Carrie Bebris - Pride and Prescience

Miss Kendall thrust her full teacup onto the table with enough force to topple it off its saucer. Brown rivulets streamed across Lady Chatfield’s snow-white tablecloth, rapidly soaking into the fabric and leaving behind a gloppy trail of half-dissolved sugar crystals.

The expanding stain appeared to wrench Juliet from her fixation on Caroline Bingley. Horror spread across her face as quickly as the tea on the tablecloth, and she immediately stammered an apology to their hostess. The countess gently dismissed the accident and summoned a servant to replace the covering.

Elizabeth hoped the disturbance might offer an opportunity for her to slip away from Miss Kendall and into another conversation, but the footman proved too efficient in performing his duty. When the mess had been whisked away, Juliet turned to Elizabeth once more. “I have been standing here realizing I owe you an apology as well,” she said, her manner again relaxed as it had been earlier in the evening. “I did not mean to monopolize your attention, nor to speak so warmly on a subject best left undiscussed.”

“Think no more of it,” Elizabeth said. Though she referred to their conversation, privately she hoped Miss Kendall would also think no more about the forthcoming marriage. By whatever means Parrish’s sudden engagement had come about, it had clearly left wounds that would take a long time to heal.

As they walked home, Elizabeth relayed the conversation to Darcy. “Caroline Bingley has cultivated a fervent enemy,” she observed.

“Miss Kendall will attract a new suitor before long.” He grasped her arm firmly as they passed over an icy spot on the pavement. “Or her dowry will, if she cannot. Once she has the attention of another gentleman, she will forget all about Miss Bingley.”

“Let us hope so, before her injured vanity claims another victim. The lady is terribly hard on tablecloths.”

Caroline Bingley’s wedding indeed proved the talk of the ton, an event calculated in all respects to outdo the Bennet sisters’ nuptials. Her gown featured more yards of lace, more beads, more ribbon, than Elizabeth’s and Jane’s combined. Her veil was longer, her brides’ cake taller, her wedding breakfast a full twelve courses. The guest list included more “particular friends” than Mrs. Darcy thought it possible for one couple to have; in fact, Miss Bingley seemed to have invited any titled acquaintance whose card she’d ever received.

Elizabeth considered the whole event an exercise in ostentation, from the exotic foreign flowers in Miss Bingley’s bouquet — she and Jane had chosen English roses — to the gaudy wedding ring the bride showed off to all. The solid gold band, engraved with a sunburst design, featured an enormous oval fire opal surrounded by six smaller diamonds. The main stone extended all the way to her first knuckle and perched in a setting so high that Elizabeth would have feared catching it on every piece of clothing she owned were the rock adorning her own hand. She much preferred the delicate engraved band Darcy had given her.

Unlike Darcy, Mr. Parrish had chosen also to wear a wedding band. Elizabeth didn’t know whether the practice was common among American husbands, but Caroline made sure everyone in attendance was aware of this additional show of Parrish’s devotion. For his part, Mr. Parrish appeared to take the matrimonial spectacle in stride. According to Jane, his contribution to planning the event had been limited to selecting the wedding rings and asking Professor Randolph to stand up with him. The latter choice had caused Elizabeth mild surprise — she had not realized, while conversing with the professor at dinner, that he and Parrish had so intimate an acquaintance. Randolph appeared in high spirits, genuinely delighted by his friend’s marriage and choice of partner.

It was with relief that she watched the bridal couple quit the Pulteney Hotel, which had hosted the enormous gathering. As the guests dispersed, the Darcys indulged in a much longer and more heartfelt leave-taking of Jane and Bingley. Elizabeth and her closest sister had previously found themselves divided for months-long periods while paying individual visits to friends and relations, but this separation, with each departing for her own new, permanent situation, felt somehow more final. She knew, however, that the two couples would often visit each other’s homes.

She and Darcy spent their last London evening in Drury Lane enjoying a performance of The Rivals. It was an older comedy, but neither had seen it performed before, and Sheridan’s play provided a merrier conclusion to their London interlude than had Miss Bingley’s dramatic production. Now Elizabeth looked forward to collecting Georgiana from the Gardiners early the next morning and setting off for Pemberley at last. Christmas was less than a fortnight away; already, cold air nipped fingers and toes, while Yuletide sights and smells filled every shop.

She gazed out the window as their carriage wended from the theatre back to their townhouse through crowded lanes still wet from evening rain. Falling temperatures had turned the damp air into fog, which cloaked the many pedestrians and coaches in eerie greyness.

“Does London never sleep?” she asked. “This seems an extraordinary number of people filling the streets so late at night.”

“Late? The hour is just past midnight.”

“I think I prefer country hours.”

“And here I thought I had married a woman of fashion.”

She was grateful for her husband’s presence as the driver turned onto a darker, seedier road. Though the members of London’s social elite might believe they lived in their own little beau monde, in reality their world collided with the city’s less desirable districts and denizens at nearly every corner. Fashionable streets lay within blocks of shabbier neighborhoods, and theatregoers could not travel from a Mayfair mansion to Covent Garden or Drury Lane without entering squalid surroundings thick with sights of desperation, sounds of debauchery, and the smells of unwashed bodies and horse excrement.

Fortunately, Elizabeth saw no children begging in the dim, flickering gaslight this evening. The little ones always tugged at her heart, and not a day of their London visit had passed without Darcy stopping the carriage at her behest to press coins into small, cold hands. No, tonight more sinister figures prowled the streets: unkempt wanderers, aggressive panhandlers, scarlet women, dark-clad rogues. Even as she watched, one dagger-wielding ruffian deprived another of his purse, while twenty paces away, a woman with painted lips called out offers that left little doubt of her moral character to a group of intoxicated dandies tumbling out of a gaming hell.

She shuddered and reached forward to draw the curtain, preferring to complete the journey in isolated darkness rather than observe more such sights from the window. No sooner had she grasped the fabric, however, than an inconceivable sight stayed her hand.

“That cannot be Caroline Bingley!” She gasped, staring at a woman walking unescorted along the dirty gutter. Unless the uneven light deceived her — surely it must! — the new Mrs. Parrish ambled toward them down the shadowed street. Despite the chilly mist, she wore no hat, no gloves, and no mantle or spencer over her short-sleeved muslin gown. Indeed, the sole accessory on her person was a bulging reticule that dangled from one arm. She strolled as if shopping on Bond Street in the broad light of day, oblivious to the peril around her.