by John Kessel
Lady Henry’s punctilious greeting gave no hint of the public wonder that Mrs. Bennet, who possessed neither elegance of manner nor a jot of sense, had come to be the mother by marriage of both Charles Bingley and Fitzwilliam Darcy. It was generally agreed that the credit for this achievement fell solely to her daughters Jane, who had inherited her mother’s once great beauty, and Elizabeth, who had her father’s wit.
In comparison, Kitty and Mary could only disappoint. Kitty, it was recognized, had gained a certain poise by association with the Darcys and at the brink of middle age remained a lovely if no longer young woman. But there were younger girls now who far outshone her.
Mary was more easily dismissed. Charles Woodleigh notwithstanding, the Bennets’ tall, left-handed, wrong-footed daughter had long been assigned, in the minds of society, the role of old maid. In her youth Mary had approached such social challenges as tonight’s ball with so much confidence yoked to so dim an understanding of human nature that it was likely she would commit some humiliating faux pas, yet remain unaware of the impression she created on others. That danger had passed. Now she expected little more than to sit in the corner for the entire night, convinced that she had rather be anywhere in England but at this party.
Kitty was alight with hectic energy, almost dancing on her toes. She had never looked more beautiful, Mary thought. She was determined not to return from this season without an offer of marriage, and that did not mean one from Mr. Collins.
Unfortunately, Collins was the first person to ask her to dance. As soon as they entered, he hurried over, as if he had been watching the door. He was dressed in a black tailcoat and black waistcoat, but his cravat was of bright green.
He bowed to Mrs. Bennet. “How good to see you, Mrs. Bennet. And your lovely daughters.” He bowed to Mary, and more deeply to Kitty.
“We are surprised to see you here,” Mrs. Bennet said. “We did not think that you were prepared to brave such a public gathering so soon.”
Charlotte Collins had died six months earlier giving birth to Mr. Collins’s second son, who had expired a week after his mother. The volume of Mr. Collins’s grief was impressive, but its persistence left something to be desired. He had found occasion to visit the Bennets scant weeks after the funeral—for his living son’s sake, he would say, the boy so sad to be without female comfort in the aftermath of his mother’s passing—but in fact he seemed more interested in Kitty than in anyone else at Longbourn. Mrs. Bennet was not so chagrined by his unseemly haste in seeking a new wife as by his lack of interest in Mary, for she knew that if Kitty were to have any say in the matter, his prospects were dim indeed. Charlotte Collins’s death was a great pity, to be sure, but this misfortune could be turned to some benefit if only Collins might marry one of her daughters and thereby save Longbourn.
Mr. Collins said gravely, “Though I might wear the gay apparel suitable to such a grand gathering”—he touched the cravat—“inside still remains a black ribbon tied about my heart. I shall indulge in a dance or two, but it is only the effort of an old widower to accord his actions with propriety. Excessive grief should not be indulged lest it seem we question the will of the Lord. My beloved Charlotte would not have had it any other way.” He cast his gaze down upon his quite elegant shoes.
Kitty looked as if she would die on the spot, but she bore up. When Lord Henry and his eldest daughter opened the ball by taking the floor for the quadrille, she took a turn with Collins. Having pressed Kitty into his service, Collins was obliged to ask Mary for the second dance. He led her onto the floor and proceeded throughout the breaks in their cotillion to speak to Mary of Lady Catherine de Bourgh while studying every other woman in the room.
At twenty, Mary had mistaken Mr. Collins’s moralism for a sincere belief in right and wrong, his obsequiousness for humility, and his self-regard for propriety. She recalled with embarrassment how unworldly she had been; back then, she did not grasp how people were capable of dissembling. It had been a hard thing for her to learn. If to present a false face was all that the world demanded, how could people live? It was a question whose implications were so distressing that she avoided it as much as possible. Though at thirty-two Mary knew more than that girl of twenty, she still read their actions with difficulty, and judgments that Elizabeth might come to instinctively, Mary could reach only through painstaking consideration.
Mr. Collins seemed only slightly more relieved to return Mary to her seat at the end of the dance than Mary was to be left alone to indulge her thoughts.
After Mr. Collins, she saw no other invitations. Kitty, however, had many partners. Mary could only observe others dancing for some time before excusing herself to her mother and aunt and going to the library. She ignored the noisy card players gathered there and examined the books on the shelves, among which she found several familiar volumes of sermons by John Wesley. She lingered over Wesley’s curious Desideratum; or, Electricity Made Plain and Useful, which argued for the medical benefits of electrical shock. “This great Machine of the World requires some such constant, active, and powerful Principle,” Wesley wrote, “constituted by its Creator, to . . . give Support, Life, and Increase to the various Inhabitants of the Earth.”
Would that Mary had electrical stimulation to ameliorate tonight’s tedium. Failing that, she returned to her family in time to observe Kitty brought breathlessly back at the conclusion of the fifth dance. A moment later Mr. Gardiner arrived from the smoking room, accompanied by two young men. They were dressed in dove-gray breeches, black jackets, and waistcoats, with white ties and gloves.
“My dear, Mrs. Bennet, and the Misses Bennet, let me introduce a visitor to our country, Mr. Henry Clerval, and his friend Mr. Victor Frankenstein.”
Fair-haired Mr. Clerval bowed gracefully. “A pleasure to meet you,” he said to Aunt Gardiner, then Mrs. Bennet, then Mary and Kitty.
Mr. Frankenstein bowed but said nothing. He had the darkest eyes Mary had ever encountered, and an air of being there only out of obligation. Mary had noticed Clerval on the dance floor earlier but had not seen his friend take a dance as yet. Pride, vanity, or shyness might account for it; there was no way to tell.
Mr. Gardiner explained how his friend Mr. Clegg had introduced him to Clerval at the offices of Clegg’s import house in the City. Clerval spoke briefly about how he and Victor had arrived in London from Geneva, Switzerland, some months earlier.
Mr. Frankenstein mumbled a few words and, to her great surprise, turned to Mary. “Might I have the pleasure, if you are not occupied, of sharing the next dance with you?”
His eyes did not meet hers. She suspected he asked her only at the urging of Mr. Clerval. His diffident air intrigued her. His manners were faultless, as was his English—though he spoke with a slight French accent—but he conveyed an air of hesitance, as if he acted a part that was not comfortable. Not vanity, then, and not likely pride.
He took her hand and guided her to the floor. Through her glove and his she felt the pressure of his fingers; they entered the lines of women and men facing one another, prepared for the quadrille. Once the orchestra struck up, Frankenstein moved with some grace. Unlike Mr. Collins, his attention was on Mary, and she thought, despite herself, that she danced better than she had except at those times when she danced by herself in her room, safe from the world’s observation. When she extended her hand, she did it with neither abruptness nor timidity. No trace of a smile crossed her partner’s lips. He spoke not at all. They stood side by side as the line advanced, waiting to make them top couple, and Mary’s discomfort increased. She cast about for something to say, but her mind was a humiliating blank.
At the end of the dance, Mr. Frankenstein broke the silence, asking whether Mary would like some refreshment. She might rather have been released, but she would not be rude. They crossed from the crowded ballroom to the sitting room, where Frankenstein procured for her a cup of negus. Away from the orchestra Mary could hear the rattle of windblown rain on the windows. She watched him ret
rieve the punch and bring it back, determined to make some conversation before she should retreat to the safety of her wallflower’s chair.
“So, Monsieur Frankenstein, did you come to London as your friend Mr. Clerval did—on business?”
He sat across from her, his cup in his hands. Other couples in the room conversed with varying degrees of intimacy. Looking about as he spoke, in his excellent English he said, “I came to meet with certain natural philosophers here in London. Your country boasts some of the leading chemists of Europe.”
“Oh. Have you met Mr. Davy?”
Frankenstein looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. “You are acquainted with Mr. Davy?”
“I am not acquainted with him, but I am, in my small way, an enthusiast of the sciences. Have you read his Discourse Introductory to a Course of Lectures on Chemistry?”
Frankenstein’s eyebrows lifted. “I find myself astonished to meet a young woman who has read Humphry Davy. Is this the pastime of well-bred ladies in London society?”
For the first time in their evening he seemed to be animated by something other than duty. Mary felt unaccustomed daring. What did it matter what she said to a diffident foreigner whom she would never see again?
“The well-bred ladies of London are more interested in Mr. Davy’s good looks than in his writings,” Mary said. “The well-bred men, though they may attend his lectures, are for the most part less interested in his writings than in the well-bred ladies. You and I are likely the only man and woman here tonight who will speak of chemistry. So you have met Mr. Davy?”
“I attended one of his lectures on his recent return from Europe.”
“Then you have seen more of him than I. My mother does not consider my attending such lectures a suitable way for me to pass my time. You are a natural philosopher?”
“Perhaps it is better to say that at one time I was. I studied at Ingolstadt with Mr. Krempe and Mr. Waldman. I confess that I can no longer countenance the subject.”
“You no longer countenance the subject, yet you seek out Professor Davy.”
A shadow swept over Frankenstein’s face. “The subject is unsupportable to me, yet pursue it I must.”
“A paradox.”
“A paradox that I am unable to explain, Miss Bennet.”
All this said in a voice so heavy as to almost sound despairing. Mary watched his sober black eyes and replied, “ ‘The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.’ ”
For the second time he gave her a look that suggested she had touched him. Mr. Frankenstein sipped from his cup, then spoke: “Avoid any pastime, Miss Bennet, that takes you out of the normal course of human contact. If the study to which you apply yourself has a tendency to weaken your affections and destroy your taste for simple pleasures, then that study is certainly unlawful.”
The purport of this speech Mary was unable to fathom. “Surely there is no harm in seeking knowledge. The natural philosopher, Professor Davy suggests, should be as creative an artist as the poet, and combine together mechanical, chemical, and physiological knowledge. All knowledge, I believe, brings us closer to God.”
“Would that it were always so, Miss Bennet.”
“Why otherwise has he given us minds that reason, and hearts that question?”
“Why, indeed,” Frankenstein said. He smiled. “Henry has urged me to go out into London society; had I known that I might meet such a thoughtful person as yourself, I would have done so long before now.”
The isolation that he exuded touched something in Mary. She asked, “Have you not been able to confide in your friend Mr. Clerval?”
Frankenstein looked at her for a good five seconds before he spoke. “Henry thinks he knows my troubles, and it would not be politic for me to correct him.”
“What does Henry know, then?”
“He knows that, on the eve of my return home from the university, my little brother William was murdered.” Frankenstein’s voice was low, and he studied the figures in the carpet. “That Justine Moritz, our family’s ward, who was a sister to me, was accused of the deed, confessed, and was hanged.”
Mary was shocked, but was called upon to make some response. She managed to say, “It’s a wonder that you have the courage to be here at all.”
Frankenstein lifted his head. “Courage,” he said.
“You have my deepest sympathies. Thank God you find yourself in—what was it you called it?—the normal course of human contact. I would hope that this might present you an opportunity to leave your troubles aside for an evening and enjoy a few of the simple pleasures you recommend.”
His smile now was more genuine. “I believe you are sent to save my evening, Miss Bennet.” He sighed. “But I spy your uncle at the door. No doubt he has been dispatched to protect you. If you will promise me a dance later, I shall release you to your family. Then we may continue this discussion, and I promise in return that I will do so in a lighter mood. Here, give me your card.”
She held out her dance card, embarrassed that it was blank. He took it, and the small pencil attached, and wrote in his name for the second dance after the supper.
He stood, took her hand, and led her to her waiting family.
“I must thank you for the dance, and even more for your conversation, Miss Bennet. In the midst of a foreign land, you have brought me a moment of understanding.”
He returned to Clerval. Mary wondered at the nature of the study that had taken him away from his family. A man of sensibility, however guiltless, might feel some measure of responsibility had his pastimes drawn him away from home while such appalling losses occurred.
Escorting the ladies down to the supper, Uncle Gardiner commented on his conversation with Henry Clerval. “He is a charming fellow. It is his first opportunity to travel abroad. He intends to pursue a career in the East India trade, and is learning the language of Maharashtra and Bombay. I confess that I enjoyed telling him of my own experiences, and I offered to introduce him to Mr. Howland at the exchange.”
Mary ate some of the ham and boiled eggs that were served, and took a glass of Madeira. Kitty coughed softly into her gloved hand.
“Stop coughing, Kitty,” Mrs. Bennet said. “Have a care for my nerves.” She turned to Aunt Gardiner. “They should not have put the supper at the end of this long hallway. The ladies, flushed from the dance, have to walk all that cold way.”
Kitty took a sip of her own wine and leaned over to Mary. “I have never seen you so taken with a man. You were gone such a long time.”
“We were talking.”
“What did you talk about?” asked Aunt Gardiner.
“We spoke of natural philosophy. At first.”
“At first?” Kitty said.
“Did he say nothing of the reasons he came to England?” Mrs. Bennet asked.
“That was his reason—to meet with some men of science. But I think he is here to forget his grief. His little brother was murdered by the family ward.”
“How terrible!” said Aunt Gardiner.
Mrs. Bennet asked in open astonishment, “Can this be true?”
“Would he tell such a tale to a complete stranger?” Kitty said. “It can’t be true.”
Kitty was right. It was not seemly for a stranger to speak of such things, and so much from the heart, to a woman he had just met. Yet her recollection of Frankenstein’s manner, the tone of his voice and the cast of his face, left her no other conclusion than that he had been telling the truth. His appreciation for her responses had been genuine, she had no doubt. Yes, he had violated decorum, yet she could not find it in herself to condemn him.
“Why would he make up such a tale if it is not true?” Mary asked.
After a moment, Aunt Gardiner tentatively said, “It’s not unknown for some men to tell dramatic tales in order to impress young women. Enough girls are attracted to a man suffering from a broken heart for some men to feign one.”
Mary did not think she was the sort of woman on whom a
stranger might practice such art. “A man should be what he seems,” she said. “Mr. Frankenstein has asked to dance with me again after the supper. I will see what more I might draw from him on the matter.”
Mary did not engage them for the rest of the supper, and the women returned to the ballroom silently. Mary was hurt that her family, even Aunt Gardiner, did not trust her judgment, as if she were the same purblind girl she had been at nineteen.
When the second half of the ball began, Kitty at last managed to dance with Mr. Sidwich. Mary surveyed the room, and eventually spotted Frankenstein standing near one of the windows. In the many-paned night-black glass, Mary saw reflections of the candles in the chandeliers and the ghostlike dancers. She caught Frankenstein’s eye, and he inclined his head slightly. Feeling her face flush, Mary studied her dance card and his even, neat signature beside the second dance, a cotillion.
She watched the dancers. Kitty was smiling, her eyes bright, as she moved with energy across the floor with the dashing Mr. Sidwich. Mary knew what this evening meant to her, what this season meant. There was still the foolish girl in Kitty, the girl who loved a party and dreamed of romance, but she had been worn down by growing older with no prospects on the horizon. Still, she took a genuine pleasure in the ball, in being dressed well and feeling lovely and interesting to attractive, important men. Mary’s heart went out to her, at the same time she felt envy for something she had never had.
She had never had a conversation, however brief, like that she’d had with Victor Frankenstein.
