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lips, but he took it from me and sent for his valet.
    ‘Get him up,’ he said to the man when he arrived. ‘I want him ready in half an hour. I am taking him to Pemberley.’

15th March 1791
    I wish I was back at Cambridge. I am glad I am at home. Lord, I do not know what I think or what I feel; I do not know where I am or what I am doing. Nothing is the same. The house without Mama is not a home. Papa is broken. Mr Darcy is thoughtful. Fitzwilliam is kind. God damn him! Why could he not have left me alone?

7th May 1791
    I avoided Peter de Quincy when I first returned to Cambridge, but he keeps seeking me out and it is easier to go along with him than resist him. Besides, he knows all the best people and, when he is not frequenting low taverns, he is introducing me to useful friends. I see less of Darcy than I used. Something about him makes me uncomfortable. He wants to save me, to put my feet on the right path, but his idea of the right path for me does not involve heiresses. On the few occasions I have seen him, I have rebuffed him.

21st May 1791
    I went to a party, a respectable one, tonight and saw Darcy for the first time in weeks. He was looking very handsome. For a moment I was jealous, for I knew that my own body had started to show the signs of too much drinking and wenching and not enough signs of riding and fencing. I shrugged it off, but when I saw the women hanging on his every word and ignoring me, I knew I must do something about it. To be sure, a lot of it is to do with the fact that he is Darcy of Pemberley, but not all. And I must not forget that I intend to be Wickham of Rosings. It would not do to go to seed before I have my future secure.

23rd May 1791
    I went to bed sober last night and got up early this morning. I had forgotten how much I enjoy being out of doors when the sun is rising. I felt invigorated and full of new energies. It is time to put the past behind me and look to the future.

27th May 1791
    I went round to Darcy’s rooms early this morning, and after a little coldness I confessed that he had been right and I had been wrong and that I had fallen into bad company. He looked relieved and offered me a horse to ride and we went out together, talking of Pemberley and our experiences at Cambridge and our futures.
    ‘My father intends to give you the living at Pemberley,’ he said, as we returned to our rooms, ‘but I am not sure that you are suited to the church. Are you comfortable with the idea of preaching sermons, George? Because the church is not a profession to enter lightly. A clergyman has the good of his parishioners in his care and if he cannot set them an example…’
    ‘My dear Darcy, I have learned my lesson,’ I said, and I used all my charm to help me. ‘It went to my head, the new place, the new people, the easy friendship, the parties, the… yes, why not say it?… the wine and the women. And then Mama… But such a life palls before long, and I do not think a man is any less fitted for the church because he has found this out through experience, rather than finding it out through the experience of others.’
    ‘There is something in what you say.’
    ‘To understand sinners, I have to understand their sins. I have to understand their temptations, too, for how else could I treat them with understanding and grant them forgiveness?’
    He was satisfied. Indeed, as I spoke, I more than half believed it myself. But I must be careful if I am not to lose his family’s patronage. Mama was right: there is something implacable in Darcy, some strength of character that will not allow him to be bullied or persuaded out of doing what he thinks is right. Moreover, his good opinion, once lost, is never regained, a fact James learned to his cost, for when he approached Fitzwilliam to help him with some trifling debts, Fitzwilliam refused him; he has never forgiven him for tormenting Georgiana by taking her doll, all those years ago.
    I am lucky I did not lose his good