By Jane Austen
Original text available at: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1342
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
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, they were admitted into the
hall; and Elizabeth, as they waited for the housekeeper, had leisure to
wonder at her being where she was.
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