Page 13 of Caroline Bingley’s Last Chance At Love

Caroline turned to face Jane more fully, even more startled than before. "Why do I what?"

"We have been living under the same roof for nearly a year," Jane said, and there was something in her voice now that was less its usual gentle quality and more bitter. If she were being honest, it was the sound of a woman who had been holding her words in for quite some time now and suddenly found she could no longer contain them.

"And in that year, you have said perhaps thirty words to me that were not strictly necessary for the management of the household. I am not emotionally obtuse, Caroline. I know what the deliberate silence of someone who dislikes me looks and feels like."

Caroline reconsidered the punch last night for the third time that morning, as she felt the throbbing in her temple growing. She understood what this was about now. She could admit this is not the first time she had ever been in such a situation, and she thought it was rather prudent to nip this misunderstanding in the bud before it could grow into true resentment.

"I do not hate you," she said at last. "I have behaved with perfect civility towards you. I would think, rather, that you ought to be thanking me for that instead."

Jane stared at her wide-eyed. "You want me to thank you for ignoring me?"

"I want you to acknowledge," Caroline corrected, with the patient clarity of someone explaining something self-evident to an unreasonable audience, "that I have been perfectly civil and have given you no cause for offense. The manner in which I conduct myself towards you is simply the manner in which I conduct myself towards all. It is not a reflection of my feelings toward you particularly. I am like this with everyone."

"That is not–" Jane said, with a quiet firmness that was, Caroline thought with a flash of something close to fascination, rather a good deal more pointed than her usual register, "a normal way to treat people. It isn't kind, and it isn't what I imagined having a sister-in-law might feel like."

"Then perhaps–" Caroline bit back without a moment's hesitation. This was her element, and Jane was fooling herself if she thought she could out debate the Caroline Bingley.

"Your imagination requires some adjusting. Bingley women are not soft, Jane. We are not demonstrative, and we are not given to sentimentality. We do not manufacture warmth on demand for the convenience of others. My mother made certain of that." She paused, the words she was speaking were making her ears ring. They were true yet something about them made her feel more queasy. It must just be the rising volume of her tone she concluded.

"As you are a Bingley now Jane, I suggest you learn to behave the same."

Jane did not answer back to her pointed comment immediately. Instead, she looked at Caroline for a long moment with an expression that was so thoughtful and so sad that it instantly set Caroline’s teeth on edge.

"Your mother," Jane started to say at last, and her voice had gone very gentle, in a way that suggested she was treating something like she believed it to be very delicate and fragile. "When she was teaching you these Bingley values…did she direct them at you herself? When you were a child?"

The room went devastatingly silent. Caroline suddenly realized that she had severely miscalculated. She had not accounted for Jane’s gentleness in the world of harsh societal reprimands. She did not know how to win this game when someone refused to play by the set rules. If they did not only grow increasingly more nasty and agitated in their accusations. Worse still, Jane’s words had dealt her a real and very painful blow.

Caroline stood perfectly still and felt something cold and hard settle in her chest. She looked at Jane's face and found there the last expression she had any interest in seeing on anyone's face directed at her. Especially not from Jane. It was the gentle, perceptive sympathy of someone who had asked a question and already, from the answer in her silence, largely understood the answer.

Caroline felt rage boil inside of her. Hot and uncontrollable. She did not need Jane's understanding. She did not need her pity. It was only the physical reminder of Jane’s delicate condition that held her back in that moment from vocalizing her rage at the women for daring to reduce her to such a lowly state.

And yet still, Jane had stripped her of a shell of outer defense she relied on constantly to be regarded as a respectable member of society. Without it. With the knowledge of even a sliver of what her mother had put her through for the first ten years of her life out in the open, Caroline suddenly felt so hideously vulnerable she wanted to crawl out of her own skin. She never wanted to feel like this again. Never wanted to allow someone to hold this level of power over her again.

Especially not someone she did not fully trust like Jane.

She stood up, crossed to the door in three brisk steps, and pulled it open harshly.

"Get out," she demanded.

"Caroline–"

"I said get out."

Jane’s face fell, then she rose from the bed with the unhurried dignity a woman in her state could manage. Caroline stood at the open door and did not look at her as she crossed the room. Did not look at her as she reached the threshold, and nearly, very nearly, managed not to look at her at all.

But Jane stopped in the doorway. She turned, and she was close enough now that Caroline could see precisely how blue and clear her eyes were. She wanted to slam the door in her face. She did not. She just stood there and said nothing. Waiting with the rigid composure of a woman standing in the middle of high winds, for Jane to leave. She begged the women in her mind to not say anything more. Caroline suddenly felt too naked under her gaze and felt she had suffered quite enough for one day.

Jane looked at her for a long, moment with those dreadful, perceptive eyes.

"You know," she said softly, "just because some Bingley women were that way does not mean that all of them must be."

She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was impossibly gentler. She couldn't help but find it haunting. "You do not have to be like her, Caroline."

And then she left.

Caroline shut the door.

She stood with her back against the heavy wood and her hand still flat against it. She breathed.