When groups of people visited great estates in Regency times, was there any record of their visit kept on paper? I'm wondering if the staff would keep a guestbook of sorts to record the visits, if only to show the master who had been walking through his house when he was not at home. Or were the guests usually so insignificant that it made no difference to the owner?

My thought is that Elizabeth's visit would have been recorded somewhere and Darcy would have found out about it at some time in the future, even if he hadn't run into her there.