Pride and Prejudice
Jane Bennet
Elizabeth's elder sister
The eldest Bennet sister, a gentle beauty who cannot think ill of anyone. She and Elizabeth tell each other everything.
Jane is twenty-two, the eldest and most admired of the Bennet daughters. She is serene, modest and endlessly kind, and she looks for the good in everyone, even people who do not deserve it. Where Elizabeth is quick and teasing, Jane is calm and mild. The two share a bedroom at Longbourn and talk over every ball and visit late into the night.
Jane hopes, quietly, to be loved by someone worthy of her. When Mr. Bingley moves to Netherfield and dances with her twice, her mother is already planning the wedding, while Jane herself says very little. Her gentleness is both her charm and her difficulty. She hides her feelings so well that people who do not know her well cannot tell what she feels.
“I am the happiest creature in the world, Lizzy! He loves me—he has always loved me!”
In the story
Contains spoilers.
Jane catches a bad cold after riding to Netherfield in the rain, as her mother planned, and Elizabeth walks three muddy miles to nurse her. Soon afterward a letter from Caroline Bingley says the whole party has gone to London for the winter. Jane goes to stay with the Gardiners in the city, hoping to see Bingley, but Caroline receives her coldly. She keeps her sorrow mostly to herself and insists that perhaps Caroline was never really her friend.
When Bingley returns to Netherfield in the autumn, he visits Longbourn with Darcy, and soon comes alone and proposes. Jane happily accepts and tells Elizabeth he has always loved her. She and Bingley marry at the same time as Elizabeth and Darcy, in a joyful double wedding.
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