Caroline Bingley’s Weakness

Sylvie Harrington '26

I am unbeaten

in the game of watching. 

Judging, more like, 

quipping, tight-lipped, 

head high, dress fine

silk, the angle of my jaw

set straight against the 

jealous green

of cloth, but I am not

     carefree. 

Will never be, as she

tracks mud into my sitting room, 

hair in an absentminded knot

she does not 

tend or preen or give a thought

to anything but her impulse. 

And why? do the corners of 

his mouth turn up

ever so slightly at her

flushed face, that

skirt, caked with dirt,

her stubborn eyes, 

brightened by the exercise. 

I am unbeaten

in the game of feeling pain, 

all of it unearned.

For who would guess, as 

I walk into a ballroom 

as though it is too small,

as if the golden frames 

on the wall are just like

any I’ve seen before, 

That it is all a worthless guise

for I feel the heat of each pair of eyes, 

commoner eyes, eyes who try 

to catch mine and

 compromise.

I am propriety, I am all fake.

At least I act as this to the faces

of all who have garnered my

distaste. And oh, it vexes me

so, to hide behind my polite 

veil when criticizing is 

my one exhale.

But in my sitting room, adorned 

with the prizes of the life 

I live, I am caught with nothing 

left to give, nothing if it is not 

the love that fills my heart, that

controls my tongue, that directs my glare,

Towards the man who cannot 

help but need the only 

thing I’ll never be.

There is a cruel pattern to 

my life, though I admit I’ve

risen up the ranks, but

I have been cursed with wanting more, 

of having to endure this quiet shame- 

 being in front of his eyes

 but never in his gaze.

Now I sit on my sofa, austere,

watching him watch her

as she reads,

as if all riches have been made dull,

and I want to grasp, scratch, claw 

the skin of Elizabeth, 

who has bewitched

his 

mind, 

body, 

soul, 

casting me in all my splendor as a 

worthless

 wealthy

  fool.