Confessions & Correspondence: Caroline’s Exalts Over Invitation to Pemberley

Welcome to our epistolary retelling of Pride & Prejudice! Jane Austen’s original version of the story, First Impression, was told entirely in letters, so it seemed like a great group project. We’ll be posting a new letter every Wednesday. 

Caroline Bingley’s Journal

July 15, 1812

Oh, happy day! I am invited to Pemberley!

That is to say, Mr. Darcy has very particularly included me in his general invitation to my brother to visit him there later this summer! …and Louisa and Mr. Hurst also, of course, and perhaps a few others I may not be aware of. Still, I consider it a marked attention and an extremely promising sign, for he could just as easily have invited only my brother if that had been what he desired. Is that not so?

I have visited Pemberley before, of course, but never under such favorable conditions. Mr. Darcy is now of an age where, if he had not before, he must be thinking about acquiring a wife, a mistress for his grand ancestral estate. He is too wise to leave the business of begetting an heir to chance any longer! And as he has looked about himself, he has seen me, the lady most ideal for the office.

He has been very sly about it, I must say, never making his preference too obvious. He visited his cousin Anne de Bourgh and even went so far as to show that horrid Miss Eliza Bennet some attention at one time. In the end, however, no harm was done. Those other ladies mean nothing to him. Perhaps I even have them to thank for the current happy state of affairs, my superiority becoming all the more evident by contrast, for I am the one who is invited to Pemberley!

Now that I come to think of it, that may be Mr. Darcy’s primary object: to get me to Pemberley. Perhaps my brother and the others were only invited to make it respectable! What a cunning creature he is.

No doubt Mr. Darcy, having finally made up his mind, wishes to impress me, to get me thinking about what a fine thing it would be to be mistress of such a great estate. I, of course, intend to be just as circumspect, never letting on that that is exactly my goal and has been for, lo, these several years past. Since my first setting eyes on Pemberley, I have daily pictured myself there, dressed in the finest gowns, surrounded by the finest furnishings, dining on the finest foods, with dozens of servants quick to see to my every wish. I sigh with pleasure every time I think of it.

Oh, the balls and parties we will host! All the very best people, and all come to pay court to me, the much-admired mistress of Pemberley. The fact that such a desirable man also comes with the stately house… That is a benefit that cannot be overlooked. Although Mr. Darcy is a bit too apt to want things his own way at present, that does not concern me overly. I shall soon master him once we are married. If only he had a title! But, then, one must be too greedy, I suppose.

Now that the fulfillment of all my dreams is finally within my grasp, nothing – and no one – must be allowed to spoil it.

Read all the letters from Confessions & Correspondence here!