“At least I am not a foundling…” Anything else that Caroline was about to say was lost as her father stood and dragged her out of the room before anyone else could reach her. Mrs Bingley realised that the people in the drawing room had the power to ruin them in society before they ever got a foothold, and at long last she had the epiphany that she had done her daughters no favours with her constant harping about joining the top levels of society.
Mr Bingley entered the silent drawing room a half hour later.“Come Mrs Bingley, we need to pack as we are departing within the hour.” Then Oscar Bingley turned to the family,“Mr Darcy, Lady Anne, I thank you for your hospitality, but I find that it is urgent that we head to Yorkshire. Your Lordship, your Ladyship,” he bowed to Reggie and Elaine,“on behalf of my family I offer my sincerest apologies.” Then he turned and bowed to Elizabeth,“You deserve an apology most of all, Lady Elizabeth.”
“I thank you Mr Bingley, but you did nothing,” Elizabeth said magnanimously.
The Bingley family departed Pemberley within the hour. Caroline, rather than looking at her behaviour, was wishing that she had never met the foundling Eliza; everything was the pretender’s fault!
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
George Wickham had had enough. He was tired of acting as if he were not a Darcy son, and he was sick of suffering the degradation of manual labour. His adoptive father had whipped him for the last time! It was time for action, not words.
Chapter 16
The atmosphere in the Bingley family carriage was very sombre. Caroline sat in a front facing corner with a pinched look on her face as if she were the aggrieved party; Louisa was sitting in contemplative silence; Mrs Martha Bingley was crying quietly; Charles was looking out of the window wondering if Caroline had been adopted; and Mr Bingley had a thunderous look as he calmed himself enough to speak. Before he did, his wife did.
“Oh, Mr Bingley, what have I done?” she asked plaintively between her tears.
“Of what do you speak, madam? I do not know of what you speak,” he said with a level tone that did nothing to hide the anger in his voice.
“It was me that put all the ideas of advancing in society into our daughters’heads without teaching them the way to go about it as it was something that I did not know myself,” Martha said, as the full weight of her folly became evident to her.
“Mother of what do you talk, you have always…” Caroline began to say, horrified that her mother seemed to be abandoning her now.
“You will be silent until I give you leave to speak!” Oscar Bingley growled at his youngest daughter, leaving her with no illusion that he would not be gainsaid.“You were saying before that impudent child interrupted you, Mrs Bingley?” Caroline made to protest but the look from her father, and for that matter the rest of her family, caused what she was about to say to die in her throat.
“I was so enamoured with raising our position that I never learnt the behaviour that is acceptable to members of polite society. When I remember how we fawned over Master Darcy when he visited us, and then his parents and their relations at Pemberley, I am mortified at what I allowed myself to become.” The more Caroline heard, the more she lost respect for her mother.“By rejecting our roots, I see now that I was rejecting you and your life’s work. If it were not for trade, we would have no fortune and our girls would not have twelve thousand five hundred pounds each.”
“Twelve thousand five hundred pounds!” Caroline screeched.“We were to have twenty thousand each!”
“Do not cause me to have to warn you to be silent again, you petulant child! As your mother knows, thanks to acquiescing to the demands to leave my business, which I regret to this day, my income dropped, and I was not able to fund the dowries to the level that I had planned.”
Caroline could not believe what she was hearing; the only thing she heard was that her dowry was far less than what she had been boasting it was. The shame of it! The two Bennet chits had five and twenty thousand pounds each, and if she had read correctly the founding was rumoured to have double that amount! Everyone was failing her!
“We were happy before I got those lofty and unattainable goals in my mind,” Martha owned.“I apologise to you, husband, and to all of my family,” she said as she looked at her feet.
“We will get past this, Martha,” Oscar said as he reached across the space between the seats to take his wife’s hand. It had been many years since he called his wife by her informal name.“Even if we wanted to rise in society, it is moot. Caroline could have very well ruined us.” Seeing that she was about to protest, he addressed her directly.“You just insulted the daughter of an Earl, one who is the darling of the Queen, and in front of her entire family, no less. If you think that there will not be repercussions from your actions, Caroline, then you are completely delusional! In that case, we will need to head to Bedlam and not Scarborough!”
If Caroline were waiting for someone in her family to refute what her father had said, she would be waiting a lifetime.“What did I do to make you behave the way that you do?” Martha asked rhetorically.“When I think of the lies, the airs and graces that we put on to try and make ourselves look superior to those above us in society, I cannot think of my behaviour without abhorrence!” If Caroline had felt betrayed before, it was nothing to the feelings that she had as her mother spoke the vile words about their status.
“You will have a lot of apologising to do when we return to Hertfordshire after we look at prospective estates in Wiltshire. Speaking of which, I would like to go over the estates that we will see with you this evening while at the coaching inn where we will spend the night,” Oscar said, knowing now that he could take his wife into his confidence and that he would have her full support to place Caroline at Dark Hollow School.
“If you have damaged my friendship with either of my friends, I will never forgive you Caroline,” Charles spoke for the first time.“Do you have any idea what a joke you are to them? Do you think Darcy was interested in a girl of thirteen who has no clue how to behave? Did you not notice how seldom he was in company with you; only the times where it could not be helped; and every time that you attempted to attach yourself to his arm, he dropped your arm like it was poison!” As her brother talked Caroline’s face became more and more pinched with displeasure. What did Charles know?“If you were the last lady left in the world, Darcy, and I dare say his cousin the Viscount who you looked at like a prime cut of meat you were about to devour, wouldnevermarry you foranyreason!”
Caroline was crying after her brother’s speech, not from sadness or shame but from anger. How dare Charles lie to her in such an infamous fashion? She would show them all! Her thoughts were interrupted by her father’s voice.
“For the fortnight that we are with my brother and his family, you will stay in your chambers, Caroline. I will have a footman on duty at the door at all times and you will take your meals in solitude in your chambers. I will not subject your aunt, uncle, or their children to your vitriol,” her father delivered his edict.“If I were able to leave you somewhere and not take you with us to Wiltshire I would, but unfortunately that is not a possibility. The day of our departure will be the first and only time that you will exit your bedchamber. Before you think of taking your anger out on the furnishings and decorations in your chambers, know thatanydamage will be paid from your allowance, and I care not how long you go without until all is paid.”
“My apologies will have to start with our family in Yorkshire,” Martha noted quietly mortified as she remembered how she treated their family members.
“I will need to join you in apologising, Mama,” Louisa stated.
Other than Caroline, it was a much happier family that travelled on toward Scarborough.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
When Jim Wickham walked into his abode at the end of the day, he was met with a chilling sight. George was sitting and waiting for him, with one of Jim’s pistols resting in his lap. The hammer was cocked so the senior Wickham knew that the weapon was loaded and ready to fire its deadly missile with a light squeeze of the trigger.
“George! What on earth are you doing, Son?” Jim Wickham asked as he slowly advanced into the small sitting room.
