Rather than going downstairs, Caroline sat in a small chair by the window and leaned against the sill, pressing her nose against the cold glass. She was still very tired.
Her rescue of Lydiawasthe same type of foolishness and impulsiveness that she’d shown with Darcy, just turned towards a selfless aim, rather than a selfish one. Maybe that made her… what she had done to Darcy was still equally bad, but perhaps it madeherless bad.
It was just… Caroline had cultivated a sense ever since she’d committed her crime that she was supposed to despise herself. She should expect nothing from anyone else but spite and dislike, and if anyonedidstill like her, it would be Elizabeth. And Elizabeth would like her because she was a loving loyal friend, and excessively sentimental.
She deserved nothing but to have a garden, cultivate herself, and avoid entanglements with anyone who might encourage her to fall back into her old habits of thought. She could provide the children of her family — both the Bennet sisters and her own blood siblings — with a loving and generally helpful aunt.
And suddenly that sense of the important part of her life having ended, with all its potential being destroyed by one act, one night, when she was twenty was flaking away, like the skin of a molting lizard.
It wasn’t anything about her having found redemption, or that she’d done something which made her deserve forgiveness, or deserve anything at all. She had not been thinking anything but that she deserved to suffer and Lydia didn’t when she encouraged Wickham to pick her as his victim instead.
No.
The gun.
The gun was enormously clarifying. It was impossible to feel as though… being unhappy was important after watching that gun with all her soul.
She was in fact the first one up and down to the breakfast table, except the maid and the footman were also up and arranging things for when the family would wake up. They were talking together in a slightly flirtatious mode that they dropped the instant they perceived that one of the quality perceived them.
Caroline smiled at them, filled with a glow of happiness. She felt drunk. But different.
The colors were more intense.
Her hand looked beautiful. The scent of the April flowers set in vases around the breakfast table nearly made her cry. If she’d died, she would have never been able to smell flowers again, except maybe those that grew in heaven, if she reached there.
But in this second, Caroline had no doubt that she would reach heaven when she died.
This small, sublime, London world around her was too beautiful for any other possibility to be true.
She pretended to read a book from one of the shelves, but really Caroline just marveled at the grain of the wood in the walnut table. The way that her dress draped over her knee. The way that the freckles on the maid’s nose stood out against her milky skin. The taste of the milk.
Mr. Gardiner was the first of the family down, dressed for business, and freshly shaved, with skin that glowed rather red. He smiled at her. “Hello, Lina. Sleep well?” He then paused, as though that was not simply a courteous question, but one whose answer might not be the polite “of course” to a host.
But she nodded and smiled. “I did.”
“Very good. So our Eliza is to marry that Darcy fellow. Strange how the world turns out.”
“Oh, beyond bounds!” Caroline replied with enthusiasm. “But I am so happy for her!”
He studied her face, the genial gray eyes looking for something, and then he nodded satisfied, and cut open a roll, and started to butter each half. “But what sort of man is he? I could hardly pin him down only from what I saw yesterday, and beyond that I’ve heard such conflicting accounts that I can hardly determine for myself how happy I ought to be for Lizzy.”
“Oh, very! I always thought highly of Mr. Darcy.” Caroline then flushed, with a strong sense that, given how she had behaved, she was not in fact quite permitted to praise Elizabeth’s suitor.
Seeing her chagrin, Mr. Gardiner laughed. “Deuced odd world. Eh?”
After that Elizabeth and Mrs. Gardiner came down, accompanied by one of the children, who shyly waved at Caroline and sat next to her.
Elizabeth sat on her other side, and took Caroline’s hand and squeezed it. “Sleep well?”
Shortly after Mr. Gardiner left to attend on his business Colonel Fitzwilliam and Mr. Darcy came.
As soon as Elizabeth’s suitor was announced, a broad, completely happy smile crossed her face. Caroline was delighted to see how complete happiness made her friend appear even more becoming than her usually envy worthy self.
Mr. Darcy had no eyes for anyone but Eliza when he entered the room. Those dark serious eyes fit on her, and Elizabeth stood up, inclined her head with a grin, and whispered something to Darcy in a low voice that didn’t carry, but he replied with a wide smile that made him look more friendly than his usually serious self.
He voluntarily made a slight incline of his head to her, “Miss Bingley.” But he said nothing else to her, and Caroline Bingley was in truth almost astonished that he said so much.
Following him was Colonel Fitzwilliam, who soon approached her and sat next to Caroline on the sofa. He asked with a serious look, “Are you well?”
