Mrs Bennet had once disliked Mr Darcy, but as he was now her son-in-law, she had transmuted those feelings to ones of awe. If Mr Darcy liked Mr Aikens, then that ought to have been enough for her.
‘But, Lizzy,’ she said, almost with a moan. ‘The Lucases do not like Mr Aikens, and Mr Collins said that Lady Catherine was quite outraged.’
‘Mama, but Darcy does, as do I. Mr Aikens is a fine young man, and he is a good friend to Mary.’
She would not say more. She could not betray Mary’s confidence. Her mother, if she knew that Mary had formed an attachment, would be unstoppable, to everyone’s humiliation. Mrs Bennet had a disgruntled expression as she thought for a long time. It was difficult for her not to blurt out what she felt or thought, and Lizzy sipped her tea and waited. When her mother spoke, it was with continued confusion and upset.
‘I am quite angry with Mary,’ she said. ‘She should not have friends like this. She should not have friends at all. What does she mean by befriending men who are liked by some and not liked by others? It’s very confusing, Lizzy. You should tell her, my nerves cannot put up with this.’
‘Mama, if Mary made an unsuitable friend I would have warned her. But she has not. Mr Aikens is a fine young man.’
‘Well. He might be. And perhaps he is if, as you say, Darcy likes him. But, Lizzy, he has caused so much trouble that I cannot like him. Why couldn’t Mary just have done what she has always done? Why has she changed? I knew when she stopped playing the piano that it was nothing good.’
Considering that they had all heard enough of Mary’s piano-playing, Lizzy lifted her eyes to the ceiling.
‘Mary has quite altered, it is true, Mama. But I think it is a good thing. She is well-read, and she has a good heart. She no longer sermonizes and she has learned to show some compassion. She was a good friend to Anne de Bourgh, even though that friendship was scorned. She has a good friend in Mr Aikens, for all that you do not like him. Her society has widened and that is all to the good. I don’t know that the box she put herself in and that we kept her in was quite enough for her.’
‘Lizzy! If you are saying we confined Mary, that is not true. But it was easier when we knew she would play pianos for dancing or not require anything but her books and her sermonizing. She was just Mary.’
Having just proved Lizzy’s point, Mrs Bennet set down her teacup, her eyes wide with new perception.
‘Lizzy! Why did we not make Mr Collins fall in love with Mary! They would have been a perfect match!’
‘Mama!’
‘Oh, Lizzy, what were we thinking? For of course you turned him down, and I was so angry with you, but I am not so any more, for you were right, for Mr Darcy is so much grander and richer. But it would have been the easiest thing to turn Mr Collins’s head towards Mary! For even though she is the plainest of you girls, she is much better looking than Charlotte. Oh, Lizzy, if you had only suggested it, we should not have to worry about the entail or Mr Aikens at all! Mary and Mr Collins! Mary and Mr Collins. How tiresome that we did not think of it before.’
Lizzy watched her mother mourn the lost opportunity with an unladylike expression. A knock on the door caught the attention of both, and Mary came in. Her nose was still red and her eyes were watery. Lizzy suspected that her interview with their father had brought on a renewal of tears. But she managed a smile at her mother and her sister and picked up the teapot. Mrs Bennet wasted no time in regaling her with her new perception of a lost opportunity. Lizzy tried to stop her but it was too late.
‘Mary! What do you think Lizzy and I have just decided! You should have married Mr Collins! What do you think of that?’
Mary stared at her mother and set down the teapot so hard that it made the tea things rattle upon the tray.
‘Marry Mr Collins!’ she said. ‘Marry Mr Collins!’
Mrs Bennet stopped short at her daughter’s anger.
Mary sat back and looked at her mother. She spoke with great deliberation. ‘Mr Collins would not have me, first because I was plain. Then he would not have me because he could not bear a wife who had more of a vocation than he did. All he has ever done since I have met him is tell me that it is unseemly for a woman to take such an interest in reading and philosophy and to have an opinion. I confess that I wondered why he never so much as looked at me when he came here looking for a wife. Now I know. He couldn’t bear the competition.
‘And I thank Heaven every day that he never did consider such a proposal and that you never did, for we would have been in the deepest misery from the very first day of our wedding.’
Mary had done the one thing that Lizzy had never thought possible. Upon the conclusion of her daughter’s speech, Mrs Bennet was bereft of words.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
MR BENNET’S CONFERENCE with Mary had little openness and much hesitation on both their parts. Mary was much intimidated by her father, and Mr Bennet could hardly apologize for his sins when they were so much a part of his character that he could not even see his faults. It had all been so clear when Lizzy told him how much Mary needed his admiration, much more muddled when he sat awkwardly with his daughter and desperately wished them both elsewhere. Still, he managed, rather respectably, to ask about her experience without revealing much confusion and boredom. For her part, Mary pitied his discomfort and was as forthright as possible. She was glad to be home, she said, and sorry that she caused so much embarrassment to all of them, but she thought the blame lay with Lady Catherine, and if there were any fault on the Bennet side, it was that they thought rather more highly of Lady Catherine than perhaps they should.
‘I admit I could not understand what she meant by her invitation,’ said Mr Bennet, ‘but I could not find a reason to decline.’
Mary smiled and took her father’s words at face value. She knew he meant not that he couldn’t understand an invitation directed at her but one that was directed at any one of them.
‘I think she meant it in a most disgusting way,’ Mary said. ‘To put a Bennet in her place.’
Her father smiled and waved a paternal hand at her.
‘Yes, yes, it’s over now,’ he said. ‘You must stay here with us, Mary. It’s become too quiet about the place without your piano.’
‘I no longer play, Papa,’ she reminded him. As she said it, she rubbed her fingers. What a few moments of contentment she had stolen, just before she was exiled from Rosings, in playing the piano in her room. Perhaps – perhaps, she could return to her old habit, taking from it only pleasure in the application of herself to something difficult, and asking nothing in return. But after insisting for so many months that she had given up music, could she begin anew? What did that say of her pride and vanity, that she would lock herself away from such a small accomplishment?
Mr Bennet looked at his daughter for a long moment. Perhaps he understood something of her confusion. Then he patted her lightly on the shoulder. ‘That’s all right, my child. You’ll pick it up again, when you want to. You’ll see.’
He meant it not as a sop to her vanity, but as one who had perhaps set aside a beloved occupation, only to take it up as a comfort later in life. For the first time, Mary felt that her father saw her for who she was.
THE QUIETNESS THAT Mr Bennet rued was soon broken and longed for once again. There was a clattering of hoofs along the short drive that led to the house, then came a knock on the door. Mr Aikens had arrived. He was led into the parlour, where he saw Mrs Bennet and Lizzy and bowed to them.
‘Mrs Darcy! Good to see you again! And you must be Mrs Bennet!’
He pumped Mrs Bennet’s hand enthusiastically. ‘A pleasure to meet you, ma’am!’
‘Mr Aikens, so good to see you,’ Lizzy said, hoping to lure him to a chair. But he ploughed on in his enthusiastic way.
‘I’ve come to see how Miss Bennet has settled in. Is she at home?’
At that moment, Mary slipped through the door. She curtsied awkwardly. Mr Aikens dropped Mrs Bennet’s hand to shake hers. But he al
so tried to bow at the same time, and he made a comical picture.
‘Home safe and sound,’ he said, rising from his bow. He didn’t let go of her hand. ‘This is a nice room. Good view of the park. I remember when I visited Lucas Lodge and rode this way. Thought, what a nice prospect. Small but neat. Well collected. Well-bred place.’
It was very like Mr Aikens to liken a house to a horse, but Mrs Bennet didn’t know whether to be flattered or outraged.
‘Thank you, sir,’ she managed faintly. ‘It is nice, but the entail—’
‘Mr Aikens!’ Both Lizzy and Mary spoke together, quite loudly, to stop their mother. Mary finished first. ‘It is but a very small park, with a view of the village. Would you like to see?’
He smiled broadly and Mary led the way, trying to still her beating heart. She told herself they were merely friends, but the look she cast Lizzy was filled with both hope and fear. Lizzy smiled encouragingly but was filled with almost the same hope and fear. She did not want Mary to suffer a broken heart – having experienced such discomfort herself, she knew they were not to be wished upon any one.
She and her mother watched them go, then her mother turned to Lizzy. ‘I declare,’ she said, but could come up with nothing else.
‘That was Mr Aikens, and he does leave one breathless.’
Her mother went directly to the heart of the matter.
‘Lizzy! Does he mean to ask for Mary?’
‘I cannot speak for him, ma’am, but I suspect that he may.’
Mrs Bennet sat down. ‘Does he always behave so?’
Worse, Lizzy wanted to say, but she decided not to frighten her mother. Instead, she sat down with her and took her hand. Mrs Bennet fanned herself with the other.
‘I own I do not understand you girls. I must admit I thought you surprised me the most when you married Mr Darcy, but Mary far exceeded you all. This is most unexpected, Lizzy.’ She got up. ‘Well, I will go to Mr Bennet and tell him to expect another wedding. You can be sure he will be as astonished as I am.’
Lizzy watched her go, and sat alone in blessed silence for a moment. If Mr Aikens broke Mary’s heart, she wouldn’t send Darcy after him. She would box his ears herself.
THERE WAS NO danger of heartbreak unless a heart broke with joy. Mr Aikens and Mary strolled down the path around the small park, and then by agreement stood by the tree where Mary had met Lizzy earlier that day.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ Mr Aikens said. ‘About what you said, that you liked me even though I can’t sit inside for more than a minute and my boots are always muddy. And I thought, well, if she can like me for that, maybe she wouldn’t mind if I asked her to marry me.’
Mary was confused at first – it was hard to tell whom Mr Aikens was talking about. He looked at her so hopefully that she finally understood that he meant her. She spoke slowly, for she wanted to make sure that they both understood one another.
‘I do not mind,’ she said. ‘If you don’t mind that I like to sit in the evenings and read. Perhaps we can do that together?’
‘Don’t like reading,’ he said, crestfallen. He soon brightened. ‘Oh! But you could read to me! I like a good story or a rousing bit of poetry. I might like to find out how that book ended, the one you read to me before. I can’t get it out of my head.’ He took her hand. ‘I could teach you to ride! It’s easy enough. You’ll like it!’
‘I would learn to ride,’ she said, after a taking a deep breath to steel herself. Horses were so . . . large.
‘Capital! It’s decided!’
He gave her a kiss and Mary felt a stirring of nerves such as she had never really felt before. When he pulled back he looked worried again. ‘Are you sure? I wouldn’t want you to marry me only because you feel sorry for a fellow who isn’t clever.’
‘I don’t feel sorry for you. I only worry that you feel sorry for me.’
He looked at her blankly and she plunged on. ‘I am not pretty, and I am not much in society, and I am afraid that I am not very accomplished.’
He laughed. ‘Listen to the pair of us. We’re both trying to find reasons why we shouldn’t love one another. I think that’s better than trying to find reasons why we should. I think you are quite pretty, even if other girls look prettier, and I don’t care about style. As for accomplished, I’ve heard you play the piano and you always have your nose in a book, and that is accomplished enough for me. You don’t laugh at me because I can’t tie a cravat or I wear the wrong jacket. I’m a plain fellow myself.’
He was not plain. He wasn’t as handsome as Bingley, whose good humour dressed him as becomingly as his best clothes, or as Darcy, whose air of consequence did the same, but he was a good, solid man none the less.
‘I think perhaps we set each other off well,’ Mary said. Her nerves set themselves dancing again. Was she really engaged?
‘A matched pair,’ he agreed. ‘May I kiss you again?’
She supposed she should say no, but she didn’t.
‘And now,’ he said, when they broke their kiss after she had lost all sense of time. ‘I suppose I should ask your father for your hand?’
‘Yes, I think that’s how it’s done.’ But she wanted him to wait so that she could savour the moment. She, Mary Bennet, was engaged to be married. Like Lizzy and Jane! And Lydia. The thought of Lydia cooled her excitement a little. She didn’t think she had been duped, but what if Mr Aikens were more like Mr Wickham, and less like her other brothers-in-law? Her awareness of the present moment came back, but this time it was tinged with a little uncertainty.
Perhaps some of her thoughts showed on her face, because Mr Aikens looked worried.
‘Maybe you should see the house first, before you decide. I haven’t done much with it. I am more likely to be out and about than indoors. It might be a bit cluttered. And perhaps not quite as neatly kept as you might be used to. I think there might be an old harness in the drawing room.’
Mary considered his words, not to keep in a state of anxiety, though that was its effect, but to answer him the best she knew how.
‘I don’t think,’ she said, in the face of worry, ‘that the state of your house is a matter for concern. Rather, it is this. I don’t know whether you remember some of the things Lady Catherine said that day?’
He shrugged. ‘I didn’t care for anything she said and it has all slipped right out of my mind.’
Mary took a deep breath. ‘She mentioned my youngest sister. Lydia.’ She told him of Lydia’s dreadful marriage and what it had brought down upon the family. ‘I should have told you before you proposed, so that you could take it into consideration before making your offer. I would understand if you chose to withdraw . . .’ She faltered a little.
He was quiet for a moment. ‘I can’t fathom it,’ he said at last. ‘What has it to do with you? You haven’t eloped with some rogue.’
‘You don’t mind?’ Mary said. What kind of man was she to marry, that he didn’t care about her fallen sister? She could see Mr Aikens greeting Mr Wickham and Lydia with his open-hearted acceptance and no hint of disgust and condescension. Would it not do the ne’er-do-wells good? She suddenly wanted to see it, more than anything.
‘I think, Mr Aikens, that you are a good man, though we don’t really know each other well enough to speak for our characters. For that, I think, our engagement should be quiet so that we might become better acquainted. And even if you don’t mind my sister and her bad husband, your mother might.’ Most mothers did mind such things.
He laughed and bent his head for another kiss but she evaded him sternly with a hand on his rumpled cravat. ‘My mother will be so happy that I have married that she would accept a hundred bad brothers-in-law. But if you wish for a long, quiet engagement, I can only agree.’ He spoke with a mixture of hope and disappointment. ‘You see, you are cleverer than I am. I think of something and there! I must have it. But you think about the consequences.’
‘Mr Aikens, you are trying to make me feel sorry for you,’ Mary said severe
ly. He looked sheepish. ‘I do assure you, I quite like you. But I am by nature cautious and I cannot just take this leap as if I were Hyperion, sir.’
He laughed. ‘No, you have a quieter temperament. Much more peaceful a ri – Er, well, yes. We will have to practise going in harness together.’
‘So you will have to be patient, sir. And it may be that you find out something about me that you don’t like.’
‘I doubt it,’ he said, but he was cheerful again. ‘But I will give way in this. I have a feeling it won’t be the last time.’
Many a loving dictator has let power go to her head. Fordyce warned against it. ‘How unamiable, and how miserable, must we pronounce the passion for ungentle command, for petulant dominion, so shamefully indulged by some women as soon as they find a man in their power!’
Mary saw the danger from the start and vowed to avoid it. She had several marriages to study and would choose the best examples from each. Her father and mother; Lizzy and Darcy; Jane and Bingley; Charlotte and Mr Collins. Each one had strengths, even that of Charlotte and Mr Collins.
He took her hand again. ‘So. A quiet engagement. I will talk to your father and we will get to know each other.’
‘WELL, MRS BENNET,’ said Mr Bennet later, after his permission was asked for and given. ‘Congratulations are in order. I do not think there is a mother in all of England who has managed to marry off so many daughters in so short a space of time. Kitty had better watch out.’
‘Oh Mr Bennet, what foolery! For you know I had nothing to do with Mary! I cannot hope but that he is a suitable husband for her, for she has gone and done it herself. I do not understand her. First she stops playing the piano and then she visits Rosings and is thrown out of the house, and now she is engaged! Whatever will she do next? I don’t like the unexpected, and she has become quite unexpected.’
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