Caroline and Mrs. Bennet (this one just sort of popped into my head)
It's really something of a relief to know Mrs. Bennet is just as insistent about this whole marriage and babies business with women who aren't her daughters. In the rare moments she turns her focus away from Lydia, she has been simply "desperate" for Caroline to settle down from her "jet-settin" lifestyle and find some "nice young man". Apparently her matchmaking tendencies aren't always financially motivated.
It doesn't make the woman any less aggravating, but still.
Mrs. Bennet plops Bing and Jane's four-month-old on Caroline's lap, presumably in the hope that mere proximity will cause some sort of paroxysm of maternal longing in her. For half a second, Caroline is tempted to just make a run for it. Children are filthy. Children enjoy grabbing at her hair with perpetually sticky hands. Children are unpredictable and bothersome and horrifying.
(Caroline isn't cuddly. And she's wearing Helmut Lang, for Christ's sake.)
Of course, this is her niece, so she supposes allowances must be made. Then again her life has been an alarming series of allowances ever since the Bennets became a part of it.
The child grabs Caroline's nose, hard. Everyone seems to find it terribly amusing.
She is actually sort of a sweet little thing. For now. Caroline can't imagine Bing as anything but the most frighteningly indulgent caregiver. Still, it is nice to have a distraction while everyone discusses which side of the family little Allison takes after. Yet again.
Caroline regrets her displeasure at the choice of conversation moments later, however, when Mrs. Bennet brings it back around to her state of perpetual singleness. (She doesn't deign to tell the woman her multitude of opportunities; she's always dated often, and splendidly. But she has a feeling the question why aren't you dating is preferable to why aren't you married.)
Caroline answers the impertinences in the smooth colorless way she always does. She's had excellent practice lately.
"But are you happy, dear—" the question comes out of nowhere.
It can't be the first time she's asked that—can it? Caroline finds herself stumbling through the sentence she's attempting to mentally compose. The embarrassing pining period she went through is long over, certainly; she has her social engagements and work and men when she needs them.
She isn't unhappy. Is that what this is about? Ineffective infant therapy and invasive questions as misplaced concern for her happiness? Caroline glances down at Allison.
There's an excruciating amount of drool on Caroline's designer skirt.