Caroline Bingley: A Continuation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice

  Caroline Bingley

  A Continuation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

  Jennifer Becton

  Whiteley Press

  A Whiteley Press Book

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright 2011 by Jennifer Becton

  www.bectonliterary.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except in the case of brief quotations, without written permission from the author.

  Cover: Woman with a Fan by Hamilton Hamilton. (PD-US: Image in the public domain.)

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious or used fictitiously. Any similarity to real people, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Other Works by Jennifer Becton

  The Personages of Pride & Prejudice Collection

  Charlotte Collins

  “Maria Lucas”: A Short Story

  The Personages of Pride & Prejudice Collection

  ~**~

  The Southern Fraud Thriller Series

  Writing as J. W. Becton

  Absolute Liability

  Death Benefits—Coming January 2012

  “Cancellation Notice”: A Southern Fraud Short Story

  ~**~

  Table of Contents

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Epilogue

  Deleted Scenes

  Pass the Salt

  Mr. Darcy Explains It All

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  For

  Every reader of Charlotte Collins.

  Without you, this book would not exist.

  Thank you.

  Well! Evil to some is always good to others.

  —Jane Austen

  One

  December 1812

  Banished.

  The word echoed through Caroline Bingley’s mind with each beat of the horses’ hooves, and she felt the stab of her own mortification with each bone-jarring jolt of the hired carriage in which she was imprisoned. Her brother Charles’s own hand had locked her away in this dreadful post chaise, which was presently being drawn by a second-rate pair of horses, and the entire conveyance was bound for the worst place she could imagine: her mother’s home in the north of England.

  Caroline glanced at the woman seated beside her. This, ostensibly, was her traveling companion, for it was quite improper for a woman of Caroline’s status to voyage alone. In truth, their current mode of transport—two women traveling alone by post—was verging on impropriety as it was.

  She thought her companion’s name was Rosemary, but she had not taken the initiative of remembering. After all, Charles had been the one to employ the impertinent widow to accompany her while in transit and to act as her companion once in the tedious, unvarying society of Kendal, Cumbria.

  While she could not blame Charles for hiring a servant to attend to her while navigating the public roads and dealing with the unsavory individuals one often encountered at posting inns, it was beyond the needs of propriety to have retained her for the duration of her stay in the north. Caroline did not need a chaperone; nor had she reached that unfortunate stage in life wherein she required the services of a paid companion. She was no doddering fool, but a wealthy young woman of sound mind and good judgment.

  Caroline lifted her chin against the humiliation and anger rising within her breast. The presence of a companion was an insult to be sure!

  To think that she had become a prisoner in her own life—with the right to make her own choices stripped from her—was intolerable. No, she had chosen neither the voyage nor her companion, and she certainly would not have elected to embark on such a long journey so late in the year when the weather was apt to turn foul.

  Ha! It was all a good joke. This was no journey. This was a prison sentence, and Rosemary was her jailor.

  Rosemary.

  Caroline winced at such a gauche name. She certainly hoped that her memory had failed and that the woman’s name was not Rosemary, for she did not like the pert flavor of that particular herb in servants any more than in a roast of beef. Besides, her parents must have been quite inelegant to name their daughter after such an ugly, sprawling plant, and Caroline had no patience for inelegance.

  Unfortunately, the name seemed to suit both the woman’s piquant personality and her gauche posture, for Rosemary was currently slumped in her seat, asleep with her head lolling in rhythm to the motion of the carriage as strands of strawberry blond hair swayed across her forehead. A woman of her age—why, she must be nearly thirty!—should not sit so indecorously.

  Caroline leaned forward to scold her, to remind her how a lady ought to recline, but then she sat back and sighed. What was the point of correcting her now? They were going to the country, where posture was unimportant. For who of worth would be present to observe and reward such correctness of bearing?

  She considered the woman and her vexing ability to rest despite the ruts and bumps of the byways they traveled. How could Rosemary possibly sleep at such a time? It was just the sort of incommodious thing the woman would do. For her own part, Caroline found that she could not possibly relax. She sat perfectly erect, hands crushed together in her lap, looking with great regret in the direction from whence they had come, back toward the remnants of her dreams and desires. Now her life was in shambles, and the winter-worn roads that led her inexorably into a dismal future did nothing to lull her into the forgetfulness of sleep.

  Here was the sad state of her situation: Caroline not only failed to win the regard of Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, the only gentleman she had ever admired, but she had lost him to Miss Elizabeth Bennet, a headstrong young woman of neither breeding nor fortune. As a result, Caroline’s thoughts of becoming one of the wealthiest women in England and mistress of the great estate of Pemberley had been ruined. Indeed, she had forfeited the most excellent society of Mr. Darcy and endangered the shy companionship of his sister Georgiana.

  To make matters worse, she had also been unsuccessful in thwarting her brother Charles’s unwise marriage to Miss Jane Bennet, and now, it seemed, no one would forgive her for having been opposed, and justly so, to both matches.

  Though Caroline had never believed such a possibility to exist, her beloved brother had ostracized her, sending her away for the sake of family harmony or some such nonsense.

  Her crimes?

  Attempting to elevate her family’s position by seeking an advantageous marriage? Hoping to prevent her brother from marrying a young lady so beneath the status to which he should ascribe?

  Indeed.

  But what had she done that any woman of sense would not have done? Would not the sainted Miss Elizabeth Bennet herself have shifted the heavens in order to prevent her sister Lydia’s disastrous match to that scoundrel Mr. George Wickham? Caroline believed so, and as she had done nothing out of the common way in attempting to separate her brother from Miss Jane Bennet, she did not believe she deserved the censure she had received. Why, Mr. Darcy, who had been chief in instiga
ting the entire scheme, had already been forgiven by all involved.

  It was utterly unfair.

  Tears of frustration welled in her eyes.

  ’Twas a centuries’ old struggle in which she had been engaged, a struggle whose outcome had not been in her favor.

  Society dictated that the Bennet girls must aspire to such gentlemen as Charles and Mr. Darcy. For was it not the duty of all children, be they male or female, to marry as well as possible for the benefit of their families?

  In the same way, family loyalty had ordained that Caroline must wage a campaign against them. For was it not the duty of every family of wealth and consequence to guard against the infiltration of low-class fortune hunters?

  Caroline had been forced to act after Charles had shown his admiration for Miss Bennet at their first meeting at that silly little public assembly in Meryton. Upon developing a deeper acquaintance with the lady in question and her rather wild, country family, Caroline had become concerned that her brother might have fallen in with a lady, kind though she may seem, who only sought his fortune.

  She had shared her concerns with Mr. Darcy, and he had agreed wholeheartedly with her assessment. In fact, he had been the one to declare that Miss Bennet seemed to emit no real feeling for Charles, and they both shared reservations about her low-born relations.

  After much strategizing, it was decided that it would be best to remove Charles from Hertfordshire before he could become the victim of a one-sided marriage to a fortune hunter wearing a dowdy country frock.

  Being naturally humble, Charles had been easily convinced of Miss Bennet’s indifference, and he had allowed himself to be taken to London. After learning of Miss Bennet’s true feelings, he could not forgive himself for having doubted his own. His anger at Caroline’s interference had been complete, and try as she might, she could not convince him that she had been acting in his best interests. She had wanted to protect him.

  Caroline’s cheeks moistened with tears, and she swiped them away as she considered the other charge leveled against her: her abhorrence of Mr. Darcy’s decision to marry Miss Elizabeth Bennet.

  As to that, she could not claim such innocence. She had considered Mr. Darcy to be her ideal match. He was everything a gentleman ought to be if he possibly can. He was handsome, well-spoken, dutiful, and rich, and he had accumulated his fortune in the most acceptable manner—through inheritance.

  Caroline’s own fortune, though substantially smaller than Mr. Darcy’s, would assure her lifelong comfort, but her wealth was tainted: her father had earned the bulk of her inheritance through trade, a fact that Caroline always sought to conceal.

  A union with Mr. Darcy would have ended the necessity of concealment and raised Caroline in the esteem of society.

  And so she had sought the good opinion of a gentleman through those arts—flattery and a bit of flirtation—that all women use, and through conversation and comparison she had sought to make him aware of the obvious inferiority of any woman other than herself for matrimony.

  In this, she had failed, and now she was truly a prisoner of society’s whims, for though she was wealthy, she was not free.

  Again, Caroline turned to look along the muddy road toward the past, as if merely looking in the direction of Pemberley might somehow transport her back in time, might change her circumstances, might win her the gentleman she had admired.

  But it was not to be.

  The carriage only swept her further from the comforts of her brother’s household and from her dreams of permanency of station and home. Caroline braced herself against the seat, wishing she had thought to demand extra cushions when they had stopped to change conveyances at the last posting inn, for there was nothing more irksome than to arrive at one’s destination with a sore posterior. She glanced about the coach for a cushion, and seeing no other suitable option, she folded her lap robe and positioned it beneath her. Fortunately, it was warmer today and dry, so the covering was not necessary to ward off the cold, though her feet were a bit chilled. The robe did little to absorb the shock of the carriage, but at least she had taken some action.

  Hoping to forget the jarring of the rented carriage and her circumstances in general, Caroline forced her attention out the window. Only now, she looked ahead toward her destination, her future. Yes, even in winter’s gray gloom, the countryside was quite lovely—rolling hills and all that—and had she been in the right company she might have said something poetic about the picturesque landscape of the Lake District. But the dozing Rosemary was hardly proper company, so Caroline remained silent, finally finding consolation two hours later when the coach crossed the arched stone bridge into Kendal and then bumped its way into the drive of the final posting inn.

  Feeling quite bruised all over, Caroline pulled the robe from beneath her, attempted to smooth the wrinkles, and folded it into a neat square. She touched her hair, knowing it must look a fright, and adjusted her bonnet to hide the greater part of the damage.

  As they drew closer to the inn, Caroline felt her heart leap a bit in her chest at the prospect of seeing her dear mother again.

  Her mother, Elthea Knowles Bingley—now Elthea Knowles Bingley Newton—was the very best of women, always kind, generous, and self-effacing. If the meek were to inherit the earth, as the Scriptures said, her mother would certainly be a beneficiary. She was ever thinking of others above herself, a trait of which Caroline could not quite approve.

  The post chaise pulled in front of the inn at Kendal, and Caroline spied her mother and Mr. Augustus Newton, her husband, awaiting them at the window. Her mother waved and then disappeared from view, likely rushing heedlessly to greet her in the stable yard instead of remaining inside and out of the cold and mud.

  The postilion halted the team, and the horses sighed at the pleasure of resting. Caroline decided that was as good a sign as any that it was time to awaken Rosemary from her slumber. She issued her a gentle nudge to the shin. Her companion’s eyes fluttered open, and she scowled as she reached down to rub her leg. “Can I be of assistance, Miss Bingley?”

  “We have reached our destination.”

  “And that required a kick to the shin?” Rosemary asked with narrowed eyes. “Mr. Bingley is not paying me enough to be kicked.”

  Impertinent woman!

  “Do not be dramatic. I am wearing slippers, not boots, and it was only a nudge to rouse you from slumber.”

  Rosemary mumbled something under her breath and then glanced outside. Then, she said, “Oh, it is lovely. In the face of such a lovely place, I have found it in my heart to forgive you.”

  Caroline was on the verge of telling her that she was looking at nothing but another dreadful posting inn, and more, she had not begged her forgiveness, but the postboy opened the coach door and assisted her out of the conveyance and into her mother’s arms.

  “Oh, Caro!” Mrs. Newton whispered as she wrapped her pudgy arms around her daughter and held her close. “How pleased I am to have you here.”

  Caroline was briefly inundated by feelings of so tender and unfamiliar a nature that she could not name them. She inhaled deeply of her mother’s scent, and tears welled once more in her eyes. She closed them tightly and willed herself to keep her rampant emotions in check.

  She was not generally prone to so many displays of feeling in such a short time. Nor was she often compelled to share every tribulation and fear she experienced, but she was tempted to do so now as she rested in the comforts of her mother’s embrace.

  Caroline steeled herself against these emotions, for she simply could not tell her mother the humiliating truth of what had occurred.

  Two

  On that dreadful October evening, Caroline had endured long in the company of her sister Louisa and her husband Mr. Hurst at the inn in Scarborough, where the three of them had come to tour. After some weeks of incessant shoreline walks, Caroline had become bored, and thoughts of her brother and Mr. Darcy had begun to assail her.

  The course of her musings of
ten returned to her last glimpse of Mr. Darcy on the morning she, Louisa, and Mr. Hurst had entered the carriage bound for the shore, while her brother and Mr. Darcy, who claimed some mysterious business in town, had stood on the stone staircase at Pemberley to see them off.

  As Caroline turned to offer them a departing wave, a most overwhelming feeling of inevitable change had crashed over her. Her brother and Mr. Darcy stood at the foot of the immovable Pemberley, but it was as if the whole building had somehow shifted or perhaps the earth itself had changed position in the heavens. Yes, something indefinable—and yet somehow also tangible—had altered since Miss Elizabeth Bennet and her companions had visited Pemberley, and Caroline had known then, as the carriage carried her away, that her circumstances would never again be the same.

  But what precisely was occurring? She must know.

  So distracted was Caroline with thoughts of her former companions that she had taken up Mr. Hurst’s custom and began ignoring Louisa, who was opining again on the virtues of the seaside for improving one’s complexion, when there came a knock at the door of their private sitting room.

  “Oh, why must they bother us in our private chamber after such a pleasant meal?” Mr. Hurst moaned from his chair in the corner where he had been feigning interest in a newspaper.

  “It is quite damaging to the digestion and such an inconvenience for someone to knock at this hour,” Louisa agreed. “It is rather a jarring sound indeed.”

  Caroline’s only reply had been to bid the servant to enter, for he might possess a letter bearing news of what had occurred since she left Pemberley.

  To her greatest delight, the servant said, “A letter, ma’am.” He presented the missive on a silver tray, bowed, and exited the room as swiftly as he had entered.