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I found him in Cheapside, lounging about while Lydia was in the adjoining room, utterly unbothered by the scandal. I offered him money. He smirked. I offered more money. He smirked more.

Then I made a mistake. I said: "You're utterly predictable, Wickham. Like a character in a play."

He froze. Then he said: "Wait. What?"

I might have stopped there. I regret that I did not. "The charming scoundrel, Wickham. An agreeable manner, expensive habits, and a grievance against a man with a larger fortune. It is a familiar part."

Mr. Bennet, he began to laugh hysterically.

"I'm a stock character?!" he shouted. "I'm stock?!"

"Well, yes⁠—"

"I spent years perfecting my charm! My seduction technique! My devil-may-care attitude! And you're telling me it's just... standard?!"

"Very standard, yes."

He threw a shoe at me.

Elizabeth kept reading:

Wickham retrieved the shoe. He appeared to have decided that throwing away sound leather would not improve his position.

"Who else has been given my lines?" he demanded.

I named the familiar devices: the injured childhood friend, the charming account of injustice, the convenient omission of a young girl's fortune. He objected less to the misconduct than to the suggestion that his performance was commonplace. He began making his own list, crossing out every phrase he believed a less handsome villain might employ.

"You mean to improve your conduct?" I asked.

"My presentation," he said. "Let us not confuse the two."

I regret to report that this was his clearest answer of the afternoon.

Lydia came in while he was disputing my description of a particular smirk. He announced our fictional condition to her with the air of a man revealing a fresh injury to himself. She listened, looked from him to me, and asked what part she had been given.

I explained too quickly. I spoke of the crisis, the family, the marriage by which the old story resolved it. Her expression changed when I described her departure as a device for bringing other people together.

"You have both been talking about what becomes of me," she said. "Has anyone thought of asking me?"

She stood between us and the papers. Wickham attempted to reclaim his list. Lydia put it beneath the bread plate.

"That can wait. I want to know which things I am allowed to decide."

Your daughter had become aware, and she did not ask for a chart of her giggles. She asked whether she might go home, what money would be hers, and whether George intended to answer her questions without a smile. When he tried the smile anyway, she said that she had heard quite enough about it.

I sent for Mrs. Gardiner. Lydia wished to speak to her without either gentleman in the room. Wickham and I waited in the passage. He complained that his analysis remained beneath the bread plate. I considered that a tolerable hardship.

While we waited, he returned to the financial negotiation. Awareness had furnished him with new grounds for complaint, not with a sudden disinclination for money.

With the consent you signed before leaving town, I obtained a special license from the Archbishop of Canterbury's Faculty Office. Mr. Gardiner arranged the ceremony, and the wedding has taken place. I paid Wickham £3,000 (he negotiated up because "if I'm going to be a mercenary villain, I should at least be an expensive one").

His amusement did not alter the terms. A separate fund is held by trustees for Lydia, with its income settled to her sole and separate use; Wickham cannot draw on the capital. I have made no promise to settle future debts. I told him that understanding his role did not absolve him of choices made within it. He attempted to call this a redemption arc. I told him it was an agreement, and asked him to sign it.

Mrs. Gardiner spoke with Lydia alone again before the ceremony. Your daughter understood that she might return under her uncle's protection. She chose the marriage. I do not pretend that awareness has made either of them wise; it has at least made her insist on reading the settlement before celebrating it. She found three points on which she required explanation. Wickham had expected her to admire the ribbon binding the papers.

They are both aware. Wickham intends to criticize the story until it offers him better lines. Lydia intends to make certain that a letter concerning her contains something she has actually said.

I fear what I have created.