Episode Five is the turning point. The next morning, Darcy hands her a letter. She reads it in a sun-dappled grove, her face shifting from anger to confusion to horror. Wickham, he writes, was a gambler, a wastrel who tried to elope with Darcy’s fifteen-year-old sister, Georgiana, for her fortune. And Jane? Darcy admits he advised Bingley she did not love him, believing it a kindness. Elizabeth looks up from the letter, her world inverted. She has been a fool. Blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd.
In the drawing-room that evening, while Jane recovers upstairs, Elizabeth spars with Darcy. They talk of “accomplished” women, of pride, of “a lively, playful disposition.” He smiles—a rare, awkward quirk of the mouth—and she is almost taken aback. Almost. But then he says that he cannot “forget the follies and vices of others so easily.” She thinks of his snub at the assembly. Pride , she decides, is his master.
He stares. Then, a slow, wondering smile breaks across his face. He takes her hand, presses it to his lips, and whispers, “Elizabeth.” -s Pride and Prejudice -1995- All 6 Episodes
“My affections and wishes are unchanged,” she says. “But one word from you will silence me on this subject forever.”
But in the final hour, the miracle. Mr. Bennet receives a letter from Mr. Gardiner: Wickham has agreed to marry Lydia for a staggering sum. Mrs. Bennet crows. Only Elizabeth suspects the truth. And then, Bingley returns to Netherfield, proposes to Jane (in a drawing-room so full of nervous energy it practically hums), and is accepted. Episode Five is the turning point
Then, disaster. A letter arrives: Lydia has run off with Wickham. Elizabeth tells Darcy. He goes pale, says nothing, and leaves abruptly. She returns to Longbourn, certain she has lost him forever.
Episode One unfolds at the Meryton Assembly. Elizabeth’s eyes are bright, her tongue sharp. She watches Mr. Bingley—open, charming, immediately dancing with her sister Jane—and approves. But then she sees him . Mr. Darcy. Tall, handsome, and carved from the very ice of his Pemberley estate. He stands apart, refusing to dance, and when Bingley suggests he ask Elizabeth to dance, Darcy replies, loud enough for her to hear: “She is tolerable, I suppose, but not handsome enough to tempt me .” Wickham, he writes, was a gambler, a wastrel
Then comes the visit from Mr. Collins, their ridiculous clergyman cousin, who will inherit Longbourn. Episode Three delivers the season’s first great set-piece: he proposes to Elizabeth in the Longbourn parlor. It is a masterpiece of condescending absurdity. “My reasons for marrying are, first… secondly… thirdly…” He lists them like items on a grocery list. Elizabeth refuses, calmly, then firmly. Her mother is hysterical. Her father, hiding in his library, sighs with relief. “An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth,” he says. “From this day, you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do.”
The story begins not with a whisper, but with a clatter. The clip-clop of hooves on the muddy lane to Netherfield Park announces to all of Meryton that the neighborhood has a new, wealthy tenant: Mr. Bingley. For Mrs. Bennet, it is the sound of destiny. For her second-eldest daughter, Elizabeth, it is merely the prelude to an evening of tolerable nonsense.
Months later, she travels with her aunt and uncle to the Peak District. They visit Pemberley, thinking Darcy is away. Episode Six shows them wandering through the magnificent house—the marble, the paintings, the library Elizabeth covets—and then, on the lawn, a plunge. Darcy appears, returned early. He is civil. He invites her uncle to fish. He introduces her to his sister, Georgiana, shy and sweet. Elizabeth watches him with his household, his servants, his dog—and realizes she loves him.