Chapter 26 Harsh Realisations #3
“I was hurt by her words,” she continued, almost ignoring his outburst, “and angry that you might only have sought to amuse yourself while you were in the neighbourhood. I had begun to care for you and believed you returned my feelings. But Miss Bingley’s insinuations made me doubt everything.”
Bingley’s chest constricted. To think that his own sister had wounded her so deeply made his hands clench at his sides. He wanted to speak, to deny it all, but his throat felt too tight for words.
“Still,” Miss Bennet continued, her voice trembling now, “for a brief moment I wondered if she might be wrong—if, since you were not engaged to Miss Darcy, there might yet be hope.”
He wanted to assure her that there had only ever been her who had caused him to seriously consider marriage, but her next words held him fast.
“I behaved shamefully towards Lizzy as a result,” she admitted.
“I pushed her away when she tried to comfort me, unwilling to confide to her what Miss Bingley had said. She warned me that your sister was spiteful, and had I listened—had I questioned things even a little—I might have realised that Lizzy was right. But I was foolish enough to think Miss Bingley my friend and truly looking out for me. I thought I knew better than Lizzy since Miss Bingley was my friend and not hers, and I treated my sister poorly. Then, when I saw her own happiness, well, I was angered even further.”
He stared at her, horrified—not at Miss Bennet, but at the quiet pain she spoke through. Caroline’s meddling had done worse than embarrass him; it had injured someone who deserved nothing but kindness.
“A few days after I returned to Longbourn,” Miss Bennet went on, “I received the first of several letters from your sister. In it, she wrote that she missed me, regretted leaving so suddenly, and complained that you were angry with her for telling me about Miss Darcy. She said that was the reason you sent her away. The letters that followed were much the same—apologies, self-pity, and little barbs meant to make me believe you never truly cared for me. She knew when you were in town and spoke with authority, and I supposed that she was telling me of things you had written to her.”
When she fell silent, Bingley could only stare at her.
The wind caught a few loose strands of her hair, brushing them across her cheek, and he longed to reach out and tuck them back.
But he dared not move. Shame and anger warred within him—shame for what his sister had done, anger that Miss Bennet had been made to doubt him—and beneath both was that same boyish fear that he might already have lost her to Caroline’s lies.
“Miss Darcy is a sweet girl, but she is just that—a girl,” he said after a moment, his voice sounding far too loud in the quiet. “Caroline might have hoped for such a match, perhaps thinking that if I married Darcy’s sister she might at last win his favour for herself, but I never wished for it.”
Miss Bennet waved a hand, her gesture gentle but dismissive.
“I know that now,” she said softly. “ I received several letters from your sister, but I never answered them. I knew—deep down—that she was not being entirely honest with me. Something in my mind warned me against replying, and I am glad I listened. I feel certain she would have found some way to twist my words.”
Her calmness shamed him further. He had been the fool, not Miss Bennet, for ever allowing Caroline such influence. He felt his throat tighten with the need to apologise; he scarcely knew where to begin.
Sighing, Miss Bennet went on. “Her last letter came while we were in town,” she said, furrowing her brow.
“I do not know how she learnt we were there or how she obtained my direction. I supposed you had told her, but that cannot be. Regardless, her tone was different—less spiteful, almost… hopeful. She wrote of the obvious attachment between Lizzy and Mr Darcy, saying how we had all been together in town. She hinted that she would soon join you and looked forward to celebrating the connexion between our families.”
Bingley’s stomach turned. He could picture it vividly—Caroline’s bright, false smile, her smug delight in her own cleverness.
Miss Bennet hesitated, her cheeks warming as she looked down again. “It was as if she had given up her designs for you and Miss Darcy, and now sought to ingratiate herself with me—since, in her mind, our marriage was inevitable.”
Her voice faltered, and she kept her gaze fixed upon the path.
Bingley’s heart twisted. She looked so pained—so mortified by the very idea—that he longed to sink to his knees before her and beg forgiveness, not only for Caroline’s deceit, but for every moment of doubt he had ever allowed to stand between them.
For the present, however, he could not do so, bound by her father’s insistence.
Perhaps that gentleman had already perceived what Bingley was only beginning to understand: that wishing to make Miss Bennet his wife did not mean he was yet ready to do so.