At any rate, that is how Mary and I came to be the last sisters left at home. Our mother has more or less given up on seeing Mary married off, I think. But she has by no means abandoned hopes of seeing me wedded. To whom, she is not particular; her criteria for potential sons-in-law seem to be firstly a sizeable income, and secondly a beating pulse.
That is why I was so happy to accept our Aunt Gardiner’s invitation for Mary and me to spend the winter in London. Lizzy invited me, too. But I cannot possibly face her again, not after what happened last Christmas. And Aunt Gardiner is such a calm, restful person to be around. She never fusses or worries. Besides, though she is very kind, she is too busy with the children to be overly occupied with Mary or me.
And beyond the one time Mary informed me that it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all—and I dumped an entire pot of tea over her head for it—Mary leaves me alone.
In my defence, at least the tea was (mostly) gone cold.
Wednesday 3 January 1816
Today marks the first day of putting my plan into effect: I dragged Mary out to the shops to buy her some new clothes. I was expecting it to be a battle, preferable only when compared to a visit to the dentist. But it actually went much better than I would have thought.
And it got me away from the house during the hour when Mrs. Ayres typically makes her weekly effort to see me—and is forced to leave a card with my aunt’s parlourmaid, letting me know that she has called.
I will have to see her eventually, I know. But there are penances and then there are penances. And I still feel as though I would rather hurl myself under the wheels of a runaway carriage than have to sit with John’s mother and talk about her dead son.
Because if I see Mrs. Ayres, I will have to tell her the truth. Even I cannot seriously contemplate a bare-faced lie to a woman whose son was killed last summer at Waterloo. I suppose this will sound as though I am making excuses, trying to cast myself in a more favourable light. The former Emperor Napoleon probably wrote in his personal diary: I am humble and without the least conceit of myself.
But it really is true—it is honestly not for myself that I mind the thought of Mrs. Ayres knowing the whole ugly story of what happened between John and me last year. I would tell her the truth—even though it makes me appear a brainless, heartless flirt. What I am afraid of is that it would tarnish her memories of John, to know he was once blind enough to be in love with me.
So I took Mary shopping instead.
Mary has plenty of money—she has spent practically nothing of the allowance our father gave us, or the Christmas gifts from Lizzy and Jane. Until today, all she had bought were a few books, so I was able to bring her to the Conduit Street shop of Madame LeFarge, the very fashionable modiste who makes all of Jane’s dresses.
Mary balked a bit at the prices—well, at the whole process, really. But I asked her did she want to spend the rest of her time in London a confirmed wallflower, or did she wish to occasionally have a dance? And she actually submitted to Madame LeFarge’s measuring and clucking and draping her with various silks and gauzes and muslins.
Madame LeFarge was at least very enthusiastic. I think she saw Mary as a unique professional challenge. If she could manage to make Mary beautiful, she could succeed with anyone.
Though Mary is not so ill-favoured, really. Especially not now that her skin has cleared and her figure is no longer all awkward angles. She might even be pretty if she learned to arrange her hair properly, instead of simply scraping it straight back from her face. And if she left off wearing her spectacles.
She does not even actually need the spectacles—they are only plain glass set in silver frames that she bought with the goal of making herself look more intelligent.
At any rate, if left to herself, Mary would have chosen the plainest, dullest materials Madame LeFarge had. But Madame and I joined forces and overruled her, and in the end actually persuaded her into some pretty things. A rose satin that is to be made up with an overdress of cream-coloured spider-gauze and trimmed with pearl rosettes. And an evening gown of pale blue crepe, ruffled at the sleeves and hem.
Madame LeFarge tried to interest me in some new clothes, as well. I suppose there is no reason I should not have bought them. Since John and I were no longer actually engaged at the time of his death, I was not required to wear mourning. Thankfully. I should have felt an even greater hypocrite having to drape myself in black bombazine and sneeze into black-edged handkerchiefs.
But I still had no desire to let Madame LeFarge fit me for anything new.
In the end, we ordered three dresses for Mary—and Madame LeFarge promised me faithfully that she would have the blue crepe ready for the dinner party Aunt Gardiner is giving in two days’ time.
That gives me two days to coach Mary in proper etiquette and persuade her not on any account to bring up the subjects of gout, brown bread, or raw carrots to any of the young men she meets.
I will write down in this journal whether I am successful or no—and whether Mary and I both survive my efforts.
Though I have some hopes. After we had finished at Madame LeFarge’s, I made Mary come with me to Gunter’s famous pastry shop to eat ice cream. And she only mentioned once that the pastries and ices were shockingly over-priced and not at all healthful, and that she was afraid some of the other customers—she was staring at a pair of very elegantly dressed women with obviously rouged cheeks and varnished fingernails who were eating at the table next to ours—might possibly be less than respectable.
Friday 5 January 1816
As it happens, I only need a single word to sum up the dinner party tonight: disastrous.
Oh, the evening began well enough. Madame LeFarge did manage to finish the blue crepe gown for Mary. It was delivered this afternoon. And it is lovely—Madame added rows of pointed lace to the sleeves and collar line and caught up the overskirt with rosettes of deeper blue satin.
I forced Mary into it. And managed to persuade her to stop tugging at the neckline, which was really not so very low cut—though certainly more revealing than the high-necked dresses she usually wears.
And then I sat Mary down in the chair in front of my dressing table—our room has two, one for each of us—and made her allow me to arrange her hair.
Mary’s hair is quite pretty, really: glossy dark brown, with a natural curl. It is just that she invariably wears it dragged straight back from her face and pinned in a knot at the nape of her neck that makes her look more like a prim, dowdy governess than any actual governess possibly could.
Tonight I gathered her hair into a loose knot on top of her head. Then I took my sewing scissors and—ignoring Mary’s squeaks of protest—ruthlessly snipped and clipped so that a few loose, curling tendrils framed her face.
The difference in her appearance was amazing. I took out a pot of rouge—I have it, still, though I have not opened it in months—and added just a light touch of colour to Mary’s lips and cheeks. And she looked lovely, she really did.
I turned her to look into the mirror, and her eyes went quite wide with astonishment. And then she reached for her spectacles, which she had left on the edge of my night table.
“Don’t even think it!” I slapped her hand away. “Do you want to undo all my efforts?”
“But—” Mary cast a longing look at the glasses.
I cut her off. “I don’t care how much more intelligent you think they make you look, you are not wearing them tonight.”
Mary looked up at me—then down at the floor. “It’s not that. I started wearing them when my face had so very many blemishes,” she muttered. “They seemed—it felt as though I could hide behind them, a little. And now I feel … naked, without them.”
I was taken aback. Because as a rule, Mary never admits to uncertainty or self-consciousness—or to anything, really, but absolute confidence in her own wisdom and opinions.
But then she added, “And they do make me look more intelligent.” Which sounded
much more like the sister Mary I know.
“Gentlemen don’t want a woman who looks intelligent. They want a girl who looks like a charming and agreeable companion,” I said.
Another flicker of uncertainty crossed Mary’s face. “I … is that not like lying, then? Pretending to be something I am not, just for the sake of attracting what must surely be fickle male attention, if it is based on such untruths? As the poet Mr. Cowper says, true souls—”
I had not really anything to say to that. It is certainly not as though my own record in that regard has been so outstanding. But I still interrupted before Mary could start unleashing quotations from poetry.
“Let us just start with getting some agreeable gentleman to ask you to dance,” I said. “We can worry later about your baring your true souls to each other.”
I looked at the clock, then, and realised that I had barely a quarter of an hour until Aunt Gardiner’s guests were due to arrive, which meant that I had approximately ten minutes to dress myself.
I rummaged in the wardrobe and yanked on the first dress that I found: my ivory silk with silver embroidered acorns. And then I sat down at the dressing table to fix my own hair.
I had been playing knights and dragons all afternoon with Thomas and Jack—they are Aunt and Uncle Gardiner’s two boys—followed by dolls’ tea party with Anna and Charlotte, who are Thomas and Jack’s older sisters. And I had spent a good deal of the time holding baby Susanna on my shoulder, as well.
When I looked into the mirror, I discovered that I still had a smear of green paint on my neck from the dragon’s costume—the headdress the boys and I made together had not quite dried when I put it on—and that at some point during the tea party, baby Susanna had managed to deposit a sticky smear of what looked like grape jelly in my hair.
There was only time enough to hastily scrub the green paint off, though, with the cold wash water in the basin. I pulled my hair back into a tight knot that rivalled the severity of Mary’s usual hairstyles, and then covered the jelly with a silver lace bandeau.
After all, it was not as though it mattered especially what I looked like. And I am sure Mary could quote me some verse of the Bible that has something or other to say about the dangers of vanity over one’s looks.
“All right,” I said to Mary. “Let us go down. And for Heaven’s sake, do not forget what I told you. Do not quote poetry, do not criticise any of the gentlemen’s apparent vices, and above all, smile from time to time.”
Mary looked as though she were preparing to argue—probably thinking up some other quotation about wisdom being a kindly spirit. But I never gave her the chance, only took her by the arm and marched her downstairs to where Aunt Gardiner’s guests were beginning to arrive.
The dinner itself was also perfectly fine. I was seated next to a Mr. Frank Bertram, who talked mostly about—
Actually, I have no idea what he talked about. Horses, possibly? Or boating? My entire attention was occupied with trying to overhear what Mary was saying to her dinner companion. And wishing that I were seated near enough to stamp on her foot if she broke any of my rules and started lecturing or sermonising.
She seemed to do all right, though. She was seated next to Rhys Williams. He is a clerk in Uncle Phillips’s employ (Uncle Phillips being the husband of our mother’s sister; they live in Meryton, near our father’s estate at Longbourn), and has come to town to conduct some business for our uncle. Mr. Williams is somewhere about twenty-three or -four, and on the compact side—only a head or so taller than I am—but squarely built and sturdy-looking. His colouring is Welsh—black hair and dark eyes—and though he is not strictly speaking handsome, he is a pleasant young man.
Well, to be accurate, I suppose I should say that he appears to be a pleasant young man. He is so excessively shy that I have never actually managed to get him to say a word to me, though since he has been in town these last weeks, Aunt and Uncle Gardiner have often had him here to dine.
Tonight he appeared all through dinner to be listening to whatever Mary was saying. His eyes did not even appear to have glazed over with boredom, nor did I see him yawn. Though perhaps he was only grateful to have been blessed with a dinner companion who did not require him to talk.
After dinner ended and the gentlemen had joined us in the drawing room, Aunt Gardiner proposed that we have some dancing. I could see Mary poised to offer to play, but I stepped in before she could get the words out, and volunteered to accompany the dancing myself. I do not play nearly so well as Mary. Not even so well as Lizzy, really. But I can manage a few reels and a “Sir Roger de Coverley”.
The only drawback to that arrangement was that, though I had prevented Mary from playing, I could not both accompany the dancing and find a way to force Mary to actually dance. Or rather, force one of the gentlemen to ask her; she stood at the side of the space Aunt Gardiner had cleared for dancing. Moving her gloved fingers awkwardly in time to the music and looking hopeful. But not one of the young men there approached her.
Then at last Rhys Williams came to stand beside her. But not to ask her to dance. They only resumed their dinnertime conversation.
I could hear only part of what they said, but they seemed to be discussing the new gaslights that are being put up around London. It sounded stultifyingly boring to me, but I actually heard Mr. Williams utter a sentence or two, so he cannot have been entirely uninterested. And—perhaps it was the new dress and hairstyle—but Mary looked quite bright and interested, too. She even smiled.
Then Aunt Gardiner approached the pair of them—and I actually had some hopes, because she was intent on seeing Mary and Mr. Williams dance.
The other drawback of my sitting at the piano was that I was still not immune from invitations to dance myself. At least five gentlemen approached my bench and either offered to turn pages for me or said how hard it was that I could not dance, and surely my aunt or my sister could take a turn?
I kept having to break off playing in order to decline, since attempting to talk and play at the same time usually leads to disaster.
At any rate it was during one of these lulls—I was refusing Mr. Bertram, my companion from dinner—that Aunt Gardiner approached Mary and Mr. Williams, so I was able to hear the whole of the exchange.
Aunt Gardiner said, “Come, Rhys—Mary. I must have you dance. The two of you are the only couple here who have yet to take a turn on the floor.”
Rhys Williams’s face flushed beet-red to the roots of his hair, and he started to shake his head and stammer some sort of refusal. Something about Mr. Phillips requiring that he look over some accounts before tomorrow.
Mary, watching him and listening, looked mortified. After all, it is not especially pleasant to have the young man whom you have been speaking with for the past half hour look as though he would much prefer to run a mile in tight shoes rather than ask you to dance.
Aunt Gardiner saw Mary’s face, too. She is very perceptive, as well as kind. She turned to Mr. Williams and said, “Nonsense, Rhys. You work far too hard, as Mr. Phillips is well aware. He would not wish for you to cut short your enjoyment of the evening for a mere accounts book. I am sure whatever business it is can very well wait.”
There was no way Mr. Williams could refuse without crossing the line into outright rudeness. Still blushing furiously, he offered Mary his hand and bowed. And Mary took it and moved with him onto the dance floor.
That was when disaster struck. I could kick myself for not thinking of it, but in all my coaching Mary these last two days in how to attract a gentleman’s invitation to dance, it never occurred to me to question whether she can actually dance.
She cannot. At least, she cannot dance well. I remember her having dance lessons when we were young, with all the rest of us—and I cannot recall that she was so especially unskilled then. I suppose it has been years since she had the opportunity to practise, though, and I am not sure that she has ever danced in company with a young man.
Not that it was her fault en
tirely—once he was on the dance floor, I could understand Mr. Williams’s reluctance. He is, quite possibly, the worst dancer I have ever seen. He tripped and stumbled and stepped on the other dancers’ feet—and could not to save his own life keep to the beat of the music.
I could only see them out of the corner of my eye, since I was playing. But the combination of him and Mary together was like something from a Punch and Judy show. They reeled around, crashing into the other couples in the line. Then Mr. Williams stepped on the hem of Mary’s gown as she turned to move away from him during the allemande.
There was a sound of rending fabric. Mary lost her balance and was yanked backwards off her feet, her arms flailing wildly. She landed flat on her back in the centre of the dance floor.
For a moment of absolute, stunned silence, the entire room seemed to stare at her, collectively uncertain of what to do or say. And then Mary scrambled ungracefully up and bolted from the room, her hands covering her face.
I got up from the piano and ran after her. Mr. Williams was standing where Mary had left him, looking acutely horrified, and miserable as well. But I was much less concerned with him than with Mary.
I should have expected her to run upstairs to our room, but I suppose she was not thinking clearly and simply chose the nearest bolt-hole—which happened to be the cloakroom at the foot of the stairs.
As I came out of the drawing room and into the hall, I saw the door bang behind her, and heard the key turn in the lock.
“Mary?” I knocked on the door.
Kitty Bennet's Diary (Pride and Prejudice Chronicles) Page 2
