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Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph,
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Come with me as we immerse ourselves in a romantic journey to a time long since forgotten.
This series follows the trials and tribulations of Elizabeth Bennet as she struggles to come to terms with Mr.
Darcy and all he means to her.
But before we begin,
Let's take a moment to focus on where we are now.
Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it out with a long sigh.
That's it.
Now close your eyes and feel yourself sink deeper into the support beneath you.
It is time to relax and fully let go.
There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.
Happy listening.
Happy listening.
Pride and Prejudice By Jane Austen Read by S.
D.
Hudson Chapter 53 Mr.
Wickham was so perfectly satisfied with his 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 she'd 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 was by no means entered into her scheme with their all going to Newcastle,
Was likely to continue at least a twelve month.
Oh my dear Lydia,
She cried,
When shall we meet again?
Oh Lord,
I don't know.
Not this 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 very many pretty things.
He is a fine fellow,
Said Mr.
Bennet,
As soon as they were out of the house.
As ever I saw.
He simpers,
Smirks and makes love to us all.
I'm 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 doesn't leave me because she's married but only because her husband's regiment happens to be so far off.
If it had been nearer she would not have gone so soon.
But the spiritless condition which this event drew 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 their master who was coming down in a day or two to shoot for several weeks.
Mrs.
Bennet was quiet 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.
Phillips first brought her the news.
Well,
So much the better.
Not that I care about it though,
He's nothing to us you know and I'm sure I never want to see him again.
But however he's 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 is it quite certain he's coming?
You may depend upon it,
Replied the other,
For Mrs.
Nicholls was in Merritton last night.
I saw her passing by and went out myself on purpose to know the truth of it.
She told me it was certain truth.
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 some meat on Wednesday.
And she's 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 today Lizzie when my aunt told us of the present report and I know I appear distressed but don't imagine it was for any silly cause.
I was only confused for the moment because I felt I should be looked at.
I do assure you the news does not affect me either with pleasure or pain.
I'm glad of one thing that he comes alone because we shall see the less of him.
Not that I'm 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 well have supposed incapable of coming there with no other view than what was acknowledged.
But she still thought impartial 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.
Yes it is hard,
She sometimes thought,
For this poor man cannot come to a house which he's 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 her spirits were affected by it.
They were more disturbed,
More unequal than she'd often seen them.
The subject which had been so warmly canvassed between their parents about a 12 month ago was now brought forward again.
As soon as ever Mr Bingley comes my dear,
Said Mrs Bennett,
You will wait on him of course.
No and no,
Said Mr Bennett,
You forced me into seeing him last year and promised if I went he should marry one of my daughters but it all 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.
It is an etiquette I It is an etiquette I despise,
Said Mr Bennett.
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 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'm determined.
We shall have Mrs Long in the Goldings soon.
That will make 13 with ourselves so there will be just room at the table for him.
Consoled by this resolution,
Mrs Bennett was the better able to bear her husband's incivility.
Though it was very mortifying to know her neighbours might all see Mr Bingley in consequence of it before they did.
As the day of his arrival grew near,
Jane said,
I begin to be sorry he comes at all.
It will be nothing.
I could see him with perfect indifference but I can hardly bear 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 be it when his stay at Netherfield is over.
I wish I could say anything to comfort you replied Elizabeth but it's wholly out of my power.
You must feel it and the usual satisfaction of preaching patience to a sufferer has denied me because you have always so much.
Mr Bingley arrived.
Mrs Bennett,
Through the assistant 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,
Mama,
Said Kate.
Who can it be?
Some acquaintance or another,
My dear,
I suppose.
I'm sure I do not know.
Nah,
Replied Kitty.
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 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 Gardner's letter or to relate to her own change of sentiment towards him.
To Jane he could be only a man whose proposal she'd refused and whose merit she'd 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,
That is coming to Netherfield,
To Longbourn and voluntarily seeking her again was almost equal to what she'd known 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 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 gentleman's appearing her colour increased yet she received them with tolerable ease and with a propriety behaviour equally free from any symptom of resentment or any unnecessary complacence.
Elizabeth said as little to either as civility would allow and she sat down again to her work with an eagerness which she did not often command.
She ventured only one glance at Darcy.
He looked serious as usual and she thought more as he had been used to look in Hertfordshire than 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 curtsy and address of his friend.
Elizabeth particularly who knew that her mother owed to the latter the preservation of her favourite daughter from irredeemable infamy was hurt and distressed to a most painful degree by a distinction so ill applied.
Darcy after inquiring of her how Mr and Mrs Gardiner did,
A question which she could not answer without confusion,
Said scarcely anything.
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 has often found him looking at Jane as 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 at being so.
Could I expect it to be otherwise?
Said she,
Yet why did he come?
Elizabeth was in no humour for a conversation with anyone but himself and to him she had hardly courage to speak.
She inquired 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.
People did say you meant to quit the place entirely to Mickelmouse but however I hope it's not true.
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've 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,
Esquire,
To Miss Lydia Bennet,
Without there being a syllable said of her father or the place where she lived or anything.
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 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's very hard to have her taken such away from me.
They had gone down to Newcastle,
A place quite northward it seems,
And there they are to stay.
Do not know how long.
His regiment is there,
For I suppose you've 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 she could hardly keep her seat.
It drew from her however the exertion of speaking which nothing else had so effectively done and she asked Bingley whether he meant to take any stay in the country at present.
A few weeks he believed.
When you've 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'm sure he'll be vastly happy to oblige you and will save all the best of the colies for you.
Elizabeth's misery increased at such unnecessary,
A vicious attention.
Were the same fair prospects to arise at present as had flattered them a year ago,
Everything 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'd 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'd been last year,
As good-natured and unaffected,
Though not quite so chatty.
Jane was anxious no difference should be perceived in her at all,
And was really persuaded.
She talked as much as ever,
But her mind was so busily engaged she did not always know when she was silent.
When the gentleman 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 entered 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 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.
Then they 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 anything 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.
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