Lost in Austen

Amanda Price:
I'm not hung up about Darcy. I do not sit at home with the pause button on Colin Firth in clingy pants, okay? I love the love story. I love Elizabeth. I love the manners and language and the courtesy. It's become part of who I am and what I want. I'm saying that I have standards.

Frankie:
Oh, you have standards, pet. I hope they help you on with your coat when you're 70.

Mr. Bingley:
Darcy regards all forms of sudden locomotion as emblematic of ill-breeding. Hunting, tennis, rising precipitately from a chair...

Mr. Darcy:
When Miss Price and I dance, sir, there shall be nothing sudden.

Amanda Price:
I can't dance this sort of dance.

Mr. Darcy:
Nor I. Together we shall make a shambles. But we shall do it with such authority that everyone will stare at us to learn the step.

Mr. Bingley:
I'm drawn to you! I'm a man.

Amanda Price:
And I'm a woman! And I'm drawn... to other women.

Mr. Bingley:
You mean there really are ladies who... steer the punt from the Cambridge end?

Mr. Bingley:
[after Amanda sings 'Downtown'] Brava, Miss Price! And whenever life is gettin' me down, I shall be sure to go 'downtown'. Eh, Darcy?

Mr. Darcy:
With alacrity.

Mr. Darcy:
If you wound Bingley you will find my displeasure baleful and entirely unrelenting, for my...

Amanda Price:
"Good opinion once lost is lost forever." Yes, I know.

Mr. Darcy:
About Miss Bennet. You lied. Why?

Amanda Price:
God, I know you're supposed to be abrupt but that's a bit stark.

Mr. Darcy:
I'm always stark with liars.

Amanda Price:
[thinking] Elizabeth, what can I say? You're welcome to him. Miserable sod.

Caroline Bingley:
Money, Miss Price. The fortune to which you aspire in an immediate instance may pass you by. But I am certain you shall not starve.

Amanda Price:
No, I don't suppose I shall on 27000 a year.

Amanda Price:
[to Elizabeth through the door] Collins. On the page, OK, he's pretty bad. In the flesh, he's all-time king of the mingers!

Mr. Wickham:
Miss Price, I fear that your life with Mr. Collins may be short of gaeity. If you find yourself nonplussed by the anticipated pleasures of married life, call upon me and I shall redress the deficit.

Amanda Price:
Full marks for trying, George, but I wouldn't have my deficit redressed by you if you were the last man on earth.

Mrs. Bennet:
Are you not happy that Jane is wed to Mr. Collins?

Mr. Bennet:
Happy? That my kindest, prettiest daughter has embarked upon an adulthood of suffication to such a preening Caliban? Happy, Madam - that she should live in subjugation to such an enormity? I would rather sleep in a drain than consent to be happy!

Amanda Price:
I try not to judge people I've never met

Mr. Darcy:
You are a philosopher, Miss Price. I would I could be like you.

Amanda Price:
Certainly you would benefit an occupation of some kind. You have no function, Mr. Darcy. No purpose.

Mr. Darcy:
Of course not. What a disgusting idea. That is the raison d'etre of society. We must be seen to be unoccupied.

Mr. Bingley:
Damn you! Damn you and damn everyone who won't put a light in his window and stay up all night damning you!

Mr. Darcy:
Uh, Miss Price? I am decided I was wrong about Charles and Miss Bennet. I should never have obstructed them. It was a shameless cruelty against your blameless friend and... I beg your propitiation for it. Prove to me that I am forgiven? Come to Pemberley? My sister Georgiana has want of company.

Georgiana:
This lady who's coming to stay... Are you going to marry her?

Mr. Darcy:
That's an absolutely outrageous question, Georgiana. And I really should chastise you for it.

Georgiana:
You wouldn't dare.

Mr. Darcy:
You're right, I wouldn't.

Mr. Wickham:
You have chosen precisely the man I wish for you to choose. Swellerando, master of Pemberley. Brava!

Mr. Darcy:
Amanda. It means 'she who must be loved'.

Amanda Price:
You must not. You must not...

Mr. Darcy:
Wherefore must I not? Who is to judge us? I have laboured so long in the service of propriety.

Amanda Price:
Elizabeth. I am not Elizabeth. The entire world will... hate me.

Mr. Darcy:
Were that true, Amanda, I would fight the world! You are the one I love.

Amanda Price:
[after Mr. Darcy emerges from the water] I am having a bit of a strange post-modern moment here.

Mr. Darcy:
Is that agreeable?

Amanda Price:
Oh, yes. Yes.

Caroline Bingley:
Charles told me your secret. It is my secret too. I shall get my paws on Darcy and I shall marry him because it is correct, and necessary and expected by everyone including God. But the physical society of men is something I have never sought. I shall endure it with Darcy because endurance is a speciality of our sex. But the poetry of Sappho is the only music that shall ever touch my heart, though I have yet to play upon the um... instrument myself.

Amanda Price:
[Thinking, after Caroline leaves] Goodness. Jane Austen would be fairly suprised to find she'd written that!

Amanda Price:
[to Darcy] You're supposed to be so bloody incandescent with integrity and you misjudge everybody! You misjudge me!

Amanda Price:
[Thinking, referring to Caroline] You think you're the girl for him! Step off, Caroline. You conniving, smirking...

Amanda Price:
Bumface! [Clattering on dining table]

Amanda Price:
Did I say that out loud?

Amanda Price:
Hear that sound, George? Duh-uh-uh-uh! That's Jane Austen spinning in her grave like a cat in a tumble-dryer.

Mr. Darcy:
[Bursts into room] Ah! Well met, well met! Bingley, Miss Lydia and I have just now returned from the opera...

Mr. Bingley:
Darcy.

Mr. Darcy:
...And the problem with the opera of course, is one cannot...

Mr. Bingley:
[interrupts] Sir, will you have done? Your subterfuge is well-meaning but it is puerile and demeans us all. There is no opera in Hammersmith. You've just arrived from god-knows-where, that much is plain.

Amanda Price:
Wickham. You are a bastard, but you are the right bastard at the right time.

Mr. Wickham:
One does one's best.

Mr. Darcy:
Are my wits disordered by opium? Where is this dreadful place?

Amanda Price:
This is London. My London.

Mr. Darcy:
I love you. I have followed you to this infernal place because I would follow you anywhere! I would harrow Hell to be with you!

Elizabeth Bennet:
Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley? I am your wife.

Mr. Darcy:
I do not recall marrying you, Madam. I think I would have noticed if I had.

Elizabeth Bennet:
We have been married nearly 200 years.

Michael:
What do you mean Darcy? Darcy's some ponce in a book! Some todger-twitching nancy boy!

Mr. Darcy:
What is this curious person? Is it some sort of village idiot... or a clown?

Amanda Price:
I need to use the telephone. I need to call my boyfriend.

Elizabeth Bennet:
Of course. [hands Amanda a mobile phone]

Amanda Price:
Elizabeth Bennet is lending me her mobile...

Amanda Price:
The rest of us are gonna say goodbye nicely and watch you step through all that plumbing into fictional Georgian England and that'll be it. And then we'll all spend the rest of our lives in therapy. It's going to be fine.

Elizabeth Bennet:
The door does not oblige.

Amanda Price:
It bloody well does oblige! This is Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet coming through for God's sake!

Mr. Darcy:
[In note] Not one heartbeat do I forget.

Mr. Wickham:
Where am I to sleep?

Amanda Price:
I am grateful to you, George. But where you... put yourself tonight is not my concern. Perhaps you should address yourself to Mr. Collins.

Mr. Wickham:
I doubt Mr. Collins is equipped to give me satisfaction with regards to this enquiry.

Amanda Price:
Then you must take matters into your own hands. Mine are full.

Lady Catherine de Bourgh:
Well? What do you have to say for yourself?

Mrs. Bennet:
I say this. You are a prig, Madam, a pander and a common bully. And you cheat at cards! Do you suppose you may enter my house and brandish your hat at me thus? I have a mind to turn you upside down and use you to scrape out Ambrosia's sty.

Lady Catherine de Bourgh:
Madam, I take my leave of you.

Mrs. Bennet:
Do! Or I shall take you out and set to scraping! Scrape, scrape, scrape, I shall go!

Mr. Bennet:
Tally-ho, wife!

Mr. Collins:
Mrs. Bennet, you must desist!

Jane Bennet:
Oh be quiet, you silly man. Do you suppose Mama would permit her daughters to be married to your brothers when before her very eyes is the specimen of you?

Mr. Bennet:
[after Lady Catherine and Mr. Collins leave] Tonight Mrs. Bennet, with your permission, I think I shall sleep in our bedroom.

Mr. Bingley:
[to Jane] In America, we shall be recreated. Married, by liberal Episcopalians. We shall have 25 children and name them all Amanda. Even the boys.

Elizabeth Bennet:
I'm sorry. It's just I see Jane and...

Amanda Price:
You think marriage to Darcy will be like marriage to Collins? Look, in the book you don't exactly hit it off - to begin with. Just keep talking. From the talking comes the love.

Mr. Bennet:
The time has come for me to tie you well... and let you go.

Mr. Darcy:
[surprised] Miss Price.

Amanda Price:
Yes. We should celebrate. You asked me a question and I answered it. And we didn't have an argument about it.

Mr. Darcy:
I did not ask you a question. I made an observation, 'Miss Price'. The confirmation of your identity was entirely superfluous. As a result we are now arguing about it. And therefore, you are wrong.

Amanda Price:
That's so sweet. You're actually trying to make me laugh.

Mr. Darcy:
Yes. It shall not occur again.

Amanda Price:
And you're smiling.

Mr. Darcy:
No, no. I only smile in private... when nobody is looking.

Amanda Price:
You're better than this! I know you are because I've had you in my head, Fitzwilliam Darcy, since I was 12 years old. So why are you behaving like such a total git? Jane has no money. So what? Bingley's got stacks! What right have you to trash their love because of an... accident of birth?

Mr. Darcy:
There is no accident in birth.

Amanda Price:
Do you know what I am so angry?

Mr. Darcy:
You were born thus.

Amanda Price:
I've been in love with your life for 14 years. Cut my heart out, Darcy. It's your name written on it with Elizabeth's. God Almighty, here you are! One half the greatest love story ever told. You! And do you know what? You don't deserve her.

Mr. Darcy:
Is this interview concluded? It is so difficult to tell.

Amanda Price:
You are such a disappointment, I can hardly bear to look at you!

Mr. Darcy:
A deprivation I shall endure as stoically as I can.

Amanda Price:
You're so relentless unpleasant! I just can't get at the real you!

Mr. Darcy:
Madam! Behold, Fitzwilliam Darcy. I am what I am. If you find yourself unable to 'get at' an alternative version, I must own to being glad. I despise the intrusions of a woman so singularly dedicated to mendacity, disorder and lewdness. They repel me. You repel me. You are an abomination, Madam. Good afternoon to you.

Amanda Price:
[after Darcy leaves] If I dream about him tonight, I shall be really angry! I'm going to dream about him. Well, I hope in my dream you choke. Hateful man!

Amanda Price:
You wish to speak to me, sir?

Mr. Darcy:
I am... concerned.

Amanda Price:
I don't understand.

Mr. Darcy:
You came to this house knowing you'll be brought to Lady Catherine's. Knowing I would be there, knowing full well the abysmal disregard in which I hold you. Why, when I am, as you insist, so relentlessly unpleasant to you, do you persist in seeking me out?

Amanda Price:
But I didn't seek you out. You came to me!

Mr. Darcy:
Why?

Amanda Price:
I don't know!

Mr. Darcy:
You must know. I do not, and my lack of comprehension is tormenting me.

Amanda Price:
Mrs Collins needs me. Good night.

[Darcy grabs hold of Amanda, and leans forward as if to kiss her]

Amanda Price:
[apprehensively] Are you quite sure this is what you mean to do?

Jane Bennet:
He is in love with you.

Amanda Price:
No, he can't be! That... doesn't make sense at all. That's crazy. Darcy, okay, and Elizabeth Bennet of Longbourne, not Darcy and Amanda Price of W6!

Jane Bennet:
Lizzie did not come to my wedding. She has detached herself from the fortunes of this family. It is the thing that she has chosen. You must acknowledge this, Miss Price, of your own choosing. I think you are a good person and you deserve happiness!

Mr. Darcy:
All's well, Mr. Collins? The birds are that way...

Mr. Collins:
Yes, yes!

Amanda Price:
Mr. Collins has had the unusual good fortune to shoot a peacock.

Mr. Wickham:
Everyone you know, Miss Price, will one day prise your fingers from the raft and watch you drown. It's the way of the world. Everyone. Except me.

Mr. Bingley:
We shall have 25 children and name them all Amanda, even the boys.

Amanda Price:
It is a truth generally acknowledged that we are all longing to escape. I escape always to my favourite book "Pride and Prejudice". I've read it so many times now the words just say themselves in my head and it's like a window opening, it's like I'm actually there. It's become a place I know so intimately I can see that world, I can touch it. I can see Darcy. Whoa Amanda. [closes book] Now where was I?

Amanda Price:
I'm not hung up about Darcy. I do not sit at home with the pause button on Colin Firth in clingy pants, okay? I love the love story. I love Elizabeth. I love the manners and language and the courtesy. It's become part of who I am and what I want. I'm saying that I have standards.

Frankie:
Oh, you have standards, pet? I hope they help you on with your coat when you're 70.

Amanda Price:
This place is a mess.

Frankie:
It's called "re-decorating". It's what women my age do when they get divorced. It's like sex, only you can stop any time you like for a cup of tea and a biscuit.

Mr. Bingley:
I've summoned hordes of friends from London. It should be quite a party. One that could only be enhanced should you consent to join it. All of you.

Mr. Bennet:
Too kind, Sir, but I must beg to be excused. Large gatherings of society bring me out in hives. As do small gatherings.

Mrs. Bennet:
It vexes me exceptionally that Elizabeth should choose to be abroad at such a time as this. And Hammersmith, Mr. Bennet? Is Hammersmith a likely sort of place?

Mr. Bennet:
I was not aware that it *was* abroad, my dear, but I salute your superior command of geography.

Mr. Bennet:
Jane, it appears you must now marry Mr. Darcy instead of Mr. Bingley.

Jane Bennet:
It is not presently my plan, Sir, to marry either gentleman.

Mr. Bennet:
No, but it *is* your mother's, so choose your hymns!

Mrs. Bennet:
[shrieks] Jane has gone to Netherfield Park in this weather and Miss Price pursues her. Are you so obtuse, Mr. Bennet, that you do not see what is the matter here? She has gone to queer Jane's pitch!

Mr. Bennet:
It is exciting when you bring the language of the theatre into this house, my dear, but might this room be returned to the purpose for which it was created? For me to sleep in - undisturbed.

Amanda Price:
Never mind the Bingley, bring on the Darcy.

Amanda Price:
What's the deal here? Are we live on cable or something? Is this like the Jim Carrey thing, but period? Where are the cameras? Come on! What are you after, guys? A bit of girl-on-girl action under the covers? What do I have to do to get out of here? Snog her? Show you my pubes?

Lydia Bennet:
What have you done to yourself?

Amanda Price:
That's called a landing strip, Lydia. Standard pubic topiary.

Amanda Price:
Never mind the Bingley, bring on the Darcy!

[Amanda is trying to discourage the attentions of Mr. Bingley by claiming to be a lesbian]

Mr Bingley:
I must confess I cannot stop thinking of your lips. Of, God help me, your tongue... I'm drawn to you - I'm a man.

Amanda Price:
And I'm a woman, and I'm drawn to other women.

Mr Bingley:
[hesitantly] You mean there really *are* ladies who... steer the punt from the Cambridge end?

Amanda Price:
[to Mr. Darcy] God almighty, here you are. One half of the greatest love story ever told.

Amanda Price:
Come on, then. Get it over with. Give me the shtick. Tell me all about Darcy robbing you of what was rightfully yours.

Mr. Wickham:
So you have heard about this?

Amanda Price:
I read about it.

Amanda Price:
Take my tip, Wickham. Don't waste your time with this lot, especially Lydia, because I'm watching you. Every time you try to pull a stroke, I will be right behind you with a big neon sign, saying, "Don't trust this guy!"

Mr. Wickham:
What is neon?

Amanda Price:
Wait and see.

Mr. Wickham:
Miss Price, I fear that your life with Mr Collins may be short of... gaiety. And if you find yourself nonplussed by the anticipated pleasures of married life, call upon me and I shall redress the deficit.

Mr. Darcy:
If you wound Bingley, you will find my displeasure baleful and entirely unrelenting. For my...

Amanda Price:
Good opinion once lost is lost forever. Yes, I know.

Mr. Bingley:
No, Miss Price must stay here! She is the best possible nurse! She has Palacetamoles!

Mr. Darcy:
...Then of course, she must remain.

Amanda Price:
Collins. On the page, OK, he's pretty bad. In the flesh, he's all-time king of the mingers!

Mr. Wickham:
Miss Price, I fear that your life with Mr. Collins may be short of gaeity. If you find yourself nonplussed by the anticipated pleasures of married life, call upon me and I shall redress the deficit.

Amanda Price:
Full marks for trying George, but I wouldn't have my deficit redressed by you if you were the last man on earth.

Mr. Darcy:
About Miss Bennet. You lied. Why?

Amanda Price:
God, I know you're supposed to be abrupt but that's a bit stark.

Mr. Darcy:
I am always stark with liars.

Amanda Price:
[thinking] Elizabeth, what can I say? You're welcome to him. Miserable sod.

Amanda Price:
Do you perform, Mr. Darcy?

Mr. Darcy:
Not in your league, Miss Price.

Amanda Price:
[Thinking] Wooh, smoulder alert!

Amanda Price:
[singing] When you're alone... and life is making you lonely you can always go, downtown. When you got worries, all the noise and the hurry seem to help I know, downtown. Just listen to the music of the traffic in the city. La-la-la, la-la-la and the neon lights are pretty. How can you lose? The lights are much brighter there. You can forget all your troubles, forget all your cares and go downtown. Everything's waiting for you.

Caroline Bingley:
Money, Miss Price. The fortune to which you aspire an immediate instance may pass you by. But I am certain you shall not starve.

Amanda Price:
No, I don't suppose I shall on 27000 a year.

Amanda Price:
This is the ball at Netherfield. Elizabeth's not here. You're throwing me out for kneeing Collins in the balls. It isn't quite how I imagined it.

Mr. Wickham:
Do not touch your nose.

Amanda Price:
I've got an itch.

Mr. Wickham:
Ladies are strangers to the itch.

Mr. Darcy:
I confess I am none the wiser.

Amanda Price:
No sir, but you are better informed.

Amanda Price:
I try not to judge people I've never met.

Mr. Darcy:
You are a philosopher, Miss Price. I would I could be like you.

Amanda Price:
Certainly you would benefit an occupation of some kind. You have no function, Mr. Darcy. No purpose.

Mr. Darcy:
Of course not! What a disgusting idea. That is a raison d'entre of society. We must be seen to be unoccupied.

Mr. Bennet:
What news of Jane?

Kitty Bennet:
No news of Jane. Mama frets about the inappropriateness of her hat and whether or not...

Mr. Bennet:
It is too much excitement for me to bear.

Amanda Price:
Mr. Collins has had the unusual good fortune to shoot a peacock.

Mr. Darcy:
That IS unusual. One peacock... is probably sufficient.

Mr. Darcy:
Amanda. It means 'She who must be loved'.

Amanda Price:
You must not. You must not...

Mr. Darcy:
Wherefore must I not? Who is to judge us? I have laboured so long in the service of propriety.

Amanda Price:
Elizabeth. I am not Elizabeth. The entire world will hate me!

Mr. Darcy:
Were that true, Amanda, I would fight the world! You are the one I love.

Amanda Price:
[after Mr. Darcy emerges from the water] I am having a bit of a strange post-modern moment here.

Mr. Darcy:
Is that agreeable?

Amanda Price:
Oh yes. Yes.

Amanda Price:
[to Darcy] You're supposed to be so bloody incandescent with integrity and you misjudge everybody! You misjudged me!

Amanda Price:
[Thinking, referring to Caroline] You think you're the girl for him! Step off, Caroline. You conniving, smirking...

Amanda Price:
Bumface! [Clattering on dining table] Did I say that out loud?

Amanda Price:
Mr. Collins says that Lady Catherine's buttresses are the talk of the county.

Mr. Darcy:
Buttresses?

Amanda Price:
Being a woman, I know so little about architecture, of course, but I think they form...

Mr. Darcy:
Yes, I know what buttresses are!

Amanda Price:
[Thinking] First set, Miss Price. New balls, please.

Amanda Price:
If you could somehow engineer it, that Darcy and I get married, then what happens to Frosty Knickers?

Mr. Wickham:
I presume by that disparaging epithet you refer to the sublime Miss Bingley?

Amanda Price:
She gets scooped up by you, you and your galloping, bloody horse.

Mr. Wickham:
Caroline is rather rich. Maybe she IS the love of my life.

Amanda Price:
You are repulsive!

Mr. Wickham:
Yes, that's the tone.

Mr. Darcy:
I find both incarnations of your character equally disagreeable. And yet I love you Amanda Price... with all my heart.

Mr. Wickham:
A war with France is traditional. A war with Paris... unthinkable

Lady Catherine de Bourgh:
[haughtily] I shall say what I have to say, and then I shall leave immediately. First, I made it pellucidly clear to you, Mrs. Bennet, over my salt, that I considered the brothers Collins an excellent match for your daughters. Yet you have done nothing to promote the cause. On the contrary, you have abandoned them to a house run by criminally incompetent servants. Well, what do you have to say for yourself?

[stunned silence]

Mrs. Bennet:
I say this. You are a prig, madam, a pander and a common bully. And you cheat at cards. Do you suppose you may enter my house and brandish your hat at me thus? I have a mind to turn you upside down and use you to scrape out Ambrosia's sty.

Lady Catherine de Bourgh:
[coldly] Madam, I take my leave of you.

Mrs. Bennet:
Do! Or I shall take you out and set to scraping.

[Jane and Amanda try to stop themselves giggling]

Mrs. Bennet:
Scrape, scrape, scrape I shall go!

Mr. Bennet:
Tally ho, wife!

Mr Collins:
Mrs. Bennet, you must desist.

Jane Bennet:
Oh, be quiet, you silly man. Do you suppose Mama would permit her daughters to be married to your brothers, when before her very eyes is the specimen of you?

Amanda Price:
Mrs. Bennet, that was... bloody marvellous.

Mrs. Bennet:
[modestly] It *was* refreshing.

Amanda Price:
I need to use the telephone. I need to call my boyfriend.

Elizabeth Bennet:
Of course. [hands Amanda a mobile phone]

Amanda Price:
[to herself, incredulous] Elizabeth Bennet is lending me her mobile.

Mr. Darcy:
[Bursts into room] Ah! Well met, well met! Bingley, Miss Lydia and I have just now returned from the opera...

Mr. Bingley:
Darcy.

Mr. Darcy:
...And the problem with the opera of course, is one cannot...

Mr. Bingley:
Sir, will you have done? Your subterfuge is well-meaning but it is puerile and demeans us all. There is no opera in Hammersmith. You've just arrived from god-knows-where, that much is plain.

Mr. Bingley:
Miss Lydia and I came yesterday and have spent our hours philosophizing. Although her father would have it, we've been making the beast with two backs.

Mr. Bennet:
Time to take the weapons from the wall, Mr. Bingley! Pick up your damn spear and take guard!

Amanda Price:
This physician of yours, Mr. Darcy, can he do stitches?

Mr. Darcy:
Stitches? He is not a dressmaker!

Mr. Darcy:
I love you. I have followed you to this infernal place because I would follow you anywhere. I would harrow Hell to be with you!

Mr. Darcy:
The gentleman on the bath-chair. I have seen his likeness. Tinky Winky.

Elizabeth Bennet:
I must switch off the appliances. My employers are most anxious about the size of their footprint.

Michael:
What do you mean Darcy? Darcy's some ponce in a book! Some todger-twitching nancy boy!

Mr. Darcy:
What is this curious peron? Is it some sort of village idiot... or a clown?

Amanda Price:
Elizabeth Bennett is lending me her mobile...

Mr. Darcy:
How *dare* you lay violent hands upon Miss Price!

Amanda Price:
Don't worry about Charlotte. She's gone to be a missionary in Africa!

Elizabeth Bennet:
Africa? What have I done? It was a joke between us when we were children - that if life became irreparably miserable and lonely, one can always run away to Africa...

Mr. Wickham:
Where am I to sleep?

Amanda Price:
I am grateful to you, George. But where you... put yourself tonight is not my concern. Perhaps you should address yoruself to Mr. Collins.

Mr. Wickham:
I doubt Mr. Collins is equipped to give me satisfaction with regards to this enquiry.

Amanda Price:
Then you must take matters into your own hands. Mine are full.

Amanda Price:
Normal transmission is resumed.

Elizabeth Bennet:
What an insufferable, rude man!

Mr. Darcy:
Miss Price.

Amanda Price:
Yes. We should celebrate. You asked me a question and I answered it. And we didn't have an argument about it.

Mr. Darcy:
I did not ask you a question. I made an observation, 'Miss Price'. The confirmation of your identity was entirely superfluous. As a result we are now arguing about it. And therefore, you are wrong.

Amanda Price:
That's so sweet. You're actually trying to make me laugh.

Mr. Darcy:
Yes. It shall not occur again.

Amanda Price:
And you're smiling.

Mr. Darcy:
No, no. I only smile in private... when nobody is looking.

Lady Catherine de Bourgh:
Well? What do you have to say for yourself?

Mrs. Bennet:
I say this: You are a prig, Madam. A pander. And a common bully. And you cheat at cards! Do you suppose you may enter my house and brandish your hat at me thus? I have a mind to turn you upside down and use you to scrape out Ambrosia's sty.

Lady Catherine de Bourgh:
Madam, I take my leave of you.

Mrs. Bennet:
Do! Or I shall take you out and set to scraping! Scrape, scrape, scrape, I shall go!

Mr. Bennet:
Tally-ho, wife!

Mr. Collins:
Mrs. Bennet, you must desist!

Jane Bennet:
Oh be quiet, you silly man. Do you suppose Mama would permit her daughters to be married to your brothers when before her very eyes is the specimen of you?

Mr. Bennet:
Tonight Mrs. Bennet, with your permission, I think I shall sleep in our bedroom.

Mr. Bingley:
We shall have 25 children and name them all 'Amanda'. Even the boys.

Amanda Price:
Look, in the book you don't exactly hit it off - to begin with. Just keep talking. From the talking comes the love.

Collins:
Lady Catherine could not possibly entertain a union in which the dowry was founded on fruits of the sea! The discipean's episcopal, if I might peek a little into my own future, and piscatorial could never combine with propriety! Do you understand?!

Amanda:
No...

Collins:
A man marked for the bishopric cannot marry the daughter of a fish monger. It will not do!!