Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
A Surprising Encounter
Mary sat back with her fingers folded, waiting to be called upon again. It was pleasant enough to have a position in the neighbour-hood as the willing musician, but she felt a faint prick of disquiet as she looked out over the assembled guests. Almost all were young men and women with whom she had grown up. No, in many cases they were younger than she was. She had left the schoolroom some time since, and was now a full-grown woman of twenty years. She frowned, and then remembered her mother’s strict admonitions not to scowl so, as it wrinkled her brow.
‘Do you not get tired playing?’ came a voice at her side. Mary started and looked up at the young man smiling pleasantly at her. She remembered that they had been introduced but she had already forgotten his name. His dress was unkempt and his hair overlong, but he had a good-natured smile and she smiled back at him.
‘Music is the balm that comforts our souls,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t tire me to play.’
‘Even music for dancing? I find it exhilarating, rather than peaceful. But I cannot sit and do one thing over and again. I must always be moving.’
Mary opened her mouth but had nothing to say. Young men didn’t often talk to her. She felt heat rise in her cheeks and tried desperately to think of some aphorism or other. He didn’t seem to notice her reticence. Instead, he suddenly smacked the top of the pianoforte, making her jump.
‘I know. You should dance the next dance with me, and then we can compare whether dancing or music is the more tiring.’
He spoke as if it were the simplest thing in the world, that she should just rise and dance. With him.
Before she could say a word, Maria Lucas jumped in.
‘Oh no!’ she said. ‘Mary doesn’t dance – if she did we would have no one to play, for none of us has the patience. Go on, Mary – we’re all ready. Play more for us. Mr Aikens, you are ready, I know, and you promised to dance another with me.’
The young man looked between them and his smile faltered. Mary felt her mouth move in a smile of her own, and she began another air. She kept her head down, concentrating on her fingers, until she sensed that the man had gone. When she looked up he was dancing with Maria Lucas.
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Copyright © 2011 by Patrice Sarath. Cover art: The Duet (Mezzotint), Schweninger, Karl the Elder (1818 – 87) /The Bridgeman Art Library. Cover design by Lesley Worrell.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sarath, Patrice.
The unexpected Miss Bennet / by Patrice Sarath.—Berkley trade paperback ed. p. cm.
ISBN : 978-1-101-55278-0
1. Single women—Fiction. 2. Sisters—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3619.A722U54 2011
813’.6—dc23
2011032526
http://us.penguingroup.com
CHAPTER ONE
IT IS A comforting belief among much of society, that a plain girl with a small fortune must have no more interest in matrimony than matrimony has in her.
Mrs Bennet was not a particularly doting mother, but she did have one object, and that was to see all of her daughters married. She was the most often bemused by Mary, her third daughter of five, and the one with the fewest prospects.
It was not that Mary was plain, exactly, for she was a Bennet, and the Bennet girls were known as the prettiest in their small neighbourhood. But she said the most alarming things and was full of dire pronouncements on the base leanings of men, of which men were not eager to hear, and though she applied herself diligently to the piano and singing, she was not as accomplished as many another girl who approached the task with rather more gaiety than determination.
It might have been with something like relief, then, her two eldest daughters having made quite eligible matches, that Mrs Bennet could surrender her vigilance with regards to Mary. For Kitty, some effort must still be made, of course, and that was a daunting enough task in itself. But Mary – Mrs Bennet owned herself unequal to the task.
She confided as much to her eldest daughter Jane on one of her frequent visits, that her nerves were not up to finding a husband for Mary.
‘No, Mary must stay here and be a comfort to me and Mr Bennet,’ Mrs Bennet declared. ‘And after we die you must take her in, Jane. She will be no bother. She loves only her piano and her sermons and she will do quite nicely and will be quite out of the way. She can help you with the children as you begin to have them, and so she will be able to pay her own way.’
Jane endeavoured to assure Mrs Bennet that she would be able to provide a home for Mary for many more years, and that Mary would find a higher place in Jane’s home than governess when such an unhappy event as Mrs Bennet’s passing on came about, but Mrs Bennet had already flitted on to another topic, in which Lady Lucas had offered up some slight and Mrs B
ennet received the insult so eagerly as to make Jane suspect she enjoyed the opportunity to consider herself ill-used.
But what to do about Mary? Jane, ensconced in the height of domestic happiness, began to suffer a niggling doubt. Could it be right that she should be so happy while her middle sister was not? Jane took up an accounting of the Bennet sisters’ fortunes. Of the five, she and her next sister, Elizabeth, were married to men they loved and respected. Their youngest sister, Lydia, had become entangled with a disgraceful rake, in circumstances which had brought down a scandal upon the whole family. Then there was Kitty who, fortunately, was not yet attached. Rather than let her go the way of Lydia, towards which destiny Kitty’s nature predisposed her, Jane and Elizabeth had each taken a firmer hand in her upbringing. For the sake of Kitty’s future happiness and respectability they could not let her follow Lydia’s example; it would not do to have two scandals in one family.
There was no need to have such a fear for Mary, who practised goodness with sober devotion and no little pride, and thus was less susceptible to the wiles of bad men. But even Mary, for all of her sermonizing against the evils of pleasant society, had expressed interest in a more fulfilling life than that of living on her sister’s charity. Should not she have a chance of finding such happiness with a like-minded gentleman as Jane had found with her Bingley or Lizzy with her Darcy?
Jane worried, and when Jane worried, she acted. That evening she composed a letter to Lizzy.
Dearest Lizzy,
I hope this letter finds you well at Pemberley. Mama has just left after a long visit, and I confess that I am slightly weary of her nerves. But it was good to have her company, and it was rather like old times. My Bingley left us alone for much of her stay but he was perfectly amiable to her and her teases. Father was not able to come, and I believe him when he said that he preferred his library at Longbourn to ours, as we are not great readers, though we mean to improve! But I think we will see him in a fortnight or sooner.
Mama said something that gave me cause for concern regarding Mary. For all that we were terribly embarrassed when she pushed us towards eligible men, she seems to take no interest in Mary’s prospects. She seems resigned – no, content – that Mary may not ever marry, and thinks more of Kitty’s debut in London than of Mary’s.
I am happy to be chaperone to Kitty in public and I see a vast improvement in her behaviour already, since she is no longer under Lydia’s sway, poor misguided soul. I think, though, that we should not neglect Mary. She is as unformed in her way as Kitty is, and though her opinions are firm, she holds them with little understanding of society and the world. I think we do a grave disservice to her if we do not offer her the same guidance that we give to Kitty, and I think it will be just as well received, if not better, by Mary.
I await your reply anxiously. Give my love to Darcy and Georgiana.
Jane
With this letter Jane hatched her plot and waited for Lizzy’s reply.
LIZZY GAVE A fond smile when she received and read the missive. Always like Jane, to think of others as deserving of all good fortune that fell to her!
But if the world were as just as it claimed to be, all good fortune would be heaped upon Jane and those of like character, and there would be none for the rest of us, Lizzy said to herself. And that would not do at all. She stood and paced the small sitting room that she had claimed for her own when she became mistress of Pemberley. The great house was hardly a house at all, and its inhabitants – Lizzy, her young sister-in-law, Georgiana, and her husband, Darcy – rattled about in it as loosely as buttons in an old hatbox. Elizabeth was used to cosier comforts. Longbourn was small, and old, and respectably shabby; this little room, which received the afternoon sun and looked out over a small bit of wilderness, reminded her of her childhood and her upbringing.
When her gaze fell on a miniature of her husband and all that it represented, she knew that Jane was right. Perhaps Mary would never find such happiness, but to withhold any opportunity from her by the simple expedient of assuming that she of all others would never fall in love, that she would never attract a respectable man, was as prejudiced a thought as any that Lizzy had been susceptible to.
For we all know how that turned out, she thought. My prejudice almost cost me my love. How much more dangerous then, to hold such assumptions concerning my sister, and to wield such power by omission as to prevent her from ever discovering whether there is a man for her. Jane is right – we must do all we can for Mary.
When she entered her husband’s study and gave him a kiss as he bent over his letters, he smiled up at her, his expression lightening so much that it melted her heart.
‘You have the look of mischief about you,’ Mr Darcy said. ‘Much as when we first met and exchanged words. Have I need to fear?’
‘Not at all,’ she said. ‘I merely came to warn you that I am my mother’s daughter after all. Jane and I are prepared to make a match for Mary.’
CHAPTER TWO
OBLIVIOUS OF SUCH plans being made for her by her elder sisters, Mary Bennet sat at the piano at Lucas Lodge and played her favourite airs as all around her young men and women of her acquaintance danced and laughed. She sat in the corner in the small ballroom, her face serious as she played, hardly looking up at the swirl of gowns around her. The dance was lively, for Sir William and Lady Lucas loved a party and enjoyed playing host to all the young people in the neighbourhood. And all the neighbourhood came to their assemblies, where conversation and laughter abounded. It was a merry time, and even Mrs Bennet, who had cause to look askance upon the Lucases, could be found sitting with the other mamas, all boasting of their offspring.
With the eldest two Bennet sisters married well and the youngest married but not spoken of, Longbourn was no longer at the centre of the small Meryton society. Now it was Lady Lucas’s turn. Her eldest daughter Charlotte was comfortably settled, but Lady Lucas still had unmarried daughters to find husbands for, and she viewed Mrs Bennet’s triumphs less with chagrin than with relief. Now there was a clear field for her other children.
For her part, Mrs Bennet only occasionally forgave Lady Lucas for her eldest daughter Charlotte’s marriage to Mr Collins, a Bennet cousin and Mr Bennet’s heir. To her credit, she did her best, but Mrs Bennet could not think kindly of Charlotte until her two eldest daughters had surpassed her marriage with their own. Even then, it only took the word ‘entail’ to cause her nerves to dance with indignation.
When it came to the assemblies, though, she tried to put her feelings aside. To Mrs Philips, her sister, she said, ‘It keeps Kitty happy to have a dance now and again, and as for Mary, it gives her something to do. I think people whose daughters marry other people’s cousins for the entail could be less happy, perhaps, but then again, my sensibility is extraordinary in that regard. None the less, I will not say a word to Lady Lucas but only smile and nod when she tells me of Charlotte and her new baby boy. No doubt Mr Collins had a son on purpose. However, I will not speak anything of it, though it is bad when a property is entailed away from its rightful owners.’
She finished giving this speech just as Mary brought a lively gavotte to an end with a flourish. The assembly broke into laughter and applause, then the dancers turned towards the punch bowl for refreshment, their faces flushed and their heads giddy. It was a cool summer night and the doors had been thrown open to the garden.
Mary sat back with her fingers folded, waiting to be called upon again. It was pleasant enough to have a position in the neighbourhood as the willing musician, but she felt a faint prick of disquiet as she looked out over the assembled guests. Almost all were young men and women with whom she had grown up. No, in many cases they were younger than she was. She had left the schoolroom some time since, and was now a full-grown woman of twenty years. She frowned, and then remembered her mother’s strict admonitions not to scowl so, as it wrinkled her brow.
‘Do you not get tired playing?’ came a voice at her side. Mary started and looked up at t
he young man smiling pleasantly at her. She remembered that they had been introduced but she had already forgotten his name. His dress was unkempt and his hair overlong, but he had a good-natured smile and she smiled back at him.
‘Music is the balm that comforts our souls,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t tire me to play.’
‘Even music for dancing? I find it exhilarating, rather than peaceful. But I cannot sit and do one thing over and again. I must always be moving.’
Mary opened her mouth but had nothing to say. Young men didn’t often talk to her. She felt heat rise in her cheeks and tried desperately to think of some aphorism or other. He didn’t seem to notice her reticence. Instead, he suddenly smacked the top of the pianoforte, making her jump.
‘I know. You should dance the next dance with me, and then we can compare whether dancing or music is the more tiring.’
He spoke as if it were the simplest thing in the world, that she should just rise and dance. With him.
Before she could say a word, Maria Lucas jumped in.
‘Oh no!’ she said. ‘Mary doesn’t dance – if she did we would have no one to play, for none of us has the patience. Go on, Mary – we’re all ready. Play more for us. Mr Aikens, you are ready, I know, and you promised to dance another with me.’
The young man looked between them and his smile faltered. Mary felt her mouth move in a smile of her own, and she began another air. She kept her head down, concentrating on her fingers, until she sensed that the man had gone. When she looked up he was dancing with Maria Lucas.
THE FAINT FEELING of discontent pricked at Mary for days after that evening. The piano at Longbourn remained silent, its lid closed. Mary sometimes wandered towards it out of habit, but when she sat at the worn bench she felt a vague disgust. It no longer suited her fancy to sit and play. With the piano silent, the house was quieter than ever, the liveliness that five daughters had brought to it muted. Kitty was full of chatter as usual, but only their mother answered her vivacity or querulousness with her own. Mrs Bennet never said a word about the unused piano – she only dozed in the afternoon in the parlour where the instrument stood. Mr Bennet was as silent as a father could be, spending his days on the farm and his afternoons in his library when he was not visiting Lizzy.
Unexpected Miss Bennet (9781101552780) Page 1
