Here was what had occurred: I had asked Elizabeth to dance, she had denied me, and I had been thinking about that when Caroline appeared and asked me what I was thinking of, and I told her exactly what I was thinking of, how pleasurable it could be to look at a woman with fine eyes, and she asked who, and I told her, and she went immediately to teasing me that I should be asking Elizabeth to marry me and talking unfavorably about Mrs. Bennet, Elizabeth’s mother.
We shall come to that woman eventually, I suppose, but I shall not digress further to explain her here. Suffice it to say that she has an abrasive manner about her.
Now, at the dinner table, Caroline tipped her chin up at me, and I said, “Not at all. They were brightened by the exercise.”
Caroline’s nostrils flared, only barely, not too much, but I noticed.
Damnation.
How had I allowed that to happen?
But there was little time to dwell on that for we were back to discussing Elizabeth again.
Mrs. Hurst wanted everyone at the table to know that she had an “excessive regard” for Miss Jane Bennet, who was very sweet, but that the other sister, the Elizabeth girl, she was something else.
“Well, I do, of course, wish for Jane to be settled,” said Caroline.
“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Hurst. “But with the low connections they have, and with such amotheras they have, I think that there is very little chance of it.”
“True, they are related to nobodies. One uncle who is a country attorney, I hear,” said Caroline.
“Yes, and one in Cheapside, as I understand it,” said Louisa.
“That is capital,” said Caroline, smirking, turning to look at me.
What? Why was she looking at me like that? Why bring up their being settled? I certainly wasn’t entertaining any thoughts of marrying Elizabeth Bennet, even though Caroline apparently kept thinking I was about to do it.
“If they had uncles enough to fill all of Cheapside, it would not make them a jot less agreeable,” said Bingley firmly.
“But it must materially limit their chances of marriage,” I said, glaring at Caroline.I am not going to marry her. Why would you even suggest that?
After dinner, we all went up to look in on the sick sister, Jane, and then went back to a sitting room to play cards.
Eventually, Elizabeth came down, said she would only be there a short time before she had to look in on her sister again and then retire for the night, and said she would read.
I resolved that I should not find Elizabeth attractive anymore, that I should go back to finding her as I had found her before, as nothing entirely special, pleasing but not overly so, no one of consequence. Thus decided, I ignored her during the conversation, speaking very little.
Caroline talked a lot; she always did. She went on in an overly obsequious way, praising Pemberley, my estate, praising the library at Pemberley, talking about how her brother must have a house exactly like Pemberley, and I didn’t say anything at all, though I could not think of a thing less likely to be well accepted amongst good society than blatantly copying someone else’s house. Bingley’s attempt to say he’d rather buy it was likely an attempt to get her to drop it, but it was also his way, the way he liked to throw around how flashy and liquid his cash was.
I had an income larger than his, but I had a great deal more responsibilities than he did. That income had to do a number of things, keep a great deal of people, a number of servants, a vast amount of lands and buildings, all of that. And it wasn’t so much that I didn’t have money if I needed it, it was more that I didn’t carry about money, throwing it here and there as if I could just have fountains coming out of my coinpurse at all times.
Hmm.
Hearing me go on this way, one might get the impression I didn’t like Bingley.
I did.
As I have said, Bingley had a manner about him, something that put people at ease. He was amiable, easy to talk to, easy to be around, a great deal of fun to while away the hours with. He was, on the whole, very likable.
Did I approve of Bingley, however?
Well… perhaps not.
But then this only begged the question, if I did not approve of Bingley, did I approve of myself, here, in a conversation about buying my family home, which was entailed and not for sale, not ever for sale?
The nakedness of it, I suppose, that was what was so awful about these people.
How dare they, truly?
