Meanwhile, Mrs. Hurst’s yawnings and stretchings having signaled the sitting was at an end, Cassandra began to put away her paints. Bingley turned back to Darcy, speaking in a more serious manner than before: “You are quite right of course, and I suppose I ought to be grateful to you for pointing out my duty, but I’m going to have a devil of a job explaining my decision to Harris.”
When I recounted the conversation to Cassandra, she smiled but shook her head over it, saying: “I fear he is too easily influenced.”
“But Mr. Darcy is an influence for good, surely.” (I had no doubt which “he” she meant.)
“Oh, undoubtedly.” But still she looked a little wistful, as if she would have liked to influence Bingley herself, as a wife perhaps.
“Tomorrow will be our last sitting,” said she presently. “I should have liked to have had one more, but Miss Bingley says she cannot spare the time. It is as well perhaps.”
I waited. She seemed to be about to confide in me, but then as so often happened, she turned the subject: “So Jane is to dine at Netherfield. Your mother will be pleased.”
14.
On reaching home, I was met by the news that Jane had already left for Netherfield on horseback. Kitty and Lydia were eager to explain the circumstances.
“Mama would not let her have the carriage.”
“Mama thought it would most likely rain, so then, you know—” Kitty was coughing with excitement, “Jane would have to stay the night.”
“A good scheme, was it not?” said Lydia. “For it was coming on to mizzle when she left.”
I went to the window. The rain was becoming heavier by the minute. I said that I did not think it a good scheme at all—I wondered that Papa should have permitted it.
But Lydia and Kitty were now whispering and giggling. “You will never guess who we saw in Meryton this morning,” said Lydia. “Your fiddler friend.”
Kitty was looking at me with sly trepidation. “We saw him come out of the taproom of the Spotted Dog.”
I felt my face burn. Nobody had spoken to me of Peter since my outburst of weeks ago, and I was beginning to hope that their own obsession with officers had driven him from their minds.
“Do not you want to know what he said to us then?” said Lydia.
“You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.”
Kitty would have spoken but Lydia cut her short: “Oh no! No parroting Papa if you please. If you wish to hear what he said, you must ask us properly.”
They were both watching me. I took a breath, summoning up the dear image of Mrs. Knowles, but before I could speak, Elizabeth entered and joined me at the window. “This is a bad business, Mary. Jane will be thoroughly soaked.”
Even in my confusion, I was conscious of feeling flattered. This was treating me as an equal—as a responsible adult who unlike our silly younger sisters could see the seriousness of the situation. I agreed that it was indeed a bad business, but upon Lydia and Kitty beginning once again to whisper I could not stop myself from asking what it was that Peter had said: “If indeed he did speak to you.”
Kitty was now giggling. “He said: ‘How is your sister?’ And Lydia said—”
“I said: ‘Which sister do you mean?’ And he said: ‘Why, your sister Mary of course.’ And then he asked if you were coming to the next assembly.”
Here, they both exploded with laughter, whereupon Elizabeth said: “Upon my word, I think Papa was right. You are two of the silliest girls in the country.” And she comprehended me in her contempt, saying: “Imagine Jane’s concern if any of you had been made to ride out in the rain.”
She left the room then and for a short while none of us spoke. I was still too overjoyed at Peter’s inquiring after me to care about much else, but Lydia soon recovered, pulling a face and saying: “Lord, how she does love to lecture. And what a fuss she makes over Jane—always worrying lest Jane catch cold or some such thing. But she does not give three straws about the rest of us. When Kitty and me had the measles, she never once came near us.”
Here Kitty, who had rather more respect for the truth, remarked that Elizabeth had herself been ill at the time. But Lydia as usual was not listening. “She does not care about you either, Mary. When you were first in Bath, Jane begged Papa to let us visit—I was quite wild to go and so was Kitty—but Elizabeth said that you would go on better without us, and Papa agreed with her—as he always does.”
I suspected that neither Elizabeth nor my father would have wished to visit me anyway, and was about to say so when a flash of lightning lit the room. Kitty and Lydia now joined me at the window.
“Lord! she will look like a drowned rat when she arrives.”
“Her new riding habit will be quite ruined.”
“I pray she does not catch cold.”
Lydia laughed. “Pray rather that she catches Mr. Bingley, Mary. Otherwise ’twill all have been for nothing.”
The news that Jane had indeed caught cold came the following morning. We had just finished breakfast when a servant came from Netherfield with letters for Elizabeth and for me. Elizabeth at once began to read her own letter aloud. It was from Jane:
My dearest Lizzy,
I find myself very unwell this morning, which, I suppose, is to be imputed to my getting wet through yesterday. My kind friends will not hear of my returning home till I am better. They insist also on my seeing Mr. Jones—
I stopped listening at that point, being eager to read my own letter. It was a very short one and I had no wish to make public its contents:
Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst unable to sit this morning due to illness in the house. Please to inform Miss Long.
It was signed “J. Lamrock,” whom I knew to be Miss Bingley’s dresser—a tall, conceited woman who had wasted a lot of Cassandra’s time during the sittings fussing over Miss Bingley’s hair and clothes. I read the note through twice in growing indignation before the rising tones of Mama’s voice broke in: “How can you be so silly as to think of such a thing in all this dirt! You will not be fit to be seen when you get there.”
Elizabeth answered her calmly. “I shall be very fit to see Jane—which is all I want.”
My father said: “Is this a hint to me, Lizzy, to send for the horses?”
I had thought myself inured to Papa’s favoritism, but I found myself really resenting this indulgence: He would never have sent for the horses for anybody else. And although Elizabeth immediately declined the offer, declaring her intention of walking to Netherfield (“The distance is nothing when one has a motive; only three miles. I shall be back by dinner.”), still I felt resentful. I doubted Elizabeth’s motive too. I wondered if it were not Mr. Darcy whom she wished to see. And Lamrock’s letter continued to work upon me—I could not help comparing Miss Bingley’s negligent treatment of Cassandra and myself with the consideration shown towards Jane.
In short, I was beginning to feel decidedly ill-used, and in a fit of pique said sarcastically to Elizabeth: “I admire the activity of your benevolence, but every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason, and, in my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion to what is required.”
I was ashamed of myself as soon as I spoke, but Elizabeth seemed hardly to hear. Lydia and Kitty were offering to walk with her as far as Meryton, and she appeared to welcome the prospect of their company.
15.
A little later I set out for Meryton myself. The morning was a fine one and mild for November but still I felt cross out of reason. I was conscious of not having behaved well. And the disappointment in store for Cassandra was also weighing on me. I imagined her sitting waiting in Mrs. Long’s front parlor, dressed in her best gown and looking out for Mr. Bingley’s chaise and wondering what could have happened.
The reality was not as I pictured, however. Cassandra was indeed dressed in her best gown but she was not sitting waiting. She was sketching a remarkably pretty young woman who in turn was talking away as indefatigably as Lydia.
&
nbsp; At the sight of me, Cassandra immediately left off drawing, but when I told her there was to be no sitting she was unable to hide her disappointment: “Did not Miss Bingley send any message?”
“I will tell you about it later, Cassy.”
Cassandra belatedly remembered her manners and introduced the young woman to me as Miss Harriet Lamb, adding: “I am commissioned to paint a miniature of Miss Lamb for Colonel Forster.” (Miss Lamb was now blushing and laughing.) “The Colonel and Miss Lamb are shortly to be married.”
Here, Miss Lamb made a face, saying the engagement was supposed to be a secret but that the Colonel was telling everybody so she supposed it made no odds if she told everybody too. She then began to describe in detail her wedding clothes, informing us that on her honeymoon she would be wearing a corset made entirely of silken bands to mold her form into one of perfect symmetry.
After Miss Lamb finally left (having spoiled several pages of Cassandra’s sketchbook attempting to draw her corset), I gave Cassandra the history of Jane’s ride in the rain: “’Twas one of Mama’s stratagems, and I am afraid it has succeeded all too well.”
“But your mother’s stratagems usually do, don’t they?” Cassandra was tearing out the pages of Miss Lamb’s artwork and she spoke with uncharacteristic sourness. She then begged my pardon: “I cannot think what is the matter with me this morning. Perhaps I am envious of Miss Lamb—perhaps I envy her her Colonel or her corset—”
“I am sure you do not envy Miss Lamb, Cassy.”
I looked at her, willing her to confide in me, to trust me, but instead she began to crumple the spoilt pages and throw them in the fire.
Afterwards, we went upstairs and while she changed out of her best gown, I entered her painting room.
I noticed the painting straight away. It was propped against the wall and there was no mistaking the subject. It was a Kit-Cat portrait of Mr. Bingley. Cassandra must have recalled its being there, for she hurried out with her gown gaping and her face like scarlet and turned the canvas to the wall—realizing too late perhaps that if the painting did not betray her love, then her ill-thought attempt to conceal it certainly did.
When she reemerged from her bedchamber some few minutes later she still looked red, albeit more composed. She at once went and turned the canvas around before going to sit in her usual chair. For several moments we both contemplated Mr. Bingley’s image in silence.
I knew now that she would confide in me—her hand had been forced—but I was unprepared for the fullness of her confession when it came. She told me that she had loved Bingley from the first.
“He appeared to me—oh! he seemed the embodiment of every virtue. But I have since asked myself, if he had not been such a fine handsome gentleman and driving a chaise and four and all that sort of nonsense—then would I have been quite so smitten?”
She paused and we both continued to look at the painting. I reflected that although I had always considered Bingley tolerably handsome, he had not appeared to me to be any better-looking than, for instance, young Nicholas Baker, who served behind the counter at Rea’s. And if Nicholas Baker had had the benefit of Bingley’s fortune and education (and London tailor) then to my mind there would have been little to choose between them—Nicholas being renowned for his obligingness.
“I have never been in love before,” Cassandra continued. “I had no idea it could be so all-consuming. I simply had no idea. And there are other, less worthy emotions that I have been quite unable to get the better of.” She now looked at me directly. “I confess that I have been very envious of your eldest sister.”
“You think then that he cares for Jane?”
“Can you doubt it? Anyone seeing them together—oh! there can be no two opinions about it. But I have been wanting to tell you about this for weeks—”
“Have you?”
She smiled. “I would have told you eventually.”
“Even if I had not seen the painting?”
“Oh, what a little doubter you are. But I have sometimes wondered whether you too perhaps—” She gave me one of her looks. “If perhaps there was something you wished to tell me?”
And so I told her about Peter, and when I finished, she owned she had already heard some of the particulars from Mrs. Long. “But you must not blame my aunt for spreading the story. She is a talker, I know, but she has only spoken of it to Helen and myself—she would never make mischief. No, I am ashamed to say that it is Helen who has been indiscreet.”
It was the first time Cassandra had criticized Helen to me, and such an instance of trust made it easy to be magnanimous. I said I was sure Helen had meant no harm.
Cassandra shook her head. “I do not know what has come over her lately; she thinks of nothing but officers.”
“’Tis the same with Lydia and Kitty—they are all suffering from the so-called scarlet fever.”
“Oh! ’tis the same with most of the girls in Meryton, only Helen has contracted a particularly virulent strain.”
We stayed talking until the little maid needed help preparing dinner. Cassandra impressed upon me the value of work, both as a discipline and a distraction: “In my own case of course, it is a necessity—Aunt would find it hard to manage without my contribution—but even if we were more comfortably circumstanced, I would still choose to work. At the moment, thanks to Mr. Bingley’s commission, I have been positively inundated with requests for portraits.”
And upon my shamefaced admission that I had done no more work on my song: “My dear Mary, the song was merely a suggestion. But perhaps you could begin by setting a poem to music, or a psalm. You must have many fine texts to choose from in your collection.”
I wondered if she were making game of me and my Commonplace Book, but she appeared perfectly serious, saying: “The thing is to make a start, to use your feelings—turn them to good account. I am sure I have done more worthwhile work these past weeks than I have done in my entire life. I put it all down to love—” (smiling) “unrequited love—it has to be good for something.”
I resolved then and there to write a song—to transpose my feelings into music. And on the way home I began to try out a tune, humming it as I walked along.
16.
On reaching Longbourn, I meant to go directly to my room, there to play out the music in my head, but my mother was on the stairs crying out to Nan Pender: “Do not put yourself to any trouble over Miss Lizzy’s clothes. There is no occasion for anything fine—she will be spending most of her time nursing her sister.”
I retreated to the drawing room, only to find Lydia and Kitty there. As usual, they were full of news, first about Elizabeth, who they informed me was now also to stay at Netherfield: “A servant is just come for her clothes,” said Kitty. “Mama is cross as crabs about it. She says Lizzy has no business there and will only be in the way.”
“What a good joke if she were to catch Mr. Darcy,” said Lydia. “I daresay she is trying for it—for all she finds him so disagreeable.”
The two of them began to snigger and Lydia said: “Oh, Mary! We had such a time this morning—you have no idea. We went first to Clarke’s Library and Captain Carter came with us and he told us—you will never guess—but Colonel Forster is to be married. To a Miss Harriet Lamb.”
“Only think,” said Kitty. “Miss Lamb is just seventeen—the exact same age as myself.”
“What is that to say to anything?” said Lydia. “But it is the greatest secret and not on any account to be spoken of. Miss Lamb’s guardian is yet to give his consent.”
She repeated this story at the dinner table, after which my father forbad any further mention of officers. In the absence of Jane and Elizabeth, he went directly to his library after dinner and I was at last able to escape to my room.
Having played over and written down my tune, I now took out all my Commonplace Books in search of a suitable text. But none of the extracts would fit my melody. I saw then that I had gone about the business the wrong way. I ought to have begun with
the words, not the music.
Thus it was that I bethought myself of the so aptly named Mr. William Wordsworth. Jane had given me a volume of his verse for my last birthday, and I at once took it down and examined several poems before the pages by a fateful parting revealed to me the following:
His station is there; and he works on the crowd,
He sways them with harmony merry and loud;
He fills with his power all their hearts to the brim—
Was aught ever heard like his fiddle and him?
The verse was from a poem called “Power of Music,” an unpretentious little ballad I had barely glanced at before. Now, however, I read it with close attention and fast-beating heart. Never could I have hoped for such a felicitous meeting of music and text! With only a very little tinkering I was sure that I could join them together. I thanked God for the timely discovery.
In the event, the task proved more difficult than I had foreseen. I persevered, however, translating each line of poetry into a musical phrase—a painstaking process that took me the whole of the following morning. I was not altogether satisfied with the finished composition, but my mother that evening forbad me to spend another day working upon it.
“Do you want to get sick again, my girl? Is that what you want? Doing nothing all day except sing like a tomcat?” (Here, Lydia and Kitty began to snigger.) “You would not go with us to Netherfield this morning—you could not spare the time to visit poor Jane. Very well then. Tomorrow morning—I give you fair warning!—you are to go to Lucas Lodge with Lydia and Kitty. There is to be a dancing-class there after breakfast—Sir William has very kindly arranged it—and you are to take part, do you hear? You are to practice your steps. Mr. Bingley is to give a ball at Netherfield just as soon as Jane is recovered and I am determined that you will dance at it!”
There was no reasoning with Mama in this humor, and directly after breakfast next morning Lydia, Kitty, and I set out for Lucas Lodge. The class had been formed chiefly for the benefit of Maria Lucas, but some other Meryton young ladies, including Helen Long, had also been invited.
The Forgotten Sister: Mary Bennet's Pride and Prejudice Page 13
