Mary B

by Katherine J. Chen

  When I opened my mouth to sing now, the words came out dry and uninspired, and try as I might, I couldn’t reproduce the unstudied emotion that had filled the voice of our lovelorn housemaid. I finished the rest of the song in silence, recalling how the year of my memory, Papa had dismissed a young footman for reasons I’d never learned. For a whole week afterwards, I hadn’t seen or heard anything of Sarah, until the morning she surfaced in the drawing room with her song. Yet him I lov’d so well, still in my heart shall dwell. Oh! I can ne’er forget Robin Adair.

  But I had had enough of playing songs I did not in my heart feel. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the ornately bound volume which enclosed the Reverend James Fordyce’s Sermons to Young Women. I admit I possessed a low opinion of the work. Intellectual welfare was a concept quite beyond our mother’s understanding, and none of us had been brought up under the watchful instruction of a governess, our father being both too poor and too involved in his own studies to be anything but the most liberal-minded of parents. The effect of his and Mama’s apathy was that I owed my education largely to reading whatever books I wanted to. Over the course of nineteen years, their diffidence had given me ample opportunity to consume all the plays by our revered Bard, the great poems and epics of antiquity, manuscripts of human anatomy and natural science, and much more scandalous fare in the form of novels borrowed from the circulating library, which, luckily for me, Papa enjoyed with as much relish as I. But budding admiration will do strange things to one’s taste, and I found myself spending the rest of the afternoon in the company of Mr. Fordyce, committing what I could to memory in the event that an excerpt might prove useful the next time Mr. Collins and I spoke.

  Mr. Collins and my sisters returned to Longbourn in time for dinner. Judging from the animated chatter, the day had not been without its share of thrills. Every member of the merry party had his or her own opinion of the people they had met and the events that had taken place, and each was quite determined to share a complete narrative of their adventures with those who hadn’t been fortunate enough to go. Over the space of the next half hour, there wasn’t a moment of peace or quiet to be had in the dining room. Kitty and Lydia enthusiastically apprised Mama of the new acquaintance they had made in Meryton, one Mr. George Wickham, who had a lieutenant’s commission in the militia and who was the most handsome man either had ever laid eyes on and not even in his regimentals, if it could be believed! Even Lizzy conceded he was handsome, though when Jane was asked what she thought of their new friend, she added that she still preferred Mr. Bingley.

  It was impossible to pass a whole day without being reminded of that gentleman, who had only a month ago entered the neighborhood. Indeed, I could not sit down to breakfast even once without Mama inquiring if Jane had received any new letters from Mr. Charles Bingley or his sisters. And Mr. Bingley’s name could not be mentioned without also bringing into the conversation that of his friend Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. Mr. Bingley had hired Netherfield Park, a very grand estate not far from Longbourn. He was twenty-two, unmarried, and his late father, though he’d made his fortune in trade, had left him close to a hundred thousand pounds to be distributed in his lifetime. His annual income was five thousand pounds a year, a sum amply sufficient for the keeping of a large staff and other necessities which it behooved every wealthy gentleman of leisure to maintain, and it was a sum, too, infinitely more promising than my own father’s meager income of two thousand pounds a year. Mr. Bingley was universally considered handsome, with the bright, rosy complexion acquired from excessive horse riding and dancing, and an even more attractive personality that instantly commended him to all the families of the neighborhood. His unexpected entry into country society had stirred matrimonial hopes in more than one maternal breast, and in consequence, Mr. Bingley received no shortage of dinner invitations; even personal deliveries of mince pies and rum cakes were considered fair game among those who vied more vigorously for his attention and favor. What a disappointment it had been to those overzealous mothers when, within the first hour of his arrival at the Meryton assembly, he had singled Jane out as his equal in good looks and charm, dancing no less than two times with her and doing very little to conceal his preferment of my sister’s company.

  Myself, I thought Mr. Bingley resembled the cherubs of Italian paintings who nestled in clouds and tumbled over rainbows. He was always in good humor, and though he was very thin, with a figure that had not yet matured out of the awkwardness of adolescence, the muscles in his face must have been exceptionally well developed. I say this because he could never stop smiling, not even while he ate or talked or sang, which he sometimes did at parties, in fits of happiness. I much preferred his friend Mr. Darcy, who resembled the melancholy princes I envisioned every night before falling asleep, and indeed, it became my custom after I had made his acquaintance to replace the blurry faces of my Hamlet-inspired heroes with his own.

  But Mr. Darcy, though he had twice Bingley’s annual income and lived in the grandest house in Derbyshire, was hated by nearly everyone, particularly our Lizzy, for he was overheard at the Meryton assembly remarking that my sister was not handsome enough to dance with. It was unfortunate for Mr. Darcy that he had not been gifted with the practical talent, exceptionally useful in society, of being able to conceal from his face what he felt in his heart. He frowned often and had the repellent habit of grinding his teeth whenever a courageous mother with a single daughter attempted to endear herself to him. His other crimes, no less remarkable, were that he fraternized exclusively among members of his own party at balls and, unlike his more winsome friend, refused to dance every dance.

  But I did not find him disagreeable, even if he had injured poor Lizzy’s pride. The air in that awful hall had been too warm that night, and there was no square of ground on which to stand without running the risk of being trampled upon by a dancing couple. When the fourth dance of the evening was underway, I stepped out to catch my breath and fan my face with a pair of gloves.

  Behind me, someone coughed, and I turned.

  “Excuse me,” Mr. Darcy muttered, addressing his speech to his finely polished shoes. He had gone a funny color and was wiping his face with a handkerchief. “It’s very hot in there.”

  “Yes, it is,” I replied. At the sight of him, the warmth returned to my cheeks. When he didn’t say anything, I added, “But your friend doesn’t seem to mind. He hasn’t yet sat through a single dance.”

  “Oh, Bingley—he would still be dancing if the entire hall collapsed this very moment. Nothing will deter him from having a good time.” Then, taking a closer look at me, he added, narrowing his eyes, “You’re one of the Bennet girls, aren’t you? We were introduced earlier. Kitty, I think it was.”

  “Mary,” I corrected. “Kitty’s my younger sister.”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve been introduced to so many women in the last half hour, and all their faces are beginning to look very much alike.”

  “And you’re Mr. Darcy,” I pronounced, “for whom half the population of Meryton has come in the hopes of attaining an introduction.”

  “I am not fond of balls,” he said, and in his voice there was true exhaustion.

  “Neither am I.”

  “All that skipping…” he complained, shaking his head.

  “And turning…” I offered.

  “And jumping.”

  “More like hopping, really,” I said with a sigh.

  “As if dancing were not unpleasant enough, sometimes one’s partner expects to be engaged in conversation.”

  “I’ve personally never understood that custom—to pass the time of day while changing hands or clapping a beat. It is not practical and, I would venture to say, even inconsiderate, if your partner is already out of breath.”

  “In my experience,” Mr. Darcy puffed, smoothing the front of his waistcoat, “I’ve found that the manner of people who attend such occasions can make a great dif
ference in the enjoyment of the event.”

  The insult of his comment did not escape me, and feeling the need to defend the rural charms of my little town, I said, “To be sure, in London, the women may wear finer gowns, and the rooms may be much grander in scale. But I have yet to hear of any ball which did not feature dancing, whether in the country or otherwise. And if one is displeased with the general theme of balls, then it would follow that no variation could render them favorable.”

  Perhaps it was my own wishful thinking, but I thought I discerned the faintest glint of a smile pulling at the corners of that distinguished gentleman’s mouth before the features restored themselves to their former solemnity. When neither of us spoke again, he kicked a loose pebble at his foot, and we listened to the clack-clack-clack of the stone as it skidded away into the dark.

  “I sometimes think of sneaking off during a party and going to play a game of billiards on my own,” he suddenly said. Then, without any prompting, he added, “Something has been weighing on my conscience, Miss Bennet. I’m afraid I’ve offended your sister. Not Kitty, I don’t think—I mean the tall one wearing yellow with large eyes. It was a thoughtless remark and meant only for Bingley to hear, though I know that is no excuse. But he would keep pestering me to dance and to socialize among complete strangers, and it was the only thing I could come up with to convince him to leave me alone.”

  Now it was my turn to smile. “Yes, I think your comment will provide enough fodder to last all the women of Meryton through both this evening and the next. Lizzy is well liked by everyone, and I fear public opinion will be against you.”

  “Do you think I should ask her to dance with me—just in order to make amends?” he inquired.

  “I would advise against it, Mr. Darcy,” I replied, “at least for this assembly. The insult has been paid; let her revel, for the time being, in the sympathy and kind attentions of her friends, and you may ask her at the next gathering. There is nothing a woman likes so much as a change of heart.”

  Again, he smiled briefly. I felt him turn towards me and glance over my simple dress, a pale blue muslin whose sleeves had become frayed from excessive wear and washing.

  “Though we are agreed that dancing is the most unpleasant of pastimes,” he began to say, hesitating, “if the elder Miss Bennet will not dance with me this evening, then may I propose—”

  Whatever he intended to propose, he had no time to finish his thought, for emerging from the doorway at that moment was his friend’s unmarried and extremely eligible sister, Miss Caroline Bingley, whose feet itched to dance a Scotch reel.

  “Thank you for a most enjoyable conversation, Miss Bennet,” he said, bowing to me before taking his leave, and I stared after him until he and the elegant specimen disappeared from view.

  For the rest of the evening, though I did not stand up once to dance, I couldn’t resist smiling whenever I considered my brief exchange with that most illustrious of personages, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. And none of my sisters’ needling, not even Jane’s or Lizzy’s, could wrest the truth of my good humor from me, which I claimed was entirely owing to the large spread of excellent fruit and cheese provided at the assembly.

  These cheerful reminiscences, however, were soon interrupted by the high, singsong pitch of my younger sister’s effusions on Lieutenant George Wickham, the Adonis of Great Britain’s indomitable military, and I returned my attention to the Longbourn dinner table.

  “Did you notice, Lizzy, the way he knotted his cravat?” Kitty questioned from my elbow.

  “Or how admirably tall he was?” Lydia pressed, nearly upsetting her glass of wine.

  “And the fashionable cut of his coat?” Kitty squealed.

  “Well, no,” Lizzy said, and the corners of her mouth twitched, a giveaway to those who knew her well that she was fibbing. “But I did find admirable the way in which he excused himself when our aunt invited him to tea. That was very well done, I thought.”

  Upon the mention of Mrs. Philips, Mr. Collins became excitable once more and was eager to name in front of his host the many merits of that lady’s character, foremost of which had been her exceptionally gracious treatment of himself. “She is all ease and good humor,” Mr. Collins said, sighing at the remembrance, “with an elegance of speech and movement so unstudied and natural. And though she did not know me before today, she at once entreated that I should be in attendance at the gathering she is hosting tomorrow night and which she confessed would be woefully incomplete without my presence. ‘Mr. Collins,’ she said to me, ‘our little affair would hardly be worth having if you did not grace it with your own person, and it would make such a difference to me if you deigned to join us for some cards and dinner.’ I left her at once in no doubt of my answer and replied, I hope, with equal civility of address, that not only would I be present at what promised to be a very enjoyable party but also that I would happily satisfy her request of making up the fourth person at whist, though I myself am unfamiliar with the game.”

  Knowing firsthand how wearing my aunt’s personality could be, I thought this exceptionally generous of Mr. Collins and was about to tell him so when Mama pronounced her agreement that her sister was the most genteel and well-liked of women. She considered it her duty, however, to warn him that the provisions of their dinner table were not anything like what her guest may have become used to at Longbourn, owing largely to the stinginess in housekeeping which Aunt Philips had inherited from their mother, God rest her soul, and to which failing she herself had thankfully never been disposed. (Papa coughed gently at this remark.)

  The meal concluded with a return to the topic that had aroused and livened the hearts of nearly all the women sitting to dinner.

  “I’m sure he looked quite directly at me no less than three times,” Lydia murmured thoughtfully, cutting her beef without eating it.

  “Well, well! Three times!” I cried. “Let the wedding bells ring, Lydia! Do!”

  “They’d sooner ring for Lydia than for you, Mary,” Kitty said, her mouth full of food.

  “I should like to see Mr. Wickham fall for our Mary,” Papa added, winking at Lizzy. “I daresay it would put out all the women of Hertfordshire to witness such a sight. Mary, how should you like to be a model to other young women by marrying a handsome lieutenant?”

  “No one would dance at balls,” Lizzy teased.

  “And they’d dress very plain and ruin their eyes with reading,” Kitty joined in.

  “What a strange formula you propose for finding a husband,” Jane commented abstractly.

  “But it is Mary’s way of finding a husband,” Lizzy said, smiling.

  “Which means, of course, that she will never have one,” Mama sighed, whereupon I cried aloud to God and asked Him to deliver me from this clucking, ridiculous brood of hens.

  “Amen,” Mr. Collins mouthed across the table to me, and we exchanged a brief smile before returning to our food.

  In transitioning to the drawing room after dinner, our guest seemed to have something on his mind and could not be prevailed upon to read to us, to avenge his losses at backgammon with Lizzy, or to make any kind of answer when Lydia facetiously asked whether he thought a red coat or a blue one would suit Mr. Wickham best. Begging his hosts’ pardon, he suddenly stood, said he had one or two letters to write that had hitherto slipped his mind, and asked if he could be pardoned from the evening’s revelry to return to his room. Papa made the usual, polite show of protesting before finally relenting to his guest’s wishes, and Mr. Collins departed from the drawing room, issuing many more variations of apology as he left.

  “Well!” Mama cried as soon as she deemed it safe. “What do you make of that, Mr. Bennet?”

  “That he is a cleverer man than I thought,” Mr. Bennet replied. “I, too, have often wished to stand up and leave the room when you and the girls have got your heads into something silly.”

 
“Oh, but Mr. Wickham isn’t silly,” Lydia said on behalf of her new favorite. “Ask Lizzy or Jane. I daresay they would sing his praises, too. Lizzy nearly fainted every time Mr. Wickham so much as glanced in her direction.”

  Lizzy reddened. “I’m sure I did nothing of the kind,” she said, shooting a hard look at Lydia, “and I’ll thank you not to let your imagination run away with you where I’m concerned.”

  Lydia only laughed. “You see? I told you it was so,” she answered cheerfully and turned to me. “Mary might have fallen in love with Mr. Wickham, too, if she had come with us today,” she continued, swinging her feet up on a nearby stool. “The sight of him in regimentals may suffice to pull even your eyes out of a book for five whole minutes, Mary.”

  “Or away from the piano,” Kitty added.

  I wrinkled my nose and put down the copy of Fordyce’s Sermons I’d endeavored to continue reading in their company. I could not reasonably entertain that there was anything truly singular in this Mr. Wickham to set him apart from all the other officers Lydia and Kitty had been in the habit of falling in and out of love with. “Colonel Forster’s regiment isn’t quartered here just to provide amusement for all the unmarried women in the neighborhood. You and Kitty seem to forget, there’s been a war going on with France for several years now.”

  “It’s just like you, Mary, to cast a shadow over everything that is delightful,” Lydia said, pouting. With a sigh, she stretched her arms, then balanced a cushion on her head for some seconds before tossing it over the back of the settee. “Lord, I’m so bored—how dull all of you are. Since Mr. Collins has skipped off to bed, why don’t you read something to entertain us, Mary? What book was that you were pretending to read before? If you wouldn’t mind taking it up again and reading a passage to us, which you do so well in your schoolmarm sort of way…”