I stood irresolute as Peter trotted up to the fence and dismounted. He was riding Mr. Galbraith’s roan horse and in response to a question from Edward, I heard him enter into a discussion of the horse’s points.
Virginia then asked if the horse was Peter’s: “Is it your own horse, pray?”
“No, your Majesty.”
The children all laughed at this—Virginia too—and again I marveled at the ease that characterized Peter’s dealings with people. I hung back, hoping that the children would return to their game, but the superior attraction of the horse and its rider kept them fixed. Finally, Peter looked up and saw me and said: “Miss Mary Bennet. Fancy seeing you here.”
Virginia said: “Oh! you know Mary, do you?”
I said quickly, “I imagine Bushell has brought me a message from Mrs. Knowles, Virginia, that is all.”
As soon as I spoke, I knew it for a betrayal. And I compounded it. I said: “You must know that Bushell is gamekeeper at the Great House of Stoke.”
Peter stood, regarding me with an odd little smile. After that, everything seemed to happen very fast. The nurserymaid was on the front steps calling to the children. Peter was untying a pair of boots from the horse’s saddle—boots I recognized as my own and which I had forgotten in the rush of my departure. The children were following the nurserymaid indoors—all except Virginia, who stayed on the steps to stare at us. A moment later and she was shouting to the others to come back: “There’s a carriage coming!—it is Mama and Papa.”
Peter was handing me my boots. The children came running back. I tried to take Peter’s hand—to thank him—but he turned away to mount his horse. The carriage was coming on. The children in their excitement were jumping up and down. I saw that it was indeed the Gardiners and Elizabeth. Peter did not wait for the carriage to stop before riding off.
11.
I fled without greeting them—running through my father’s library and up the stairs to my room.
After several botched attempts, I succeeded in writing:
Forgive me for speaking of you as if you were not my equal. In truth you are my superior, being far above me in every way. Please forgive me. I cannot bear the thought that you are angry with me. I cannot write more, I am too ashamed.
Your Mary
I then locked up the letter in my writing-box, washed my face, and bethought myself of Mrs. Knowles’s cherry brandy. It was horribly sour and stung at my throat but I drank a whole glassful and after a few minutes felt much better.
Elizabeth and the Gardiners were in the dining room with Jane when I went down, and Kitty soon joined us. I had had the foresight to bring a book with me (Fanny Burney’s Evelina) as an excuse for not having come down earlier.
They were talking of their travels—doggedly describing them whilst ever the servants remained in the room—and for some reason (I daresay it was the cherry brandy) it struck me as funny. I sat next to Elizabeth, who greeted me with a deal of reserve. I saw that she was wearing her severe look and without thinking, I said the wrong thing, whispering: “This is a most unfortunate affair; and will probably be much talked of.”
She made me no answer—she was helping herself to a dish of peas—and I noticed that her eye-lashes were wet (Elizabeth has the most beautiful long lashes) and suddenly I heard myself babbling from George’s opera: “But we must stem the tide of malice, and pour into the wounded bosoms of each other the balm of sisterly consolation.”
Again, she made me no answer. She was handing me the peas. But I was determined now to comfort her: “Unhappy as the event must be for Lydia, we may draw from it this useful lesson: that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable—that one false step involves her in endless ruin—”
The cherry brandy had undoubtedly befuddled me, for I had not meant to quote such uncompromising maxims. My eye fell on Evelina and I repeated the famous passage about a woman’s reputation being both brittle and beautiful. Elizabeth was now looking at the ceiling and compressing her lips. I wondered then if something else had happened to overset her while they were away—something more than Lydia—and later when Uncle Gardiner spoke of catching a great carp in the river at Pemberley I guessed that she must have seen Mr. Darcy.
12.
Uncle Gardiner left for London on Sunday morning to help my father look for Lydia, and we were now at least assured of receiving regular letters.
But when I was not worrying about Lydia, I was of course worrying about Peter. I left my letter to him at Clarke’s on Monday morning and waited until Wednesday before again setting out for Meryton. Kitty agreed to accompany me but just as we were about to set out, Jane put a letter into my hands. For one heart-stopping moment I thought it was from Peter, but it was from Mr. Collins to our father. (Jane had permission to open all Papa’s letters in his absence.) I read it aloud to Kitty as we walked along. It was a disgraceful letter—smug and sententious—and it made Kitty cry.
“How could he have written such a thing? Saying that it would’ve been better if Lydia had died!”
“It is certainly a most unchristian letter for a clergyman to write.”
Kitty was fishing in her reticule for a handkerchief and she now set about restoring her appearance, tucking away a tendril of wet hair. “Do I look as if I’ve been crying? I should hate anybody to see—they will all be looking at us—Aunt Philips says that everyone in Meryton knows.”
I said: “You must miss Lydia very much—you must feel her absence more than anybody.”
“Oh! I do. When she first went to Brighton I missed her so I can’t tell you. But one grows accustomed, you know. And now I suppose when she is come back—if she is not married, I mean—they will not let us be together. Aunt Philips said she will have to live somewhere far off where nobody knows her—like poor Lucy Fry. But I will tell you something, Mary—if Papa forbids me to go to balls simply because of Lydia I shall think it monstrously unfair.”
We parted in the high street—Kitty to the shoemaker’s and I to Clarke’s. There, the red-waistcoated clerk handed me a folded paper with an impudent flourish. I left the library clutching it and resisted reading it until I was at the end of the street.
“Meet me here Monday at ten” was all he had written.
On Friday we received another letter from Uncle Gardiner informing us that our father planned to return home the following day. Mama cried out at this:
“What, is he coming home, and without poor Lydia? Sure he will not leave London before he has found them. Who is to fight Wickham, and make him marry her, if he comes away?”
My father’s imminent return now prompted Aunt Gardiner to bring forward her own return to London. We said good-bye to her and the little Gardiners the next morning and welcomed (if that is the right word) our father when he arrived a little before noon.
Elizabeth, Kitty, and I were in the breakfast room when he joined us for tea, and so forbidding was his face that only Elizabeth had the courage to address him.
“You must have had a wretched time of it, Papa.”
“Say nothing of that. Who should suffer but myself? It has been my own doing and I ought to feel it.”
Thought I to myself: Alas, you never said a truer word, sir.
Elizabeth said: “You must not be too severe upon yourself.”
“You may well warn me against such an evil. Human nature is so prone to fall into it. No, Lizzy, let me once in my life feel how much I have been to blame. I am not afraid of being overpowered by the impression. It will pass away soon enough.”
Elizabeth then asked whether he supposed Lydia and Wickham to be in London.
“Yes, where else can they be so well concealed?”
Kitty was simple enough to say: “And Lydia used to want to go to London.”
A grim smile lit my father’s face. “She is happy, then, and her residence there will probably be of some duration.”
There was a brief silence during which he continued to look at Kitty and smile, but then he suddenly turned to E
lizabeth and addressed her with an awkward sort of seriousness: “Lizzy, I bear you no ill-will for being justified in your advice to me last May, which, considering the event, shows some greatness of mind.”
On Jane’s coming in to fetch our mother’s tea, however, he reverted to his usual manner: “This is a parade which does one good—it gives such an elegance to misfortune! Another day I will do the same; I will sit in my library in my nightcap and powdering gown and give as much trouble as I can, or perhaps I may defer it, till Kitty runs away.”
Instead of ignoring him, Kitty rose to the bait: “I am not going to run away, Papa. If I should ever go to Brighton, I would behave better than Lydia.”
“You go to Brighton! I would not trust you so near it as East Bourne for fifty pounds! No, Kitty, I have at last learnt to be cautious, and you will feel the effects of it.” He drew himself up like some despotic old father in a melodrama. “No officer is ever to enter my house again, nor even to pass through the village. Balls will be absolutely prohibited—unless you stand up with one of your sisters…”
Normally I should have been relieved that it was someone other than myself who was the butt of all this heavy humor, but poor Kitty was taking his threats seriously. Even then he did not relent—he was enjoying himself too much: “Well, well.” He patted Kitty’s shaking shoulders. “Do not make yourself unhappy. If you are a good girl for the next ten years, I will take you to a review at the end of them.”
13.
On Monday I woke early and began many little preparations so as to look my best—plastering my face with crushed strawberries, a complexion beautifier recommended by Kitty, and washing myself all over with ambrosial soap. I put on my new pale-green linen gown with the white collar with Vandyke points and my straw bonnet with matching green ribbon, and at half past nine I set out for Meryton alone. It was a fine morning and I felt optimistic—I felt pretty, even.
When I entered Clarke’s, Peter was nowhere to be seen but shortly afterwards a new and courteous clerk hurried over to tell me that a “gentleman in a curricle” was awaiting me in the street behind the building. It was Peter of course and he greeted me with such a smile—such a look—that mistrust and resentment were done away with quite.
I said: “How did you come by the curricle?” And then, paraphrasing Virginia Gardiner: “Is it your own, pray?”
He grinned. “It’s Galbraith’s. Up with you then.”
He reached down to hand me into the vehicle, touched up the horse, and we were away. I did not ask him where—I did not care—but presently he asked (with one quick serious look) whether I was still of a mind to go to New South Wales.
I made a silly joke then—I was so happy—I said: “What, right now?”
He smiled but he was now very much in earnest. “I don’t want us to keep on in this havey-cavey way, love. I want everything to be above board. I want to speak to your father.”
“Oh please, Peter, not yet.” I explained how angry and dejected my father was, having given up the search for Lydia. “He blames himself for what happened. He has been in a dreadful humor—so sarcastic—even to Elizabeth.”
“Is there no-one looking for Lydia now?”
“Oh, yes! My uncle will keep searching—my uncle Gardiner lives in London.”
Peter was silent, seemingly intent on the road (we were keeping to the back-lanes until we were clear of the town). I touched his arm. “Don’t be cross.”
“I’m not cross. I only wish to God I could help. Is it certain they’re in London?”
“My father believes so. They have certainly not gone to Scotland.”
I told him then how Lydia had left a note saying they were going to Gretna Green, but that no traces of them had been found on the Barnet Road. “My uncle now thinks that Wickham’s debts could be the real reason for his flight—the disgrace—they were chiefly gaming debts, you see.”
“Ah, yes.” Peter’s tone was scornful. “And they must always be paid before the poor tradesmen’s bills, mustn’t they?”
“They must indeed. They are debts of honor.”
“Oh, Mary.” He leant over and kissed me quickly. “What a lot we’ll have to argue about after we’re married.”
I thought it best not to explore this, and he soon returned to our own predicament: “I must speak to your father, though.”
I saw then that there was no turning him; the best I could do was to temporize: “Cannot we wait till there is news of Lydia? It is such an anxious time for my father right now.”
We were now on the high road leading out of Meryton and after a short pause he said: “I’m going to be away for the next few weeks. Sir John leaves for Yorkshire tomorrow for the grouse-shooting and wants me to go with him.”
“To Yorkshire!”
“I’ll only be gone a few weeks—but I must speak to your father when I get back.” And then before I could object: “You’re not going to talk me out of it, love. Any other course would be underhand.”
14.
On returning home, I went directly to my mother and read to her half a chapter of Self-Control. Kitty then joined us and a few minutes later Jane and Elizabeth rushed in. Elizabeth had in her hand a letter, and after first preparing us all for good news, she gave the letter to Jane, who read it aloud.
It was from Uncle Gardiner and addressed to our father:
My dear brother,
At last I am able to send you some tidings of my niece, and such as, upon the whole, I hope will give you satisfaction. Soon after you left me on Saturday I was fortunate enough to find out in what part of London they were. The particulars, I reserve till we meet. It is enough to know they are discovered. I have seen them both. They are not married, nor can I find there was any intention of being so; but if you are willing to perform the engagements which I have ventured to make on your side, I hope it will not be long before they are. All that is required of you is, to assure to your daughter, by settlement, her equal share of the five thousand pounds—
But my mother was not interested in the details of the settlement. “My dear, dear Lydia! This is delightful indeed!—She will be married!—I shall see her again!—She will be married at sixteen!”
Her concern was now all for the wedding clothes: “I will write to my sister Gardiner about them directly. Lizzy, my dear, run down to your father, and ask him how much he will give her. Stay, stay, I will go myself. Ring the bell, Kitty, for Hill. I will put on my things in a moment.”
In vain did Jane remind her how much we were all indebted to Mr. Gardiner. “We are persuaded that he has pledged himself to assist Mr. Wickham with money.”
“Well,” said my mother, “it is all very right; who should do it but her own uncle?”
Next thing, she was wanting to dictate orders for quantities of cambric and linen from the London warehouses, with poor Jane trying to persuade her to wait until my father could be consulted.
Elizabeth meanwhile had retrieved our uncle’s letter and was frowning over it. Under cover of our mother, I ventured: “I suppose one can feel happy as well as unhappy about this.”
Elizabeth looked up at me, her dark eyes bright. “I suppose one can, Mary.”
15.
A fortnight later, the happy couple were received at Longbourn, having been married that same morning in London.
Their visit lasted only ten days, but it seemed to me a very long ten days. My mother had allotted to them the set of rooms that the Gardiners always used—a south-facing apartment directly beneath my own bedchamber—and because of the mildness of the late summer evenings, the newlyweds opened wide the windows so that I could hear them running about and laughing. Once I heard Wickham groaning and in my innocence I feared he must have hurt himself.
But Lydia was so immodest—so impudent—in her newly-married conceit, coming down to breakfast with her hair all bundled up, yawning, and telling us how tired she was (Wickham in contrast never once put in an appearance at the breakfast table).
Fortunatel
y, Cassandra and Helen had returned to Meryton that same week so that most mornings I was able to take refuge with them. Both sisters expressed dismay at the marriage, believing too high a price had been paid for respectability, and Helen especially was eager for me to come to them whilst ever Wickham was at Longbourn.
But I was not, alas, as comfortable in Helen’s company as formerly. It seemed to me that she had hardened, had become combative towards men, flirting with them in an odd, unfriendly way. I heard her quiz the courteous clerk at Clarke’s, telling him that the hero of such-and-such a novel was a coxcomb: “Sans coeur—completely heartless—just like you and me, I fear.”
Cassandra had changed too, I thought. The months shut up with Helen had left their mark and she was occasionally impatient both with her sister and her aunt. To me though, she was unfailingly kind; she had been delighted to hear about Peter—indeed, both sisters had been—but whereas Cassandra praised him unreservedly, Helen said: “I’m sure I wish you every happiness, chérie, but do not forget that he is a man, not a god.”
I now felt obliged to honor my promise to George to tell him of Helen’s return, but having written to him, I lacked the courage to tell Helen what I had done. Instead, I told Cassandra while the two of us were shopping together in Meryton.
“He will return to Hertfordshire now, I’m sure.”
“Did he plague you for our direction?”
“Oh! mercilessly. He came to Stoke Farm and it was so very embarrassing—Mrs. Knowles thought he was in love with me.”
That made Cassandra laugh, and I continued a little shyly: “Peter thought so too at first and I am ashamed to say I did not disabuse him of the idea. Do you think that was wrong of me, Cassy?”
“Perhaps, but very understandable.”
We now turned into the print-shop, where Cassandra had left several sketches for the proprietor to look over. Most of the work had been done in Islington—landscapes depicting the village of Islington Spa and various picturesque inns—but there was also a charming crayon sketch of a sleeping baby. Cassandra hastily removed this from the portfolio, and after the proprietor paid her what I considered to be a trifling amount (but which Cassandra later assured me was a very fair price), we quit the shop.
The Forgotten Sister: Mary Bennet's Pride and Prejudice Page 28
