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Francis Carlisle thought this to be a fine joke, a poniard that struck home, a fatal blow to social climbing pretentions. Caroline Bingley should have stayed for the requisite 15 or 20 minutes of a social call, but her tarrying for close to an hour allowed several other of her ‘friends’ to arrive and add their own ‘sincere’ condolences to those of Miss Carlisle.

Her upset clouded her mind for a while but then she realised that she was sitting there, an easy target for false words, honeyed phrases, knowing full well that she would be shredded viciously as soon as she left. This circle of seven women took no prisoners. She had been one of them, the eighth, but no more. Sense returned to her and she left immediately, taking all the sweet farewells as they were intended.

Worthless.

--

Fitzwilliam Darcy was not a stupid man. Everything that his family had been saying to him for more than a year was true. But the secret that they did not know, that he had never shared with anyone else, was that Charles Bingley had saved him from a compromise. A spiked drink had been slipped into his hand at a house party. Invidiously it had worked, Darcy unaware of losing control of his faculties. But Bingley, used to an uptight and strict Darcy, did notice. Using the servants’ passages, he dragged Darcy from his room and let him sleep in Bingley’s own room. Bingley slept in front of the locked door to the hall, while his valet, and Darcy’s, dealt with the servants’ doors. One slept in front of the door to the bedroom, the other to the door of the dressing room.

Before he finally fell asleep Bingley heard noises in the hall, but there was no attempt made to get into his own room, directly or indirectly. Their host knew he had been rumbled when they immediately cut short their stay the following morning, their excuse flimsy but unable to be challenged.

Elizabeth did not know, it was not even known to Darcy’s cousins or Bingley’s sisters, but his lack of reaction at Netherfield Hall was in part due to him thinking back to his own lucky escape. He was barely focused on the impact on Elizabeth.

But Elizabeth’s revenge upon the Bingleys had sundered the relationship between him and Charles Bingley. They would remain friends, frequent correspondents, but it was unlikely they would ever be in company again. Caroline Bingley’s delusions of marrying Darcy while her brother married Georgiana Darcy, had exploded. There had been no chance of either union, but even she now knew that any hope of a wedding into the upper reaches of society were gone. For her and for her brother.

“I am sorry it has come to this Bingley.”

“Perhaps it was inevitable. My older sister gave up the name Bingley when she married Hurst and with her now residing in Yorkshire, although far from Scarborough, she has escaped the taint. If Caroline had accepted one of the many offers she received over the years, then she too could have weathered this storm. But alas she did not.

“She, like myself, is still a Bingley. It is a strange sensation that I am feeling. The way Caroline is acting you would have thought she was being transported to van Diemen’s Land. And while this has closed society’s door to me, I find myself proud of the family name. My grandfather was a clever man, a skilled blacksmith that never opened a book in his life. But he set his sons, my own father and his brother, on the path that allowed them to build and grow the business. I find myself pleased that carriages bearing the family name are now available in the south.”

Darcy was surprised at the maturity being displayed. If he had thought on the matter for a few minutes he would have realised that Bingley was happy to escape society’s clutches. To own an estate was the dream of his father, not Charles Bingley.

“I will be forever grateful for your intervention all those years ago. There is no doubt we will remain faithful correspondents over the years to come. I suspect half of any letter I write will be asking you to decipher some of your chicken scratch from your previous letter.”

They both laughed, a joke of more than a decade confirming the bond between them.

“And Miss Bingley?”

“Once back in Scarborough I will sit her down and talk of the future. She is well on the shelf, but deluding herself to that fact. Hurst was a poor husband to Louisa but I do not despair of finding a man in similar circumstances for Caroline. She may yet be the mistress of a small northern estate. That will depend on her for the most part.

“One thing is certain, she will not be south of the Trent ever again.”

A week later Charles and Caroline Bingley left London for the last time. A very small part of society was sad to see them go. A larger part proclaimed sorrow but did not mean it. And the largest part of society expressed no sorrow what so ever, indeed took a great deal of pleasure in Icarus’ plummet to earth.

--

“The Bingleys have left town, never to return.”

Lawrence sat opposite Lady Napier.

“You are sure?”

“There is no doubt. The scathing line you had your hired footmen repeat was taken up by all and sundry. The joke about the only Bingley at the Tavistock Ball being a carriage was too good not to pass on. She is not dead, they are not dead, but it will serve as an epitaph to their time in society.

He looked at his most important client, a satisfied smile on her face. He had to ask the follow-up question.

“Do you wish any further torments?”

Elizabeth knew what he was asking and smiled gently.

“No, Mr. Lawrence, my need for revenge is satisfied. Three months ago I might have been tempted to drive them from these islands. I may be rationalising my actions but nothing mentioned was a lie. The villain of the piece is already dead, and now the termagant is gone as well. My need for revenge has been slaked. My focus is now on slowly making myself known to society.”

The amazing thing was it had only taken a month. From thought to exile in less than five weeks.

--

“The Bingleys are gone, brother and sister both. They left on Thursday, the lease on the townhouse has been sold and the word at Bingley’s Club is that he will not be back. He recognises that he will be forever associated with the carriages and his pretentions of crossing the divide to become a landed gentleman are gone. My informant told me that Bingley himself does not appear unhappy. He got the sense this was the dream of his dead father, and Bingley was trying to honour his memory. Instead, he is proud of how the family business has expanded. No one will come out and say it, there has been plenty of the usual sneering, but many of the members respect his honesty. Oh, and he took the harpy with him.”