ACT I

SCENE I

SETTING: Longbourn drawing room. The stage is empty except for a few pieces of furniture to suggest the Bennet household. There are no backdrops or flats.

AT RISE: MR. BENNET is sitting in a chair reading.

(MRS. BENNET’S voice can be heard from offstage)

MRS. BENNET
(offstage)
Mr. Bennet! Oh, Mr. Bennet! (SHE comes rushing into the room) My dear Mr. Bennet, have you heard that Netherfield Park is let? It is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England. A Mr. Bingley.

MR. BENNET
Is he married or single?

MRS. BENNET
Oh! Single, my dear! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!

MR. BENNET
How so?

MRS. BENNET
My dear Mr. Bennet how can you be so tiresome! You must know I am thinking of his marrying one of them.

MR. BENNET
Is that his design in settling here?

MRS. BENNET
Design! Nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very likely that he may fall in love with one of them, and therefore you must visit him for it will be impossible for the girls to meet him, if you do not.

MR. BENNET
You are over-scrupulous, surely. I will send him my hearty consent to his marrying which ever he chooses of the girls; though I must throw in a good word for my little Lizzy.

MRS. BENNET
You always favor Lizzy.

MR. BENNET
My daughters are all silly and ignorant like other girls; but Lizzy has something more of quickness than her sisters.

MRS. BENNET
Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such a way? You delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my poor nerves.

MR. BENNET
You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty-five years.

MRS. BENNET
Ah! You do not know what I suffer.

MR. BENNET
But I hope you will get over it, and live to see many young men of four thousand a year come into the neighborhood.

MRS. BENNET
It will be no use if twenty should come, since you will not visit them.

MR. BENNET
Depend upon it, my dear, when there are twenty I will visit them all.

(Enter ELIZABETH, JANE, BINGLEY and DARCY)

MRS. BENNET
Lizzy, Jane, who are your guests?

ELIZABETH
This is our new neighbor, Mr. Bingley and his friend, Mr. Darcy. We met them in the lane.

BINGLEY
Pardon for the intrusion. I have come to invite you to a dinner party at Netherfield.

MRS. BENNET
Please come in. Come in! I was just saying to Mr. Bennet that he must go over and introduce himself.

BINGLEY
But he has! Mr. Bennet paid a visit this morning.

MRS. BENNET
But... Mr. Bennet! You were teasing me.

BINGLEY
There will be dancing, of course. Although, I must say against Mr. Darcy’s wishes.

MRS. BENNET
Oh, Mr. Darcy! Dancing is such a wonderful thing. I consider it one of the first refinements of polished societies.

DARCY
Perhaps, ma’am, yet any savage can dance.

BINGLEY
We have just come from the Lucas’s.

MRS. BENNET
Did you meet their daughters? Were they in the kitchen?

BINGLEY
No, ma’am, they were with their mother in the drawing room.

MRS. BENNET
Mrs. Lucas has taught her daughters to cook. For my part, I always keep servants that can do their own work. But every body is to judge for themselves. The Lucas’s are very good girls. It is a pity they are not handsome! Not that I think Charlotte so very plain -- but then she is our particular friend.

BINGLEY
She seems a very pleasant young woman.

MRS. BENNET
Oh! Dear, yes; -- but you must own she is very plain. Lady Lucas herself has often said so, and envied me Jane's beauty. When she was only fifteen, there was a gentleman so much in love with Jane, we were sure he would make her an offer. But he did not. However, he wrote some verses on her.

JANE
Mother, please.

ELIZABETH
And so ended his affection. I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!

DARCY
I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love.

ELIZABETH
Of a fine, stout, healthy love. But if it be a slight, thin inclination, I am convinced one good sonnet will starve it away entirely.

MRS. BENNET
Mr. Bennet. Isn’t this delightful! So many new young men in the neighborhood. Mr. Bingley, Mr. Darcy, and two new officers as well, a Mr. Phillips and a Mr. Wickham.

BINGLEY
Excuse me. Did you say a Mr. Wickham?

MRS. BENNET
Why, yes. He comes from the North. Do you know him?

DARCY
Forgive the interruption. Bingley, we must go if we are to call on the other houses.

BINGLEY
Pardon me, but we must excuse ourselves. Miss Jane, at my dinner party, I hope you will honor me with a dance.

(JANE blushes and nods. BINGLEY and DARCY exit)