and the avowal of all that he felt and had long felt for her immediately followed. He spoke well, but there were feelings besides those of the heart to be detailed, and he was not more eloquent on the subject of tenderness than of pride. His sense of her inferiority, of its being a degradation, of the family obstacles which judgment had always opposed to inclination, were dwelt on with a warmth which seemed due to the consequence he was wounding, but was very unlikely to recommend his suit. In spite of her deeply-rooted dislike, she could not be insensible to the compliment of such a man's affection, and though her intentions did not vary for an instant, she was at first sorry for the pain he was to receive; till, roused to resentment by his subsequent language, she lost all compassion in anger. She tried, however, to compose herself to answer him with patience, when he should have done. He concluded with representing to her the strength of that attachment which, in spite of all his endeavours, he had found impossible to conquer; and with expressing his hope that it would now be rewarded by her acceptance of his hand. As he said this, she could easily see that he had no doubt of a favourable answer. He spoke of apprehension and anxiety, but his countenance expressed real security. Such a circumstance could only exasperate farther; and when he ceased, the colour rose into her cheeks, and she said,— "In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the established mode to express a sense of obligation for the sentiments avowed, however unequally they may be returned. It is natural that obligation should be felt, and if I could feel gratitude, I would now thank you. But I cannot—I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly bestowed it most unwillingly. I am sorry to have occasioned pain to any one. It has been most unconsciously done, however, and I hope will be of short duration. The feelings which you tell me have long prevented the acknowledgment of your regard can have little difficulty in overcoming it after this explanation." Mr. Darcy, who was leaning against the mantel-piece with his eyes fixed on her face, seemed to catch her words with no less resentment than surprise. His complexion became pale with anger, and the disturbance of his mind was visible in every feature. He was struggling for the appearance of composure, and would not open his lips, till he believed himself to have attained it. The pause was to Elizabeth's feelings dreadful. At length, in a voice of forced calmness, he said,— "And this is all the reply which I am to have the honour of expecting! I might, perhaps, wish to be informed why, with so little endeavour at civility, I am thus rejected. But it is of small importance." "I might as well enquire," replied she, "why, with so evident a design of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character? Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I was uncivil? But I have other provocations. You know I have. Had not my own feelings decided against you, had they been indifferent, or had they even been favourable, do you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who has been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister?" As she pronounced these words, Mr. Darcy changed colour; but the emotion was short, and he listened without attempting to interrupt her while she continued,— "I have every reason in the world to think ill of you. No motive can excuse the unjust and ungenerous part you acted there. You dare not, you cannot deny that you have been the principal, if not the only means of dividing them from each other, of exposing one to the censure of the world for caprice and instability, the other to its derision for disappointed hopes, and involving them both in misery of the acutest kind." She paused, and saw with no slight indignation that he was listening with an air which proved him wholly unmoved by any feeling of remorse. He even looked at her with a smile of affected incredulity. "Can you deny that you have done it?" she repeated. With assumed tranquillity he then replied, "I have no wish of denying that I did every thing in my power to separate my friend from your sister, or that I rejoice in my success. Towards him I have been kinder than towards myself." Elizabeth disdained the appearance of noticing this civil reflection, but its meaning did not escape, nor was it likely to conciliate her. "But it is not merely this affair," she continued, "on which my dislike is founded. Long before it had taken place, my opinion of you was decided. Your character was unfolded in the recital which I received many months ago from Mr. Wickham. On this subject, what can you have to say? In what imaginary act of friendship can you here defend yourself? or under what misrepresentation can you here impose upon others?" "You take an eager interest in that gentleman's concerns," said Darcy, in a less tranquil tone, and with a heightened colour. "Who that knows what his misfortunes have been can help feeling an interest in him?" "His misfortunes!" repeated Darcy, contemptuously,—"yes, his misfortunes have been great indeed." "And of your infliction," cried Elizabeth, with energy. "You have reduced him to his present state of poverty—comparative poverty. You have withheld the advantages which you must know to have been designed for him. You have deprived the best years of his life of that independence which was no less his due than his desert. You have done all this! and yet you can treat the mention of his misfortunes with contempt and ridicule." "And this," cried Darcy, as he walked with quick steps across the room, "is your opinion of me! This is the estimation in which you hold me! I thank you for explaining it so fully. My faults, according to this calculation, are heavy indeed! But, perhaps," added he, stopping in his walk, and turning towards her, "these offences might have been overlooked, had not your pride been hurt by my honest confession of the scruples that had long prevented my forming any serious design. These bitter accusations might have been suppressed, had I, with greater policy, concealed my struggles, and flattered you into the belief of my being impelled by unqualified, unalloyed inclination; by reason, by reflection, by every thing. But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence. Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I related. They were natural and just. Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections? To congratulate myself on the hope of relations whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?" Elizabeth felt herself growing more angry every moment; yet she tried to the utmost to speak with composure when she said,— "You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way than as it spared me the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner." She saw him start at this; but he said nothing, and she continued,— "You could not have made me the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it." Again his astonishment was obvious: and he looked at her with an expression of mingled incredulity and mortification. She went on,— "From the very beginning, from the first moment, I may almost say, of my acquaintance with you, your manners impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form that groundwork of disapprobation, on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry." "You have said quite enough, madam. I perfectly comprehend your feelings, and have now only to be ashamed of what my own have been. Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time, and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness." And with these words he hastily left the room, and Elizabeth heard him the next moment open the front door and quit the house. The tumult of her mind was now painfully great. She knew not how to support herself, and, from actual weakness, sat down and cried for half an hour. Her astonishment, as she reflected on what had passed, was increased by every review of it. That she should receive an offer of marriage from Mr. Darcy! that he should have been in love with her for so many months! so much in love as to wish to marry her in spite of all the objections which had made him prevent his friend's marrying her sister, and which must appear at least with equal force in his own case, was almost incredible! it was gratifying to have inspired unconsciously so strong an affection. But his pride, his abominable pride, his shameless avowal of what he had done with respect to Jane, his unpardonable assurance in acknowledging, though he could not justify it, and the unfeeling manner in which he had mentioned Mr. Wickham, his cruelty towards whom he had not attempted to deny, soon overcame the pity which the consideration of his attachment had for a moment excited. She continued in very agitating reflections till the sound of Lady Catherine's carriage made her feel how unequal she was to encounter Charlotte's observation, and hurried her away to her room.
Elizabeth awoke the next morning to the same thoughts and meditations which had at length closed her eyes. She could not yet recover from the surprise of what had happened: it was impossible to think of any thing else; and, totally indisposed for employment, she resolved soon after breakfast to indulge herself in air and exercise. She was proceeding directly to her favourite walk, when the recollection of Mr. Darcy's sometimes coming there stopped her; and instead of entering the park, she turned up the lane, which led her farther from the turnpike road. The park paling was still the boundary on one side, and she soon passed one of the gates into the ground. After walking two or three times along that part of the lane, she was tempted, by the pleasantness of the morning, to stop at the gates and look into the park. The five weeks which she had now passed in Kent had made a great difference in the country, and every day was adding to the verdure of the early trees. She was on the point of continuing her walk, when she caught a glimpse of a gentleman within the sort of grove which edged the park: he was moving that way; and fearful of its being Mr. Darcy, she was directly retreating. But the person who advanced was now near enough to see her, and stepping forward with eagerness, pronounced her name. She had turned away; but on hearing herself called, though in a voice which proved it to be Mr. Darcy, she moved again towards the gate. He had by that time reached it also; and, holding out a letter, which she instinctively took, said, with a look of haughty composure, "I have been walking in the grove some time, in the hope of meeting you. Will you do me the honour of reading that letter?" And then, with a slight bow, turned again into the plantation,at and was soon out of sight. With no expectation of pleasure, but with the strongest curiosity, Elizabeth opened the letter, and to her still increasing wonder, perceived an envelope containing two sheets of letter paper, written quite through, in a very close hand. The envelope itself was likewise full. Pursuing her way along the lane, she then began it. It was dated from Rosings, at eight o'clock in the morning, and was as follows:— "Be not alarmed, madam, on receiving this letter, by the apprehension of its containing any repetition of those sentiments, or renewal of those offers, which were last night so disgusting to you. I write without any intention of paining you, or humbling myself, by dwelling on wishes, which, for the happiness of both, cannot be too soon forgotten; and the effort which the formation and the perusal of this letter must occasion, should have been spared, had not my character required it to be written and read. You must, therefore, pardon the freedom with which I demand your attention; your feelings, I know, will bestow it unwillingly, but I demand it of your justice. "Two offences of a very different nature, and by no means of equal magnitude, you last night laid to my charge. The first mentioned was, that, regardless of the sentiments of either, I had detached Mr. Bingley from your sister,—and the other, that I had, in defiance of various claims, in defiance of honour and humanity, ruined the immediate prosperity, and blasted the prospects of Mr. Wickham. Wilfully and wantonly to have thrown off the companion of my youth, the acknowledged favourite of my father, a young man who had scarcely any other dependence than on our patronage, and who had been brought up to expect its exertion, would be a depravity, to which the separation of two young persons, whose affection could be the growth of only a few weeks, could bear no comparison. But from the severity of that blame which was last night so liberally bestowed, respecting each circumstance, I shall hope to be in future secured, when the following account of my actions and their motives has been read. If, in the explanation of them which is due to myself, I am under the necessity of relating feelings which may be offensive to yours, I can only say that I am sorry. The necessity must be obeyed, and further apology would be absurd. I had not been long in Hertfordshire, before I saw, in common with others, that Bingley preferred your elder sister to any other young woman in the country. But it was not till the evening of the dance at Netherfield that I had any apprehension of his feeling a serious attachment. I had often seen him in love before. At that ball, while I had the honour of dancing with you, I was first made acquainted, by Sir William Lucas's accidental information, that Bingley's attentions to your sister had given rise to a general expectation of their marriage. He spoke of it as a certain event, of which the time alone could be undecided. From that moment I observed my friend's behaviour attentively; and I could then perceive that his partiality for Miss Bennet was beyond what I had ever witnessed in him. Your sister I also watched. Her look and manners were open, cheerful, and engaging as ever, but without any symptom of peculiar regard; and I remained convinced, from the evening's scrutiny, that though she received his attentions with pleasure, she did not invite them by any participation of sentiment. If you have not been mistaken here, I must have been in an error. Your superior knowledge of your sister must make the latter probable. If it be so, if I have been misled by such error to inflict pain on her, your resentment has not been unreasonable. But I shall not scruple to assert, that the serenity of your sister's countenance and air was such as might have given the most acute observer a conviction that, however amiable her temper, her heart was not likely to be easily touched. That I was desirous of believing her indifferent is certain; but I will venture to say that my investigations and decisions are not usually influenced by my hopes or fears. I did not believe her to be indifferent because I wished it; I believed it on impartial conviction, as truly as I wished it in reason. My objections to the marriage were not merely those which I last night acknowledged to have required the utmost force of passion to put aside in my own case; the want of connection could not be so great an evil to my friend as to me. But there were other causes of repugnance; causes which, though still existing, and existing to an equal degree in both instances, I had myself endeavoured to forget, because they were not immediately before me. These causes must be stated, though briefly. The situation of your mother's family, though objectionable, was nothing in comparison of that total want of propriety so frequently, so almost uniformly betrayed by herself, by your three younger sisters, and occasionally even by your father:—pardon me,—it pains me to offend you. But amidst your concern for the defects of your nearest relations, and your displeasure at this representation of them, let it give you consolation to consider that to have conducted yourselves so as to avoid any share of the like censure is praise no less generally bestowed on you and your eldest sister than it is honourable to the sense and disposition of both. I will only say, farther, that from what passed that evening my opinion of all parties was confirmed, and every inducement heightened, which could have led me before to preserve my friend from what I esteemed a most unhappy connection. He left Netherfield for London on the day following, as you, I am certain, remember, with the design of soon returning. The part which I acted is now to be explained. His sisters' uneasiness had been equally excited with my own: our coincidence of feeling was soon discovered; and, alike sensible that no time was to be lost in detaching their brother, we shortly resolved on joining him directly in London. We accordingly went—and there I readily engaged in the office of pointing out to my friend the certain evils of such a choice. I described and enforced them earnestly. But however this remonstrance might have staggered or delayed his determination, I do not suppose that it would ultimately have prevented the marriage, had it not been seconded by the assurance, which I hesitated not in giving, of your sister's indifference. He had before believed her to return his affection with sincere, if not with equal, regard. But Bingley has great natural modesty, with a stronger dependence on my judgment than on his own. To convince him, therefore, that he had deceived himself was no very difficult point. To persuade him against returning into Hertfordshire, when that conviction had been given, was scarcely the work of a moment. I cannot blame myself for having done thus much. There is but one part of my conduct, in the whole affair, on which I do not reflect with satisfaction; it is that I condescended to adopt the measures of art so far as to conceal from him your sister's being in town. I knew it myself, as it was known to Miss Bingley; but her brother is even yet ignorant of it. That they might have met without ill consequence is, perhaps, probable; but his regard did not appear to me enough extinguished for him to see her without some danger. Perhaps this concealment, this disguise, was beneath me. It is done, however, and it was done for the best. On this subject I have nothing more to say, no other apology to offer. If I have wounded your sister's feelings, it was unknowingly done; and though the motives which governed me may to you very naturally appear insufficient, I have not yet learnt to condemn them.—With respect to that other, more weighty accusation, of having injured Mr. Wickham, I can only refute it by laying before you the whole of his connection with my family. Of what he has particularly accused me I am ignorant; but of the truth of what I shall relate I can summon more than one witness of undoubted veracity. Mr. Wickham is the son of a very respectable man, who had for many years the management of all the Pemberley estates, and whose good conduct in the discharge of his trust naturally inclined my father to be of service to him; and on George Wickham, who was his godson, his kindness was therefore liberally bestowed. My father supported him at school, and afterwards at Cambridge; most important assistance, as his own father, always poor from the extravagance of his wife, would have been unable to give him a gentleman's education. My father was not only fond of this young man's society, whose manners were always engaging, he had also the highest opinion of him, and hoping the church would be his profession, intended to provide for him in it. As for myself, it is many, many years since I first began to think of him in a very different manner. The vicious propensities, the want of principle, which he was careful to guard from the knowledge of his best friend, could not escape the observation of a young man of nearly the same age with himself, and who had opportunities of seeing him in unguarded moments, which Mr. Darcy could not have. Here again I shall give you pain—to what degree you only can tell. But whatever may be the sentiments which Mr. Wickham has created, a suspicion of their nature shall not prevent me from unfolding his real character. It adds even another motive. My excellent father died about five years ago; and his attachment to Mr. Wickham was to the last so steady, that in his will he particularly recommended it to me to promote his advancement in the best manner that his profession might allow, and if he took orders, desired that a valuable family living might be his as soon as it became vacant. There was also a legacy of one thousand pounds. His own father did not long survive mine; and within half a year from these events Mr. Wickham wrote to inform me that, having finally resolved against taking orders, he hoped I should not think it unreasonable for him to expect some more immediate pecuniary advantage, in lieu of the preferment, by which he could not be benefited. He had some intention, he added, of studying the law, and I must be aware that the interest of one thousand pounds would be a very insufficient support therein. I rather wished than believed him to be sincere; but, at any rate, was perfectly ready to accede to his proposal. I knew that Mr. Wickham ought not to be a clergyman. The business was therefore soon settled. He resigned all claim to assistance in the church, were it possible that he could ever be in a situation to receive it, and accepted in return three thousand pounds. All connection between us seemed now dissolved. I thought too ill of him to invite him to Pemberley, or admit his society in town. In town, I believe, he chiefly lived, but his studying the law was a mere pretence; and being now free from all restraint, his life was a life of idleness and dissipation. For about three years I heard little of him; but on the decease of the incumbent of the living which had been designed for him, he applied to me again by letter for the presentation. His circumstances, he assured me, and I had no difficulty in believing it, were exceedingly bad. He had found the law a most unprofitable study, and was now absolutely resolved on being ordained, if I would present him to the living in question—of which he trusted there could be little doubt, as he was well assured that I had no other person to provide for, and I could not have forgotten my revered father's intentions. You will hardly blame me for refusing to comply with this entreaty, or for resisting every repetition of it. His resentment was in proportion to the distress of his circumstances—and he was doubtless as violent in his abuse of me to others as in his reproaches to myself. After this period, every appearance of acquaintance was dropped. How he lived, I know not. But last summer he was again most painfully obtruded on my notice. I must now mention a circumstance which I would wish to forget myself, and which no obligation less than the present should induce me to unfold to any human being. Having said thus much, I feel no doubt of your secrecy. My sister, who is more than ten years my junior, was left to the guardianship of my mother's nephew, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and myself. About a year ago, she was taken from school, and an establishment formed for her in London; and last summer she went with the lady who presided over it to Ramsgate;au and thither also went Mr. Wickham, undoubtedly by design; for there proved to have been a prior acquaintance between him and Mrs. Younge, in whose character we were most unhappily deceived; and by her connivance and aid he so far recommended himself to Georgiana, whose affectionate heart retained a strong impression of his kindness to her as a child, that she was persuaded to believe herself in love, and to consent to an elopement. She was then but fifteen, which must be her excuse; and after stating her imprudence, I am happy to add, that I owed the knowledge of it to herself. I joined them unexpectedly a day or two before the intended elopement; and then Georgiana, unable to support the idea of grieving and offending a brother whom she almost looked up to as a father, acknowledged the whole to me. You may imagine what I felt and how I acted. Regard for my sister's credit and feelings prevented any public exposure; but I wrote to Mr. Wickham, who left the place immediately, and Mrs. Younge was of course removed from her charge. Mr. Wickham's chief object was unquestionably my sister's fortune, which is thirty thousand pounds; but I cannot help supposing that the hope of revenging himself on me was a strong inducement. His revenge would have been complete indeed. This, madam, is a faithful narrative of every event in which we have been concerned together; and if you do not absolutely reject it as false, you will, I hope, acquit me henceforth of cruelty towards Mr. Wickham. I know not in what manner, under what form of falsehood, he has imposed on you; but his success is not perhaps to be wondered at, ignorant as you previously were of every thing concerning either. Detection could not be in your power, and suspicion certainly not in your inclination. You may possibly wonder why all this was not told you last night. But I was not then master enough of myself to know what could or ought to be revealed. For the truth of every thing here related, I can appeal more particularly to the testimony of Colonel Fitzwilliam, who, from our near relationship and constant intimacy, and still more as one of the executors of my father's will, has been unavoidably acquainted with every particular of these transactions. If your abhorrence of me should make my assertions valueless, you cannot be prevented by the same cause from confiding in my cousin; and that there may be the possibility of consulting him, I shall endeavour to find some opportunity of putting this letter in your hands in the course of the morning. I will only add, God bless you.
If Elizabeth, when Mr. Darcy gave her the letter, did not expect it to contain a renewal of his offers, she had formed no expectation at all of its contents. But such as they were, it may be well supposed how eagerly she went through them, and what a contrariety of emotion they excited. Her feelings as she read were scarcely to be defined. With amazement did she first understand that he believed any apology to be in his power; and steadfastly was she persuaded, that he could have no explanation to give, which a just sense of shame would not conceal. With a strong prejudice against every thing he might say, she began his account of what had happened at Netherfield. She read with an eagerness which hardly left her power of comprehension; and from impatience of knowing what the next sentence might bring, was incapable of attending to the sense of the one before her eyes. His belief of her sister's insensibility she instantly resolved to be false; and his account of the real, the worst objections to the match, made her too angry to have any wish of doing him justice. He expressed no regret for what he had done which satisfied her; his style was not penitent, but haughty. It was all pride and insolence. But when this subject was succeeded by his account of Mr. Wickham—when she read, with somewhat clearer attention, a relation of events which, if true, must overthrow every cherished opinion of his worth, and which bore so alarming an affinity to his own history of himself—her feelings were yet more acutely painful and more difficult of definition. Astonishment, apprehension, and even horror, oppressed her. She wished to discredit it entirely, repeatedly exclaiming, "This must be false! This cannot be! This must be the grossest falsehood!" —and when she had gone through the whole letter, though scarcely knowing any thing of the last page or two, put it hastily away, protesting that she would not regard it, that she would never look in it again. In this perturbed state of mind, with thoughts that could rest on nothing, she walked on; but it would not do: in half a minute the letter was unfolded again; and, collecting herself as well as she could, she again began the mortifying perusal of all that related to Wickham, and commanded herself so far as to examine the meaning of every sentence. The account of his connection with the Pemberley family was exactly what he had related himself; and the kindness of the late Mr. Darcy, though she had not before known its extent, agreed equally well with his own words. So far each recital confirmed the other; but when she came to the will, the difference was great. What Wickham had said of the living was fresh in her memory; and as she recalled his very words, it was impossible not to feel that there was gross duplicity on one side or the other, and, for a few moments, she flattered herself that her wishes did not err. But when she read and reread, with the closest attention, the particulars immediately following of Wickham's resigning all pretensions to the living, of his receiving in lieu so considerable a sum as three thousand pounds, again was she forced to hesitate. She put down the letter, weighed every circumstance with what she meant to be impartiality—deliberated on the probability of each statement—but with little success. On both sides it was only assertion. Again she read on. But every line proved more clearly that the affair, which she had believed it impossible that any contrivance could so represent as to render Mr. Darcy's conduct in it less than infamous, was capable of a turn which must make him entirely blameless throughout the whole. The extravagance and general profligacy which he scrupled not to lay to Mr. Wickham's charge exceedingly shocked her; the more so, as she could bring no proof of its injustice. She had never heard of him before his entrance into the———shire militia, in which he had engaged at the persuasion of the young man, who, on meeting him accidentally in town, had there renewed a slight acquaintance. Of his former way of life, nothing had been known in Hertfordshire but what he told himself. As to his real character, had information been in her power, she had never felt a wish of enquiring. His countenance, voice, and manner, had established him at once in the possession of every virtue. She tried to recollect some instance of goodness, some distinguished trait of integrity or benevolence, that might rescue him from the attacks of Mr. Darcy; or at least, by the predominance of virtue, atone for those casual errors, under which she would endeavour to class what Mr. Darcy had described as the idleness and vice of many years' continuance. But no such recollection befriended her. She could see him instantly before her, in every charm of air and address, but she could remember no more substantial good than the general approbation of the neighbourhood, and the regard which his social powers had gained him in the mess. After pausing on this point a considerable while, she once more continued to read. But, alas! the story which followed, of his designs on Miss Darcy, received some confirmation from what had passed between Colonel Fitzwilliam and herself only the morning before; and at last she was referred for the truth of every particular to Colonel Fitzwilliam himself—from whom she had previously received the information of his near concern in all his cousin's affairs, and whose character she had no reason to question. At one time she had almost resolved on applying to him, but the idea was checked by the awkwardness of the application, and at length wholly banished by the conviction that Mr. Darcy would never have hazarded such a proposal, if he had not been well assured of his cousin's corroboration. She perfectly remembered every thing that had passed in conversation between Wickham and herself in their first evening at Mr. Philips's. Many of his expressions were still fresh in her memory. She was now struck with the impropriety of such communications to a stranger, and wondered it had escaped her before. She saw the indelicacy of putting himself forward as he had done, and the inconsistency of his professions with his conduct. She remembered that he had boasted of having no fear of seeing Mr. Darcy—that Mr. Darcy might leave the country, but that he should stand his ground; yet he had avoided the Netherfield ball the very next week. She remembered also, that till the Netherfield family had quitted the country, he had told his story to no one but herself; but that after their removal, it had been every where discussed; that he had then no reserves, no scruples in sinking Mr. Darcy's character, though he had assured her that respect for the father would always prevent his exposing the son. How differently did every thing now appear in which he was concerned! His attentions to Miss King were now the consequence of views solely and hatefully mercenary; and the mediocrity of her fortune proved no longer the moderation of his wishes, but his eagerness to grasp at any thing. His behaviour to herself could now have had no tolerable motive: he had either been deceived with regard to her fortune, or had been gratifying his vanity by encouraging the preference which she believed she had most incautiously shown. Every lingering struggle in his favour grew fainter; and in further justification of Mr. Darcy, she could not but allow that Mr. Bingley, when questioned by Jane, had long ago asserted his blamelessness in the affair;—that, proud and repulsive as were his manners, she had never, in the whole course of their acquaintance—an acquaintance which had latterly brought them much together, and given her a sort of intimacy with his ways—seen any thing that betrayed him to be unprincipled or unjust—any thing that spoke him of irreligious or immoral habits;—that among his own connections he was esteemed and valued—that even Wickham had allowed him merit as a brother, and that she had often heard him speak so affectionately of his sister as to prove him capable of some amiable feeling; —that had his actions been what Wickham represented them, so gross a violation of every thing right could hardly have been concealed from the world; and that friendship between a person capable of it and such an amiable man as Mr. Bingley was incomprehensible. She grew absolutely ashamed of herself. Of neither Darcy nor Wickham could she think, without feeling that she had been blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd. "How despicably have I acted!" she cried. "I who have prided myself on my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity in useless or blameable distrust. How humiliating is this discovery! Yet, how just a humiliation! Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly. Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted prepossessionav and ignorance, and driven reason away where either were concerned. Till this moment, I never knew myself."9 From herself to Jane, from Jane to Bingley, her thoughts were in a line which soon brought to her recollection that Mr. Darcy's explanation there had appeared very insufficient; and she read it again. Widely different was the effect of a second perusal. How could she deny that credit to his assertions, in one instance, which she had been obliged to give in the other? He declared himself to have been totally unsuspicious of her sister's attachment; and she could not help remembering what Charlotte's opinion had always been. Neither could she deny the justice of his description of Jane. She felt that Jane's feelings, though fervent, were little displayed, and that there was a constant complacency in her air and manner, not often united with great sensibility. When she came to that part of the letter in which her family were mentioned, in terms of such mortifying, yet merited reproach, her sense of shame was severe. The justice of the charge struck her too forcibly for denial; and the circumstances to, which he particularly alluded, as having passed at the Netherfield ball, and as confirming all his first disapprobation, could not have made a stronger impression on his mind than on hers. The compliment to herself and her sister was not unfelt. It soothed, but it could not console her for the contempt which had been thus self-attracted by the rest of her family; and as she considered that Jane's disappointment had, in fact, been the work of her nearest relations, and reflected how materially the credit of both must be hurt by such impropriety of conduct, she felt depressed beyond any thing she had ever known before. After wandering along the lane for two hours, giving way to every variety of thought, re-considering events, determining probabilities, and reconciling herself, as well as she could to a change so sudden and so important, fatigue, and a recollection of her long absence, made her at length return home; and she entered the house with the wish of appearing cheerful as usual, and the resolution of repressing such reflections as must make her unfit for conversation. She was immediately told, that the two gentlemen from Rosings had each called during her absence; Mr. Darcy, only for a few minutes, to take leave, but that Colonel Fitzwilliam had been sitting with them at least an hour, hoping for her return, and almost resolving to walk after her till she could be found. Elizabeth could but just affect concern in missing him; she really rejoiced at it. Colonel Fitzwilliam was no longer an object. She could think only of her letter.
The two gentlemen left Rosings the next morning; and Mr. Collins having been in waiting near the lodges, to make them his parting obeisance, was able to bring home the pleasing intelligence of their appearing in very good health, and in as tolerable spirits as could be expected, after the melancholy scene so lately gone through at Rosings. To Rosings he then hastened to console Lady Catherine and her daughter; and on his return brought back, with great satisfaction, a message from her Ladyship, importing that she felt herself so dull as to make her very desirous of having them all to dine with her. Elizabeth could not see Lady Catherine without recollecting that, had she chosen it, she might by this time have been presented to her as her future niece; nor could she think, without a smile, of what her Ladyship's indignation would have been. "What would she have said? how would she have behaved?" were questions with which she amused herself. Their first subject was the diminution of the Rosings' party. "I assure you, I feel it exceedingly," said Lady Catherine; "I believe nobody feels the loss of friends so much as I do. But I am particularly attached to these young men; and know them to be so much attached to me! They were excessively sorry to go! But so they always are. The dear Colonel rallied his spirits tolerably till just at last; but Darcy seemed to feel it most acutely—more, I think, than last year. His attachment to Rosings certainly increases." Mr. Collins had a compliment and an allusion to throw in here, which were kindly smiled on by the mother and daughter. Lady Catherine observed, after dinner, that Miss Bennet seemed out of spirits; and immediately accounting for it herself, by supposing that she did not like to go home again so soon, she added,— "But if that is the case, you must write to your mother to beg that you may stay a little longer. Mrs. Collins will be very glad of your company, I am sure." "I am much obliged to your Ladyship for your kind invitation," replied Elizabeth; "but it is not in my power to accept it. I must be in town next Saturday." "Why, at that rate, you will have been here only six weeks. I expected you to stay two months. I told Mrs. Collins so before you came. There can be no occasion for your going so soon. Mrs. Bennet could certainly spare you for another fortnight." "But my father cannot. He wrote last week to hurry my return." "Oh, your father, of course, may spare you, if your mother can. Daughters are never of so much consequence to a father. And if you will stay another month complete, it will be in my power to take one of you as far as London, for I am going there early in June, for a week; and as Dawson does not object to the barouche-box,aw there will be very good room for one of you—and indeed, if the weather should happen to be cool, I should not object to taking you both, as you are neither of you large." "You are all kindness, madam; but I believe we must abide by our original plan." Lady Catherine seemed resigned. "Mrs. Collins, you must send a servant with them. You know I always speak my mind, and I cannot bear the idea of two young women travelling postax by themselves. It is highly improper. You must contrive to send somebody. I have the greatest dislike in the world to that sort of thing. Young women should always be properly guarded and attended, according to their situation in life. When my niece Georgiana went to Ramsgate last summer, I made a point of her having two men-servants go with her. Miss Darcy, the daughter of Mr. Darcy of Pemberley, and Lady Anne, could not have appeared with propriety in a different manner. I am excessively attentive to all those things. You must send John with the young ladies, Mrs. Collins. I am glad it occurred to me to mention it; for it would really be discreditable to you to let them go alone." "My uncle is to send a servant for us." "Oh! Your uncle! He keeps a man-servant, does he? I am very glad you have somebody who thinks of those things. Where shall you change horses? Oh, Bromley, of course. If you mention my name at the Bell, you will be attended to." Lady Catherine had many other questions to ask respecting their journey, and as she did not answer them all herself, attention was necessary, which Elizabeth believed to be lucky for her; or, with a mind so occupied, she might have forgotten where she was. Reflection must be reserved for solitary hours: whenever she was alone, she gave way to it as the greatest relief; and not a day went by without a solitary walk, in which she might indulge in all the delight of unpleasant recollections. Mr. Darcy's letter she was in a fair way of soon knowing by heart. She studied every sentence; and her feelings towards its writer were at times widely different. When she remembered the style of his address, she was still full of indignation: but when she considered how unjustly she had condemned and upbraided him, her anger was turned against herself; and his disappointed feelings became the object of compassion. His attachment excited gratitude, his general character respect: but she could not approve him; nor could she for a moment repent her refusal, or feel the slightest inclination ever to see him again. In her own past behaviour, there was a constant source of vexation and regret; and in the unhappy defects of her family, a subject of yet heavier chagrin. They were hopeless of remedy. Her father, contented with laughing at them, would never exert himself to restrain the wild giddiness of his youngest daughters; and her mother, with manners so far from right herself, was entirely insensible of the evil. Elizabeth had frequently united with Jane in an endeavour to check the imprudence of Catherine and Lydia; but while they were supported by their mother's indulgence, what chance could there be of improvement? Catherine, weak-spirited, irritable, and completely under Lydia's guidance, had been always affronted by their advice; and Lydia, self-willed and careless, would scarcely give them a hearing. They were ignorant, idle, and vain. While there was an officer in Meryton, they would flirt with him; and while Meryton was within a walk of Longbourn, they would be going there for ever. Anxiety on Jane's behalf was another prevailing concern; and Mr. Darcy's explanation, by restoring Bingley to all her former good opinion, heightened the sense of what Jane had lost. His affection was proved to have been sincere, and his conduct cleared of all blame, unless any could attach to the implicitness of his confidence in his friend. How grievous then was the thought that, of a situation so desirable in every respect, so replete with advantage, so promising for happiness, Jane had been deprived, by the folly and indecorum of her own family! When to these recollections was added the development of Wickham's character, it may be easily believed that the happy spirits which had seldom been depressed before were now so much affected as to make it almost impossible for her to appear tolerably cheerful. Their engagements at Rosings were as frequent during the last week of her stay as they had been at first. The very last evening was spent there; and her Ladyship again enquired minutely into the particulars of their journey, gave them directions as to the best method of packing, and was so urgent on the necessity of placing gowns in the only right way, that Maria thought herself obliged, on her return, to undo all the work of the morning, and pack her trunk afresh. When they parted, Lady Catherine, with great condescension, wished them a good journey, and invited them to come to Hunsford again next year; and Miss De Bourgh exerted herself so far as to courtesy and hold out her hand to both.
On Saturday morning Elizabeth and Mr. Collins met for breakfast a few minutes before the others appeared ; and he took the opportunity of paying the parting civilities which he deemed indispensably necessary. "I know not, Miss Elizabeth," said he, "whether Mrs. Collins has yet expressed her sense of your kindness in coming to us; but I am very certain you will not leave the house without receiving her thanks for it. The favour of your company has been much felt, I assure you. We know how little there is to tempt any one to our humble abode. Our plain manner of living, our small rooms, and few domestics, and the little we see of the world, must make Hunsford extremely dull to a young lady like yourself; but I hope you will believe us grateful for the condescension, and that we have done every thing in our power to prevent your spending your time unpleasantly." Elizabeth was eager with her thanks and assurances of happiness. She had spent six weeks with great enjoyment; and the pleasure of being with Charlotte, and the kind attentions she had received, must make her feel the obliged. Mr. Collins was gratified; and with a more smiling solemnity replied,— "It gives me the greatest pleasure to hear that you have passed your time not disagreeably. We have certainly done our best; and most fortunately having it in our power to introduce you to very superior society, and from our connection with Rosings, the frequent means of varying the humble home scene, I think we may flatter ourselves that your Hunsford visit cannot have been entirely irksome. Our situation with regard to Lady Catherine's family is indeed the sort of extraordinary advantage and blessing which few can boast. You see on what a footing we are. You see how continually we are engaged there. In truth, I must acknowledge, that, with all the disadvantages of this humble parsonage, I should not think any one abiding in it an object of compassion, while they are sharers of our intimacy at Rosings." Words were insufficient for the elevation of his feelings; and he was obliged to walk about the room, while Elizabeth tried to unite civility and truth in a few short sentences. "You may, in fact, carry a very favourable report of us into Hertfordshire, my dear cousin. I flatter myself, at least, that you will be able to do so. Lady Catherine's great attentions to Mrs. Collins you have been a daily witness of; and altogether I trust it does not appear that your friend has drawn an unfortunate—but on this point it will be as well to be silent. Only let me assure you, my dear Miss Elizabeth, that I can from my heart most cordially wish you equal felicity in marriage. My dear Charlotte and I have but one mind and one way of thinking. There is in every thing a most remarkable resemblance of character and ideas between us. We seem to have been designed for each other." Elizabeth could safely say that it was a great happiness where that was the case, and with equal sincerity could add, that she firmly believed and rejoiced in his domestic comforts. She was not sorry, however, to have the recital of them interrupted by the entrance of the lady from whom they sprang. Poor Charlotte! It was melancholy to leave her to such society! But she had chosen it with her eyes open; and though evidently regretting that her visiters were to go, she did not seem to ask for compassion. Her home and her housekeeping, her parish and her poultry, and all their dependent concerns, had not yet lost their charms. At length the chaise arrived, the trunks were fastened on, the parcels placed within, and it was pronounced to be ready. After an affectionate parting between the friends, Elizabeth was attended to the carriage by Mr. Collins; and as they walked down the garden, he was commissioning her with his best respects to all her family, not forgetting his thanks for the kindness he had received at Longbourn in the winter, and his compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, though unknown. He then handed her in, Maria followed, and the door was on the point of being closed, when he suddenly reminded them, with some consternation, that they had hitherto forgotten to leave any message for the ladies of Rosings. "But," he added, "you will of course wish to have your humble respects delivered to them, with your grateful thanks for their kindness to you while you have been here." Elizabeth made no objection: the door was then allowed to be shut, and the carriage drove off. "Good gracious!" cried Maria, after a few minutes' silence, "it seems but a day or two since we first came! and yet how many things have happened!" "A great many indeed," said her companion, with a sigh. "We have dined nine times at Rosings, besides drinking tea there twice! How much I shall have to tell!" Elizabeth privately added, "And how much I shall have to conceal." Their journey was performed without much conversation, or any alarm; and within four hours of their leaving Hunsford they reached Mr. Gardiner's house, where they were to remain a few days. Jane looked well, and Elizabeth had little opportunity of studying her spirits, amidst the various engagements which the kindness of her aunt had reserved for them. But Jane was to go home with her, and at Longbourn there would be leisure enough for observation. It was not without an effort, meanwhile, that she could wait even for Longbourn, before she told her sister of Mr. Darcy's proposals. To know that she had the power of revealing what would so exceedingly astonish Jane, and must, at the same time, so highly gratify whatever of her own vanity she had not yet been able to reason away, was such a temptation to openness as nothing could have conquered, but the state of indecision in which she remained as to the extent of what she should communicate; and her fear, if she once entered on the subject, of being hurried into repeating something of Bingley, which might only grieve her sister further.
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 up stairs. 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;ay 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 any thing 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,— "Aye, 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,az 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 bought 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 by, 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 enquiring 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 any body 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 any body 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 any body 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 every body 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.
Elizabeth's impatience to acquaint Jane with what had happened could no longer be overcome; and at length resolving to suppress every particular in which her sister was concerned, and preparing her to be surprised, she related to her the next morning the chief of the scene between Mr. Darcy and herself. Miss Bennet's astonishment was soon lessened by the strong sisterly partiality which made any admiration of Elizabeth appear perfectly natural; and all surprise was shortly lost in other feelings. She was sorry that Mr. Darcy should have delivered his sentiments in a manner so little suited to recommend them; but still more was she grieved for the unhappiness which her sister's refusal must have given him. "His being so sure of succeeding was wrong," said she, "and certainly ought not to have appeared; but consider how much it must increase his disappointment." "Indeed," replied Elizabeth, "I am heartily sorry for him; but he has other feelings which will probably soon drive away his regard for me. You do not blame me, however, for refusing him?" "Blame you! Oh, no." "But you blame me for having spoken so warmly of Wickham?" "No—I do not know that you were wrong in saying what you did." "But you will know it, when I have told you what happened the very next day." She then spoke of the letter, repeating the whole of its contents as far as they concerned George Wickham. What a stroke was this for poor Jane! who would willingly have gone through the world without believing that so much wickedness existed in the whole race of mankind as was here collected in one individual. Nor was Darcy's vindication, though grateful to her feelings, capable of consoling her for such discovery. Most earnestly did she labour to prove the probability of error, and seek to clear one, without involving the other. "This will not do," said Elizabeth; "you never will be able to make both of them good for any thing. Take your choice, but you must be satisfied with only one. There is but such a quantity of merit between them; just enough to make one good sort of man; and of late it has been shifting about pretty much. For my part, I am inclined to believe it all Mr. Darcy's, but you shall do as you choose." It was some time, however, before a smile could be extorted from Jane. "I do not know when I have been more shocked," said she. "Wickham so very bad! It is almost past belief. And poor Mr. Darcy! dear Lizzy, only consider what he must have suffered. Such a disappointment! and with the knowledge of your ill opinion too! and having to relate such a thing of his sister! It is really too distressing. I am sure you must feel it so." "Oh no, my regret and compassion are all done away by seeing you so full of both. I know you will do him such ample justice, that I am growing every moment more unconcerned and indifferent. Your profusion makes me saving; and if you lament over him much longer, my heart will be as light as a feather." "Poor Wickham! there is such an expression of goodness in his countenance! such an openness and gentleness in his manner." "There certainly was some great mismanagement in the education of those two young men. One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it." "I never thought Mr. Darcy so deficient in the appearance of it as you used to do." "And yet I meant to be uncommonly clever in taking so decided a dislike to him, without any reason. It is such a spur to one's genius, such an opening for wit, to have a dislike of that kind. One may be continually abusive without saying any thing just; but one cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty." "Lizzy, when you first read that letter, I am sure you could not treat the matter as you do now." "Indeed, I could not. I was uncomfortable enough. I was very uncomfortable—I may say unhappy. And with no one to speak to of what I felt, no Jane to comfort me, and say that I had not been so very weak, and vain, and nonsensical as I knew I had! Oh how I wanted you!" "How unfortunate that you should have used such very strong expressions in speaking of Wickham to Mr. Darcy, for now they do appear wholly undeserved." "Certainly. But the misfortune of speaking with bitterness is a most natural consequence of the prejudices I had been encouraging. There is one point on which I want your advice. I want to be told whether I ought, or ought not, to make our acquaintance in general understand Wickham's character." Miss Bennet paused a little, and then replied, "Surely there can be no occasion for exposing him so dreadfully. What is your own opinion?" "That it ought not to be attempted. Mr. Darcy has not authorised me to make his communication public. On the contrary, every particular relative to his sister was meant to be kept as much as possible to myself; and if I endeavour to undeceive people as to the rest of his conduct, who will believe me? The general prejudice against Mr. Darcy is so violent, that it would be the death of half the good people in Meryton, to attempt to place him in an amiable light. I am not equal to it. Wickham will soon be gone; and therefore it will not signify to any body here what he really is. Some time hence it will be all found out, and then we may laugh at their stupidity in not knowing it before. At present I will say nothing about it." "You are quite right. To have his errors made public might ruin him for ever. He is now, perhaps, sorry for what he has done, and anxious to re-establish a character. We must not make him desperate." The tumult of Elizabeth's mind was allayed by this conversation. She had got rid of two of the secrets which had weighed on her for a fortnight, and was certain of a willing listener in Jane, whenever she might wish to talk again of either. But there was still something lurking behind, of which prudence forbad the disclosure. She dared not relate the other half of Mr. Darcy's letter, nor explain to her sister how sincerely she had been valued by his friend. Here was knowledge in which no one could partake; and she was sensible that nothing less than a perfect understanding between the parties could justify her in throwing off this last encumbrance of mystery. "And then," said she, "if that very improbable event should ever take place, I shall merely be able to tell what Bingley may tell in a much more agreeable manner himself. The liberty of communication cannot be mine till it has lost all its value!" She was now, on being settled at home, at leisure to observe the real state of her sister's spirits. Jane was not happy. She still cherished a very tender affection for Bingley. Having never even fancied herself in love before, her regard had all the warmth of first attachment, and from her age and disposition, greater steadiness than first attachments often boast; and so fervently did she value his remembrance, and prefer him to every other man, that all her good sense, and all her attention to the feelings of her friends, were requisite to check the indulgence of those regrets which must have been injurious to her own health and their tranquillity. "Well, Lizzy," said Mrs. Bennet, one day, "what is your opinion now of this sad business of Jane's? For my part, I am determined never to speak of it again to any body. I told my sister Philips so the other day. But I cannot find out that Jane saw any thing of him in London. Well, he is a very undeserving young man—and I do not suppose there is the least chance in the world of her ever getting him now. There is no talk of his coming to Netherfield again in the summer; and I have enquired of every body, too, who is likely to know." "I do not believe that he will ever live at Netherfield any more." "Oh, well! it is just as he chooses. Nobody wants him to come; though I shall always say that he used my daughter extremely ill; and, if I was her, I would not have put up with it. Well, my comfort is, I am sure Jane will die of a broken heart, and then he will be sorry for what he has done." But as Elizabeth could not receive comfort from any such expectation she made no answer. "Well, Lizzy," continued her mother, soon afterwards, "and so the Collinses live very comfortable, do they? Well, well, I only hope it will last. And what sort of table do they keep? Charlotte is an excellent manager, I dare say. If she is half as sharp as her mother, she is saving enough. There is nothing extravagant in their housekeeping, I dare say." "No, nothing at all." "A great deal of good management, depend upon it. Yes, yes. They will take care not to outrun their income. They will never be distressed for money. Well, much good may it do them! And so, I suppose, they often talk of having Longbourn when your father is dead. They look upon it quite as their own, I dare say, whenever that happens." "It was a subject which they could not mention before me." "No; it would have been strange if they had. But I make no doubt they often talk of it between themselves. Well, if they can be easy with an estate that is not lawfully their own, so much the better. I should be ashamed of having one that was only entailed on me."
The first week of their return was soon gone. The second began. It was the last of the regiment's stay in Meryton, and all the young ladies in the neighbourhood were drooping apace. The dejection was almost universal. The elder Miss Bennets alone were still able to eat, drink, and sleep, and pursue the usual course of their employments. Very frequently were they reproached for this insensibility by Kitty and Lydia, whose own misery was extreme, and who could not comprehend such hard-heartedness in any of the family. "Good Heaven! What is to become of us? What are we to do?" would they often exclaim in the bitterness of woe. "How can you be smiling so, Lizzy?" Their affectionate mother shared all their grief; she remembered what she had herself endured on a similar occasion five-and-twenty years ago. "I am sure," said she, "I cried for two days together when Colonel Millar's regiment went away. I thought I should have broke my heart." "I am sure I shall break mine," said Lydia. "If one could but go to Brighton!" observed Mrs. Bennet. "Oh yes!—if one could but go to Brighton! But papa is so disagreeable." "A little sea-bathing would set me up for ever." "And my aunt Philips is sure it would do me a great deal of good," added Kitty. Such were the kind of lamentations resounding perpetually through Longbourn House. Elizabeth tried to be diverted by them; but all sense of pleasure was lost in shame. She felt anew the justice of Mr. Darcy's objections; and never had she before been so much disposed to pardon his interference in the views of his friend. But the gloom of Lydia's prospect was shortly cleared away; for she received an invitation from Mrs. Forster, the wife of the colonel of the regiment, to accompany her to Brighton. This invaluable friend was a very young woman, and very lately married. A resemblance in good-humour and good spirits had recommended her and Lydia to each other, and out of their three months' acquaintance they had been intimate two. The rapture of Lydia on this occasion, her adoration of Mrs. Forster, the delight of Mrs. Bennet, and the mortification of Kitty, are scarcely to be described. Wholly inattentive to her sister's feelings, Lydia flew about the house in restless ecstasy, calling for every one's congratulations, and laughing and talking with more violence than ever; whilst the luckless Kitty continued in the parlour repining at her fate in terms as unreasonable as her accent was peevish. "I cannot see why Mrs. Forster should not ask me as well as Lydia," said she, "though I am not her particular friend. I have just as much right to be asked as she has, and more too, for I am two years older." In vain did Elizabeth attempt to make her reasonable, and Jane to make her resigned. As for Elizabeth herself, this invitation was so far from exciting in her the same feelings as in her mother and Lydia, that she considered it as the death-warrant of all possibility of common sense for the latter; and detestable as such a step must make her, were it known, she could not help secretly advising her father not to let her go. She represented to him all the improprieties of Lydia's general behaviour, the little advantage she could derive from the friendship of such a woman as Mrs. Forster, and the probability of her being yet more imprudent with such a companion at Brighton, where the temptations must be greater than at home. He heard her attentively, and then said,— "Lydia will never be easy till she has exposed herself in some public place or other, and we can never expect her to do it with so little expense or inconvenience to her family as under the present circumstances." "If you were aware," said Elizabeth, "of the very great disadvantage to us all, which must arise from the public notice of Lydia's unguarded and imprudent manner, nay, which has already arisen from it, I am sure you would judge differently in the affair." "Already arisen!" repeated Mr. Bennet. "What! has she frightened away some of your lovers? Poor little Lizzy! But do not be cast down. Such squeamish youths as cannot bear to be connected with a little absurdity are not worth a regret. Come, let me see the list of the pitiful fellows who have been kept aloof by Lydia's folly." "Indeed you are mistaken. I have no such injuries to resent. It is not of peculiar, but of general evils, which I am now complaining. Our importance, our respectability in the world must be affected by the wild volatility, the assurance and disdain of all restraint which mark Lydia's character. Excuse me,—for I must speak plainly. If you, my dear father, will not take the trouble of checking her exuberant spirits, and of teaching her that her present pursuits are not to be the business of her life, she will soon be beyond the reach of amendment. Her character will be fixed; and she will, at sixteen, be the most determined flirt that ever made herself and her family ridiculous. A flirt, too, in the worst and meanest degree of flirtation; without any attraction beyond youth and a tolerable person; and, from the ignorance and emptiness of her mind, wholly unable to ward off any portion of that universal contempt which her rage for admiration will excite. In this danger Kitty is also comprehended. She will follow wherever Lydia leads. Vain, ignorant, idle, and absolutely uncontrolled! Oh, my dear father, can you suppose it possible that they will not be censured and despised wherever they are known, and that their sisters will not be often involved in the disgrace?" Mr. Bennet saw that her whole heart was in the subject; and affectionately taking her hand, said, in reply,— "Do not make yourself uneasy, my love. Wherever you and Jane are known, you must be respected and valued; and you will not appear to less advantage for having a couple of—or I may say, three—very silly sisters. We shall have no peace at Longbourn if Lydia does not go to Brighton. Let her go, then. Colonel Forster is a sensible man, and will keep her out of any real mischief; and she is luckily too poor to be an object of prey to any body. At Brighton she will be of less importance even as a common flirt than she has been here. The officers will find women better worth their notice. Let us hope, therefore, that her being there may teach her her own insignificance. At any rate, she cannot grow many degrees worse, without authorising us to lock her up for the rest of her life." With this answer Elizabeth was forced to be content; but her own opinion continued the same, and she left him disappointed and sorry. It was not in her nature, however, to increase her vexations by dwelling on them. She was confident of having performed her duty; and to fret over unavoidable evils, or augment them by anxiety, was no part of her disposition. Had Lydia and her mother known the substance of her conference with her father, their indignation would hardly have found expression in their united volubility. In Lydia's imagination, a visit to Brighton comprised every possibility of earthly happiness. She saw, with the creative eye of fancy, the streets of that gay bathing-place covered with officers. She saw herself the object of attention to tens and to scores of them at present unknown. She saw all the glories of the camp: its tents stretched forth in beauteous uniformity of lines, crowded with the young and the gay, and dazzling with scarlet; and to complete the view, she saw herself seated beneath a tent, tenderly flirting with at least six officers at once. Had she known that her sister sought to tear her from such prospects and such realities as these, what would have been her sensations? They could have been understood only by her mother, who might have felt nearly the same. Lydia's going to Brighton was all that consoled her for the melancholy conviction of her husband's never intending to go there himself. But they were entirely ignorant of what had passed; and their raptures continued, with little intermission, to the very day of Lydia's leaving home. Elizabeth was now to see Mr. Wickham for the last time. Having been frequently in company with him since her return, agitation was pretty well over; the agitations of former partiality entirely so. She had even learnt to detect, in the very gentleness which had first delighted her, an affectation and a sameness to disgust and weary. In his present behaviour to herself, moreover, she had a fresh source of displeasure; for the inclination he soon testified of renewing those attentions which had marked the early part of their acquaintance could only serve, after what had since passed, to provoke her. She lost all concern for him in finding herself thus selected as the object of such idle and frivolous gallantry; and while she steadily repressed it, could not but feel the reproof contained in his believing, that however long, and for whatever cause, his attentions had been withdrawn, her vanity would be gratified, and her preference secured at any time, by their renewal. On the very last day of the regiment's remaining in Meryton, he dined, with others of the officers, at Longbourn; and so little was Elizabeth disposed to part from him in good-humour, that on his making some enquiry as to the manner in which her time had passed at Hunsford, she mentioned Colonel Fitzwilliam's and Mr. Darcy's having both spent three weeks at Rosings, and asked him if he were acquainted with the former. He looked surprised, displeased, alarmed: but with a moment's recollection, and a returning smile, replied, that he had formerly seen him often; and, after observing that he was a very gentleman-like man, asked her how she had liked him. Her answer was warmly in his favour. With an air of indifference, he soon afterwards added, "How long did you say that he was at Rosings?" "Nearly three weeks." "And you saw him frequently?" "Yes, almost every day." "His manners are very different from his cousin's." "Yes, very different; but I think Mr. Darcy improves on acquaintance." "Indeed!" cried Wickham, with a look which did not escape her. "And pray may I ask—" but checking himself, he added, in a gayer tone, "Is it in address that he improves? Has he deigned to add aught of civility to his ordinary style? for I dare not hope," he continued, in a lower and more serious tone, "that he is improved in essentials." "Oh, no!" said Elizabeth. "In essentials, I believe, he is very much what he ever was." While she spoke, Wickham looked as if scarcely knowing whether to rejoice over her words or to distrust their meaning. There was a something in her countenance which made him listen with an apprehensive and anxious attention, while she added,— "When I said that he improved on acquaintance, I did not mean that either his mind or manners were in a state of improvement; but that from knowing him better, his disposition was better understood." Wickham's alarm now appeared in a heightened complexion and agitated look; for a few minutes he was silent; till, shaking off his embarrassment, he turned to her again, and said in the gentlest of accents,— "You, who so well know my feelings towards Mr. Darcy, will readily comprehend how sincerely I must rejoice that he is wise enough to assume even the appearance of what is right. His pride, in that direction, may be of service, if not to himself, to many others, for it must deter him from such foul misconduct as I have suffered by. I only fear that the sort of cautiousness to which you, I imagine, have been alluding, is merely adopted on his visits to his aunt, of whose good opinion and judgment he stands much in awe. His fear of her has always operated, I know, when they were together; and a good deal is to be imputed to his wish of forwarding the match with Miss De Bourgh, which I am certain he has very much at heart." Elizabeth could not repress a smile at this, but she answered only by a slight inclination of the head. She saw that he wanted to engage her on the old subject of his grievances, and she was in no humour to indulge him. The rest of the evening passed with the appearance, on his side, of usual cheerfulness, but with no further attempt to distinguish Elizabeth; and they parted at last with mutual civility, and possibly a mutual desire of never meeting again. When the party broke up, Lydia returned with Mrs. Forster to Meryton, from whence they were to set out early the next morning. The separation between her and her family was rather noisy than pathetic. Kitty was the only one who shed tears; but she did weep from vexation and envy. Mrs. Bennet was diffuse in her good wishes for the felicity of her daughter, and impressive in her injunctions that she would not miss the opportunity of enjoying herself as much as possible,—advice which there was every reason to believe would be attended to; and in the clamorous happiness Lydia herself in bidding farewell, the more gentle adieus of her sisters were uttered without being heard.
Had Elizabeth's opinion been all drawn from her own family, she could not have formed a very pleasing picture of conjugal felicity or domestic comfort. Her father, captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good-humour which youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her. Respect, esteem, and confidence had vanished for ever; and all his views of domestic happiness were overthrown. But Mr. Bennet was not of a disposition to seek comfort for the disappointment which his own imprudence had brought on in any of those pleasures which too often console the unfortunate for their folly or their vice. He was fond of the country and of books; and from these tastes had arisen his principal enjoyments. To his wife he was very little otherwise indebted than as her ignorance and folly had contributed to his amusement. This is not the sort of happiness which a man would in general wish to owe to his wife; but where other powers of entertainment are wanting, the true philosopher will derive benefit from such as are given. Elizabeth, however, had never been blind to the impropriety of her father's behaviour as a husband. She had always seen it with pain; but respecting his abilities, and grateful for his affectionate treatment of herself, she endeavoured to forget what she could not overlook, and to banish from her thoughts that continual breach of conjugal obligation and decorum which, in exposing his wife to the contempt of her own children, was so highly reprehensible. But she had never felt so strongly as now the disadvantages which must attend the children of so unsuitable a marriage, nor ever been so fully aware of the evils arising from so ill-judged a direction of talents— talents which, rightly used, might at least have preserved the respectability of his daughters, even if incapable of enlarging the mind of his wife. When Elizabeth had rejoiced over Wickham's departure, she found little other cause for satisfaction in the loss of the regiment. Their parties abroad were less varied than before; and at home she had a mother and sister, whose constant repinings at the dulness of every thing around them threw a real gloom over their domestic circle; and, though Kitty might in time regain her natural degree of sense, since the disturbers of her brain were removed, her other sister, from whose disposition greater evil might be apprehended, was likely to be hardened in all her folly and assurance, by a situation of such double danger as a watering-place and a camp. Upon the whole, therefore, she found, what has been sometimes found before, that an event to which she had looked forward with impatient desire, did not, in taking place, bring all the satisfaction she had promised herself. It was consequently necessary to name some other period for the commencement of actual felicity; to have some other point on which her wishes and hopes might be fixed, and by again enjoying the pleasure of anticipation, console herself for the present, and prepare for another disappointment. Her tour to the Lakes was now the object of her happiest thoughts: it was her best consolation for all the uncomfortable hours which the discontentedness of her mother and Kitty made inevitable; and could she have included Jane in the scheme, every part of it would have been perfect. "But it is fortunate," thought she, "that I have something to wish for. Were the whole arrangement complete, my disappointment would be certain. But here, by carrying with me one ceaseless source of regret in my sister's absence, I may reasonably hope to have all my expectations of pleasure realised. A scheme of which every part promises delight can never be successful: and general disappointment is only warded off by the defence of some little peculiar vexation." "When Lydia went away she promised to write very often and very minutely to her mother and Kitty; but her letters were always long expected, and always very short. Those to her mother contained little else than that they were just returned from the Library, where such and such officers had attended them, and where she had seen such beautiful ornaments as made her quite wild; that she had a new gown, or a new parasol, which she would have described more fully, but was obliged to leave off in a violent hurry, as Mrs. Forster called her, and they were going to the camp; and from her correspondence with her sister there was still less to be learnt, for her letters to Kitty, though rather longer, were much too full of lines under the words to be made public. After the first fortnight or three weeks of her absence, health, good-humour, and cheerfulness began to re-appear at Longbourn. Every thing wore a happier aspect. The families who had been in town for the winter came back again, and summer finery and summer engagements arose. Mrs. Bennet was restored to her usual querulous serenity; and by the middle of June Kitty was so much recovered as to be able to enter Meryton without tears,—an event of such happy promise as to make Elizabeth hope, that by the following Christmas she might be so tolerably reasonable as not to mention an officer above once a day, unless, by some cruel and malicious arrangement at the War Office, another regiment should be quartered in Meryton. The time fixed for the beginning of their northern tour was now fast approaching; and a fortnight only was wanting of it, when a letter arrived from Mrs. Gardiner, which at once delayed its commencement and curtailed its extent. Mr. Gardiner would be prevented by business from setting out till a fortnight later in July, and must be in London again within a month; and as that left too short a period for them to go so far, and see so much as they had proposed, or at least to see it with the leisure and comfort they had built on, they were obliged to give up the Lakes, and substitute a more contracted tour; and, according to the present plan, were to go no farther northward than Derbyshire. In that county there was enough to be seen to occupy the chief of their three weeks; and to Mrs. Gardiner it had a peculiarly strong attraction. The town where she had formerly passed some years of her life, and where they were now to spend a few days, was probably as great an object of her curiosity as all the celebrated beauties of Matlock, Chatsworth, Dovedale, or the Peak.10 Elizabeth was excessively disappointed: she had set her heart on seeing the Lakes; and still thought there might have been time enough. But it was her business to be satisfied—and certainly her temper to be happy; and all was soon right again. With the mention of Derbyshire, there were many ideas connected. It was impossible for her to see the word without thinking of Pemberley and its owner. "But surely," said she, "I may enter his county with impunity, and rob it of a few petrified spars,ba without his perceiving me." The period of expectation was now doubled. Four weeks were to pass away before her uncle and aunt's arrival. But they did pass away, and Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, with their four children, did at length appear at Longbourn. The children, two girls of six and eight years old, and two younger boys, were to be left under the particular care of their cousin Jane, who was the general favourite, and whose steady sense and sweetness of temper exactly adapted her for attending to them in every way—teaching them, playing with them, and loving them. The Gardiners stayed only one night at Longbourn, and set off the next morning with Elizabeth in pursuit of novelty and amusement. One enjoyment was certain—that of suitableness as companions—a suitableness which comprehended health and temper to bear inconveniences—cheerfulness to enhance every pleasure—and affection and intelligence, which might supply it among themselves if there were disappointments abroad. It is not the object of this work to give a description of Derbyshire, nor of any of the remarkable places through which their route thither lay; Oxford, Blenheim, Warwick, Kenilworth, Birmingham, &c. are sufficiently known. A small part of Derbyshire is all the present concern. To the little town of Lambton, the scene of Mrs. Gardiner's former residence, and where she had lately learned that some acquaintance still remained, they bent their steps, after having seen all the principal wonders of the country; and within five miles of Lambton, Elizabeth found, from her aunt, that Pemberley was situated. It was not in their direct road; nor more than a mile or two out of it. In talking over their route the evening before, Mrs. Gardiner expressed an inclination to see the place again. Mr. Gardiner declared his willingness, and Elizabeth was applied to for her approbation. "My love, should not you like to see a place of which you have heard so much?" said her aunt. "A place, too, with which so many of your acquaintance are connected. Wickham passed all his youth there, you know." Elizabeth was distressed. She felt that she had no business at Pemberley, and was obliged to assume a disinclination for seeing it. "She must own that she was tired of great houses: after going over so many, she really had no pleasure in fine carpets or satin curtains." Mrs. Gardiner abused her stupidity. "If it were merely a fine house richly furnished," said she, "I should not care about it myself; but the grounds are delightful. They have some of the finest woods in the country." Elizabeth said no more; but her mind could not acquiesce. The possibility of meeting Mr. Darcy, while viewing the place, instantly occurred. It would be dreadful! She blushed at the very idea; and thought it would be better to speak openly to her aunt, than to run such a risk. But against this there were objections; and she finally resolved that it could be the last resource, if her private enquiries as to the absence of the family were unfavourably answered. Accordingly, when she retired at night, she asked the chambermaid whether Pemberley were not a very fine place, what was the name of its proprietor, and, with no little alarm, whether the family were down for the summer? A most welcome negative followed the last question; and her alarms being now removed, she was at leisure to feel a great deal of curiosity to see the house herself; and when the subject was revived the next morning, and she was again applied to, could readily answer, and with a proper air of indifference, that she had not really any dislike to the scheme. To Pemberley, therefore, they were to go.
Elizabeth, as they drove along, watched for the first appearance of Pemberley Woods with some perturbation; and when at length they turned in at the lodge, her spirits were in a high flutter. The park was very large, and contained great variety of ground. They entered it in one of its lowest points, and drove for some time through a beautiful wood stretching over a wide extent. Elizabeth's mind was too full for conversation, but she saw and admired every remarkable spot and point of view. They gradually ascended for half a mile, and then found themselves at the top of a considerable eminence, where the wood ceased, and the eye was instantly caught by Pemberley House, situated on the opposite side of a valley, into which the road with some abruptness wound. It was a large, handsome, stone building, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills; and in front a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance. Its banks were neither formal nor falsely adorned. Elizabeth was delighted. She had never seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste. They were all of them warm in their admiration; and at that moment she felt that to be mistress of Pemberley might be something! They descended the hill, crossed the bridge, and drove to the door; and, while examining the nearer aspect of the house, all her apprehension of meeting its owner returned. She dreaded lest the chambermaid had been mistaken. On applying to see the place,11 they were admitted into the hall; and Elizabeth, as they waited for the housekeeper, had leisure to wonder at her being where she was. The housekeeper came; a respectable looking elderly woman, much less fine, and more civil, than she had any notion of finding her. They followed her into the dining-parlour. It was a large, well-proportioned room, handsomely fitted up. Elizabeth, after slightly surveying it, went to a window to enjoy its prospect. The hill, crowned with wood, from which they had descended, receiving increased abruptness from the distance, was a beautiful object. Every disposition of the ground was good; and she looked on the whole scene, the river, the trees scattered on its banks, and the winding of the valley, as far as she could trace it, with delight. As they passed into other rooms, these objects were taking different positions; but from every window there were beauties to be seen. The rooms were lofty and handsome, and their furniture suitable to the fortune of their proprietor; but Elizabeth saw, with admiration of his taste, that it was neither gaudy nor uselessly fine,—with less of splendour, and more real elegance, than the furniture of Rosings. "And of this place," thought she, "I might have been mistress! With these rooms I might now have been familiarly acquainted! Instead of viewing them as a stranger, I might have rejoiced in them as my own, and welcomed to them as visitors my uncle and aunt. But, no," recollecting herself, "that could never be; my uncle and aunt would have been lost to me; I should not have been allowed to invite them." This was a lucky recollection—it saved her from something like regret. She longed to enquire of the housekeeper whether her master were really absent, but had not courage for it. At length, however, the question was asked by her uncle; and she turned away with alarm, while Mrs. Reynolds replied, that he was; adding, "But we expect him to-morrow, with a large party of friends." How rejoiced was Elizabeth that their own journey had not by any circumstance been delayed a day. Her aunt now called her to look at a picture. She approached, and saw the likeness of Mr. Wickham, suspended, amongst several other miniatures, over the mantel-piece. Her aunt asked her, smilingly, how she liked it. The housekeeper came forward, and told them it was the picture of a young gentleman, the son of her late master's steward, who had been brought up by him at his own expense. "He is now gone into the army," she added; "but I am afraid he has turned out very wild." Mrs. Gardiner looked at her niece with a smile, but Elizabeth could not return it. "And that," said Mrs. Reynolds, pointing to another of the miniatures, "is my master—and very like him. It was drawn at the same time as the other—about eight years ago." "I have heard much of your master's fine person," said Mrs. Gardiner, looking at the picture; "it is a handsome face. But, Lizzy, you can tell us whether it is like or not." Mrs. Reynolds's respect for Elizabeth seemed to increase on this intimation of her knowing her master. "Does that young lady know Mr. Darcy?" Elizabeth coloured, and said, "A little." "And do not you think him a very handsome gentleman, ma'am?" "Yes, very handsome." "I am sure I know none so handsome; but in the gallery up stairs you will see a finer, larger picture of him than this. This room was my late master's favourite room, and these miniatures are just as they used to be then. He was very fond of them." This accounted to Elizabeth for Mr. Wickham's being among them. Mrs. Reynolds then directed their attention to one of Miss Darcy, drawn when she was only eight years old. "And is Miss Darcy as handsome as her brother?" said Mr. Gardiner. "Oh yes—the handsomest young lady that ever was seen; and so accomplished! She plays and sings all day long. In the next room is a new instrument just come down for her—a present from my master: she comes here to-morrow with him." Mr. Gardiner, whose manners were easy and pleasant, encouraged her communicativeness by his questions and remarks: Mrs. Reynolds, either from pride or attachment, had evidently great pleasure in talking of her master and his sister. "Is your master much at Pemberley in the course of the year?" "Not so much as I could wish, sir: but I dare say he may spend half his time here; and Miss Darcy is always down for the summer months." Except, thought Elizabeth, when she goes to Ramsgate. "If your master would marry, you might see more of him." "Yes, sir; but I do not know when that will be. I do not know who is good enough for him." Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner smiled. Elizabeth could not help saying, "It is very much to his credit, I am sure, that you should think so." "I say no more than the truth, and what every body will say that knows him," replied the other. Elizabeth thought this was going pretty far; and she listened with increasing astonishment as the housekeeper added, "I have never had a cross word from him in my life, and I have known him ever since he was four years old." This was praise of all others most extraordinary, most opposite to her ideas. That he was not a good-tempered man had been her firmest opinion. Her keenest attention was awakened: she longed to hear more; and was grateful to her uncle for saying,— "There are very few people of whom so much can be said. You are lucky in having such a master." "Yes, sir, I know I am. If I were to go through the world, I could not meet with a better. But I have always observed, that they who are good-natured when children, are good-natured when they grow up; and he was always the sweetest-tempered, most generous-hearted boy in the world." Elizabeth almost stared at her. "Can this be Mr. Darcy?" thought she. "His father was an excellent man," said Mrs. Gardiner. "Yes, ma'am, that he was indeed; and his son will be just like him—just as affable to the poor." Elizabeth listened, wondered, doubted, and was impatient for more. Mrs. Reynolds could interest her on no other point. She related the subjects of the pictures, the dimensions of the rooms, and the price of the furniture in vain. Mr. Gardiner, highly amused by the kind of family prejudice, to which he attributed her excessive commendation of her master, soon led again to the subject; and she dwelt with energy on his many merits, as they proceeded together up the great staircase. "He is the best landlord, and the best master," said she, "that ever lived. Not like the wild young men now-a-days, who think of nothing but themselves. There is not one of his tenants or servants but what will give him a good name. Some people call him proud; but I am sure I never saw any thing of it. To my fancy, it is only because he does not rattle away like other young men." "In what an amiable light does this place him!" thought Elizabeth. "This fine account of him," whispered her aunt, as they walked, "is not quite consistent with his behaviour to our poor friend." "Perhaps we might be deceived." "That is not very likely; our authority was too good." On reaching the spacious lobby above, they were shown into a very pretty sitting-room, lately fitted up with greater elegance and lightness than the apartments below; and were informed that it was but just done to give pleasure to Miss Darcy, who had taken a liking to the room, when last at Pemberley. "He is certainly a good brother," said Elizabeth, as she walked towards one of the windows. Mrs. Reynolds anticipated Miss Darcy's delight, when she should enter the room. "And this is always the way with him," she added. "Whatever can give his sister any pleasure, is sure to be done in a moment. There is nothing he would not do for her." The picture gallery, and two or three of the principal bedrooms, were all that remained to be shown. In the former were many good paintings; but Elizabeth knew nothing of the art; and from such as had been already visible below, she had willingly turned to look at some drawings of Miss Darcy's, in crayons, whose subjects were usually more interesting, and also more intelligible. In the gallery there were many family portraits, but they could have little to fix the attention of a stranger. Elizabeth walked on in quest of the only face whose features would be known to her. At last it arrested her—and she beheld a striking resemblance of Mr. Darcy, with such a smile over the face, as she remembered to have sometimes seen, when he looked at her. She stood several minutes before the picture, in earnest contemplation, and returned to it again before they quitted the gallery. Mrs. Reynolds informed them, that it had been taken in his father's lifetime. There was certainly at this moment, in Elizabeth's mind, a more gentle sensation towards the original than she had ever felt in the height of their acquaintance. The commendation bestowed on him by Mrs. Reynolds was of no trifling nature. What praise is more valuable than the praise of an intelligent servant? As a brother, a landlord, a master, she considered how many people's happiness were in his guardianship! How much of pleasure or pain it was in his power to bestow! How much of good or evil must be done by him! Every idea that had been brought forward by the housekeeper was favourable to his character; and as she stood before the canvass, on which he was represented, and fixed his eyes upon herself, she thought of his regard with a deeper sentiment of gratitude than it had ever raised before: she remembered its warmth, and softened its impropriety of expression. When all of the house that was open to general inspection had been seen, they returned down stairs; and, taking leave of the housekeeper, were consigned over to the gardener, who met them at the hall door. As they walked across the lawn towards the river, Elizabeth turned back to look again; her uncle and aunt stopped also: and while the former was conjecturing as to the date of the building, the owner of it himself suddenly came forward from the road, which led behind it to the stables. They were within twenty yards of each other, and so abrupt was his appearance, that it was impossible to avoid his sight. Their eyes instantly met, and the cheeks of each were overspread with the deepest blush. He absolutely started, and for a moment seemed immovable from surprise; but shortly recovering himself, advanced towards the party, and spoke to Elizabeth, if not in terms of perfect composure, at least of perfect civility. She had instinctively turned away; but stopping on his approach, received his compliments with an embarrassment impossible to be overcome. Had his first appearance, or his resemblance to the picture they had just been examining, been insufficient to assure the other two that they now saw Mr. Darcy, the gardener's expression of surprise, on beholding his master, must immediately have told it. They stood a little aloof while he was talking to their niece, who, astonished and confused, scarcely dared lift her eyes to his face, and knew not what answer she returned to his civil enquiries after her family. Amazed at the alteration of his manner since they last parted, every sentence that he uttered was increasing her embarrassment; and every idea of the impropriety of her being found there recurring to her mind, the few minutes in which they continued together were some of the most uncomfortable of her life. Nor did he seem much more at ease: when he spoke, his accent had none of its usual sedateness; and he repeated his enquiries as to the time of her having left Longbourn, and of her stay in Derbyshire, so often, and in so hurried a way, as plainly spoke the distraction of his thoughts. At length, every idea seemed to fail him; and after standing a few moments without saying a word, he suddenly recollected himself, and took leave. The others then joined her, and expressed their admiration of his figure; but Elizabeth heard not a word, and, wholly engrossed by her own feelings, followed them in silence. She was overpowered by shame and vexation. Her coming there was the most unfortunate, the most ill-judged thing in the world! How strange must it appear to him! In what a disgraceful light might it not strike so vain a man! It might seem as if she had purposely thrown herself in his way again! Oh! why did she come? or, why did he thus come a day before he was expected? Had they been only ten minutes sooner, they should have been beyond the reach of his discrimination; for it was plain that he was that moment arrived, that moment alighted from his horse or his carriage. She blushed again and again over the perverseness of the meeting. And his behaviour, so strikingly altered,—what could it mean? That he should even speak to her was amazing!—but to speak with such civility, to enquire after her family! Never in her life had she seen his manners so little dignified, never had he spoken with such gentleness as on this unexpected meeting. What a contrast did it offer to his last address in Rosings' Park, when he put his letter into her hand! She knew not what to think, or how to account for it. They had now entered a beautiful walk by the side of the water, and every step was bringing forward a nobler fall of ground, or a finer reach of the woods to which they were approaching: but it was some time before Elizabeth was sensible of any of it; and, though she answered mechanically to the repeated appeals of her uncle and aunt, and seemed to direct her eyes to such objects as they pointed out, she distinguished no part of the scene. Her thoughts were all fixed on that one spot of Pemberley House, whichever it might be, where Mr. Darcy then was. She longed to know what at that moment was passing in his mind; in what manner he thought of her, and whether, in defiance of every thing, she was still dear to him. Perhaps he had been civil only because he felt himself at ease; yet there had been that in his voice, which was not like ease. Whether he had felt more of pain or of pleasure in seeing her, she could not tell, but he certainly had not seen her with composure. At length, however, the remarks of her companions on her absence of mind roused her, and she felt the necessity of appearing more like herself. They entered the woods, and, bidding adieu to the river for a while, ascended some of the higher grounds; whence, in spots where the opening of the trees gave the eye power to wander, were many charming views of the valley, the opposite hills, with the long range of woods overspreading many, and occasionally part of the stream. Mr. Gardiner expressed a wish of going round the whole park, but feared it might be beyond a walk. With a triumphant smile, they were told, that it was ten miles round. It settled the matter; and they pursued the accustomed circuit; which brought them again, after some time, in a descent among hanging woods, to the edge of the water, and one of its narrowest parts. They crossed it by a simple bridge, in character with the general air of the scene: it was a spot less adorned than any they had yet visited; and the valley, here contracted into a glen, allowed room only for the stream, and a narrow walk amidst the rough coppice-wood which bordered it. Elizabeth longed to explore its windings; but when they had crossed the bridge, and perceived their distance from the house, Mrs. Gardiner, who was not a great walker, could go no farther, and thought only of returning to the carriage as quickly as possible. Her niece was, therefore, obliged to submit, and they took their way towards the house on the opposite side of the river, in the nearest direction; but their progress was slow, for Mr. Gardiner, though seldom able to indulge the taste, was very fond of fishing, and was so much engaged in watching the occasional appearance of some trout in the water, and talking to the man about them, that he advanced but little. Whilst wandering on in this slow manner, they were again surprised, and Elizabeth's astonishment was quite equal to what it had been at first, by the sight of Mr. Darcy approaching them, and at no great distance. The walk being here less sheltered than on the other side, allowed them to see him before they met. Elizabeth, however astonished, was at least more prepared for an interview than before, and resolved to appear and to speak with calmness, if he really intended to meet them. For a few moments, indeed, she felt that he would probably strike into some other path. The idea lasted while a turning in the walk concealed him from their view; the turning past, he was immediately before them. With a glance she saw, that he had lost none of his recent civility; and, to imitate his politeness, she began as they met to admire the beauty of the place; but she had not got beyond the words "delightful," and "charming," when some unlucky recollections obtruded, and she fancied that praise of Pemberley from her might be mischievously construed. Her colour changed, and she said no more. Mrs. Gardiner was standing a little behind; and on her pausing, he asked her, if she would do him the honour of introducing him to her friends. This was a stroke of civility for which she was quite unprepared; and she could hardly suppress a smile, at his being now seeking the acquaintance of some of those very people, against whom his pride had revolted, in his offer to herself. "What will be his surprise," thought she, "when he knows who they are! He takes them now for people of fashion." The introduction, however, was immediately made; and as she named their relationship to herself, she stole a sly look at him, to see how he bore it; and was not without the expectation of his decamping as fast as he could from such disgraceful companions. That he was surprised by the connection was evident: he sustained it, however, with fortitude; and, so far from going away, turned back with them, and entered into conversation with Mr. Gardiner. Elizabeth could not but be pleased, could not but triumph. It was consoling, that he should know she had some relations for whom there was no need to blush. She listened most attentively to all that passed between them, and gloried in every expression, every sentence of her uncle, which marked his intelligence, his taste, or his good manners. The conversation soon turned upon fishing; and she heard Mr. Darcy invite him, with the greatest civility, to fish there as often as he chose, while he continued in the neighbourhood, offering at the same time to supply him with fishing tackle, and pointing out those parts of the stream where there was usually most sport. Mrs. Gardiner, who was walking arm in arm with Elizabeth, gave her a look expressive of her wonder. Elizabeth said nothing, but it gratified her exceedingly; the compliment must be all for herself. Her astonishment, however, was extreme; and continually was she repeating, "Why is he so altered? From what can it proceed? It cannot be for me, it cannot be for my sake that his manners are thus softened. My reproofs at Hunsford could not work such a change as this. It is impossible that he should still love me." After walking some time in this way, the two ladies in front, the two gentlemen behind, on resuming their places, after descending to the brink of the river for the better inspection of some curious water-plant, there chanced to be a little alteration. It originated in Mrs. Gardiner, who, fatigued by the exercise of the morning, found Elizabeth's arm inadequate to her support, and consequently preferred her husband's. Mr. Darcy took her place by her niece, and they walked on together. After a short silence, the lady first spoke. She wished him to know that she had been assured of his absence before she came to the place, and accordingly began by observing, that his arrival had been very unexpected;—"for your housekeeper," she added, "informed us that you would certainly not be here till to-morrow; and, indeed, before we left Bakewell, we understood that you were not immediately expected in the country." He acknowledged the truth of it all; and said that business with his steward had occasioned his coming forward a few hours before the rest of the party with whom he had been travelling. "They will join me early tomorrow," he continued, "and among them are some who will claim an acquaintance with you,—Mr. Bingley and his sisters." Elizabeth answered only by a slight bow. Her thoughts were instantly driven back to the time when Mr. Bingley's name had been last mentioned between them; and if she might judge from his complexion, his mind was not very differently engaged. "There is also one other person in the party," he continued after a pause, "who more particularly wishes to be known to you. Will you allow me, or do I ask too much, to introduce my sister to your acquaintance during your stay at Lambton?" The surprise of such an application was great indeed; it was too great for her to know in what manner she acceded to it. She immediately felt that whatever desire Miss Darcy might have of being acquainted with her, must be the work of her brother, and without looking farther, it was satisfactory; it was gratifying to know that his resentment had not made him think really ill of her. They now walked on in silence; each of them deep in thought. Elizabeth was not comfortable; that was impossible; but she was flattered and pleased. His wish of introducing his sister to her was a compliment of the highest kind. They soon outstripped the others; and when they had reached the carriage, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner were half a quarter of a mile behind. He then asked her to walk into the house—but she declared herself not tired, and they stood together on the lawn. At such a time, much might have been said, and silence was very awkward. She wanted to talk, but there seemed an embargo on every subject. At last she recollected that she had been travelling, and they talked of Matlock and Dovedale with great perseverance. Yet time and her aunt moved slowly—and her patience and her ideas were nearly worn out before the tête-à-tête was over. On Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner's coming up, they were all pressed to go into the house and take some refreshment; but this was declined, and they parted on each side with the utmost politeness. Mr. Darcy handed the ladies into the carriage, and when it drove off, Elizabeth saw him walking slowly towards the house. The observations of her uncle and aunt now began; and each of them pronounced him to be infinitely superior to any thing they had expected. "He is perfectly well behaved, polite, and unassuming," said her uncle. "There is something a little stately in him, to be sure," replied her aunt; "but it is confined to his air, and is not unbecoming. I can now say with the housekeeper, that though some people may call him proud, I have seen no thing of it." "I was never more surprised than by his behaviour to us. It was more than civil; it was really attentive; and there was no necessity for such attention. His acquaintance with Elizabeth was very trifling." "To be sure, Lizzy," said her aunt, "he is not so handsome as Wickham; or rather, he has not Wickham's countenance, for his features are perfectly good. But how came you to tell us that he was so disagreeable?" Elizabeth excused herself as well as she could; said that she had liked him better when they met in Kent than before, and that she had never seen him so pleasant as this morning. "But, perhaps, he may be a little whimsical in his civilities," replied her uncle. "Your great men often are; and, therefore, I shall not take him at his word about fishing, as he might change his mind another day, and warn me off his grounds." Elizabeth felt that they had entirely mistaken his character, but said nothing. "From what we have seen of him," continued Mrs. Gardiner, "I really should not have thought that he could have behaved in so cruel a way by any body, as he has done by poor Wickham. He has not an ill-natured look. On the contrary, there is something pleasing about his mouth when he speaks. And there is something of dignity in his countenance, that would not give one an unfavourable idea of his heart. But, to be sure, the good lady who showed us the house, did give him a most flaming character! I could hardly help laughing aloud sometimes. But he is a liberal master, I suppose, and that in the eye of a servant comprehends every virtue." Elizabeth here felt herself called on to say something in vindication of his behaviour to Wickham; and, therefore, gave them to understand, in as guarded a manner as she could, that by what she had heard from his relations in Kent, his actions were capable of a very different construction; and that his character was by no means so faulty, nor Wickham's so amiable, as they had been considered in Hertfordshire. In confirmation of this, she related the particulars of all the pecuniary transactions in which they had been connected, without actually naming her authority, but stating it to be such as might be relied on. Mrs. Gardiner was surprised and concerned: but as they were now approaching the scene of her former pleasures, every idea gave way to the charm of recollection; and she was too much engaged in pointing out to her husband all the interesting spots in its environs, to think of any thing else. Fatigued as she had been by the morning's walk, they had no sooner dined than she set off again in quest of her former acquaintance, and the evening was spent in the satisfactions of an intercourse renewed after many years' discontinuance. The occurrences of the day were too full of interest to leave Elizabeth much attention for any of these new friends; and she could do nothing but think, and think with wonder, of Mr. Darcy's civility, and, above all, of his wishing her to be acquainted with his sister.
Elizabeth had settled it that Mr. Darcy would bring his sister to visit her the very day after her reaching Pemberley; and was, consequently, resolved not to be out of sight of the inn the whole of that morning. But her conclusion was false; for on the very morning after their own arrival at Lambton these visitors came. They had been walking about the place with some of their new friends, and were just returned to the inn to dress themselves for dining with the same family, when the sound of a carriage drew them to a window, and they saw a gentleman and lady in a curriclebb driving up the street. Elizabeth, immediately recognising the livery, guessed what it meant, and imparted no small degree of surprise to her relations, by acquainting them with the honour which she expected. Her uncle and aunt were all amazement; and the embarrassment of her manner as she spoke, joined to the circumstance itself, and many of the circumstances of the preceding day, opened to them a new idea on the business. Nothing had ever suggested it before, but they now felt that there was no other way of accounting for such attentions from such a quarter than by supposing a partiality for their niece. While these newly-born notions were passing in their heads, the perturbation of Elizabeth's feelings was every moment increasing. She was quite amazed at her own discomposure; but, amongst other causes of disquiet, she dreaded lest the partiality of the brother should have said too much in her favour; and more than commonly anxious to please, she naturally suspected that every power of pleasing would fail her. She retreated from the window, fearful of being seen; and as she walked up and down the room, endeavouring to compose herself, saw such looks of enquiring surprise in her uncle and aunt as made every thing worse. Miss Darcy and her brother appeared, and this formidable introduction took place. With astonishment did Elizabeth see that her new acquaintance was at least as much embarrassed as herself. Since her being at Lambton, she had heard that Miss Darcy was exceedingly proud; but the observation of a very few minutes convinced her that she was only exceedingly shy. She found it difficult to obtain even a word from her beyond a monosyllable. Miss Darcy was tall, and on a larger scale than Elizabeth; and, though little more than sixteen, her figure was formed, and her appearance womanly and graceful. She was less handsome than her brother, but there was sense and good-humour in her face, and her manners were perfectly unassuming and gentle. Elizabeth, who had expected to find in her as acute and unembarrassed an observer as ever Mr. Darcy had been, was much relieved by discerning such different feelings. They had not been long together before Darcy told her that Bingley was also coming to wait on her; and she had barely time to express her satisfaction, and prepare for such a visitor, when Bingley's quick step was heard on the stairs, and in a moment he entered the room. All Elizabeth's anger against him had been long done away; but, had she still felt any, it could hardly have stood its ground against the unaffected cordiality with which he expressed himself on seeing her again. He enquired in a friendly, though general, way, after her family, and looked and spoke with the same goodhumoured ease that he had ever done. To Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner he was scarcely a less interesting personage than to herself. They had long wished to see him. The whole party before them, indeed, excited a lively attention. The suspicions which had just arisen of Mr. Darcy and their niece, directed their observation towards each with an earnest, though guarded, enquiry; and they soon drew from those enquiries the full conviction that one of them at least knew what it was to love. Of the lady's sensations they remained a little in doubt; but that the gentleman was overflowing with admiration was evident enough. Elizabeth, on her side, had much to do. She wanted to ascertain the feelings of each of her visitors, she wanted to compose her own, and to make herself agreeable to all; and in the latter object, where she feared most to fail, she was most sure of success, for those to whom she endeavoured to give pleasure were prepossessed in her favour. Bingley was ready, Georgiana was eager, and Darcy determined, to be pleased. In seeing Bingley, her thoughts naturally flew to her sister; and oh! how ardently did she long to know whether any of his were directed in a like manner. Sometimes she could fancy that he talked less than on former occasions, and once or twice pleased herself with the notion that as he looked at her, he was trying to trace a resemblance. But, though this might be imaginary, she could not be deceived as to his behaviour to Miss Darcy, who had been set up as a rival to Jane. No look appeared on either side that spoke particular regard. Nothing occurred between them that could justify the hopes of his sister. On this point she was soon satisfied; and two or three little circumstances occurred ere they parted, which, in her anxious interpretation, denoted a recollection of Jane, not untinctured by tenderness, and a wish of saying more that might lead to the mention of her, had he dared. He observed to her, at a moment when the others were talking together, and in a tone which had something of real regret, that it "was a very long time since he had had the pleasure of seeing her;" and, before she could reply, he added, "It is above eight months. We have not met since the 26th of November, when we were all dancing together at Netherfield." Elizabeth was pleased to find his memory so exact; and he afterwards took occasion to ask her, when unattended to by any of the rest, whether all her sisters were at Longbourn. There was not much in the question, nor in the preceding remark; but there was a look and a manner which gave them meaning. It was not often that she could turn her eyes on Mr. Darcy himself; but whenever she did catch a glimpse, she saw an expression of general complaisance, and in all that he said, she heard an accent so far removed from hauteur or disdain of his companions, as convinced her that the improvement of manners which she had yesterday witnessed, however temporary its existence might prove, had at least outlived one day. When she saw him thus seeking the acquaintance, and courting the good opinion of people with whom any intercourse a few months ago would have been a disgrace; when she saw him thus civil, not only to herself, but to the very relations whom he had openly disdained, and recollected their last lively scene in Hunsford Parsonage, the difference, the change was so great, and struck so forcibly on her mind, that she could hardly restrain her astonishment from being visible. Never, even in the company of his dear friends at Netherfield, or his dignified relations at Rosings, had she seen him so desirous to please, so free from self-consequence or unbending reserve, as now, when no importance could result from the success of his endeavours, and when even the acquaintance of those to whom his attentions were addressed, would draw down the ridicule and censure of the ladies both of Netherfield and Rosings. Their visitors stayed with them above half an hour; and when they arose to depart, Mr. Darcy called on his sister to join him in expressing their wish of seeing Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, and Miss Bennet, to dinner at Pemberley, before they left the country. Miss Darcy, though with a diffidence which marked her little in the habit of giving invitations, readily obeyed. Mrs. Gardiner looked at her niece, desirous of knowing how she, whom the invitation most concerned, felt disposed as to its acceptance, but Elizabeth had turned away her head. Presuming, however, that this studied avoidance spoke rather a momentary embarrassment than any dislike of the proposal, and seeing in her husband, who was fond of society, a perfect willingness to accept it, she ventured to engage for her attendance, and the day after the next was fixed on. Bingley expressed great pleasure in the certainty of seeing Elizabeth again, having still a great deal to say to her, and many enquiries to make after all their Hertfordshire friends. Elizabeth, construing all this into a wish of hearing her speak of her sister, was pleased; and on this account, as well as some others, found herself, when their visitors left them, capable of considering the last half hour with some satisfaction, though while it was passing the enjoyment of it had been little. Eager to be alone, and fearful of enquiries or hints from her uncle and aunt, she stayed with them only long enough to hear their favourable opinion of Bingley, and then hurried away to dress. But she had no reason to fear Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner's curiosity; it was not their wish to force her communication. It was evident that she was much better acquainted with Mr. Darcy than they had before any idea of; it was evident that he was very much in love with her. They saw much to interest, but nothing to justify enquiry. Of Mr. Darcy it was now a matter of anxiety to think well; and, as far as their acquaintance reached, there was no fault to find. They could not be untouched by his politeness; and had they drawn his character from their own feelings and his servant's report, without any reference to any other account, the circle in Hertfordshire to which he was known would not have recognised it for Mr. Darcy. There was now an interest, however, in believing the housekeeper; and they soon became sensible, that the authority of a servant, who had known him since he was four years old, and whose own manners indicated respectability, was not to be hastily rejected. Neither had any thing occurred in the intelligence of their Lambton friends that could materially lessen its weight. They had nothing to accuse him of but pride; pride he probably had, and if not, it would certainly be imputed by the inhabitants of a small market town where the family did not visit. It was acknowledged, however, that he was a liberal man, and did much good among the poor. With respect to Wickham, the travellers soon found that he was not held there in much estimation; for though the chief of his concerns with the son of his patron were imperfectly understood, it was yet a well-known fact that, on his quitting Derbyshire, he had left many debts behind him, which Mr. Darcy afterwards discharged. As for Elizabeth, her thoughts were at Pemberley this evening more than the last; and the evening, though as it passed it seemed long, was not long enough to determine her feelings towards one in that mansion; and she lay awake two whole hours, endeavouring to make them out. She certainly did not hate him. No; hatred had vanished long ago, and she had almost as long been ashamed of ever feeling a dislike against him that could be so called. The respect created by the conviction of his valuable qualities, though at first unwillingly admitted, had for some time ceased to be repugnant to her feelings; and it was now heightened into somewhat of a friendlier nature by the testimony so highly in his favour, and bringing forward his disposition in so amiable a light, which yesterday had produced. But above all, above respect and esteem, there was a motive within her of good-will which could not be overlooked. It was gratitude;—gratitude, not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection. He who, she had been persuaded, would avoid her as his greatest enemy, seemed, on this accidental meeting, most eager to preserve the acquaintance, and without any indelicate display of regard, or any peculiarity of manner, where their two selves only were concerned, was soliciting the good opinion of her friends, and bent on making her known to his sister. Such a change in a man of so much pride excited not only astonishment but gratitude—for to love, ardent love, it must be attributed; and, as such, its impression on her was of a sort to be encouraged, as by no means unpleasing, though it could not be exactly defined. She respected, she esteemed, she was grateful to him, she felt a real interest in his welfare; and she only wanted to know how far she wished that welfare to depend upon herself, and how far it would be for the happiness of both that she should employ the power, which her fancy told her she still possessed, of bringing on the renewal of his addresses. It had been settled in the evening, between the aunt and niece, that such a striking civility as Miss Darcy's, in coming to them on the very day of her arrival at Pemberley, for she had reached it only to a late breakfast, ought to be imitated, though it could not be equalled, by some exertion of politeness on their side; and, consequently, that it would be highly expedient to wait on her at Pemberley the following morning. They were, therefore, to go. Elizabeth was pleased; though, when she asked herself the reason, she had very little to say in reply. Mr. Gardiner left them soon after breakfast. The fishing scheme had been renewed the day before, and a positive engagement made of his meeting some of the gentlemen at Pemberley by noon.
Convinced as Elizabeth now was that Miss Bingley's dislike of her had originated in jealousy, she could not help feeling how very unwelcome her appearance at Pemberley must be to her, and was curious to know with how much civility on that lady's side the acquaintance would now be renewed. On reaching the house, they were shown through the hall into the saloon,bc whose northern aspect rendered it delightful for summer. Its windows, opening to the ground, admitted a most refreshing view of the high woody hills behind the house, and of the beautiful oaks and Spanish chestnuts which were scattered over the intermediate lawn. In this room they were received by Miss Darcy, who was sitting there with Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley, and the lady with whom she lived in London. Georgiana's reception of them was very civil, but attended with all that embarrassment which, though proceeding from shyness and the fear of doing wrong, would easily give to those who felt themselves inferior the belief of her being proud and reserved, Mrs. Gardiner and her niece, however, did her justice, and pitied her. By Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley they were noticed only by a courtesy; and on their being seated, a pause, awkward as such pauses must always be, succeeded for a few moments. It was first broken by Mrs. Annesley, a genteel, agreeable looking woman, whose endeavour to introduce some kind of discourse proved her to be more truly well-bred than either of the others; and between her and Mrs. Gardiner, with occasional help from Elizabeth, the conversation was carried on. Miss Darcy looked as if she wished for courage enough to join in it; and sometimes did venture a short sentence, when there was least danger of its being heard. Elizabeth soon saw that she was herself closely watched by Miss Bingley, and that she could not speak a word, especially to Miss Darcy, without calling her attention. This observation would not have prevented her from trying to talk to the latter, had they not been seated at an inconvenient distance; but she was not sorry to be spared the necessity of saying much: her own thoughts were employing her. She expected every moment that some of the gentlemen would enter the room: she wished, she feared, that the master of the house might be amongst them; and whether she wished or feared it most, she could scarcely determine. After sitting in this manner a quarter of an hour, without hearing Miss Bingley's voice, Elizabeth was roused by receiving from her a cold enquiry after the health of her family. She answered with equal indifference and brevity, and the other said no more. The next variation which their visit afforded was produced by the entrance of servants with cold meat, cake, and a variety of all the finest fruits in season; but this did not take place till after many a significant look and smile from Mrs. Annesley to Miss Darcy had been given, to remind her of her post. There was now employment for the whole party; for though they could not all talk, they could all eat; and the beautiful pyramids of grapes, nectarines, and peaches, soon collected them round the table. While thus engaged, Elizabeth had a fair opportunity of deciding whether she most feared or wished for the appearance of Mr. Darcy, by the feelings which prevailed on his entering the room; and then, though but a moment before she had believed her wishes to predominate, she began to regret that he came. He had been some time with Mr. Gardiner, who, with two or three other gentlemen from the house, was engaged by the river, and had left him only on learning that the ladies of the family intended a visit to Georgiana that morning. No sooner did he appear, than Elizabeth wisely resolved to be perfectly easy and unembarrassed;—a resolution the more necessary to be made, but perhaps not the more easily kept, because she saw that the suspicions of the whole party were awakened against them, and that there was scarcely an eye which did not watch his behaviour when he first came into the room. In no countenance was attentive curiosity so strongly marked as in Miss Bingley's, in spite of the smiles which overspread her face whenever she spoke to one of its objects; for jealousy had not yet made her desperate, and her attentions to Mr. Darcy were by no means over. Miss Darcy, on her brother's entrance, exerted herself much more to talk; and Elizabeth saw that he was anxious for his sister and herself to get acquainted, and forwarded, as much as possible, every attempt at conversation on either side. Miss Bingley saw all this likewise; and, in the imprudence of anger, took the first opportunity of saying, with sneering civility,— "Pray, Miss Eliza, are not the———shire militia removed from Meryton? They must be a great loss to your family." In Darcy's presence she dared not mention Wickham's name; but Elizabeth instantly comprehended that he was uppermost in her thoughts; and the various recollections connected with him gave her a moment's distress; but, exerting herself vigorously to repel the ill-natured attack, she presently answered the question in a tolerably disengaged tone. While she spoke, an involuntary glance showed her Darcy with a heightened complexion, earnestly looking at her, and his sister overcome with confusion, and unable to lift up her eyes. Had Miss Bingley known what pain she was then giving her beloved friend, she undoubtedly would have refrained from the hint; but she had merely intended to discompose Elizabeth, by bringing forward the idea of a man to whom she believed her partial, to make her betray a sensibility which might injure her in Darcy's opinion, and, perhaps, to remind the latter of all the follies and absurdities by which some part of her family were connected with that corps. Not a syllable had ever reached her of Miss Darcy's meditated elopement. To no creature had it been revealed, where secrecy was possible, except to Elizabeth; and from all Bingley's connections her brother was particularly anxious to conceal it, from that very wish which Elizabeth had long ago attributed to him, of their becoming hereafter her own. He had certainly formed such a plan; and without meaning that it should affect his endeavour to separate him from Miss Bennet, it is probable that it might add something to his lively concern for the welfare of his friend. Elizabeth's collected behaviour, however, soon quieted his emotion; and as Miss Bingley, vexed and disappointed, dared not approach nearer to Wickham, Georgiana also recovered in time, though not enough to be able to speak any more. Her brother, whose eye she feared to meet, scarcely recollected her interest in the affair; and the very circumstance which had been designed to turn his thoughts from Elizabeth, seemed to have fixed them on her more and more cheerfully. Their visit did not continue long after the question and answer above mentioned; and while Mr. Darcy was attending them to their carriage, Miss Bingley was venting her feelings in criticisms on Elizabeth's person, behaviour, and dress. But Georgiana would not join her. Her brother's recommendation was enough to insure her favour: his judgment could not err; and he had spoken in such terms of Elizabeth, as to leave Georgiana without the power of finding her otherwise than lovely and amiable. When Darcy returned to the saloon, Miss Bingley could not help repeating to him some part of what she had been saying to his sister. "How very ill Eliza Bennet looks this morning, Mr. Darcy," she cried: "I never in my life saw any one so much altered as she is since the winter. She is grown so brown and coarse! Louisa and I were agreeing that we should not have known her again." However little Mr. Darcy might have liked such an address, he contented himself with coolly replying, that he perceived no other alteration than her being rather tanned,—no miraculous consequence of travelling in the summer. "For my own part," she rejoined, "I must confess that I never could see any beauty in her. Her face is too thin; her complexion has no brilliancy; and her features are not at all handsome. Her nose wants character; there is nothing marked in its lines. Her teeth are tolerable, but not out of the common way; and as for her eyes, which have sometimes been called so fine, I never could perceive any thing extraordinary in them. They have a sharp, shrewish look, which I do not like at all; and in her air altogether, there is a self-sufficiency without fashion, which is intolerable." Persuaded as Miss Bingley was that Darcy admired Elizabeth, this was not the best method of recommending herself; but angry people are not always wise; and in seeing him at last look somewhat nettled, she had all the success she expected. He was resolutely silent, however; and, from a determination of making him speak, she continued,— "I remember, when we first knew her in Hertfordshire, how amazed we all were to find that she was a reputed beauty; and I particularly recollect your saying one night, after they had been dining at Netherfield, 'She a beauty! I should as soon call her mother a wit.' But afterwards she seemed to improve on you, and I believe you thought her rather pretty at one time." "Yes," replied Darcy, who could contain himself no longer, "but that was only when I first knew her; for it is many months since I have considered her as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance." He then went away, and Miss Bingley was left to all the satisfaction of having forced him to say what gave no one any pain but herself. Mrs. Gardiner and Elizabeth talked of all that had occurred during their visit, as they returned, except what had particularly interested them both. The looks and behaviour of every body they had seen were discussed, except of the person who had mostly engaged their attention. They talked of his sister, his friends, his house, his fruit, of every thing but himself; yet Elizabeth was longing to know what Mrs. Gardiner thought of him, and Mrs. Gardiner would have been highly gratified by her niece's beginning the subject.
Elizabeth had been a good deal disappointed in not finding a letter from Jane on their first arrival at Lambton; and this disappointment had been renewed on each of the mornings that had now been spent there; but on the third her repining was over, and her sister justified, by the receipt of two letters from her at once, on one of which was marked that it had been mis-sent elsewhere. Elizabeth was not surprised at it, as Jane had written the direction remarkably ill. They had just been preparing to walk as the letters came in; and her uncle and aunt, leaving her to enjoy them in quiet, set off by themselves. The one mis-sent must be first attended to; it had been written five days ago. The beginning contained an account of all their little parties and engagements, with such news as the country afforded; but the latter half, which was dated a day later, and written in evident agitation, gave more important intelligence. It was to this effect:— "Since writing the above, dearest Lizzy, something has occurred of a most unexpected and serious nature; but I am afraid of alarming you—be assured that we are all well. What I have to say relates to poor Lydia. An express came at twelve last night, just as we were all gone to bed, from Colonel Forster, to inform us that she was gone off to Scotland 12 with one of his officers; to own the truth, with Wickham! Imagine our surprise. To Kitty, however, it does not seem so wholly unexpected. I am very, very sorry. So imprudent a match on both sides! But I am willing to hope the best, and that his character has been misunderstood. Thoughtless and indiscreet I can easily believe him, but this step (and let us rejoice over it) marks nothing bad at heart. His choice is disinterested at least, for he must know my father can give her nothing. Our poor mother is sadly grieved. My father bears it better. How thankful am I, that we never let them know what has been said against him; we must forget it ourselves. They were off Saturday night about twelve, as is conjectured, but were not missed till yesterday morning at eight. The express was sent off directly. My dear Lizzy, they must have passed within ten miles of us. Colonel Forster gives us reason to expect him here soon. Lydia left a few lines for his wife, informing her of their intention. I must conclude, for I cannot be long from my poor mother. I am afraid you will not be able to make it out, but I hardly know what I have written." Without allowing herself time for consideration, and scarcely knowing what she felt, Elizabeth, on finishing this letter, instantly seized the other, and opening it with the utmost impatience, read as follows: it had been written a day later than the conclusion of the first. "By this time, my dearest sister, you have received my hurried letter; I wish this may be more intelligible, but though not confined for time, my head is so bewildered that I cannot answer for being coherent. Dearest Lizzy, I hardly know what I would write, but I have bad news for you, and it cannot be delayed. Imprudent as a marriage between Mr. Wickham and our poor Lydia would be, we are now anxious to be assured it has taken place, for there is but too much reason to fear they are not gone to Scotland. Colonel Forster came yesterday, having left Brighton the day before, not many hours after the express. Though Lydia's short letter to Mrs. F. gave them to understand that they were going to Gretna Green, something was dropped by Denny expressing his belief that W. never intended to go there, or to marry Lydia at all, which was repeated to Colonel F., who, instantly taking the alarm, set off from B., intending to trace their route. He did trace them easily to Clapham,bd but no farther; for on entering that place, they removed into a hackney-coach, and dismissed the chaise that brought them from Epsom. All that is known after this is, that they were seen to continue the London road. I know not what to think. After making every possible enquiry on that side London, Colonel F. came on into Hertfordshire, anxiously renewing them at all the turnpikes, and at the inns in Barnet and Hatfield but without any success,—no such people had been seen to pass through. With the kindest concern he came on to Longbourn, and broke his apprehensions to us in a manner most creditable to his heart. I am sincerely grieved for him and Mrs. F.; but no one can throw any blame on them. Our distress, my dear Lizzy, is very great. My father and mother believe the worst, but I cannot think so ill of him. Many circumstances might make it more eligible for them to be married privately in town than to pursue their first plan; and even if he could form such a design against a young woman of Lydia's connections, which is not likely, can I suppose her so lost to every thing? Impossible! I grieve to find, however, that Colonel F. is not disposed to depend upon their marriage: he shook his head when I expressed my hopes, and said he feared W. was not a man to be trusted. My poor mother is really ill, and keeps her room. Could she exert herself, it would be better, but this is not to be expected; and as to my father, I never in my life saw him so affected. Poor Kitty has anger for having concealed their attachment; but as it was a matter of confidence, one cannot wonder. I am truly glad, dearest Lizzy, that you have been spared something of these distressing scenes; but now, as the first shock is over, shall I own that I long for your return? I am not so selfish, however, as to press for it, if inconvenient. Adieu! I take up my pen again to do, what I have just told you I would not; but circumstances are such, that I cannot help earnestly begging you all to come here as soon as possible. I know my dear uncle and aunt so well, that I am not afraid of requesting it, though I have still something more to ask of the former. My father is going to London with Colonel Forster instantly, to try to discover her. What he means to do, I am sure I know not; but his excessive distress will not allow him to pursue any measure in the best and safest way, and Colonel Forster is obliged to be at Brighton again to-morrow evening. In such an exigence my uncle's advice and assistance would be every thing in the world; he will immediately comprehend what I must feel, and I rely upon his goodness." "Oh! where, where is my uncle?" cried Elizabeth, darting from her seat as she finished the letter, in eagerness to follow him, without losing a moment of the time so precious; but as she reached the door, it was opened by a servant, and Mr. Darcy appeared. Her pale face and impetuous manner made him start, and before he could recover himself enough to speak, she, in whose mind every idea was superseded by Lydia's situation, hastily exclaimed, "I beg your pardon, but I must leave you. I must find Mr. Gardiner this moment on business that cannot be delayed; I have not an instant to lose." "Good God! what is the matter?" cried he, with more feeling than politeness; then recollecting himself, "I will not detain you a minute; but let me, or let the servant, go after Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. You are not well enough; you cannot go yourself." Elizabeth hesitated, but her knees trembled under her, and she felt how little would be gained by her attempting to pursue them. Calling back the servant, therefore, she commissioned him, though in so breathless an accent as made her almost unintelligible, to fetch his master and mistress home instantly. On his quitting the room, she sat down, unable to support herself, and looking so miserably ill, that it was impossible for Darcy to leave her, or to refrain from saying, in a tone of gentleness and commiseration, "Let me call your maid. Is there nothing you could take to give you present relief? A glass of wine; shall I get you one? You are very ill." "No, I thank you," she replied, endeavouring to recover herself. "There is nothing the matter with me. I am quite well, I am only distressed by some dreadful news which I have just received from Longbourn." She burst into tears as she alluded to it, and for a few minutes could not speak another word. Darcy, in wretched suspense, could only say something indistinctly of his concern, and observe her in compassionate silence. At length she spoke again. "I have just had a letter from Jane, with such dreadful news. It cannot be concealed from any one. My youngest sister has left all her friends—has eloped; has thrown herself into the power of—of Mr. Wickham. They are gone off together from Brighton. You know him too well to doubt the rest. She has no money, no connections, nothing that can tempt him to—she is lost for ever." Darcy was fixed in astonishment. "When I consider," she added, in a yet more agitated voice, "that I might have prevented it! I who knew what he was. Had I but explained some part of it only—some part of what I learnt, to my own family! Had his character been known, this could not have happened. But it is all, all too late now." "I am grieved, indeed," cried Darcy: "grieved—shocked. But is it certain, absolutely certain?" "Oh yes! They left Brighton together on Sunday night, and were traced almost to London, but not beyond: they are certainly not gone to Scotland." "And what has been done, what has been attempted, to recover her?" "My father is gone to London, and Jane has written to beg my uncle's immediate assistance, and we shall be off, I hope, in half an hour. But nothing can be done; I know very well that nothing can be done. How is such a man to be worked on? How are they even to be discovered? I have not the smallest hope. It is every way horrible!" Darcy shook his head in silent acquiescence. "When my eyes were open to his real character. Oh! had I known what I ought, what I dared to do! But I knew not—I was afraid of doing too much. Wretched, wretched mistake!" Darcy made no answer. He seemed scarcely to hear her, and was walking up and down the room in earnest meditation; his brow contracted, his air gloomy. Elizabeth soon observed, and instantly understood it. Her power was sinking; every thing must sink under such a proof of family weakness, such an assurance of the deepest disgrace. She could neither wonder nor condemn, but the belief of his self-conquest brought nothing consolatory to her bosom, afforded no palliation of her distress. It was, on the contrary, exactly calculated to make her understand her own wishes; and never had she so honestly felt that she could have loved him, as now, when all love must be vain. But self, though it would intrude, could not engross her. Lydia—the humiliation, the misery she was bringing on them all,—soon swallowed up every private care; and covering her face with her handkerchief, Elizabeth was soon lost to every thing else; and, after a pause of several minutes, was only recalled to a sense of her situation by the voice of her companion, who, in a manner which, though it spoke compassion, spoke likewise restraint, said, "I am afraid you have been long desiring my absence, nor have I any thing to plead in excuse of my stay, but real, though unavailing concern. Would to Heaven that any thing could be either said or done on my part, that might offer consolation to such distress. But I will not torment you with vain wishes, which may seem purposely to ask for your thanks. This unfortunate affair will, I fear, prevent my sister's having the pleasure of seeing you at Pemberley to-day." "Oh yes. Be so kind as to apologise for us to Miss Darcy. Say that urgent business calls us home immediately. Conceal the unhappy truth as long as it is possible. I know it cannot be long." He readily assured her of his secrecy, again expressed his sorrow for her distress, wished it a happier conclusion than there was at present reason to hope, and, leaving his compliments for her relations, with only one serious, parting look, went away. As he quitted the room, Elizabeth felt how improbable it was that they should ever see each other again on such terms of cordiality as had marked their several meetings in Derbyshire; and as she threw a retrospective glance over the whole of their acquaintance, so full of contradictions and varieties, sighed at the perverseness of those feelings which would now have promoted its continuance, and would formerly have rejoiced in its termination. If gratitude and esteem are good foundations of affection, Elizabeth's change of sentiment will be neither improbable nor faulty. But if otherwise, if the regard springing from such sources is unreasonable or unnatural, in comparison of what is so often described as arising on a first interview with its object, and even before two words have been exchanged, nothing can be said in her defence, except that she had given somewhat of a trial to the latter method, in her partiality for Wickham, and that its ill success might, perhaps, authorise her to seek the other less interesting mode of attachment. Be that as it may, she saw him go with regret; and in this early example of what Lydia's infamy must produce, found additional anguish as she reflected on that wretched business. Never, since reading Jane's second letter, had she entertained a hope of Wickham's meaning to marry her. No one but Jane, she thought, could flatter herself with such an expectation. Surprise was the least of all her feelings on this development. While the contents of the first letter remained on her mind, she was all surprise, all astonishment, that Wickham should marry a girl, whom it was impossible he could marry for money; and how Lydia could ever have attached him had appeared incomprehensible. But now it was all too natural. For such an attachment as this, she might have sufficient charms; and though she did not suppose Lydia to be deliberately engaging in an elopement, without the intention of marriage, she had no difficulty in believing that neither her virtue nor her understanding would preserve her from falling an easy prey. She had never perceived, while the regiment was in Hertfordshire, that Lydia had any partiality for him; but she was convinced that Lydia had wanted only encouragement to attach herself to any body. Sometimes one officer, sometimes another, had been her favourite, as their attentions raised them in her opinion. Her affections had been continually fluctuating, but never without an object. The mischief of neglect and mistaken indulgence towards such a girl—oh! how acutely did she now feel it. She was wild to be at home—to hear, to see, to be upon the spot to share with Jane in the cares that must now fall wholly upon her, in a family so deranged; a father absent, a mother incapable of exertion, and requiring constant attendance; and though almost persuaded that nothing could be done for Lydia, her uncle's interference seemed of the utmost importance, and till he entered the room the misery of her impatience was severe. Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner had hurried back in alarm, supposing, by the servant's account, that their niece was taken suddenly ill; but satisfying them instantly on that head, she eagerly communicated the cause of their summons, reading the two letters aloud, and dwelling on the postscript of the last with trembling energy, though Lydia had never been a favourite with them. Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner could not but be deeply afflicted. Not Lydia only, but all were concerned in it; and after the first exclamations of surprise and horror, Mr. Gardiner readily promised every assistance in his power. Elizabeth, though expecting no less, thanked him with tears of gratitude; and all three being actuated by one spirit, every thing relating to their journey was speedily settled. They were to be off as soon as possible. "But what is to be done about Pemberley?" cried Mrs. Gardiner. "John told us Mr. Darcy was here when you sent for us;—was it so?" "Yes; and I told him we should not be able to keep our engagement. That is all settled." "What is all settled?" repeated the other, as she ran into her room to prepare. "And are they upon such terms as for her to disclose the real truth! Oh, that I knew how it was!" But wishes were vain; or, at best, could serve only to amuse her in the hurry and confusion of the following hour. Had Elizabeth been at leisure to be idle, she would have remained certain that all employment was impossible to one so wretched as herself; but she had her share of business as well as her aunt, and amongst the rest there were notes to be written to all their friends at Lambton, with false excuses for their sudden departure. An hour, however, saw the whole completed; and Mr. Gardiner, meanwhile, having settled his account at the inn, nothing remained to be done but to go; and Elizabeth, after all the misery of the morning, found herself, in a shorter space of time than she could have supposed, seated in the carriage, and on the road to Longbourn.
I have been thinking it over again, Elizabeth," said her uncle, as they drove from the town; "and really, upon serious consideration, I am much more inclined than I was to judge as your eldest sister does of the matter. It appears to me so very unlikely that any young man should form such a design against a girl who is by no means unprotected or friendless, and who was actually staying in his Colonel's family, that I am strongly inclined to hope the best. Could he expect that her friends would not step forward? Could he expect to be noticed again by the regiment, after such an affront to Colonel Forster? His temptation is not adequate to the risk." "Do you really think so?" cried Elizabeth, brightening up for a moment. "Upon my word," said Mrs. Gardiner, "I begin to be of your uncle's opinion. It is really too great a violation of decency, honour, and interest, for him to be guilty of it. I cannot think so very ill of Wickham. Can you, yourself, Lizzy, so wholly give him up, as to believe him capable of it?" "Not perhaps of neglecting his own interest. But of every other neglect I can believe him capable. If, indeed, it should be so! But I dare not hope it. Why should they not go on to Scotland, if that had been the case?" "In the first place," replied Mr. Gardiner, "there is no absolute proof that they are not gone to Scotland." "Oh, but their removing from the chaise into a hackney coach is such a presumption! And, besides, no traces of them were to be found on the Barnet road." "Well, then,—supposing them to be in London. They may be there, though for the purpose of concealment, for no more exceptionable purpose. It is not likely that money should be very abundant on either side; and it might strike them that they could be more economically, though less expeditiously, married in London, than in Scotland." "But why all this secrecy? Why any fear of detection? Why must their marriage be private? Oh no, no, this is not likely. His most particular friend, you see by Jane's account, was persuaded of his never intending to marry her. Wickham will never marry a woman without some money. He cannot afford it. And what claims has Lydia, what attractions has she beyond youth, health, and good humour, that could make him for her sake forego every chance of benefiting himself by marrying well? As to what restraint the apprehensions of disgrace in the corps might throw on a dishonourable elopement with her, I am not able to judge; for I know nothing of the effects that such a step might produce. But as to your other objection, I am afraid it will hardly hold good. Lydia has no brothers to step forward; and he might imagine, from my father's behaviour, from his indolence and the little attention he has ever seemed to give to what was going forward in his family, that he would do as little, and think as little about it, as any father could do, in such a matter." "But can you think that Lydia is so lost to every thing but love of him, as to consent to live with him on any other terms than marriage?" "It does seem, and it is most shocking, indeed," replied Elizabeth, with tears in her eyes, "that a sister's sense of decency and virtue in such a point should admit of doubt. But, really, I know not what to say. Perhaps I am not doing her justice. But she is very young: she has never been taught to think on serious subjects; and for the last half year, nay, for a twelvemonth, she has been given up to nothing but amusement and vanity. She has been allowed to dispose of her time in the most idle and frivolous manner, and to adopt any opinions that came in her way. Since the———shire were first quartered in Meryton, nothing but love, flirtation, and officers, have been in her head. She has been doing every thing in her power, by thinking and talking on the subject, to give greater—what shall I call it? susceptibility to her feelings; which are naturally lively enough. And we all know that Wickham has every charm of person and address that can captivate a woman." "But you see that Jane," said her aunt, "does not think so ill of Wickham, as to believe him capable of the attempt." "Of whom does Jane ever think ill? And who is there, whatever might be their former conduct, that she would believe capable of such an attempt, till it were proved against them? But Jane knows, as well as I do, what Wickham really is. We both know that he has been profligate in every sense of the word. That he has neither integrity nor honour. That he is as false and deceitful as he is insinuating." "And do you really know all this?" cried Mrs. Gardiner, whose curiosity as to the mode of her intelligence was all alive. "I do, indeed," replied Elizabeth, colouring. "I told you the other day of his infamous behaviour to Mr. Darcy; and you, yourself, when last at Longbourn, heard in what manner he spoke of the man who had behaved with such forbearance and liberality towards him. And there are other circumstances which I am not at liberty—which it is not worth while to relate; but his lies about the whole Pemberley family are endless. From what he said of Miss Darcy, I was thoroughly prepared to see a proud, reserved, disagreeable girl. Yet he knew to the contrary himself. He must know that she was as amiable and unpretending as we have found her." "But does Lydia know nothing of this? can she be ignorant of what you and Jane seem so well to understand?" "Oh yes!—that, that is the worst of all. Till I was in Kent, and saw so much both of Mr. Darcy and his relation Colonel Fitzwilliam, I was ignorant of the truth myself. And when I returned home the———shire was to leave Meryton in a week or fortnight's time. As that was the case, neither Jane, to whom I related the whole, nor I, thought it necessary to make our knowledge public; for of what use could it apparently be to any one, that the good opinion, which all the neighbourhood had of him, should then be overthrown? And even when it was settled that Lydia should go with Mrs. Forster, the necessity of opening her eyes to his character never occurred to me. That she could be in any danger from the deception never entered my head. That such a consequence as this should ensue, you may easily believe was far enough from my thoughts." "When they all removed to Brighton, therefore, you had no reason, I suppose, to believe them fond of each other?" "Not the slightest. I can remember no symptom of affection on either side; and had any thing of the kind been perceptible, you must be aware that ours is not a family on which it could be thrown away. When first he entered the corps, she was ready enough to admire him; but so we all were. Every girl in or near Meryton was out of her senses about him for the first two months: but he never distinguished her by any particular attention; and, consequently, after a moderate period of extravagant and wild admiration, her fancy for him gave way, and others of the regiment, who treated her with more distinction, again became her favourites." It may be easily believed, that however little of novelty could be added to their fears, hopes, and conjectures, on this interesting subject, by its repeated discussion, no other could detain them from it long, during the whole of the journey. From Elizabeth's thoughts it was never absent. Fixed there by the keenest of all anguish, self-reproach, she could find no interval of ease or forgetfulness. They travelled as expeditiously as possible; and sleeping one night on the road, reached Longbourn by dinnertime the next day. It was a comfort to Elizabeth to consider that Jane could not have been wearied by long expectations. The little Gardiners, attracted by the sight of a chaise, were standing on the steps of the house, as they entered the paddock; and when the carriage drove up to the door, the joyful surprise that lighted up their faces and displayed itself over their whole bodies, in a variety of capers and frisks, was the first pleasing earnest of their welcome. Elizabeth jumped out; and after giving each of them a hasty kiss, hurried into the vestibule, where Jane, who came running down stairs from her mother's apartment, immediately met her. Elizabeth, as she affectionately embraced her, whilst tears filled the eyes of both, lost not a moment in asking whether any thing had been heard of the fugitives. "Not yet," replied Jane. "But now that my dear uncle is come, I hope every thing will be well." "Is my father in town?" "Yes, he went on Tuesday, as I wrote you word." "And have you heard from him often?" "We have heard only once. He wrote me a few lines on Wednesday, to say that he had arrived in safety, and to give me his directions, which I particularly begged him to do. He merely added, that he should not write again, till he had something of importance to mention." "And my mother—how is she? How are you all?" "My mother is tolerably well, I trust; though her spirits are greatly shaken. She is up stairs, and will have great satisfaction in seeing you all. She does not yet leave her dressing-room. Mary and Kitty, thank Heaven! are quite well." "But you—how are you?" cried Elizabeth. "You look pale. How much you must have gone through!" Her sister, however, assured her of her being perfectly well; and their conversation, which had been passing while Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner were engaged with their children, was now put an end to by the approach of the whole party. Jane ran to her uncle and aunt, and welcomed and thanked them both, with alternate smiles and tears. When they were all in the drawing-room, the questions which Elizabeth had already asked were of course repeated by the others, and they soon found that Jane had no intelligence to give. The sanguine hope of good, however, which the benevolence of her heart suggested, had not yet deserted her; she still expected that it would all end well, and that every morning would bring some letter, either from Lydia or her father, to explain their proceedings, and, perhaps, announce the marriage. Mrs. Bennet, to whose apartment they all repaired, after a few minutes' conversation together, received them exactly as might be expected; with tears and lamentations of regret, invectives against the villanous conduct of Wickham, and complaints of her own sufferings and ill usage; blaming every body but the person to whose ill-judging indulgence the errors of her daughter must be principally owing. "If I had been able," said she, "to carry my point in going to Brighton with all my family, this would not have happened; but poor dear Lydia had nobody to take care of her. Why did the Forsters ever let her go out of their sight? I am sure there was some great neglect or other on their side, for she is not the kind of girl to do such a thing, if she had been well looked after. I always thought they were very unfit to have the charge of her; but I was over-ruled, as I always am. Poor, dear child! And now here's Mr. Bennet gone away, and I know he will fight Wickham, wherever he meets him, and then he will be killed, and what is to become of us all? The Collinses will turn us out, before he is cold in his grave; and if you are not kind to us, brother, I do not know what we shall do." They all exclaimed against such terrific ideas; and Mr. Gardiner, after general assurances of his affection for her and all her family, told her that he meant to be in London the very next day, and would assist Mr. Bennet in every endeavour for recovering Lydia. "Do not give way to useless alarm," added he: "though it is right to be prepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look on it as certain. It is not quite a week since they left Brighton. In a few days more, we may gain some news of them; and till we know that they are not married, and have no design of marrying, do not let us give the matter over as lost. As soon as I get to town, I shall go to my brother, and make him come home with me to Gracechurch Street, and then we may consult together as to what is to be done." "Oh, my dear brother," replied Mrs. Bennet, "that is exactly what I could most wish for. And now do, when you get to town, find them out, wherever they may be; and if they are not married already, make them marry. And as for wedding clothes, do not let them wait for that, but tell Lydia she shall have as much money as she chooses to buy them, after they are married. And, above all things, keep Mr. Bennet from fighting. Tell him what a dreadful state I am in—that I am frightened out of my wits; and have such tremblings, such flutterings, all over me, such spasms in my side, and pains in my head, and such beatings at heart, that I can get no rest by night nor by day. And tell my dear Lydia not to give any directions about her clothes till she has seen me, for she does not know which are the best warehouses. Oh, brother, how kind you are! I know you will contrive it all." But Mr. Gardiner, though he assured her again of his earnest endeavours in the cause, could not avoid recommending moderation to her, as well in her hopes as her fears; and after talking with her in this manner till dinner was on table, they left her to vent all her feelings on the housekeeper, who attended in the absence of her daughters. Though her brother and sister were persuaded that there was no real occasion for such a seclusion from the family, they did not attempt to oppose it, for they knew that she had not prudence enough to hold her tongue before the servants, while they waited at table, and judged it better that one only of the household, and the one whom they could most trust, should comprehend all her fears and solicitude on the subject. In the dining-room they were soon joined by Mary and Kitty, who had been too busily engaged in their separate apartments to make their appearance before. One came from her books, and the other from her toilette. The faces of both, however, were tolerably calm; and no change was visible in either, except that the loss of her favourite sister, or the anger which she had herself incurred in the business, had given something more of fretfulness than usual to the accents of Kitty. As for Mary, she was mistress enough of herself to whisper to Elizabeth, with a countenance of grave reflection, soon after they were seated at table,— "This is a most unfortunate affair, and will probably be much talked of. But we must stem the tide of malice, and pour into the wounded bosoms of each other the balm of sisterly consolation." Then, perceiving in Elizabeth no inclination of replying, she added, "Unhappy as the event must be for Lydia, we may draw from it this useful lesson:—that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable, that one false step involves her in endless ruin, that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful, and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex." Elizabeth lifted up her eyes in amazement, but was too much oppressed to make any reply. Mary, however, continued to console herself with such kind of moral extractions from the evil before them. In the afternoon, the two elder Miss Bennets were able to be for half an hour by themselves; and Elizabeth instantly availed herself of the opportunity of making any enquiries which Jane was equally eager to satisfy. After joining in general lamentations over the dreadful sequel of this event, which Elizabeth considered as all but certain, and Miss Bennet could not assert to be wholly impossible, the former continued the subject, by saying, "But tell me all and every thing about it which I have not already heard. Give me further particulars. What did Colonel Forster say? Had they no apprehension of any thing before the elopement took place? They must have seen them together for ever." "Colonel Forster did own that he had often suspected some partiality, especially on Lydia's side, but nothing to give him any alarm. I am so grieved for him. His behaviour was attentive and kind to the utmost. He was coming to us, in order to assure us of his concern, before he had any idea of their not being gone to Scotland: when that apprehension first got abroad, it hastened his journey." "And was Denny convinced that Wickham would not marry? Did he know of their intending to go off? Had Colonel Forster seen Denny himself?" "Yes; but when questioned by him Denny denied knowing any thing of their plan, and would not give his real opinion about it. He did not repeat his persuasion of their not marrying, and from that I am inclined to hope he might have been misunderstood before." "And till Colonel Forster came himself, not one of you entertained a doubt, I suppose, of their being really married?" "How was it possible that such an idea should enter our brains? I felt a little uneasy—a little fearful of my sister's happiness with him in marriage, because I knew that his conduct had not been always quite right. My father and mother knew nothing of that, they only felt how imprudent a match it must be. Kitty then owned, with a very natural triumph on knowing more than the rest of us, that in Lydia's last letter she had prepared her for such a step. She had known, it seems, of their being in love with each other many weeks." "But not before they went to Brighton?" "No, I believe not." "And did Colonel Forster appear to think ill of Wickham himself? Does he know his real character?" "I must confess that he did not speak so well of Wickham as he formerly did. He believed him to be imprudent and extravagant; and since this sad affair has taken place, it is said that he left Meryton greatly in debt: but I hope this may be false." "Oh, Jane, had we been less secret, had we told what we knew of him, this could not have happened!" "Perhaps it would have been better," replied her sister. "But to expose the former faults of any person, without knowing what their present feelings were, seemed unjustifiable. We acted with the best intentions." "Could Colonel Forster repeat the particulars of Lydia's note to his wife?" "He brought it with him for us to see." Jane then took it from her pocket-book, and gave it to Elizabeth. These were the contents:—
You will laugh when you know where I am gone, and I cannot help laughing myself at your surprise to-morrow morning, as soon as I am missed. I am going to Gretna Green, and if you cannot guess with who, I shall think you a simpleton, for there is but one man in the world I love, and he is an angel. I should never be happy without him, so think it no harm to be off. You need not send them word at Longbourn of my going, if you do not like it, for it will make the surprise the greater when I write to them, and sign my name Lydia Wickham. What a good joke it will be! I can hardly write for laughing. Pray make my excuses to Pratt for not keeping my engagement, and dancing with him to-night. Tell him I hope he will excuse me when he knows all, and tell him I will dance with him at the next ball we meet with great pleasure. I shall send for my clothes when I get to Longbourn; but I wish you would tell Sally to mend a great slit in my worked muslin gown before they are packed up. Good-by. Give my love to Colonel Forster. I hope you will drink to our good journey.
"Oh, thoughtless, thoughtless Lydia!" cried Elizabeth when she had finished it. "What a letter is this, to be written at such a moment! But at least it shows that she was serious in the object of her journey. Whatever he might afterwards persuade her to, it was not on her side a scheme of infamy. My poor father! how he must have felt it!" "I never saw any one so shocked. He could not speak a word for full ten minutes. My mother was taken ill immediately, and the whole house in such confusion!" "Oh, Jane," cried Elizabeth, "was there a servant belonging to it who did not know the whole story before the end of the day?" "I do not know: I hope there was. But to be guarded at such a time is very difficult. My mother was in hysterics; and though I endeavoured to give her every assistance in my power, I am afraid I did not do so much as I might have done! but the horror of what might possibly happen almost took from me my faculties." "Your attendance upon her has been too much for you. You do not look well. Oh that I had been with you! you have had every care and anxiety upon yourself alone." "Mary and Kitty have been very kind, and would have shared in every fatigue, I am sure, but I did not think it right for either of them. Kitty is slight and delicate, and Mary studies so much that her hours of repose should not be broken in on. My aunt Philips came to Longbourn on Tuesday, after my father went away; and was so good as to stay till Thursday with me. She was of great use and comfort to us all, and Lady Lucas has been very kind: she walked here on Wednesday morning to condole with us, and offered her services, or any of her daughters, if they could be of use to us." "She had better have stayed at home," cried Elizabeth: "perhaps she meant well, but, under such a misfortune as this, one cannot see too little of one's neighbours. Assistance is impossible; condolence, insufferable. Let them triumph over us at a distance, and be satisfied." She then proceeded to enquire into the measures which her father had intended to pursue, while in town, for the recovery of his daughter. "He meant, I believe," replied Jane, "to go to Epsom, the place where they last changed horses, see the postilions, and try if any thing could be made out from them. His principal object must be to discover the number of the hackney coach which took them from Clapham. It had come with a fare from London; and as he thought the circumstance of a gentleman and lady's removing from one carriage into another might be remarked, he meant to make enquiries at Clapham. If he could any how discover at what house the coachman had before set down his fare, he determined to make enquiries there, and hoped it might not be impossible to find out the stand and number of the coach. I do not know of any other designs that he had formed; but he was in such a hurry to be gone, and his spirits so greatly discomposed, that I had difficulty in finding out even so much as this."
The whole party were in hopes of a letter from Mr. Bennet the next morning, but the post came in without bringing a single line from him. His family knew him to be, on all common occasions, a most negligent and dilatory correspondent; but at such a time they had hoped for exertion. They were forced to conclude, that he had no pleasing intelligence to send, but even of that they would have been glad to be certain. Mr. Gardiner had waited only for the letters before he set off. When he was gone, they were certain at least of receiving constant information of what was going on; and their uncle promised, at parting, to prevail on Mr. Bennet to return to Longbourn as soon as he could, to the great consolation of his sister, who considered it as the only security for her husband's not being killed in a duel. Mrs. Gardiner and the children were to remain in Hertfordshire a few days longer, as the former thought her presence might be serviceable to her nieces. She shared in their attendance on Mrs. Bennet, and was a great comfort to them in their hours of freedom. Their other aunt also visited them frequently, and always, as she said, with the design of cheering and heartening them up, though, as she never came without reporting some fresh instance of Wickham's extravagance or irregularity, she seldom went away without leaving them more dispirited than she found them. All Meryton seemed striving to blacken the man who, but three months before, had been almost an angel of light. He was declared to be in debt to every tradesman in the place, and his intrigues, all honoured with the title of seduction, had been extended into every tradesman's family. Every body declared that he was the wickedest young man in the world; and every body began to find out, that they had always distrusted the appearance of his goodness. Elizabeth, though she did not credit above half of what was said, believed enough to make her former assurance of her sister's ruin still more certain; and even Jane, who believed still less of it, became almost hopeless, more especially as the time was now come, when, if they had gone to Scotland, which she had never before entirely despaired of, they must in all probability have gained some news of them. Mr. Gardiner left Longbourn on Sunday; on Tuesday, his wife received a letter from him: it told them, that on his arrival he had immediately found out his brother, and persuaded him to come to Gracechurch Street. That Mr. Bennet had been to Epsom and Clapham, before his arrival, but without gaining any satisfactory information; and that he was now determined to enquire at all the principal hotels in town, as Mr. Bennet thought it possible they might have gone to one of them, on their first coming to London, before they procured lodgings. Mr. Gardiner himself did not expect any success from this measure; but as his brother was eager in it, he meant to assist him in pursuing it. He added, that Mr. Bennet seemed wholly disinclined at present to leave London, and promised to write again very soon. There was also a postscript to this effect:— "I have written to Colonel Forster to desire him to find out, if possible, from some of the young man's intimates in the regiment, whether Wickham has any relations or connections who would be likely to know in what part of the town he has now concealed himself. If there were any one that one could apply to, with a probability of gaining such a clue as that, it might be of essential consequence. At present we have nothing to guide us. Colonel Forster will, I dare say, do every thing in his power to satisfy us on this head. But, on second thoughts, perhaps Lizzy could tell us what relations he has now living better than any other person." Elizabeth was at no loss to understand from whence this deference for her authority proceeded; but it was not in her power to give any information of so satisfactory a nature as the compliment deserved. She had never heard of his having had any relations, except a father and mother, both of whom had been dead many years. It was possible, however, that some of his companions in the———shire might be able to give more information; and though she was not very sanguine in expecting it, the application was a something to look forward to. Every day at Longbourn was now a day of anxiety; but the most anxious part of each was when the post was expected. The arrival of letters was the first grand object of every morning's impatience. Through letters, whatever of good or bad was to be told would be communicated, and every succeeding day was expected to bring some news of importance. But before they heard again from Mr. Gardiner, a letter arrived for their father, from a different quarter, from Mr. Collins; which, as Jane had received directions to open all that came for him in his absence, she accordingly read; and Elizabeth, who knew what curiosities his letters always were, looked over her, and read it likewise. It was as follows:—
"I feel myself called upon, by our relationship, and my situation in life, to condole with you on the grievous affliction you are now suffering under, of which we were yesterday informed by a letter from Hertfordshire. Be assured, my dear sir, that Mrs. Collins and myself sincerely sympathise with you, and all your respectable family, in your present distress, which must be of the bitterest kind, because proceeding from a cause which no time can remove. No arguments shall be wanting on my part, that can alleviate so severe a misfortune; or that may comfort you, under a circumstance that must be, of all others, most afflicting to a parent's mind. The death of your daughter would have been a blessing13 in comparison of this. And it is the more to be lamented, because there is reason to suppose, as my dear Charlotte informs me, that this licentiousness of behaviour in your daughter has proceeded from a faulty degree of indulgence; though, at the same time, for the consolation of yourself and Mrs. Bennet, I am inclined to think that her own disposition must be naturally bad, or she could not be guilty of such an enormity, at so early an age. Howsoever that may be, you are grievously to be pitied, in which opinion I am not only joined by Mrs. Collins, but likewise by Lady Catherine and her daughter, to whom I have related the affair. They agree with me in apprehending that this false step in one daughter will be injurious to the fortunes of all the others; for who, as Lady Catherine herself condescendingly says, will connect themselves with such a family? And this consideration leads me, moreover, to reflect, with augmented satisfaction, on a certain event of last November; for had it been otherwise, I must have been involved in all your sorrow and disgrace. Let me advise you, then, my dear sir, to console yourself as much as possible, to throw off your unworthy child from your affection for ever, and leave her to reap the fruits of her own heinous offence.
Mr. Gardiner did not write again, till he had received an answer from Colonel Forster; and then he had nothing of a pleasant nature to send. It was not known that Wickham had a single relation with whom he kept up any connection, and it was certain that he had no near one living. His former acquaintance had been numerous; but since he had been in the militia, it did not appear that he was on terms of particular friendship with any of them. There was no one, therefore, who could be pointed out as likely to give any news of him. And in the wretched state of his own finances, there was a very powerful motive for secrecy, in addition to his fear of discovery by Lydia's relations; for it had just transpired that he had left gaming debts behind him to a very considerable amount. Colonel Forster believed that more than a thousand pounds would be necessary to clear his expenses at Brighton. He owed a good deal in the town, but his debts of honourbe were still more formidable. Mr. Gardiner did not attempt to conceal these particulars from the Longbourn family; Jane heard them with horror. "A gamester!" she cried. "This is wholly unexpected; I had not an idea of it." Mr. Gardiner added, in his letter, that they might expect to see their father at home on the following day, which was Saturday. Rendered spiritless by the ill success of all their endeavours, he had yielded to his brother-in-law's entreaty that he would return to his family, and leave it to him to do whatever occasion might suggest to be advisable for continuing their pursuit. When Mrs. Bennet was told of this, she did not express so much satisfaction as her children expected, considering what her anxiety for his life had been before. "What! is he coming home, and without poor Lydia?" she cried. "Sure he will not leave London before he has found them. Who is to fight Wickham, and make him marry her, if he comes away?" As Mrs. Gardiner began to wish to be at home, it was settled that she and her children should go to London at the same time that Mr. Bennet came from it. The coach, therefore, took them the first stage of their journey, and brought its master back to Longbourn. Mrs. Gardiner went away in all the perplexity about Elizabeth and her Derbyshire friend that had attended her from that part of the world. His name had never been voluntarily mentioned before them by her niece; and the kind of half-expectation which Mrs. Gardiner had formed, of their being followed by a letter from him, had ended in nothing. Elizabeth had received none since her return, that could come from Pemberley. The present unhappy state of the family rendered any other excuse for the lowness of her spirits unnecessary; nothing, therefore, could be fairly conjectured from that, though Elizabeth, who was by this time tolerably well acquainted with her own feelings, was perfectly aware that, had she known nothing of Darcy, she could have borne the dread of Lydia's infamy somewhat better. It would have spared her, she thought, one sleepless night out of two. When Mr. Bennet arrived, he had all the appearance of his usual philosophic composure. He said as little as he had ever been in the habit of saying; made no mention of the business that had taken him away, and it was some time before his daughters had courage to speak of it. It was not till the afternoon, when he joined them at tea, that Elizabeth ventured to introduce the subject; and then, on her briefly expressing her sorrow for what he must have endured, he replied, "Say nothing of that. Who should suffer but myself? It has been my own doing, and I ought to feel it." "You must not be too severe upon yourself," replied Elizabeth. "You may well warn me against such an evil. Human nature is so prone to fall into it! No, Lizzy, let me once in my life feel how much I have been to blame. I am not afraid of being overpowered by the impression. It will pass away soon enough." "Do you suppose them to be in London?" "Yes; where else can they be so well concealed?" "And Lydia used to want to go to London," added Kitty. "She is happy, then," said her father, drily; "and her residence there will probably be of some duration." Then, after a short silence, he continued, "Lizzy, I bear you no ill-will for being justified in your advice to me last May, which, considering the event, shows some greatness of mind." They were interrupted by Miss Bennet, who came to fetch her mother's tea. "This is a parade," cried he, "which does one good; it gives such an elegance to misfortune! Another day I will do the same; I will sit in my library, in my nightcap and powdering gown,bf and give as much trouble as I can,—or perhaps I may defer it till Kitty runs away." "I am not going to run away, papa," said Kitty, fretfully; "if I should ever go to Brighton, I would behave better than Lydia." "You go to Brighton! I would not trust you so near it as East Bourne, for fifty pounds! No, Kitty, I have at last learnt to be cautious, and you will feel the effects of it. No officer is ever to enter my house again, nor even to pass through the village. Balls will be absolutely prohibited, unless you stand up with one of your sisters. And you are never to stir out of doors, till you can prove that you have spent ten minutes of every day in a rational manner." Kitty, who took all these threats in a serious light, began to cry. "Well, well," said he, "do not make yourself unhappy. If you are a good girl for the next ten years, I will take you to a review at the end of them."
Two days after Mr. Bennet's return, as Jane and Elizabeth were walking together in the shrubbery behind the house, they saw the housekeeper coming towards them, and concluding that she came to call them to their mother, went forward to meet her; but instead of the expected summons, when they approached her, she said to Miss Bennet, "I beg your pardon, madam, for interrupting you, but I was in hopes you might have got some good news from town, so I took the liberty of coming to ask." "What do you mean, Hill? We have heard nothing from town." "Dear madam," cried Mrs. Hill, in great astonishment, "don't you know there is an express come for master from Mr. Gardiner? He has been here this half hour, and master has had a letter." Away ran the girls, too eager to get in to have time for speech. They ran through the vestibule into the breakfast-room; from thence to the library;—their father was in neither; and they were on the point of seeking him up stairs with their mother, when they were met by the butler, who said,— "If you are looking for my master, ma'am, he is walking towards the little copse." Upon this information, they instantly passed through the hall once more, and ran across the lawn after their father, who was deliberately pursuing his way towards a small wood on one side of the paddock. Jane, who was not so light, nor so much in the habit of running as Elizabeth, soon lagged behind, while her sister, panting for breath, came up with him, and eagerly cried out,— "Oh, papa, what news? what news? have you heard from my uncle?" "Yes, I have had a letter from him by express." "Well, and what news does it bring—good or bad?" "What is there of good to be expected?" said he, taking the letter from his pocket; "but perhaps you would like to read it." Elizabeth impatiently caught it from his hand. Jane now came up. "Read it aloud," said their father, "for I hardly know myself what it is about."
MONDAY, AUGUST 2.
At last I am able to send you some tidings of my niece, and such as, upon the whole, I hope will give you satisfaction. Soon after you left me on Saturday, I was fortunate enough to find out in what part of London they were. The particulars I reserve till we meet. It is enough to know they are discovered: I have seen them both——" "Then it is as I always hoped," cried Jane: "they are married!" Elizabeth read on: "I have seen them both. They are not married, nor can I find there was any intention of being so; but if you are willing to perform the engagements which I have ventured to make on your side, I hope it will not be long before they are. All that is required of you is, to assure to your daughter, by settlement, her equal share of the five thousand pounds, secured among your children after the decease of yourself and my sister; and, moreover, to enter into an engagement of allowing her, during your life, one hundred pounds per annum. These are conditions which, considering every thing, I had no hesitation in complying with, as far as I thought myself privileged, for you. I shall send this by express, that no time may be lost in bringing me your answer. You will easily comprehend, from these particulars, that Mr. Wickham's circumstances are not so hopeless as they are generally believed to be. The world has been deceived in that respect; and I am happy to say, there will be some little money, even when all his debts are discharged, to settle on my niece, in addition to her own fortune. If, as I conclude will be the case, you send me full powers to act in your name throughout the whole of this business, I will immediately give directions to Haggerston for preparing a proper settlement. There will not be the smallest occasion for your coming to town again; therefore stay quietly at Longbourn, and depend on my diligence and care. Send back your answer as soon as you can, and be careful to write explicitly. We have judged it best that my niece should be married from this house, of which I hope you will approve. She comes to us today. I shall write again as soon as any thing more is determined on. Yours, &c.
"Is it possible?" cried Elizabeth, when she had finished. "Can it be possible that he will marry her?" "Wickham is not so undeserving, then, as we have thought him," said her sister. "My dear father, I congratulate you." "And have you answered the letter?" said Elizabeth. "No; but it must be done soon." Most earnestly did she then entreat him to lose no more time before he wrote. "Oh, my dear father," she cried, "come back and write immediately. Consider how important every moment is in such a case." "Let me write for you," said Jane, "if you dislike the trouble yourself." "I dislike it very much," he replied; "but it must be done." And so saying, he turned back with them, and walked towards the house. "And may I ask?" said Elizabeth; "but the terms, I suppose, must be complied with." "Complied with! I am only ashamed of his asking so little." "And they must marry! Yet he is such a man." "Yes, yes, they must marry. There is nothing else to be done. But there are two things that I want very much to know: —one is, how much money your uncle has laid down to bring it about; and the other, how I am ever to pay him." "Money! my uncle!" cried Jane, "what do you mean, sir?" "I mean that no man in his senses would marry Lydia on so slight a temptation as one hundred a year during my life, and fifty after I am gone." "That is very true," said Elizabeth; "though it had not occurred to me before. His debts to be discharged, and something still to remain! Oh, it must be my uncle's doings! Generous, good man, I am afraid he has distressed himself. A small sum could not do all this." "No," said her father. "Wickham's a fool if he takes her with a farthing less than ten thousand pounds: I should be sorry to think so ill of him, in the very beginning of our relationship." "Ten thousand pounds! Heaven forbid! How is half such a sum to be repaid?" Mr. Bennet made no answer; and each of them, deep in thought, continued silent till they reached the house. Their father then went to the library to write, and the girls walked into the breakfast-room. "And they are really to be married!" cried Elizabeth, as soon as they were by themselves. "How strange this is! And for this we are to be thankful. That they should marry, small as is their chance of happiness, and wretched as is his character, we are forced to rejoice! Oh, Lydia!" "I comfort myself with thinking," replied Jane, "that he certainly would not marry Lydia, if he had not a real regard for her. Though our kind uncle has done something towards clearing him, I cannot believe that ten thousand pounds, or any thing like it, has been advanced. He has children of his own, and may have more. How could he spare half ten thousand pounds?" "If we are ever able to learn what Wickham's debts have been," said Elizabeth, "and how much is settled on his side on our sister, we shall exactly know what Mr. Gardiner has done for them, because Wickham has not sixpence of his own. The kindness of my uncle and aunt can never be requited. Their taking her home, and affording her their personal protection and countenance, is such a sacrifice to her advantage as years of gratitude cannot enough acknowledge. By this time she is actually with them! If such goodness does not make her miserable now, she will never deserve to be happy! What a meeting for her, when she first sees my aunt!" "We must endeavour to forget all that has passed on either side," said Jane: "I hope and trust they will yet be happy. His consenting to marry her is a proof, I will believe, that he is come to a right way of thinking. Their mutual affection will steady them; and I flatter myself they will settle so quietly, and live in so rational a manner, as may in time make their past imprudence forgotten." "Their conduct has been such," replied Elizabeth, "as neither you, nor I, nor any body, can ever forget. It is useless to talk of it." It now occurred to the girls that their mother was in all likelihood perfectly ignorant of what had happened. They went to the library, therefore, and asked their father whether he would not wish them to make it known to her. He was writing, and, without raising his head, coolly replied,— "Just as you please." "May we take my uncle's letter to read to her?" "Take whatever you like, and get away." Elizabeth took the letter from his writing-table, and they went up stairs together. Mary and Kitty were both with Mrs. Bennet: one communication would, therefore, do for all. After a slight preparation for good news, the letter was read aloud. Mrs. Bennet could hardly contain herself. As soon as Jane had read Mr. Gardiner's hope of Lydia's being soon married, her joy burst forth, and every following sentence added to its exuberance. She was now in an irritation as violent from delight as she had ever been fidgety from alarm and vexation. To know that her daughter would be married was enough. She was disturbed by no fear for her felicity, nor humbled by any remembrance of her misconduct. "My dear, dear Lydia!" she cried: "this is delightful indeed! She will be married! I shall see her again! She will be married at sixteen! My good, kind brother! I knew how it would be—I knew he would manage every thing. How I long to see her! and to see dear Wickham too! But the clothes, the wedding clothes! I will write to my sister Gardiner about them directly. Lizzy, my dear, run down to your father, and ask him how much he will give her. Stay, stay, I will go myself. Ring the bell, Kitty, for Hill. I will put on my things in a moment. My dear, dear Lydia! How merry we shall be together when we meet!" Her eldest daughter endeavoured to give some relief to the violence of these transports, by leading her thoughts to the obligations which Mr. Gardiner's behaviour laid them all under. "For we must attribute this happy conclusion," she added, "in a great measure to his kindness. We are persuaded that he has pledged himself to assist Mr. Wickham with money." "Well," cried her mother, "it is all very right; who should do it but her own uncle? If he had not had a family of his own, I and my children must have had all his money, you know; and it is the first time we have ever had any thing from him except a few presents. Well! I am so happy. In a short time, I shall have a daughter married. Mrs. Wickham! How well it sounds. And she was only sixteen last June. My dear Jane, I am in such a flutter, that I am sure I can't write; so I will dictate, and you write for me. We will settle with your father about the money afterwards; but the things should be ordered immediately." She was then proceeding to all the particulars of calico, muslin, and cambric, and would shortly have dictated some very plentiful orders, had not Jane, though with some difficulty, persuaded her to wait till her father was at leisure to be consulted. One day's delay, she observed, would be of small importance; and her mother was too happy to be quite so obstinate as usual. Other schemes, too, came into her head. "I will go to Meryton," said she, "as soon as I am dressed, and tell the good, good news to my sister Philips. And as I come back, I can call on Lady Lucas and Mrs. Long. Kitty, run down and order the carriage. An airing would do me a great deal of good, I am sure. Girls, can I do any thing for you in Meryton? Oh! here comes Hill. My dear Hill, have you heard the good news? Miss Lydia is going to be married; and you shall all have a bowl of punch to make merry at her wedding." Mrs. Hill began instantly to express her joy. Elizabeth received her congratulations amongst the rest, and then, sick of this folly, took refuge in her own room, that she might think with freedom. Poor Lydia's situation must, at best, be bad enough; but that it was no worse, she had need to be thankful. She felt it so; and though, in looking forward, neither rational happiness nor worldly prosperity could be justly expected for her sister, in looking back to what they had feared, only two hours ago, she felt all the advantages of what they had gained.
Mr. Bennet had very often wished, before this period of his life, that, instead of spending his whole income, he had laid by an annual sum, for the better provision of his children, and of his wife, if she survived him. He now wished it more than ever. Had he done his duty in that respect, Lydia need not have been indebted to her uncle for whatever of honour or credit could now be purchased for her. The satisfaction of prevailing on one of the most worthless young men in Great Britain to be her husband might then have rested in its proper place. He was seriously concerned that a cause of so little advantage to any one should be forwarded at the sole expense of his brother-in-law; and he was determined, if possible, to find out the extent of his assistance, and to discharge the obligation as soon as he could. When first Mr. Bennet had married, economy was held to be perfectly useless; for, of course, they were to have a son. This son was to join in cutting off the entail, as soon as he should be of age, and the widow and younger children would by that means be provided for. Five daughters successively entered the world,14 but yet the son was to come; and Mrs. Bennet, for many years after Lydia's birth, had been certain that he would. This event had at last been despaired of, but it was then too late to be saving. Mrs. Bennet had no turn for economy; and her husband's love of independence had alone prevented their exceeding their income. Five thousand pounds was settled by marriage articles on Mrs. Bennet and the children. But in what proportions it should be divided amongst the latter depended on the will of the parents. This was one point, with regard to Lydia at least, which was now to be settled, and Mr. Bennet could have no hesitation in acceding to the proposal before him. In terms of grateful acknowledgment for the kindness of his brother, though expressed most concisely, he then delivered on paper his perfect approbation of all that was done, and his willingness to fulfil the engagements that had been made for him. He had never before supposed that, could Wickham be prevailed on to marry his daughter, it would be done with so little inconvenience to himself as by the present arrangement. He would scarcely be ten pounds a year the loser, by the hundred that was to be paid them; for, what with her board and pocket allowance, and the continual presents in money which passed to her through her mother's hands, Lydia's expenses had been very little within that sum. That it would be done with such trifling exertion on his side, too, was another very welcome surprise; for his chief wish at present was to have as little trouble in the business as possible. When the first transports of rage which had produced his activity in seeking her were over, he naturally returned to all his former indolence. His letter was soon despatched; for though dilatory in undertaking business, he was quick in its execution. He begged to know further particulars of what he was indebted to his brother; but was too angry with Lydia to send any message to her. The good news quickly spread through the house; and with proportionate speed through the neighbourhood. It was borne in the latter with decent philosophy. To be sure it would have been more for the advantage of conversation, had Miss Lydia Bennet come upon the town;bg or, as the happiest alternative, been secluded from the world, in some distant farm-house. But there was much to be talked of, in marrying her; and the good-natured wishes for her well-doing, which had proceeded before from all the spiteful old ladies in Meryton, lost but little of their spirit in this change of circumstances, because with such a husband her misery was considered certain. It was a fortnight since Mrs. Bennet had been down stairs, but on this happy day she again took her seat at the head of her table, and in spirits oppressively high. No sentiment of shame gave a damp to her triumph. The marriage of a daughter, which had been the first object of her wishes, since Jane was sixteen, was now on the point of accomplishment, and her thoughts and her words ran wholly on those attendants of elegant nuptials, fine muslins, new carriages, and servants. She was busily searching through the neighbourhood for a proper situationbh for her daughter; and, without knowing or considering what their income might be, rejected many as deficient in size and importance. "Haye Park might do," said she, "if the Gouldings would quit it, or the great house at Stoke, if the drawing-room were larger; but Ashworth is too far off. I could not bear to have her ten miles from me; and as for Purvis Lodge, the attics are dreadful." Her husband allowed her to talk on without interruption, while the servants remained. But when they had withdrawn, he said to her, "Mrs. Bennet, before you take any, or all of these houses, for your son and daughter, let us come to a right understanding. Into one house in this neighbourhood they shall never have admittance. I will not encourage the imprudence of either, by receiving them at Longbourn." A long dispute followed this declaration; but Mr. Bennet was firm: it soon led to another; and Mrs. Bennet found, with amazement and horror, that her husband would not advance a guinea to buy clothes for his daughter. He protested that she should receive from him no mark of affection whatever on the occasion. Mrs. Bennet could hardly comprehend it. That his anger could be carried to such a point of inconceivable resentment as to refuse his daughter a privilege, without which her marriage would scarcely seem valid, exceeded all that she could believe possible. She was more alive to the disgrace, which her want of new clothes must reflect on her daughter's nuptials, than to any sense of shame at her eloping and living with Wickham a fortnight before they took place. Elizabeth was now most heartily sorry that she had, from the distress of the moment, been led to make Mr. Darcy acquainted with their fears for her sister; for since her marriage would so shortly give the proper termination to the elopement, they might hope to conceal its unfavourable beginning from all those who were not immediately on the spot. She had no fear of its spreading farther, through his means. There were few people on whose secrecy she would have more confidently depended; but at the same time there was no one whose knowledge of a sister's frailty would have mortified her so much. Not, however, from any fear of disadvantage from it individually to herself; for at any rate there seemed a gulf impassable between them. Had Lydia's marriage been concluded on the most honourable terms, it was not to be supposed that Mr. Darcy would connect himself with a family, where to every other objection would now be added an alliance and relationship of the nearest kind with the man whom he so justly scorned. From such a connection she could not wonder that he should shrink. The wish of procuring her regard, which she had assured herself of his feeling in Derbyshire, could not in rational expectation survive such a blow as this. She was humbled, she was grieved; she repented, though she hardly knew of what. She became jealous of his esteem, when she could no longer hope to be benefited by it. She wanted to hear of him, when there seemed the least chance of gaining intelligence. She was convinced that she could have been happy with him, when it was no longer likely they should meet. What a triumph for him, as she often thought, could he know that the proposals which she had proudly spurned only four months ago would now have been gladly and gratefully received! He was as generous, she doubted not, as the most generous of his sex. But while he was mortal, there must be a triumph. She began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes. It was an union that must have been to the advantage of both: by her ease and liveliness, his mind might have been softened, his manners improved; and from his judgment, information, and knowledge of the world, she must have received benefit of greater importance. But no such happy marriage could now teach the admiring multitude what connubial felicity really was. An union of a different tendency, and precluding the possibility of the other, was soon to be formed in their family. How Wickham and Lydia were to be supported in tolerable independence she could not imagine. But how little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue, she could easily conjecture. Mr. Gardiner soon wrote again to his brother. To Mr. Bennet's acknowledgments he briefly replied, with assurances of his eagerness to promote the welfare of any of his family; and concluded with entreaties that the subject might never be mentioned to him again. The principal purport of his letter was to inform them, that Mr. Wickham had resolved on quitting the militia. "It was greatly my wish that he should do so," he added, "as soon as his marriage was fixed on. And I think you will agree with me, in considering a removal from that corps as highly advisable, both on his account and my niece's. It is Mr. Wickham's intention to go into the Regulars;bi and, among his former friends, there are still some who are able and willing to assist him in the army. He has the promise of an ensigncy in General———'s regiment, now quartered in the north. It is an advantage to have it so far from this part of the kingdom. He promises fairly; and I hope among different people, where they may each have a character to preserve, they will both be more prudent. I have written to Colonel Forster, to inform him of our present arrangements, and to request that he will satisfy the various creditors of Mr. Wickham in and near Brighton with assurances of speedy payment, for which I have pledged myself. And will you give yourself the trouble of carryingsimilar assurances to his creditors in Meryton, of whom I shall subjoin a list, according to his information. He has given in all his debts; I hope at least he has not deceived us. Haggerston has our directions, and all will be completed in a week. They will then join his regiment, unless they are first invited to Longbourn; and I understand from Mrs. Gardiner that my niece is very desirous of seeing you all before she leaves the south. She is well, and begs to be dutifully remembered to you and her mother.—Yours, &c.
Mr. Bennet and his daughters saw all the advantages of Wickham's removal from the———shire, as clearly as Mr. Gardiner could do. But Mrs. Bennet was not so well pleased with it. Lydia's being settled in the north, just when she had expected most pleasure and pride in her company, for she had by no means given up her plan of their residing in Hertfordshire, was a severe disappointment; and, besides, it was such a pity that Lydia should be taken from a regiment where she was acquainted with every body, and had so many favourites. "She is so fond of Mrs. Forster," said she, "it will be quite shocking to send her away! And there are several of the young men, too, that she likes very much. The officers may not be so pleasant in General———'s regiment." His daughter's request, for such it might be considered, of being admitted into her family again, before she set off for the north, received at first an absolute negative. But Jane and Elizabeth, who agreed in wishing, for the sake of their sister's feelings and consequence, that she should be noticed on her marriage by her parents, urged him so earnestly, yet so rationally and so mildly, to receive her and her husband at Longbourn, as soon as they were married, that he was prevailed on to think as they thought, and act as they wished. And their mother had the satisfaction of knowing, that she should be able to show her married daughter in the neighbourhood, before she was banished to the north. When Mr. Bennet wrote again to his brother, therefore, he sent his permission for them to come; and it was settled, that, as soon as the ceremony was over, they should proceed to Longbourn. Elizabeth was surprised, however, that Wickham should consent to such a scheme; and, had she consulted only her own inclination, any meeting with him would have been the last object of her wishes.
Their sister's wedding day arrived; and Jane and Elizabeth felt for her probably more than she felt for herself. The carriage was sent to meet them at——, and they were to return in it by dinner-time. Their arrival was dreaded by the elder Miss Bennets; and Jane more especially, who gave Lydia the feelings which would have attended herself, had she been the culprit, and was wretched in the thought of what her sister must endure. They came. The family were assembled in the breakfast-room to receive them. Smiles decked the face of Mrs. Bennet, as the carriage drove up to the door; her husband looked impenetrably grave; her daughters, alarmed, anxious, uneasy. Lydia's voice was heard in the vestibule; the door was thrown open, and she ran into the room. Her mother stepped forwards, embraced her, and welcomed her with rapture; gave her hand with an affectionate smile to Wickham, who followed his lady, and wished them both joy, with an alacrity which showed no doubt of their happiness. Their reception from Mr. Bennet, to whom they then turned, was not quite so cordial. His countenance rather gained in austerity; and he scarcely opened his lips. The easy assurance of the young couple, indeed, was enough to provoke him. Elizabeth was disgusted, and even Miss Bennet was shocked. Lydia was Lydia still; untamed, unabashed, wild, noisy, and fearless. She turned from sister to sister, demanding their congratulations; and when at length they all sat down, looked eagerly round the room, took notice of some little alteration in it, and observed, with a laugh, that it was a great while since she had been there. Wickham was not at all more distressed than herself; but his manners were always so pleasing, that had his character and his marriage been exactly what they ought, his smiles and his easy address, while he claimed their relationship, would have delighted them all. Elizabeth had not before believed him quite equal to such assurance; but she sat down, resolving within herself to draw no limits in future to the impudence of an impudent man. She blushed, and Jane blushed; but the cheeks of the two who caused their confusion suffered no variation of colour. There was no want of discourse. The bride and her mother could neither of them talk fast enough; and Wickham, who happened to sit near Elizabeth, began enquiring after his acquaintance in that neighbourhood, with a good-humoured ease, which she felt very unable to equal in her replies. They seemed each of them to have the happiest memories in the world. Nothing of the past was recollected with pain; and Lydia led voluntarily to subjects which her sisters would not have alluded to for the world. "Only think of its being three months," she cried, "since I went away: it seems but a fortnight, I declare; and yet there have been things enough happened in the time. Good gracious! when I went away, I am sure I had no more idea of being married till I came back again! though I thought it would be very good fun if I was." Her father lifted up his eyes, Jane was distressed, Elizabeth looked expressively at Lydia; but she, who never heard nor saw any thing of which she chose to be insensible, gaily continued, "Oh, mamma, do the people hereabouts know I am married to-day? I was afraid they might not; and we overtook William Goulding in his curricle, so I was determined he should know it, and so I let down the side glass next to him, and took off my glove and let my hand just rest upon the window frame, so that he might see the ring, and then I bowed and smiled like any thing." Elizabeth could bear it no longer. She got up and ran out of the room; and returned no more, till she heard them passing through the hall to the dining parlour. She then joined them soon enough to see Lydia, with anxious parade, walk up to her mother's right hand, and hear her say to her eldest sister, "Ah, Jane, I take your place now, and you must go lower, because I am a married woman." It was not to be supposed that time would give Lydia that embarrassment from which she had been so wholly free at first. Her ease and good spirits increased. She longed to see Mrs. Philips, the Lucases, and all their other neighbours, and to hear herself called "Mrs. Wickham" by each of them; and in the mean time she went after dinner to show her ring and boast of being married to Mrs. Hill and the two housemaids. "Well, mamma," said she, when they were all returned to the breakfast-room, "and what do you think of my husband? Is not he a charming man? I am sure my sisters must all envy me. I only hope they may have half my good luck. They must all go to Brighton. That is the place to get husbands. What a pity it is, mamma, we did not all go." "Very true; and if I had my will we should. But, my dear Lydia, I don't at all like your going such a way off. Must it be so?" "Oh, Lord! yes; there is nothing in that. I shall like it of all things. You and papa, and my sisters, must come down and see us. We shall be at Newcastle all the winter, and I dare say there will be some balls, and I will take care to get good partners for them all." "I should like it beyond any thing!" said her mother. "And then when you go away, you may leave one or two of my sisters behind you; and I dare say I shall get husbands for them before the winter is over." "I thank you for my share of the favour," said Elizabeth; "but I do not particularly like your way of getting husbands." Their visitors were not to remain above ten days with them. Mr. Wickham had received his commission before he left London, and he was to join his regiment at the end of a fortnight. No one but Mrs. Bennet regretted that their stay would be so short; and she made the most of the time by visiting about with her daughter, and having very frequent parties at home. These parties were acceptable to all; to avoid a family circle was even more desirable to such as did think than such as did not. Wickham's affection for Lydia was just what Elizabeth had expected to find it; not equal to Lydia's for him. She had scarcely needed her present observation to be satisfied, from the reason of things, that their elopement had been brought on by the strength of her love rather than by his; and she would have wondered why, without violently caring for her, he chose to elope with her at all, had she not felt certain that his flight was rendered necessary by distress of circumstances; and if that were the case, he was not the young man to resist an opportunity of having a companion. Lydia was exceedingly fond of him. He was her dear Wickham on every occasion; no one was to be put in competition with him. He did every thing best in the world; and she was sure he would kill more birds on the first of September than any body else in the country. One morning, soon after their arrival, as she was sitting with her two elder sisters, she said to Elizabeth,— "Lizzy, I never gave you an account of my wedding, I believe. You were not by, when I told mamma, and the others, all about it. Are not you curious to hear how it was managed?" "No, really," replied Elizabeth; "I think there cannot be too little said on the subject." "La! You are so strange! But I must tell you how it went off. We were married, you know, at St. Clement's, because Wickham's lodgings were in that parish. And it was settled that we should all be there by eleven o'clock. My uncle and aunt and I were to go together; and the others were to meet us at the church. Well, Monday morning came, and I was in such a fuss! I was so afraid, you know, that something would happen to put it off, and then I should have gone quite distracted. And there was my aunt, all the time I was dressing, preaching and talking away just as if she was reading a sermon. However, I did not hear above one word in ten, for I was thinking, you may suppose, of my dear Wickham. I longed to know whether he would be married in his blue coat. "Well, and so we breakfasted at ten as usual: I thought it would never be over; for, by the by, you are to understand, that my uncle and aunt were horrid unpleasant all the time I was with them. If you'll believe me, I did not once put my foot out of doors, though I was there a fortnight. Not one party, or scheme, or any thing. To be sure, London was rather thin, but, however, the Little Theatrebj was open. Well, and so just as the carriage came to the door, my uncle was called away upon business to that horrid man Mr. Stone. And then, you know, when once they get together, there is no end of it. Well, I was so frightened I did not know what to do, for my uncle was to give me away; and if we were beyond the hour,bk we could not be married all day. But, luckily, he came back again in ten minutes' time, and then we all set out. However, I recollected afterwards, that if he had been prevented going, the wedding need not be put off, for Mr. Darcy might have done as well." "Mr. Darcy!" repeated Elizabeth, in utter amazement. "Oh yes! he was to come there with Wickham, you know. But gracious me! I quite forgot! I ought not to have said a word about it. I promised them so faithfully! What will Wickham say? It was to be such a secret!" "If it was to be a secret," said Jane, "say not another word on the subject. You may depend upon my seeking no further." "Oh, certainly," said Elizabeth, though burning with curiosity; "we will ask you no questions." "Thank you," said Lydia; "for if you did, I should certainly tell you all, and then Wickham would be so angry." On such encouragement to ask, Elizabeth was forced to put it out of her power, by running away. But to live in ignorance on such a point was impossible; or at least it was impossible not to try for information. Mr. Darcy had been at her sister's wedding. It was exactly a scene, and exactly among people, where he had apparently least to do, and least temptation to go. Conjectures as to the meaning of it, rapid and wild, hurried into her brain; but she was satisfied with none. Those that best pleased her, as placing his conduct in the noblest light, seemed most improbable. She could not bear such suspense; and hastily seizing a sheet of paper, wrote a short letter to her aunt, to request an explanation of what Lydia had dropped, if it were compatible with the secrecy which had been intended. "You may readily comprehend," she added, "what my curiosity must be to know how a person unconnected with any of us, and, comparatively speaking, a stranger to our family, should have been amongst you at such a time. Pray write instantly, and let me understand it—unless it is, for very cogent reasons, to remain in the secrecy which Lydia seems to think necessary; and then I must endeavour to be satisfied with ignorance." "Not that I shall though," she added to herself, and she finished the letter; "and, my dear aunt, if you do not tell me in an honourable manner, I shall certainly be reduced to tricks and stratagems to find it out." Jane's delicate sense of honour would not allow her to speak to Elizabeth privately of what Lydia had let fall; Elizabeth was glad of it:—till it appeared whether her enquiries would receive any satisfaction, she had rather be without a confidante.
Elizabeth had the satisfaction of receiving an answer to her letter as soon as she possibly could. She was no sooner in possession of it, than hurrying into the little copse, where she was least likely to be interrupted, she sat down on one of the benches, and prepared to be happy; for the length of the letter convinced her that it did not contain a denial.
I have just received your letter, and shall devote this whole morning to answering it, as I foresee that a little writing will not comprise what I have to tell you. I must confess myself surprised by your application; I did not expect it from you. Don't think me angry, however, for I only mean to let you know, that I had not imagined such enquiries to be necessary on your side. If you do not choose to understand me, forgive my impertinence. Your uncle is as much surprised as I am; and nothing but the belief of your being a party concerned would have allowed him to act as he has done. But if you are really innocent and ignorant, I must be more explicit. On the very day of my coming home from Longbourn, your uncle had a most unexpected visitor. Mr. Darcy called, and was shut up with him several hours. It was all over before I arrived; so my curiosity was not so dreadfully racked as yours seems to have been. He came to tell Mr. Gardiner that he had found out where your sister and Mr. Wickham were, and that he had seen and talked with them both—Wickham repeatedly, Lydia once. From what I can collect, he left Derbyshire only one day after ourselves, and came to town with the resolution of hunting for them. The motive professed was his conviction of its being owing to himself that Wickham's worthlessness had not been so well known, as to make it impossible for any young woman of character to love or confide in him. He generously imputed the whole to his mistaken pride, and confessed, that he had before thought it beneath him to lay his private actions open to the world. His character was to speak for itself. He called it, therefore, his duty to step forward, and endeavour to remedy an evil which had been brought on by himself. If he had another motive, I am sure it would never disgrace him. He had been some days in town before he was able to discover them; but he had something to direct his search, which was more than we had; and the consciousness of this was another reason for his resolving to follow us. There is a lady, it seems, a Mrs. Younge, who was some time ago governess to Miss Darcy, and was dismissed from her charge on some cause of disapprobation, though he did not say what. She then took a large house in Edward Street, and has since maintained herself by letting lodgings. This Mrs. Younge was, he knew, intimately acquainted with Wickham; and he went to her for intelligence of him, as soon as he got to town. But it was two or three days before he could get from her what he wanted. She would not betray her trust, I suppose, without bribery and corruption, for she really did know where her friend was to be found. Wickham, indeed, had gone to her on their first arrival in London, and had she been able to receive them into her house, they would have taken up their abode with her. At length, however, our kind friend procured the wished-for direction. They were in—Street. He saw Wickham, and afterwards insisted on seeing Lydia. His first object with her, he acknowledged, had been to persuade her to quit her present disgraceful situation, and return to her friends as soon as they could be prevailed on to receive her, offering his assistance as far as it would go. But he found Lydia absolutely resolved on remaining where she was. She cared for none of her friends; she wanted no help of his; she would not hear of leaving Wickham. She was sure they should be married some time or other, and it did not much signify when. Since such were her feelings, it only remained, he thought, to secure and expedite a marriage, which, in his very first conversation with Wickham, he easily learnt had never been his design. He confessed himself obliged to leave the regiment on account of some debts of honour which were very pressing; and scrupled not to lay all the ill consequences of Lydia's flight on her own folly alone. He meant to resign his commission immediately; and as to his future situation, he could conjecture very little about it. He must go somewhere, but he did not know where, and he knew he should have nothing to live on. Mr. Darcy asked why he did not marry your sister at once? Though Mr. Bennet was not imagined to be very rich, he would have been able to do something for him, and his situation must have been benefited by marriage. But he found, in reply to this question, that Wickham still cherished the hope of more effectually making his fortune by marriage, in some other country. Under such circumstances, however, he was not likely to be proof against the temptation of immediate relief. They met several times, for there was much to be discussed. Wickham, of course, wanted more than he could get; but at length was reduced to be reasonable. Every thing being settled between them, Mr. Darcy's next step was to make your uncle acquainted with it, and he first called in Gracechurch Street the evening before I came home. But Mr. Gardiner could not be seen; and Mr. Darcy found, on further enquiry, that your father was still with him, but would quit town the next morning. He did not judge your father to be a person whom he could so properly consult as your uncle, and therefore readily postponed seeing him till after the departure of the former. He did not leave his name, and till the next day it was only known that a gentleman had called on business. On Saturday he came again. Your father was gone, your uncle at home, and, as I said before, they had a great deal of talk together. They met again on Sunday, and then I saw him too. It was not all settled before Monday: as soon as it was, the express was sent off to Longbourn. But our visitor was very obstinate. I fancy, Lizzy, that obstinacy is the real defect of his character after all. He has been accused of many faults at different times; but this is the true one. Nothing was to be done that he did not do himself; though I am sure (and I do not speak it to be thanked, therefore say nothing about it) your uncle would most readily have settled the whole. They battled it together for a long time, which was more than either the gentleman or lady concerned in it deserved. But at last your uncle was forced to yield, and instead of being allowed to be of use to his niece, was forced to put up with only having the probable credit of it, which went sorely against the grain; and I really believe your letter this morning gave him great pleasure, because it required an explanation that would rob him of his borrowed feathers, and give the praise where it was due. But, Lizzy, this must go no further than yourself, or Jane at most. You know pretty well, I suppose, what has been done for the young people. His debts are to be paid, amounting, I believe, to considerably more than a thousand pounds, another thousand in addition to her own settled upon her, and his commission purchased. The reason why all this was to be done by him alone, was such as I have given above. It was owing to him, to his reserve and want of proper consideration, that Wickham's character had been so misunderstood, and consequently that he had been received and noticed as he was. Perhaps there was some truth in this; though I doubt whether his reserve, or any body's reserve, can be answerable for the event. But in spite of all this fine talking, my dear Lizzy, you may rest perfectly assured that your uncle would never have yielded, if we had not given him credit for another interest in the affair. When all this was resolved on, he returned again to his friends, who were still staying at Pemberley; but it was agreed that he should be in London once more when the wedding took place, and all money matters were then to receive the last finish. I believe I have now told you every thing. It is a relation which you tell me is to give you great surprise; I hope at least it will not afford you any displeasure. Lydia came to us, and Wickham had constant admission to the house. He was exactly what he had been when I knew him in Hertfordshire; but I would not tell you how little I was satisfied with her behaviour while she staid with us, if I had not perceived, by Jane's letter last Wednesday, that her conduct on coming home was exactly of a piece with it, and therefore what I now tell you can give you no fresh pain. I talked to her repeatedly in the most serious manner, representing to her the wickedness of what she had done, and all the unhappiness she had brought on her family. If she heard me, it was by good luck, for I am sure she did not listen. I was sometimes quite provoked; but then I recollected my dear Elizabeth and Jane, and for their sakes had patience with her. Mr. Darcy was punctual in his return, and, as Lydia informed you, attended the wedding. He dined with us the next day, and was to leave town again on Wednesday or Thursday. Will you be very angry with me, my dear Lizzy, if I take this opportunity of saying (what I was never bold enough to say before) how much I like him? His behaviour to us has, in every respect, been as pleasing as when we were in Derbyshire. His understanding and opinions all please me; he wants nothing but a little more liveliness, and that, if he marry prudently, his wife may teach him. I thought him very sly; he hardly ever mentioned your name. But slyness seems the fashion. Pray forgive me, if I have been very presuming, or at least do not punish me so far as to exclude me from P. I shall never be quite happy till I have been all round the park. A low phaeton with a nice little pair of ponies would be the very thing. But I must write no more. The children have been wanting me this half hour.
The contents of this letter threw Elizabeth into a flutter of spirits, in which it was difficult to determine whether pleasure or pain bore the greatest share. The vague and unsettled suspicions which uncertainty had produced of what Mr. Darcy might have been doing to forward her sister's match which she had feared to encourage, as an exertion of goodness too great to be probable, and at the same time dreaded to be just, from the pain of obligation, were proved beyond their greatest extent to be true! He had followed them purposely to town, he had taken on himself all the trouble and mortification attendant on such a research; in which supplication had been necessary to a woman whom he must abominate and despise, and where he was reduced to meet, frequently meet, reason with, persuade, and finally bribe the man whom he always most wished to avoid, and whose very name it was punishment to him to pronounce. He had done all this for a girl whom he could neither regard nor esteem. Her heart did whisper that he had done it for her. But it was a hope shortly checked by other considerations; and she soon felt that even her vanity was insufficient, when required to depend on his affection for her, for a woman who had already refused him, as able to overcome a sentiment so natural as abhorrence against relationship with Wickham. Brother-in-law of Wickham! Every kind of pride must revolt from the connection. He had, to be sure, done much. She was ashamed to think how much. But he had given a reason for his interference, which asked no extraordinary stretch of belief. It was reasonable that he should feel he had been wrong; he had liberality, and he had the means of exercising it; and though she would not place herself as his principal inducement, she could perhaps believe, that remaining partiality for her might assist his endeavours in a cause where her peace of mind must be materially concerned. It was painful, exceedingly painful, to know that they were under obligations to a person who could never receive a return. They owed the restoration of Lydia, her character, every thing to him. Oh how heartily did she grieve over every ungracious sensation she had ever encouraged, every saucy speech she had ever directed towards him. For herself she was humbled; but she was proud of him,—proud that in a cause of compassion and honour he had been able to get the better of himself. She read over her aunt's commendation of him again and again. It was hardly enough; but it pleased her. She was even sensible of some pleasure, though mixed with regret, on finding how steadfastly both she and her uncle had been persuaded that affection and confidence subsisted between Mr. Darcy and herself. She was roused from her seat and her reflections, by some one's approach; and, before she could strike into another path, she was overtaken by Wickham. "I am afraid I interrupt your solitary ramble, my dear sister?" said he, as he joined her. "You certainly do," she replied with a smile; "but it does not follow that the interruption must be unwelcome." "I should be sorry, indeed, if it were. We were always good friends, and now we are better." "True. Are the others coming out?" "I do not know. Mrs. Bennet and Lydia are going in the carriage to Meryton. And so, my dear sister, I find, from our uncle and aunt, that you have actually seen Pemberley." She replied in the affirmative. "I almost envy you the pleasure, and yet I believe it would be too much for me, or else I could take it in my way to Newcastle. And you saw the old housekeeper, I suppose? Poor Reynolds, she was always very fond of me. But of course she did not mention my name to you." "Yes, she did." "And what did she say?" "That you were gone into the army, and she was afraid had—not turned out well. At such a distance as that, you know, things are strangely misrepresented." "Certainly," he replied, biting his lips. Elizabeth hoped she had silenced him; but he soon afterwards said,— "I was surprised to see Darcy in town last month. We passed each other several times. I wonder what he can be doing there." "Perhaps preparing for his marriage with Miss De Bourgh," said Elizabeth. "It must be something particular to take him there at this time of year." "Undoubtedly. Did you see him while you were at Lambton? I thought I understood from the Gardiners that you had." "Yes; he introduced us to his sister." "And do you like her?" "Very much." "I have heard, indeed, that she is uncommonly improved within this year or two. When I last saw her, she was not very promising. I am very glad you liked her. I hope she will turn out well." "I dare say she will; she has got over the most trying age." "Did you go by the village of Kympton?" "I do not recollect that we did." "I mention it because it is the living which I ought to have had. A most delightful place! Excellent parsonage house! It would have suited me in every respect." "How should you have liked making sermons?" "Exceedingly well. I should have considered it as part of my duty, and the exertion would soon have been nothing. One ought not to repine; but, to be sure, it would have been such a thing for me! The quiet, the retirement of such a life, would have answered all my ideas of happiness! But it was not to be. Did you ever hear Darcy mention the circumstance when you were in Kent?" "I have heard from authority, which I thought as good, that it was left you conditionally only, and at the will of the present patron." "You have! Yes, there was something in that; I told you so from the first, you may remember." "I did hear, too, that there was a time when sermon-making was not so palatable to you as it seems to be at present; that you actually declared your resolution of never taking orders, and that the business had been compromised accordingly." "You did! and it was not wholly without foundation. You may remember what I told you on that point, when first we talked of it." They were now almost at the door of the house, for she had walked fast to get rid of him; and unwilling, for her sister's sake, to provoke him, she only said in reply, with a goodhumoured smile,— "Come, Mr. Wickham, we are brother and sister, you know. Do not let us quarrel about the past. In future, I hope we shall be always of one mind." She held out her hand: he kissed it with affectionate gallantry, though he hardly knew how to look, and they entered the house. Chapter 11 Mr. Wickham was so perfectly satisfied with this conversation, that he never again distressed himself, or provoked his dear sister Elizabeth, by introducing the subject of it; and she was pleased to find that she had said enough to keep him quiet. The day of his and Lydia's departure soon came, and Mrs. Bennet was forced to submit to a separation, which, as her husband by no means entered into her scheme of their all going to Newcastle, was likely to continue at least a twelvemonth. "Oh, my dear Lydia," she cried, "when shall we meet again?" "Oh, Lord! I don't know. Not these two or three years, perhaps." "Write to me very often, my dear." "As often as I can. But you know married women have never much time for writing. My sisters may write to me. They will have nothing else to do." Mr. Wickham's adieus were much more affectionate than his wife's. He smiled, looked handsome, and said many pretty things. "He is as fine a fellow," said Mr. Bennet, as soon as they were out of the house, "as ever I saw. He simpers, and smirks, and makes love to us all. I am prodigiously proud of him. I defy even Sir William Lucas himself to produce a more valuable son-in-law." The loss of her daughter made Mrs. Bennet very dull for several days. "I often think," said she, "that there is nothing so bad as parting with one's friends. One seems so forlorn without them." "This is the consequence you see, madam, of marrying a daughter," said Elizabeth. "It must make you better satisfied that your other four are single." "It is no such thing. Lydia does not leave me because she is married; but only because her husband's regiment happens to be so far off. If that had been nearer, she would not have gone so soon." But the spiritless condition which this event threw her into was shortly relieved, and her mind opened again to the agitation of hope, by an article of news, which then began to be in circulation. The housekeeper at Netherfield had received orders to prepare for the arrival of her master, who was coming down in a day or two, to shoot there for several weeks. Mrs. Bennet was quite in the fidgets. She looked at Jane, and smiled, and shook her head, by turns. "Well, well, and so Mr. Bingley is coming down, sister" (for Mrs. Philips first brought her the news). "Well, so much the better. Not that I care about it, though. He is nothing to us, you know, and I am sure I never want to see him again. But, however, he is very welcome to come to Netherfield, if he likes it. And who knows what may happen? But that is nothing to us. You know, sister, we agreed long ago never to mention a word about it. And so, it is quite certain he is coming?" "You may depend on it," replied the other, "for Mrs. Nichols was in Meryton last night: I saw her passing by, and went out myself on purpose to know the truth of it; and she told me that it was certainly true. He comes down on Thursday, at the latest, very likely on Wednesday. She was going to the butcher's, she told me, on purpose to order in some meat on Wednesday, and she has got three couple of ducks just fit to be killed." Miss Bennet had not been able to hear of his coming without changing colour. It was many months since she had mentioned his name to Elizabeth; but now, as soon as they were alone together, she said,— "I saw you look at me to-day, Lizzy, when my aunt told us of the present report; and I know I appeared distressed; but don't imagine it was from any silly cause. I was only confused for the moment, because I felt that I should be looked at. I do assure you, that the news does not affect me either with pleasure or pain. I am glad of one thing, that he comes alone; because we shall see the less of him. Not that I am afraid of myself, but I dread other people's remarks." Elizabeth did not know what to make of it. Had she not seen him in Derbyshire, she might have supposed him capable of coming there with no other view than what was acknowledged; but she still thought him partial to Jane, and she wavered as to the greater probability of his coming there with his friend's permission, or being bold enough to come without it. "Yet it is hard," she sometimes thought, "that this poor man cannot come to a house, which he has legally hired, without raising all this speculation! I will leave him to himself." In spite of what her sister declared, and really believed to be her feelings, in the expectation of his arrival, Elizabeth could easily perceive that her spirits were affected by it. They were more disturbed, more unequal, than she had often seen them. The subject which had been so warmly canvassed between their parents, about a twelvemonth ago, was now brought forward again. "As soon as ever Mr. Bingley comes, my dear," said Mrs. Bennet, "you will wait on him of course." "No, no. You forced me into visiting him last year, and promised if I went to see him, he should marry one of my daughters. But it ended in nothing, and I will not be sent on a fool's errand again." His wife represented to him how absolutely necessary such an attention would be from all the neighbouring gentlemen, on his returning to Netherfield. " 'T is an etiquette I despise," said he. "If he wants our society, let him seek it. He knows where we live. I will not spend my hours in running after my neighbours every time they go away and come back again." "Well, all I know is, that it will be abominably rude if you do not wait on him. But, however, that shan't prevent my asking him to dine here, I am determined. We must have Mrs. Long and the Gouldings soon. That will make thirteen with ourselves, so there will be just room at table for him." Consoled by this resolution, she was the better able to bear her husband's incivility; though it was very mortifying to know that her neighbours might all see Mr. Bingley in consequence of it before they did. As the day of his arrival drew near,— "I begin to be sorry that he comes at all," said Jane to her sister. "It would be nothing; I could see him with perfect indifference; but I can hardly bear to hear it thus perpetually talked of. My mother means well; but she does not know, no one can know, how much I suffer from what she says. Happy shall I be when his stay at Netherfield is over!" "I wish I could say any thing to comfort you," replied Elizabeth; "but it is wholly out of my power. You must feel it; and the usual satisfaction of preaching patience to a sufferer is denied me, because you have always so much." Mr. Bingley arrived. Mrs. Bennet, through the assistance of servants, contrived to have the earliest tidings of it, that the period of anxiety and fretfulness on her side might be as long as it could. She counted the days that must intervene before their invitation could be sent; hopeless of seeing him before. But on the third morning after his arrival in Hertfordshire, she saw him from her dressing-room window enter the paddock, and ride towards the house. Her daughters were eagerly called to partake of her joy. Jane resolutely kept her place at the table; but Elizabeth, to satisfy her mother, went to the window—she looked,—she saw Mr. Darcy with him, and sat down again by her sister. "There is a gentleman with him, mamma," said Kitty; "who can it be?" "Some acquaintance or other, my dear, I suppose; I am sure I do not know." "La!" replied Kitty, "it looks just like that man that used to be with him before. Mr. what's his name—that tall, proud man." "Good gracious! Mr. Darcy!—and so it does, I vow. Well, any friend of Mr. Bingley's will always be welcome here to be sure; but else I must say that I hate the very sight of him." Jane looked at Elizabeth with surprise and concern. She knew but little of their meeting in Derbyshire, and therefore felt for the awkwardness which must attend her sister, in seeing him almost for the first time after receiving his explanatory letter. Both sisters were uncomfortable enough. Each felt for the other, and of course for themselves; and their mother talked on of her dislike of Mr. Darcy, and her resolution to be civil to him only as Mr. Bingley's friend, without being heard by either of them. But Elizabeth had sources of uneasiness which could not be suspected by Jane, to whom she had never yet had courage to show Mrs. Gardiner's letter, or to relate her own change of sentiment towards him. To Jane, he could be only a man whose proposals she had refused, and whose merits she had undervalued; but to her own more extensive information, he was the person to whom the whole family were indebted for the first of benefits, and whom she regarded herself with an interest, if not quite so tender, at least as reasonable and just, as what Jane felt for Bingley. Her astonishment at his coming—at his coming to Netherfield, to Longbourn, and voluntarily seeking her again, was almost equal to what she had know on first witnessing his altered behaviour in Derbyshire. The colour which had been driven from her face returned for half a minute with an additional glow, and a smile of delight added lustre to her eyes, as she thought for that space of time that his affection and wishes must still be unshaken; but she would not be secure. "Let me first see how he behaves," said she; "it will then be early enough for expectation." She sat intently at work, striving to be composed, and without daring to lift up her eyes, till anxious curiosity carried them to the face of her sister, as the servant was approaching the door. Jane looked a little paler than usual, but more sedate than Elizabeth had expected. On the gentlemen's appearing, her colour increased; yet she received them with tolerable ease, and with a propriety of behaviour equally free from any symptom of resentment, or any unnecessary complaisance. Elizabeth said as little to either as civility would allow, and sat down again to her work, with an eagerness which it did not often command. She had ventured only one glance at Darcy. He looked serious as usual; and she thought, more as he had been used to lock in Hertfordshire, than as she had seen him at Pemberley. But, perhaps, he could not in her mother's presence be what he was before her uncle and aunt. It was a painful, but not an improbable, conjecture. Bingley she had likewise seen for an instant, and in that short period saw him looking both pleased and embarrassed. He was received by Mrs. Bennet with a degree of civility which made her two daughters ashamed, especially when contrasted with the cold and ceremonious politeness of her courtesy and address of his friend. Elizabeth particularly, who knew that her mother owed to the latter the preservation of her favourite daughter from irremediable infamy, was hurt and distressed to a most painful degree by a distinction so ill applied. Darcy, after enquiring of her how Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner did, a question which she could not answer without confusion, said scarcely any thing. He was not seated by her: perhaps that was the reason of his silence; but it had not been so in Derbyshire. There he had talked to her friends, when he could not to herself. But now several minutes elapsed, without bringing the sound of his voice; and when occasionally, unable to resist the impulse of curiosity, she raised her eyes to his face, she as often found him looking at Jane as at herself, and frequently on no object but the ground. More thoughtfulness and less anxiety to please, than when they last met, were plainly expressed. She was disappointed, and angry with herself for being so. "Could I expect it to be otherwise?" said she. "Yet why did he come?" She was in no humour for conversation with any one but himself; and to him she had hardly courage to speak. She enquired after his sister, but could do no more. "It is a long time, Mr. Bingley, since you went away," said Mrs. Bennet. He readily agreed to it. "I began to be afraid you would never come back again. People did say, you meant to quit the place entirely at Michaelmas; but, however, I hope it is not true. A great many changes have happened in the neighbourhood since you went away. Miss Lucas is married and settled: and one of my own daughters. I suppose you have heard of it; indeed, you must have seen it in the papers. It was in the Times and the Courier, I know; though it was not put in as it ought to be. It was only said, 'Lately, George Wickham, Esq. to Miss Lydia Bennet,' without there being a syllable said of her father, or the place where she lived, or any thing. It was my brother Gardiner's drawing up, too, and I wonder how he came to make such an awkward business of it. Did you see it?" Bingley replied that he did, and made his congratulations. Elizabeth dared not lift up her eyes. How Mr. Darcy looked, therefore, she could not tell. "It is a delightful thing, to be sure, to have a daughter well married," continued her mother; "but at the same time, Mr. Bingley, it is very hard to have her taken away from me. They are gone down to Newcastle, a place quite northward, it seems, and there they are to stay, I do not know how long. His regiment is there; for I suppose you have heard of his leaving the—shire, and of his being gone into the Regulars. Thank heaven! he has some friends, though, perhaps, not so many as he deserves." Elizabeth, who knew this to be levelled at Mr. Darcy, was in such misery of shame, that she could hardly keep her seat. It drew from her, however, the exertion of speaking, which nothing else had so effectually done before; and she asked Bingley, whether he meant to make any stay in the country at present. A few weeks, he believed. "When you have killed all your own birds, Mr. Bingley," said her mother, "I beg you will come here and shoot as many as you please on Mr. Bennet's manor. I am sure he will be vastly happy to oblige you, and will save all the best of the covies for you." Elizabeth's misery increased at such unnecessary, such officious attention! Were the same fair prospect to arise at present, as had flattered them a year ago, every thing, she was persuaded, would be hastening to the same vexatious conclusion. At that instant she felt, that years of happiness could not make Jane or herself amends for moments of such painful confusion. "The first wish of my heart," said she to herself, "is never more to be in company with either of them. Their society can afford no pleasure that will atone for such wretchedness as this! Let me never see either one or the other again!" Yet the misery, for which years of happiness were to offer no compensation, received soon afterwards material relief, from observing how much the beauty of her sister rekindled the admiration of her former lover. When first he came in, he had spoken to her but little; but every five minutes seemed to be giving her more of his attention. He found her as handsome as she had been last year; as good-natured, and as unaffected, though not quite so chatty. Jane was anxious that no difference should be perceived in her at all, and was really persuaded that she talked as much as ever; but her mind was so busily engaged, that she did not always know when she was silent. When the gentlemen rose to go away, Mrs. Bennet was mindful of her intended civility, and they were invited and engaged to dine at Longbourn in a few days' time. "You are quite a visit in my debt, Mr. Bingley," she added; "for when you went to town last winter, you promised to take a family dinner with us as soon as you returned. I have not forgot, you see; and I assure you I was very much disappointed that you did not come back and keep your engagement." Bingley looked a little silly at this reflection, and said something of his concern at having been prevented by business. They then went away. Mrs. Bennet had been strongly inclined to ask them to stay and dine there that day; but, though she always kept a very good table, she did not think any thing less than two courses could be good enough for a man on whom she had such anxious designs, or satisfy the appetite and pride of one who had ten thousand a year. Chapter 12 As soon as they were gone, Elizabeth walked out to recover her spirits; or, in other words, to dwell without interruption on those subjects that must deaden them more. Mr. Darcy's behaviour astonished and vexed her. "Why, if he came only to be silent, grave, and indifferent," said she, "did he come at all?" She could settle it in no way that gave her pleasure. "He could be still amiable, still pleasing to my uncle and aunt, when he was in town; and why not to me? If he fears me, why come hither? If he no longer cares for me, why silent? Teasing, teasing man! I will think no more about him." Her resolution was for a short time involuntarily kept by the approach of her sister, who joined her with a cheerful look which showed her better satisfied with their visitors than Elizabeth. "Now," said she, "that this first meeting is over, I feel perfectly easy. I know my own strength, and I shall never be embarrassed again by his coming. I am glad he dines here on Tuesday. It will then be publicly seen, that on both sides we met only as common and indifferent acquaintance." "Yes, very indifferent, indeed," said Elizabeth, laughingly. "Oh, Jane! take care." "My dear Lizzy, you cannot think me so weak as to be in danger now." "I think you are in very great danger of making him as much in love with you as ever." They did not see the gentlemen again till Tuesday; and Mrs. Bennet, in the mean while, was giving way to all the happy schemes which the good-humour and common politeness of Bingley, in half an hour's visit, had revived. On Tuesday there was a large party assembled at Longbourn; and the two who were most anxiously expected, to the credit of their punctuality as sportsmen, were in very good time. When they repaired to the dining-room, Elizabeth eagerly watched to see whether Bingley would take the place which, in all their former parties, had belonged to him, by her sister. Her prudent mother, occupied by the same ideas, forbore to invite him to sit by herself. On entering the room, he seemed to hesitate; but Jane happened to look round, and happened to smile: it was decided. He placed himself by her. Elizabeth, with a triumphant sensation, looked towards his friend. He bore it with noble indifference; and she would have imagined that Bingley had received his sanction to be happy, had she not seen his eyes likewise turned towards Mr. Darcy, with an expression of half-laughing alarm. His behaviour to her sister was such during dinner-time as showed an admiration of her, which, though more guarded than formerly, persuaded Elizabeth, that, if left wholly to himself, Jane's happiness, and his own, would be speedily secured. Though she dared not depend upon the consequence, she yet received pleasure from observing his behaviour. It gave her all the animation that her spirits could boast; for she was in no cheerful humour. Mr. Darcy was almost as far from her as the table could divide them. He was on one side of her mother. She knew how little such a situation would give pleasure to either, or make either appear to advantage. She was not near enough to hear any of their discourse; but she could see how seldom they spoke to each other, and how formal and cold was their manner whenever they did. Her mother's ungraciousness made the sense of what they owed him more painful to Elizabeth's mind; and she would, at times, have given any thing to be privileged to tell him, that his kindness was neither unknown nor unfelt by the whole of the family. She was in hopes that the evening would afford some opportunity of bringing them together; that the whole of the visit would not pass away without enabling them to enter into something more of conversation, than the mere ceremonious salutation attending his entrance. Anxious and uneasy, the period which passed in the drawing-room, before the gentlemen came, was wearisome and dull to a degree that almost made her uncivil. She looked forward to their entrance as the point on which all her chance of pleasure for the evening must depend. "If he does not come to me, then," said she, "I shall give him up for ever." The gentlemen came; and she thought he looked as if he would have answered her hopes; but, alas! the ladies had crowded round the table, where Miss Bennet was making tea, and Elizabeth pouring out the coffee, in so close a confederacy, that there was not a single vacancy near her which would admit of a chair. And on the gentlemen's approaching, one of the girls moved closer to her than ever, and said, in a whisper,— "The men shan't come and part us, I am determined. We want none of them; do we?" Darcy had walked away to another part of the room. She followed him with her eyes, envied every one to whom he spoke, had scarcely patience enough to help any body to coffee, and then was enraged against herself for being so silly! "A man who has once been refused! How could I ever be foolish enough to expect a renewal of his love? Is there one among the sex who would not protest against such a weakness as a second proposal to the same woman? There is no indignity so abhorrent to their feelings!" She was a little revived, however, by his bringing back his coffee cup himself; and she seized the opportunity of saying,— "Is your sister at Pemberley still?" "Yes; she will remain there till Christmas." "And quite alone? Have all her friends left her?" "Mrs. Annesley is with her. The others have been gone on to Scarboroughbm these three weeks." She could think of nothing more to say; but if he wished to converse with her, he might have better success. He stood by her, however, for some minutes, in silence; and, at last, on the young lady's whispering to Elizabeth again, he walked away. When the tea things were removed, and the card tables placed, the ladies all rose, and Elizabeth was then hoping to be soon joined by him, when all her views were overthrown, by seeing him fall a victim to her mother's rapacity for whist players, and in a few moments after seated with the rest of the party. She now lost every expectation of pleasure. They were confined for the evening at different tables, and she had nothing to hope, but that his eyes were so often turned towards her side of the room, as to make him play as unsuccessfully as herself. Mrs. Bennet had designed to keep the two Netherfield gentlemen to supper; but their carriage was, unluckily, ordered before any of the others, and she had no opportunity of detaining them. "Well, girls," said she, as soon as they were left to themselves, "what say you to the day? I think every thing has passed off uncommonly well, I assure you. The dinner was as well dressed as any I ever saw. The venison was roasted to a turn—and every body said, they never saw so fat a haunch. The soup was fifty times better than what we had at the Lucases last week; and even Mr. Darcy acknowledged, that the partridges were remarkably well done; and I suppose he has two or three French cooks at least. And, my dear Jane, I never saw you look in greater beauty. Mrs. Long said so too, for I asked her whether you did not. And what do you think she said besides? " 'Ah! Mrs. Bennet, we shall have her at Netherfield at last!' She did, indeed. I do think Mrs. Long is as good a creature as ever lived—and her nieces are very pretty behaved girls, and not at all handsome: I like them prodigiously." Mrs. Bennet, in short, was in very great spirits: she had seen enough of Bingley's behaviour to Jane to be convinced that she would get him at last; and her expectations of advantage to her family, when in a happy humour, were so far beyond reason, that she was quite disappointed at not seeing him there again the next day to make his proposals. "It has been a very agreeable day," said Miss Bennet to Elizabeth. "The party seemed so well selected, so suitable one with the other. I hope we may often meet again." Elizabeth smiled. "Lizzy, you must not do so. You must not suspect me. It mortifies me. I assure you that I have now learnt to enjoy his conversation as an agreeable and sensible young man, without having a wish beyond it. I am perfectly satisfied, from what his manners now are, that he never had any design of engaging my affection. It is only that he is blessed with greater sweetness of address, and a stronger desire of generally pleasing, than any other man." "You are very cruel," said her sister, "you will not let me smile, and are provoking me to it every moment." "How hard it is in some cases to be believed!" "And how impossible in others!" "But why should you wish to persuade me that I feel more than I acknowledge?" "That is a question which I hardly know how to answer. We all love to instruct, though we can teach only what is not worth knowing. Forgive me; and if you persist in indifference, do not make me your confidante." Chapter 13 A few days after this visit, Mr. Bingley called again, and alone. His friend had left him that morning for London, but was to return home in ten days time. He sat with them above an hour, and was in remarkably good spirits. Mrs. Bennet invited him to dine with them; but, with many expressions of concern, he confessed himself engaged elsewhere. "Next time you call," said she, "I hope we shall be more lucky." He should be particularly happy at any time, &c. &c.; and if she would give him leave, would take an early opportunity of waiting on them. "Can you come to-morrow?" Yes, he had no engagement at all for to-morrow; and her invitation was accepted with alacrity. He came, and in such very good time, that the ladies were none of them dressed. In ran Mrs. Bennet to her daughter's room, in her dressing-gown, and with her hair half finished, crying out,— "My dear Jane, make haste and hurry down. He is come—Mr. Bingley is come. He is, indeed. Make haste, make haste. Here, Sarah, come to Miss Bennet this moment, and help her on with her gown. Never mind Miss Lizzy's hair." "We will be down as soon as we can," said Jane; "but I dare say Kitty is forwarder than either of us, for she went up stairs half an hour ago." "Oh! hang Kitty! what has she to do with it? Come, be quick, be quick! where is your sash, my dear?" But when her mother was gone, Jane would not be prevailed on to go down without one of her sisters. The same anxiety to get by themselves was visible again in the evening. After tea, Mr. Bennet retired to the library, as was his custom, and Mary went up stairs to her instrument. Two obstacles of the five being thus removed, Mrs. Bennet sat looking and winking at Elizabeth and Catherine for a considerable time, without making any impression on them. Elizabeth would not observe her; and when at last Kitty did, she very innocently said, "What is the matter, mamma? What do you keep winking at me for? What am I to do?" "Nothing, child, nothing. I did not wink at you." She then sat still five minutes longer; but unable to waste such a precious occasion, she suddenly got up, and saying to Kitty,— "Come here, my love, I want to speak to you," took her out of the room. Jane instantly gave a look at Elizabeth which spoke her distress at such premeditation, and her entreaty that she would not give in to it. In a few minutes, Mrs. Bennet half opened the door and called out,— "Lizzy, my dear, I want to speak with you." Elizabeth was forced to go. "We may as well leave them by themselves, you know," said her mother as soon as she was in the hall. "Kitty and I are going up stairs to sit in my dressing-room." Elizabeth made no attempt to reason with her mother, but remained quietly in the hall till she and Kitty were out of sight, then returned into the drawing-room. Mrs. Bennet's schemes for this day were ineffectual. Bingley was every thing that was charming, except the professed lover of her daughter. His ease and cheerfulness rendered him a most agreeable addition to their evening party; and he bore with the ill-judged officiousness of the mother, and heard all her silly remarks with a forbearance and command of countenance particularly grateful to the daughter. He scarcely needed an invitation to stay supper; and before he went away, an engagement was formed, chiefly through his own and Mrs. Bennet's means, for his coming next morning to shoot with her husband. After this day, Jane said no more of her indifference. Not a word passed between the sisters concerning Bingley; but Elizabeth went to bed in the happy belief that all must speedily be concluded, unless Mr. Darcy returned within the stated time. Seriously, however, she felt tolerably persuaded that all this must have taken place with that gentleman's concurrence. Bingley was punctual to his appointment; and he and Mr. Bennet spent the morning together, as had been agreed on. The latter was much more agreeable than his companion expected. There was nothing of presumption or folly in Bingley that could provoke his ridicule, or disgust him into silence; and he was more communicative, and less eccentric, than the other had ever seen him. Bingley of course returned with him to dinner; and in the evening Mrs. Bennet's invention was again at work to get every body away from him and her daughter. Elizabeth, who had a letter to write, went into the breakfast-room for that purpose soon after tea; for as the others were all going to sit down to cards, she could not be wanted to counteract her mother's schemes. But on her returning to the drawing-room, when her letter was finished, she saw, to her infinite surprise, there was reason to fear that her mother had been too ingenious for her. On opening the door, she perceived her sister and Bingley standing together over the hearth, as if engaged in earnest conversation; and had this led to no suspicion, the faces of both, as they hastily turned round and moved away from each other, would have told it all. Their situation was awkward enough; but hers she thought was still worse. Not a syllable was uttered by either; and Elizabeth was on the point of going away again, when Bingley, who as well as the other had sat down, suddenly rose, and, whispering a few words to her sister, ran out of the room. Jane could have no reserves from Elizabeth, where confidence would give pleasure; and instantly embracing her, acknowledged, with the liveliest emotion, that she was the happiest creature in the world. " 'Tis too much!" she added, "by far too much. I do not deserve it. Oh, why is not every body as happy?" Elizabeth's congratulations were given with a sincerity, a warmth, a delight, which words could but poorly express. Every sentence of kindness was a fresh source of happiness to Jane. But she would not allow herself to stay with her sister, or say half that remained to be said, for the present. "I must go instantly to my mother," she cried. "I would not on any account trifle with her affectionate solicitude, or allow her to hear it from any one but myself. He is gone to my father already. Oh, Lizzy, to know that what I have to relate will give such pleasure to all my dear family! how shall I bear so much happiness?" She then hastened away to her mother, who had purposely broken up the card party, and was sitting up stairs with Kitty. Elizabeth, who was left by herself, now smiled at the rapidity and ease with which an affair was finally settled, that had given them so many previous months of surprise and vexation. "And this," said she, "is the end of all his friend's anxious circumspection! of all his sister's falsehood and contrivance! the happiest, wisest, and most reasonable end!" In a few minutes she was joined by Bingley, whose conference with her father had been short and to the purpose. "Where is your sister?" said he hastily, as he opened the door. "With my mother up stairs. She will be down in a moment, I dare say." He then shut the door, and, coming up to her, claimed the good wishes and affection of a sister. Elizabeth honestly and heartily expressed her delight in the prospect of their relationship. They shook hands with great cordiality; and then, till her sister came down, she had to listen to all he had to say of his own happiness, and of Jane's perfections; and in spite of his being a lover, Elizabeth really believed all his expectations of felicity to be rationally founded, because they had for basis the excellent understanding, and super-excellent disposition of Jane, and a general similarity of feeling and taste between her and himself. It was an evening of no common delight to them all; the satisfaction of Miss Bennet's mind gave such a glow of sweet animation to her face, as made her look handsomer than ever. Kitty simpered and smiled, and hoped her turn was coming soon. Mrs. Bennet could not give her consent, or speak her approbation in terms warm enough to satisfy her feelings, though she talked to Bingley of nothing else, for half an hour; and when Mr. Bennet joined them at supper, his voice and manner plainly showed how really happy he was. Not a word, however, passed his lips in allusion to it, till their visitor took his leave for the night; but as soon as he was gone, he turned to his daughter and said,— "Jane, I congratulate you. You will be a very happy woman." Jane went to him instantly, kissed him, and thanked him for his goodness. "You are a good girl," he replied, "and I have great pleasure in thinking you will be so happily settled. I have not a doubt of your doing very well together. Your tempers are by no means unlike. You are each of you so complying, that nothing will ever be resolved on; so easy, that every servant will cheat you; and so generous, that you will always exceed your income." "I hope not so. Imprudence or thoughtlessness in money matters would be unpardonable in me." "Exceed their income! My dear Mr. Bennet," cried his wife, "what are you talking of? Why, he has four or five thousand a year, and very likely more." Then addressing her daughter, "Oh, my dear, dear Jane, I am so happy! I am sure I shan't get a wink of sleep all night. I knew how it would be. I always said it must be so, at last. I was sure you could not be so beautiful for nothing! I remember, as soon as ever I saw him, when he first came into Hertfordshire last year, I thought how likely it was that you should come together. Oh, he is the handsomest young man that ever was seen!" Wickham, Lydia, were all forgotten. Jane was beyond competition her favourite child. At that moment she cared for no other. Her younger sisters soon began to make interest with her for objects of happiness which she might in future be able to dispense. Mary petitioned for the use of the library at Netherfield; and Kitty begged very hard for a few balls there every winter. Bingley, from this time, was of course a daily visitor at Longbourn; coming frequently before breakfast, and always remaining till after supper; unless when some barbarous neighbour, who could not be enough detested, had given him an invitation to dinner, which he thought himself obliged to accept. Elizabeth had now but little time for conversation with her sister; for while he was present Jane had no attention to bestow on any one else: but she found herself considerably useful to both of them, in those hours of separation that must sometimes occur. In the absence of Jane, he always attached himself to Elizabeth for the pleasure of talking of her; and when Bingley was gone, Jane constantly sought the same means of relief. "He has made me so happy," said she, one evening, "by telling me that he was totally ignorant of my being in town last spring! I had not believed it possible." "I suspected as much," replied Elizabeth. "But how did he account for it?" "It must have been his sisters' doing. They were certainly no friends to his acquaintance with me, which I cannot wonder at, since he might have chosen so much more advantageously in many respects. But when they see, as I trust they will, that their brother is happy with me, they will learn to be contented, and we shall be on good terms again: though we can never be what we once were to each other." "That is the most unforgiving speech," said Elizabeth, "that I ever heard you utter. Good girl! It would vex me, indeed, to see you again the dupe of Miss Bingley's pretended regard." "Would you believe it, Lizzy, that when he went to town last November he really loved me, and nothing but a persuasion of my being indifferent would have prevented his coming down again?' "He made a little mistake, to be sure; but it is to the credit of his modesty." This naturally introduced a panegyric from Jane on his diffidence, and the little value he put on his own good qualities. Elizabeth was pleased to find, that he had not betrayed the interference of his friend; for, though Jane had the most generous and forgiving heart in the world, she knew it was a circumstance which most prejudice her against him. "I am certainly the most fortunate creature that ever existed!" cried Jane. "Oh, Lizzy, why am I thus singled from my family, and blessed above them all? If I could but see you as happy! If there were but such another man for you!" "If you were to give me forty such men I never could be so happy as you. Till I have your disposition, your goodness, I never can have your happiness. No, no, let me shift for myself; and, perhaps, if I have very good luck, I may meet with another Mr. Collins in time." The situation of affairs in the Longbourn family could not be long a secret. Mrs. Bennet was privileged to whisper it to Mrs. Philips, and she ventured, without any permission, to do the same by all her neighbours in Meryton. The Bennets were speedily pronounced to be the luckiest family in the world; though only a few weeks before, when Lydia had first run away, they had been generally proved to be marked out for misfortune. Chapter 14 One morning, about a week after Bingley's engagement with Jane had been formed, as he and the females of the family were sitting together in the dining-room, their attention was suddenly drawn to the window by the sound of a carriage; and they perceived a chaise and four driving up the lawn. It was too early in the morning for visitors, and besides, the equipage did not answer to that of any of their neighbours. The horses were post; and neither the carriage nor the livery of the servant who preceded it were familiar to them. As it was certain, however, that somebody was coming, Bingley instantly prevailed on Miss Bennet to avoid the confinement of such an intrusion, and walk away with him into the shrubbery. They both set off, and the conjectures of the remaining three continued, though with little satisfaction, till the door was thrown open, and their visitor entered. It was Lady Catherine de Bourgh. They were of course all intending to be surprised: but their astonishment was beyond their expectation; and on the part of Mrs. Bennet and Kitty, though she was perfectly unknown to them, even inferior to what Elizabeth felt. She entered the room with an air more than usually ungracious, made no other reply to Elizabeth's salutation than a slight inclination of the head, and sat down without saying a word. Elizabeth had mentioned her name to her mother on her Ladyship's entrance, though no request of introduction had been made. Mrs. Bennet, all amazement, though flattered by having a guest of such high importance, received her with the utmost politeness. After sitting for a moment in silence, she said, very stiffly, to Elizabeth,— "I hope you are well, Miss Bennet. That lady, I suppose, is your mother?" Elizabeth replied very concisely that she was. "And that, I suppose, is one of your sisters?" "Yes, madam," said Mrs. Bennet, delighted to speak to a Lady Catherine. "She is my youngest girl but one. My youngest of all is lately married, and my eldest is somewhere about the ground, walking with a young man, who, I believe, will soon become a part of the family." "You have a very small park here," returned Lady Catherine, after a short silence. "It is nothing in comparison of Rosings, my Lady, I dare say; but, I assure you, it is much larger than Sir William Lucas's." "This must be a most inconvenient sitting room for the evening in summer: the windows are full west." Mrs. Bennet assured her that they never sat there after dinner; and then added,— "May I take the liberty of asking your Ladyship whether you left Mr. and Mrs. Collins well?" "Yes, very well. I saw them the night before last." Elizabeth now expected that she would produce a letter for her from Charlotte, as it seemed the only probable motive for her calling. But no letter appeared, and she was completely puzzled. Mrs. Bennet, with great civility, begged her Ladyship to take some refreshment: but Lady Catherine very resolutely, and not very politely, declined eating any thing; and then, rising up, said to Elizabeth,— "Miss Bennet, there seemed to be a prettyish kind of a little wilderness on one side of your lawn. I should be glad to take a turn in it, if you will favour me with your company." "Go, my dear," cried her mother, "and show her Ladyship about the different walks. I think she will be pleased with the hermitage." Elizabeth obeyed; and, running into her own room for her parasol, attended her noble guest down stairs. As they passed through the hall, Lady Catherine opened the doors into the dining-parlour and drawing-room, and pronouncing them, after a short survey, to be decent looking rooms, walked on. Her carriage remained at the door, and Elizabeth saw that her waiting-woman was in it. They proceeded in silence along the gravel walk that led to the copse; Elizabeth was determined to make no effort for conversation with a woman who was now more than usually insolent and disagreeable. "How could I ever think her like her nephew?" said she, as she looked in her face. As soon as they entered the copse, Lady Catherine began in the following manner:— "You can be at no loss, Miss Bennet, to understand the reason of my journey hither. Your own heart, your own conscience, must tell you why I come." Elizabeth looked with unaffected astonishment. "Indeed, you are mistaken, madam; I have not been at all able to account for the honour of seeing you here." "Miss Bennet," replied her Ladyship, in an angry tone, "you ought to know that I am not to be trifled with. But, however insincere you may choose to be, you shall not find me so. My character has ever been celebrated for its sincerity and frankness; and in a cause of such moment as this, I shall certainly not depart from it. A report of a most alarming nature reached me two days ago. I was told, that not only your sister was on the point of being most advantageously married, but that you, that Miss Elizabeth Bennet, would, in all likelihood, be soon afterwards united to my nephew, my own nephew, Mr. Darcy. Though I know it must be a scandalous falsehood, though I would not injure him so much as to suppose the truth of it possible, I instantly resolved on setting off for this place, that I might make my sentiments known to you." "If you believed it impossible to be true," said Elizabeth, colouring with astonishment and disdain, "I wonder you took the trouble of coming so far. What could your Ladyship propose by it?" "At once to insist upon having such a report universally contradicted." "Your coming to Longbourn, to see me and my family," said Elizabeth coolly, "will be rather a confirmation of it; if, indeed, such a report is in existence." "If! do you then pretend to be ignorant of it? Has it not been industriously circulated by yourselves? Do you not know that such a report is spread abroad?" "I never heard that it was." "And can you likewise declare, that there is no foundation for it?" "I do not pretend to possess equal frankness with your Ladyship. You may ask questions which I shall not choose to answer." "This is not to be borne. Miss Bennet, I insist on being satisfied. Has he, has my nephew, made you an offer of marriage?" "Your Ladyship has declared it to be impossible." "It ought to be so; it must be so, while he retains the use of his reason. But your arts and allurements may, in a moment of infatuation, have made him forget what he owes to himself and to all his family. You may have drawn him in." "If I have, I shall be the last person to confess it." "Miss Bennet, do you know who I am? I have not been accustomed to such language as this. I am almost the nearest relation he has in the world, and am entitled to know all his dearest concerns." "But you are not entitled to know mine; nor will such behaviour as this ever induce me to be explicit." "Let me be rightly understood. This match, to which you have the presumption to aspire, can never take place. No, never. Mr. Darcy is engaged to my daughter. Now, what have you to say?" "Only this,—that if he is so, you can have no reason to suppose he will make an offer to me." Lady Catherine hesitated for a moment, and then replied, — "The engagement between them is of a peculiar kind. From their infancy, they have been intended for each other. It was the favourite wish of his mother, as well as of hers. While in their cradles, we planned the union; and now, at the moment when the wishes of both sisters would be accomplished, in their marriage, to be prevented by a young woman of inferior birth, of no importance in the world, and wholly unallied to the family! Do you pay no regard to the wishes of his friends? To his tacit engagement with Miss De Bourgh? Are you lost to every feeling of propriety and delicacy? Have you not heard me say, that from his earliest hours he was destined for his cousin?" "Yes; and I had heard it before. But what is that to me? If there is no other objection to my marrying your nephew, I shall certainly not be kept from it by knowing that his mother and aunt wished him to marry Miss De Bourgh. You both did as much as you could in planning the marriage. Its completion depended on others. If Mr. Darcy is neither by honour nor inclination confined to his cousin, why is not he to make another choice? and if I am that choice, why may not I accept him?" "Because honour, decorum, prudence, nay, interest, forbid it. Yes, Miss Bennet, interest; for do not expect to be noticed by his family or friends, if you wilfully act against the inclinations of all. You will be censured, slighted, and despised, by every one connected with him. Your alliance will be a disgrace; your name will never even be mentioned by any of us." "These are heavy misfortunes," replied Elizabeth. "But the wife of Mr. Darcy must have such extraordinary sources of happiness necessarily attached to her situation, that she could, upon the whole, have no cause to repine." "Obstinate, headstrong girl! I am ashamed of you! Is this your gratitude for my attentions to you last spring? Is nothing due to me on that score? "Let us sit down. You are to understand, Miss Bennet, that I came here with the determined resolution of carrying my purpose; nor will I be dissuaded from it. I have not been used to submit to any person's whims. I have not been in the habit of brooking disappointment." "That will make your Ladyship's situation at present more pitiable; but it will have no effect on me." "I will not be interrupted! Hear me in silence. My daughter and my nephew are formed for each other. They are descended, on the maternal side, from the same noble line; and, on the father's, from respectable, honourable, and ancient, though untitled, families. Their fortune on both sides is splendid. They are destined for each other by the voice of every member of their respective houses; and what is to divide them?—the upstart pretensions of a young woman without family, connections, or fortune! Is this to be endured? But it must not, shall not be! If you were sensible of your own good, you would not wish to quit the sphere in which you have been brought up." "In marrying your nephew, I should not consider myself as quitting that sphere. He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman's daughter; so far we are equal." "True. You are a gentleman's daughter. But who was your mother? Who are your uncles and aunts? Do not imagine me ignorant of their condition." "Whatever my connections may be," said Elizabeth, "if your nephew does not object to them, they can be nothing to you." "Tell me, once for all, are you engaged to him?" Though Elizabeth would not, for the mere purpose of obliging Lady Catherine, have answered this question, she could not but say, after a moment's deliberation,— "I am not." Lady Catherine seemed pleased. "And will you promise me never to enter into such an engagement?" "I will make no promise of the kind." "Miss Bennet, I am shocked and astonished. I expected to find a more reasonable young woman. But do not deceive yourself into a belief that I will ever recede. I shall not go away till you have given me the assurance I require." "And I certainly never shall give it. I am not to be intimidated into any thing so wholly unreasonable. Your Ladyship wants Mr. Darcy to marry your daughter; but would my giving you the wished-for promise make their marriage at all more probable? Supposing him to be attached to me, would my refusing to accept his hand make him wish to bestow it on his cousin? Allow me to say, Lady Catherine, that the arguments with which you have supported this extraordinary application have been as frivolous as the application was ill-judged. You have widely mistaken my character, if you think I can be worked on by such persuasions as these. How far your nephew might approve of your interference in his affairs, I cannot tell; but you have certainly no right to concern yourself in mine. I must beg, therefore, to be importuned no farther on the subject." "Not so hasty, if you please. I have by no means done. To all the objections I have already urged I have still another to add. I am no stranger to the particulars of your youngest sister's infamous elopement. I know it all; that the young man's marrying her was a patched-up business, at the expense of your father and uncle. And is such a girl to be my nephew's sister? Is her husband, who is the son of his late father's steward, to be his brother? Heaven and earth!—of what are you thinking? Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?" "You can now have nothing further to say," she resentfully answered. "You have insulted me, in every possible method. I must beg to return to the house." And she rose as she spoke. Lady Catherine rose also, and they turned back. Her Ladyship was highly incensed. "You have no regard, then, for the honour and credit of my nephew! Unfeeling, selfish girl! Do you not consider that a connection with you must disgrace him in the eyes of every body?" "Lady Catherine, I have nothing further to say. You know my sentiments." "You are then resolved to have him?" "I have said no such thing. I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to you, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me." "It is well. You refuse, then, to oblige me. You refuse to obey the claims of duty, honour, and gratitude. You are determined to ruin him in the opinion of all his friends, and make him the contempt of the world." "Neither duty, nor honour, nor gratitude," replied Elizabeth, "has any possible claim on me, in the present instance. No principle of either would be violated by my marriage with Mr. Darcy. And with regard to the resentment of his family, or the indignation of the world, if the former were excited by his marrying me, it would not give me one moment's concern—and the world in general would have too much sense to join in the scorn." "And this is your real opinion! This is your final resolve! Very well. I shall now know how to act. Do not imagine, Miss Bennet, that your ambition will ever be gratified. I came to try you. I hoped to find you reasonable; but depend upon it I will carry my point." In this manner Lady Catherine talked on till they were at the door of the carriage, when, turning hastily round, she added,— "I take no leave of you, Miss Bennet. I send no compliments to your mother. You deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased." Elizabeth made no answer; and without attempting to persuade her Ladyship to return into the house, walked quietly into it herself. She heard the carriage drive away as she proceeded up stairs. Her mother impatiently met her at the door of the dressing-room, to ask why Lady Catherine would not come in again and rest herself. "She did not choose it," said her daughter; "she would go." "She is a very fine-looking woman! and her calling here was prodigiously civil! for she only came, I suppose, to tell us the Collinses were well. She is on her road somewhere, I dare say; and so, passing through Meryton, thought she might as well call on you. I suppose she had nothing particular to say to you, Lizzy?" Elizabeth was forced to give into a little falsehood here; for to acknowledge the substance of their conversation was impossible. Chapter 15 The discomposure of spirits which this extraordinary visit threw Elizabeth into could not be easily overcome; nor could she for many hours learn to think of it less than incessantly. Lady Catherine, it appeared, had actually taken the trouble of this journey from Rosings for the sole purpose of breaking off her supposed engagement with Mr. Darcy. It was a rational scheme to be sure! but from what the report of their engagement could originate, Elizabeth was at a loss to imagine; till she recollected that his being the intimate friend of Bingley, and her being the sister of Jane, was enough, at a time when the expectation of one wedding made every body eager for another, to supply the idea. She had not herself forgotten to feel that the marriage of her sister must bring them more frequently together. And her neighbours at Lucas Lodge, therefore, (for through their communication with the Collinses, the report, she concluded, had reached Lady Catherine,) had only set that down as almost certain and immediate which she had looked forward to as possible at some future time. In revolving Lady Catherine's expressions, however, she could not help feeling some uneasiness as to the possible consequence of her persisting in this interference. From what she had said of her resolution to prevent their marriage, it occurred to Elizabeth that she must meditate an application to her nephew; and how he might take a similar representation of the evils attached to a connection with her she dared not pronounce. She knew not the exact degree of his affection for his aunt, or his dependence on her judgment, but it was natural to suppose that he thought much higher of her Ladyship than she could do; and it was certain, that in enumerating the miseries of a marriage with one, whose immediate connections were so unequal to his own, his aunt would address him on his weakest side. With his notions of dignity, he would probably feel that the arguments, which to Elizabeth had appeared weak and ridiculous, contained much good sense and solid reasoning. If he had been wavering before, as to what he should do, which had often seemed likely, the advice and entreaty of so near a relation might settle every doubt, and determine him at once to be as happy as dignity unblemished could make him. In that case he would return no more. Lady Catherine might see him in her way through town; and his engagement to Bingley of coming again to Netherfield must give way. "If, therefore, an excuse for not keeping his promise should come to his friend within a few days," she added, "I shall know how to understand it. I shall then give over every expectation, every wish of his constancy. If he is satisfied with only regretting me, when he might have obtained my affections and hand, I shall soon cease to regret him at all." The surprise of the rest of the family, on hearing who their visitor had been, was very great: but they obligingly satisfied it with the same kind of supposition which had appeased Mrs. Bennet's curiosity; and Elizabeth was spared from much teasing on the subject. The next morning, as she was going down stairs, she was met by her father, who came out of his library with a letter in his hand. "Lizzy," said he, "I was going to look for you: come into my room." She followed him thither; and her curiosity to know what he had to tell her was heightened by the supposition of its being in some manner connected with the letter he held. It suddenly struck her that it might be from Lady Catherine; and she anticipated with dismay all the consequent explanations. She followed her father to the fireplace, and they both sat down. He then said,— "I have received a letter this morning that has astonished me exceedingly. As it principally concerns yourself, you ought to know its contents. I did not know before that I had two daughters on the brink of matrimony. Let me congratulate you on a very important conquest." The colour now rushed into Elizabeth's cheeks in the instantaneous conviction of its being a letter from the nephew, instead of the aunt; and she was undetermined whether most to be pleased that he explained himself at all, or offended that his letter was not rather addressed to herself, when her father continued,— "You look conscious. Young ladies have great penetration in such matters as these; but I think I may defy even your sagacity to discover the name of your admirer. This letter is from Mr. Collins." "From Mr. Collins! and what can he have to say?" "Something very much to the purpose, of course. He begins with congratulations on the approaching nuptials of my eldest daughter, of which, it seems, he has been told by some of the good-natured, gossiping Lucases. I shall not sport with your impatience by reading what he says on that point. What relates to yourself is as follows:— 'Having thus offered you the sincere congratulations of Mrs. Collins and myself on this happy event, let me now add a short hint on the subject of another, of which we have been advertised by the same authority. Your daughter Elizabeth, it is presumed, will not long bear the name of Bennet, after her eldest sister has resigned it; and the chosen partner of her fate may be reasonably looked up to as one of the most illustrious personages in this land.' "Can you possibly guess, Lizzy, who is meant by this? 'This young gentleman is blessed, in a peculiar way, with every thing the heart of mortal can most desire,—splendid property, noble kindred, and extensive patronage. Yet, in spite of all these temptations, let me warn my cousin Elizabeth, and yourself, of what evils you may incur by a precipitate closure with this gentleman's proposals, which, of course, you will be inclined to take immediate advantage of.' "Have you any idea, Lizzy, who this gentleman is? But now it comes out. " 'My motive for cautioning you is as follows:—We have reason to imagine that his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, does not look on the match with a friendly eye.' "Mr. Darcy, you see, is the man! Now, Lizzy, I think I have surprised you. Could he, or the Lucases, have pitched on any man, within the circle of our acquaintance, whose name would have given the lie more effectually to what they related? Mr. Darcy, who never looks at any woman but to see a blemish, and who probably never looked at you in his life! It is admirable!" Elizabeth tried to join in her father's pleasantry, but could only force one most reluctant smile. Never had his wit been directed in a manner so little agreeable to her. "Are you not diverted?" "Oh yes. Pray read on." " 'After mentioning the likelihood of this marriage to her Ladyship last night, she immediately, with her usual condescension, expressed what she felt on the occasion; when it became apparent, that on the score of some family objections on the part of my cousin she would never give her consent to what she termed so disgraceful a match. I thought it my duty to give the speediest intelligence of this to my cousin, that she and her noble admirer may be aware of what they are about, and not run hastily into a marriage which has not been properly sanctioned.' Mr. Collins, moreover, adds, 'I am truly rejoiced that my cousin Lydia's sad business has been so well hushed up, and am only concerned that their living together before the marriage took place should be so generally known. I must not, however, neglect the duties of my station, or refrain from declaring my amazement, at hearing that you received the young couple into your house as soon as they were married. It was an encouragement of vice; and had I been the rector of Longbourn, I should very strenuously have opposed it. You ought certainly to forgive them as a Christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your hearing.' That is his notion of Christian forgiveness! The rest of his letter is only about his dear Charlotte's situation, and his expectation of a young olive-branch. But, Lizzy, you look as if you did not enjoy it. You are not going to be missish, I hope, and pretend to be affronted at an idle report. For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?" "Oh," cried Elizabeth, "I am excessively diverted. But it is so strange!" "Yes, that is what makes it amusing. Had they fixed on any other man it would have been nothing; but his perfect indifference and your pointed dislike make it so delightfully absurd! Much as I abominate writing, I would not give up Mr. Collins's correspondence for any consideration. Nay, when I read a letter of his, I cannot help giving him the preference even over Wickham, much as I value the impudence and hypocrisy of my son-in-law. And pray, Lizzy, what said Lady Catherine about this report? Did she call to refuse her consent?" To this question his daughter replied only with a laugh; and as it had been asked without the least suspicion, she was not distressed by his repeating it. Elizabeth had never been more at a loss to make her feelings appear what they were not. It was necessary to laugh when she would rather have cried. Her father had most cruelly mortified her by what he said of Mr. Darcy's indifference; and she could do nothing but wonder at such a want of penetration, or fear that, perhaps, instead of his seeing too little, she might have fancied too much.
Instead of receiving any such letter of excuse from his friend, as Elizabeth half expected Mr. Bingley to do, he was able to bring Darcy with him to Longbourn before many days had passed after Lady Catherine's visit. The gentlemen arrived early; and, before Mrs. Bennet had time to tell him of their having seen his aunt, of which her daughter sat in momentary dread, Bingley, who wanted to be alone with Jane, proposed their all walking out. It was agreed to. Mrs. Bennet was not in the habit of walking, Mary could never spare time, but the remaining five set off together. Bingley and Jane, however, soon allowed the others to outstrip them. They lagged behind, while Elizabeth, Kitty, and Darcy were to entertain each other. Very little was said by either; Kitty was too much afraid of him to talk; Elizabeth was secretly forming a desperate resolution; and, perhaps, he might be doing the same. They walked towards the Lucases, because Kitty wished to call upon Maria; and as Elizabeth saw no occasion for making it a general concern, when Kitty left them, she went boldly on with him alone. Now was the moment for her resolution to be executed; and, while her courage was high, she immediately said,— "Mr. Darcy, I am a very selfish creature, and for the sake of giving relief to my own feelings care not how much I may be wounding yours. I can no longer help thanking you for your unexampled kindness to my poor sister. Ever since I have known it I have been most anxious to acknowledge to you how gratefully I feel it. Were it known to the rest of my family I should not have merely my own gratitude to express." "I am sorry, exceedingly sorry," replied Darcy, in a tone of surprise and emotion, "that you have ever been informed of what may, in a mistaken light, have given you uneasiness. I did not think Mrs. Gardiner was so little to be trusted." "You must not blame my aunt. Lydia's thoughtlessness first betrayed to me that you had been concerned in the matter; and, of course, I could not rest till I knew the particulars. Let me thank you again and again, in the name of all my family, for that generous compassion which induced you to take so much trouble, and bear so many mortifications, for the sake of discovering them." "If you will thank me," he replied, "let it be for yourself alone. That the wish of giving happiness to you might add force to the other inducements which led me on I shall not attempt to deny. But your family owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of you." Elizabeth was too much embarrassed to say a word. After a short pause, her companion added, "You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged; but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever." Elizabeth, feeling all the more than common awkwardness and anxiety of his situation, now forced herself to speak; and immediately, though not very fluently, gave him to understand, that her sentiments had undergone so material a change since the period to which he alluded, as to make her receive with gratitude and pleasure his present assurances. The happiness which this reply produced was such as he had probably never felt before; and he expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as warmly as a man violently in love can be supposed to do. Had Elizabeth been able to encounter his eyes, she might have seen how well the expression of heart-felt delight, diffused over his face, became him: but though she could not look she could listen; and he told her of feelings which, in proving of what importance she was to him, made his affection every moment more valuable. They walked on without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects. She soon learnt that they were indebted for their present good understanding to the efforts of his aunt, who did call on him in her return through London, and there relate her journey to Longbourn, its motive, and the substance of her conversation with Elizabeth; dwelling emphatically on every expression of the latter, which, in her Ladyship's apprehension, peculiarly denoted her perverseness and assurance, in the belief that such a relation must assist her endeavours to obtain that promise from her nephew which she had refused to give. But, unluckily for her Ladyship, its effect had been exactly contrariwise. "It taught me to hope," said he, "as I had scarcely ever allowed myself to hope before. I knew enough of your disposition to be certain, that had you been absolutely, irrevocably decided against me, you would have acknowledged it to Lady Catherine frankly and openly." Elizabeth coloured and laughed as she replied, "Yes, you know enough of my frankness to believe me capable of that. After abusing you so abominably to your face, I could have no scruple in abusing you to all your relations." "What did you say of me that I did not deserve? For though your accusations were ill-founded, formed on mistaken premises, my behaviour to you at the time had merited the severest reproof. It was unpardonable. I cannot think of it without abhorrence." "We will not quarrel for the greater share of blame annexed to that evening," said Elizabeth. "The conduct of neither, if strictly examined, will be irreproachable; but since then we have both, I hope, improved in civility." "I cannot be so easily reconciled to myself. The recollection of what I then said, of my conduct, my manners, my expressions during the whole of it, is now, and has been many months, inexpressibly painful to me. Your reproof, so well applied, I shall never forget: 'Had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner.' Those were your words. You know not, you can scarcely conceive, how they have tortured me; though it was some time, I confess, before I was reasonable enough to allow their justice." "I was certainly very far from expecting them to make so strong an impression. I had not the smallest idea of their being ever felt in such a way." "I can easily believe it. You thought me then devoid of every proper feeling, I am sure you did. The turn of your countenance I shall never forget, as you said that I could not have addressed you in any possible way that would induce you to accept me." "Oh, do not repeat what I then said. These recollections will not do at all. I assure you, that I have long been most heartily ashamed of it." Darcy mentioned his letter. "Did it," said he,—"did it soon make you think better of me? Did you, on reading it, give any credit to its contents?" She explained what its effect on her had been, and how gradually all her former prejudices had been removed. "I knew," said he, "that what I wrote must give you pain, but it was necessary. I hope you have destroyed the letter. There was one part, especially the opening of it, which I should dread your having the power of reading again. I can remember some expressions which might justly make you hate me." "The letter shall certainly be burnt, if you believe it essential to the preservation of my regard; but, though we have both reason to think my opinions not entirely unalterable, they are not, I hope, quite so easily changed as that implies." "When I wrote that letter," replied Darcy, "I believed myself perfectly calm and cool; but I am since convinced that it was written in a dreadful bitterness of spirit." "The letter, perhaps, began in bitterness, but it did not end so. The adieu is charity itself. But think no more of the letter. The feelings of the person who wrote and the person who received it are now so widely different from what they were then, that every unpleasant circumstance attending it ought to be forgotten. You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure." "I cannot give you credit for any philosophy of the kind. Your retrospections must be so totally void of reproach, that the contentment arising from them is not of philosophy, but, what is much better, of ignorance. But with me, it is not so. Painful recollections will intrude, which cannot, which ought not to be repelled. I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. Unfortunately an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoiled by my parents, who, though good themselves, (my father particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable,) allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing, to care for none beyond my own family circle, to think meanly of all the rest of the world, to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I was, from eight to eight-and-twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased." "Had you then persuaded yourself that I should?" "Indeed I had. What will you think of my vanity? I believed you to be wishing, expecting my addresses." "My manners must have been in fault, but not intentionally, I assure you. I never meant to deceive you, but my spirits might often lead me wrong. How you must have hated me after that evening!" "Hate you! I was angry, perhaps, at first, but my anger soon began to take a proper direction." "I am almost afraid of asking what you thought of me when we met at Pemberley. You blamed me for coming?" "No, indeed, I felt nothing but surprise." "Your surprise could not be greater than mine in being noticed by you. My conscience told me that I deserved no extraordinary politeness, and I confess that I did not expect to receive more than my due." "My object then," replied Darcy, "was to show you, by every civility in my power, that I was not so mean as to resent the past; and I hoped to obtain your forgiveness, to lessen your ill-opinion, by letting you see that your reproofs had been attended to. How soon any other wishes introduced themselves, I can hardly tell, but I believe in about half an hour after I had seen you." He then told her of Georgiana's delight in her acquaintance, and of her disappointment at its sudden interruption; which naturally leading to the cause of that interruption, she soon learnt that his resolution of following her from Derbyshire in quest of her sister had been formed before he quitted the inn, and that his gravity and thoughtfulness there had arisen from no other struggles than what such a purpose must comprehend. She expressed her gratitude again, but it was too painful a subject to each to be dwelt on farther. After walking several miles in a leisurely manner, and too busy to know any thing about it, they found at last, on examining their watches, that it was time to be at home. "What could have become of Mr. Bingley and Jane!" was a wonder which introduced the discussion of their affairs. Darcy was delighted with their engagement; his friend had given him the earliest information of it. "I must ask whether you were surprised?" said Elizabeth. "Not at all. When I went away, I felt that it would soon happen." "That is to say, you had given your permission. I guessed as much." And though he exclaimed at the term, she found that it had been pretty much the case. "On the evening before my going to London," said he, "I made a confession to him, which I believe I ought to have made long ago. I told him of all that had occurred to make my former interference in his affairs absurd and impertinent. His surprise was great. He had never had the slightest suspicion. I told him, moreover, that I believed myself mistaken in supposing, as I had done, that your sister was indifferent to him; and as I could easily perceive that his attachment to her was unabated, I felt no doubt of their happiness together." Elizabeth could not help smiling at his easy manner of directing his friend. "Did you speak from your own observation," said she, "when you told him that my sister loved him, or merely from my information last spring?" "From the former. I had narrowly observed her, during the two visits which I had lately made here; and I was convinced of her affection." "And your assurance of it, I suppose, carried immediate conviction to him." "It did. Bingley is most unaffectedly modest. His diffidence had prevented his depending on his own judgment in so anxious a case, but his reliance on mine made every thing easy. I was obliged to confess one thing, which for a time, and not unjustly, offended him. I could not allow myself to conceal that your sister had been in town three months last winter, that I had known it, and purposely kept it from him. He was angry. But his anger, I am persuaded, lasted no longer than he remained in any doubt of your sister's sentiments. He has heartily forgiven me now." Elizabeth longed to observe that Mr. Bingley had been a most delightful friend; so easily guided that his worth was invaluable; but she checked herself. She remembered that he had yet to learn to be laughed at, and it was rather too early to begin. In anticipating the happiness of Bingley, which of course was to be inferior only to his own, he continued the conversation till they reached the house. In the hall they parted.
My dear Lizzy, where can you have been walking to?" was a question which Elizabeth received from Jane as soon as she entered the room, and from all the others when they sat down to table. She had only to say in reply, that they had wandered about till she was beyond her own knowledge. She coloured as she spoke; but neither that, nor any thing else, awakened a suspicion of the truth. The evening passed quietly, unmarked by any thing extraordinary. The acknowledged lovers talked and laughed; the unacknowledged were silent. Darcy was not of a disposition in which happiness overflows in mirth; and Elizabeth, agitated and confused, rather knew that she was happy than felt herself to be so; for, besides the immediate embarrassment, there were other evils before her. She anticipated what would be felt in the family when her situation became known: she was aware that no one liked him but Jane; and even feared that with the others it was a dislike which not all his fortune and consequence might do away. At night she opened her heart to Jane. Though suspicion was very far from Miss Bennet's general habits, she was absolutely incredulous here. "You are joking, Lizzy. This cannot be! Engaged to Mr. Darcy! No, no, you shall not deceive me: I know it to be impossible." "This is a wretched beginning, indeed! My sole dependence was on you; and I am sure nobody else will believe me, if you do not. Yet, indeed, I am in earnest. I speak nothing but the truth. He still loves me, and we are engaged." Jane looked at her doubtingly. "Oh, Lizzy, it cannot be. I know how much you dislike him." "You know nothing of the matter. That is all to be forgot. Perhaps I did not always love him so well as I do now; but in such cases as these, a good memory is unpardonable. This is the last time I shall ever remember it myself." Miss Bennet still looked all amazement. Elizabeth again, and more seriously, assured her of its truth. "Good heaven! can it be really so? Yet now I must believe you," cried Jane. "My dear, dear Lizzy, I would, I do congratulate you; but are you certain? Forgive the question—are you quite certain that you can be happy with him?" "There can be no doubt of that. It is settled between us already that we are to be the happiest couple in the world. But are you pleased, Jane? Shall you like to have such a brother?" "Very, very much. Nothing could give either Bingley or myself more delight. But we considered it, we talked of it as impossible. And do you really love him quite well enough? Oh, Lizzy, do any thing rather than marry without affection. Are you quite sure that you feel what you ought to do?" "Oh yes! You will only think I feel more than I ought to do when I tell you all." "What do you mean?" "Why, I must confess that I love him better than I do Bingley. I am afraid you will be angry." "My dearest sister, now be serious. I want to talk very seriously. Let me know every thing that I am to know without delay. Will you tell me how long you have loved him?" "It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began; but I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley." Another entreaty that she would be serious, however, produced the desired effect; and she soon satisfied Jane by her solemn assurances of attachment. When convinced on that article, Miss Bennet had nothing further to wish. "Now I am quite happy," said she, "for you will be as happy as myself. I always had a value for him. Were it for nothing but his love of you, I must always have esteemed him; but now, as Bingley's friend and your husband, there can be only Bingley and yourself more dear to me. But, Lizzy, you have been very sly, very reserved with me. How little did you tell me of what passed at Pemberley and Lambton! I owe all that I know of it to another, not to you." Elizabeth told her the motives of her secrecy. She had been unwilling to mention Bingley; and the unsettled state of her own feelings had made her equally avoid the name of his friend: but now she would no longer conceal from her his share in Lydia's marriage. All was acknowledged, and half the night spent in conversation. "Good gracious!" cried Mrs. Bennet, as she stood at a window the next morning, "if that disagreeable Mr. Darcy is not coming here again with our dear Bingley! What can he mean by being so tiresome as to be always coming here? I had no notion but he would go a shooting, or something or other, and not disturb us with his company. What shall we do with him? Lizzy, you must walk out with him again, that he may not be in Bingley's way." Elizabeth could hardly help laughing at so convenient a proposal; yet was really vexed that her mother should be always giving him such an epithet. As soon as they entered, Bingley looked at her so expressively, and shook hands with such warmth, as left no doubt of his good information; and he soon afterwards said aloud, "Mrs. Bennet, have you no more lanes hereabouts in which Lizzy may lose her way again to-day?" "I advise Mr. Darcy, and Lizzy, and Kitty," said Mrs. Bennet, "to walk to Oakham Mount this morning. It is a nice long walk, and Mr. Darcy has never seen the view." "It may do very well for the others," replied Mr. Bingley; "but I am sure it will be too much for Kitty. Won't it, Kitty?" Kitty owned that she had rather stay at home. Darcy professed a great curiosity to see the view from the Mount, and Elizabeth silently consented. As she went up stairs to get ready, Mrs. Bennet followed her, saying,— "I am quite sorry, Lizzy, that you should be forced to have that disagreeable man all to yourself; but I hope you will not mind it. It is all for Jane's sake, you know; and there is no occasion for talking to him except just now and then, so do not put yourself to inconvenience." During their walk, it was resolved that Mr. Bennet's consent should be asked in the course of the evening: Elizabeth reserved to herself the application for her mother's. She could not determine how her mother would take it; sometimes doubting whether all his wealth and grandeur would be enough to overcome her abhorrence of the man: but whether she were violently set against the match, or violently delighted with it, it was certain that her manner would be equally ill adapted to do credit to her sense; and she could no more bear that Mr. Darcy should hear the first raptures of her joy, than the first vehemence of her disapprobation. In the evening, soon after Mr. Bennet withdrew to the library, she saw Mr. Darcy rise also and follow him, and her agitation on seeing it was extreme. She did not fear her father's opposition, but he was going to be made unhappy, and that it should be through her means; that she, his favourite child, should be distressing him by her choice, should be filling him with fears and regrets in disposing of her, was a wretched reflection, and she sat in misery till Mr. Darcy appeared again, when, looking at him, she was a little relieved by his smile. In a few minutes he approached the table where she was sitting with Kitty; and, while pretending to admire her work, said in a whisper, "Go to your father; he wants you in the library." She was gone directly. Her father was walking about the room, looking grave and anxious. "Lizzy," said he, "what are you doing? Are you out of your senses to be accepting this man? Have not you always hated him?" How earnestly did she then wish that her former opinions had been more reasonable, her expressions more moderate! It would have spared her from explanations and professions which it was exceedingly awkward to give; but they were now necessary, and she assured him, with some confusion, of her attachment to Mr. Darcy. "Or, in other words, you are determined to have him. He is rich, to be sure, and you may have more fine clothes and fine carriages than Jane. But will they make you happy?" "Have you any other objection," said Elizabeth, "than your belief of my indifference?" "None at all. We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man; but this would be nothing if you really liked him." "I do, I do like him," she replied, with tears in her eyes; "I love him. Indeed he has no improper pride. He is perfectly amiable. You do not know what he really is; then pray do not pain me by speaking of him in such terms." "Lizzy," said her father, "I have given him my consent. He is the kind of man, indeed, to whom I should never dare refuse any thing, which he condescended to ask. I now give it to you, if you are resolved on having him. But let me advise you to think better of it. I know your disposition, Lizzy. I know that you could be neither happy nor respectable, unless you truly esteemed your husband; unless you looked up to him as a superior. Your lively talents would place you in the greatest danger in an unequal marriage. You could scarcely escape discredit and misery. My child, let me not have the grief of seeing you unable to respect your partner in life. You know not what you are about." Elizabeth, still more affected, was earnest and solemn in her reply; and, at length, by repeated assurances that Mr. Darcy was really the object of her choice, by explaining the gradual change which her estimation of him had undergone, relating her absolute certainty that his affection was not the work of a day, but had stood the test of many months' suspense, and enumerating with energy all his good qualities, she did conquer her father's incredulity, and reconcile him to the match. "Well, my dear," said he, when she ceased speaking, "I have no more to say. If this be the case, he deserves you. I could not have parted with you, my Lizzy, to any one less worthy." To complete the favourable impression, she then told him what Mr. Darcy had voluntarily done for Lydia. He heard her with astonishment. "This is an evening of wonders, indeed! And so, Darcy did every thing; made up the match, gave the money, paid the fellow's debts, and got him his commission! So much the better. It will save me a world of trouble and economy. Had it been your uncle's doing, I must and would have paid him; but these violent young lovers carry every thing their own way. I shall offer to pay him to-morrow; he will rant and storm about his love for you, and there will be an end of the matter." He then recollected her embarrassment a few days before, on his reading Mr. Collins's letter; and after laughing at her some time, allowed her at last to go, saying, as she quitted the room, "If any young men come for Mary or Kitty, send them in, for I am quite at leisure." Elizabeth's mind was now relieved from a very heavy weight; and, after half an hour's quiet reflection in her own room, she was able to join the others with tolerable composure. Every thing was too recent for gaiety, but the evening passed tranquilly away; there was no longer any thing material to be dreaded, and the comfort of ease and familiarity would come in time. When her mother went up to her dressing-room at night, she followed her, and made the important communication. Its effect was most extraordinary; for, on first hearing it, Mrs. Bennet sat quite still, and unable to utter a syllable. Nor was it under many, many minutes, that she could comprehend what she heard, though not in general backward to credit what was for the advantage of her family, or that came in the shape of a lover to any of them. She began at length to recover, to fidget about in her chair, get up, sit down again, wonder, and bless herself. "Good gracious! Lord bless me! only think! dear me! Mr. Darcy! Who would have thought it? And is it really true? Oh, my sweetest Lizzy! how rich and how great you will be! What pin-money,bn what jewels, what carriages you will have! Jane's is nothing to it—nothing at all. I am so pleased—so happy. Such a charming man! so handsome! so tall! Oh, my dear Lizzy! pray apologise for my having disliked him so much before.I hope he will overlook it. Dear, dear Lizzy. A house in town! Every thing that is charming! Three daughters married! Ten thousand a year! Oh, Lord! what will become of me? I shall go distracted." This was enough to prove that her approbation need not be doubted; and Elizabeth, rejoicing that such an effusion was heard only by herself, soon went away. But before she had been three minutes in her own room, her mother followed her. "My dearest child," she cried, "I can think of nothing else! Ten thousand a year, and very likely more! 'T is as good as a lord! And a special license15—you must and shall be married by a special license. But, my dearest love, tell me what dish Mr. Darcy is particularly fond of, that I may have it tomorrow." This was a sad omen of what her mother's behaviour to the gentleman himself might be; and Elizabeth found, that, though in the certain possession of his warmest affection, and secure of her relations' consent, there was still something to be wished for. But the morrow passed off much better than she expected; for Mrs. Bennet luckily stood in such awe of her intended son-in-law, that she ventured not to speak to him, unless it was in her power to offer him any attention, or mark her deference for his opinion. Elizabeth had the satisfaction of seeing her father taking pains to get acquainted with him; and Mr. Bennet soon assured her that he was rising every hour in his esteem. "I admire all my three sons-in-law highly," said he. "Wickham, perhaps, is my favourite; but I think I shall like your husband quite as well as Jane's."

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.