Chapter Eight #3
Miss Bingley moved on with a smile. Elizabeth watched her go.
“She is very civil,” Jane said, beside her.
“She is,” Elizabeth agreed. She said nothing further, remembering the conversation they had shared about Caroline Bingley previously, and knowing that Jane was determined to see the good in everyone.
∞∞∞
The carriages were called at half past midnight.
Elizabeth collected her mother and her sisters by the incremental process that this always required, and found herself in the entrance hall in the final dispersal of the evening, shawl around her shoulders, waiting for Lydia to retrieve a glove she had left somewhere in the card room.
Mr Darcy stood beside her. He had appeared without ceremony, as though his support and company ought to be expected, and Elizabeth found herself almost as surprised by his courtesy as by the lift of her heart at finding him there.
“Miss Bennet,” he said quietly, below the noise of the hall. “This might have been a challenging evening, but you managed it well. I congratulate you.”
“Likewise,” she said. “We work well together, I think.”
A sudden, flashing smile lit his face, making Elizabeth’s heart pound with sudden awareness of his handsomeness. “So we do,” Mr Darcy agreed gravely.
For once, Elizabeth was at a loss for words, but before she could say anything, Lydia reappeared with the glove and a story about finding it under a card table, which she told at full volume.
Mrs Bennet began to put on her wrap. Jane appeared at Elizabeth’s other side, and the hall was suddenly full of Bennets in motion.
Feeling a strange mixture of relief and regret, Elizabeth moved with them toward the door.
She was handed into the carriage and looked back once, without meaning to, at the lit doorway of Netherfield. Mr Darcy was still in the hall, speaking to Mr Bingley. He did not look out. She turned forward, telling herself she ought not to have expected anything else.
Then the carriage moved, and Netherfield fell behind them into the dark.
Mrs Bennet talked all the way home about the ball. Elizabeth listened and said yes at intervals, and thought about Mr Darcy’s smile, and the quiet, honest words he had spoken to her.
The night was very clear. Through the carriage window, the Hertfordshire fields were pale with frost under a half moon. For the first time in some weeks, Elizabeth found that the thought of tomorrow did not alarm her quite as much as the thought of yesterday.
∞∞∞
Caroline Bingley had never considered herself a woman whose composure might be easily shaken.
In public, she was the very model of cultivated ease.
Her smile was measured, her posture irreproachable, and her voice modulated to suit both drawing room and supper table alike.
If disappointment ever visited her, it did so without leaving a visible trace.
She had long ago mastered the art of appearing above injury.
No one in attendance at the Netherfield ball could have accused her of bitterness.
She received her guests with elegance. She praised the musicians and complimented Mrs Bennet’s gown with such precision that even the more perceptive among the company detected no irony.
When Mr Darcy requested Miss Elizabeth Bennet’s hand for the first set, Caroline inclined her head in mild approval, as though nothing in the arrangement concerned her beyond the general success of the evening.
Yet beneath that composure, her thoughts burned. It was all wrong. It had not been meant to unfold like this.
When she had first conceived of securing the study door, it was with a very different conclusion in mind.
It ought to have been herself innocently locked in with Mr Darcy, herself whose honour ought to be rescued.
The risk had not seemed overwhelming. Mr Darcy was nothing if not a gentleman.
He would have kept silent if possible, or offered for her if not.
Caroline had been right about everything. Only the woman caught with Mr Darcy, the woman who would receive all the fruits of her labour, was not Caroline herself, but Miss Elizabeth Bennet.
Throughout the evening, Caroline observed them with unflagging attention. Mr Darcy’s manner was formal but attentive. He remained near Miss Elizabeth and shielded her, subtly but unmistakably, from excessive familiarity. It was not passion, but it was something far more dangerous: constancy.
Elizabeth Bennet, for her part, did not display the triumphant airs Caroline had half-expected.
There was no artifice in her expression, no calculated display of attachment.
If anything, she appeared thoughtful, perhaps even unsettled.
That, too, irritated Caroline. To acquire what another had long desired and yet seem reluctant in its possession was a particular insult.
Several times during the evening, Caroline found herself the object of sympathetic glances.
Those who knew of her former attentions to Mr Darcy assumed disappointment.
They did not suspect her of design. For this, at least, she was grateful.
If anyone suspected what she had done, it would be an irreparable disaster.
As the last guests departed, Caroline resolved that composure must remain her ally. Outwardly gracious, inwardly vigilant, she would wait. Engagement was not yet marriage, after all. And her patience, though sorely tried, had always been her greatest accomplishment.
Why should Elizabeth Bennet have Mr Darcy when she did not even want him?
Surely there would yet be another chance to disentangle them, and to reposition Mr Darcy at her own side, where he always ought to have been.
And if that might have consequences for Elizabeth Bennet, left without an engagement…
well, that was a shame, but so be it. Caroline would not allow foolish ideas of pity to ruin so monumentally important a plan.
Let Elizabeth Bennet take care of her own fate. Caroline certainly intended to.