Pride and Prejudice

The novel resolves through a cascade of revelations and reconciliations that bring the two central couples together. After Elizabeth witnesses Darcy's genuine warmth and generosity at Pemberley, and after he quietly arranges and pays for Wickham to marry the disgraced Lydia (saving the Bennet family's reputation), Elizabeth's feelings toward him soften completely. When she learns from her aunt Mrs. Gardiner that Darcy was responsible for tracking down Wickham and funding the marriage, she is overwhelmed with gratitude and a growing conviction of her own earlier misjudgment of him.

Mr. Bingley returns to Netherfield and, freed from his sisters' and Darcy's earlier interference, proposes to Jane, who accepts him. Shortly after, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, alarmed by rumors that Darcy intends to marry Elizabeth, travels to Longbourn to demand that Elizabeth renounce any claim on him, since she had long intended Darcy for her own daughter Anne. Elizabeth refuses to make any such promise, and Lady Catherine storms off to confront Darcy himself, only for her account of Elizabeth's defiant response to give Darcy hope that Elizabeth's feelings toward him have changed. Encouraged, he returns to Longbourn with Bingley.

Darcy proposes to Elizabeth a second time. This time she accepts, having come to recognize both his character and her own past prejudice and hasty judgment. He seeks and receives Mr. Bennet's blessing that evening, though Mr. Bennet needs reassurance from Elizabeth that she is not marrying for wealth or status but out of real affection, having seen how unhappy mercenary marriages can be. Elizabeth also finally reveals to her father that it was Darcy who secured Lydia's marriage to Wickham, relieving Mr. Bennet of the belief that he owes the money to Mr. Gardiner.

The novel closes with both Jane and Elizabeth happily married and settled: Jane and Bingley eventually move to an estate near Pemberley, and Elizabeth becomes mistress of Pemberley itself, growing close to Darcy's sister Georgiana. Lady Catherine, after initial outrage, is eventually reconciled with the couple and consents to visit them. Wickham and Lydia's marriage proves imprudent and financially unstable, though they are helped periodically by Darcy and Elizabeth and by Jane and Bingley. Kitty improves through more time spent with her elder, more sensible sisters, while Mary remains at home with her parents. Mr. Bennet delights in visiting Pemberley, and Mrs. Bennet is thoroughly satisfied to have seen three of her daughters married, with the Bennet family's fortunes and reputation restored through the marriages of Jane and Elizabeth.