Chapter 11
Caroline
Caroline Bingley looked with satisfaction at her little packet of love letters.
She had heard from her brother that the shooting party he had arranged had been a great success, and she had been clever enough to egg him on to tell more and more anecdotes about the event.
“Now, which one was that, Charles?” she would ask.
“After all, I will be your hostess. I need to familiarise myself with your friends’ and neighbours’ names.
” When she had finally heard what she was listening for, she had said, “I presume that Mr Goulding and William Goulding are father and son?”
Charles had nodded his head. “Yes, they are.”
“Is the son very young? Sixteen? Or twenty? Or…?”
“Of course I do not know for certain, but I believe that William Goulding is close to my age.”
Caroline had nodded her head and had gone on to listen to more tales.
But later, she had added the initials “W.G.” as a sort of signature on the five love letters she had previously prepared.
She had taken the time to meticulously age three of the letters, carefully folding and unfolding and refolding the papers over and over again until they looked to be several months old.
Of course, she had eventually folded and sealed each letter with a plain seal impressed into the sealing wax.
Once the wax was entirely cool, she had broken the seal.
Sometimes the entire seal fell off, and she discarded it—but the evidence that a wax seal had been used still remained in a reddened stain.
The stroke of genius—the thing that made the small stack of letters look as though they were much-read and much-loved—was tying them with a ribbon.
She had noted that Elizabeth Bennet’s gown that night was Pomona green in colour, and she happened to have a fairly well-used ribbon that matched.
It was that ribbon she used to tie the letters together, making a little packet.
She knew that Godfrey’s Cordial would almost certainly induce Elizabeth to sleep heavily until at least six the next morning, and perhaps later.
She would wait until everyone had gone to bed, and then she would knock on the door of the guest room in which Elizabeth slept.
Although she had not hand-picked the maid attending Elizabeth, no maid would think twice about allowing the mistress of the house to check on the condition of a guest who was ill.
Of course, Caroline could then easily arrange for the maid to leave her alone to plant the love letters in Elizabeth’s reticule. If the water pitcher was less than half full, for example, Caroline could reasonably ask for the maid to fetch fresh water.
She glided forth from her room, the letters in the pocket of her robe, certain from the quiet that everyone was abed and likely asleep.
But when she was actually at the door to Elizabeth’s guest room, she heard a soft voice speaking of “my love” but then something about “grossly dyed” and “buds for marjoram.” She realised that the voice belonged to Mr Darcy!
And he was clearly reading some sort of poorly written poetry; who would speak about a lover with words like gross and allusions to herbs?
Quickly removing herself to an unused chamber across the hall, Caroline settled in to wait for Mr Darcy’s removal from the room.
She was deeply shocked; Mr Darcy was in a woman’s bed chamber?
Granted, the two were engaged to marry—but they were not yet married, and it was astounding to her that the fastidious and proper man she thought she knew would ever do such a thing as this!
Caroline waited and waited for him to exit the room, but he never did. The reading aloud paused several times, but then it resumed.
After waiting longer than half an hour, Caroline went back to her own bedroom.
She had been stymied for one night on the scheme of planting love letters on Mr Darcy’s intended, and completely blocked from the more daring portion of her secondary plan—but none of that mattered as long as she kept her eye on the big picture.
More harmful to her plans, she decided, was the blow to Mr Darcy’s reputation. Was he…like other men? How disappointing, if that was true!