Page 20 of Elizabeth and Caroline
“Well, I must talk to her first,” said Elizabeth. “She is one of my closest friends. I cannot marry a man she says she is in love with!”
“No, I suppose, but she isn’t in love with him,” said Jane. “Anyone can look at her and see she is not.”
“That is the way she is in love, though,” said Elizabeth. “She’s… not exactly a warm person, you know? Caroline is a bit cold, but she knows what she wants, and Mr. Darcy is everything she wants.”
“But she is not what Mr. Darcy wants,” said Jane. “And I think you are.” She gave her a small smile. “It will all sort itself out, I think.”
Elizabeth wanted to believe it could all be sorted out so easily.
She truly wanted to believe that.
“I DON’T THINKhe’ll do it in the end,” Caroline muttered to Elizabeth. “I don’t think he’ll propose to you.”
Elizabeth and Caroline were on the outskirts of the ballroom. It was quite late, and the party had gotten loose and disorganized. Some dancing was still taking place, but still more of the company was simply seated or standing in clumps, drinks in hand, laughing uproariously at various things that were being said.
Mr. Darcy himself was trapped on the dance floor, dancing with Jane, something that Caroline had insisted that Elizabeth herself engineer because otherwise he would have been attempting to talk with her all evening.
He was very obviously enamored, and Mr. Collins had noticed, too. There had been an incident where Mr. Collins had introduced himself to Mr. Darcy, and Mr. Darcy had not taken that well, and Mr. Collins had spent a very long time explaining the entailment of Longbourn to Mr. Darcy, and all of that had been wretched.
“Well, of course he won’t,” said Elizabeth, studying her fingernails. She had been hoping not to be so very confused by this time of the evening, but she was actually even more confused than she’d been at the beginning of the evening.
“He wants to,” said Caroline. “He and I spoke of you. He has made you into something in his head, some symbol, I think, of freedom or his own choice or I don’t even know, but he is the sort of person who will come down on duty over freedom every time. He will go with propriety. It’s who he is, I see it now. And he must have the right sort of woman.”
Elizabeth picked at her fingernails. How was it that Caroline had gotten so much of a better idea of Mr. Darcy than she had?
“That’s why it was really a lost cause for me to bring him here, anyway,” said Caroline with a heavy sigh. “I don’t think he would ever propose to me either. I do not have theright connectionseither.”
Elizabeth looked up at her. “Wait, what are you saying?”
“Unless you have some idea,” said Caroline, “some way to get him to go against his very deep-held ideas of propriety and uprightness and ask either one of us. You’re the one who can do such things, after all. You’re the one who can see that part of him, the things he wants, the things he hates, what would propel him to go against propriety in some way.”
“No, I have no idea,” said Elizabeth. “I’m afraid I did not get to know him very well. I had a hard time getting him to talk about himself. He wanted to talk about me.”
“Oh, yes, I see that he is well-nigh obsessed with you.”
“No, he’s not!”
“Aha! So,thatis your weakness then, Eliza, you are not very astute when it comes to seeing yourself, I see. You can see other people clearly, but not yourself or not when it comes to the way they see you.”
Elizabeth sighed, deflating. She supposed she was going to have to accept being called ‘Eliza.’ The time to say something about it had come and gone.
“Anyway, that’s very unfortunate,” said Caroline. “It seems to me, it would be easier to make him propose to you than to make him propose to me at this point.”
Elizabeth glared at her. “I don’t believe you’re as sanguine about this as you’re acting. You want him, I can see that.”
“I don’t wanthim, per se,” said Caroline. “I want someone like him is all. And if you could snag him, then you could help me get someone else.”
Elizabeth had one moment of clarity in the sea of confusion that had been the entire ball. Caroline was serious about this. She had never wanted Mr. Darcy himself but only a man who was as connected and wealthy as Mr. Darcy. The man himself barely mattered to her. Elizabeth could not imagine a marriage for those reasons. She was not that way.
But, well, she might be in the minority, she thought,looking up and seeing Charlotte still talking to Mr. Collins.
“So, it would be ever so convenient if you weren’t worthless with Mr. Darcy because you’re so out of sorts about someone finding you attractive, Eliza. I wish you could simply secure him for yourself.”
“Right,” said Elizabeth quietly.
She got up from her chair and went across the room to where the dance between Mr. Darcy and her sister was now just ending. She fixed Mr. Darcy with a look, a determined look.
He spied her and his expression relaxed into a smile. “Miss Bennet! Why, there you are. I have been looking all over.”
