Page 27 of Caroline Bingley’s Last Chance At Love

Without love.

At that point, the absence ceased to feel noble. It ceased to feel dignified. And it began to resemble something far more like punishment.

She was not going to apologize for herself. She was not going to indulge in the sort of elaborate self-reproach that she had always considered the particular hobby of those with too much leisure and not nearly enough sense of purpose. She was, however, prepared to admit, in the strictest privacy of her own thoughts, that she had made what could only be described as a catastrophic error of judgment and had not the faintest idea how one went about undoing such a thing.

She was still engaged in a very serious examination of her various elaborate methods of self-flagellation when the door to the sitting room opened.

Caroline did not look up. She was, at present, in the middle of what felt like a rather pointed and deeply private conversation with herself about heartache and regret. She had no intention of inviting an audience to observe her losing it. “I am not receiving visitors this afternoon,” she said to the room at large, with the calm certainty of someone who had repeated the same statement so often in recent days that it had ceased to require either emphasis or belief.

“Not even from me?”

There was a pause.

Caroline looked up.

Jane stood in the doorway with the expression of someone who had arrived armed with goodwill, determination, and something she hoped might pass for a bribe. “I have biscuits,” she said.

Jane stood in the doorway with a small plate carefully balanced in one hand. She wore the expression of someone who had noticed the household had been unusually subdued for the past week and a half and had concluded, after what must have been some careful thought, that biscuits were an appropriate remedy. That was, Caroline thought with a resigned sort of fondness, exactly like Jane.

Caroline opened her mouth with every intention of informing her that she was neither hungry nor in need of company.

“They are ginger snaps,” Jane said before she could speak, in a tone that suggested she had consulted the cook before settling on them.

Caroline sighed. Of course she had. She supposed there was no denying the woman if she was this determined to be heard.

“Come in,” she said.

Jane crossed the room and settled herself at the end of the settee with the unhurried care of a woman who was now eight months pregnant and had long ago accepted that every movement required forethought over dignity. She placed the plate between them as though it were something of importance rather than merely biscuits, then looked at Caroline with those clear, steady eyes that Caroline had once found irritating beyond endurance and had, against her better judgment, come to find rather comforting lately.

“Charles and I agree you have been quiet lately,” Jane said.

"I am frequently quiet."

"You have been a different kind of quiet."

Caroline looked at the biscuits. They were very evenly browned, which suggested Cook had been paying extra attention. She picked one up and held it. "You will be very good at this," she said, which was not what she had intended to say.

Jane blinked, caught off guard. "At what?"

Caroline turned the biscuit over once in her fingers, as though it might offer her some further insight into human nature. “Motherhood,” she said at last, with the brisk certainty she brought to anything she believed to be true, “will suit you. You will be very natural at it.”

She said it as she always said such things, without ornament or hesitation, because she had long ago discovered that too much ceremony only made honesty sound suspicious.

“You notice things,” she continued. “The sort of things most people overlook entirely. You will be insufferable about it, of course, but in a manner that will no doubt serve your children extremely well.”

Jane did not respond at once. When she did, her voice had softened in a way that made Caroline feel inconveniently put upon. She had not wanted to make the women so emotional.

“Thank you, Caroline.”

“Do not thank me,” Caroline replied at once. “I am only stating a fact.”

Jane chuckled to herself for some reason at this comment, muttering back a, “Yes of course. Because Bingley women do not give compliments.”

Caroline felt vaguely like Jane was mocking her in some way, but she could not understand how, as there was no malice behind it.

She set the biscuit down, then picked it up again, as though uncertain what to do with her hands now that they had begun betraying her. Then, because she had been holding the words for weeks, possibly months now and had discovered they did not improve with time, she added, “I owe you an apology.”

Jane went very still across from her. Caroline swallowed. As uncomfortable as this was. She knew it had to be done for her own peace of mind.