Sir William Lucas arrives at Longbourn in his most stately manner, bearing news he expects to delight everybody. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 23 of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, in which the Bennets learn who is really going to marry Mr. Collins, and Mrs. Bennet takes it precisely as well as you would expect.

Disbelief comes first: Lydia declares Sir William is telling stories, and Mrs. Bennet insists on it long past politeness. Then comes the reckoning. Charlotte Lucas, who was in this very house on Wednesday, is to be the future mistress of Longbourn, and Lady Lucas is now the one paying the visits of triumph. The entail has never looked less abstract.

• Mrs. Bennet works through her grievances in strict rotation: Elizabeth ruined everything, the Lucases are artful, and she is barbarously used by them all, her own family the worst.
• A week of daily ill temper follows, and the sight of Charlotte becomes an abhorrence; as for the entail, no argument yet devised can make it forgivable.
• Meanwhile a quieter worry grows: Bingley has been gone a week, and no letter, no rumor, no word of his return reaches Jane.
• Mr. Collins returns for another visit with maximum punctuality and minimum welcome, dividing his days between Lucas Lodge courtship and apologies nobody wants.