Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 55: Jane's Turn at Last

Darcy goes up to London, Bingley keeps coming to Longbourn, and Mrs. Bennet clears the field with all the subtlety she possesses, which is none. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 55 of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, in which ten months of misunderstanding end in five minutes of plain speaking.

The campaign of contrived absences is excruciating: winks Kitty cannot interpret, errands nobody believes, and Jane left conspicuously alone with a man too honourable to need the trap. It works anyway, or rather he does. Bingley proposes, Jane accepts, and the house dissolves into a happiness even its master cannot mock.

• Mrs. Bennet spends two evenings maneuvering bodies out of the drawing-room, and Jane's mortified glances at Elizabeth beg for rescue that mercifully never comes.
• Jane brings the news to her sister first, calling herself the happiest creature in the world and wishing only that everybody could be so happy.
• Bingley's interview with Mr. Bennet is short, and the father's verdict to Jane afterward is pure Bennet: so complying a couple will be cheated by every servant and exceed their income on generosity alone.
• Mrs. Bennet, vindicated at last, cannot love the word Netherfield enough, and declares she always knew Jane could not be so beautiful for nothing.