Chapter 42: Much Ado Poring Over Rand McNally
The regiment finally leaves, but Elizabeth can't even be happy about this because her father's hands-off approach to raising his daughters means that Lydia is leaving with them, and surely no good can come of this. So the only thing she really has to look forward to at this point is the summer road trip she has planned with her aunt and uncle. Part of her wishes that Jane could come with, too, but she recognizes that having that one little missing detail will actually save the trip, because if the trip was planned to be perfect then something would inevitably go wrong.
Something goes wrong anyway; her uncle is being held up with business, so they need to shorten the trip, meaning they can't go as far. They settle on visiting Derbyshire, where Aunt Bennet is from—which, coincidentally, is also the county that Mr. Darcy calls home.
"But like, just because I'm in the same county as him for a few days doesn't mean he's ever going to find out I was there," Elizabeth rationalizes.
Eventually, her relations arrive and they set out on their journey. Austen then needlessly breaks the fourth wall to say "by the way, it's not my job to describe their trip up to the point they reach Derbyshire, I'm just telling a story here."
Anyway, they're staying in Aunt Bennet's hometown, where it's revealed that Mr. Darcy's estate is located five miles away. It's not really on their route, but Aunt Bennet wants to see the place again, and Uncle Bennet doesn't see why not, so they ask Elizabeth her opinion. Her aunt even hints, hey, you've heard a lot about this place, and it's where Mr. Wickham grew up, wink wink (even though this is the same aunt who cautioned Elizabeth against getting involved with Wickham in Chapter 26, so I don't know why she's acting all coy about him now). Still, Elizabeth knows that Darcy's house is kind of the last place she should ever show her face at, but she can't really explain why without going into the whole proposal debacle, so she hesitates on it a bit until she finds out from her chambermaid later that, oh yeah, the Darcys are totally out of town for the summer.
Well, in that case, it would be kinda cool to see the place...