Page 10 of The Marriage Game

Upon arriving back at Bingley House, Caroline went directly to her room. When she did not come down for supper and instead asked for a tray, Mr. Bingley asked his wife if perhaps Caroline was unwell.

“In a manner of speaking, I think she is,” Jane replied, an odd smile playing about her lips.

“What can you mean?” her puzzled husband asked.

“She got the dressing down of her life today from Lizzy,” Jane said.

“Oh, today was the tea at Darcy House! Did it not go well?”

“It went very well indeed.”

“But Caroline…?”

“It did not go so well for her.”

Mr. Bingley begged his wife to be less mysterious and more informative, and she promptly complied, telling him the lessons that Mrs. Annesley and Lizzy had given Caroline.

“But she must have been furious!” Mr. Bingley exclaimed.

“Once Lizzy was done, Caroline stood up and walked out. She said not a word in the carriage on the way home, so I do not know what she is thinking.”

“Or even if she is thinking,” her husband added bitterly.

***

In fact, Caroline was doing a good deal of thinking. She was more self-aware than she was generally given credit for, and she knew that her pose, her nose-in-the-air pose, was born of a desperate desire to deny her low social standing. Both her parents had been intent – as so many of the merchant class were – on gaining access to the higher levels of society. Her father had insisted that Charles purchase an estate someday; her mother had instructed both Louisa and Caroline to raise the family through advantageous marriages.

Louisa had done well in her marriage, but not spectacularly well. Harold Hurst would someday inherit an estate, though at present he was a man of little means and lived off whatever allowance his father could be persuaded to grant.

Caroline was determined to do better than her sister. Her ambitions had become even fiercer at school, where she had been roundly snubbed by many of the other girls, girls who had had the good fortune to be born to Lord and Lady This-or-That, or whose aunts and uncles were Lord and Lady What-Not. She would show them! She would find the richest, handsomest man in the world, and she would marry him, and then nobody would ever snub her again!

She had set her sights on Fitzwilliam Darcy when they had first been introduced, and nothing in the next few years had lessened her determination to become Mrs. Darcy and thus the mistress of a very grand estate called Pemberley. That would have put some noses out of joint! She very much wished that Mr. Darcy had a title; that was the only drawback to her wishes and plans. She would never be Lady Caroline if she became Mrs. Darcy.

But it had not mattered after all, as Mr. Darcy had had the poor taste to fall for a silly country girl!

If she were honest, though, Eliza – no, she must remember to say Elizabeth – was not silly. She must be well-read, as she and Mr. Darcy were always talking about books. She was pretty enough, especially now that she was wearing good clothes. Doubtless the Countess of Matlock had persuaded her own modiste, Madame Lanchester, to take Eliza and Georgiana – no, Elizabeth and Miss Darcy – on as clients. Elizabeth was also fond of the outdoors, which Caroline was not, and Mr. Darcy was quite the outdoorsman himself.

And there was something else as well. When Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy were together, the way they looked at each other made Caroline uncomfortable. She felt somehow that she was intruding on something private, something that had nothing whatever to do with her.

Come to think of it, the manner in which Charles and Jane looked at one another often made Caroline feel uncomfortable as well. Caroline realised that she responded to that feeling of discomfort by lashing out at Jane. Jane was always polite, but she clearly was unhappy at Caroline’s manner toward her.

Hold – was this why Caroline had been brought to Town for the Season? Because she had made Jane unhappy? And if Jane was unhappy, then Charles was unhappy, and if Charles was unhappy…Caroline had the uncomfortable feeling that if she did not manage to get married this Season, she would be packed off to live with Aunt Beatrice in Birmingham.

But this was not likely to happen, she thought, lifting her head and staring in the mirror. I am, after all Miss Bingley, with a fine face and figure, and twenty thousand pounds. If I am allowed to be seen with the Darcys, I will doubtless have my pick of husbands. That is the key; I must mind my tongue in order to be included in Elizabeth’s entertainments. And I must make my peace with Jane and Charles.

***

The next morning, Caroline found both her brother and sister at the breakfast table. She sat with them in silence until the maids and footmen had left the room, and then said, “Jane, I am sorry if I have been rude to you in the past.”

Jane and Charles both dropped their forks on their plates with a clatter and stared at Caroline.

Caroline continued, “No, do not deny it; I have been rude, and I am sorry. I mean to do better, but I fear I am – well, rude by nature. I will need your help if I am to learn better ways.”

“Oh, Caroline!” Jane, who Caroline knew cried over anything and everything, was teary-eyed. “Of course, I will give you any and every help you require.”

“I am proud of you, Caroline,” Charles said, gruffly.

Caroline managed to not roll her eyes.