Page 4 of Friendship and Forgiveness (Mr. Underwood’s Elizabeth & Darcy Stories #7)
“Oh, I hardly know! I can hardly tell.” Caroline pressed her hands against her cheeks and shrugged sweetly at the same time. “No, no — I’ll not say that. I must remember that my certainty will draw him to me. So I can hardly tell if he is yet enthralled with me.”
With that Caroline smiled and nodded firmly.
The tall, elaborately arranged pile of hair atop her head swung back and forth ponderously. When they’d entered Lucas Lodge, the big hairpiece had been nearly knocked askew by the door frame.
Elizabeth really wished she could carry off such a style the way Caroline did. It was quite impressive. But even when Caroline’s maid Aliette had fixed up her hair in a similar way, Elizabeth had been quite dissatisfied, finding herself to generally prefer her ordinary locks, and perhaps some flowers woven into the hair piece.
“ I perceived no partiality towards you in Mr. Darcy,” Charlotte said to Caroline. “He listened to your teasing presently with every appearance of composure, politeness, and resistance to your charms.”
“Now, now!” Lizzy exclaimed. “No one can resist Caroline’s charms. That is a lie.”
Except, unfortunately, Charlotte was one such person. Elizabeth knew perfectly well that Charlotte did not find Caroline charming.
“That is the way he is.” Caroline said, “He is a reserved man.”
The expression that crossed Charlotte’s face had a meaning clear enough to both the other girls: She thought that Caroline had determined to make the idiot of herself.
“He is! — even with his sister, you can only see from his eyes how fond he is of her. How can the rest of us know what he thinks?”
Charlotte shrugged. “Complete impassivity and apparent insensibility hiding deep feelings? I do not doubt the possibility .”
“I have shown myself to my best effect with him,” Caroline added, “and he shall see that eventually. In fact , over the past days he has softened towards me.” Caroline looked at Elizabeth, her bright eyes serious and a bit begging. “He has! Truly. Truly, he has. Not merely imagination.”
“Then he has,” Charlotte said sharply. “There is no possible chance that you might have allowed your hopes to move in front of your expectations . You are not the sort of woman who might play the fool for a man, dangling her string out in front of him, when it is wholly unwanted.”
There was a flash of something angry, and a bit ugly on Caroline’s face, and Elizabeth felt that anxiety go through her that she always seemed to have when her two best friends were in the same conversation together.
Why couldn’t Caroline and Charlotte like each other more?
No doubt it was because Elizabeth liked both of them quite well enough for two people.
Throwing her arm around Caroline’s shoulder, Elizabeth said, “There can be no doubt that any man who any of us thought worthy would eventually come to love us.”
“I assure you for my part, that is not—” Charlotte began.
“Any case, we are friends. Our goal is to encourage each other. Not discourage each other.”
“I am as sensible of the importance of a good marriage to an eligible man as any woman possibly could be,” Charlotte said in a manner that said clearly that she looked down on both of her younger, prettier, and richer friends who were likely to be immune to the travails she had experienced in her pursuit of a husband. “But we must be sensible .”
“Oh!” Elizabeth forced a laugh. “That! Ah that is all you mean. Lina, I must inform you that Mr. Darcy is not in fact sensible.”
Caroline half smiled. “You know I’d prefer you not to call me Lina.”
“You’ll never guess what he said to me about Jane when we danced. His judgement, in a word: She smiles too much.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes.
But Caroline leaned forward wide eyed. “No! He said that? About Jane?” With a frown she added, “Janey does smile a great deal. Doesn’t she? And she appeared particularly happy at the assembly.”
Elizabeth laughed. “You have missed the point. It was a totally absurd thing for a man to say.”
“Do I smile too much?” Caroline pressed her hands nervously against her face. “Is that why he has not returned my attentions? Because I smile too much?”
“You certainly do not,” Charlotte replied snappishly. “An excess of smiling will strike no one as one of your defects.”
“But if Mr. Darcy does not like to see women smile… I smile a great deal when I am near him, and—”
“It would shock me astonishingly if Mr. Darcy has simply waited for marriage because he wished to find a woman who principally frowns at him,” Charlotte replied. “But yes, yes — the way you look now. Yes, frown at him just like that. Just that way. It will have a salutary effect on his matrimonial tendencies.”
Caroline glared at Charlotte. For a moment Elizabeth was frightened that she would snarl at Charlotte in her own drawing room.
Instead Caroline gritted her teeth, coldly inclined her head, and walked away to stand in a corner of the room and pretend to study the bookcase.
Charlotte shook her head, and glanced over to where Mr. Darcy stood across the room, speaking to Sir Lucas.
He seemed to be glancing in their direction, but looked away immediately upon them noticing him noticing them.
“ She is most fortunate that the travails she shall go through will be of her own making. But I think she’ll manage to find them — you can see as well as I do that Mr. Darcy shows no sign of preference for Miss Bingley.”
Elizabeth glanced back at the gentleman.
His eyes had returned to them, and he once more withdrew them to pay attention to Sir Lucas.
Perhaps he’d watched something of their conversation — a conversation about him. There ought to be a rule which required women to at least on occasion discourse about some subject other than the men and their hopes of marriage — those discussions always ended in disaster when there was any chance for disaster to end them.
“I think,” Elizabeth said sharply, “that he is merely shy, and has difficulty displaying his true feelings for all the world — like Jane. That was unkind of you, how you spoke to Caroline.”
Charlotte sighed, and turned her hands over in a way that seemed to say, What do you expect of me, but yes, it was unkind.
With a nod Elizabeth went over to the corner where Caroline stood, making every pretense of studying a bookcase. Elizabeth squeezed her arm. “With Charlie’s library you must be desperate to find something to read, but I can lend you one from my own fine stock.”
No reply, just a grunt.
It was clear from the look of Caroline’s eyes that she was trying to hold back tears.
Elizabeth determined just to stand there next to her and wait. The terrible thing was that Elizabeth thought Charlotte was right: Mr. Darcy had no interest in Caroline.
But Caroline would need to learn that on her own. Elizabeth knew very well from their years of life together that when her friend got a decided idea into her head, it was no easy matter to dislodge it, and that she did not take kindly to dissenting counsel.
The chief point, in Elizabeth’s view, was that she needed near Caroline to comfort her when she finally realized… And besides, it was not an impossibility, perhaps Darcy might realize Caroline’s virtues, and find himself, to his surprise more than anyone else’s, falling in love with her friend as she deserved.
After a while, and without looking away from red leatherbound books in the bookcase, Caroline said, “I ought to not be so annoyed. She is just a small woman, of small face, small fortune, and smaller hopes.”
“She is three inches taller than I am,” Elizabeth replied, hoping to make a joke of the whole.
“It is the lack of hopes which makes her spiteful.”
Elizabeth sighed. “Charlotte is a dear friend of mine as well.”
“I hardly see why. Small hopes, small apartments, small pinched face, and she hopes to pinch everyone else into the limited scope she might have with her life.” Caroline made a brittle laugh. “To denominate this handful of rooms Lucas Lodge. What ridiculous pretention.”
“Caroline.”
At last Caroline’s eyes were alight with something other than bitterness. She smirked at Elizabeth, and then sighed. “I can deny you nothing. I shall try. Politeness amongst savagery. I will try my best. But I find her annoying.” However Caroline then took Elizabeth’s hand and embraced her. “For you, anything.”
Elizabeth embraced Caroline back.
Elizabeth sighed. “ You annoy her as well, so equality of disdain. And that is the central point we all seek: Equality in our connections. Oh, I so hate it when my friends do not like each other! There is nothing worse than that. And nothing worth that! That really is what I want above all else, for my friends to be happy and pleased with each other.”
Before Caroline ventured upon a reply to that trite sentiment — Elizabeth’s own foolishness, since she needed some form of stupidity to maintain equality with Caroline’s hopeless enthusiasm for Mr. Darcy — Charlotte approached them again.
She hesitated, pressed her tongue out in her cheek, and then shrugged. “Miss Bingley, I confess I ought to have been a little more in sympathy with the pain that a fear of disappointed hopes can give. I myself have known such emotions.”
“I am not in fear of disappointment. And I will not allow myself to doubt since—”
“And now I am glad that we all are friends again,” Elizabeth said touching both Charlotte and Caroline at the same time. “And it is time for the discourse to turn to a far less interesting subject than men . What do you both think, is it like to rain tomorrow again?”
However, Elizabeth’s determination to discuss the weather rather than the whether was interrupted when the man whose “whether” was under consideration approached them.
Upon them seeing Mr. Darcy’s closeness, he augustly inclined his handsome head, and made the appropriate mumblings of greeting, “I had no intention to interrupt your conversation, ladies.”
“No, never!” Caroline exclaimed, smiling at him, and then suddenly frowning as she continued. “I am quite always happy,” she said with what Elizabeth thought was a grotesquely silly frown, “to see you.”
Caroline stopped and she had an odd expression on her face, clearly wishing to smile, but also perhaps thinking that she ought to frown.
Poor, sweet, dear goose — she was quite too tied to Darcy’s opinion to think clearly.
Only a man!
In Elizabeth’s opinion, her friend ought to make no excess of effort to “catch” him. Unless Mr. Darcy was wholly insensible, it was impossible for him to miss Caroline’s preference for him, and while Elizabeth assiduously hoped that he would one day begin to look with favor upon her friend, that was a matter of his choice.
So Elizabeth took the lead and said gaily, “ You observed us earlier in conversation — no, you cannot blush and hide it. I noted your attention. Did we not all express ourselves with proper enthusiasm? My dear Caroline especially.”
“I hardly can settle whether it was proper enthusiasm that you displayed, as I was not privy to the subject of the conversation, but the three of you were quite intent.”
Both Elizabeth and Caroline flushed, while Charlotte raised an eyebrow and smirked at the other two girls. Caroline looked down, clearly unable to come up with a proper way to continue the conversation without revealing that the subject they had been so intent upon had been her interest in him .
Elizabeth patted Caroline on the arm and said, “I merely teased my dear Miss Bingley, here, upon how she certainly must tease Charlie into throwing us all a ball — one for everyone in the neighborhood, and the new regiment of officers. But I suspect you would not enjoy such an event half so much.”
“Hardly, but that does not mean your enjoyment should be curtailed.”
“No,” Caroline spoke, looking at Darcy and now smiling again, “I would far rather have my enjoyment be curtailed than yours .”
“And it would be ungentlemanly,” he replied stiffly, “if I were to wish anything but the opposite, so we are at an impasse. It shall then fall to Miss Elizabeth to determine whether we apply to Mr. Bingley to have a ball.”
Elizabeth laughed. “That will not do. No, not at all! You already know my opinion, and that it is contrary to yours — but do you not admire Caroline’s circumspection upon the matter?”
Darcy looked at Caroline, who blushed and smiled. “I hardly want anything while you are with us but quiet evenings amongst the domestic circle, with other dear friends added at times—” So saying she smiled at Elizabeth. “Even these rooms are in my view quite too crowded, with too many people. But then the roof is not very high — that always makes a room appear smaller.”
Charlotte’s face tightened in a way that showed Elizabeth that her friend was wholly aware of the not particularly veiled deprecation of her family home. So much for unity and accord.
Hail, we welcome you both: Discord and Disunity!
Oh! Why couldn’t everyone she liked very much like each other?
Silly, goose-like desire. And it really was not a matter of importance to Elizabeth that all of her friends liked all of her friends. She was wholly capable of enjoying their company separately.
Caroline’s mild rudeness still annoyed.
“Not everyone,” Elizabeth smiled a little too brightly at Caroline, “was blessed with such success in their line of business as our fathers.”
Caroline flushed, and slightly tilted her head towards Darcy. “Of a certainty not.” She then bent to Elizabeth’s ear and whispered passionately, “Do not remind him!”
“An excellent suggestion,” Elizabeth replied aloud. “And I shall make an effort to respect that request in my every future speech.” She looked sideways at Mr. Darcy, “And I am most impressed with you .”
“Oh. That is the first time I have heard such praise from you.”
“Come now, come — you are so insensible. If you were a smitten gentleman, you would tease us both desperately till we told you what secret confidence Caroline and I just shared.”
“ I on the other hand believe myself to always be a respecter of female confidences.”
Elizabeth elbowed Caroline. “That will not do. Not at all. Caro, you must tease him till he begs you to tell him what you said to me.”
“Tease Mr. Darcy?” she said wide eyed. “On such a matter of proper behavior? It is impossible.”
“Impossible to tease Mr. Darcy!” Elizabeth looked at him and shook her head. She studied the gentleman. He was tall, wore a fine fashionable green wool coat. Broad shoulders and that perpetually serious and sensible look upon his face.
He studied her back.
Fine, serious eyes.
But did he ever smile? — or laugh? Elizabeth dearly loved a laugh.
Caroline would be most fortunate if she succeeded in fixing Mr. Darcy’s attention. Even if he did not laugh nearly as easily as Elizabeth thought a man ought.
Elizabeth said, “I have never met a man before who cannot be teased. What a strange fate — Caroline, you must make some attempt.”
Both Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy observed Caroline with some interest.
She turned redder at being placed upon the spot, and then she exclaimed with wide eyes that she kept tight on Darcy, “Mr. Darcy, I admire you beyond all words for being able to keep your curiosity in check! But it is truly the case that I do not wish you to know what I said to Eliza.”
Darcy regally tilted his head at her in response to that.
With glances between the two of them, Elizabeth ruefully shook her head, and suppressed the urge to giggle.
It had never occurred to her that it would be so difficult to shape the conversation in a manner which would display Caroline to the best light. But Caroline’s personality seemed to be wholly different, and an odd combination of superciliousness, desperate desire to please, and caution around Mr. Darcy.
He did not make Caroline behave as her best self.
An idle thought crossed Elizabeth’s mind that it would be a terrible pity to spend one’s whole life with a man with whom one could not behave as one’s truest, deepest self.
Elizabeth also deeply hoped that she had not harmed matters for her friend.
The silence stretched, and Darcy said, “What secret matter amuses you so, Miss Elizabeth?”
“No, no, no — it is Caroline’s secrets which I enjoin you to discover. Not mine. In any case — behold! The piano is open. Caro, I must have you play.” Elizabeth looked at Darcy. “She has improved enormously since we were in school. You must wish to hear her play.”
“Of a certainty,” he said bowing.
“No,” Caroline replied, flushing, but also smiling at Elizabeth with gratitude. “My dear Eliza, you know how little I enjoy performing and putting myself forward!”
What a humbug.
There was no one Elizabeth knew who more enjoyed putting herself forward than Caroline. But Elizabeth loved that her friend could honestly delight in her own powers — it would be an awfully stupid and dull thing to develop any talent so fully as Caroline had with her music without taking pleasure in the admiration and joy of others.
“Your modesty does you full credit!” cried Elizabeth. “However, you must give way, I enjoy your performances too greatly to permit this opportunity to hear you play to pass me by — you have no choice.” Elizabeth led all them to the piano and ordered Mr. Darcy to the stool next to Caroline to turn the pages for her friend.
There.
That was a gesture of promoting flirtation that had every promise of success, and one which had as proof of its value that it was oft employed to good effect in novels.
Elizabeth leaned against the wall, next to the painting that Sir William had commissioned of him making his speech to the king when he was mayor, to listen to the music.
Caroline had always been the best amongst all the pupils at school in perfecting her accomplishments. She took delight in impressing Mrs. Castle and the masters brought in to instruct them in the various arts, and Caroline had improved her play even further since Elizabeth listened to her last.
That practice, inspired by Miss Georgiana Darcy and Caroline’s hope of impressing Mr. Darcy with her excellent taste in music, had gone to good.
Elizabeth closed her eyes to just listen.
Caroline had selected a popular sonata from Beethoven, and each note made Elizabeth’s heart leap. She absently bounced her finger up and down in time to the music, and hummed along to the primary theme.
The rolling and falling piano notes were as beautiful, sublime, and elegant as falling rain from a cloudy sky, or a column of smoke rising cheerfully from a red brick chimney on a snowy evening. Tears came to Elizabeth’s eye.
Daa-daa-da-d-d-Daa. D-d-d-Daa.
The endless, almost but not quite repeating gentle arpeggios of the piece…
Elizabeth lost all sense of her place, and she only opened her eyes again when Caroline began the livelier second movement. Elizabeth was thus surprised to discover that while Mr. Darcy sat next to Caroline Bingley, his eyes and attention were directly wholly on her.
Their eyes met, and her stomach felt fluttery, there was a shock in her chest, and she felt pale and faint.
With a giggle that did not stop her from perfectly maintaining her play, Caroline knocked her elbow against Darcy’s side, to remind him to turn the page. He sharply looked away from Elizabeth and did so.
Elizabeth flushed, and told herself insistently that Mr. Darcy’s study of her face and person was no sign of attraction.
And she certainly was beyond a doubt in no way attracted to Mr. Darcy. Caroline was in love with him.
And he certainly had no interest in her.
Not when Caroline was so much more proper for such a stiff and reserved man, such a quiet and unsociable man who nevertheless had the most eligible fortune.
He was not at all to her liking, neither in manners nor in mind.
But in Elizabeth’s dreams that night she lived that intense moment when their eyes met a dozen times, and Elizabeth woke the next morning restless, energetic, and with an ache in her breasts and loins that she only half understood.