Chapter 15 #3
“I think not, sir,” Elizabeth objected. “You must see it is your duty to return to Netherfield and be a proper husband to my sister.”
“I should let him go, Lizzy,” Mrs Sinclair demurred. “He is of no use to anybody this side of the Atlantic.”
“He is of use to Jane.”
“A ringing endorsement, by all accounts!” She levered herself to her feet with her cane.
“Mr Bingley, you have the privilege of being the most unparalleled idiot I have ever known. And since I have been alive for the best part of a century, I urge you not to underestimate the scope of such a commendation.”
Bingley sent Elizabeth a plaintive look. “For what it is worth, I truly love you.”
“It is worth nothing, Mr Bingley. Nothing at all.”
She took the arm Mrs Sinclair held out for her and left, resolutely refusing to shed a tear until later when she was securely closeted beneath the covers of Darcy’s bed.
Friday 5 March 1813, London
Caroline Bingley arrived home in a foul humour, having passed the previous two hours being out-ranked, out-shopped and out-flirted by her friends. “Where is everybody?” she enquired, flicking her things at the butler.
“Mr Hurst is at his club, ma’am. Mrs Hurst is taking the air with her daughter, and I believe you will find Mrs Bingley in the parlour.”
She inclined her head and walked with little anticipation of pleasure to find the latter.
Her expectations were not disappointed. She found Jane hunched over a letter, sobbing uncontrollably into a handkerchief from which a needle still dangled on a thread from a corner.
With a resigned sigh, Caroline sat next to her, patted her knee with the furthest ends of her fingertips and enquired what the matter was.
After one or two false beginnings, Jane managed to communicate that the letter was from her sister. “Mr Darcy gave it to me yesterday, but I have only now had the courage to read it.”
“I take it whatever made you delay opening it has come to bear?”
She shook her head. “I knew not what to expect, but this is worse. Elizabeth writes that Charles is seriously contemplating going to live in Nova Scotia!”
“I see. You may cease your fretting this instant if that is all that has distressed you. Charles has never seriously considered anything in his life. Even if the thought has occurred to him, he will get no further than choosing which of his neckcloths to pack. He will come home. You may rely upon it.”
“In that case, what comfort will it be to know it was only irresolution that made him stay?”
Caroline weighed her low opinion of Jane’s fortitude with the need for frankness and decided the latter was more pressing in the present circumstances.
“Pardon my saying so, but if you do not begin to give him a little encouragement, irresolution may well be the best for which you can hope. My brother has a great natural modesty of which Louisa and I have ever despaired. He is the sort of man who requires considerable urging to resolve on anything.” In response to Jane’s look of bewilderment, she added, “Your determination to be as cold and indifferent a wife as ever lived is not likely to convince him to love you.”
Perhaps she might have worded it better. The tears returned.
“Cold and indifferent?”
“My dear, you are hardly what one would call a demonstrative wife.”
“But you impressed upon me the importance of not being one! You disdained my meekness! You instructed me in my tone of voice, my address and expressions—in all the things that would make me more acceptable to your sphere. Indeed, Lady Ashby was adamant that becoming more fashionable would earn me his esteem!”
“With all due respect, Lady Ashby does not know my brother. He evidently liked you better when you did nothing but smile at him incessantly. By all means, continue as you have been in public, but if your wish is to make Charles love you, I am afraid you will have to indulge him occasionally.”
Histrionics rendered Jane’s next speech all but incoherent, though Caroline gleaned the gist: Jane’s efforts to be a good wife had only pushed him into her arms.
“Whose arms?” she enquired, certain she already knew the answer.
“Lizzy’s!” Jane cried, collapsing face first into the handkerchief. Caroline pried it from her grip lest she poke herself in the eye with the needle.
“I had hoped he would overcome that little fascination before you discovered it.”
“You knew about it too?”
“Regrettably.” She wondered who else did.
“For how long have you known?”
“Since he decided to offer for her and somehow got himself engaged to you instead.”
Colour flooded Jane’s countenance, and Caroline wondered belatedly whether she had only worsened matters. “Forgive me, I assumed you knew about that.”
“I did,” Jane whispered. “It is what we argued about at Netherfield—though I suspected long before then that he had feelings for her. I have been so anxious to make him admire me more than he does her. How insufficient have been all my pretensions to becoming a woman worthy of being loved! Had I only shown him more affection than I felt instead of less, he might never have done what he did!”
“What he did? What do you mean?”
“He got a child on her!” she howled.
“What? Mrs Darcy’s child is my brother’s?” They were all doomed.
“No. He got a child on the next best thing—Miss Greening.”
Caroline stared, nonplussed.
“Amelia. The maid at Netherfield. The one who looked like my sister.”
Well, how completely, absolutely, utterly splendid. The buffoon had truly outdone himself on this occasion. “Is that why you dismissed her?”
“No. I dismissed her because she looked too much like Lizzy, and I did not want Charles to have any reason to be reminded of her. But either I acted too late, or he sought her out afterwards, for she is with child.”
“This is disgraceful. How—when did you discover it?”
“In September when Lizzy was at Netherfield. Mr Darcy found a stupid little picture of her on Charles’ desk that my cousin had drawn, and I knew instantly why he had kept it.”
She sniffed grotesquely. Caroline gave her back the handkerchief, needle and all.
“I went to his study to find it—well, to burn it, in truth, I was so cross. But instead, I found a letter from a Mrs Pence, who wrote that Miss Greening had felt the quickening and asked that the agreed funds be forwarded.”
Caroline grew angrier by the moment. She wished her brother had shown half as much flair for cunning before entangling himself with the Bennets. “But you do not know when it happened?” Nor if it had continued, she dared not add.
“No. I have tried to guess. I asked my mother how long one usually waits to feel the quickening, but she misunderstood why I was asking and announced to everybody that I was with child.”
Caroline recalled that evening all too well. This new information only made her loathe Mrs Bennet more. “Is Charles aware that you know?”
Jane shook her head. “I could not bear to hear him admit it.”
Caroline peered at her dubiously. “I confess I am struggling to account for your having been so concerned with earning his esteem, given all this.”
“As have I on occasion, but I—well, I suppose it is simple, really. I love him. I do not believe I know how not to. I have loved him from the very first moment I met him.”
Caroline’s every moral fibre protested as the words, “He does not deserve you,” reluctantly crawled off her tongue. “Why on earth did you not mention it to anybody else?”
“I told Lady Ashby. She said it was a part of married life and advised me never to speak of it.”
“Well, she would! On dit, her husband has half a dozen children from the other side of the sheets. I doubt his taking lovers troubles her in any other way than whether her pin money is diminished.”
“You used to speak more highly of her.”
“She is a viscountess. I speak highly of her rank and influence. As a person, she is more comparable to a lemon. She adds flavour to other things but is sour and horrid on her own.”
That this should surprise Jane was exasperating.
It seemed, despite her low expectations, that Caroline had still managed to underestimate her new sister’s naivety.
She wished she had not, for much of this misfortune might have been averted had she more firmly pointed Jane in the direction of the real world from the start.
“I am surprised you did not tell your sister.”
“I might have, had she not come to my room the evening after my mother made the announcement, to tell me she was also with child. It was too much. In eight-and-forty hours, I had learnt that Charles still admired her and had got a child on her facsimile. She might as well have told me they had lain together.” She let out a little whimper and added, “It was childish and unjust of me to blame her. Yet I slapped her for it.”
“I daresay it did not do too much harm.”
“But it has!” She lifted her crumpled letter and read from it.
I shall never have the words to explain how deeply your jealousy and mistrust have wounded me. You are no longer the sister I once knew. You have lost all your goodness, and I have lost my Jane.
She burst into tears again and dropped her hands and the letter back to her lap. “I have blamed her for everything, but Mr Darcy is right. This is more my fault than I ever comprehended.”
“An observation worthy of a good deal of solitary reflection, I am certain,” Caroline replied, her limited supply of compassion abruptly exhausted at the thought of expending an ounce of it in defence of Elizabeth Darcy.
“You are right,” Jane gasped between sobs. “I hardly know myself anymore.”
“I am for Bath tomorrow,” Caroline grudgingly admitted. “Allow me to take you as far as Netherfield. Indulge your reflections in the peace and quiet of the country while you prepare yourself for Charles’ return.”
“You are convinced he will?”
“I am. And if you are determined to make him love you, you had better work out how to return yourself to the artless country moppet you used to be before he does.”