It was as Lizzy expected when she was handed down from the carriage at her family home. Mary was nowhere to be found. Mr Bennet was closeted in his study, and Mrs Bennet could not refrain from making meaningful remarks from the moment she kissed Lizzy in welcome.
‘You talk to her, Lizzy,’ Mrs Bennet said immediately. ‘For my poor nerves cannot bear it. She is an impossible girl. How she could have thought of doing such a thing! Mr Collins said Lady Catherine was beside herself, and that Mary was impertinent! And the wild young man! How did Mary meet such a creature! Why ever would she invite him in to tea! He was a highwayman, I am sure of it, and no doubt he has gone back to Rosings to steal all the silver! And Lady Catherine will blame us! Oh and Lady Lucas has been in and out with all the news and I just cannot bear it any more.’
Lizzy kissed her mother. ‘Where is my father?’
Mrs Bennet waved a hand. ‘Your father! Your father has been no good at all! He stays in his study and hardly comes out! I am all alone, Lizzy! All alone, with my nerves!’
‘I’m here now, Mama. You may be reassured I shall talk to Mary.’
‘Oh, it’s too late now. Little good will talking do. She never had any sense. What was she thinking!’
Lizzy knew that she would continue in that vein for some time, so she made her way up the familiar stairs to Mary’s room. She knocked gently. There was no answer. Lizzy waited a moment, then opened the door. The room was empty save for Mary’s trunk and her things. Lizzy waited a moment. She hadn’t heard the piano – and then she remembered that Mary no longer played.
She looked for her sister in the parlour anyway, then in the kitchens and finally out in the gardens. But she did not find Mary until she started along the path to Meryton. There was a figure ahead of her, wrapped in a warm pelisse, walking briskly down the path.
‘Mary?’ she called out.
Mary turned and stopped and came towards her eagerly.
‘Lizzy!’ She came to give her sister a kiss. Lizzy hugged her and then held her by the shoulders so that she could see her. Whatever disgrace she had brought upon herself, it had done her good. Mary had roses in her cheeks and her eyes were bright. Her hair had loosened from her bun and caught the wintry light.
‘Mary, why did you let a highwayman into Rosings?’
Mary gave a rueful laugh.
‘So you spoke to Mama.’
‘I could hardly avoid it. She wrote me such a letter that I was hard put to make it out. I had to come to Longbourn at once to make sense of it all. Was it so dreadful?’
‘Not at first, but then it became so much worse. Oh Lizzy, I was such a fool. How could I have thought that that was the place for me?’
Lizzy listened as her sister spilled her tale. Something had changed about Mary. She still had her same thin, dark, intense frown, but her face was lighter none the less.
‘When I drove away from that dreadful house and those dreadful people, I felt so ashamed, but the longer it is left behind, the more I feel as if I could fly, and I have not come down since.’
So that was it. Mary was happy. Lizzy smiled back.
‘Don’t blame yourself entirely. We encouraged you into it.’
‘I let myself be encouraged. I know you all wanted a place for me. “Something must be done about Mary”,’ she said in a droll voice. ‘What can it be?’
That stung, but Lizzy knew it was true. ‘What did Mama and Papa say?’
‘Oh I suppose Mama will resign herself. I expect to hear no end of it. It will be referred to at unexpected moments whenever I do something else that disappoints her. Papa said only that he hoped I brought his book back. But I think he approved.’ Mary smiled at that, and Lizzy felt once again a mixture of sadness and exasperation that her father had brought upon her lately.
Lizzy had grown up the favoured daughter of their father and not for the first time she was aware that her sisters had not had that advantage. Mary’s learning and earnestness had been a way to capture his attention, but even if he was aware of that he gave her neither encouragement nor guidance. And Lydia and Kitty felt his lack of interest the most keenly – perhaps Lydia would not have fallen had her father been more attentive. She felt a spark of anger. All Mary wanted was his approval and he barely deigned to notice her. And now he approved of her precipitous action, which could have been avoided altogether. I can’t blame him for it entirely, Lizzy thought. But oh, for a good man he is most astonishingly an indifferent father.
‘So tell me the rest. How did you manage your remove from Rosings?’
‘Mr Aikens helped very much. I would have been entirely at a loss had he not seen to it that my trunk was carried down. I spent the night at the Collinses, which was awkward as you can imagine. And then he escorted me home the next day. My pride was hurt, and my vanity both – I could not tell them apart in the event, and all I kept thinking was, that my troubles would soon be over and I would be at Longbourn again. Dear Longbourn!’
Lizzy could imagine the embarrassment and the wounded pride.
‘That was very kind of Mr Aikens,’ Lizzy said, resolving that she would write to him at once to thank him. He also deserved an apology. He was right. He knew Mary better than any of them. ‘He was most displeased when he found out you were at Rosings and he was quite wild in his accusations.’
Mary blushed and looked away. ‘He did say he had come to rescue me. He is quite an unusual gentleman.’
Lizzy saw fit to tease her a little. ‘Just an unusual gentleman? Or something more?’
But Mary became uncertain almost at once. ‘Oh Lizzy, please don’t,’ she said. ‘I have never liked any young man before and I am so afraid that he cannot possibly like me in return.’
Lizzy was reminded that Mary had never had beaux and that she was so little in society, except among the Lucas boys and her sisters’ husbands, that she had little experience with them. And she did not want to encourage an attachment if there was no hope that Mr Aikens really was in love with Mary. He was such a strange young man. He was loyal, but he treated everyone with the same brash heartiness. Perhaps he was just friends with Mary, and nothing more.
‘I don’t pretend to understand his heart or his affections,’ Lizzy said. ‘But I think you may allow yourself to like him a little bit, and know that you have a loyal friend in him. Not many men would go to rescue a friend from the dragon’s den, after all.’
Mary sighed. ‘I am so glad that I escaped with Mr Aikens’s help that I can scarcely care for Miss de Bourgh. But it saddens me too. I think we were becoming friends, for she unbent to me, at least after the beginning. It was only when she remembered her place, or her mother reminded her of it, that she became unbearable again. If she had not such a mother, she might have been likeable, for she can be very earnest. But she was jealous of all of her perquisites, for she could never be sure whether they were bestowed upon her because she was Anne de Bourgh, or only Lady Catherine’s daughter.’
‘Surely as good a moral as any, that too much consequence can be as great a trial as not enough,’ Lizzy said. ‘I believe that as little a consequence as Longbourn and Meryton gave us, it was quite as much of a blessing as we could manage.’
‘I quite agree. In fact, a little less Longbourn and a bit more Meryton would be a comfort just now,’ Mary said. Lizzy fell in beside her and they continued on to the village in companionable silence. The rays of the afternoon sun lengthened over them and the insects danced in the golden light. It was peaceful but Mary was ill at ease.
‘Lizzy, did you know that Charlotte has changed?’
Lizzy sighed. ‘I had seen it. I feared as much, that her marriage to Mr Collins would cause her to lose her good nature and common sense. But to do otherwise would have been disloyal, you see.’
‘She upbraided me for receiving Mr Aikens and gave me to understand that I had lost her esteem. I made it clear that she had lost mine for marrying Mr Collins, and so I fear we can no longer be friends. I am not sure that I can be friends with any
of the Lucases now, because I am sure that even if Charlotte doesn’t tell them what came between us, Mr Collins will. And for that, Lizzy, I grieve most deeply.’ Mary stopped, overcome with tears. ‘I am so sorry, if it comes between Charlotte and you.’
‘Oh Mary.’ Lizzy put her arms around her and Mary sobbed into her shoulder. ‘I lost Charlotte the day she married Mr Collins. She forgot all sense that day, while you seem to have gained the understanding she gave away. And she should apologize for scolding you. You did the very sensible thing, to receive a friend in a house where you were a guest. The old Charlotte would have understood that. But she is Mrs Collins now, and she has adopted her husband’s sensibilities as a good wife should. So for that we should commend her. But we don’t have to esteem her for it.’
‘I don’t know what is wrong with me,’ Mary sobbed, now quite wetly. She lifted her head and wiped her tears with her handkerchief. Lizzy held hers out when Mary’s had given its all. ‘I am either so happy as to break into tears or I am miserable and I break into tears.’
‘Either way, we can hardly continue into Meryton,’ Lizzy said, and Mary gave a watery smile. Her nose was very red. ‘I propose that we return home, very slowly. You have no doubt not been told the news of Lydia?’
From the look of her, Mary had not. Well, thought Lizzy, it will take her mind off her own troubles.
‘Oh dear,’ Mary said. ‘Is it bad?’
‘It’s Lydia,’ Lizzy sighed, and she related the tale. Mary’s tears soon dried in her astonishment.
‘And Mama doesn’t know? Or Papa?’
‘Not yet. I came to find you first. I will tell Papa directly when we get home, and will leave it to him to tell Mama. I know she will think only that it means Lydia will be able to visit, and she will want to attend the lying-in. But I cannot think that Papa will let her.’
‘I think he should,’ Mary said. Lizzy looked at her with surprise. Mary had been full of sermons when Lydia had eloped. What had changed? ‘It might be time for him to forgive Lydia, Lizzy. She is a foolish, simple girl. If she repents, should she not be embraced? The prodigal son, after all, was forgiven.’
‘I don’t think Lydia has repented,’ Lizzy said. ‘Darcy and Bingley said she was shockingly hoydenish when they saw her. She was always a flirt. Now she is quite loose.’
‘All the more reason to welcome her home and restore her to her family. Only that, together with her child, can make her see that she must mend her ways.’
‘This is Lydia, Mary. She has ever been spoiled and selfish, and we have been given no indication that she has changed. And there is the matter of Wickham. He does not love her, and it may be, with Lydia behaving as she does, that the child is not his. It’s no longer about Lydia returning home, or Lydia returning with her child. She is Mrs Wickham now.’
‘What will you recommend to Papa?’
‘He’ll do as he wishes, as he always does.’ Lizzy could not keep the irritation from her voice. She loved her father, but he scarcely exerted himself unless pushed. ‘I can only tell him what I can.’
Mary nodded. She gave voice to one last uncharitable thought. ‘It is too bad that Wickham has no more inclination for soldiering than he had for the church. That would have solved one problem, at least, if he were as bad a soldier as he was a churchman.’
‘He would have been vastly more agreeable and accommodating,’ Lizzy said. ‘Alas for us, it is one more failing of his.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
MRS BENNET TOOK no notice of Mary’s swollen nose and damp eyes but rushed upon her daughters as soon as they came into the house.
‘Lizzy! Where have you been! Your father has been looking for you. Go to him at once.’
Lizzy squeezed Mary’s hand and went to her father’s study. The door was closed; she took a breath and knocked firmly on the door.
‘Come in,’ he said, and she went in to the room.
Her father sat at his desk as usual, placed so as to catch the light from the window. He looked up at her and then looked back at his book.
‘Hello, Papa,’ she said, and went over and kissed him. He did not respond in his usual warm fashion, and Lizzy regarded him with a questioning tilt of her head.
‘I see,’ she said at last. ‘We have quarrelled. Or at least, you have taken some offence. I am innocent of any insult or misdemeanour.’
‘Hmmph!’ he said. ‘I am angry with you, it is true. You did not come to Longbourn to take long walks with your silly sister and yet so you have done.’
‘You are quite incorrect, sir. I came to see Mary,’ she said. ‘Who is not as silly as you would like to think. Kitty, I agree, is still quite without sense, but she is young and if given encouragement, she will grow out of it. That is, if you give her encouragement.’
He hmmphed again, but Lizzy said firmly, ‘No, Papa. It is time you own up to your position. What can you expect of Kitty and Mary and Lydia if you only laugh at them and turn your nose up at them?’
‘Do not speak of Lydia to me.’
‘Oh, but it is of Lydia that I am here to speak.’
He looked at her. Her tone had changed from exasperation to seriousness, and now that she had got his attention, he was over his pique.
‘What is it?’
Lizzy related the tale once again.
He was silent for a long time, then shook his head and made as if to return to his book. Without looking at her, he said, ‘You are a married woman, my dear, so you know that this was to be expected. We cannot save Lydia from herself, though we have done our best, and I continue to do so every quarter, payment remitted.’
‘Father, let Lydia lie in the bed she has made. But should her child be punished for her sins or for those of Mr Wickham?’
‘Lizzy, it is all right for you to say these things. You are, not to put too fine a point on it, richer than we could ever have imagined. But Lydia’s wantonness has put Kitty, and yes, Mary, in very grave danger of never marrying as comfortably as they should. They cannot be expected to marry as well as you and Jane have. I have nothing to give them. Nothing, because Lydia has taken it all. So you may count me a very bad father, but I assure you, I feel the lack keenly every year as my pockets become leaner. Kitty’s only hope now is that she may be thrown into company that is more foolish than she, so that she marries as well as she can. And Mary. I thought Mary was settled as best she could be.’ He threw up a hand. ‘And yet, she managed to confound even those expectations.’
Lizzy pursed her lips. Had her father invested more in his paternal responsibilities when they were younger, perhaps they would not find themselves in this position now. But who could say that even if he had exerted himself he could have overturned his wife’s influence? Lydia was Mrs Bennet’s favourite and the daughter most like her. Was it fair to think that anything could have been done?
At her long silence her father smiled and took her hand. ‘So I see I have silenced you. Good. Now we can be friends again, and you can tell me more of this Mr Aikens. Is he a fool and in love with Mary?’
Lizzy smiled. ‘He is an unusual young man to be sure. He sees her as a friend, and he makes no distinction between his friends. He may be in love with her. It’s hard to tell. But Mary, I fear, has fallen greatly in love with him, and so you now have another daughter with a broken heart and who will become more interesting to you.’
Her father got up and stood at the window, looking out over the expanse of lawn, where the slanting rays of the sun filtered through the trees and crossed over the grass, a sight that made Longbourn so dear to all the Bennets. ‘I should never have let Mary stay at Rosings. Your mother persuaded me to be worried at her lack of prospects, and Mary herself seemed determined upon that course. But Lady Catherine is as unkind as she is high-born. Even as we drove away, I knew it was wrong.’
‘Mama was set on it. The connection was a good one.’
‘Yes, for Rosings. But not for Mary.’
Mr Bennet’s simple declaration for his family an
d his daughter relieved Lizzy’s unsettled heart. So she did not have to scold her father for his neglectfulness: he had begun to see it for himself.
‘You should tell her that, Papa. She will want to hear it.’
Her father became brisk. ‘Yes, yes, I suppose I should. It is not easy to apologize to one’s daughters. And you should not ask so much, you know. It is unseemly for a daughter to have so much understanding.’
Lizzy knew he wasn’t truly angry, so she gave him a kiss and left him. Before she closed the door behind her he called out, ‘Lizzy!’ She turned.
She turned.
‘This Mr Aikens. Where can I find him?’
‘Darcy has his address.’
‘Good. Tell my son-in-law if he would be so good as to provide me with it, I would like to thank the young man who came to my daughter’s rescue. And send for Mary to see me.’
MRS BENNET COULD scarcely contain her nervous excitement. Hardly had Lizzy left her father than her mother found her and carried her off to the parlour. Lizzy ordered tea from cook, made sure that Mary knew that her father wanted her, and then sat with her mother, who vented her nerves in wild, disconnected talk.
‘I own that I cannot understand how Mary could act in the way that she did. For Lady Lucas said that she was quite wild to Charlotte, and said some dreadful things, and Mr Collins said that Mary showed a most unattractive fixed determination and would not be moved. And that Mr Aikens! A farmer! Coming up to the front door of Rosings to pay a visit to Mary! What on earth could she mean by allowing it! How had she met him! How could she have done such a thing! I am afraid, Lizzy, that we may no longer be welcome at the Lucases.’
‘Mama,’ Lizzy said, pouring tea for her mother. ‘I will speak to Lady Lucas myself and explain all.’ By which she meant that she would smooth ruffled feathers, though she was not sure that she would be able to do so. ‘But you must stand by Mary. She did nothing wrong, And Mr Aikens is a respectable gentleman. He is a bit unpolished perhaps, but he has a good heart and is from a good family. Darcy quite likes him.’
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