Pride and/or Prejudice
The rooms the Bennet family employ for daily use in the drafty, gray halls of Longbourn are in utter disarray. This is not unusual.
Kitty's fistfuls of ribbons, bequeathed to her from her older sisters, are tangled in the chandelier and threatening to catch in a candle, Mother roves around Father and squawks an indecipherable wail, Kitty is caterwauling like, well, like a kitty, and the glum soundtrack Mary provides on the piano sounds uncomfortably like a dirge. Lizzie observes all this from the doorjamb.
"Oh you must go--you must go--Mr. Bennet! Think of the girls! Think of their futures!" Lizzie manages to cobble together from her Mother's screeching, which is tacked on to her favorite phrase of: "Four thousand a year! Mr. Bennet! Four thousand!"
Mr. Bennet seems nonplused nor motivated by his wife, no matter how many times she reiterates the request. Yet, it offers Lizzie little context, and so she turns to her older sister Jane (the only sensible sister, in Lizzie's opinion) and asks if she has gleaned what the fuss is about.
"The fuss is that Netherfield has been let at last by a Mr. Bingley of four or five thousand a year," Jane replies in an undertone. "Mama wants Papa to go introduce ourselves so one of us can be thrown at Mr. Bingley as the next Mrs. Bingley."
Quite suddenly, Mary wrenches her hands from the piano-Lizzie instantly feels slightly less depressed-and cuts in: "But why must we judge a man on his monetary worth, what about his character or his--"
"His derriere?" Kitty offers, quite seriously. Mary blushes, looking appalled at the implication and that Kitty dare to use French, of all things.
Jane ignores them, continuing, "But the trouble is he's come with two women and two other men, so it's impossible to say if he's unattached."
Lizzie, eyebrows climbing as she listens to the drama, opens her mouth and replies:
Kitty's fistfuls of ribbons, bequeathed to her from her older sisters, are tangled in the chandelier and threatening to catch in a candle, Mother roves around Father and squawks an indecipherable wail, Kitty is caterwauling like, well, like a kitty, and the glum soundtrack Mary provides on the piano sounds uncomfortably like a dirge. Lizzie observes all this from the doorjamb.
"Oh you must go--you must go--Mr. Bennet! Think of the girls! Think of their futures!" Lizzie manages to cobble together from her Mother's screeching, which is tacked on to her favorite phrase of: "Four thousand a year! Mr. Bennet! Four thousand!"
Mr. Bennet seems nonplused nor motivated by his wife, no matter how many times she reiterates the request. Yet, it offers Lizzie little context, and so she turns to her older sister Jane (the only sensible sister, in Lizzie's opinion) and asks if she has gleaned what the fuss is about.
"The fuss is that Netherfield has been let at last by a Mr. Bingley of four or five thousand a year," Jane replies in an undertone. "Mama wants Papa to go introduce ourselves so one of us can be thrown at Mr. Bingley as the next Mrs. Bingley."
Quite suddenly, Mary wrenches her hands from the piano-Lizzie instantly feels slightly less depressed-and cuts in: "But why must we judge a man on his monetary worth, what about his character or his--"
"His derriere?" Kitty offers, quite seriously. Mary blushes, looking appalled at the implication and that Kitty dare to use French, of all things.
Jane ignores them, continuing, "But the trouble is he's come with two women and two other men, so it's impossible to say if he's unattached."
Lizzie, eyebrows climbing as she listens to the drama, opens her mouth and replies: