] The wedding! No scarcity of lace here! A spectacle! How was she able to plan such an elaborate wedding so quickly?

Perhaps the bulk of the planning was already done - at least mentally. She just had to change bridegrooms. ;)

] How in the world did Caroline Bingley Parrish happen to be walking, alone, half dressed, a bulging reticule ( is this a clue?), on a shadowed street? Hypnotized? No hypnosis not yet used. Drugged? Why? Ah, sleepwalking.

Eh. Sleepwalking doesn't do it for me. She has no history of such behavior, and no apparent reason to begin now.

Hypnosis HAD occured to me - didn't realize it was not yet in use. Drat.

Drugged? I think that gets my vote, at least for the present. Why? Somebody mentioned Caroline being "Gaslighted" in another thread - is all this just to discredit her? To shame her family? To drive her to desperation? At any rate - Caroline was perfectly, horribly Caroline until her wedding night...and she hasn't been herself since.

And the bulging reticule is driving me crazy! What on earth did she have in there? What was she doing with it? Where was she going?