Chapter 3 Miss Bingley is Displeased #2
Feeling decidedly put out, Miss Bingley was in no better humour when a servant entered to inform Miss Elizabeth that her sister Jane had awakened and was asking for her.
Before leaving, Miss Elizabeth mentioned that Miss Bennet had believed herself well enough to join them at dinner that evening.
Miss Bingley forced a smile, even as irritation flared within her.
It was bad enough to endure one Bennet sister under her roof; the thought of having both at her table made her stomach tighten with a feeling of distaste.
The moment Miss Elizabeth departed, Miss Bingley’s restraint broke.
“That artful Eliza Bennet,” she burst out, her voice nearly shaking with her outrage.
“I have never encountered such an impudent, inconsequential creature. She is nothing to the rest of us—nothing! How dare she presume to speak to you as she did, Mr Darcy, as if you were equals! She sought to entrap you into saying what you did not mean.”
Her fingers clenched in her skirts. “She is a terrible hoyden—coarse and unfitting. If she marries at all, it will be to some farmer or shopkeeper—precisely what her station demands.”
Darcy straightened, his tone quiet but cutting.
“We were engaged, Miss Bingley, in nothing more than an exchange of opinions on a book we had both read. I took no offence from her words, nor from her manner. If I was not insulted, I see no reason why you should take it upon yourself to be so in my stead. Miss Elizabeth is the daughter of a gentleman, and need I remind you that this places both her and her sister above you in society. We are equals in consequence, since I am a gentleman and she is a gentleman’s daughter. ”
Miss Bingley stared at him, scarcely believing his composure as he went on—praising Miss Elizabeth’s manners, her care for others, even her worth as a gentlewoman. His words struck like blows. Equal? He had called her his equal.
“You cannot mean that,” she gasped, her horror breaking through her restraint. “You cannot possibly harbour designs upon that chit! She is beneath you in every conceivable respect.”
Her voice rose despite her effort to contain it.
The injustice of it all—that chit daring to charm him, to occupy the place in his thoughts that had once been hers—burned through Caroline until she could think of nothing else.
How could he not see what Miss Elizabeth was doing?
How could he not remember all that she had done to please him?
“Do you not see her artifice?” she demanded, her voice trembling. “She ensnares you with false modesty and feigned cleverness—any man might be taken in by such machinations!”
Darcy’s gaze hardened. “Enough, Miss Bingley.”
The chill in his voice only deepened her humiliation. For one reckless moment she thought that if she could only reach him—if she could make him see her again—he would remember the woman who had stood beside him through so many gatherings, who was the sister of his best friend.
Driven by that desperate impulse, Miss Bingley rose from her own seat, stepping forwards as her mind raced as she hastened to devise a rash plan.
If reason and charm could not secure Mr Darcy’s regard, then circumstance would.
She moved towards him deliberately, feigning a graceful misstep—a carefully measured “trip” over a non-existent crease in the rug.
Her intention was clear: she would fall into his lap, and propriety would do the rest. A startled cry—planned, of course—would bring the servants running, and before her brother and other witnesses he would be honour-bound to offer for her.
But her timing betrayed her. Darcy, perhaps sensing movement, shifted aside at precisely the wrong moment.
The space where he had sat was suddenly empty, and before she could steady herself, her balance gave way entirely.
Instead of achieving her triumph, she fell hard into the chair he had vacated.
A strangled gasp escaped her lips, the sharp sound shattering the silence.
Heat rushed to her face as she sat frozen, mortification flooding every nerve.
Surely he would speak—surely he would offer some word to repair the scene—but he did not.
He merely regarded her for a brief, unreadable moment, then inclined his head.
“If you will excuse me,” he said quietly, and turned away.
The sound of the door closing behind him echoed loudly in the otherwise silent room. Caroline’s humiliation was absolute. She had only just begun to wail when her brother’s sharp, disbelieving voice cut through the air.
“Caroline, cease that caterwauling at once. I saw what you were about. Even had you succeeded in landing in Darcy’s lap, I would not have forced him to offer for you. I have warned you of such behaviour before.”
“Whatever do you mean, Charles?” she protested, summoning a faint air of wounded dignity. “I stumbled, nothing more. But as I am perfectly well, there is no reason our entire party should not leave this wretched place at once.”
“You are correct in one respect—some of us will be departing,” Bingley replied, his tone clipped. “You, Caroline, will go to Scarborough to stay with our aunt and uncle. You will remain there until I have arranged to release your dowry. You will not continue to live under my roof.”
For a moment she could not breathe. “You cannot do such a thing to me, Charles!” she cried, rising in agitation. “It would ruin me! Everyone will know—I shall be thought disgraced, on the shelf before my time!”
Her voice cracked, the panic she had fought to suppress spilling free. She turned instinctively towards the door through which Darcy had gone, half hoping he might return, that he might intercede on her behalf—but the door remained closed.
The truth of it struck her like a physical blow. He had left her—not in anger, not even in pity, but in utter indifference.
That, Caroline realised as her brother’s cold words continued, was the most humiliating wound of all.
The door closed behind him with a finality that brought a weary stillness to his mind.
The muffled sounds of raised voices—Miss Bingley’s outrage, Bingley’s uncharacteristic sternness—faded with each step he took down the corridor.
Darcy drew a slow breath, grateful for the quiet yet unsettled by the turmoil he left behind.
He could not wholly approve of what had transpired.
To see Bingley forced into such a confrontation with his own sister was unpleasant; nevertheless, he could not deny the necessity of it.
Miss Bingley’s behaviour had long tested patience and propriety alike, but her actions today had gone beyond either.
That she would so far forget herself as to scheme for a man’s notice—his notice—filled him with equal parts astonishment and discomfort.
He could scarcely recall a moment in his life when he had been so thoroughly mortified on another’s behalf.
Yet what lingered most was not the memory of Miss Bingley’s humiliation, but of Miss Elizabeth’s laughter and her apparent willingness to accept him, but only if he proved himself worthy of her.
At first, he had only sought to repair an insult, but he had somehow found himself lingering by the fire, wholly absorbed in her conversation.
Her eyes had sparkled with intelligence; her manner, so open and unaffected, had challenged and disarmed him at once.
Their discussion of poetry, their easy exchange of ideas regarding marriage and love—it had all felt uncommonly natural, as though they had been equals in both thought and spirit.
He paused at the foot of the stairs, unsettled by the thought.
Equals. The word echoed uncomfortably. He had spoken it aloud—firmly, perhaps too firmly—when defending her against Miss Bingley’s accusations.
Even now, he was not certain what had compelled him to do so.
Habitually cautious, he was not given to declarations made in heat, yet his words had come without hesitation.
Darcy pressed a hand to the banister, his brow drawn, not in doubt but in reluctant consideration.
Miss Elizabeth Bennet had a talent for unsettling him, he decided, and it was not one he could easily dismiss.
Before the encounter that afternoon, he had fully intended to put her from his thoughts, as he had so often resolved; yet now he could not, her laughter lingering in his mind, light and genuine, and her wit still echoing through the quiet of the hall.
She disturbed the careful order of his mind, and yet he found no resentment in it.
In her presence, pretence fell away—his own most of all—and even the rigid expectations of society seemed momentarily suspended.
It occurred to him, with some surprise, that for the first time in years he had moved through the world with something very near to ease.
Love? The very notion both intrigued and unnerved him.
He could imagine it—was half in its grasp already—and the thought no longer seemed a folly.
But could he truly defy the expectations of his rank, of his family, of the world that had shaped him?
Every reasonable argument urged caution, yet every moment spent in her company weakened his resolve.
As he stood there, her laughter still vivid in his memory, Darcy was forced to acknowledge that the choice before him might yet be worth the cost, however ill-advised it might be judged by others of his sphere.