We’re entering the homestretch of the story now…

-We see a little bit of the journey through the Peaks District. The scenery is attractive and both Jane and Lizzie really like this part of the country. Kitty, although still kind of an airhead, is much less of a pain in the neck than she is when she’s squabbling with Lydia. She and Aunt Gardiner gave Lydia a list of the inns where they planned to put up (maybe discussed at the dinner mentioned in my last post), and Lydia’s letters from Brighton are successfully reaching them at those inns. There is some Puck/fairy folklore related to the area, which might be fun local color for the young ladies to talk about together. Aunt Gardiner mentions going to see Pemberley, Lizzie objects, Aunt Gardiner points out that it is more than just another grand house, “and besides the family is not in residence right now.” Cut to Darcy and Bingley taking leave of their sisters in London. Caroline says that the ladies will join them at Pemberley in a few days’ time. The men climb into a carriage and drive off.

-Dyrham Park, which played Pemberley in the 1967 miniseries, possibly reprises its role, with the neighboring church of St. Peter being where Kitty meets her clergyman. Possibly the older sisters are rather gung-ho about the Flemish triptych on the altar mentioned in the guidebooks, and Kitty only goes along grudgingly…until she finds that the parish has a remarkably handsome and pleasant vicar.

-The family group tours Pemberley and the grounds, with Lizzie’s thoughts about what a great place this is being voiced to Jane. The house is the start of the tour, rather than the climax, and it is in this context that Lizzie meets Mrs. Reynolds and sees the portrait of Darcy. (Done in the style of one of the artists of the period; I don’t have a lot of patience for this thing you see in Dracula AD 1972 or P&P 1980 where supposed Old Portrait is clearly done in a cheesy contemporary style by some nepotism hire.)

-This is intercut with Darcy confessing to Bingley about his interference in his love life. We don’t really get a good sense of Reformed Darcy here because his sense of guilt makes him awkward, and we cut away from them in the carriage once it becomes clear what he is talking about and cut back when he is wrapping up and asking Bingley for forgiveness.

–Bingley is genuinely upset, borderline angry. I almost wish I could call you out, he says but I know you don’t approve of dueling, and if I did manage to hurt you, I’d feel pretty bad about it. I bought a new pair of foils in London, says Darcy, we can fence with them once we reach the house, if that would offer some relief to your emotions. Why not now? Bingley asks. After all, we are on your property. Darcy agrees, they stop the coach, fetch the case with the foils, tell the coachman to drive onto the house and inform Mrs. Reynolds that they’ll be along shortly. They remove coats, waistcoats, rings etc.

–They are going at it hammer and tongs, sweaty and in shirtsleeves, when Lizzie and Jane, who’ve separated from the main group, stumble across them. Awkwardness ensues, and the women take themselves off, running into Kitty and the Gardiners in the process. Lizzie wants to leave immediately, the Gardiners are confused, and Jane is kind of gently opposed to the idea. The men reappear, still disheveled-looking but with their jewelry and outer layers back in place. Bingley starts talking to Jane, while Darcy applies himself to Lizzie, Kitty and the Gardiners, with easier, more gracious manners than we (or Lizzie) have ever seen from him.

-The rest of the Lambton/Pemberley visit proceeds as in the book, with the addition of Jane’s and Kitty’s interactions with their young men, except that Georgiana takes Lizzie aside after Caroline namechecks Wickham/the militia, and tells Lizzie the story of her almost-elopement, partly to explain her embarrassment earlier (which Lizzie covered for without fully understanding), and partly it seems as a way of singing her brother’s praises to Lizzie.

-I love the 1967 version’s reveal of Lydia’s elopement, with Kitty receiving the fatal letter and sharing its contents with her parents. This version unfolds similarly to that, but at Lambton Inn, with her older sisters present and the Gardiners out sightseeing. Once the news is known, panic on deck. Jane goes off to write their parents about this terrible news. Darcy walks in just as Lizzie is explaining to Kitty, that no, Wickham is not the kind of man to marry a woman with as little money coming to her as Lydia has, so Lydia is probably just living with him, and that means Lydia will get a reputation as the kind of woman who’s not good enough for marriage, and that will give the rest of the sisters the reputation of not being good enough for marriage. That’s not fair, Kitty says. No, it’s not, Lizzie admits. But nothing in life is fair.

-Lizzie sends Kitty off to pack, and prepares to track down the Gardiners. Darcy volunteers to go find them, and expresses his sympathy and regret over what happened. Lizzie reproaches herself for not revealing Wickham’s true character, Darcy says he is more to blame in that regard. He says that he knows what Georgiana told her the other night, and he hopes that this business of Lydia’s may yet come to an equally satisfactory conclusion.

-The family party goes home. The Gardiners set out for London, Mr. Phillips and Mr. Bennet having already departed. I have no use for the idea that being stuck with the Longbourne household waiting to see what happens is somehow “suspenseful” or narratively important. Anyone with half a brain, even in Austen’s time, could see what was going on in Darcy’s mind when he learns about the elopement, the only question is what he will manage to do about it. What we get from here in the miniseries is a series of intercut bits of three storylines: a). Lydia’s male relatives searching for her in London(1), including Mr. Bennet giving up in despair and going home, b). doom and gloom at Longbourne as Mrs. Bennet first whines for her husband and then is upset when he comes home, and c). Darcy’s slow but steady detective work in pursuit of the elopers.

–It’s important that he be shown trying to convince Lydia to come home when he finds her, and her obstinately clinging to her relationship with Wickham; too many modern people get ticked off(2) at him hustling them into marriage like that’s supposed to be an objectively good thing, when the book doesn’t portray that as being his first choice of a solution, or an objectively good thing once it happens, just the least worst outcome given everything else going on.

–He and Wickham have a private face to face to negotiate the terms of Wickham’s surrender to marriage, in which it becomes clear that it is actively painful for Darcy to have to deal with this needling, unpleasant scumbag, who takes Georgiana’s name in vain (as in the Dutch version of this scene) and says basically for all he cares Lydia can go back to her family or become a streetwalker. Darcy offers to settle all his debts and purchase him a commission in a proper regiment. “If that’s to marry her, how much to turn her up sweet afterwards?” Wickham sneers. “If you don’t treat her properly, you will answer to me,” Darcy says, and he’s intimidating enough, without getting physical(3), to make it believable. We cut away as Wickham, somewhat shaken, attempts to continue haggling…

–the news at Longbourne that the two are found, and are going to be married, should feel like the characters and the viewer sort of flopping down in exhausted relief, though for different reasons. (The characters are feeling relief because they’re finally hearing about a positive outcome to this business, and the viewer is feeling relief because they’ve watched the whole exhausting process of making the positive outcome happen.) Mrs. Bennet’s callousness about the idea of her brother sinking tons of money into making this happen is highlighted, as is Mr. Bennet’s embittered gloom at the idea of trying to pay his brother-in-law back.

The rest of the main plot unfolds as in the book, with a few minor exceptions. We actually see Bingley’s proposal to Jane, and his discussion with Mr. Bennet (possibly “every servant will cheat you” is addressed to Bingley rather than Jane). Possibly Lady Catherine does something mildly shocking like breaking in on the Bennets at tea-time, preserving 2005’s sense of her visit being highly disruptive without the ridiculousness of her showing up in the middle of the night. Darcy is still at Netherfield at the time of this visit from his aunt in this version; she mentions stopping at Netherfield only to find that the gentlemen were out riding. Lizzie keeps a cool head on her shoulders during this conversation; we see her regret for the romance Lady Catherine is trying to prevent and Lizzie believes will never happen, and her irritation at this meddling woman, but she holds onto the high ground socially while the generally calm, smug Lady Catherine is reduced to incoherent rage. The latter crosses paths with her nephew as she is leaving and gives him a piece of her mind. We see the desperate half-hope dawning on his face when he realizes the implications of what she’s telling him, and hear the quiet, cutting politeness with which he tells his aunt that who he marries is none of her concern.

-He then enters Longbourne and undergoes the buildup to The Walk. The Walk itself happens pretty much as in the book. The second proposal occurs on a hillside slope, with Darcy downhill from Lizzie and almost on eye-level with her. I think possibly “she immediately though not very fluently made her change in feelings clear” translates in this case to a moment of silently staring into each other’s eyes and her impulsively kissing him on the lips. (Remember to chemistry-test your leads at the casting stage, so that moments like this actually work!)

-Epilogue: we all reconvene a couple of years later for a family dinner celebrating the wedding of Kitty Bennet to her clergyman. A conversation between Mary and Lydia reveals that the former has married her uncle’s clerk, and the latter is a widow ever since Waterloo, and she plays that card kind of like her mother plays “my poor nerves.” Ann de Bourg is engaged to Fitzwilliam’s military friend; her mother talks like it was all her idea. Fitzwilliam has come unexpectedly into the Earldom, and the widowed Mrs. Wickham is making eyes at him. Collins boasts to Mr. Bennet about what a wonderfully intelligent son he-Collins has, while Charlotte seems to enjoy chasing the little guy around. The Bingley and Darcy couples are rejoicing in the fact that Bingley just purchased an estate near Pemberley. Mrs. Bennet is immensely pleased with it all, and she and her husband, without ceasing to be rather contemptible people, share a more positive moment than we’ve seen from them since before they were married. The End.

(1) If we go with the fan casting I mention some time ago, with David Rintoul as Mr. Phillips, Matthew MacFadyen as Mr. Bennet, and Colin Firth as Mr. Gardiner, we need to have a Conclave of Darcys Past before Mr. Bennet gives up and goes home.

(2) thereby showing that they didn’t actually RTFB.

(3) Look, I love Italian Darcy slamming Italian Wickham around and snarling at him at this point in the story, but it just doesn’t fly in an English language adaptation. Sorry.