“What are we to do with Caroline, husband?” Martha asked sadly.
“We will follow the advice of the headmistress. Caroline will stay there for the Christmas holiday, then she will have one more term to change her behaviour in a meaningful way. If she does not, then I will know how to act. I will try the strictest school first; if that is not effective, then we may have to commit our daughter.
As much as Martha would have liked to rail against her husband’s plan, she could not as she knew that he spoke nothing but the truth; there was something fundamentally wrong with her youngest child.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
The Bennets had just celebrated their twins’fourth birthday. Kitty and Tom were as close as twins could be and still liked to do everything together. Their parents wondered how many more years it would be thus before the interests of their little girls and boys pulled them in different directions. Bennet was still reminded of Lizzy when he looked at Kitty, but as she got older the similarities seemed to be fewer and fewer, with only her hair colour remaining as the common trait that he could remember.
The family was all together for the birthday. The Gardiners, with the almost ten-month-old Lilly, would stay until after Twelfth Night, making an extended stay. It was the second time that the family had come together in a month; Franny Phillips had turned six in November, but Gardiner could not be away from his business for that long, so they had only stayed for four days that time.
Everyone congregated in the gold drawing room, the largest one at Longbourn, the children included. They were to have a family dinner and they were awaiting the arrival of the Bingleys and Longs. The same families were invited to a massive Christmas Eve dinner, along with the Lucas and Goulding families.
Since her heartfelt apology, Martha Bingley had been completely embraced by the ladies of the area and, no longer hiding from her lies at Netherfield, had a surfeit of invitations. The pinnacle of her acceptance was when Tammy Bennet and Lady Sarah Lucas as the co-chairladies of a charitable foundation invited Martha to join the board. There had been no doubt in the lady’s mind as she tearfully accepted the invitation with pleasure that her past follies were well and truly behind her and that her future was a much happier one than her past.
In one of the evenings that the men had spent around the billiards table that had included Bennet, Phillips, Bingley, Long, and Sir William Lucas, Oscar shared the gist of the letter that he had received from his youngest’s school. The men commiserated with him but agreed that he could not do any more than he and his wife were doing to try and correct his wayward daughter. It lightened the burden somewhat to be able to share it with the men that had become his friends.
After dinner, the men were sitting in the library enjoying their tobacco, cognac, and port.“Gardiner, how is the construction on the new location for the carriage works near Tattersalls progressing?” Oscar asked as he blew a ring of smoke into the air from his cigar.
“When you come stay with us after we return to Town, you will see for yourself. Construction should be complete in early February, and I stand by my projected opening day of the first Monday in March,” Edward reported as he sipped his excellent Cognac.
“It is not an imposition for Martha and me to be your guests for a few weeks?” Oscar asked.
“Not at all. We have plenty of room in our house and Lilly sleeps through the night already so there will be no wailing babe to spoil your rest,” Edward returned.
In the drawing room Jane and Louisa, who had become good friends notwithstanding the five-year age difference between the two, were sitting and talking.“Your sister is staying at her school for Christmastide?” Jane asked. She noticed how her friend’s countenance clouded for an instant.
“Yes, Caroline will not be coming home for the foreseeable future,” Louisa said sadly. Jane understood the situation and did not want to distress her friend, so she changed the subject.
“How are you enjoying the finishing school?” she enquired.
“It is an enjoyable programme, and I am learning much of value. Now that I no longer seek the approval of the daughters of the Ton, I am much more comfortable there and have made some genuine friends who accept me for myself. I have even become friendly with the Daughter of a Duke who does not seem to judge one by their background. Her name is Lady Marie Rhys-Davies, the daughter of the Duke of Bedford. She is a little older than me and has made sure that the girls that were rude and nasty to me because father is in trade have been warned off,” Louisa told her friend.
“She sounds like a truly good person, and I hope that I get to meet her one day,” Jane returned.
“I am going to extend an invitation to her for Easter. If she accepts, you will meet her when she is here.” Louisa’s mood was completely restored as all thoughts of her sister had been pushed out of her consciousness.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Miss Caroline Bingley could not understand what had gone wrong with her brilliant plan! Here she was stuck at the hated school with Miss Lydia Thatcher, the old crone, and servants. She had planned her actions perfectly. How had her plans been discovered? As she sat on her bed steaming, she remembered the conversation with the headmistress a fortnight earlier.
Caroline had been summoned to the crone’s office. She assumed she would be told when her father’s carriage would arrive to take her to Netherfield. She sat when invited to do so like the demure lady that she was playing.
“Miss Caroline, do you really think that your act has fooled us?” Caroline’s mouth opened in shock.“Do you think that you are the first girl that had tried to pull the wool over my eyes by acting in a manner that she thinks I expect to see?” the headmistress asked.
“I am sure that I do not know to what you refer, Mrs Gilbert,” Caroline attempted to save her situation by acting the part once more.
“You may as well drop the act, Miss Caroline. No one has been fooled by it, including your father who had seen past your honey-dripped letters and knows the truth, so you will not be going anywhere for the Christmas holidays,” the headmistress delivered the final blow that caused Caroline to drop the veneer.
“You withered old crone you!” the red-haired girl screeched.“How dare you stop me going home!”
“It is not my decision, but that of your parents. Until you learn to act like a true lady and drop these delusions of yours that you are more than you actually are, you will not be welcomed home.” As Mrs Gilbert spoke, Caroline got more and more furious and would have leapt across the desk with her talons ready to claw the headmistress’s eyes out if a footman had not been standing ready.
“I will get my revenge on all of you!” Caroline yelled.
“Thank you for showing your true colours. You will be restricted to the punishment chamber for a week where your only meals will be gruel.” She could see that the girl was about to unleash a steam of invective and vitriol, so before Caroline could, she continued.“I can add more weeks onto the time; it is entirely up to you Miss Caroline.”
Caroline’s mouth clapped shut, as she had heard from Miss Thatcher how unpleasant being isolated in the punishment chamber was.
