*not in the story(!)
Although I have rather enjoyed being a passive member of your community for some time (thanks for some terrific stories, guys!), I thought it about time that I put my own ideas to...screen, as it were.:)
Synopsis:
Lizzy Bennett, star columnist at the Meryton Age, has been turning heads around town with her pert opinions and fine eyes. But it's big smacks for Lizzy when Media Mogul, and Meryton Age owner, Will Darcy, rocks into town to see his friend, Charles Bingley, open the new university Publishing house, and to find out who's been stirring up so much fuss about his paper. But who will come to the rescue when Lizzy's very naughty kid sister Lydia is selected to appear in a reality TV show?
Prologue:
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single lady in possession of a fine bottle of Pinot Gris, a box of excellent sandwiches and a well deserved extended meal-break must be in want of a luncheon partner.
Thus, it is, on this fine autumn day that we find our heroine hiking up through the park to the Main Quad of the University in search of her favourite dining companion. Ms Elizabeth Bennett, for such is our heroine's name, was known as an excellent walker, and made quick work of this hike, but it was not for this skill that she acquired the aforementioned extended lunch period. At a little younger than 25, Ms Bennett had attracted the extraordinary distinction of being one of the country's foremost newspaper columnists, and the closing epithet of yesterday's effort had generated letters to the editor of such quantity that the features editor sent her away to "celebrate her success", or, as the letters editor put it, "think about what she had done."
Ms Bennett discovered the object of her search on top of a tall book case ladder in an ancient room in the corner of the quadrangle. "Ahh Lizzy," the man cried, upon hearing our heroine open the creaky door, "perhaps you will know where my copy of Penfold's 'Reading Austen: a postmodernist perspective' is. I wondered if I had spied it between your sister Kitty's copies of Cleo August 2002 and Cosmopolitan September 2002 on her bedside table, but I may have been mistaken."
Lizzy smiled and kissed her father in greeting as he clambered off the ladder. "I think you must be, Papa!" said Lizzy, "I have been doing a little research for a column I have in mind. If you drop by my office on Thursday evening after copy has gone in with a bottle of Shiraz, I will gladly return it over dinner, if that is soon enough for you?"
Professor Bennett glanced at his diary and looked up at her over his wire-rimmed glasses, "I think that shall suit me adequately, my dear. As you know, the Netherfield University Publishing House opening party is on Friday. As yet, your mother believes that we have been snubbed, although the managing director, Charles Bingley, dropped by an invitation personally last week- one of the first books they are doing is my new one, you know."
"Congratulations, Papa!" Lizzy replied, "I suppose you will let Marmy know ... ?"
"Thursday afternoon, dear. By Telephone."