B00BKPAH8O EBOK (4 page)

Mr. Harrison
Farnsworth drew up short and regarded the governess with a menacing glare of a
long minute’s duration. When she did not waver, he at last moved on in a new
direction, both with his pacing of the room and in his mode of interview. He
stated his expectations, which were very high. He warned of his tolerance for
disobedience and disloyalty, which were exceptionally low. He reiterated her
salary, which was equitable.

 “And then
there is the matter of my music lessons,” Mary had reminded him. “I trust Mrs.
Farnsworth has acquainted you with the arrangement we arrived at between
ourselves.”

“Mrs.
Farnsworth did mention some such nonsense. I could not credit it, however.
Music lessons for the governess? It is highly irregular. Why, I have never
heard of such a preposterous idea!” he declared, pacing more furiously.

Mary had to
consciously rein in her irritation. “Irregular it may be, sir, but certainly
not preposterous. I was raised a gentleman’s daughter, as I have said, and so I
am still. The daughters of gentlemen often have the instruction of a music
master. I understand you have engaged one of some renown for your own children
– your sister’s personal instructor, I am told. What reasonable objection can
there be to allowing me to have a lesson following them? It will make me more
fit to guide your children, and it can do you no possible harm. I am to use the
instrument in the schoolroom for my practicing. And it is all arranged that I
shall pay for my lessons out of my own salary, if that is what worries you.”

“Huh! Did I say
that I was worried about the trifling expense of it? No, it is the propriety of
the arrangement I question, the efficiency of it. What are my children to do
whilst you are closeted with Monsieur Hubert?”

“Your children,
Mr. Farnsworth, are no longer infants who need constant attendance. Surely you
do not mean to tell me that they are so unruly as to be impossible for the
nursery maid to look after for one short hour. Otherwise, I begin to fear I may
require more compensation for having the charge of such an unmanageable lot.”

Again the
imperious gentleman shot her a glare; again the governess remained unwavering
under its force.

Just when Mary
thought his mouth might be curling at one corner, Farnsworth brought his hand
up to cover a cough. “Very well, Miss Bennet,” he said afterward, “we shall
give the arrangement a try.” He coughed again before continuing sternly. “I
warn you, though, should it interfere with your primary duties, I shall have no
scruple whatsoever in putting an end to it. Do you understand me?”

A year and a
half passed with hostilities in the household running just below the surface.
The bad-tempered master blustered, and everybody else gave way. Then, following
another unsuccessful lying-in, poor Mrs. Farnsworth was carried off by an
infectious fever. The next Mary heard was that her husband had forsaken his
country home in favor of London, and that he was sending his sister, Miss
Lavinia Farnsworth, to act as mistress of Netherfield in place of his dead
wife.

When he
returned, he was quite altered. Much of the fight had gone out of him, and he
began to make more of an effort with the children. Mary postulated that the
change might be accounted for by a tormented conscience. Perhaps, she
speculated, he finally felt proper remorse for having treated his wife so
badly.

Mr.
Farnsworth’s new spirit of charity did not always extend as far as the
governess. Yet from the beginning there had existed between them a tacit
understanding, a wary truce born out of the healthy respect each felt for the
peculiar strengths of the other. Mary was always careful to treat her employer
with the deference his position demanded, and in return he generally refrained
from practicing his manipulative arts on her, at least until recently.

5

Mrs. Bennet’s Plan

On Sundays,
Mary rested from her duties at Netherfield and returned to Longbourn to spend a
few hours of liberty at her family home with her mother. According to their
original arrangement, Mr. Farnsworth was obliged to send her off in one of his
good carriages early in the morning, and then see to it that she was collected again
at night. This particular Sunday in the middle of May was no different. Mary
took her place with Kitty and Mrs. Bennet in their pew at Longbourn church,
where the Netherfield carriage had set her down.

With their
father having been gone for only five months, the sisters were both still
garbed in full mourning, as was their mother next to them – Kitty in black
crepe, and bombazine on the other two. For the widow and younger Miss Bennet,
it constituted a dramatic departure from what had been their usual style. For
Mary, it meant only a dimming of her dark governess’s habit by one more degree,
putting the light out entirely.

All through the
service, Kitty fidgeted and sighed, singing the designated hymns less
vociferously than usual, and attending to the sermon not at all. She had to be
corrected by her sister more than once for moving amiss or losing her place in
her prayer book.

“Are you
unwell?” Mary demanded of her in a low voice as soon as they had done and made
their way out into the churchyard. “Because otherwise I cannot account for your
behavior in the least. I have often seen better self-command in a child of
three.”

“La! When I
tell you my news, I daresay you will be sorry for taking that critical tone,”
rejoined Kitty, a fretful expression on her face. “It is a very great secret,
and not for Mama’s ears, so we shall have to look out for the first opportunity
to get off by ourselves. Then we shall see if you do not think it worth an hour
or two’s agitation.”

Mary, who
suspected her sister of possessing nothing more than a bit of town gossip, did
not press for more information.

Soon their
mother finished her tête-à-tête with Mrs. Elkhorn and joined them for the brief
walk to Longbourn. They proceeded rapidly, Mrs. Bennet setting the brisk pace.

“I declare,
that lady would try the patience of a saint!” said she presently with an
expression of disgust. “Every Sunday it is the same. ‘Oh, my poor Mrs. Bennet,
how ill you look.’ Then she goes on to lament my ‘unfortunate circumstances’ in
such melancholy terms as to make me grow quite distracted!”

“I suppose she
only wishes to condole with you, Mama,” suggested Mary. “She is a widow too,
and should thereby understand better than most what you must be feeling.”

“Then you
suppose wrongly, Mary, for she has always been jealous of me, that I married so
much better than she. Now she would see me fall back to her level and rejoice
at it. Can you guess what she had the impudence to propose today? Hmm? Can you,
Mary, Kitty?” Receiving no insightful speculations from her offspring, Mrs.
Bennet hastened on. “Well then, she said that I had better start making
inquiries for a cheap situation, and she actually dropped a hint that Mrs. Bell
might have a room to let. As if I would ever consider such a thing!”

“What did you
say to that, Mama?” asked Kitty. “I suppose you gave her a very sharp set
down.”

“I most
certainly did! My words were perfectly cordial, mind, and yet my tone she could
not mistake. I thanked her for her kind solicitude, but that I was in no
immediate danger of sinking into poverty, not with two such wealthy
sons-in-law. Then I let it drop, just in a casual way, what are the incomes of
Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley. Well, she could make no answer there, for her
Eleanor is only married to a curate, and she has still got Caroline on her
hands. So that, I daresay, is the last I shall hear on the subject from Mrs.
Elkhorn!”

Mrs. Bennet,
savoring the recitation of this triumph, took an intermission as the three
women covered the final portion of their passage home. Once inside the hall,
however, her complacency seemed to falter. “Of course Mrs. Elkhorn has just the
one daughter still unmarried, and I have two,” she thought aloud whilst Mrs.
Hill helped her off with her spencer. “I wonder that she did not mention it. It
would be very like her, you know, to throw that in my face, and another time
she may. Well, we shall soon remedy that, if only my plan might be lucky enough
to succeed.”

Mary and Kitty
exchanged a speaking look. They had already had a month’s worth of Sundays on
the topic of Mrs. Bennet’s “plan.” After her husband’s sudden demise, she had
wasted no time in convincing herself that the heir to Longbourn would prove to
be a single man of a most eligible aspect. To her way of thinking, it
immediately followed that he must be in want of a wife, and that either Mary or
Kitty ought to have him. By all that was natural and just, Mr. Tristan Collins
was the rightful property of the one or other of her daughters.

“You assume far
too much, Mama,” Mary observed when the plan first came to light. “He may not
even be single. As Mr. Bingley said, he is a man of thirty and has likely taken
a wife by now.”

“What? Marry an
American! Have you lost your senses? From what I hear, there is nobody there
but heathens and savages. What proper English gentleman would stoop so low? No,
mark my words. He left England without a wife, and he shall surely return the
same way. That is where
you
come in, Kitty.”

“Me?” Kitty
exclaimed with a violent start. “Why must
I
be the one who secures him,
Mama? Mary is older and therefore has the higher claim.”

“Yes, why must
it be Kitty?” echoed Mary, hardly knowing why she said it.

It had then
come out that Mrs. Bennet, having clearly consigned her elder daughter to the
shelf, thought the younger, prettier one the only credible prospect for
catching Mr. Collins. “Consider, Mary,” she concluded, “if your sister can get
him, then you and I will always have a home here at Longbourn. It is the best
solution for us all; of that I am perfectly persuaded. It is unlucky, however,
that we should be in mourning, for black is not very becoming, even on you,
Kitty. Still, in another month, I think you girls may safely moderate your
dress. That should do nicely. Of course the wedding will have to wait until a full
year has elapsed, but that can be no great hardship I daresay.”

It had since
that day been quite a settled thing in Mrs. Bennet’s mind, and every week since
had brought forth from her lips further discourse on how her plan might best be
accomplished. Indeed, her daughters began to dread every mention of Mr. Tristan
Collins’s name. However, all their considerable disinclination for the subject
was insufficient to prevent its being canvassed again and again by their
mother. Like a tune lodged firmly in her head to where she could think of
nothing else, the tired refrain came out once more that Sunday in May. “Yes, if
only my plan for Kitty and Mr. Collins might succeed,” she said.

Meanwhile,
Kitty impatiently awaited the opportunity to set her own ideas at work, ideas
that were sure to sound a note of discord against her mother’s unremitting
theme. Although marriage was always her object, according to Kitty’s way of
thinking, being wed to anyone by the name of Collins could not possibly be
agreeable. Her chance to set her escape in motion came directly after church
with Mrs. Bennet’s pronouncement that she would take a lie down until dinner,
in consequence of a sudden headache.

“Come, Mary,”
said Kitty, taking up her sister’s hand and pulling her toward the front door.
“Let us leave Mama in peace and go out to the garden… to cut some flowers for
the table.”

“Yes, you girls
go on,” agreed Mrs. Bennet. “Take yourselves out of doors, and your noise with
you, for I really cannot bear another sound. My head is very ill today.”

Seeing that
their mother truly wished them away, the Miss Bennets could not but oblige her.
Venturing forth, consequently, they proceeded in silence along the gravel walk
that led to the copse. Mary was determined to make no effort for conversation,
still supposing her sister to have nothing more worthwhile than gossip to
divulge.

Kitty willingly
postponed beginning the conference a few minutes longer as well, scarcely
knowing whether the keeping or the telling of her secret intelligence would
prove the more harrowing. “Sit down, Mary, and prepare yourself,” she said when
they had reached that part of the garden where they were least likely to be
interrupted.

After a pause
and a sigh, Mary obeyed without comment, seating herself on the bench her
sister indicated.

“Now you shall
see why I am in such a flutter,” Kitty said. She drew a packet of paper from
her pocket and held it out to her sister. “Look what I have got.”

Upon
inspection, Mary discovered it to be a letter directed to her mother and
written in a hand wholly unknown to her. “What is the meaning of this, Kitty?
Who is this letter from, and why is it such a great secret?”

“It is from the
heir to Longbourn – Mr. Tristan Collins! He has written from America, and it is a great secret because Mama has not yet read it. Nor must she! What a prodigious
piece of luck it was that I came upon it first.” Kitty held up a hand to
forestall the anticipated protest. “I know you will say that I should not have
taken it. But before you quote me a sermon, read the letter yourself and hear
my proposal. Then, on the grounds of sisterly loyalty, you must come to my aid,
else before Michaelmas Mama will have me engaged to this stranger and forever
miserable.”

With this
impassioned plea, Kitty sat down to wait in much perturbation. When her
instructions were not immediately obeyed, she added, “You need not be afraid,
Mary. There is nothing so very personal or private in it. I daresay Mama would
have shown it to you herself, had she read it.”

Mary looked
grave, and yet she opened the letter.

Dear Madam,

I feel
myself called upon by our relationship to condole with you on the grievous
affliction you are now suffering under, of which I was only yesterday informed
by a letter from your solicitor in London. I pray you will forgive me for
introducing myself to your notice at this difficult time, and that you will not
think my sympathy any less genuine for the awkwardness of our situation. I
write chiefly to reassure you that I am very sensible of the severity of your loss,
and that I mean to in no way add to your misery where it can be helped.
Therefore, although I propose myself the satisfaction of coming to you without
delay, I do not anticipate any need for you to vacate your comfortable abode at
once. I ask only that you allow me to be a guest therein whilst we sort out
between us what is best to be done. I travel alone, and so hope that my
presence will not incommode your household unduly. I believe you will find that
my wants and needs are simple, so I beseech you to make no special preparations
for my coming. My intention is to follow this letter as soon as I am able to
settle my business affairs, and I hope to arrive within three weeks of your
receipt of the same. Until then, please convey my respectful compliments to all
your family.

Tristan
Collins, esquire

“Well? What do
you think of it?” Kitty demanded.

“I think it is
a very good letter – well composed and clearly expressed.”

“Is that all
you can say on the subject?” cried Kitty in exasperation. “How can you be so
tiresome, Mary?”

“Very well,
then. Let me look again.”

Kitty rose to
walk to and fro whilst her sister reread the short missive. Mary’s second
appraisal was more comprehensive and more gratifying to her sister’s feelings.

“The content
reveals nothing so very remarkable. It was always to be expected that he would
come to inspect his property. This is only a little sooner than anticipated. As
to the style of the letter, I must say that I am pleased with it. His generous
sentiments do him credit, and they are elegantly conveyed.” Mary took a moment
to consider before adding one more point. “There
is
a certain something
in his way of expressing himself, however. It is rather reminiscent of a person
we used to know.”

“Exactly! I can
see this Mr. Tristan Collins now,” said Kitty, evincing horror at the specter
before her mind’s eye. “The man is his brother to the very core, and he will be
here in less than a month!”