The Forgotten Sister: Mary Bennet's Pride and Prejudice

by Jennifer Paynter

  Everyone else seemed delighted, however. There was as much clapping and complimenting as before, and Letty now laid possessive hands upon Peter’s arm, hanging on him while the others gathered round. I went over to George instead, but when I praised the performance, he asked in a low voice if I had posted his letter to Helen.

  “Yes indeed. It was posted yesterday.” (I had in fact forwarded it to Mrs. Long.)

  “You wouldn’t consider sending another?” And when I shook my head: “The thing is, we leave for London on Tuesday and if my mother has her way we won’t ever be coming back.”

  I saw then that he was upset and asked if he would like some wine: “A glass of Mr. Galbraith’s Madeira—shall I bring it to you?” Whereupon he reached for my hand. “I shan’t ask you again, Mary, I swear. But if I were to give you our London direction, perhaps you would consider—at least let me know when she returns—”

  “Of course,” I said quickly, conscious now that Peter was looking at us.

  George pressed my hand. “You’re a good girl and I’m very sorry I said you couldn’t sing.”

  Somehow this seemed worse than the humiliations inflicted by my father—worse because kindly meant—and I was sure that Mr. Purvis must have heard, for he later assured me that clever people could seldom sing in tune: “It might interest you to know, my dear Miss Mary, that Bonaparte can’t sing. A dear friend of mine has connections in the opera world—the Paris Opera, you know—and he assures me that Boney can’t carry a tune.”

  The party broke up soon afterwards. I did not have an opportunity to speak privately with Peter until just as he was leaving, when he handed me one of the Burns song-sheets and (with a most earnest look) told me to read it before I went to bed.

  The song was “My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose” but it was not until I was up in my bedchamber that I saw he had written on the inside page:

  My mother would be honered if you visited her after church tomorrow.

  6.

  I had not wanted to go, but I could not at first bring myself to admit it. Only when I was on the path to the keeper’s cottage with the smells of the pig and the privy coming to meet me did I finally acknowledge it. I was afraid of becoming intimate with people who were not my equals. And the fact that I had once enjoyed the closest of connections with Mrs. Bushell made it that much more distressing.

  I could see smoke rising from the chimney and wondered whether they were preparing a meal for me. The thought of sitting in a hot little house, being served an ambitious dinner by Mrs. Bushell, made my gorge rise. And had I not seen Peter at that moment, I might have turned tail and run.

  He stepped out onto the path to meet me. He was wearing the same clothes he had worn the previous evening, his black coat and breeches—presumably his Sunday-best—and I saw that he was looking anxious.

  “I thought you weren’t coming.”

  As he spoke, he grasped my hand. And if the sight of him had not quite restored the magic, the touch of him most certainly did. “You’re not wishing yourself someplace else, Mary?”

  “No.”

  “M’mother will be so happy to see you.”

  “And I will be delighted to see her. I just wasn’t perfectly sure I would be welcome. You know what they say about unbidden guests—‘welcomest when they are gone.’”

  He was smiling now (I at last found the courage to look up) but all he said was: “But you have been bidden.” He pressed my hand before releasing it. “We’d best go in. M’sister’s making tea.”

  As we entered the house, the liver-and-white dog rushed at me but Peter bundled him up and put him outside. Inside, the house was dark and before my eyes were quite accustomed to it, a girl came to me and curtseyed. Peter introduced her as his sister, Ruth, and then led me over to the corner of the room, where a woman sat.

  “Here is Miss Mary Bennet come to see you, Mother.”

  Mrs. Bushell stood up. “Well, this is an honor, I’m sure.” And before I could forestall her, she too curtseyed.

  I begged her to sit down but she would not. “Oh no, we can’t have that, Miss Mary. First we must set a chair for you.”

  Peter then drew up a chair for me and—much to my disappointment—walked away.

  The following few minutes were among the most uncomfortable of my life, for Mrs. Bushell stood staring at me with a sort of melancholy curiosity. “I never thought you’d come. I told Peter you wouldn’t. I’m happy to be proved wrong of course but I never thought you would.”

  I did not know how to propitiate her without sounding condescending, and the consciousness of once having been so close to her made me even more tongue-tied. I realized then that I ought to have called when I first arrived at Stoke Farm—I should not have waited to be invited. Plainly she saw the omission as a slight.

  At last she sat down again, saying: “Well, it certainly is wonderful to see you after all this time, Miss Mary.”

  There followed the most stilted conversation—she simply would not stop Miss-Marying me and thanking me for coming. She called to Ruth to hurry with the tea: “Miss Mary hasn’t got all day, you know.”

  I could see my surroundings clearly now. There looked to be but three rooms—the door to the second one was shut—and the one wherein we sat had a stone floor with rag rugs and some old oak furniture. Everything looked to be clean and well cared for, although the dim light made it seem mournful—the window shutters having been closed (so Mrs. Bushell informed me) lest the sunlight fade the furniture.

  Of Peter there was still no sign, but Ruth was busying herself at the other end of the room with the kettle and tea-things.

  “’Tis wonderful to be waited on, isn’t it, Miss Mary? To sit here and chat while someone else does all the work.”

  Again, I knew not how to answer her. I feared she was being sarcastic, and at length I resorted to the Gospels, quoting the Savior’s words to Martha when she complained about having to do all the work while her sister sat at His feet and did nothing.

  Ruth came up with the tea tray in time to hear this. “That text is mighty unfair. I reckon Jesus should’ve taken Martha’s part.”

  And while Mrs. Bushell exclaimed (“What will Miss Mary think of you?”) Ruth went behind her back and winked at me.

  It struck me then that Ruth was like Peter—irreverent yet good-humored. She looked like him too: She had the same brown skin and dark eyes and—less happily—the hint of a hawk nose. I decided that I liked her. Mrs. Bushell, however, was beginning to irritate me.

  Just as we were finishing our tea she turned to me and said: “Has my son told you, Miss Mary, that he plans to go out to New South Wales?”

  I was horrified of course, and quite unable to conceal it. Ruth said: “Now, Mama. You know Peter told you not to talk about it.”

  “Well, it’s no more ’n the truth, I’m sure. My husband has made a wonderful success of things in New South Wales, Miss Mary. He’s a man of property now.”

  I was dumbfounded. “But I thought—I understood—forgive me, but is not your husband a convicted felon?”

  Mrs. Bushell sat up very straight. “Not any more, he’s not! The Governor has granted him a full pardon. He at least believes that when a man’s served his sentence, he should be treated same as anybody else.”

  Peter had come in to hear the end of this. “What are you telling Mary, Mother?”

  “I’ve been telling her the truth. I’m not ashamed of my husband, thank you very much. And it might interest Miss Mary to know that my husband’s farm—one of my husband’s farms—is at least the size of Longbourn. And he owns a general store what’s more and an inn besides—a grand inn in Sydney Town.” She turned now to Ruth. “Go fetch that sketch from the other room, Ruthie—the sketch he made of the inn.”

  Peter said: “Mother, Mary must be going.”

  “This won’t take a minute.”

  Ruth was soon back with the sketch. It was a pen-and-ink drawing of what looked like a very ordinary tavern with a shingl
e that proclaimed it to be the Jolly Poacher.

  I could think of nothing complimentary to say, and in desperation quoted Dr. Johnson’s famous encomium: “There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.”

  Peter said again: “Mary must be going, Mother.”

  “Oh yes, I knew she wouldn’t stay long—I’m surprised she came at all.” (getting up from her chair) “Well! It’s been a real honor, Miss Mary, I’m sure.”

  And once again before I could prevent her, she curtseyed.

  Ruth accompanied Peter and me to the door and as I shook hands with her, she whispered: “Don’t mind Mama.” And as soon as we were clear of the cottage, Peter said: “Don’t fret yourself over my mother.”

  But I was much more upset about New South Wales. I said: “You’re not really going out to that dreadful place, are you?”

  He looked down at me: “You don’t have to go back straight away, do you?”

  7.

  We walked over the same ground as we had two days before. Peter said his intention to go to New South Wales was fixed. For him—for his father—it offered opportunities that were not to be had in England.

  He spoke of the place as if it were the Promised Land: “It’s got one of the finest climates in the world, and the Governor there now—a man called Macquarie—m’father says they could not have a better man rule over ’em.”

  He spoke of Macquarie as if he were the Messiah: “For him, it’s not just a penal colony—he’s building bridges and schools and proper roads—as far as he’s concerned, the place has a future. And he visits all the convicts when they come and gives ’em hope. See, the barriers there, Mary, they’re nowhere near as high.”

  I was struggling not to cry. The word barriers had done it—the fear that between us, the barriers were well nigh insurmountable. “But there are prospects for you here—in England—why must you go to the other side of the world?”

  “What prospects? There are no prospects here for the likes of me. Not unless I was to do something underhand. And what would people say then, I wonder? ‘Like father, like son’—that’s what they’d say.”

  I stopped to take out my handkerchief and blow my nose. I said: “So much for the village night school and becoming Sir John’s bailiff. And all the books Letty lent you so that you might better yourself.”

  “Better m’self!” But he was smiling. “Did she tell you about the books, did she?”

  “You cannot possibly want to go there—even if your father were king of the place, it would still be vile.”

  “Now you can’t say that until you’ve seen it.”

  “Well, you haven’t seen it either!”

  “I’ve been reading about it in Miss Stoke’s books.”

  Some demon then prompted me to say: “I don’t see how you can be sure that your father’s telling the truth. About the inn and the farms and everything. I mean you can’t really trust someone like that, can you?”

  He was annoyed now, I could tell. It was the first time I had known him to be annoyed with me and for some reason I found it exciting. He said: “What do you mean, ‘someone like that’? What do you mean?”

  “Well, he’s not exactly a law-abiding citizen, is he? Your father.”

  He looked down at me. “You know I thought you were different from the rest of them. I thought you didn’t judge people—that you weren’t… prejudiced—is that the right word?”

  And when I nodded: “Course I should’ve known when you wrote me that letter. I told m’self then it’d never work.”

  I was appalled. I had credited him with a superhuman degree of confidence but I now perceived that he was as sensitive as George—as sensitive as myself—at least upon certain subjects. It was my first apprehension of him as vulnerable and although it did not make me love him less—indeed, I think from that moment my love for him “grew up” as it were—I knew I must tread carefully.

  He walked on without taking my arm. I caught him up and said: “I should not have said that about your father.” And when he made no reply: “I’m sorry about the letter too. I knew it was wrong—condescending—almost as soon as I’d sent it, I knew.”

  After a long pause he said: “See, you’ve never had to go without, Mary.”

  I was tempted to quote something about the uses of adversity but held my tongue.

  “I’m not talking about gewgaws—I’m talking about food on the table. That was what drove m’father to poaching in the first place. Later he didn’t have that excuse—he’d got himself a good place and we all had more ’n enough to eat—but by then he was in the way of it and he’d got into bad company. It was that and the drinking that did for him. When he was in his cups there’s no denying he was a pretty ugly customer.”

  Memories of Bushell in his cups still haunted me and I tightened my hold on Peter’s arm. “You must find his conduct hard to forgive.”

  “Oh, he’s a reformed character now—swore off the drink before he was transported—promised m’mother that if she stood by him, he’d never touch the stuff no more.”

  Fine talking thought I to myself, though I said nothing.

  “He always said it was the loneliness that made him drink. He said being a gamekeeper was the loneliest of jobs. He reckoned it made you an outcast from your own kind—always having to look out for the master’s interests.”

  I longed to remark that Bushell’s new occupation must suit him perfectly—an inn-keeper being surely the least lonely of jobs. Instead I said: “And you? Do you feel that way? About the nature of your work?”

  “The nature of m’work. Well, I don’t much like having to search some poor laborer’s cottage for snares, or chase after lads collecting pheasants’ eggs. And I certainly don’t enjoy wet-nursing gentlemen-sportsmen.”

  “Or being shot by them,” I said, remembering Sir John’s nephew.

  “You heard about that, did you?” He was smiling again. “But I had the best of care you know—Sir John had his own physician to me.”

  After a moment he added more seriously: “I don’t get as angry as m’father used to about things. Or maybe I’m just better at hiding m’feelings.”

  “I fear I’m not very good at hiding my feelings.”

  He covered my hand with his own. “That’s what I like about you. I liked it from the first. You’re so different from the others.”

  I did not care for this compliment. “Oh! you don’t have to tell me that. All my life I’ve heard myself described as ‘different’—different from my sisters—”

  “I wasn’t thinking of your sisters specially—”

  “I lack Lydia’s high spirits and Jane’s saintly disposition—not to mention Elizabeth’s wit.”

  He was laughing now. “No, I meant the people in your—walk of life. Different from them.”

  “Oh.” But woman-like, I was not satisfied. “In what way different?”

  “You don’t put on a mask when dealing with the ‘lower orders.’” (He spoke the words much as George would have—that is to say, loftily.) “You don’t try and set yourself apart from us.”

  Again, I felt myself blushing—but from guilt rather than gratification. I knew that the old prejudice was ever ready to surface. And soon he was giving me more undeserved praise—telling me what a good girl I was: “I don’t know anyone who tries so hard to do the right thing—do what their Bible tells ’em.”

  He was looking at me now with such warmth that in my embarrassment, I began to gabble: “You must not impute to me—I am not as virtuous as you think.” But this only made him laugh and in desperation I resorted to the Commonplace Book: “I think you are making game of me. ‘Most men admire virtue who follow not her lore.’”

  “What, you’re trying to tell me I’m no good?”

  Before I could reply he had picked me up, literally swept me off my feet, and kissed me. And afterwards, when I tried to speak, he silenced me in much the same manner. It was a sho
ck (but not at all distasteful) to be so caught up. Later—when he at last set me down—he handled me more gently. He took off my glasses and told me that he loved me.

  We did not talk of New South Wales again, not directly. But I told him that I was prepared to go to the ends of the earth with him, which so far as I was concerned amounted to the same thing.

  8.

  If I had set out from Stoke Farm filled with doubt, I returned to it in a state of blissful certainty. Blessed with the love of a good man, I felt equal to anything—even the prospect of living out my days in the Antipodes. Only the thought of Peter’s father gave me pause—and it was but a moment’s pause—before the text came to me: “Perfect love casteth out fear.”

  Had I needed reassurance, I was given it that same evening by Mr. Galbraith. He had been drinking his Madeira at dinner and by the time he rejoined us in the parlor he was more than a little “disguised.” I saw Mrs. Knowles glance at him but she said nothing until he asked me to play a Haydn sonata.

  “Oh, Mary is much too tired to play for us now, Brother. She was obliged to visit Mrs. Bushell after church you know—and there was no getting away from the poor woman—”

  My face burning, I jumped up. “You wish me to play the entire sonata, sir?”

  “Look at her now!” Galbraith sat back in his chair. “Don’t she look lovely flying her colors?”

  Fortunately the music was lying atop the instrument and I seized it and sat down. But Mr. Galbraith kept talking—saying how he liked to see a lass “fired up”—how it was “boo’ful to behold.” Mrs. Knowles (her own color heightened) tried to hush him but he took no notice, finally bursting out: “Puts me in mind of m’little Sukie Holloway.”

  For one horrible moment I thought that he was going to cry, but instead he blew his nose in a watery sort of flourish and got up and left the room.