Pride and Prejudice (The Wild and Wanton Edition) by Annabella Bloom Read Free Book Online Page B

children silly. If I wished to think slightingly of anybody’s children, it should not be my own.”
    “If my children are silly, I must hope to be always sensible of it.”
    “Yes, but as it happens, they are all very clever.”
    “This is the only point, I flatter myself, on which we do not agree. I had hoped our sentiments coincided in every particular, but I must so far differ from you as to think our two youngest daughters uncommonly foolish.”
    “Mr. Bennet, you must not expect such girls to have the sense of their father and mother. When they get to our age, I daresay 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. 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. I thought Colonel Forster looked very becoming the other night at Sir William’s in his regimentals.”
    Mrs. Bennet was prevented from further comment 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 does he say? Make haste and tell us, make haste, my love.”
    “It is from Miss Bingley,” said Jane, and then read it aloud. “My dear friend, if you are not so compassionate as to dine today with Louisa and me, we shall be in danger of hating each other for the rest of our lives, for a whole day’s tete-a-tete between two women can never end without a quarrel. Come as soon as you can on receipt of this. My brother and the gentlemen are to dine with the officers. Yours ever, Caroline Bingley.”
    “With the officers?” Lydia cried. “I wonder why my aunt did not tell us of that.”
    “Dining out,” said Mrs. Bennet with a disappointed shake of her head, “that is very unlucky.”
    “Can I have the carriage?” asked Jane.
    “No, my dear, you had better go on horseback.”
    “Horseback?” Elizabeth demanded, looking out the window. “But it is likely to rain.”
    “And so it shall,” Mrs. Bennet agreed. “And then, Jane, 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.” Jane frowned in worry. Such schemes were not in her nature and felt a little too much like deceit.
    “Your father cannot spare the horses, I am sure. They are wanted in the farm, Mr. Bennet, are they not.”
    Mr. Bennet had been listening with quiet interest while pretending to be occupied by his book. “They are wanted in the farm much oftener than I can get them.”
    “But if you have got them today,” Elizabeth said, “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, and Jane certainly could not come back.
    “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, which she promptly read aloud, “My dearest Lizzy, 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