Summary
Bridget and her father arrive at Mark’s mansion, which has been decorated in red and white, with hearts everywhere. They are speechless. Una comments that things get a bit “common” when you put too much money and effort into events. Bridget’s father fills himself with fancy cocktail snacks. Bridget’s mum appears, and agrees with Una that the event is “showy.” To Bridget’s horror, Mark is standing three feet away and seems to hear everything. He walks away before she can fix things. Later she bumps into him and thanks him for the invitation. He says his mother invited her, actually, and then compliments her fire-pole report. She overhears Natasha snap at him for placing candles too low, as she has gotten wax on her dress.
During dancing in the moonlit garden after dinner, a young relative of Mark’s asks Bridget to dance. She is impressed by his ability to lead her around, but his massive erection can’t be ignored. Mark steps in to tell Simon to go to bed and asks to dance with Bridget. She gives him a hard time for humiliating Simon like that, and when he asks her about the books she’s read lately, Bridget tells him to try asking another question of her for once. Suddenly he asks her to go to dinner with him. She determines that his mother has put him up to it. She also learns that Una said she is obsessed with literature and leads a glamorous life, with men always taking her out. He apologizes about Daniel; Bridget admits he had been right to warn her. Mark says Daniel slept with his wife two weeks after they got married. Mark says he was sick of his mother bringing up Bridget Jones, but then he met her and was taken in by how different she was than all the “lacquered” women he is used to. Natasha calls out to Mark. Bridget says clearly he is seeing someone. Mark says he isn’t anymore. They agree to make a date for Tuesday. She imagines them as a couple at the next Turkey Curry Buffet, having to have sex in front of their families like performing seals.
Bridget waits for Mark to pick her up for dinner but by 9 p.m. realizes he has stood her up. The next day at work, she is sent to interview Elena Rossini, a woman who has been on trial for killing her employer after he repeatedly raped her and confined her in the home for months. While waiting for her to get out of court, the reporters ask Bridget to pick them up snacks and smokes from the corner shop. Inside, she bumps into Mark, who says he was ringing her bell at 8:05—just as she was drying her hair with a loud hair dryer. He happens to have been Rossini’s barrister, so he gives Bridget an exclusive interview. She is pleased to rewatch her report that night. However, she is upset when Mark doesn’t call to make another date—not that she fancies him or anything.
October ends with Bridget pitching a story to her boss about the on-screen romance between Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. He is won over by the idea and tells her to set it up. After consulting with friends, who agree that Bridget isn’t interested in Mark, Bridget decides to organize a dinner party at her flat and invite Mark, thus making an excuse to see him again without it being a date. Mark is pleased when she calls to invite him, and he reminds her that everyone is coming to see her, not to eat “parfaits in sugar cages,” so she need not get too fancy or complicated with her cooking. Bridget thinks it is not something Daniel would ever have said, and she looks forward to the party.
Bridget and her friends get caught up in the drama of not knowing where Tom is, as he is acting oddly and not responding when any of them call. Eventually Bridget remembers she has his spare keys, so she goes to his flat with Jude and Sharon. Tom is home, in fact, recovering from a surgery he had earlier in the week to correct a slight bump on his nose. He has been hiding out of shame. In the lead-up to Bridget’s dinner party, Bridget receives a call at work from her mother asking to borrow cash for travelers’ checks, as she has forgotten her bank card and is on the way to the airport with Julio: they are going to see his family in Portugal. She meets her mother at an ATM and withdraws 200 pounds, wondering how her mother will survive for two weeks away on it. Her mother arrives looking around shiftily in sunglasses. She takes the money and refuses to tell Bridget what’s going on.
Bridget’s soup turns blue because of the blue string she used to tie her bundle of savory herbs when making the stock. The tuna steaks go missing, so Mark and Jude intervene, helping turn the rock-hard fondant potatoes into hash browns folded into a giant omelet. The orange confit turns out to be indistinguishable from marmalade. The bad night turns worse when Bridget’s father calls to say Julio and Bridget’s mother are wanted by the police. Her dad explains that Julio and Bridget’s mother have defrauded a large number of people out of “a great deal of money,” including money taken from their close friends and Mark’s parents, as down payments on phony time-share apartments. Bridget’s mother has remortgaged the house too, and it is under threat of repossession.
Bridget is pleased when Mark takes charge of the situation, getting his driver to take Bridget and him to the Alconburys’ that night. Despite the crisis, she is grateful to her mother as Mark paces the living room making calls while everyone reacts to the interruption of “business as usual.” In the following days, Mark flies to Portugal and works with the local police to track down Julio and Bridget’s mother. Eventually Bridget’s mother returns with a police escort. She spends a night in prison and is released, insisting to Bridget that it’s all a big planning department miscommunication, so the deposits are being paid back. Mark calls while everyone is at the Alconburys to say a deal has been struck with Julio and the local authorities and it seems the Jones household won’t be repossessed.
In December, Bridget notes that Mark still hasn’t called her. The smell of mince pies at the supermarket make her think of Christmas, and how she is single. Several of Bridget’s friends ask if she is going to Rebecca’s pre-Christmas party, which Bridget hasn’t been invited to. She frets over why she hasn’t been invited to any parties. She even runs into Rebecca in a shop, and neither brings it up. Later Rebecca leaves a message in which she says she was hurt when Bridget didn't RSVP to her invite. It turns out that her downstairs neighbor has been putting her letters under her door and they’ve piled up under the mat. She finds many party invitations. The weeks leading up to Christmas are suddenly full of drinking and eating events that leave Bridget full and hungover. She puts off most present shopping and fails to send out cards. On the night of the 23rd, Bridget feels lonely until several friends say they are coming over because of various fallings-out with their partners. Daniel also calls, slurring as he tells her Suki is made of plastic and he made a terrible mistake. In the end, however, none of them turn up.
Bridget goes home for Christmas. Even though her parents are meant to be separating, they sleep in the same bed, confusing Bridget. While Una and Bridget’s mother are preparing the gravy, Julio arrives drunk and disheveled, holding a bottle of sherry. He accuses Bridget’s father of sleeping with his “woman.” Pam laughs and Bridget assumes she is still in love with Julio. Julio spits on the carpet and goes upstairs with Pam following. Just then Mark arrives through the French windows, sweating and unkempt. He says he’s not sure if Julio is violent, but the police are outside. Mark asks Bridget to get her mother downstairs so the police can arrest Julio. Bridget yells about straining the gravy, knowing her mother’s possessiveness over the gravy preparation protocols will draw her out. She comes down with her top inside out and looking flustered. The police run in and handcuff Julio.
Mark takes Bridget out for Christmas lunch and champagne. She learns he stayed in Portugal tracking down Julio like a private detective. He tricked Julio into returning to England to face prosecution after realizing Julio would be jealous about Pam going back to Bridget’s father. When Bridget asks why he would put so much effort into the case, Mark asks, “Isn’t it rather obvious?” They go upstairs to the fancy hotel room he has rented, and he tells her all the things he loves about her. He says he worried she thought he was “a bit of a stiff,” and assumed she wasn’t interested when she stood him up because she was drying her hair. They make love and Bridget feels happy. The novel ends with Bridget tallying her year: 3836 units of alcohol, 5277 cigarettes, 11,090,265 calories, a total weight loss of one pound, twelve pounds won on instant lottery tickets, two boyfriends (only one of whom is nice), and one New Year’s resolution kept. She concludes it has been a year of excellent progress.
Analysis
The theme of love arises with the ruby wedding anniversary party Mark throws at his fancy house. While Bridget and her father go in expecting the usual middle-class social ritual in the vein of the Turkey Curry Buffet, the party Mark throws for his parents turns out to be a tasteful celebration of his parents’ love, with love-theme decorations that inspire awe and admiration from Bridget and her father, and jealousy from Una and Pam.
Bridget is being led around the moonlit garden by Mark’s younger cousin when Mark steps in to take over. In an instance of situational irony, Bridget is surprised to find Mark disregarding his girlfriend, Natasha, to talk with and dance with her. He continues to subvert her expectations by asking her to dinner, and admitting that he admires the fact she isn’t “lacquered” like all the other women he dates. In this instance of dramatic irony, Mark attests to admiring Bridget precisely because he can see she isn’t the sort of woman who tries to put out a superficial front to the world. Little does Mark know that Bridget has been hoping to perfect herself, believing she has to become a "lacquered" type of woman if she is to find love and get what she wants out of life.
Despite the promising start, Mark and Bridget’s first date falls through when Bridget accidentally fails to hear her buzzer while blow-drying her hair for the date. However, in an instance of situational irony, her path crosses with Mark’s and he is able to secure her an exclusive interview with his client. Unfortunately, the gesture doesn’t extend beyond the favor, and he doesn’t make another date. Lying to herself in an obvious wink at the reader, Bridget claims she doesn’t have a crush on (“fancy”) Mark, as if her wish for him to ask her out again is merely based on principle.
Bridget’s friends go along with this act of self-deception, even as they give Bridget advice about how to orchestrate another meaningful encounter with Mark. Bridget devises a scheme to get him to her flat as a member of a multi-person dinner party. She is surprised to hear him suggest she shouldn’t put too much effort into showing off with her food. Once again, Mark is showing that he prefers her unvarnished self, and there is no need to pretend she is something she isn’t. At the dinner itself, Bridget fails utterly to put together a competent meal, with increasingly absurd developments in her menu as the night goes on.
However, the disastrous dinner is overshadowed by the revelation that Bridget’s mother has gotten involved in her lover Julio’s time-share apartment scam. As luck has it, Mark is there to impress Bridget with his responsible, no-nonsense nature as he takes charge of the crisis and immediately gets to work sorting it out. While it seems that Mark is putting a lot of work into helping Bridget’s family so as to show Bridget his affection for her, he throws her off by not being in contact even as he chases down Bridget’s mother in Portugal.
Mark’s odd behavior isn’t explained until the book’s final pages, when he arrives moments after a drunk and disheveled Julio at a Christmas gathering. In a scene that closes the book on an optimistic note and builds on the theme of love, Mark confesses to Bridget that he has been going to such great lengths because he is in love with her. Bridget, until that point telling herself she isn’t interested in Mark, can finally admit that she loves him in return.
The new couple consummate their love at a fancy hotel, and it seems Bridget is beginning the next year in a much better place than she began this one. Fielding concludes the novel with her trademark humor, having Bridget give a quick summary of the year. Even though she hasn’t achieved most of her goals, she alludes to the one goal she did achieve: forming a relationship with a responsible adult. Having succeeded in this one ambition, Bridget is able to reflect that the year, despite its many crises and disappointments, has been a success.
