The Forgotten Sister: Mary Bennet's Pride and Prejudice

by Jennifer Paynter

  “My grandmother is Italian,” said George. “But her English is excellent, I promise you. Two of her husbands were English, you see.”

  “Two of her husbands!”

  He nodded, smiling, but did not elaborate and soon afterwards the lady herself marched into the room, clapping her hands and calling: “Jasper! Christina! I have found them. Here is the room.”

  For a grandmother, Mrs. Falco was amazingly youthful looking. Her hair was silver but scissored into a fashionable feathery style and her figure was slender, her skin remarkably unlined, and she had the same black eyes and full red mouth as George.

  “This is Miss Mary Bennet, I think it must be? No, do not stand up. I am Giulia Falco and the mother of these boys’ mother, and now you must call me Nonna too.”

  She gave me a glorious white-toothed smile and then turned her charm on Nan Pender, asking whether she found the Bennet children extremely naughty ones. “Especially little Miss Lydia, the most naughty one of all.”

  Poor Nan of course could not deny this, whereupon Mrs. Falco laughed and ruffled Lydia’s hair and again called: “Christina! Jasper! Where are you? I am in the room here!”

  When at last Mrs. Rovere and Mr. Coates walked in I had the impression they had been quarrelling. Mrs. Rovere was saying something in a foreign language and then too suddenly she gave us all a public smile.

  Until she smiled, I thought her the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was more voluptuous, more slow-moving, than Mrs. Falco, but there was a strong resemblance to her mother about the eyes and mouth. Her smile, however, in contrast to the gleaming energy of Mrs. Falco’s, was disappointing: even-toothed but small, even a little sly.

  Mr. Coates was beautiful too, in a manly sort of way. He stood silently observing us—as acute and unembarrassed an observer as Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy would later prove to be. (He looked very much like Mr. Darcy too, his person being equally fine, tall, and well-made.)

  “Here is a person you do not know, Christina.” Mrs. Falco placed her hands on my shoulders. “This here is Mary Pender. And there is Nan Bennet.”

  I did not like to correct her for fear of being thought impertinent. Bennet and Pender are similar-sounding names and Mrs. Falco spoke with a strong accent. But Mrs. Rovere was not paying attention anyway: She was talking to Mr. Coates.

  He for his part continued to observe us—studying his fellow creatures as befits a writer of novels—when suddenly something made him laugh. It was an odd laugh—high and slightly cracked—an imperfection that made him more attractive (to me if not to Elizabeth). He laughed in response to something Lydia said. When Mrs. Falco had announced that George was to play Haydn in the drawing room, Lydia had understood her to mean the game of hide-and-seek: “In the drawing room! Mama will never give him leave.” But on learning her mistake Lydia was not at all abashed, saying merely: “Oh! well then, Mary must play Haydn too. Mary is a capital player.”

  Altogether it was an evening for misunderstandings, for I later learned that Mrs. Rovere believed me to be Nan Pender’s daughter. And although George would eventually set her right as to my parentage, I am convinced she persisted in seeing me as some sort of under-nurserymaid employed to help look after Kitty and Lydia. It is hard to completely disabuse people of faulty first impressions: Having consigned me and my torn dress to the servant class, Mrs. Rovere was content for us to remain there.

  I do not think I would have learned the true state of affairs at Netherfield if Mrs. Rovere had not entertained this view of me—that somehow I did not count. I was soon to become a regular visitor to the house, and in the ordinary way of children I became privy to many family secrets. But their most closely guarded secret I should never have learned if Mrs. Rovere had not been quite unconcerned about what she said and did in my presence.

  7.

  Considering how little practiced I was in the art of making friends, my friendship with George Rovere bloomed amazingly quick. Within days of our meeting, we were practicing duets together and sharing the same music master. Mama was eager to promote the acquaintance, as was Mrs. Falco (or Nonna, as I came to call her), and soon it was Netherfield for me every morning, where the music master would give us our lesson before breakfast.

  At first, Kitty and Lydia accompanied me, but this arrangement did not last. Lydia and Sam were too alike, both spoilt and self-willed, to endure each others’ company for long; and after the sport of baiting and bullying poor Kitty lost its savor (and after Kitty refused point-blank to go to Netherfield) I always went alone.

  During this time I hardly ever saw Mrs. Rovere. She rarely rose before noon and George always kept the doors to the music room closed so that she would not be disturbed. But one morning after I had been a regular visitor for several weeks, she stormed in when George and I were playing a duet in the absence of the music master.

  We had our backs to the door, deaf to everything but our own noise, when she descended, knocking George off his stool and crashing the lid of the pianoforte down upon my hand.

  The pain was terrible but I dared not cry out. She was standing over me like a mad person with her hair tangled up like serpents. George picked himself up and began brushing off the sleeve of his jacket while she stood there panting as if she had run a great race. After a minute she asked me if she had hurt my hand.

  “It is of no consequence, ma’am.” (If George could be calm in the face of her intemperate behavior, then surely so could I.)

  Next thing, Mr. Coates came running in. He must have heard her screaming. “What is the matter? What is it, Christina?”

  “Oh.” (shaking back her hair and smiling) “Nothing, nothing. The music was so very loud.” She reached for Mr. Coates’s hand and then suddenly, convulsively, burst into tears.

  “Hush now, Tina.” He was holding her and patting her, his expression a curious blend of impatience and resignation. He then jerked his head at George in an unmistakable signal for us to leave.

  I almost ran from the room but George took his time and when he reached the door I heard him mutter something in Italian. Whereupon Mr. Coates strode over and pulled him back and shut the door in my face—only to open it a moment later and say: “Run along to the library, Mary. You’ll find Nonna there.” And then, perhaps seeing I was close to tears: “George will join you later.”

  There was no sign of Nonna in the library, however, and George did not join me later. I must have sat there for the best part of an hour before one of the maids came to tell me that the carriage had been brought round.

  Next morning George was not waiting for me in the music room as usual; he was in the breakfast parlor. But before we could talk, Mr. Coates walked in and made a great show of welcoming me. “I expect you’re famished, are you, Mary? There’s a very decent ham—shall I carve you a few slices?”

  Normally I ate a hearty breakfast at Netherfield but this ostentatious hospitality quite took away my appetite. George sat in silence while Mr. Coates carved and set down my plate. “Now let’s see how good a trencherwoman you are. Buon appetito.”

  He then turned his attention to George. “You’ll be pleased to hear that the new mare has arrived.” (George had been promised the gift of a horse for his thirteenth birthday.) “Sam is down there with her now, getting acquainted.”

  George said quickly: “But you’ve not given him leave to ride her, have you, sir?”

  “No, no.” Coates laughed his odd cracked laugh. “She’s your horse, never fear.” He turned back to me. “Do you drink chocolate, Mary?”

  I shook my head, feeling my face grow hot. I was sure now that he had sent Sam off to the stables so he could talk to me in private—to apologize for Mrs. Rovere’s behavior—but in response to a question from George, he began talking about the new horse: “She’s a lovely little creature—legs of iron and a wonderful bold eye.”

  During the ensuing horsey conversation I fancied Mr. Coates was glancing at me from time to time, and once when I dared look up he was certainly looking a
t me, although he immediately smiled and left off.

  It struck me then that he was a perceptive man, and tactful withal—and it helped too that he had a charming, rueful-seeming smile.

  The apology came when I least expected it. One moment he was refilling his coffee cup and telling George how to mix a linseed bran mash, the next he turned to me and spoke the words in an awkward little rush: “I am really very sorry about yesterday, Mary.”

  He stirred his coffee, his color somewhat heightened. “Well. Now that that fence has been cleared.”

  We all laughed but I saw George looked uncomfortable. Mr. Coates continued to stir his coffee. “I don’t know how it is in your family, Mary, but in this household—I suppose you could say we are less ‘English’ in our ways, and when feelings run high, we are apt to—to vent those feelings, and afterwards we may regret—very much regret that we have hurt someone or made them unhappy.”

  I did not know what to say. I was not so much embarrassed as confused: He seemed to be taking responsibility for someone else’s bad behavior. And while Mr. Knowles would have said that that was following the example of Jesus Christ, still I found it unsettling. It did not suit my child’s sense of justice.

  George must have felt as I did, for he said: “But it wasn’t you, sir!”

  Mr. Coates ignored this. “Let me see your hand, Mary. Does it still pain you?”

  “Oh! it is much better this morning, sir, truly.”

  George muttered something in Italian that sounded like “Ma va’.”

  “These sotto voce remarks, George—I thought I made it clear to you yesterday—if you have a grievance, for God’s sake speak it directly.”

  “Very well then, sir. I think my mother should apologize to Mary.”

  “Well she won’t, and there’s an end to it!”

  There was a pause, dreadful to my feelings, with Mr. Coates looking annoyed and George picking up his cup with a sulky sort of dignity.

  I said: “Perhaps it would be better if I didn’t come here any more. For my music lessons, I mean.”

  “But you like coming here, don’t you?”

  “Oh yes, sir, I like it more than anything.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” He was smiling now. “If Mary Bennet were to cease visiting Netherfield, I for one should be extremely sorry.”

  I felt myself blushing. “You’re very kind.”

  “Nonsense. You’re always welcome here, my dear. Never doubt that.”

  He then turned back to George as if their earlier argument had never happened: “Of what were we speaking? Linseed, yes, you need to boil the stuff for at least four hours before you mix it with the bran mash. ’Tis poisonous unless thoroughly boiled.”

  8.

  Everyone at Netherfield now seemed anxious to reassure me that I was welcome—even Mrs. Rovere. Nonna immediately set about teaching me Italian, in which I made such rapid progress that my grasp of the language soon rivaled Elizabeth’s. But when Mr. Coates tried to teach me how to ride, the outcome was less happy. I simply could not conquer my fear of horses, their snorting and eye-rolling and unpredictable tricks, although for George’s sake I persevered for several weeks.

  Fortunately, this did not affect our friendship. By now, George and I absolutely confided in each other. I could tell him about my sisters—how I felt excluded from Kitty and Lydia’s juvenile pursuits and equally shut out from Jane and Elizabeth’s new adult world, or worse, included as an act of charity. George for his part could talk to me of Sam’s oafishness and childish clowning. There was also the comfort of complaining about our respective mothers, their partiality and caprice. And George even confided—swearing me to secrecy—that his mother was now a “proper” widow, his father having died six months ago in Florence. Before that, his mother had only pretended to be a widow when they had all come to live in London.

  But over and above everything, George and I had our music—an excess of it so far as Mrs. Rovere was concerned—and it was now that we started to rehearse Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major. Not long afterwards Mr. Coates decided that a musical evening must be held at Netherfield so that George and I could perform the sonata before an audience. A date was accordingly fixed and then came the business of deciding who was to be invited. It was during the course of these preparations that I witnessed a dreadful quarrel between Nonna, Mrs. Rovere, and Mr. Coates.

  George, Sam, and I had been in the library transcribing under Nonna’s supervision the names of guests on cards of invitation when Mr. Coates and Mrs. Rovere walked in. They had been out riding and looked hot and untidy and—in Mrs. Rovere’s case—out of temper.

  “Good God!” said she. “Have you not finished yet?”

  Nonna was indignant. “We have twenty-six invitations to be writing, Christina.”

  Mr. Coates came to stand behind my chair. “Very elegant handwriting, Mary.”

  “What about my handwriting, Uncle?” Sam held up a barely legible specimen.

  “Agh!” George scoffed. “Yours is good for nothing. You scribble so and make great blots.”

  “Well, well”—this from Mr. Coates—“I’m forever blotting my copybook too, Sam.”

  Mrs. Rovere had picked up the list of guests. “How is it that Mr. Frederick Purvis has not been invited?”

  “The old fellow who dyes his hair?” Mr. Coates gave one of his cracked laughs. “Why the devil do you want to ask him?”

  Mrs. Rovere answered him in Italian, perhaps forgetting I was now able to understand: “Because he has a lot of money.”

  She then spoke rapidly in Italian, only some of which I understood. It seemed that two distinct classes of guest were to be invited: The first lot were to come to dinner while the second, inferior group were to come in the evening merely to hear the music. Mrs. Rovere now wanted Mr. Purvis to be included in the first group.

  “I notice,” said she, now speaking in English, “that Jasper’s beloved Bennets are asked to dine.”

  Mr. Coates looked annoyed but it was Nonna who exploded. “It is me who is asking the Bennets—not Jasper.” (placing a hand on my shoulder) “The parents of this little person—of course I ask them. And I ask her two old sisters also.”

  “Well, Mama, provided Elizabeth Bennet sits next to Jasper and Mr. Purvis sits beside myself—”

  “Tina. That’s enough.”

  I had never heard Mr. Coates speak so sharp. He had taken Mrs. Rovere’s arm, not ungently, but she at once accused him of “threatening” her. “Oh!” said she with a little laugh, a mere ha of furious breath. “I know you want to be rid of me. First my mother, then me.” She struggled now to free herself. “Unhand me, Jasper!”

  Mr. Coates immediately spoilt the effect by laughing—although he did not let her go. “Don’t write any more invitations,” said he to Nonna. “Tina and I will be happy to finish them, won’t we, Tina?”

  Mrs. Rovere’s reply was in Italian but unfortunately I did not understand a word of it.

  Afterwards, I wondered very much about this quarrel. It seemed preposterous that Mrs. Rovere should be jealous of Elizabeth—a fourteen-year-old girl with no particular claim to beauty and an inflated idea of her own intellect and powers of observation. But the more I thought about it, the more probable it seemed: Incidents that at the time had appeared trivial and unrelated now struck me as part of a pattern.

  Mr. Coates often called at Longbourn to borrow books from my father, and I had observed how he enjoyed talking to Elizabeth, joking with her and teasing her. On a recent visit to Haye Park they had spent half the afternoon playing at battledore and shuttlecock together. And they frequently, inexplicably, laughed at the same things—things that to my mind were not in the least funny—such as when poor Mr. Knowles was scratched by Lydia’s cat Beelzebub. (On being told that the sty on his eyelid might be cured by rubbing it back and forth with the tail of a black cat, Mr. Knowles had rather unwisely selected Beelzebub for the purpose.)

  They were also very curious about ea
ch other, especially Elizabeth about Mr. Coates. She asked numerous seemingly casual questions of me. How did they all behave at Netherfield in private, and in particular how did Mr. Coates conduct himself? Was he good-tempered? Considerate towards the servants? Mr. Coates for his part often asked me whether both my elder sisters were to be present on such and such an occasion. And once when Nonna was praising Jane’s beauty to the skies, he said (impatiently, speaking over the top of his newspaper) that yes, Jane Bennet was undoubtedly a very pretty girl but Elizabeth was infinitely more taking.

  Reflecting on all this up in my little room, I was conscious of feeling out of all proportion vexed. I had come to regard Mr. Coates—indeed, everyone at Netherfield—as peculiarly my property. I was resigned to playing fifth fiddle to my sisters everywhere else, but at Netherfield it was Mary Bennet who was petted and preferred.

  All my old jealousy of Elizabeth came rushing back. How did she contrive to so insinuate herself into people’s hearts? Within our own family, she had all but annexed Jane and appropriated our father. And Aunt Gardiner too was fast becoming her exclusive property. Aunt was presently visiting Longbourn with her two little girls, and she and Elizabeth were forever walking together in the shrubbery, parasols held at the exact same angle and height. (Elizabeth had grown prodigiously in the past year.)

  In an effort to check these envious thoughts, I opened my pianoforte. But even as I played the first bars of the Mozart sonata, my thoughts flew back to the morning’s quarrel. Mrs. Rovere had accused Mr. Coates of wanting to be rid of her—“First my mother, then me.” But Mr. Coates seemed sincerely attached to Nonna. And I had never heard him express dissatisfaction with the way she ran his household. On the contrary, he was always thanking her, grateful for the least little thing. Why should Mrs. Rovere make such an accusation?

  I was no closer to solving this riddle by the time I went down to dinner. It was Aunt Gardiner who unwittingly provided me with a clue. Aunt had not yet met Mr. Coates—but she had read his very first novel.