Page 2 of Sweet Caroline

The next morning, secure in the knowledge that Charles would not cross the threshold of Miss Bennet’s sick room, I attempted to break my fast.

I had barely lifted my first cup of perfectly brewed tea to my lips when chaos incarnate burst through our breakfast parlour door in the form of Elizabeth Bennet. Dear reader, I tell you with complete sincerity that she looked as though she had challenged every hedgerow in Hertfordshire to mortal combat—and lost.

I stopped, frozen in horror, as Miss Elizabeth Bennet traipsed into our breakfast parlour. Her face was flushed an alarming shade of red, her bonnet visibly in disrepair, and her petticoat... good heavens, her petticoat! It bore more mud than fabric at this point. Or what little mud not already affixed to her boots. Three miles! On foot! In this weather! It was beyond comprehension. I half expected to see a flock of sheep trailing behind her.

“Miss Elizabeth!” I nearly dropped my cup, which would have been a tragedy as it was my favourite Wedgwood. “What an... unexpected pleasure.” The word ‘pleasure’ had never been stretched so thin.

“Good morning, Miss Bingley.” She had the audacity to beam at us all, as if appearing at a gentleman’s house at dawn looking like something the gamekeeper’s dog had dragged in was perfectly acceptable behaviour. “I hope I’m not intruding?”

“Not at all,” I lied through gritted teeth. “Though I confess, we were not expecting visitors quite so... early. Or quite so...”

“Muddy?” she supplied helpfully. she actually twirled—twirled! — giving us all an excellent view of her ruined stockings and petticoats. The hem of her dress appeared to have absorbed half the county’s topsoil. “I walked from Longbourn.” Surely she had waded through a knee-deep creek of muck to render her hems so filthy. The chit had the audacity to smile, as if her bedraggled state was something to be proud of.

“Walked?” I echoed faintly. “In this weather? My dear Miss Elizabeth, were all the horses in Hertfordshire suddenly struck lame?”

“The exercise was most invigorating!” She seemed positively gleeful about her state of dishevelment. “I have come to inquire after my sister,” she announced, as if that explained everything.

Charles, ever the fool, jumped to her defence. “Caroline! Miss Elizabeth has shown great devotion in coming to check on her sister. It’s admirable, really.”

“Oh yes, brother dear. Terribly admirable. I’m sure Miss Elizabeth’s innovative approach to morning calls will be the talk of the county.” I added sotto voce for Mr Darcy’s amusement, “Along with her unique approach to morning attire.” I took a fortifying sip of tea.

“Caroline,” Louisa hissed behind her napkin, “do attempt to be civil.”

“I am being perfectly civil,” I whispered back. “I have not even mentioned that she appears to have brought half of Longbourn’s gardens with her on her hem.”

Mr Darcy, usually so composed, bore the queerest expression, as if caught between admiration and confusion. He was staring at our mud-spattered visitor with an expression I had never seen before—something between horror and fascination, like a man watching a shipwreck in progress.

“Miss Elizabeth,” he managed, his voice oddly strained, “your dedication to your sister is... commendable.”

I nearly inhaled my tea. “Oh yes, Mr Darcy. Commendable indeed.” Had the man completely lost his senses? Though I suppose there’s no accounting for taste when it comes to... rustic charm. I, of course, had to express agreement with him, but had he lost his mind?

As Miss Elizabeth was whisked away, leaving a trail of muddy footprints that would give Mrs Nickson apoplexy — to infect poor Jane with her peculiar brand of madness, I turned to my siblings. “Well! How thoughtful of Miss Elizabeth to bring us a piece of her ancestral estate. Perhaps we should have the servants preserve it as a souvenir?”

Louisa glared at me. “Caroline, please. She is our guest.”

“A guest?” I scoffed. “More like an invading army of mud and impropriety.” Charles and Louisa both huffed at that. Mr Darcy bore his usual inscrutable expression, but I hoped that he merely was silent to avoid disagreeing with his host.

The day proceeded to deteriorate with remarkable efficiency. The apothecary arrived—a dried-up little man who looked as though he had learnt his trade during the Crusades—and pronounced Miss Jane Bennet too ill to be moved. Charles fretted about like a mother hen, and Mrs Nickle pestered me endlessly about broths and tinctures, as if I had suddenly been appointed head nurse of this impromptu infirmary.

By three o’clock, I was certain our ordeal was nearly over. While we were stuck with Miss Bennet, per the orders of the apothecary, she was out of sight in a guest room. I made what I thought was a masterful attempt to salvage the situation. I ordered the carriage prepared and pressed it on Miss Elizabeth with grace and elegance.

“Miss Elizabeth,” I said, with what I considered saint-like patience, “pray allow us to send you home in the carriage. We would not want you to... exert yourself unnecessarily.”

But before she could accept this perfectly reasonable offer, Jane’s weak voice floated up from her bed: “Oh, Lizzy, you will not leave me, will you? I depend upon you so...”

Charles heard Miss Jane Bennet speak of her reliance on “dear Lizzy” and had such concern at parting the sisters and just like that, my brilliant strategy crumbled. Social propriety demanded that I extend an invitation for Miss Elizabeth to stay, which she accepted with thoroughly suspicious gratitude. Likely she merely wished to impose on our superior kitchens for some decent meals to fatten up her scrawny frame.

“How delightful,” I said, my smile so fixed it threatened to crack my face. “Now we can enjoy Miss Elizabeth’s unique... perspectives for even longer. Though perhaps we should send for some additional cleaning staff?”

“Caroline,” Charles frowned, “do try to be kind.”

I waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, I am perfectly kind, Charles. In fact, I am considering taking up Miss Elizabeth’s novel approach to exercise myself. What do you say, Louisa? Shall we go wrestle with some shrubbery before dinner?”

Louisa looked horrified. “Caroline!”

I sighed dramatically. “No? Well, I suppose wecannot all aspire to such heights of... rustic charm.”

“Caroline!” Louisa cornered me with her most formidable older-sister expression. “You do yourself no favours with such remarks. Would you like to be known as the sharp-tongued spinster of the neighbourhood?”

“Better a sharp tongue than mud-caked stockings,” I muttered, but she seized my arm with surprising force.

“There is no need to be rude, Caroline. You need not give rein to your least charitable thoughts. Do you wish to be viewed as a shrew?”

A shrew! Louisa had truly lost her sense after her marriage. She no longer understood the pressure I felt to make a positive impression on the only eligible man within a hundred miles. I shook off her hand and took up a position to provide the best view of my figure directed towards Mr Darcy.

Louisa approached me and hissed “Sister dear. Your attempts to impress Mr Darcy will come to nothing if you persist in showing your worst nature.”

I turned away, adjusting my pose to best display my figure—which, I might add, was decidedly un-mud-spattered. “I merely wish to maintain some standards of decorum in this house. Is that so terrible?”

As a footman was dispatched to fetch Miss Elizabeth’s things—hopefully including some clean stockings—I consoled myself by planning extensive renovations to our morning room. Clearly, we needed more mirrors. Mr Darcy could not possibly have seen Miss Elizabeth’s bedraggled state from all angles, or he would surely have been properly horrified.

Heaven help us all. The Bennet invasion was officially underway, and I appeared to be the only one with sense enough to mount a defence.

One would think, after the dramatic displays of the previous evening, that the morning might offer some respite. One would be devastatingly incorrect.

Miss Elizabeth Bennet joined us for dinner, looking only marginally less dishevelled than she had earlier—though that is rather like saying a hurricane is marginally more pleasant than a tsunami. The mud had been cleaned from her hem, but her hair retained that wild quality that spoke of complete indifference to proper grooming. Or perhaps she merely had not yet learnt that civilised society possessed such innovations as combs.

Charles, predictably, launched straight into his concerned-host performance. “And how is dear Miss Bennet faring?” He leaned forward so eagerly I feared he might fall face-first into his soup. I suppressed a sigh of exasperation.

“I am afraid she is no better,” she said with all the gravity of a third-act tragedy.

“Oh, how dreadful!” I exclaimed, my voice dripping with feigned sympathy. “A bad cold is so shocking, is it not, Louisa?”

“Indeed,” Louisa agreed. “I absolutely detest being ill.” I fear Louisa missed the mark and took my words seriously.

“Who does not, dear?” I muttered into my wine glass. Though I had to admit, if illness brought eligible gentlemen rushing to one’s bedside, perhaps the Bennets were onto something.

We repeated our concerns a few more times for good measure before I promptly forgot about the matter entirely. After all, there were far more pressing issues at hand - such as ensuring Mr Darcy did not spend too much time gazing at Miss Elizabeth’s “fine eyes.”

The moment Miss Elizabeth excused herself to check on her sister—probably to ensure Jane maintained the perfect level of theatrical invalidity—I turned to our dining companions with barely contained glee.

“Well! Shall we discuss our dear guest’s... unique approach to morning calls?”

“Caroline,” Louisa warned, wielding her dinner knife with uncomfortable precision. “Indeed, it must be quite worrying for Miss Elizabeth. I do hope Jane recovers soon.”

I pressed on, determined to make my point. “That petticoat! Six inches deep in mud! I have not seen such a determined assault on cleanliness since the pig escaped into the parlour at Lady Metcalf’s last summer.”

Charles set down his fork with exaggerated calm and predictably, agreed with my sister. “Your picture may be very exact, Caroline,” said he, “but this was all lost upon me. I thought Miss Elizabeth Bennet looked remarkably well when she came into the room this morning. Her dirty petticoat quite escaped my notice.”

“Of course, dear brother,” I patted his hand as one might comfort a particularly dim child. “You were too busy composing sonnets to her sister’s sneezes.”

Turning to Mr Darcy—who had been suspiciously quiet—I lowered my voice to a confidential murmur.

“You observed it, Mr Darcy, I am sure, and I am inclined to think that you would not wish to see your sister make such an exhibition.”

"Certainly not,” he replied, though his eyes held an alarming twinkle. Not to be deterred, I took that as encouragement.

“To walk three miles, or four miles, or five miles, or whatever it is, above her ankles in dirt, and alone, quite alone! What could she mean by it? It seems to me to show an abominable sort of conceited independence, a most country-town indifference to decorum.”

“Caroline,” Louisa interjected firmly, “this is most unbecoming. We ought to be gracious hosts, not gossips.”

I felt a flush of irritation at my sister’s attack. “I am merely pointing out the impropriety of her actions.”

“It shows affection for her sister,” Charles said, backing up Louisa. Finding no support with my siblings, I turned to a certain sympathiser with my view.

“I am afraid, Mr Darcy,” I added, undeterred, in a half whisper, “that this adventure has rather affected your admiration of her fine eyes.”

“Not at all,” he replied with alarming promptness. “They were brightened by the exercise.”

A short pause followed this speech. I had no witty retort prepared for him taking the side of the trollop. Might he be sincere in his admiration? Impossible. He must be joking. But Mr Darcy was not a man known for frivolity. Mr Darcy’s sense of humour, while it existed, rarely extended to matters of propriety. Good heavens, had the man been enchanted?

Refusing to be deterred, I pressed on. “Well, regardless of her eyes—though I am sure they are very fine when not obscured by hedge clippings—with such a family and such connections, I fear poor Jane’s prospects are rather limited. Did you know their uncle is an attorney in Meryton?”

With no one taking up the topic, I continued, “and another is in trade and lives near Cheapside!”

Charles, predictably, came to their defence. “If they had uncles enough to fill all Cheapside, it would not make them any less agreeable.”

“But it would certainly lessen their chances of marrying well,” Mr Darcy observed, finally giving me something to work with. I seized upon this morsel of sense like a drowning woman clutching at a life raft. I gave it my hearty assent and indulged in further mirth for some time at the expense of our dear friend’s vulgar relations. My energy soon flagged with no assistance from the others in our party.

At Louisa’s insistence, we two ladies went up to see Jane for ourselves. She was clearly ill, her face ashen, her hair lank and unkempt, and a handkerchief constantly at her nose. I prepared to remove myself for fear of contagion, but Louisa restrained me, insisting on asking a litany of questions about Jane Bennet’s health.

When we finally departed, Elizabeth would not quit her at all. Late in the evening, when she had the comfort of seeing her sister asleep, she came downstairs herself. She was immediately invited to join us in a game of loo, but declined saying her sister might require her. Probably worried about betting away her quarterly allowance in a single hand. Mr Hurst looked at her with astonishment, as he never refrains from betting as he enjoys taking our money while he lives off of Charles’s generosity.

As the evening wore on, I found myself increasingly irritated by Miss Elizabeth’s continued presence in our home. When she declined again to join our card game, preferring a book instead, I sharpened my sword.

“Miss Eliza Bennet despises cards,” I announced to the room. “She is a great reader and has no pleasure in anything else.”

“I deserve neither such praise nor such censure,” she replied, with infuriating composure. “I am not a great reader, and I have pleasure in many things.”

“Like tramping through mud, no doubt,” I muttered under my breath. The sharp pain in my ankle suggested Louisa’s aim with a well-placed kick had improved since our schoolroom days. I consoled myself by plotting to have the morning room redecorated in shades that would make Miss Elizabeth’s complexion look particularly sallow. If we must endure this invasion, I would at least ensure the battlefield was tilted in my favour.

Miss Eliza Bennet pretended to read some dusty tome of Mr Darcy’s. More vexing still was the way Mr Darcy’s eyes kept straying in her direction like compass needles drawn to magnetic north. Clearly, I would need to develop a sudden passionate interest in whatever medieval manuscripts he favoured. Eager to reclaim his attention, “I am astonished,” I announced to the room at large, “that my father left so small a collection of books. What a delightful library you have at Pemberley, Mr Darcy!”

“It ought to be good,” he replied, his gaze still magnetised by Elizabeth’s profile. “It has been the work of many generations.”

“And you have added so much to it yourself,” I persisted, wondering if I should fetch a book and wave it about like a flag. “You are always buying books.”

His response was frustratingly vague. “I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these.”

Was this a hint? Should I begin expanding Netherfield’s modest collection? I made a mental note to order several hundred incomprehensible volumes at the earliest opportunity. But perhaps I ought to divert attention from the library to the building itself. Netherfield was a privy next to Darcy’s estate.