Pride and Prejudice by Deborah Moggach Revisions by Lee Hall (2005) ‘26h February 2004INT. NETHERFIELD - HERTFORDSHIRE ~ DAY. A vast mansion is coming to life. Maids pull dustsheets off furniture; servants open shutters. Sunshine spills into the great rooms of Netherfield. Outside, a glimpse of rolling parkland. @rTLE: “It is a truth universally acknowledged. .- It's a whirlwind of activity. Servants bustle around, sweeping and polishing, readying the house for its new occupants. The shutters of a room are opened onto the imposing gardens. A coach pulls up and, through the window, we see a young man get out. ssthat a eingle man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife” A white sheet is pulled from a spinet and obscures our vision. cur To: EXT. LONGBOURN HOUSE - DAY. Elizabeth Bennet, 20, good humoured, attractive, clearly nobody's fool, walks through a field of tall meadow grass. She is’ reading a novel entitled ‘First Impressions’. She approaches Longbourn, a fairly run down i?th Century house with a small moat around it. Elizabeth jumps up onto a wall and crosses the moat by walking a wooden plank duck board, a reckless trick learnt in early childhood. She walks passed the back of the house where, through an open window to the library, we see her mother and father, Mr and Mrs Bennet. MRS BENNET My dear Mr Bennet, have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last? We follow Elizabeth into the house, but still overhear her parents’ conversation. MRS BENNET (CONT'D) Do you not want to know who has taken it? . MR BENNET As you wish to tell me, I doubt I have any choice in the matter...INT. LONGBOURN - CONTINUOUS. As Elizabeth walks through the hallway, we hear the sound of piano scales plodding through the afternoon. She walks down the entrance hall past the room where Mary, 18, the bluestocking of the family, is practising, and finds Kitty, 16, the second youngest, and Lydia, 15, the precocious baby of the family, are listening at the door to the library. LYDIA (to Elizabeth) Have you heard? A Mr Bingley, a young man from the North of England, has come down on Monday in a chaise and four. RITTY With five thousand a year! Jane, (the eldest, most beautiful and mést charmingly naive of the girls), joins them at the door. JANE Goodness! LYDIA - and he's single to be sure! INT. LIBRARY - LONGBOURN - conrINUOUS. Mr Bennet is trying to ignore Mrs Bennet. MRS BENNET What a fine thing for our girls! MR BENNET How can it affect them? MRS BENNET My dear Mr Bennet, how can you be so tiresome! You know that he must marry one of them. MR BENNET Oh, so that is his design in settling here? Mr Bennet takes a book from his table and walks out of the library into the corridor where the girls are gathered, Mzs Bennet following. INT. CORRIDOR - LONGBOURN - THE SAME. Mr Bennet walks through the girls to the drawing room pursued by Mrs Bennet.