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Two days after Jane says yes to Charles, a long black car noses up the flagstone path of the Bennet house and does not belong there. Out of it steps Ms. de Bourgh — Darcy's aunt, the imperious matriarch of the estate where Lizzie once refused him — who has driven all this way on the strength of a rumour: that her nephew is about to be engaged to Elizabeth Bennet. She dismisses the household, marches Lizzie out to the garden, and lays out the case with surgical contempt: the family's disgrace, Lydia's patched-up marriage, a match that was planned for Darcy since he was a boy. Then she asks for a promise — never, under any circumstances, to accept him. Lizzie, who has spent weeks certain she'd already lost him, refuses. Not because she has any claim on him, but because she will not be told whom she's allowed to want. Every threat de Bourgh throws — censure, exile from his world, being despised by everyone connected to him — Lizzie meets and out-argues, until the old woman leaves in cold fury, taking no leave and sending no compliments to her mother. Lizzie stands in the wreckage of the conversation while her mother demands to know who that was, and then, at the kitchen window, watching the car dwindle down the leafy street, the real meaning arrives: nobody drives two hours to forbid a thing that was never going to happen. Somebody told that woman something. Which means Darcy has not, after all, closed the tab on her.
Page 1
Full-page panel. Amber morning light fills the comfortably cluttered Bennet living room — faded cream floral sofa, crowded bookshelves of paperbacks and framed family photos, a low table stacked with books and mugs. LIZZIE BENNET, 23, dark-brown wavy hair, freckles across her nose, open olive-green utility jacket over a white t-shirt and blue jeans, stands at the tall window with a mug in one hand and the other hand on the sill, looking out through the parted patterned curtains. Beyond the flowering front garden, a long glossy black four-door saloon has stopped on the quiet street. JANE BENNET, 25, honey-blonde hair, cream blouse under a soft-pink cardigan, sits on the sofa behind her holding a mug, turning to look. LIZZIE: 'Jane. Whose car is that?' JANE: 'Nobody we know.'
Page 2
Panel 1: Seen from inside the warm Bennet front hall, with its patterned runner, coat hooks and console lamp. MRS. BENNET, 52, grey-streaked dark hair, floral blouse and beaded necklace, has just pulled the front door open with one hand on its edge. Her delighted hostess smile is already faltering into confusion. MRS. BENNET: 'Oh! Can I help—' Panel 2: Reverse angle, looking out through the open doorway. MS. DE BOURGH, 62, rigidly upright, silver-grey hair in a smooth pinned chignon, a deep-emerald tailored suit with a large jewelled brooch, stands on the top porch step with both hands folded in front of her, chin lifted, looking down with cold appraisal. Cool daylight behind her against the warm hall. MS. DE BOURGH: 'I am here for Elizabeth Bennet.'
Page 3
Panel 1: The warm, comfortably cluttered Bennet living room. MS. DE BOURGH stands stiffly upright on the worn patterned rug, hands folded in front of her, refusing to sit, her pale heavy-lidded eyes travelling over the crowded bookshelves and the faded cream floral sofa. MRS. BENNET hovers beside the olive-green armchair, desperate to please. LIZZIE BENNET stands in the doorway with her arms folded, watching. MRS. BENNET: 'Please — sit, do sit, anywhere at all—' Panel 2: Medium close-up of MS. DE BOURGH in the amber lamplight, chin lifted, one eyebrow faintly raised as she takes in the low ceiling. Her expression is perfectly polite and perfectly withering. MS. DE BOURGH: 'This is a very small room.'