Chapter 33
BY THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Bingley had spoken with both servants. He closed the morning-room door behind him and faced Darcy, Georgiana, Louisa, and Hurst. The false note lay on the table, its crease worn from repeated handling. No one had asked Caroline to join them.
“I spoke with the maid,” Bingley said. “Caroline instructed her to direct Miss Darcy toward the summerhouse and promised to answer for the message.”
“And the note?” Louisa asked.
“We do not know who delivered it,” Darcy said. “Whoever carried it may have believed it genuine.”
Bingley looked at the paper. “I will not punish a servant for being deceived when Caroline’s purpose is clear.”
Louisa looked at the paper. “Then there is nothing left to interpret.”
“There was little yesterday.” Bingley kept his voice level, though anger sharpened each word. “I wanted the servants’ accounts before I decided what to do.”
Hurst rested one ankle across the other. “You wished to know whether she had corrupted the household or only borrowed it.”
“She used it,” Bingley said. “That is enough.”
Darcy moved from the window. “The decision belongs to you. I shall answer any question you have, but I will not direct the consequence.”
Bingley returned his gaze. “Did you understand the note might be false before you entered the summerhouse?”
“I doubted it. The steward had no reason to ask for me there, but the work concerned a crack I had discussed with him that morning. I found the explanation weak, not impossible.”
“And once Caroline closed the door?”
“I understood that the message had not come from him.”
Georgiana’s hands tightened around one another, then relaxed. “Caroline knew he would enter because the request concerned your house. She used his willingness to assist you.”
The quiet statement carried more force than accusation. Bingley glanced toward her and saw no uncertainty in her face.
Louisa said, “Do not call it confusion when you speak to Caroline. She arranged each part of it, and she will use any softer word as a path back into the house.”
“I have no intention of softening it.”
“She will say she meant to protect Mr. Darcy’s reputation,” Louisa continued. “Then she will claim that Elizabeth misunderstood what she saw, that the dog created disorder, and that we chose the worst explanation.”
Hurst looked toward the ceiling. “A difficult defense, since she supplied the explanation before anyone asked.”
Bingley picked up the note. “Caroline will leave Netherfield today. She may stay with you until I make other arrangements.”
Louisa’s expression tightened, but she nodded. “I will take her.”
“You need not accept responsibility for her conduct.”
“I do not. All I am accepting is the responsibility for removing her from your house.”
Bingley crossed to the bell and stopped before he pulled it. “She will no longer direct my servants, my invitations, or any part of my household. I should have made that plain months ago.”
“You trusted your sister,” Darcy said. “The fault lies in what she did.”
“I also allowed convenience to disguise dependence. She decided whom I invited, how long they stayed, and what my house should communicate to them. I told myself she understood such matters better than I did.” Bingley looked at the note again. “What she understood was how to use them.”
Georgiana came forward. “You stopped her.”
“Sarah stopped her.”
“Sarah exposed her timing,” Darcy said. “You stopped what followed.”
Bingley pulled the bell. “Then I shall finish it.”
Caroline entered the morning room ten minutes later in a traveling dress she had not worn since London. Her maid followed with a shawl, but Bingley dismissed the woman before Caroline crossed the carpet. Louisa did not rise.
“I see you have decided on my sentence.”
“I have.” Bingley pointed to the chair beside the table. “You will leave Netherfield with Louisa and Hurst this afternoon and remain with them until I decide what follows.”
Caroline did not sit. “You remove me because a dog barked and Elizabeth Bennet chose to imagine scandal.”
“No. I remove you because you sent a false message in my steward’s name, instructed my servants to mislead my guests, and tried to force Darcy into an appearance he did not choose.”
“You talk as if I meant him harm.”
“You meant to deprive him of the right to refuse you,” Georgiana said.
Caroline turned toward her. “You understand nothing of the pressure placed upon a woman who must secure her future.”
“I understand that my brother’s future belongs to him.”
Darcy’s silence gave Georgiana the last word.
Caroline faced Bingley again. “Everything I have done at Netherfield has served you. I managed this house when you would have welcomed every tradesman, officer, and country cousin through the door without distinction, and protected your consequence when you had no thought for it.”
“You treated my friends as ornaments or threats according to their usefulness to you.”
“I prevented them from imposing on you.”
“You imposed upon me.” Bingley set the note down, “and I will not allow you to define my friendships, my courtship, or my household again.”
Caroline’s eyes narrowed at the word courtship. “Then this is Jane Bennet’s victory.”
“This has nothing to do with Miss Bennet.”
“It has everything to do with her. You mean to place a country gentlewoman above your own sister.”
“I mean to marry the woman I love, and you will not insult her in my house.”
Caroline looked toward Louisa. “You permit this?”
Louisa rose at last. “Charles does not require my permission.”
“You choose them over me.”
“No. You made every person in this house a piece to move, then blamed us when we refused our places.” Louisa’s voice held no heat, so Caroline found the judgment harder to resist. “I excused too much because I called it ambition and believed ambition harmless when it wore good manners. I will not call yesterday an accident to spare you shame.”
Caroline drew a breath through her nose. “And your husband agrees with this family tribunal?”
Hurst stood and adjusted his coat. “You spent weeks refusing every graceful exit offered. I cannot pretend surprise because this one comes with consequences.”
Her eyes flashed, but no answer came. For the first time since she entered, Caroline seemed to understand that no argument would restore her authority.
Bingley crossed to the door. “Take what you need for tonight. Your trunks will follow.”
“You would send me away under the servants’ eyes?”
“The servants know that you used them. I will not ask them to act blind for your comfort.”
Caroline lifted her chin. “Mr. Darcy, will you allow him to punish me for trying to protect you from an unsuitable connection?”
Darcy regarded her without anger. “Miss Elizabeth is a gentleman’s daughter, and you are not in a position to question her birth. You endangered my name to compel my conduct, which is coercion, not protection.”
The last defense left her. She turned and walked from the room with Louisa behind her, while Hurst remained long enough to take the false note from the table and examine the handwriting.
“She chose her approach,” he said.
“And failed,” Bingley replied.
By three o’clock, the Hurst carriage stood before the steps.
Caroline descended with Louisa and found the hall arranged without her direction.
Her smaller trunk waited beside the door, the footman held her cloak, and the housekeeper carried a list of the articles that would follow.
Caroline questioned the choice of trunk, objected to how a gown was folded, and demanded to know who had ordered the carriage before she finished packing.
Each servant looked to Bingley before answering.
The habit struck her harder than open defiance would have. Through hundreds of small decisions that no one thought worth contesting, she had governed Netherfield, and Bingley had ended it with a word.
Caroline entered the carriage without farewell. Louisa followed, and Hurst paused beside Bingley before taking his place.
“She will object to every mile,” he said.
“I suppose she will.”
“And I am dreading every second of it.” Hurst climbed into the carriage and shut the door.
Bingley watched until the wheels passed beyond the drive, then returned to the hall, where the housekeeper waited with two footmen.
He gave orders about Caroline’s trunks, instructed the servants to speak of the incident to no one outside the household, and told the housekeeper that future arrangements would come from him.
The orders were unfamiliar to him, but the house accepted them without resistance.
A letter from Rosings arrived before dinner, filled with Lady Catherine’s complaints about the conduct she had witnessed in Hertfordshire.
She condemned Bingley’s hospitality, Bennet’s insolence, Georgiana’s disobedience, and Darcy’s refusal to heed the claims of family and rank.
Elizabeth received the greater part of the last page, where Lady Catherine described her as a scheming woman whose apparent openness concealed designs Darcy would regret failing to recognize.
He passed the letter to Bingley.
Bingley read it and looked toward the ceiling. “She has identified the danger.”
“A day late,” Darcy said.
“And the wrong woman.”
Darcy took the letter back and dropped it into the fire.
The following morning, Darcy and Bingley rode to Longbourn with a packet of papers secured beneath Darcy’s coat. Bennet received them in his book room, where Elizabeth joined them after Darcy requested her presence. Jane remained upstairs with Kitty.
Darcy placed the packet on the desk. “You asked for evidence rather than conclusions. I apologize for not bringing this sooner.”
Bennet removed his spectacles, cleaned them, and put them on again. “An apology before the documents suggests either confidence or desperation.”
“Regret,” Darcy said. “I delayed because I feared that a public dispute would make Meryton choose between Wickham and us before anyone examined the facts. That delay let him continue.”