“I see,” she said.
“Mama keeps a very thorough correspondence,” Anne added, returning to her book. “If there is anyone you wish to know about, I am sure I can help.”
Kitty and Georgiana exchanged a look of pure, undisguised delight. Georgiana bit her lip. Kitty suddenly needed to attend with great concentration to her letter.
Caroline excused herself shortly after, and Anne watched her go with an expression that was not unkind but was certainly not sorry.
“Was that too much?” Anne asked Georgiana, when Caroline was safely out of earshot.
“It was perfect,” Georgiana said. “Absolutely perfect.”
“My mother would have been much worse,” Anne said thoughtfully. “She would have told Miss Bingley exactly where she ranked in the social order, precisely why she would never rise above it. She would have done it in front of everyone. She would have enjoyed it. I merely stated facts. I did not even enjoy it.” She paused. “Well. Perhaps a little.”
“You are a dragon’s daughter,” Kitty said admiringly.
Anne considered this. “I suppose I am. Though I should like to think a rather more polite one.”
Caroline retreated to the yellow drawing room, where Louisa Hurst was established on the sofa with a novel she was not reading and a cup of tea she had let go cold.
Elizabeth was not present for what followed. But Nana was. Bored with Elizabeth’s insufficient attention to her opinions on the ball preparations, she had drifted off in search of better entertainment. She found it in the music room.
Caroline Bingley was, if nothing else, quite useful for keeping Nana amused.
Elizabeth was in her parlour going through the guest list one more time, marking the names she still did not recognise so that she could ask Mrs Reynolds about them before tomorrow, when Nana came through the bookcase looking as though Christmas had come early.
“You will not believe what I have just witnessed,” Nana said.
Elizabeth set down her pen. Nana in this mood was not to be denied, and at least here there were no witnesses.
Nana settled in her chair, the smile on her face broader than Elizabeth had ever seen it, and related, at length, Anne’s effortless set-down of Miss Bingley.
“And then,” Nana said, with something that might almost have been a giggle, “Miss Bingley went to her sister in the yellow drawing room and complained, at length, about Miss de Bourgh. She called her sickly. She called her presumptuous. She said it was ridiculous that a girl who had never had a Season should pretend to know everyone worth knowing, and that Anne was putting on airs that her constitution could not support.”
Nana looked far more gleeful than a mere witness had any right to be, much though Elizabeth wished she could have been there in person to see Caroline’s face after Anne’s puncturing of her presumptions.
“In the yellow drawing room,” Elizabeth said thoughtfully. “Which is adjacent to...”
“To the eastern passage leading to the blue rooms. Yes. And Lady Catherine was in that passage, on her way to the yellow drawing room herself. She heard every word.”
Elizabeth sucked in a breath. “What did she do?”
“She did not enter the room. She stood in the passage and listened, and she looked as though she was deciding where to place a knife. Not now. Later. When it would do the most damage.”
“Catherine was considering Miss Bingley as a possible ally, before this,” Elizabeth said slowly. “Another woman who resents me, who might be useful to her.” It had been quite obvious the previous evening; Lady Catherine had been dismissive of Caroline up until the moment she heard Caroline aim a sly barb in Elizabeth’s direction. Then she had turned to look at her, eyes narrowing thoughtfully, and begun to listen.
“If she was, she is not any longer,” Nana said gleefully. “Nobody insults Anne except Catherine. That is Catherine’s privilege, and she does not share it. Miss Bingley has managed to alienate every woman of consequence in this house, Elizabeth. Lady Matlock finds her tiresome. Jane has seen through her. Anne has humiliated her. Georgiana and Kitty are laughing at her.Now Lady Catherine, who looked down on her but might at least have become an ally through mutual dislike of you, despises her.” Nana looked deeply satisfied. “She has no one left but her sister, who is useless, and her brother, who will never preference her over Jane. It is the most thorough social destruction I have witnessed in years, and the remarkable thing is that she did it entirely to herself.”
Elizabeth ought to have felt sorry for Caroline. She did not, quite, but she did pity her: a woman so desperate to belong that she could not see she was pushing everyone away. There was a version of Caroline Bingley who might have been liked, if she had ever stopped performing long enough for anyone to see her. She was attractive, at least moderately clever, and rich. If she had just allowed herself to shine as the person she actually was, instead of letting her jealousy and insecurity get the better of her whenever she felt threatened, she could easily have been the toast of her social circle rather than the butt of its jokes. But Caroline could not seem to bring herself to stop the performance, and the performance was exhausting for everyone, including, Elizabeth suspected, Caroline herself.
But that was Caroline’s problem, not hers. Elizabeth had enough problems of her own, and knowing that Lady Catherine de Bourgh was no longer considering making Caroline into her pawn actually removed at least one concern from the mountain of them Elizabeth had to deal with.
George Darcy was waiting in her parlour when she came back from dressing for dinner that evening. He was at the window, watching the last of the November light fade over the grounds, and he did not turn when she came in. Elizabeth closed the door, checked that her maid had gone, and sat down at her writing desk. She had fifteen minutes before she needed to go down.
“I do not care about Miss Bingley,” George said, when Elizabeth tried to tell him about Caroline’s destruction at Anne’s hands. “She did not get what she wanted, and she is making a nuisance of herself about it but not so much as to cause any real trouble to anyone. She will leave Pemberley no better than she arrived. That is the whole of her story. Catherine is the one who matters.”
“Catherine is subdued since the confrontation. She has not spoken to me directly in days.”
“Catherine is never subdued. She is regrouping. There is a significant difference, and you would do well to remember it.”
