Swipe Left on Mr. Darcy — Last Seen Online, Page 6
By Suha · Published
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Transcript
Panel 1: The Bennet front hall late at night. Mr. Bennet stands half turned away, fastening a button of his dark coat, a small overnight bag on the floor beside his shoe. Lizzie waits a few steps behind him at the foot of the stairs. MR. BENNET: 'I'm driving down tonight.' Panel 2: A closer two-shot. Mr. Bennet has turned to face Lizzie, tired and unsmiling, his reading glasses pushed up on his forehead; she looks up at him. LIZZIE: 'Let me come with you.' MR. BENNET: 'Stay with your mother.'
Image description
Mr. Bennet buttons his coat in the front hall beside an overnight bag and tells Lizzie he is driving down tonight; she asks to come and he refuses.
About this chapter
Lizzie comes home from the ruined weekend to a house with every light burning and nobody answering their phone. Lydia is gone — a note, no address, and George Wickham. What follows is the longest week of Lizzie's life: her mother collapsed and operatic in a darkened bedroom, Kitty confessing she knew and said nothing, Mary reaching for something profound at exactly the wrong moment, and her father — dry, unbothered Mr. Bennet — putting on a coat and driving into the city to find his youngest daughter himself. Lizzie carries the worst of it alone: she is the only one who knew exactly what George Wickham is, and she chose to keep a confidence instead of warning her family. Three days of unanswered calls later her father comes home empty-handed and years older, and it is her aunt Maddie and uncle Ed who take the search over. In a 2 a.m. kitchen Lizzie finally tells Jane the whole truth — that George has done this before, to a girl younger than Lydia — and at her dark window she lets go of the last thing she was hoping for: Darcy has seen exactly what her family is now, and that is the end of that. Then the phone she has not put down all week lights up with her uncle's name. They found Lydia. She is safe. And someone else got there first.