Pemberley to Waterloo: Georgiana Darcy's Diary, Volume 2

by Elliott, Anna

  Caroline looked at me, and then her breath went out in a long sigh and the small spark of defiance in her gaze seemed to fizzle and blink out. She dragged the sleeve of her dressing gown across her tear-streaked face and said, "No. Just the opposite. He keeps asking me to marry him. And I keep telling him no."

  "You keep telling him no?" I stared at Caroline. "But why on earth? Frank is ... I mean, I should have expected you to--"

  Caroline's mouth twisted up. "To jump at him?"

  I'd been too much surprised to speak tactfully. But it was true. Frank is his father's eldest son, wealthy and heir to the title of earl, besides. He is exactly the kind of man I should have expected Caroline to jump at. To be honest, I should have thought Caroline would leap at the chance of marrying a great deal less handsome and good an earl's heir than Frank, if only for the prospect of being a countess one day.

  Caroline stared straight ahead, the words tumbling out in a flat, exhausted rush. "Last spring, when I fell in love with Jacques--and then he married your aunt, solely for the sake of her fortune--I decided that I was through with love. Or with trusting men or anything they say. When I went to London--I was staying with my sister Mrs. Hurst and her husband--I made up my mind that I was going to do anything to get myself a husband. Who it was didn't matter, so long as he was rich and had a position in society. I told myself I was willing to do anything--anything at all--to force some man into marriage."

  Caroline scrubbed at her eyes again. "It seemed a means of getting revenge on Jacques, in a way. Punishing the entire male race by forcing one of them into marrying me. And then"--Caroline's voice wavered and she swallowed--"then I met Frank. He was ... different from the other young men of the Ton. He made me laugh, for one thing. And he was ... was real, when all the other men were just pride and manners and false compliments--" She stopped, looking down at her clenched hands. "But that doesn't matter. I told myself that he was the perfect candidate--an earl's son, and wealthy besides. And connected to your brother--but outranking him at the same time. It felt as though marrying him would be the perfect way of ... of punishing your brother for choosing Miss Elizabeth Bennet for his wife instead of me. So I--" Caroline stopped and swallowed again. "I deliberately got myself with child. I set out to seduce him--I planned the whole thing. And then ... three weeks ago, as soon as I was sure, I went to Frank and told him. And he offered to marry me, straight away."

  I shook my head. "Then why--"

  Caroline interrupted before I could finish. "Because in that moment when he said that he would marry me, I realised what I had not been willing to let myself admit to before." She turned to look at me with dull, reddened eyes, and took another hiccuping breath. "I love him. I do. And I've done my best to entrap him into marriage--by the most dishonourable means imaginable. Frank said he would marry me, because ... because he's a good, honourable man. But how can I say yes? How can I? He doesn't love me. He's only offered me marriage out of duty, of obligation. And if I married him--" Caroline's hands balled themselves into fists. "If I married him, I'd be a burden to him. An unpleasant duty--and one he'd come to resent. How could he not?" She let out her breath again. "I won't do that to him. I love him too much to let him tie himself to me for the rest of his life, just because of my bad behaviour."

  "Is that why you got my brother to invite you to Pemberley?" I asked.

  Caroline nodded. "I wanted to get out of London, and--" She broke off. "I never in a hundred years dreamed that Frank would follow me here. But he did. Because he feels sorry for me--because he thinks it his fault about the baby, his fault that I'll be ruined in the eyes of the world." Caroline's voice shook. "A few days ago, I even told him the truth--that I had planned the whole thing, hoping to entrap him into marriage. I hoped it would make him despise me enough that he'd leave here, stop asking. But he only said it didn't matter. That the child was still his, and he still wanted to give it his name--"

  Caroline pressed her eyes shut and her chin jerked up and down as she struggled not to cry. Finally, she looked up at me again. "Did you see the way your brother looked at the two of them just now--at Elizabeth and little James?" she asked. "They're his whole world. You can see it in his eyes, every time he looks at them. Hear it in his voice when he so much as mentions one of their names. And that's--" Tears leaked from Caroline's eyes again, but this time she didn't even bother to brush them away. "Seeing them together tonight, the three of them, I realised--more clearly than I've ever realised anything in my life--that that's what I want. A husband who looks at me and my baby that way. I'll never have that, now--never. But if I can't have that, I'd still rather bear the scandal and have this child alone than watch Frank grow to hate me, to hate how I manipulated him into marriage."

  Caroline stopped speaking and was silent. And I sat beside her, wondering what I should say. What could I say? I didn't--I don't--blame Caroline for feeling as she does. In her place, I wouldn't go through with marrying Frank, either. And yet I couldn't see any other solution.

  "I'm sorry," I finally said. "I wish there was some way I could help."

  "That's all right." Caroline passed a hand across her eyes. Her voice was dreary. "You have helped, in a way, just by listening. Thank you. I think--" She stopped. "I think I'll leave Pemberley tomorrow. First thing. I don't think I can face your brother and Elizabeth. Not after the way I've behaved. Will you ... do you think you could convey my good-byes to them? And tell them how sorry I am?"

  I said that of course I would. And Caroline thanked me again and went back along the hall to her room.

  Friday 13 January 1815

  I've so much to write that I'm not sure I know where to begin. Caroline did leave Pemberley at first light this morning. The whole household was still asleep and quiet after last night's scare with James. But I woke to the sound of gravel crunching on the drive, and looked out the window to see Caroline's carriage--or rather her brother-in-law's carriage, emblazoned with the Hurst family crest--rolling away.

  I had only been asleep for a few hours. But I couldn't fall back to sleep after that. I lay awake, thinking about Caroline and about Frank. And when I heard the sounds downstairs of the servants setting out breakfast, I got up.

  I did tap lightly on Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam's door as I went down. My brother answered. Elizabeth and James were asleep, still; I could see them over Fitzwilliam's shoulder, both of them curled up in the big four-poster bed.

  "Is James--" I whispered.

  "Much improved." My brother came out into the hall with me, shutting the door behind him so as not to wake Elizabeth and the baby. "Mr. Broyles said to repeat the steam treatment if he had any other episodes. But so far he seems not to need it at all. He and Elizabeth have been asleep for a few hours, now."

  "And you?" I asked. Because my brother's eyes looked tired, the marks of last night's worry still plain. "Did you so much as close your eyes?"

  Fitzwilliam smiled briefly as he shook his head. "No. I sat up, counting James' breaths--torn between being terrified he'd suffer a relapse, and thanking God that he was well. But he is well." My brother passed a hand across his face and smiled again. "I'd better steel myself, I think, or I'll suffer a nervous collapse when he gets to be of an age to ride horses and climb trees."

  I laughed. "You certainly will, if James turns out anything like you. Do you remember the time you broke your wrist because you were determined to ride Father's new Arabian Stallion?"

  "I certainly do. I'm not sure which hurt more--the broken wrist or the thrashing Father gave me for disobedience."

  I asked whether Fitzwilliam would come down to breakfast with me, but he shook his head. "No. Can you ask Mrs. Reynolds to send up a tray? I don't want to wake Elizabeth and James, but--" My brother's eyes strayed to the closed door behind him. "But I would rather stay with them, for now."

  Caroline was right. You really can hear in Fitzwilliam's voice just how much baby James and Elizabeth are the centre of his whole world.

  I said that of course
I would ask Mrs. Reynolds to see that some food was sent up--which I did. And then I went to find Edward. Because that was what I had decided in all the time I had lain awake after watching Caroline drive away--that I had to tell Edward about his brother and Caroline.

  Edward had already finished breakfast by the time I got downstairs. I found him in the library, reading a letter--something official-looking, written on thick paper with a heavy wax seal. I thought Edward looked tired this morning, too. But he smiled when he saw me, setting the letter aside. "Good morning." He pulled me towards him and onto his lap almost absently, as though the movement were so instinctive as to be a reflex, and kissed the crook of my neck.

  I kissed him back. But then I said, "Edward, can I speak with you? It's about Frank."

  Edward listened while I told him everything that Caroline had told me. He looked troubled when I had finished. He rubbed a hand along his jaw, and he said, "So that's it. I knew there was something between my brother and Miss Bingley. But this--" He shook his head. "God, what a mess. Frank ought to have his head kicked for being such a fool."

  "Caroline said it was all her--," I began.

  But Edward stopped me with a raised eyebrow. "It can't have been all her doing. Frank can't have been entirely unwilling, or there wouldn't be a child coming into the world, with Miss Bingley as the mother and Frank the father." He stopped, shaking his head. "Frank has been ... I'm sure you have noticed it, too, but Frank has been different ever since Celia died. Unwilling to care about any other woman, not seriously. I can understand it, in a way. Losing someone--anyone that you care about--it makes you wary of ever caring for anyone again. You think if you could just close yourself off from all friendships, from feeling--"

  Edward broke off. His eyes had darkened, and I knew he was thinking of all the friends he himself has lost in battle over the years.

  I touched his cheek lightly, and he seemed to come back from wherever his mind had been wandering. The hard bleakness faded a little from his gaze and he said, "But whatever he does--or doesn't--feel for Caroline Bingley, he still has a duty to her. And to the child."

  I rested my head against Edward's shoulder. "But she doesn't want to be a duty. That is why I came to speak with you about it, Edward. What is to be done?"

  Edward shifted me gently from his lap and pushed up from the chair. "I don't know. But I'll speak to Frank. He ought to know Miss Bingley has left Pemberley, if he doesn't already. And I'll try to find out what his feelings are--whether he wants to go after her and try to force her to see sense."

  "Force her to see sense?" I repeated. "But she refuses to speak with him--refuses to even consider the possibility of marriage to him. I can't blame her for that, either."

  Edward smiled slightly at the indignation in my tone. "I wasn't suggesting Frank kidnap her and drive her kicking and screaming to Gretna Green. But whatever Miss Bingley may have planned, the child is still Frank's--Frank's as much as hers. She hasn't the right to refuse to let him be a part of the child's life, if he wishes it."

  Put like that, I couldn't help but agree. I slipped my arms around Edward's neck and tugged his head down to kiss him. "You're right--I know you're right."

  Edward pulled me to him. I could feel the hard muscles of his back and shoulders through the fabric of his coat as he kissed me again. "Caroline Bingley," he said after a long while. He shook his head. "Poor Frank."

  "She's not that bad!" I protested. "You should have seen her last night. She was ... different than I've ever seen her. I wasn't just sorry for her, I was even starting to like her after we had talked awhile."

  "Maybe." Edward's smile was easier this time, and the lingering tension in his face was all but gone as he reached to cup my cheek with one hand. "But he can't possibly ever be as happy with her as I am with you."

  We went to find Frank after that. I offered to let Edward speak with him alone--Frank is his brother after all. But Edward shook his head. "No. You can tell him more accurately than I just what Miss Bingley said last night. Frank ought to hear that. And you can step between us if I'm tempted to thrash Frank for being such a cork-brain as to get himself into this predicament in the first place."

  Frank was in the game room, aimlessly driving the balls about the billiard table. He looked up when Edward and I entered, and I said, without preamble, "Frank, Caroline has told me all about the two of you. And I think you should know that she's gone from Pemberley, now. She left at dawn."

  Frank nodded. It was so strange to see Frank's face as it looked this morning: weary and without even a flicker of the usual humour.

  He seemed entirely unsurprised by my words. Or maybe it was simply that he could not bring himself to care whether I knew of his relations with Caroline or not. He pushed an exhausted hand through his hair and said, "Well, that's that, then."

  "That's that?" Edward repeated. "That's all? You're just going to let her go? Don't you care at all--"

  "Don't I care? Don't I care?" The words were an explosion, the weariness in Frank's face changing to sudden anger. "Why do you think I followed her to Pemberley in the first place?"

  "Wait a moment," I said. I took a step closer to Frank, looking up into his face. "Are you saying--are you in love with Caroline?"

  "No, I'm in the habit of seducing young women that I don't care a fig about." Frank spoke with nearly as much violence as before. His hand clenched around the billiard cue. "Of course I'm in love with her. I--" He stopped and ran his hands down his face. "One of the first times I spent any time with her--just a few weeks after we first met--we went riding with a large party, out into the countryside. One of the party--Christopher Glass--had an estate that we all planned to take luncheon at. But Caroline and I got separated from the rest of the party. And then a rainstorm blew up. We were completely lost--with no idea of which direction the house was in, and nowhere else to take shelter. We were both of us drenched to the skin in minutes. And Caroline--I didn't know her at all well then, but you know how she first appears. A typical, haughty society girl of the Ton--all those expensive clothes and fine jewels and proud manners. Looking at her next to me, completely soaked by the rain, I thought I was in for the most unpleasant afternoon of my life. I was expecting her to demand I take off my jacket and lay it on the ground in front of her, just so her horse wouldn't have to step through mud and risk her riding habit being splashed."

  Frank stopped and drew in his breath. "And then--I don't know how it happened, maybe her horse balked or lost its footing. But all at once Caroline simply pitched straight off her mount's back and into a deep mud hole. I scrambled down to help her. But somehow I slipped and managed to fall in myself, as well. We were both of us soaked, covered in mud, staring at each other. And then Caroline ... Caroline started to laugh. We both did. We laughed and laughed--like a couple of lunatics, I suppose. But that's when I realised that Caroline was--that she's different, when she lets herself be. When she forgets to worry about how she looks and what all of society is thinking about her. After that, we used to meet in secret--we'd go for long rides. One time it had been snowing, and we stopped and had a snowball fight, just the two of us. That was the day I realised I had fallen in love with her. And I thought--" Frank broke off again, then shook his head. "But I was wrong. If she'd rather face public disgrace than marriage to me--"

  I stopped Frank, putting a hand on his arm. "You're wrong. Caroline does love you. She told me so last night. It's for your sake that she has been refusing to marry you. She didn't want to burden you, or force you into a marriage based solely on duty."

  Frank stared at me, looking as stunned as though I had just started to sprout wings. I squeezed his hand. "She's in love with you, Frank. Really."

  Frank stared at me a moment more. And then without a word he turned and almost ran from the room.

  "Where is he going?" I asked.

  Edward grinned. "After Miss Bingley, I assume. Do you think we should follow?"

  "Us follow? Why?"

  "For one thing, I
don't imagine Frank has the least idea where he's going, or what direction Miss Bingley has taken. And for another--" Edward stopped and grinned again. "Call it sheer nosiness. But I won't believe Caroline Bingley has really changed until I see it with my own eyes."

  We did ride after Frank, both Edward and I on horseback. And as it happened, we caught up with them barely a mile away from Pemberley's gates. A wheel had come off of Caroline's carriage, and it stood half in a ditch, listing crazily to one side. Caroline's coachman was at work on trying to make repairs--without making much progress, so it appeared. And Caroline was sitting on a rock by the side of the road, her face both furious and tear-stained beneath the brim of her ostrich-plumed bonnet.

  Frank must have arrived on the scene only a few minutes before Edward and me. He was saying something to Caroline while she shook her head. The first words I was able to distinguish were Caroline's:

  "Oh, go away, can't you?" Caroline scrubbed ineffectually at her eyes with a scrap of lace handkerchief. "Go away and let me be! That was the whole point of my going away today--that I would never have to see you again. And I wouldn't have, if not for this cursed carriage wheel!"

  "All right." Frank had one hand on his horse's reins, but held up the other in a gesture of defeat. "All right. I will promise to go away and never bother you again. But on one condition. That you listen to what I have to say to you now."

  Caroline lowered the sodden handkerchief and looked at Frank. Then she nodded, the gesture a mixture of sulkiness and resignation. "Very well. I'll listen. What was so important that you had to come riding after me to say it?"

  "I love you."

  Caroline's head snapped up. "What did you say?"

  Frank drew in his breath. "I said I love you."

  Caroline's eyes widened. And then she started to shake her head. "No you don't--you can't. Or you would have said it before now."