Longbourn

Sarah and Mrs. Hill, serving the family their breakfast, hear Mr. Bennet report that he has hired a footman. Mrs. Bennet is delighted at having a manservant because it will reflect well on the family. Lydia compares Mr. Hill to a spider monkey, and Mrs. Hill holds herself back from reacting. Mr. Hill is aging, and his wife worries for him. Mrs. Bennet suggests the servants thank Mr. Bennet for his thoughtfulness in lightening their load, then dismisses them.

Sarah, carrying a chamber pot, hears Mrs. Hill talking with Mr. Bennet in the library. She knows she is not supposed to eavesdrop, but it sounds like they are quarreling. As Sarah empties the chamber pot outside, she recalls being a six-year-old orphan and meeting Mrs. Hill, who took her out of the parish workhouse. She fed Sarah bread and milk sprinkled with sugar.

Sarah hears the new footman moving furniture in the stable loft, making up his bedroom. Sarah is inexperienced with men. A man wrote Jane poems, but Jane is beautiful, and her suitors are gentlemen. An ordinary man would not have the time to write poetry. Elizabeth is witty, bright-eyed, quick, and lovely. Lydia and Kitty are rowdy flirts. Sarah, in comparison, thinks of herself as “a wrung-out dishrag of a thing” (23). Mr. and Mrs. Bennet are not well-matched, as Mrs. Bennet shows no understanding of her husband. Sarah decides she will remain civil and say good morning to the man. She watches him as he sweeps the yard, looking for an excuse to speak to him. When Mrs. Hill sends her out to pick apples, the new man runs into Sarah with a wheelbarrow, making her shin bleed. Sarah complains about him to Mrs. Hill, who seems distracted. Sarah is disappointed with her encounter.

Mrs. Hill finds James Smith, the new hire, very thin. His clothes are ragged and ill-fitting. She fetches him hot water and a razor. She offers him food, but James says he should earn his meal. He shares little about himself. That night, Mr. Hill polishes the silverware with spit, rubbing off dried food. Sarah thinks James will impress the family, though “[t]he only thing of note about him was that he was a man. And under fifty, and with nice hands” (34). Polly is fascinated by James, but Sarah wishes this change had not come to Longbourn.

The next morning, Sarah goes downstairs with her blisters itching but finds that a fire is going, and the log basket is full. The water tank in the scullery is filled. With these chores done for her, Sarah escapes outside. She realizes that the peddler she thought she saw was James. She wants to know where he came from, but James won’t talk to her. Sarah is frustrated.

As Mrs. Hill tidies Mrs. Bennet’s dressing room, Mrs. Bennet tells her not to bother with a yellow silk dress, calling it a “ragged old thing” (41). Sarah and Polly worked hard to launder it. Mrs. Bennet gives the dress to Mrs. Hill. Mrs. Bennet complains that Mrs. Hill has “no notion of what it is, to be a mother, and to know your children suffer, for want of fatherly attention” (41). Mrs. Hill thinks of all her work while she listens to Mrs. Bennet complain. Mrs. Hill knows Mrs. Bennet is unhappy because she does not have a son and heir to Longbourn. When Mrs. Bennet mentions Netherfield is let to Mr. Bingley, Mrs. Hill thinks of the work Mrs. Nicholls, the housekeeper there, will have to do. Mrs. Bennet wants Mrs. Hill to use her influence with Mr. Bennet.

Sarah recalls a visit to Netherfield, when it seemed full of decay. Now, when she visits alongside the Bennets, Sarah meets a footman. He has brown skin and is “distressingly handsome” (46). Sarah has not seen a Black man before. She pretends not to notice as Mrs. Nicholls is scolded by the male cook. Back at Longbourn, the servants discuss how Mr. Bingley made his fortune in sugar. Polly imagines Netherfield is made of sugar. James describes the triangular trade, in which guns and British wares are shipped to Africa, traded for kidnapped people who are then taken to the Americas and sold, and the British ships return with sugar. Sarah asks how he knows this and is indignant when James assumes she can’t read.

Sarah helps Jane and Elizabeth dress for the evening. Their gowns are soft and beautiful. Sarah takes care not to stain Elizabeth’s dress with the burst blister on her hand. Sarah thinks about the impossibility of ever attending a ball herself. Jane and Elizabeth note that Sarah works hard and never complains. They ask what Sarah does for fun, and when she mentions village dances, they give Sarah a dress. As they leave for the party, appearing luminous, Sarah imagines herself as a shadow. Saran sits with Polly in the scullery, their hiding place, and wonders if there were “somewhere you could just be, and not always be obliged to do” (54). Polly came to the workhouse as an infant and is grateful for her position, but Sarah dimly remembers her family, who died when she was young.

James nervously drives the women to Netherfield; he thinks of the carriage as “a cage filled with pretty birds” (56). He drives them to the assembly rooms in Meryton, waiting outside while they dance. He feels the peace of the place and begins to settle in. Sarah waits up to help the women when they return home, looking for James, too. James lies in bed, thinking his pain is bearable. Mrs. Hill lies awake and thinks, “Wherever you are in this world, the sky is still above you. Wherever you are, God still watches over you; He sees into your heart” (59).

James looks uneasy as the militia arrives in town, and the family invites the officers to dine. Sarah is suspicious, wondering if he is an escaped criminal. One night, when he is gone, she looks through his things. She finds books and, inside an old canvas backpack, seashells.

The Netherfield footman visits. He impresses Sarah with his wit and manners. She thinks how “small and mean and poor” Longbourn must appear after Netherfield (67). Mrs. Hill doesn’t trust him.

Jane goes to Netherfield in the rain. James noticed the way the man from Netherfield looked at Sarah. When he visits again, the footman tells Sarah stories of London. James reports that Jane is ill, and Elizabeth is going to her. Sarah thinks it is considerate of Jane to be ill elsewhere, considering the extra work it makes for the servants. They receive news that Elizabeth is staying at Netherfield, and Mrs. Hill packs the girls a bag, choosing practical items that Jane will need.

Mrs. Hill sends Sarah out of the house on an errand to Meryton, and Sarah feels it is a holiday, with “no one to tell her what to do” (75). She thinks of the Netherfield footman as a parakeet and James as a collie dog. As she passes a new structure for the soldiers, Sarah sees a man chained to a post, being flogged.

Mrs. Hill sends the Netherfield footman off when he arrives. She imagines James and Sarah getting married. James worries over Sarah’s return and walks out to meet her. He realizes he is attracted to Sarah, but she is innocent and has no idea that men are “cold creatures with strange appetites, who did not care what harm they did in satisfying them” (82). Sarah is sickened by the flogging incident.

Sarah is briefly ill. Elizabeth and Jane return in Mr. Bingley’s carriage, accompanied by the footman. Sarah tells him her name, and he introduces himself as Ptolemy Bingley.