Page 33 of The Vanished Bennet Sister

Elizabeth had been waiting for this. "Mrs Bingley is a woman of considerable social intelligence. The friendship she has built with you this season has been formed with remarkable speed and thoroughness, and I do not think either of that is accidental. She has used the friendship to learn a great deal about this family, about Mr Thwaite's connection to Mary, alongside other situations that are useful to her. That is not the conduct of a person simply enjoying a social acquaintance."

"You do not know her. As I said to Mary, she shared private concerns with me, which is not a common habit in this society of ours. A woman does not share grief as a stratagem."

"Some women do, because they are very good at knowing what another person most needs to hear, and providing it to them. The exchange produces trust that is then available for other uses. I have made my own enquiries and there is no ‘Mr Anstruther of Northumberland’. I’m willing to believe the figure was invented by Mrs Bingley to allay rivalry."

"That is a dark reading of human nature."

"In this case, it fits the available evidence." She kept her voice even. "Mama, Caroline Bingley is in her third season. She is well-connected, and in full possession of every social advantage available to her. The absence of a settled match after three seasons has a cause, and the cause is either due to rigid standards or a want of sufficiently suitable candidates. Then she comes to London and encounters a wealthy widower who is cultivated and eligible, whose attention is presently directed at one of the Bennet girls. That is a convenient opportunity for a woman in her position. And a woman like Mrs Bingley, would not fail to notice it."

"You are saying Lavinia put Caroline up to pursuing Mr Thwaite."

"She almost certainly approved of it, and may have done considerably more than that. You have been told of how Miss Bingley has managed to appear wherever Mr Thwaite is and there’s the museum visit, among others — these are not coincidences. They are a harmonised approach, I doubt Caroline Bingley is the sort of woman who manages things independently of her mother's knowledge."

"You have no proof of any of this! You are constructing a theory due to a few random encounters and the strength of your own suspicion, and you are asking me to believe that a woman who has shown me nothing but kindness has been deceiving me since the start of the season. I will not believe it without better evidence."

"Then consider this," Elizabeth said. "I have heard, from more than one person this season, that Mrs Bingley is a considerable gossip. She has a talent for learning what is useful to her and a tendency to circulate it when it serves her interests. I hope, Mama, that in the spirit of what you believed to be a true friendship, you have not shared anything that you would not wish to have repeated."

The colour left her mother's face with a speed that proved informative.

She sat off into the distance, which evidently contained something none of the rest of them was privy to. Whatever it contained, it was sufficient to drain all remaining argument from her face and replace it with something Elizabeth had rarely seen there: unguarded alarm.

She set her cup down, straightened herself, and left the room.

The door closed behind her, not loudly, which again was more alarming than loudness would have been.

Lydia looked at Elizabeth. "What could she have possibly said to Mrs Bingley?"

"I don't know," Elizabeth said. "But it must have been really important."

"Do you truly think Mrs Bingley would use whatever it was for nefarious purposes?" Jane asked.

"I think that Mrs Bingley collects details and keeps them until they are useful. Whether she has already used it, is keeping it in reserve, or will choose never to use it at all, I cannot say." Elizabeth replied. "What I believe is that our mother has told her something she should not have, and whatever the secret is, is no longer as safely contained as it was before the friendship began."

Her sisters listened to this in varying degrees of shock, too stunned to say anything else.

Elizabeth sat with her cooled tea and looked at the empty chair her mother had just vacated. The statement Mrs Bennet had divulged to Mrs Bingley was now information in a precarious, undecided state. The next question was what would be done with it, when, and by whom.

Whatever it was, she hoped it would be resolved quickly.

Chapter Fifteen

Darcy

A new influx of gown designs had been Georgiana's immediate preoccupation since her arrival in London weeks ago. As Darcy had come to understand, the interest was not completely due to vanity. It was the learned adaptiveness of a young woman navigating the ton, where fashion moved faster than the effort warranted.

"My friend Diana says the new style of sleeves is already different from last year," she said as the carriage sped along the street. "The long ones with the ruffles at the wrist are becoming unfashionable. But the term she used was ‘superseded’, which is apparently a distinction."

"An important one?"

"In certain circles, yes." Georgiana's expression conveyed that she was not one who considered herself part of those circles, but that her presence in London required her to be adjacent to them. "I should like to have clothes I will not regret by April. Diana says Madame Voclaire is the only one who actually knows what the next fashionable item will be, rather than simply stocking the current thing."

He listened to the rest of her observations with the thorough attention he made sure to give to his sister when she chose to share her reflections. She was having an easier time in London than in previous years, and he attributed this partly to the company of the Garroway girls, who were of similar ages and sufficiently boisterous to make reserve difficult to maintain. She laughed more in their company than he had heard her laugh in a while.

"Charity says," Georgiana began, which was how a considerable portion of her sentences opened since meeting the Garroway girls, "that Miss Bennet told them the most useful thing about entering a room."

"What did she tell them?"

"That the purpose of entering a room is not to be seen, but to see. If a lady walks in thinking about her appearance, she appears nervous and that isn’t often a welcoming sight. But if she walks in thinking about the room itself, such as who is there and what is happening, then she appears to be someone worth speaking to. I have tried this advice out myself and I believe she is right."