Give a charming man a sympathetic listener and a grievance, and he will make an evening of it. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 16 of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: the supper party at Mrs. Philips’s where George Wickham lays out his whole history with Mr. Darcy, and Elizabeth believes every syllable.

While Mr. Collins compares the drawing-room to the small summer breakfast parlour at Rosings, where the chimney-piece alone cost eight hundred pounds, Wickham settles in beside Elizabeth and gives her the one conversation she wanted most. His tale is a good one: a godfather’s beloved protege, a promised living, and a proud young heir who threw the old man’s intentions aside.

• Wickham claims the late Mr. Darcy meant him for the church and the best living in the gift of Pemberley, and that the present Mr. Darcy gave it elsewhere out of jealousy and resentment.
• He wraps his malice in a show of restraint, declaring that reverence for the father will never let him expose the son, then exposing him steadily for the rest of the evening.
• Elizabeth learns that Lady Catherine de Bourgh is Darcy’s aunt, and that her sickly daughter is intended to unite the great estates of Rosings and Pemberley.
• At the other table Mr. Collins loses every point at whist and assures his hostess it is of not the smallest importance, while Lydia keeps a running commentary on her lottery fish. Elizabeth goes home with her head full of nothing but George Wickham.