“No really,”replied Elizabeth;“I think there cannot be too little said on the subject.”
“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 secret,”said Jane,“say not another word on the subject.You may depend upon my seeking no further.”
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.
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,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.”
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.