The Forgotten Sister: Mary Bennet's Pride and Prejudice

by Jennifer Paynter

  And because George had hurt my feelings I took Helen’s part, reminding him that The Beggar’s Opera was written in English.

  An argument followed with Helen telling George he must translate his opera forthwith and George refusing to consider it. His stiff-necked obstinacy reminded me of how he had behaved as a boy and, rather unwisely, I said as much. Whereupon he picked up his music and marched out of the room.

  Cassandra had continued to paint throughout the quarrel, but after George left she remarked: “I shall probably paint over this canvas—but I should not like anybody telling me that I must. I imagine George feels pretty much the same.”

  13.

  My sojourn in Jane’s room lasted nearly three weeks, and I might have prolonged it—I might have stayed there with Mama’s goodwill until Jane returned—had not Cassandra given me a talking-to: “What would your Mrs. Knowles say if she could see you now? Lolling about like this. Why cannot you come downstairs? You are no longer ill, are you?” And more gently: “My dear, if you want to see Peter Bushell, you will have to go out. He cannot call on you.”

  I made her no answer, averting my face, and after a moment she went on: “I confess I am in no mood for painting this morning. I would much rather go for a walk—if you would care to come with me.” And upon Mama entering the room, she treacherously turned to her: “I am trying to persuade Mary to forsake her sofa, Mrs. Bennet. It is such a fine morning, I think it would do her good to take a turn in the garden.”

  Mama thought so too of course, and while I was cross with Cassandra for adopting such tactics, I allowed her to help me on with my boots.

  We hardly talked at first—I was sulking, truth to tell—but the mildness of the morning, the scent of spring in the air, soon had its effect and I said: “I fear I have tried your patience lately, Cassy.”

  “Not at all.”

  “You have been a very good friend to me.”

  “Well, I am sure you have been a very good friend to me. And to Helen. We are going to need good friends in the months ahead.”

  She then began to speak of their plans for Helen’s lying-in in August: “We will need to leave Meryton long before of course—perhaps as early as next month. It all depends. Our uncle has been uncharacteristically generous, offering us accommodation in the meantime—a suite of rooms over a butcher-shop he owns in Islington—”

  “A butcher-shop!”

  Cassandra laughed at my horrified face, assuring me that she and Helen thought themselves extremely fortunate: “We have quite made up our minds to be as stoic as the sisters in George’s opera—’twill be a case of life imitating art.”

  She talked on, determinedly cheerful, but I burst out: “Oh! listening to you, I feel so ashamed. I have thought of nobody but myself these past weeks—”

  “Nonsense, Mary. You have not been well.”

  “—wasting my time feeling sorry for myself—”

  “We are all—all of us—more or less selfish. I know I waste an unconscionable amount of time thinking about Mr. Bingley still.” (catching my surprised look and coloring) “I no longer have such a high opinion of him, however—I do not think he has behaved well by your sister.”

  After a pause she went on: “Work is the answer, as I have said a thousand times. By the bye, you will be pleased to know that George is now hard at work translating his opera. Yesterday he sent round his aria and a note addressed to Helen: ‘Herewith English translation, which I trust meets with your approval.’”

  I took a moment to digest this. “Well, he has certainly not sent round anything for my approval.”

  Cassandra gave me one of her looks. “Jealous?”

  “Helen has no knowledge of Italian that I am aware of.”

  “Ah, Mary.” She drew my arm through hers. “He has asked Helen to sing at his concert, you know. But Aunt is not happy about her appearing in public. She wants Helen to leave Meryton as soon as may be.”

  “And you will go with her?”

  “My dear, I must.”

  Next morning, I managed to bathe and dress in time to take my place at the breakfast table. My father and sisters were present, but not my mother, and the welcome I was accorded was a pretty tepid one. Elizabeth kissed me and set a chair for me but the post had come—she had received a letter from Jane—she knew I would excuse her if she read it right away.

  My father congratulated me on coming downstairs but when I remarked that I felt rather like a caterpillar emerging from its cocoon, he said: “A butterfly, surely?” And then disconcerted me by saying: “But I approve of the metamorphosis. You have filled out. There is more of a bloom about you.”

  I was unsure if he were being sarcastic—it was the first personal compliment I could recall ever having received from him. He then asked after George: “But what has happened to young Mr. Rovere? He has not come to see you these past few days. You have not had a lovers’ quarrel, I trust?”

  This of course made Lydia and Kitty snigger. I said: “He is not my lover, sir, I do assure you.”

  “Indeed? I fear your mother will be disappointed to hear that.”

  To my relief he then turned his attention to Elizabeth, who was folding up her letter with a pleased expression. “Uncle Gardiner has taken a box at the theater for Wednesday night,” said she. “We are to see Macbeth.” And in answer to his look of frowning inquiry: “I leave for Kent on Wednesday, Papa. We are to spend the night in London en route—Maria Lucas, Sir William, and myself—do you not recall?”

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “About six weeks—but Sir William will only stay a sennight.”

  “Six weeks! You choose to spend six weeks with Mr. Collins!”

  She was laughing, reaching for his hand. “I will write to you, I promise.”

  A low-toned conversation between the two of them followed, with my father saying he did not like her to be going away and almost promising to answer her letters.

  14.

  On the morning of Elizabeth’s departure I walked into Meryton with Lydia and Kitty, and after parting from them at Aunt Philips’s door I went to Clarke’s. There, the first of the day’s disappointments awaited me, for despite telling myself that there would be no message, still I had been hopeful, and when the clerk (he of the impudent face and red waistcoat) declared that there was nothing, I felt dreadfully let down.

  I went to the Longs then, hoping for a tête-à-tête with Cassandra, only to be told by Betty that both sisters had gone out—she really couldn’t say where—but that Miss Helen might possibly be with Mr. Rovere in the banqueting hall.

  And so I walked across to the banqueting hall, where a workman let me in by a side door, and there I found Helen and George rehearsing with Letty Stoke. Helen and Letty were singing one of the newly translated sororal duets and George was accompanying them on the pianoforte. Nobody noticed me come in and I stood silently as Helen and Letty sang:

  We must stem the tide of malice!

  Overturn the poisoned chalice!

  We must comfort our poor father and our mother,

  And pour into the wounded bosoms of each other

  The balm of consolation—a sisterly oblation.

  Listening, I found myself growing more and more indignant. Nobody had consulted me about translations or rehearsals. For the past four days George had not come near me. He had conducted the whole business furtively and I recalled how as a boy he had been equally sly—spying on Elizabeth and Mr. Coates and making sotto voce remarks.

  He may have felt the force of my indignation, for he suddenly spun round, turning quite red at the sight of me and saying: “Good God, Mary, how you startled me!”

  “Chérie! What brings you here?”

  Helen tripped over to bestow a kiss on my cheek. She had a shawl around her and despite my angry concentration on George, I saw that her figure was looking fuller. I curtseyed to Letty, and would have taken my leave had not Helen detained me: “Were you looking for Cass? She has gone to the print-shop
, I think.”

  George was making his way over. “Do you approve of the translation, Mary?”

  My resentment then got the better of me: “Are you actually asking my opinion? Goodness. I suppose I ought to feel flattered.”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “I preferred the Italian version, if you must know. In English, it sounded rather mawkish.”

  “La!” Helen was laughing. “If you two are going to argue, I shall take myself off.”

  So saying, she went back to Letty, and the pair of them were soon warbling away sweetly in contrast to George’s and my own discordant strains. I said: “I thought you valued my opinion, George.” (I gestured towards the singers.) “I have heard nothing of this. Helen has been consulted, it seems, while I have been cast into outer darkness.”

  At first, he tried to conciliate me: “I have been remiss, I know—and I do value your opinion—” He threw up his hands and gave me a silly smile. “But when composing I forget all time. Who was it who said that, now? Was it Shakespeare?”

  “No, it was Milton and you have misquoted—’tis from Paradise Lost—Eve says to Adam, “With thee conversing, I forget all time.”

  “Of course, yes, I was sure that you would know. Dear me, without you to put us all right, where would we be?”

  After that, the gloves were off. We might have been back in the Netherfield schoolroom trading insults, and presently I heard myself saying: “I wonder that anyone should be silly enough to hold a public concert in Meryton. You will be lucky if a dozen people come. And this old hall is not at all suitable for concerts. The workmen will never make anything of it.”

  “I will tell you something, Mary.” George’s face was now alight with malice. “Nobody has ever had the courage to tell you this—they were afraid you’d fall into a melancholy—but I think it’s kinder to tell people the truth—”

  He paused, looking at me. I said: “Go on then. Tell me.”

  Another pause—after which he spoke in a little rush: “The fact is, you can’t sing. There. I’ve said it. One day you will thank me for it.”

  He did not wait for a response. He went straight back to Helen and Letty. For maybe a minute I just stood there, feeling extraordinarily calm. Everything around me seemed to be going on like clockwork with the workmen hammering and the voices singing. I walked out without saying good-bye.

  15.

  A truth that’s told with bad intent

  Beats all the lies you can invent.

  I had written William Blake’s words in the Commonplace Book long ago, and I now very much feared that George had indeed spoken the truth—with or without bad intent. I resolved to seek an opinion from someone whose musical judgment I trusted (but here the tears threatened because the first person to come to mind was Peter).

  In the end I wrote to Mrs. Knowles, charging her as she loved me to tell me the truth:

  You once told me that Our Lord in his wisdom had endowed me with musical talent. Did you mean my singing as well as my playing? If I cannot sing, I would rather know it. I will not conceal from you that it is not only George Rovere who thinks I cannot. My father also has a poor opinion of my voice…

  It occurred to me then that I was harping on about myself—that Mrs. Knowles had herself been unhappy of late. Belatedly, I looked at her last letter:

  I confess to you, my adopted daughter, that I have been grossly deceived in the character of Colonel Pitt. He has accused me of lying about my pecuniary circumstances to entrap him into wedlock.

  There followed an account of the Colonel’s cruelties—how he had hurled a Bible at her head and sworn at her old servant—and how her health had suffered as a consequence.

  However, it is an ill wind that blows no good and my brother Galbraith and I are now reconciled. He and my boy are working to release me—Colonel Pitt having agreed to sign Articles of Separation—and as soon as the lawyers have settled the business I shall return to Hertfordshire and make my home with my brother at Stoke Farm.

  The letter was dated the 27th of February—I had received it over three weeks ago, on the day of the assembly—and it had remained unanswered, shut up in my writing box ever since. I hastily rewrote my own letter and sent it to the post.

  I tried then to put the matter out of my mind, but when Helen came for the Friday singing class—the first I had attended since my illness—she insisted on talking of George: “I am afraid he will never take back what he said to you—about your singing. But I know he admires your playing.”

  “I am not interested in George’s opinion—about anything.”

  “Do not choke yourself on your pride, chérie. I know he wants you to accompany Letty and me at the concert. Will you?”

  “Play at a public concert? No, I thank you.”

  “If Letty Stoke can perform in public, why not Mary Bennet?” She came to sit beside me. “George is very attached to you, you know. He has told me what good friends you used to be. And he is a good man, do you not think? He would make someone a good husband.” And when I did not reply: “Oh Lord! Cannot you guess why I am here?”

  “For your singing lesson, I collect.”

  “He has asked me to marry him, Mary.” (speaking quick) “I know he is under-age—I know that—but he says there will be no difficulty in obtaining Mr. Purvis’s consent. But I want your advice—you have known him for so long—would he forgive me? If he were to find out afterwards? Would he understand?”

  And when I continued to sit speechless: “I have not dared tell Cass—she would never countenance it. But I am not like Cass! I am weak and frivolous and the thought of having to live over a butcher-shop—”

  “You would never marry him without telling him, Helen!”

  “Oh God!” She jumped up. “How can you be so naïve?”

  I let this pass. “Have you told Mrs. Long?”

  “Aunt has been wanting me to set my cap at him for weeks. She has become quite desperate—she is terrified people will guess.”

  “So you have not told her?”

  “I need first to make up my own mind.”

  She was now pacing up and down, and again I noticed how her figure had thickened. I said: “Well, if it were anything else—any other sort of misconduct—I daresay he would forgive you, but not this.” I hesitated. “I know that he judges his mother—for being unchaste.”

  She was looking at me through narrowed eyes. “Is this a fling at me, Mary? Because I assure you that apart from Wickham I have never—”

  “It is not a fling at you. I am going to tell you something in confidence. Some of it relates to my own family so I rely on your discretion.”

  I then told her what had happened at Netherfield six and a half years ago.

  She was, I think, shocked, although affecting not to be. “A ménage à trois! Lord! and with her own mother! ’Tis better than a French farce. And this man—this Mr. Coates—you say he was also making up to Elizabeth? But she would have been—what?—thirteen at the time? Fourteen? My God.”

  Mr. Turner came in then and we were obliged to concentrate on our singing, Helen so unsuccessfully that Mr. Turner reproved her: “If it were someone else, Miss Long—someone without your God-given gift—I should not mind.”

  As soon as the lesson ended Helen was impatient to be off, gathering up her music and refusing to stay for dinner. Already she seemed resentful: “It would just make everything so much easier.”

  I must have glanced at her waistline then for she laughed and said: “Cass was certainly right about you. She said she can always tell what you are thinking no matter how many wise opinions you may quote.”

  I did not like this reflection. “You asked me for my advice, Helen.”

  “Would you care to live over a butcher-shop?” And before I could answer: “You have never been poor, Mary, not poor like Cass and me. We were a pair of shabby little orphans when Aunt took us in. I swore I would never live like that again if I could help it.”

  But on the point of
leaving she suddenly stopped, exclaiming: “I knew there was something I had to tell you. Letty Stoke told us yesterday that Peter Bushell had been shot.”

  “What!”

  It was as if I had been shot myself—I was quite beside myself, clutching at her. She was laughing now. “He is perfectly all right, I swear. Only it is all rather a rigmarole—and when Letty was telling us I did not at first realize it was Bushell—she kept saying ‘our keeper,’ ‘our gamekeeper’—Letty is like that—everything is either ‘ours’ or ‘mine’—”

  “Oh please. Just tell me what happened. Please.”

  “Well, and so I will if you will let go my arm. There. I did not mean to frighten you—Bushell is all in one piece, I swear.”

  After a couple more gibes at Letty’s feudal possessiveness she then told me that Peter had accompanied Sir John into Norfolk—the Stokes having an estate there—and that while out after rabbits, Sir John’s young nephew had accidentally shot Peter in the arm: “Nothing serious but the wound became infected—”

  “Which arm was it? Was it his right arm?”

  She was laughing again. “I have no idea, but he is perfectly all right now. Sir John called in a physician from Cromer—‘our physician’—and he soon set things to right. But Letty did say that at first her father was quite concerned.”

  16.

  And so I dared to hope again (not that I had ever really left off), and again took to haunting Clarke’s. I even agreed to accompany Helen and Letty when they rehearsed their duets in the hope of hearing Letty speak of him.

  Fortunately for my sanity, there were other distractions. Sir William Lucas returned from his week in Kent to boast of the grandeur of Rosings and of Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s gracious hospitality. Letters also arrived from Maria Lucas and Elizabeth, and Maria’s letter mentioned (as Elizabeth’s did not) that Mr. Darcy was expected at Rosings the following week:

  You may be sure I shall be on the watch for developments. (This last being heavily underlined.)

  Lydia and Kitty brought fresh news of Wickham. They told how Mary King’s uncle from Liverpool was coming to look him over and how nervous poor Wickham was at the prospect.