Page 5 of Caroline Bingley's Grand Plan

Caroline wondered what possible answer she might have given which would not have been transformed into a compliment. She had been told she was elegant when she scarcely spoke, lively when she contradicted someone and modest when she refused praise. Her fortune seemed capable of turning every failing into a virtue.

"I ought to return to my sister," she said.

Mr Penrose looked towards Louisa and Mr Hurst, who remained deep in conversation. "She appears well attended."

"Nevertheless."

He offered his arm again, and Caroline was forced either to accept it or make a scene. She placed the tips of her fingers upon his sleeve, standing as far from him as propriety allowed, and allowed him to conduct her back through the rooms.

Before they had reached Louisa, he asked whether he might call the following afternoon. Caroline made some answer which was neither encouragement nor an outright refusal. It was enough.His expression brightened, and she knew that tomorrow he would sit in their drawing room, drink her father's tea and talk at her for the fifteen minutes that propriety allowed.

"Did you enjoy your walk?" Louisa asked once he had bowed and moved away.

"Mr Penrose wished to discuss the enduring advantages of landed property."

Mr Hurst looked after him. "His own place is in a rather bad way, I believe. They say he is rather fond of the gaming hells."

Caroline gave him a tired smile. "Yes. I had formed much the same conclusion."

Louisa touched her arm, her amusement fading as she took in Caroline's face. "You look pale. Is it the heat? We can leave, if you wish." There was reluctance beneath the offer, though Louisa tried to hide it. Mr Hurst had secured the supper dance and had been speaking of it all evening.

Caroline shook her head. "You need not sacrifice your evening. Martha is here and can accompany me back home. I have endured enough of London for one night."

Louisa studied her, but Caroline had become practised at appearing merely tired. At last, her sister accepted the explanation and made her promise to send word once she reached home.

???

It was nearly an hour later when Caroline sat before the mirror in her dressing room and felt Martha remove the final pins from her hair. The house was quiet around them. Her father had gone to dine with business acquaintances in the City, while Charles remained at Cambridge, and without Louisa's cheerful presence the rooms seemed too large for the few people occupying them.

Martha worked steadily, placing each pin in a porcelain dish before drawing the brush through Caroline's hair. Ordinarily Caroline found the familiar ritual soothing, but that evening her thoughts would not be quieted.

"Mr Penrose intends to call tomorrow," she said.

"And you do not like him?" Martha asked, her eyes on Caroline’s in the mirror.

Caroline looked away. Upon the dressing table, the emeralds lay beside her gloves. They had been her father's gift shortly after their arrival in London, presented with such pride that she had not had the heart to tell him she found them too grand. This evening Mr Penrose had looked at them with more warmth than he had shown her.

"He does not like me," she said.

Martha continued brushing. "He scarcely knows you. And you him. You may come to esteem each other."

Caroline watched her own face in the glass. The modiste had declared her striking. Several gentlemen had called her beautiful, while others preferred elegant or accomplished. The praise ought to have repaired something in her after the humiliations of the seminary. Instead, each compliment seemed to leave her more conscious of how little any of them knew her.

"They all want the same thing," she said. "Some conceal it better than others, but it is always there. They know the amount of my dowry before they know anything else about me."

"Not every gentleman in London is a fortune hunter."

"No. Some are rich enough not to require a fortune and would not give me the time of day because my father is in trade."

Martha laid the brush down. "That is enough for tonight."

"I cannot stop thinking of it simply because you tell me I have had enough for one night."

"No," Martha said, her expression softening. "But you are tired, and everything feels worse when you are tired. Let me get you out of this gown."

She helped Caroline to her feet and began unfastening the row of buttons at her back. Caroline stood quietly beneath her hands, but now that she was home and no longer required to smile or converse politely, the misery she had held at bay throughout the evening began to press in upon her.

"I thought it would become easier," she said. "When Papa said I must come to London, I believed that perhaps the distance would dull everything. I thought I might learn to endure it, even if I could not become what he wanted. But every gentleman who speaks to me only makes it worse."