The Gazebo

The fathers of Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet became friends at Cambridge and often corresponded after they graduated, playing chess matches and informing the other about their families. However, because of the difference in their standings in English society, they never met socially after Cambridge. The novel begins years after Darcy’s father died, when Darcy and Bingley first visit Netherfield Park to determine if Bingley might want to lease it. On their inspection tour, Darcy first meets Elizabeth, about whose first fifteen years he has read in his father’s letters. Bingley subsequently decides to lease Netherfield, and at an assembly ball, shortly after Bingley and his family move into Netherfield, Darcy has another encounter with Elizabeth. Darcy is unable to dance with Elizabeth, because by the time he arrives, her dance card is full. However, she observes him during ball and is greatly disappointed with his demeanor – it not being what what she had expected from what she had read about him in the letters his father had written to hers. Over the ensuing weeks and months, he determines she is the perfect woman for him, but he must convince her that he is the perfect man for him, despite her intial impression of him and what she hears about him from his father’s godson, George Wickham. His endeavor is supported by his sister, his cousin (Col. Fitzwilliam), and his paternal Aunt Pershing and her husband. His quest is finally resolved in the gazebo high on the ridge behind Pemberley while she and her sister, Kitty, are visiting there.