Chapter 7 - Face-melting Levels of Joy - Pride and Prejudice Lit Edition

Hi, and welcome back to Pride and Prejudice Lit Edition. In this unabridged read-through of Jane Austen's classic novel, I take a book that you might be having a hard time studying because you think it sucks, or it's bush league, naff, bunk, or terribad, and infuse it with some new language to make it accessible. In this episode, we'll be reading Chapter Seven. Hold on to your hats, because one of our beloved sisters is about to be put But not really. Chapter Seven. Metro Bennett's own stacks consisted almost entirely of an estate of 2,000 bones a year, which, unfortunately for his daughters, was going to go straight to a male heir, a distant relation. And her mother's stacks, though ample for her situation in life, couldn't really make up the difference. Her father had been an attorney in She had a sister married to a Mr Phillips, who had been a clerk to their father, and succeeded him in the business, and a brother settled in London in a respectable line of trade. The village of Longbourn was crazy close to Meryton, which made it easy for the young ladies to go ham on visits, sometimes three or four days a week, to their aunt and to the milliner's shop just over the way. The two youngest of the family, Catherine and Lydia, were there Their minds were more vacant than their sister's, and when they weren't busy face-jerking, a walk to Meryton was a good way to waste some time and gather some goss for the evening. However tacked the country in general might be, they always managed to get something out of their aunt. At present, indeed, they were well supplied, both with news and good vibes, by the recent arrival of a militia regiment in the neighbourhood. It was to remain the whole winter, and Meryton was the headquarters. Their visits to Mrs Phillips now became sexy little spy visits. Every day added something to their intelligence on the officers' names and connections. Where they were staying was not long a secret, and at length they began to know the officers themselves. Mr Phillips visited them all, which opened up for his nieces an arc of the covenant amount of joy that almost melted their faces off. They could talk of nothing but officers, and Mr Bingley's large fortune, the mention of which made their mother a bit hot under the collar, was worthless in their eyes when opposed to the regimentals of an ensign. After listening one morning to them yap on and on about the subject, Metro coolly observed, It's my cool observation, girls, that you are probably the most clueless ladies in the country. Catherine was disconcerted and made no answer, but Lydia, with perfect indifference, continued to express her admiration of Captain Carter and her hope of seeing him in the course of the day as he was going the next morning to London. I'm astonished, my dear, said Mrs Bennett, that you would so easily dropkick your daughters like that. If I wanted to insult anyone's children, that wouldn't be my own. If my children are boneheads, dear, I would rather be aware that they're boneheads. Yeah, but as it happens, they're actually rather smart. Babe, we connect on a lot of levels, but this is not one of them. I disagree. I think they're dimmer than average. My dear Metro, you must not expect such girls to have the sense of their father and mother. When they get to our age, I dare say they won't be spending all their time getting horny over officers. I remember a time when I liked those camo slacks a whole lot. And indeed, maybe I do still. You know, just a little bit. Yeah. And if a smart young colonel with five or six thousand bones a year should want one of our girls, then I'm not going to say no. And I thought Colonel Forster looked very platonically very good the other night at Sir William's. I need to lie down. Mama, cried Lydia. My aunt says that Colonel Forster and Captain Carter don't go so often to Miss Watson's as they did when they first came. She sees them now very often standing in Clark's library. Mrs. Bennett was stopped from replying by the ding of an email notification for Miss Bennett. It came from Netherfield and it had the little red flag symbol, meaning that it was important. Mrs. Bennett's eyes lit up. They exploded. They sparkled with joy and she was screeching. She was making the most ridiculous noise while her daughter read. Well, Jane, who's it from? What's it about? What does he say? Come! I'm busting out of my skin here, Jane! Tell us! It is from Miss Bingley, said Jane, and then read it aloud. Sup, fam? If you don't dine today with Louisa and me, we may legit fall out for the rest of our lives. Because you know two ladies together, that's going to end in a fight. Beam your ass over here as soon as you see this email. My bro and his hands are dining with the officers. XOXO, Caroline Bingley. With the officers, cried Lydia. Why didn't our aunt tell us about that? Dining out, though, said Mrs. Bennett. That's unlucky. Can I take the beamer? Said Jane. No, my dear. What's a horse in this universe? In this web that I'm weaving, what is a horse? No, my dear, you better go on the Vespa. No, my dear, you better go on the Vespa, because it seems likely to rain, and then you'd have to stay all night. That would be a good scheme, said Elizabeth, except you don't know whether they'd offer her an Uber. Okay, but the gentlemen are already out in the town, right, so they'll be using theirs. And the hearse don't have a nice car. I'd much rather take the family ride. But, my dear, your father can't spare it. He needs it for work. You need it for work, right, Metro? I need it for all kinds of things way more often than I can get it. But if you need it today, specifically, said Elizabeth, mum will be very happy. She did finally squeeze out of her father that, indeed, the car was needed. Jane was therefore obliged to Vespa it up, and her mother danced behind her all the way to the door, checking her weather app and smiling. Her hopes were answered. Jane had not been gone for more than a few minutes when it started raining real hard. Her sisters were worried about her, but her mother was delighted. The rain continued all evening. There was no way Jane was coming home. This was a very lucky idea of mine, said Mrs. Bennett more than once, as if she'd started the rain. Till the next morning, however, she wasn't fully aware of what she'd done. Breakfast was scarcely over when a message arrived in the family WhatsApp group from Jane. Hey team, super sick this morning, uncomfortable emoji. Which is probably because I got all wet yesterday, rain cloud emoji, rain cloud emoji. The guys here really don't want me traveling until I'm feeling better. They also insist on me seeing Doc Jones, needle emoji, pill emoji. So don't freak out if you hear about him seeing me. It's really not a big deal, just a sore throat and a headache. Catch you later, Dash J X. Well my dear, said Metro, when everyone had finished reading the message, if your daughter should have a dangerous fit of illness and fall over dead, at least it's nice to know that it happened chasing boys. Oh, I'm not afraid of her dying. People don't die from that ----. She'll be taken care of and the longer she stays there, the better. I'd go see her if I could have the car. Elizabeth, feeling really anxious, was determined to go to her. But since the car wasn't available and she didn't have a scooter license, walking was her only alternative. She declared her resolution. How can you be so crazy in the coconut? Cried her mother. As to think of such a thing in all this dirt. You'll get fucked up like a football bat. And you won't be fit for a good snorkel by the time you get there. I'll be fine enough to see Jane, which is all I want. Is this a hint to me, Lizzie? Said her father, to bring the car around. No, I don't want to drive. I want the walk. Distance is nothing when one has a motive. It's only three miles. I'll be back by dinner. I'm feeling your kind spirit, observed Mary. But every impulse should be guided by reason. And in my opinion, effort should always be in proportion to what is required. We will go as far as Merritton with you, said Catherine and Lydia. Elizabeth accepted their company and the three young ladies set off together. If we make haste, said Lydia, as they walked along, perhaps we may see something of Captain Carter before he goes. In Merritton, they parted. The two youngest slumped off to the lodgings of one of the officer's wives. And Elizabeth continued her walk alone, crossing field after field at a quick pace, jumping over stiles, springing over puddles with impatient activity, and finding herself at last within view of the house, with weary ankles, janky, dirty stockings, and a face glowing with the warmth of exercise. She was shown into the breakfast parlor, where all but Jane were chilling, and where her appearance created a great deal of surprise, that she should have walked three miles earlier in the day in such horrible weather, and by herself, seemed turbo cray to Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley, and Elizabeth would swear down that they were judging her for it. She was welcomed, though, very politely, and in their brother's manners, something slightly beyond politeness. There was good humor and kindness. Mr. Darcy said very little, and Mr. Hurst, nothing at all. The former was kind of torn. The glow that all that exercise had given her was definitely tickling his fancy, but he also thought it was kind of melodramatic and unnecessary for her to come this far alone. The other one was just making love to his breakfast. Her inquiries after her sister didn't get the best results. Miss Bennett had slept ill, and although she was up, was still feverish, and not well enough to leave her room. Elizabeth was glad to be taken to her immediately, and Jane was super psyched to see her. She didn't want to spook anyone, but she had longed for such a visit. She was not up to much conversation, however, and when Miss Bingley left them together, all she could really do was mumble about her gratitude for the extraordinary kindness she was being treated with. Elizabeth silently attended to her. When breakfast was over, they were joined by the sisters, and Elizabeth began to take a shine to them herself, when she saw how legit nice they were being to Jane. The doc showed up, and having examined his patients, said, surprising no one, she had caught a violent cold, and they should try and get the better of it. He told her to get back in bed, and wrote up a script for some flu meds and soup. They followed his advice, for the feverish symptoms increased, and her head ached a lot. Elizabeth never hit the slide, nor were the other ladies often absent. With the boys being out, in fact, they had nothing to do elsewhere. When the clock struck three, Elizabeth thought it was time to go, even though she didn't want to. Miss Bingley offered her a ride, but Jane made a commotion about not wanting her to go, so eventually, the offer of a ride was converted to an invitation to remain at Netherfield. Lizzie thankfully accepted, and added to the WhatsApp group, staying the night, can somebody prime Naomi some PJs? Blurgh! What a long chapter! Hey guys, and thank you for listening to episode four of Pride and Prejudice Lit Edition. As you know by now, this is a semi-improvised comedy series where I rewrite Pride and Prejudice and try and make it a bit more fun, but it was partially inspired by that feeling of being in school and being forced to study a book that you have no way of connecting to. For that reason, I wanted to do something slightly different for this episode. With seven chapters in, we've got a lot of the book to go, and I don't know if this is everybody's experience, but when I was reading Pride and Prejudice for the first time as a teenager, I had a really hard time following which characters were who, who was married to who, who was related to who, and sometimes even who was talking. So I'm going to break down the genealogy of all the characters in Pride and Prejudice. If you want to see this graphically represented at any time, there's a really handy picture on the Wikipedia page for the novel. That's what I'm working from. There are also descriptions of all the different characters. So throughout this book, we're basically dealing with only two generations. There are the elder characters, the parents, aunts, and uncles of the people that are involved in the romance and their respective spouses, and there are the younger generations, the kids who are running around, frolicking, and falling in love with people that maybe they shouldn't, or maybe they should, or maybe it's none of our business. In the older section of the Bennett family, we've got Mr. Bennett, Metro, to his friends. He has a distant cousin that we haven't met yet, Mr. William Collins. Then you've got Mrs. Bennett, who we haven't named yet, and I think we're gonna need to name her as well. It's only fair. We'll get to that in text at some point, I promise. Her surname seems to be formerly Gardiner, and she has a brother, Mr. Edward Gardiner, who is married to a Mrs. Gardiner, who doesn't get a name. She also has a sister, Mrs. Phillips, married to a Mr. Phillips. Her siblings were mentioned very briefly at the top of this chapter. They have five daughters who are basically the focus of this novel. Jane Bennett, Elizabeth Bennett, Mary Bennett, Catherine Bennett, and Lydia Bennett. Catherine and Lydia are the young ones. They seem to spend a lot of time together. Mary's the kind of awkward middle child. Elizabeth is our smart, hip protagonist. And Jane, the eldest daughter, who is described as the most attractive one, but also given quite a predictable plot. The other important older characters in the novel are the Darcy family, who we haven't really heard anything about. You've got a Mr. Darcy, married to a Lady Anne Darcy, who are Fitz's parents. She has two siblings, who will become more important later on. Lady Catherine de Bourgh. I think I'm saying that right. And the Earl of Matlock. The Earl, as far as I remember, is, again, not given a first name. That's one of the big things, I think, that really threw me as a teenager, is so many of these characters are referred to by surname only. By honorific and surname only. And it is a little tough sometimes. The older Darcy's have two children. Fitzwilliam Darcy and Georgina Darcy, his younger sister. Also in that family, Lady Catherine has a daughter, Anne de Bourgh, and the Earl of Matlock has a son, Colonel Fitzwilliam. On the Bingley side of things, we never really engage with the older Bingley generation. We just have Charles Bingley, who's interested in Jane, Caroline Bingley, his sister, and Louisa Hurst, his other sister, who is married to a Mr. Hurst. We met them in this chapter as well. So when Mrs. Louisa Hurst is referring to her brother, for example, she is talking about Bingley. It seems obvious when I say it, but it really didn't come across in the text to a 12-year-old me. Then you've got a few other people later in the novel who are friends or acquaintances of these characters. George Wickham is one, an acquaintance of Darcy. And Charlotte Lucas, who I believe we've met a few times already, who is a friend of Elizabeth's. The Lucases are one of the other families that they know. The, uh, Lucas Lodge we've visited already. And there are lots of discussions of people like Colonel Forster, who are kind of tertiary characters that don't do much in the story. So that's your revision guide, I guess, if you're a little lost. I've been actively putting in more references to people's names than there are in the text. And although it started as a goof, actually giving names to some of these characters that don't have first names might also help. That said, if you have suggestions for names, please tweet them using the hashtag P&P Lit. That's hashtag Panned Plit. We've got Mr. Hurst, Mr. Phillips, Mrs. Gardner, Mrs. Bennet still, the older Mr. Darcy, the Earl of Matlock. We're going to meet these characters and I want to be prepared, right? I want to have names for them. So hit me with your best shots by tweeting with the hashtag. As always, you can also find me on Twitter at helloiambing. You can interact with this series at pnplit.com. That's pannedplit.com. Follow us on Tumblr from there. If you want to listen to more episodes, you can go to hitwithwrench.com. If you want to support the show by getting your message read out on air, you can go to hitwithwrench.com forward slash classifieds. And I think that's where I'm going to end this episode. I know it's only one chapter, but I really wanted to do the genealogy now rather than later. I hope you guys appreciate that. I know I would have back in the day, so I hope that was useful to some people. See you in a couple of weeks for chapters eight and nine.