Everything I Thought I Wanted â A Caroline Bingley One-Shot
Summary:
Caroline Bingley always believed that marrying Mr. Darcy would give her everything she ever dreamed ofâpower, wealth, and status. She got what she wanted... but not in the way she imagined.
Caroline Bingley had always believed that marriage to Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy would bestow upon her every distinction she had ever covetedâwealth, consequence, and the elevated regard due to the wife of Derbyshire's most eminent gentleman. Years of calculated civility, thinly veiled condescension, and tireless self-congratulation had led her to this pinnacleâor so she thought. At long last, Caroline had secured the prize she had so often envisioned: the distant, dignified Mr. Darcy himself.
It had not been easy. For so long, Elizabeth Bennet had stood in her wayâan interloper of modest means and maddening simplicity, yet possessed of a charm that Caroline could neither emulate nor extinguish. She had spent endless months attempting to diminish the girl in Darcyâs eyes, certain that refinement, not rustic intelligence, ought to triumph. And yet, that very unembellished quality had enchanted him. For a time, Caroline had been forced to endure the mortifying reality of being eclipsed by a country miss from Hertfordshire.
But fortune had, quite unexpectedly, turned. Mr. Darcy, proud and unassailable as he was, had allowed himself to be compromisedâpublicly, and through no fault of his own. The matter, as Caroline recalled it, unfolded with extraordinary speed. There was no courtship, no declaration. Only a hasty proposal, stiff with resentment and duty, which nonetheless secured her triumph. They were married within a fortnight.
Caroline had smiled through the ceremony, her gloved hand resting lightly in his, and imagined a future filled with the luxury and admiration she had long been certain was her due. She would be mistress of Pemberley, the envy of every drawing room in London, and the name âMrs. Darcyâ would be spoken with awe and admiration by all. At last, the world would acknowledge her superiority.
But her triumph proved hollow almost at once. The first blow to her dreams came not in whispers or snubs, but in the silence of their wedding nightâwhen Darcy never came to her.
Pemberley, though grand in reputation and generous in acreage, was not the palace of splendid opulence Caroline had long imagined. Upon her arrival, she had already begun to form plans for its transformationânew furnishings, imported wallpaper, perhaps even a mirrored ballroom. Surely, as Mrs. Darcy, she would be afforded the authority to shape the estate in her image. But to her astonishment, she discovered that she had no such power. Her suggestions were met with cool indifference, and any attempt to assert herself was quietly, but firmly, dismissed.
Mrs. Reynolds, the housekeeper, received her with the utmost politeness, but her deference was that of a woman humouring a guest rather than obeying a mistress. When Caroline offered instructionsâon the arrangement of flowers, the menu, or even the placement of her own portraitâthey were either ignored or met with vague assurances that amounted to nothing. She came to understand, with no small degree of humiliation, that she could not dismiss a footman or even replace a vase without Darcyâs approval. She was a wife in name, but not in power.
Nor in affection. Darcyâs manner toward her remained cold and impenetrable, his civility never exceeding what duty required. He did not raise his voice, nor did he accuseâbut his silence was laden with contempt, and his eyes bore the weight of unspoken reproach. Caroline, in her vanity, had told herself that such frostiness would thaw in time. That once his wounded pride had mended, he would see the merit of their union. But as days passed into weeks, and weeks into months, his indifference deepened.
She dared not speak of Elizabeth Bennet, though the shadow of that name seemed ever present between them. Caroline clung to her vanity like a shield, insisting inwardly that Darcyâs discontent sprang from the scandal, not from any preference for that impertinent girl. Yet even as she thought it, she knew the truth: his heart had never been hers, and never would be.
The proof lay in every detail, down to her settlement. Instead of the bountiful allowance she had so confidently anticipated, Caroline was granted the mere interest from her dowryâsufficient for modest comfort, perhaps, but entirely insufficient for the extravagant tastes she had long cultivated. Worse still, she was expressly forbidden from using it to alter or embellish any of Darcyâs properties. Her dreams of draping Pemberley in French silks and gilt-framed glory were banished with the stroke of a pen.
Determined to salvage her pride and reassert her place in society, Caroline looked to London with anticipation. If Pemberley had failed to yield to her charms, surely the townhouse on Grosvenor Square would prove more accommodating. There, amidst the elegance of Mayfair, she would reign. She imagined soirées in her honour, compliments whispered behind painted fans, and invitations flooding in from every corner of the ton.
Yet from the moment she crossed its threshold, she met only further resistance. The London residence, though impeccably kept, bore all the signs of a home long ruled by anotherâs tasteâspare, masculine, and unyielding to embellishment. When Caroline attempted to alter the draperies or replace the dining set, she was stopped at once by Mrs. Fenwick, the housekeeper, who made no pretence of deference. Mrs. Fenwick regarded Caroline with a kind of icy pity, as though she knew precisely how little consequence the new mistress held in the householdâs affairs.
Unlike Mrs. Reynolds, who maintained the genteel distance of a loyal retainer, Mrs. Fenwick did not even afford Caroline the dignity of polite evasion. She simply refused to carry out her instructions. When Caroline complained to Darcy, he replied only that the household had long been well-managed and required no interference. That she was his wife gave her no authority. She could not dismiss a maid, rearrange a parlour, or even decide the hour of dinner without Mrs. Fenwickâs consentâthough, of course, Darcy called it âtradition.â
Thwarted in her own drawing room and humiliated before the servants, Caroline turned to her wardrobe as a last refuge of expression. She commissioned gowns of the most extravagant silks, adorned herself in the finest jewels, and attended every ball and concert to which she could finagle an invitation. But if she expected admiration, she received only murmursâsome sympathetic, most unkind. Her place in society, far from elevated by her new title, seemed diminished. There were glances, laughter behind fans, and always, always the sense that she was being tolerated rather than welcomed.
Darcy, for his part, did nothing to mend her growing disgrace. He attended only when necessity compelled him, and even then, stood apart. He never took her arm, never defended her when others whispered too loudly, never acknowledged her efforts to shine. When they spoke, it was with the strained civility of strangers obliged to share the same table. Caroline, once the mistress of her own narratives, now found herself cast as a pitiable figure in othersâ talesâmocked, ignored, or, worse still, pitied.
Caroline had once envisioned herself as the queen of the ton, her presence commanding admiration, her name uttered with envy. Instead, she became something else entirely: a cautionary tale. In every assembly room, her arrival was noted with a sideways glance and a murmured jest. She no longer heard compliments on her dress or carriage, but instead the veiled remarks of women who delighted in her fall. She had married Mr. Darcyâyesâbut not in triumph. Everyone seemed to know it.
She had thought herself so clever. That she had won the match by design. But now, seated in drawing rooms that no longer felt like stages, her pride became a fragile, burdensome thing. She smiled too brightly, laughed too readily, all to silence the dreadful stillness between herself and her husband. And always, there lingered the unspoken comparison to another womanâone who had been dismissed by Caroline as beneath notice, and who now haunted every silent dinner and failed conversation.
And yetâshe hoped. Caroline had never been one to yield easily, and she clung stubbornly to the belief that time would soften her husbandâs heart. Perhaps, if she were patient, he would grow to appreciate her elegance, her refinement, her steadfast loyalty. Perhaps the bitterness that clouded his gaze would fade, and she might yet win the affection that had once been meant for another. She had done what was expected, after all. She had become Mrs. Darcy. That must count for something.
But deep within, even her pride could not quiet the doubt that grew daily more insistent. Their marriage was no partnership, no bond of shared joy or purpose. It was a quiet arrangement, kept alive by propriety alone. Darcy did not quarrel with her, nor did he forbid her from her pursuits. He simply removed himself from her presence, both in body and in spirit. That, she thought bitterly, was the greater cruelty.
And so it was that one afternoon, wandering the manicured grounds of Pemberley with the late summer sun dipping behind the hills, Caroline felt the truth settle in her bones. She had all she had ever wantedâposition, title, a husband of consequenceâand yet, she felt more adrift than she had as a mere guest in another manâs house. The girl from Meryton had been poor, yesâbut she had been loved. Caroline had triumphed over her in every material respect, and still she could not help but wonder: had she truly won?
She had thought herself destined for greatnessânot in service to virtue or sentiment, but by right. Beauty, breeding, ambitionâhad she not possessed them all? From the moment she came of age, she had understood the worldâs rules, had played them flawlessly. And when she had at last secured the prize all others coveted, she believed herself victorious.
But her triumph had no warmth. The drawing rooms she once dreamed of commanding felt cold, and the grand homes she now presided over were nothing more than echoing monuments to a hollow match. Darcyâs presence, when it occurred, was formal and dutiful. His absenceâso frequentâwas a relief and a wound all at once. There were no shared smiles, no lingering glances, no gestures of fondness to soften the chill. She had his name, but not his heart; his wealth, but not his confidence.
And still, she played the part. She dressed impeccably, spoke with practiced ease, maintained every social engagement that lent her marriage the appearance of success. But in the privacy of her chamber, when the candle burned low and the silence pressed in, she allowed herself a single, unadorned thought: I am alone.
Others might have pitied her, had they known the truth, but Caroline would never allow such a luxury. Pity was for those who faltered. She had made her choice. She had fought for this life, had deceived, maneuvered, and sacrificed. She could not undo it. All she could do now was endure itâwith grace, with pride, and with the knowledge that though she had everything she had ever wanted, not one part of it had come as she had imagined.
With a soft sigh, she turned away from the fading light that bathed the hills beyond Pemberley. Her gown rustled faintly in the evening breeze, a sound that seemed, for once, too loud. The house loomed behind her, elegant and imposing, its doors closed against comfort. And as she walked back toward its cold and splendid silence, Caroline Bingley Darcy prepared herselfâquietly, resolutelyâto live out the life she had so ruthlessly won.
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