Chapter Seven
Caroline hummed to herself as Martha arranged her hair for the day.
It was less elaborate than the style she had worn to the assembly, but only marginally so.
She had urged Martha to add an abundance of silk flowers in a particularly ugly shade of bilious green, while her maid clicked her tongue and shook her head over every one she pinned into place.
"You are in a remarkably fine mood this morning, miss," Martha said, regarding Caroline's reflection with suspicion.
"Was there a gentleman at the assembly who caught your eye? "
In the months since the pieces of sea glass had stopped arriving, Martha had become more and more direct in her suggestions that Caroline ought to move on.
She had also grown considerably less patient with the gowns and ornaments required to maintain Caroline's reputation, as though the absence of Thomas' little parcels had removed the last justification for dressing her mistress like a milliner’s window.
Caroline reached for the shallow bowl upon her dressing table and selected a piece of pale blue glass. She rolled it slowly between her fingers, saying nothing for long enough that Martha's expression softened.
"No," Caroline said at last, still turning the glass between her fingers. "There was no gentleman who caught my eye, though I believe I may have identified another love match."
Martha's hands slowed among the sickly coloured flowers. "Another?" she said wearily.
Somewhere in the months and years since Caroline had last seen Thomas, she had fallen in love with love itself.
True affection was so rare in the circles through which she moved that when she recognised it, it drew her attention like a beacon.
She had seen too many marriages arranged around fortunes and estates, watched too many young women flinch at the touch of elderly men they had accepted out of fear and heard too many gentlemen speak of choosing a wife as though discussing livestock.
When the spark of something real appeared among all that calculation, Caroline found herself unable to help giving matters a little push in the right direction.
Each match she nudged towards happiness seemed to balance the ugliness of the woman Caroline felt she had become.
She might wound people with careless remarks and drive away anyone foolish enough to approach her, but she could at least leave some good behind her, focusing her ugly comments and unpleasant manner on pushing others together—as well as away from herself.
Martha met Caroline's gaze in the mirror. "And who is it this time?"
"Mr Darcy and one of the young women from the assembly. Miss Elizabeth Bennet."
For several seconds, Martha said nothing. A velvet jewellery box stilled in her hands while she studied Caroline's reflection as though waiting for some sign that she was joking.
"Is she an heiress?"
Caroline laughed. "Almost the complete opposite. She is the daughter of a gentleman, but I believe it is a modest estate."
Martha placed an elaborate gold necklace and earbobs on the dressing table, though her movements had become more deliberate.
"It will do no good to meddle with a man like that.
Mr Darcy does not strike me as a gentleman likely to marry wherever affection happens to lead him.
He will want one of those grand society matches. "
Caroline glanced up. "You have barely spoken to him."
"I have eyes and ears, Miss Caro. A man with an estate like Pemberley and ten thousand a year will be wanted by women with rank and fortune enough to suit him, and I should think he knows it."
There was some sense in what Martha said, which made Caroline dislike it at once.
Mr Darcy never forgot his position and responsibilities.
Charles often poked fun about how long the man spent on even the smallest matters of estate management.
Would he really install a country miss at Pemberley?
But no, she reasoned to herself, she had spent years watching him amongst women whose families could offer consequences equal to his own, and Caroline had never seen him show the smallest interest in any of them.
"Perhaps that is precisely the difficulty," she said.
"He has spent so long among the ‘right sort of women’ that he has never had a chance to interact with a lady he may admire for herself alone.
" She sighed thinking of promises spoken on a beach long ago and the touch of Thomas’ hand against her own.
"And you believe he likes this Miss Elizabeth?"
Martha’s words startled her out of her reverie.
"The way he watched her, Martha. In that crush, with people pressing around him on every side, he looked at her as though she were the only person in the room.
As though she had personally hung the moon and stars in the sky for him.
I have seen a man with his heart in his eyes before, and Mr Darcy is lost to her, even if he does not know it yet. "
Martha's expression remained doubtful. "He may simply think her a pretty girl. Many a man's head has been turned by a handsome face, and just as quickly turned elsewhere. It may be no more than a passing infatuation."
"It is not," Caroline said firmly. "In the carriage, I may have…
nettled him just a little. I called her nothing more than a country miss and suggested she was very ordinary-looking.
Martha, he looked ready to throw me bodily from the carriage.
He defended her as fiercely as a lion guarding its mate and became more agitated with every word I said.
Even Charles and Louisa noticed how strangely he behaved. "
"You deliberately provoked him, Miss Caro," Martha said, attempting a stern tone but failing to suppress a snort of laughter.
"And I was right about Lady Amelia Fortescue and Mr Harcourt, was I not? You insisted they could scarcely endure one another, yet all it required was for me to trip Lady Amelia into his arms at the Willoughbys' musicale."
"She nearly took them both through a card table."
"But she did not, and they were engaged within the month. Then there was Miss Langley and Captain Mercer. You told me he had no interest in her at all."
"You arranged for them to be locked together in a summerhouse during a thunderstorm. The poor girl’s reputation could have been ruined."
Caroline smiled at her reflection. "And they have now been married for two years. You must allow that I possess at least a little judgement in these matters."
"I allow that you have been fortunate enough not to cause a serious injury to body or reputation… yet."
Martha handed Caroline her gloves, the same rotten shade as her gown and accessories, and stepped back to inspect the results.
The greenish-yellow silk looked especially sickly against Caroline's dark colouring, though her maid's careful arrangement had once again prevented it from becoming quite as dreadful as Caroline intended.
"I still think you are playing with fire, miss," Martha said. "Mr Darcy is not a gentleman who will take kindly to discovering that someone has been managing him."
"Then I shall make certain he never discovers it. It is not so very hard. I am certain he thinks I have not a sensible thought in my head in any event."
Martha met her gaze in the mirror for a long moment, plainly unconvinced, before giving one of the flowers a small adjustment. "Well, you are set for the morning. That shade makes you look newly risen from the grave and determined to attend Almack's."
Caroline looked at herself in the glass and could not entirely disagree with Martha's assessment. The gown had drained almost every trace of warmth from her complexion, while the silk flowers made her appear as if she were about to appear in a very ill-considered theatrical performance.
"Perfect," she said, rising from the stool.
Martha shook her head as she gathered the scattered pins from the dressing table. "Your brother asked that you join him in the library before breakfast."
Caroline paused while drawing on one glove. "Did he say why?"
"Only that it was important. He wasn’t his usual self at all truth be told."
That was enough to dampen her good humour.
This was going to be one of those talks.
Charles was not given to solemn pronouncements, particularly at this hour of the morning.
He moved through life with an ease Caroline had always envied, content to assume that most difficulties would resolve themselves if everyone behaved kindly.
He had never lacked consideration for her, even when she was at her most impossible.
But every so often he remembered the promise he had made to their father—to see her well settled with a gentleman—and attempted to cajole and coax her into a suitable marriage.
He had never attempted to force her, but Lord knows that even Charles’ patience must run dry sometimes.
???
Charles stood before the library fire with one hand braced against the mantel, staring into the flames.
The coffee beside him had gone untouched and the newspaper remained folded upon the table, two small but unsettling signs that whatever he wished to say had troubled him enough to spoil his usual morning comforts.
At the sound of the door, he turned. His gaze travelled over Caroline's gown and the silk flowers crowded into her hair, and some of the gravity left his face. "Good God, Caroline."
She closed the door behind her. "Good morning, Charles."
"What have you done to yourself?"
"I have dressed for breakfast. It is a custom in most civilised houses."
"You look like… I have no idea how even to describe what you look like. What is that colour?"
"You can know nothing of fashion, brother," she said with an affected sigh before dropping down into a chair with a pained air.
His mouth twitched, and for a moment she thought she might escape whatever conversation he had planned. Then he drew out the chair opposite her and sat down, regarding her thoughtfully.