Swipe Left on Mr. Darcy — Going Public, Page 7
By Suha · Published
Log in to see this page
Page 7 of Going Public is for signed-in readers. Logging in brings you straight back here — and an account is free if you do not have one.
Transcript
Page 7. Two stacked panels, cold overcast grey daylight. Panel 1 (silent). A wide establishing shot: a long glossy black four-door saloon, entirely unmarked, parked on the straight gravel drive in front of Ms. de Bourgh's pale grey stone country house with its columned portico, clipped topiary cones and formal parterres. Nobody is in frame. Panel 2. Fitzwilliam Darcy stands side-on at a tall window in his charcoal wool overcoat and black sweater, near-black hair swept back, looking out at the grey gardens. He holds a phone to his ear — the reader sees its plain olive back. His expression is grave and tired. DARCY: 'My aunt has stopped taking my calls.'
Image description
A long black car waits on the gravel drive of Ms. de Bourgh's grey stone estate; below, Darcy stands at a tall window with a phone to his ear, looking grave.
About this chapter
Engaged, blessed, and utterly unprepared for the part nobody warns you about: everyone else finding out. The morning after her father's blessing, Lizzie sits on the porch steps with her thumb hovering over a post that will hand the whole town a version of the most private thing that has ever happened to her — and can't press it. Inside, the news is already loose and mutating. Mrs. Bennet, who spent a year calling Darcy unbearable, has become his most devoted admirer overnight and is planning two weddings before breakfast; Mr. Bennet declines to let her rewrite history. Charlotte claims she called it back in March. Aunt Maddie, who kept his secret for weeks, cries in a car. Caroline Bingley congratulates her through a smile that never reaches her eyes. Lydia, being Lydia, texts to ask whether Lizzie could spot her now that she is basically rich. And two hours away behind a set of iron gates, a long black car sits outside a cold grey house where Ms. de Bourgh has stopped taking her nephew's calls. On the leafy lane at golden hour, Lizzie finally asks Darcy the question she has been circling since the moment she said yes — when did you first know? — and the answer is not the grand one she braced for but a small, specific, devastating one: three miles of mud, and a woman who did not care what anyone thought of her. That night he finds her on the porch with the post still unwritten and tells her she owes nobody an announcement. She knows. She wants one anyway. The chapter closes on the same steps and the same golden light it opened with — except this time she isn't alone in the frame, and the version going out is the only one she actually chose.