She pushed that out of her consciousness and made her way up to her chamber to select the gown she would wear to the assembly.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Caroline Bingley insisted on standing with her brother to welcome her guests to Netherfield Park.
Bingley did not point out the impropriety of her waiting with him, as she was a single woman welcoming single men. He felt relief when he saw the Darcy travelling coach with Fitzwilliam’s following as they approached the circular drive and stopped at the base of the stone steps which descended from the veranda above. Until he saw them, he had had a niggling worry they would not come.
“Did I not say the shrew would be waiting for us with her brother?” Richard stated as the coach was drawn to a halt. He was in Darcy’s equipage while his conveyance carried their personal servants.
“Leave it to me,” Lady Catherine stated with a determined gleam in her eyes.
Darcy and Richard alighted first. Then, the former handed his sister out while the latter did the honours for his aunt. A footman assisted Mrs Annesley to alight. Richard led the way forward. No sooner than he moved, Miss Bingley attached herself to his other arm.
“You are Miss Bingley, are you not?” Lady Catherine said, her voice icy.
Miss Bingley missed the rebuke in the voice of the lady she assumed was the titled aunt. “Indeed, your Ladyship, I am. It is good to be among good friends, is it not?”
“You have received an education, have you not, Miss Bingley?” Lady Catherine bit out. She did not wait for the harpy to reply. “Please tell me who taught you it is permissible to attach yourself to a man’s arm when it was not offered? It is obvious to me that your education is sorely lacking!”
Suddenly Miss Bingley’s face was so pinched it looked like she was sucking on lemons. She pulled her hand back as if it had been scalded. “Please pardon me; I thought that as we are friends…”
“Enough. May we be shown to our chambers to wash and change?” Lady Catherine asked of her host.
As they had arrived at the front doors, Bingley requested that the housekeeper show their guests to their chambers. He was surprised Caroline had said nothing in complaint. When he turned, she was standing in the middle of the veranda where she had been set down by Lady Catherine.
“Come, Caroline, let us wait for them in the drawing room with the Hursts.” Bingley led his sister to said room.
“When I am the mistress of Rosings Park or Pemberley, that woman will not be allowed into my homes!” Miss Bingley screeched as soon as she recovered the power of speech. “How dare she humiliate me in that fashion? And in my home aswell!”
“Caroline, what vexes you so?” Mrs Hurst enquired.
“That woman…” Miss Bingley related what had occurred. “She had no right to speak to me like that.”
“Actually, Caroline, have I not told you that taking a man’s arm uninvited is considered bad manners?” Hurst, who was awake for once, reminded his sister-in-law. “Hence, what Lady Catherine said to you was absolutely correct.”
“What do you know?” Miss Bingley cried. “Go back to sleep you…you worthless drunk!”
“Caroline, you may want to lower your voice,” Mrs Hurst suggested. “You do not want either Mr Fitzwilliam or Mr Darcy to hear you, do you? It will not make a very favourable impression on them.”
Miss Bingley threw herself on a sofa with no good cheer.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Darcy and Richard shared a suite with a sitting room between their bedchambers; Giana and Mrs Annesley were in the one next to theirs. Being sure Miss Bingley would want to place his sister’s companion in the servants’ quarters; Darcy had written to Bingley to inform him that Mrs Annesley needed to be assigned a chamber in the same suite as his sister.
Lady Catherine was in a suite of her own, on the other side of the one which housed her niece and her companion.
By mutual agreement they all met in Lady Catherine’s sitting room prior to making their way downstairs. “The gall of that woman! Just who does she think she is?” Lady Catherine huffed once her nephews, niece, and Mrs Annesley had taken seats.
“Is it not just as we predicted?” Darcy asked.
“It makes it no less shocking to see. Miss Bingley has not a clue how to behave among those of our circle, no matter what she thinks,” Lady Catherine responded. “And that spinelessbrother of hers is no better.” She turned her gimlet eye on her nephews. “Why you maintain a friendship with the man is beyond me. And no, it is not because he is the son of a tradesman.” She would be the first one to admit that she used to be extremely prejudiced against those she felt were below her, especially persons in trade.
Slowly over the years after first Lewis and then Anne were taken from her, Catherine Bertha de Bourgh, née Fitzwilliam, realised that none of her old opinions were important and the true measure of a man or woman was in their character. It was for lack of one that she objected to her nephews’ friendship with Mr Bingley.
“That is a question I ask myself from time to time,” Richard owned while Darcy looked away from his aunt.
The latter knew what his aunt said was true, but making friends was hard for him. Hence, he had fought against breaking with Bingley in the absence of something egregious which forced his hand.
