March comes, and with it the visit Elizabeth never wanted to make. This episode is the complete audiobook of Chapter 27 of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, a travelling chapter in which the road to Kent runs through London and ends with the best invitation of Elizabeth’s year.

She sets out with Sir William Lucas and his daughter Maria, breaking the journey at Gracechurch Street for a night of theatre and conversation. Jane looks well, but Mrs. Gardiner has been watching her closely and doubts the cheerfulness goes all the way down. Then aunt and niece turn to the more entertaining subject of Mr. Wickham’s defection to Miss King’s ten thousand pounds.

• Elizabeth defends Wickham’s mercenary turn with suspicious energy, and her aunt presses the real question: what is the difference between the mercenary and the prudent motive in matrimonial affairs?
• Elizabeth’s mood on the whole subject of men is at low tide; handsome young men, she declares, must have something to live on as well as the plain.
• The Gardiners offer her a summer tour of pleasure, perhaps as far as the Lakes, and her spirits flip in an instant.
• Her acceptance is a small comic aria: what are men to rocks and mountains? She promises rapture, and observation more reliable than that of ordinary travellers.