Page 2 of Vain and Useless

Handing her cloak to the attendant, she took her brother’s arm without so much as a glance at Mr Darcy to see if he might offer his. She rather hoped he noticed how thoroughly she was leaving him be—let him now despise her, if he dared.

Entering the assembly room, they were greeted instantly by a round, jovial fellow with a thin fringe of salt and pepper hair around his gleaming pate. His coat was several years, possibly as much as a decade, out of fashion. It was all Caroline could do to continue smiling. “Mr Bingley, you have come! But you said you would. Capital, simply capital. May I be known to your friends?”

Charles happily performed the introductions, and the gentleman—for such he was—was revealed as Sir William Lucas. They were introduced also to Lady Lucas and Miss Lucas, while Miss Maria, who was across the room with several other girls who seemed rather young to be at a dance, was pointed out to them.

Sir William liked the sound of his own voice rather too much, often using it to refer to the honour of having been knighted, while his wife simpered over Caroline and her sister’s ballgowns and thereafter seemed to have nothing to say for herself. The knight and his lady were, Caroline told herself firmly, no more trying than many people she had met in town.

The daughter seemed perfectly unobjectionable on short acquaintance, however. Miss Lucas accepted Charles’s request for a set with demure pleasure before fixing an amiable look upon Caroline. “I hope you are enjoying the area, Miss Bingley. We are all so very pleased to see Netherfield inhabited once again.”

“I have seen little of it, I fear. I have spent the time since our arrival becoming familiar with the house and its routines, as I am my brother’s hostess. But now that we are entering the local society, I anticipate coming to know the place and its people,” she replied cordially.

“As we anticipate coming to know you,” Miss Lucas said. “My father, I think, is eager to introduce you around, but perhaps we shall speak again later.”

They curtseyed to each other, and Caroline took her brother’s arm once more, following the verbose gentleman through the room. There was not a great deal of time before the first dance commenced, he informed them, but he hoped it would be sufficient to make them known to the leading families. Stopping before a matron with far too much lace on her dress, fine though that lace was, Sir William asked if he might make the Netherfield party known to her.

She agreed with alacrity, and they were introduced to Mrs Bennet and her daughters Jane, Elizabeth, and Mary. Two others, Lydia and Kitty, were indicated as being among the group of very young ladies including Miss Maria Lucas. Five daughters! thought Caroline. And had she a son, he would surely have been mentioned. I do not envy her the task of settling five daughters on a country squire’s income.

This charitable thought made it a little easier for her to bear the vulgar manner in which the lady hinted that Charles must wish to dance with her eldest and most beautiful daughter. The fact that the three young ladies were visibly mortified and that Charles was excessively happy to agree to the suggestion also soothed her fractious sensibilities.

The remainder of their party slipped away while Mrs Bennet was focused upon Charles. Mr Hurst made for the refreshments with his wife—Caroline’s sister Louisa—on his arm, and Mr Darcy found an obligingly empty stretch of wall before which he might stand and glower at the assemblage as was his wont.

It occurred to her, for the first time, that perhaps his behaviour in society was not all it could be, either. She expected little of Mr Hurst, but if the Darcy scion, courted and feted by so many, could rudely avoid being introduced to those among whom he proposed to spend some weeks, perhaps her own mistakes were not quite so egregious as she feared. Or perhaps this was another instance in which those born to the elite could bend or break those rules which formed an immovable prison about their inferiors. She wished quite desperately that she had the sort of close and trustworthy friend of whom she might ask such questions.

“Unless this is its first appearance, Miss Bingley, I am certain you have already heard many praises of your gown,” said the dark-haired second Bennet daughter, pulling Caroline from her thoughts. Elizabeth, that was her name. “But please allow me to remark how particularly becoming that colour is to your complexion.”

Caroline had chosen it for this evening because it was the simplest of her ball gowns, a fine muslin in pale apricot layered over a cream under-dress, delicately embellished in silver thread. It was still rather more au courant than anything she had seen upon the locals. “Thank you, Miss Elizabeth. I shall be very sorry when it goes out of fashion, for I have not seen this particular shade before or since. I have thought of reusing some of the fabric. Perhaps I might have the skirt made into a light wrap.”

“Oh, you simply must do something with it,” the young lady said warmly. “It is far too pretty to give up on after a single season.”

Sir William Lucas suggested to Mrs Bennet that her new neighbours might like to meet some others before the dancing commenced. She reluctantly conceded. The knight turned to them with a bright smile which faltered when he saw that their party of five had been reduced to a mere two. “Oh. Well.” He floundered for a moment before collecting himself. “I see the Chethams just over there. Their estate, Hillcrest, lies between Lucas Lodge and Haye-Park.”

Though Caroline had understood the rudeness in Mr Darcy and the Hursts’ desertion, seeing the jovial man struggle to regain his smile caused her to feel it, and she blushed for the incivility displayed by so much of her own party. The knowledge that she should have blithely done just the same were it not for her recent humiliation and the revelations attendant upon it only deepened her unease.

She and Charles became acquainted with the Chethams and their three adult children just in time for the tuning of instruments to signal that the first set was forming. Young Mr Chetham obligingly requested a set of Caroline and was happy to be granted her first. Taking to the floor among so many strangers, she smiled at her partner and thought that her family’s entrance into this new society must surely proceed more smoothly than it had begun.

Less than two hours later, Caroline was rapidly losing that optimism.

She had been having an unexpectedly enjoyable time. She had approached this evening as a necessary, if likely burdensome, first step in ensuring her family’s acceptance here. What these new neighbours lacked in refinement, however, they made up for in friendliness. To be made warmly welcome in a new society was something she had not heretofore experienced, and it was surprisingly beguiling.

Furthermore, it could not be said that there was no refinement to be seen. She had spent a set speaking with the eldest Miss Bennet and Miss Lucas, both of whom were perfectly correct in their manners and able to speak intelligently on the sorts of subjects canvassed by new acquaintances in town. Both had some experience of the London theatre, and all three of them had heartily agreed that a performance by Kemble was a comprehensive education in the power of stagecraft. She tentatively dared to hope that this night might be the opening act of a satisfying acquaintance on all sides.

However, she had spent too much time at gatherings in town to mistake the ripple of fresh gossip through a crowded room for anything else. When the familiar flutter of titillated excitement began to move about the assembly hall, she was seized with the fear that she herself had misstepped—again!—and positioned herself to overhear the tale with all speed.

That she was not mentioned was cause for less relief than it should have been. Though it was Mr Darcy’s name on everyone’s lips, her sister and Hurst did not escape censure. Her brother’s guest, the man upon whom Caroline had until very recently pinned all her hopes for the future, had outrageously insulted Miss Elizabeth Bennet after openly rejecting any opportunity to become acquainted with those present. In the recounting of this, it was often noted that Mr Hurst was happier to enter into his new neighbours’ offerings of food and drink than into their conversation, and his wife had not even the excuse of keeping her mouth thoroughly occupied with refreshments to mitigate her bare civility when approached.

Caroline gathered what information she could, then deftly extricated her brother from his admirers and convinced him to take a turn about the balcony with her. The chill air was rather unpleasant without a wrap, but ensured that they were quite alone.

“Charles,” she began without delay, “I fear this evening may end with our entire party being spurned due to the behaviour of the others.”

Dear, unsuspecting creature that he was, he had no notion of what she spoke until she explained that Mr Darcy was the talk of the assembly for his poor conduct, and that Hurst’s heedless gluttony and Louisa’s air of superiority were also being canvassed by the company.

“I see,” he murmured with a troubled frown when she had finished. “I thank you for bringing it to my attention, Sister.” Head tilted, he gazed at her curiously. “Though I own I am a little surprised that you have any care for how we are received here.”

That was fair, and yet it stung. She straightened her shoulders and replied evenly, “Charles, a few weeks ago, you asked me to hear you as you explained our family’s position in society. All I can say is that I did hear you, and I came hither with one purpose—to assist you, by any means within my power, in learning how to become the master of an estate. Part of that, I apprehend, must be gaining and keeping the approbation of your country neighbours and learning to move comfortably in their society.”

He beamed at her with real approval, an expression she had not often seen these last several years. “There she is,” he said in tones of gratitude and esteem. “There is the Caroline I knew before an obsession with the first circles turned her good sense to bald ambition. I am so very pleased you have come back to me. Now, what are we to do about this blunder of Darcy’s and the poor impression the Hursts are making?”

She required a moment to compose herself after his heartfelt speech. When she was capable of speaking sensibly, she replied, “As to the latter, I think there is little we may do. Hurst and Louisa are what they are, and I have nothing in mind which might cause them to behave better this evening. I am entirely shocked by Mr Darcy’s behaviour, however; unsociable he may be, but unmannerly? I would not have expected anything of the sort.” She shivered a little as she bent her mind to the problem. “Have you danced with Miss Elizabeth Bennet?”