After a while she thought she heard a noise, and a minute later, she shook herself up.
She couldn’t see into the darkness around, but she grabbed her candle and peered out into the door.
No one there.
Maybe there had been a servant, and maybe they had seen her.
A deep shame flushed through Caroline. She extinguished the fuel in the stove, and stirred the steaming milk around and around.
It was too hot to drink.
Caroline stared at the flickering flame of the candle, and then she growled angrily.
She was not beaten.
No one, not even Eliza, would take Mr. Darcy from her. Caroline squared her shoulders and lifted her head high.
Caroline loved Elizabeth, but she’d always known that she was a bit more diligent as a student, a bit better liked by Mrs. Castle and the other masters at the school, and just a bit more capable of making friends with the better sort of connections than Eliza. If their life was a novel, she would be the protagonist, while Elizabeth would be the dearest friend of the protagonist.
It was impossible that in the end, while not eventrying, Elizabeth would gain the prize that Caroline wanted more than any other she’d ever sought.
Besides, Elizabeth wanted to help her, and shetrustedher dearest friend. Elizabeth would not try to steal Mr. Darcy. Because of Elizabeth she was going to be able to dance with Mr. Darcy for the first dance of the Netherfield ball.
That must be a sign.
He would stand across from her, holding her hands. And this time, atlasthe would really see her, really see how much she loved him, and he would finally realize that he loved her.
She would however need to send to London for a new dress. But her size had not changed at all, and if she offered enough money, her modiste would come down for a day for a final fitting.
Caroline would not despair.
One day soon, she would be Mrs. Fitzwilliam Darcy.
Chapter Nine
The entire day after she returned from Netherfield Hall with Jane, Elizabeth had a vague guilt.
She’d gone to Netherfield with the full intention of encouraging Mr. Darcy’s attention to turn towards her friend, and instead… she’d hadthatconversation with him.
Though she tried quite hard, it really was impossible for Elizabeth to not suspect that the gentleman was attracted to her — why else would he seem to care so much about her opinion about his opinions?
Or maybe he simply was a disputatious fellow who wanted to argue the correctness of his philosophy about everything, and then somehow fell into a self-disclosure that… Elizabeth found that the more she knew him, the better she liked him — he certainly had ample flaws.
The next afternoon Mr. Collinss’ arrival promised to be a useful distraction from these thoughts.
The actual man was as ridiculous as his letter, which Papa had eagerly shared with Elizabeth after her arrival back home.
There was a great deal of entertainment to be had at dinner as she ate her potatoes, soup, and roast in watching Papa bait him into saying particularly ridiculous things, or in listening to his transparent proclamations of intent to marry one of the Bennet girls.
Except for Mary, whose preferences Elizabeth could not honestly parse, she was confident that none of them would have any interest in him.
However that night in bed her mind returned again to Caroline, and the question of whether there was anything she could do to help her friend.
The weather was turning cold, and Elizabeth had buried herself under a pile of blankets, and she wrapped her arm around a second down feather pillow to help her sleep.
UnlikeMr. Darcy, Elizabeth was not inclined to judge her friends for their faults: Caroline was stubborn to an extreme. So the crisis that she would face when she finally admitted to herself that Mr. Darcy wouldnotturn his eye towards her was likely to be delayed — but Elizabeth had never seen Caroline fail to gain a goal that she had assiduously pursued and deeply desired.
She did not know how her friend would react, but she suspected it would be unpleasant to all.
