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 gav ...