Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 53: The Gentlemen Return to Netherfield

The Wickhams leave for Newcastle, Mrs. Bennet laments, and then Meryton's oldest rumor comes back to life. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 53 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which Netherfield opens its shutters, and its master rides into the Longbourn drawing-room with the last person anyone expected at his side.

Mr. Bingley is coming down for a few weeks' shooting, and Mrs. Bennet, who abused him steadily for ten months, is instantly all plans and palpitations. On the third morning he appears on horseback, and Elizabeth, at the window, sees who rides with him: Mr. Darcy, in the one house in England where his greatest service must never be mentioned.

• Mrs. Bennet's welcome divides precisely: warm effusions for dear Mr. Bingley, and a cold, ceremonious civility for his friend that makes Elizabeth ache, knowing what the whole family owes him.
• Worse follows: her mother's triumphant chatter about Lydia's marriage to dear Wickham, delivered in the very face of the man who paid for it.
• Darcy says almost nothing, Elizabeth can manage little more, and the pair who parted at Lambton in perfect understanding sit across one room like strangers.
• Bingley, meanwhile, looks at Jane exactly as he used to, and an invitation to dine at Longbourn on Tuesday is issued before the gentlemen are out of the drive.