Caroline, If You Please
This is what happens when you are angry with your child. It's a cathartic piece. Not beta'ed. I'm not sure if I'm back as an author, but I'm finding I want to write again. I hope you enjoy.
"Caroline," Miss Bingley requested.
An eyebrow arched in askance.
"By the standard of la bon ton, I am a spinster of one and fifty years," Caroline began to explain.
"Eccentric," a murmured voice stated from some distance.
"And rightfully so," Caroline smiled, a malicious gleam lighting up deep brown eyes, "for I have earned that privilege."
"Earned?" questioned one of this year's debutants.
"Indeed," the woman who continued to wear orange as a signature colour rounded on the girl, hardly out of the school room. "My mother, much as yours I imagine, taught me how to catch a husband. What qualities I should seek. Wealth, connection, increasing our family rank and privilege."
"But, you are a spinster," snickered another young woman, if it that were the worst outcome for a woman in nineteenth century England.
"Let me tell you a story," Caroline smiled, this time graciously. Not having the words to describe the self-revelation, Miss Bingley did not know it would take more than two centuries before they would become common. "Once, I held the same attitude as you. My brother introduced me to a wealthy landowner from the north. I did my best to capture him, even though I did not esteem the man. I wished only for the position in society which his fortune afforded. He married a country nobody, whom he professed to love. She had fine eyes, a pretty face and walked three miles to be with her sick sister. They had six children and are still baring the fruit in their horde of grandchildren. My brother marred also. In the woman's sister as he found his angel. They remain devoted."
"But you," a young gentleman asked with genuine curiosity, "did not."
"I did not," Caroline confessed. "As the years have passed, I find I am not built for the marriage state."
Several people mocked, while others took in a startled breath.
"A single man of good fortune must be in want of a wife," Caroline stated. "Yet, if a man remains unmarried, society affords the title of bachelor which does not carry the same stigma. Spinster implies a woman has not tried, or has tried and failed to entice a man to matrimony. What if a woman chooses to remain single?"
Few stated their opinions openly. The looks passing between the group gathered around Caroline communicated their disbelief. The main point, which would make Miss Bingley either a social pariah or the talk of the town. Possibly both.
"Reflection, that is the key," Miss Binley declared. "I have had many years to consider why my brothers friend chose another. We once discussed the accomplishments required of a lady. I cannot but look back on that discourse without regret. Although I had cultivated what is usually meet with and mastered a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages; and besides all this, possessed a certain something in my air and manner of walking, my tone of voice, address and expressions, it proved insufficient to capture the gentleman."
"I would not give up so easily," one debutant declared to another, who agreed with a smirk and nod.
"It has been many years since I considered myself a lady," Caroline confessed. "Oh, I can still fool the best of you. Indeed, I have this very night."
"I do not understand," the young, curious gentleman appeared even more intrigued.
"I used every feminine art and allurement to appear as you would expect," Miss Bingley responded. "I taught myself to act as my mother instructed, as society dictated. Yet, I was not happy. Spiteful, that is how others observed me, for it is how I acted. You see, I may appear as a lady on the outside, but here," Caroline pointed to her head, "I do not think as one."
Caroline Bingley laughed and left the astounded and confused group behind. I took many years to understand the feeling of relief when Mr Darcy chose another. More years to understand a mind that did not think in terms of masculine and feminine. Finally concluding that social constructs of man and women were hideous. Such unhappiness, even when unaware of it, turned into contempt and appalling behaviour.
Caroline Bingley's outburst would be much spoken off. Something good would come from it. In the backstreets of London, kept quiet by those considered offensive to societies moral code of conduct, a group of poets and artisans met. Inviting Caroline to one of their soirees, others of a similar persuasion gathered. It would take more than two hundred years before they had a name. They would be called 'non-binary'.
AN: it has taken me many years to come to terms with my gender identity. Brought up in a household and time period where gay individuals were seen as outside the norm, non-binary were not even on the radar. How would someone born in Regency England cope with the strict moral code and be themselves? Even today, my gender pronouns are not used properly and I still get mail addressed to Miss/Ms/Mrs which is abhorrent to me. Oh, and I'm no longer angry at my child.