The Unexpected Miss Bennet (28 page)

‘Is it really necessary that I cloister myself as if I were a Spanish nun?’ Mary asked, with some acidity. ‘Surely England is big enough for both Lady Catherine and myself to move in the society to which we are accustomed.’ Not, she thought, that she was accustomed to society, but Mr Collins didn’t need to know about that.

‘Oh Mary,’ Mr Collins said mournfully. He paced in front of the fire. ‘Oh Mary. You still do not understand the gravity of your situation. For you see, Lady Catherine will not cut herself off from her nephew, Mr Darcy, and so you must cut yourself off from Pemberley and your sister. I suggested it myself as a way to assuage Lady Catherine’s understandable outrage, and she agreed that it was the only solution.’

Mary had not felt her temper boil so since Lydia had seen fit to tease her.

‘Mr Collins,’ she said, and her voice sounded unlike her own. ‘If Lady Catherine deems it necessary that we never cross paths again, she may sit in Rosings for as long as she likes. I will not cut myself off from my family for all the de Bourghs in England.’

She rose to her feet, gathered her shawl and went off to bed.

The rain had stopped except for the uneven beat of the last raindrops falling on the eaves. Mary huddled in the cold, damp, spare room under her blankets, smelling the wildness of the wind and the cold summer rain, and the mustiness of the blankets and the room that was little used and little aired. She knew she would get no sleep that night. It had all been such a day. Mr Aikens coming to visit, her banishment from Rosings, and her fight with Charlotte. Shame, tiredness, and regret conspired to torment her, until at last hot tears rolled down her cheeks into her thin pillow. I don’t know what everyone wants of me, she thought, wiping away her tears. I have been cast in a mould and have come out with an ugly crack. But this is me. How could I be other?

A
S MARY WAS driven from Rosings, Mr Darcy returned to Pemberley with news of Mr Wickham, Lydia, and Kitty. Mr Wickham had approached Kitty and Jane in London with the object of ingratiating himself with them, especially Kitty, in the hope that they would give him money, but then he had disappeared. Darcy drove to Bingley’s town house and from there the two men went all over London together to find him, looking into all the disreputable places in town where he could be expected to be found. They eventually came across him at a gaming hell where he was adding to his debts. There they put it to him forcefully that he was not to approach Kitty or Jane ever again. Mr Wickham was dutifully impressed with their manner, but he also gave them the astonishing news that Lydia was expecting their first child. He hoped that the families would see fit to provide more money to help support this heir. As he was in the process of gambling away what little he had anyway, neither Darcy nor Bingley was inclined to accede to his request. However, both felt ill at ease with their decision. Any child brought into this marriage was innocent. How could they not do all in their power to make sure the infant was supported?

They made Wickham take them to see Lydia, and so they journeyed north. There, they could see for themselves that she was expecting. She was as wild as ever, angry and flirtatious with them both by turns, abusing Wickham terribly for his abandoning her for London and leaving her out of the fun, and threatening to go out and enjoy herself without him. Bingley’s compassion overcame him and he pressed some money into Lydia’s hands, knowing that one or the other would gamble it away or waste it on fripperies.

Both Darcy and Bingley went away, satisfied that Wickham would no longer dare to ask them for money, but uneasy about the couple’s burgeoning family. Darcy, when he returned to Pemberley, asked Lizzy what they should do about Wickham and Lydia now that they had this new intelligence.

‘First,’ Lizzy told him, ‘a kiss for your good sense in asking for my advice.’ She suited action to words. ‘Second, I will have to tell my father. He may have prepared for this, he and Uncle Gardiner, and well he should have, but if it comes as a surprise he will like to know.’

‘I did not think it out of the possible,’ Darcy admitted. ‘If anything, I hoped they would have tired of one another by the time they reached _______ in the north, and so Wickham’s profligate habits would no longer be of any concern to us.’

They both thought the same thing, that Lydia might have lost all consciousness of her reputation and carried another man’s by-blow, but said nothing to one another because it was clear by their expressions that each knew what the other thought.

Lizzy resolved to go to Longbourn and tell her father in person.
He
could tell Mrs Bennet, for Lizzy would rather not have that commission. She thought of her own situation. She and Darcy had still not been fortunate in that respect, though she hoped for it as much as she could. Especially since she had met little Robert Collins, her hopes for a happy event in her own house was foremost on her mind. So it was bad that Lydia would be the first one, even before Jane and Lizzy, to bring a small heir. Whether an infant would bring a reconciliation or lead only to greater distance, Lizzy could not foretell.

WHILE LIZZY PACKED for her journey to Longbourn, news of Mary came in a letter from Mrs Bennet, filled with wild misspellings and much underlining. The gist was plain to see, that Mary had been driven from Rosings after she had entertained a young man in the parlour there. Lizzy covered her mouth with her hand, not sure whether she would laugh or cry. So Mr Aikens had done as he had threatened and had ridden off to Rosings to rescue Mary.

There was one good thing to come of all of this, she reflected. Her mother’s nerves would be fully engaged upon Mary and she would not have the slightest interest in what her second eldest daughter had to say to her father. She could relate her news of Lydia and Wickham in relative peace and in turn learn something more of Mary. She sighed.
Oh Mary, whatever have you done
?

It was as Lizzy expected when she was handed down from the carriage at her family home. Mary was nowhere to be found. Mr Bennet was closeted in his study, and Mrs Bennet could not refrain from making meaningful remarks from the moment she kissed Lizzy in welcome.

‘You talk to her, Lizzy,’ Mrs Bennet said immediately. ‘For my poor nerves cannot bear it. She is an impossible girl. How she could have thought of doing such a thing! Mr Collins said Lady Catherine was beside herself, and that Mary was impertinent! And the wild young man! How did Mary meet such a creature! Why ever would she invite him in to tea! He was a highwayman, I am sure of it, and no doubt he has gone back to Rosings to steal all the silver! And Lady Catherine will blame us! Oh and Lady Lucas has been in and out with all the news and I just cannot bear it any more.’

Lizzy kissed her mother. ‘Where is my father?’

Mrs Bennet waved a hand. ‘Your father! Your father has been no good at all! He stays in his study and hardly comes out! I am all alone, Lizzy! All alone, with my nerves!’

‘I’m here now, Mama. You may be reassured I shall talk to Mary.’

‘Oh, it’s too late now. Little good will talking do. She never had any sense. What was she thinking!’

Lizzy knew that she would continue in that vein for some time, so she made her way up the familiar stairs to Mary’s room. She knocked gently. There was no answer. Lizzy waited a moment, then opened the door. The room was empty save for Mary’s trunk and her things. Lizzy waited a moment. She hadn’t heard the piano – and then she remembered that Mary no longer played.

She looked for her sister in the parlour anyway, then in the kitchens and finally out in the gardens. But she did not find Mary until she started along the path to Meryton. There was a figure ahead of her, wrapped in a warm pelisse, walking briskly down the path.

‘Mary?’ she called out.

Mary turned and stopped and came towards her eagerly.

‘Lizzy!’ She came to give her sister a kiss. Lizzy hugged her and then held her by the shoulders so that she could see her. Whatever disgrace she had brought upon herself, it had done her good. Mary had roses in her cheeks and her eyes were bright. Her hair had loosened from her bun and caught the wintry light.

‘Mary, why did you let a highwayman into Rosings?’

Mary gave a rueful laugh.

‘So you spoke to Mama.’

‘I could hardly avoid it. She wrote me such a letter that I was hard put to make it out. I had to come to Longbourn at once to make sense of it all. Was it so dreadful?’

‘Not at first, but then it became so much worse. Oh Lizzy, I was such a fool. How could I have thought that that was the place for me?’

Lizzy listened as her sister spilled her tale. Something had changed about Mary. She still had her same thin, dark, intense frown, but her face was lighter none the less.

‘When I drove away from that dreadful house and those dreadful people, I felt so ashamed, but the longer it is left behind, the more I feel as if I could fly, and I have not come down since.’

So that was it. Mary was happy. Lizzy smiled back.

‘Don’t blame yourself entirely. We encouraged you into it.’

‘I let myself be encouraged. I know you all wanted a place for me. “Something must be done about Mary”,’ she said in a droll voice. ‘What can it be?’

That stung, but Lizzy knew it was true. ‘What did Mama and Papa say?’

‘Oh I suppose Mama will resign herself. I expect to hear no end of it. It will be referred to at unexpected moments whenever I do something else that disappoints her. Papa said only that he hoped I brought his book back. But I think he approved.’ Mary smiled at that, and Lizzy felt once again a mixture of sadness and exasperation that her father had brought upon her lately.

Lizzy had grown up the favoured daughter of their father and not for the first time she was aware that her sisters had not had that advantage. Mary’s learning and earnestness had been a way to capture his attention, but even if he was aware of that he gave her neither encouragement nor guidance. And Lydia and Kitty felt his lack of interest the most keenly – perhaps Lydia would not have fallen had her father been more attentive. She felt a spark of anger. All Mary wanted was his approval and he barely deigned to notice her. And now he approved of her precipitous action, which could have been avoided altogether. I can’t blame him for it entirely, Lizzy thought. But oh, for a good man he is most astonishingly an indifferent father.

‘So tell me the rest. How did you manage your remove from Rosings?’

‘Mr Aikens helped very much. I would have been entirely at a loss had he not seen to it that my trunk was carried down. I spent the night at the Collinses, which was awkward as you can imagine. And then he escorted me home the next day. My pride was hurt, and my vanity both – I could not tell them apart in the event, and all I kept thinking was, that my troubles would soon be over and I would be at Longbourn again. Dear Longbourn!’

Lizzy could imagine the embarrassment and the wounded pride.

‘That was very kind of Mr Aikens,’ Lizzy said, resolving that she would write to him at once to thank him. He also deserved an apology. He was right. He knew Mary better than any of them. ‘He was most displeased when he found out you were at Rosings and he was quite wild in his accusations.’

Mary blushed and looked away. ‘He did say he had come to rescue me. He is quite an unusual gentleman.’

Lizzy saw fit to tease her a little. ‘Just an unusual gentleman? Or something more?’

But Mary became uncertain almost at once. ‘Oh Lizzy, please don’t,’ she said. ‘I have never liked any young man before and I am so afraid that he cannot possibly like me in return.’

Lizzy was reminded that Mary had never had beaux and that she was so little in society, except among the Lucas boys and her sisters’ husbands, that she had little experience with them. And she did not want to encourage an attachment if there was no hope that Mr Aikens really was in love with Mary. He was such a strange young man. He was loyal, but he treated everyone with the same brash heartiness. Perhaps he was just friends with Mary, and nothing more.