Mary B

by Katherine J. Chen

  “Can’t blame ’im that ’e did, though I’m sorry for it,” the first maid replied superiorly.

  “Come, come! Will you keep us on the landing all day?” Mr. Gardiner complained, pushing his way through the two women with the aid of his cane. “I’d like to see my niece now, if you please.”

  “Ooh-ee!” the first maid cried, putting her hands on her hips. “Is that wot she is to ya? Well! If you’ll be so good as ter tell ’er ladyship there ain’t no free service to be ’ad ’ere, right? I’m not the bleedin’ ’ousemaid at Blenheim, am I? And neither is me friend ’ere, who’s supposed ter be tidyin’ the rooms downstairs. And she can empty ’er own pots next time she’s feeling poorly, thank ya very much indeed, for wot little rent she pays.” With that, the maid dragged her gray-faced friend back downstairs with her, and we entered Lydia’s rooms.

  “Do I have visitors, Sally?” a thin voice called out from the direction of the bedroom.

  “You’d better stay here until we call you in,” my uncle said to me, squeezing my gloved hand. “It can’t be a pleasant sight…and if you feel faint, we shall only have more trouble on our hands.”

  “I’m sure I wouldn’t faint, Uncle,” I said. “And I have the money from Lizzy to give her as well.”

  “You’ll have time enough to give her Lizzy’s charity,” my uncle declared firmly. “Just stay put until we call you in, eh? Good girl.”

  Mrs. Gardiner covered her mouth with her handkerchief. My uncle followed suit, and together, they went in. Not five minutes had passed, however, before they came out again. Lydia had been vomiting blood, and a doctor was to be fetched immediately. Mr. Gardiner left to find one of the maids to help him. And when he’d been some time without returning, Mrs. Gardiner grew worried and went after her husband. In their absence, I entered Lydia’s room.

  “Mary!” I faced my youngest sister.

  Lydia had never been beautiful, not like Jane or even Lizzy. What good looks she may have once enjoyed derived their power from the force of her spirit, youthful and carefree. When she was younger, the coarseness of her personality might have been mistaken by our acquaintances for good humor, but that time had since ended. She possessed no curiosity concerning the workings of the universe. She would never wonder why some apples tasted sweet while others tasted sour or how the tortoise and snail managed to grow their outer shells. Her own reflection and mobility fascinated her more than the rigors of learning a hobby, and when, at the ripe age of sixteen, she finally took ownership of an exceptionally handsome and initially desirable husband, this proved the early fulfillment of every aspiration, every hope, and every dream she’d ever entertained. Take these away—her pilfered bonnets, her pretty skirts, her husband addicted to cards, horses, and women—and what is left when the butterfly’s wings are dissected from the butterfly? An ugly, squirming black line in agony. Lydia slumped forward to expel more watery blood into a half-filled chamber pot. When she finished, she fell back against her pillows and smiled at me, haggard and missing, I realized, a front tooth. I remembered that she was only seventeen, and I began to cry.

  “Oh, Mary,” she pleaded. “Don’t bawl so, or I’m sure I shall start, too.”

  Apologizing, I pulled out my reticule and handed her the thirty pounds, which, I explained, was all Lizzy could spare from her allowance.

  “She didn’t come herself?” Lydia asked, taking the money quickly.

  “No, she couldn’t. I’m afraid she didn’t feel well enough.” I settled into the only chair in the room, which creaked and slanted sideways under my weight. “She lost the baby a few weeks ago.”

  Lydia’s eyes widened. I noticed the flesh under one of them was yellow and speckled with purple, the last remnants of a large bruise. “That is too awful for words,” she said. “What was it? Do you know?”

  “A boy,” I replied.

  “What a shame,” Lydia murmured. “What a beautiful baby it would have made.”

  “Yes,” I said, not knowing what else to add.

  “I also miscarried in the last year.”

  Seeing how stunned I looked, Lydia shrugged. “Well, there’s nothing to be done about it, is there?” she said, biting her lip with her one front tooth. “When it happens, it’s just gone. And you can’t rescue something that hasn’t been born yet, can you? I’ll be honest with you, Mary. Sometimes I look around me, and I think, ‘Lord! Thank goodness I didn’t bring a babe into the world, or it should be as poor and miserable as its mother—with no father to be seen or had, either!’ ”

  “Oh, Lydia…” I removed my gloves and touched Lydia’s wrist. “Poor Lydia.”

  “Don’t be so easily depressed, Mary. I want to hear what you’ve been doing and eating during your visit. It must be a dream to stay at Pemberley.”

  Perhaps it was the intimacy which a small, confined room necessarily inspires in its inhabitants or the smells of regurgitated life wafting upwards from the copper pot. Or it might even have been her missing tooth, the story of which I never got the chance to learn. Whatever the impetus, I told her everything. “I’m actually engaged,” I announced shyly and begged that she would keep it a secret. The man was about thirty, tall, and roguishly handsome, which made us both giggle. He was also Darcy’s paternal first cousin and the son of an earl, though not the eldest.

  “An earl!” Lydia shrieked. “Look at us Bennet girls, eh? First Jane and Bingley, then Lizzy and Darcy. Now you, joining the ranks of the aristocracy with the son of an earl, even if he isn’t the eldest.” I noticed she had left out any mention of herself, but I said nothing. “Can’t you just imagine Charlotte’s and Maria’s faces when they hear our Mary has found herself a colonel? I’m sure Maria will bite her tongue clean through with envy.” Laughing, she began to gag, and we were forced to stop for a few minutes while she retched more bile and blood. “Tell me more about him,” she begged, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. “Tell me what you two talk about and how you met and when you knew yourself to be hopelessly in love.”

  So I told her the whole story, beginning with that sleepless night when he’d mistaken me for a surly and disobedient maid.

  “Horrible man!” Lydia interjected in the way that some people are called “awful” or “hateful” when they are actually quite delightful and lovely. “I hope you didn’t let him get away with it.” I assured her that I hadn’t. And then I told her about Marmalade, how she was the most beautiful and wonderful sort of horse there could be and how the colonel had taught me to ride her. I couldn’t explain it, nevertheless trying to explain. We could talk about nothing for hours and not realize we’d been talking about nothing until the dwindling light summoned us home, and the next day, we could do it all over again without feeling in the least bored with each other.

  “And have you…” Lydia coaxed. I blushed and nodded.

  “Oh, Mary!” she squealed. “I’m sure I’m so ashamed of you I don’t know what to say!” When she’d recovered from her snickering, she asked me if I’d enjoyed it.

  “Not in the beginning,” I replied, shrugging, to which Lydia stuck out her lower lip and wrinkled her nose. “In fact, I didn’t ever want to do it again after the first try. The pain was horrible.”

  “So not that good, eh?” she commiserated.

  “Oh no, but it got better,” I insisted, clearing my throat. “And is now perfectly clean and fine.”

  Lydia rolled her eyes at me. “ ‘Perfectly clean and fine’? It’s not elegant penmanship, Mary. It’s not supposed to be clean and fine, unless you’re Charlotte Lucas and Mr. Collins.”

  “Can’t we talk about something else, Lydia?”

  “Why? We’re both grown women. Why can’t we talk about it? I want to talk about it. I can’t think, as a matter of fact, of anything I want to talk about more right now than it. I haven’t had it in over two weeks, and I’m awfully frustrated by the lack of it, as a resu
lt.”

  “Well…”

  “Yes?” Lydia pressed my hands in encouragement.

  “All right, fine, I actually really, really enjoy it, more than I thought I would. Goodness, I can’t believe I’ve just said that aloud. There! Does that satisfy you?” And I wondered if I should tell her the story about the ghosts in the abandoned wing.

  Lydia nudged me playfully, and snuggling back under her filthy covers, she sighed. “Poor Kitty,” she said with satisfaction. “Wouldn’t it be something if, after everything that’s happened, Kitty turned out to be the old maid of the family? If she does attend your wedding, Mary, I’m sure she’ll do nothing but bellyache the whole time, and I should like to be there, too, if only to see her sour little face and how she’ll never have it in her life, except perhaps with someone really dull, like one of Uncle Philips’s clerks.”

  “Of course you must be there, Lydia,” I said gently, “even if Wickham cannot.”

  But before she could answer, we heard footsteps and harried voices outside in the hall. Then the maid, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, and a middle-aged, whiskered man tumbled collectively into the tiny bedroom, and my aunt separated me from Lydia, who resumed her vomiting, as though on cue.

  In the hours before dinnertime, we felt encouraged by Lydia’s progress; she was not only able to get out of bed and dress but even managed a few spoonfuls of soup. It was the night, however, that proved her undoing—the fever, which refused to break, climbed and climbed to such heights that it finally rendered her unconscious. She never woke from it, and the next morning, the whiskered doctor, who had stayed to watch over her, announced in practiced low tones that Lydia was dead and there was nothing he could have done to save her.

  Because we were women, Aunt Gardiner and I could not attend Lydia’s funeral. And as Wickham failed to return, my uncle was the only one to go and stand over her grave. I stayed with the Gardiners a fortnight in London, and there, at their house in Gracechurch Street, I received replies to the letters I had sent to Mama, Jane, and Lizzy informing them of the unhappy news. Mama’s letter was full of rage—she called Wickham a scoundrel and said she’d claw his eyes out, if ever she saw him again. Mentioning nothing of Papa’s feelings, she swore to confine herself to her bed, grieved as she was by the loss of her favorite child.

  Jane proved equal to our mother in sorrow, if not in anger. “What a tragedy to have occurred only two months before Baby is due,” she’d written in a shaky hand, every few words blotted from tears. “Do you suppose,” she added in a postscript, “we should name our first child ‘Lydia,’ if it should turn out to be a girl? But I would not wish the same fate as befell our sister for any daughter of mine,” she noted, underlining the word “fate.”

  Lizzy’s reply arrived last. She’d written:

  Dearest Mary,

  Since I received your letter, I have alternated for hours between shock and heartache. What a wretched end for our sister. How disgraceful, too, that only Uncle Gardiner should be there to attend her funeral—and not even her own husband! It is a sordid business, and as such, I shall not apprise Darcy or any of the guests here of the details of what happened, except to say quite generally that our youngest sister has passed away from fever.

  I feel very sorry for Lydia. What cruelties she must have suffered at Wickham’s hand in the last year, and still she always called him her “beloved” in her letters. Now that she is gone, all the tender memories return to me—her constant teasing, the way her body seemed always to be moving, flitting from place to place like a bird. I remember when she was seven or eight years old, she made a garland of flowers for my birthday. I wore it for two whole days before it fell apart, and she cried when she no longer saw it on my head. Well, I shall console myself that our sister is in a better place. Wickham’s ties to our family are at last severed.

  This must be an awful trial for you, poor Mary. And though you are sure to be comfortable residing at our uncle’s house in London, can’t I convince you to return at your earliest convenience to Pemberley? I regret how we last parted.

  Yours ever,

  Lizzy

  P.S. Also, there is to be a party here. Something momentous has happened.

  “I was simply devastated to hear about your sister.” The tall plum-colored feather bobbed as three pristine white fingers alighted sympathetically across my wrist. “Here, allow me.” And two white hands worked in fluid synchronicity to refill my cup of punch. I mumbled a few words of thanks, remarked that she was much too kind. My return to Pemberley had been delayed by the poor condition of the roads, and I’d arrived only that afternoon. What with preparations being made for the party, the house was a jumble of activity, and I’d connected only briefly with Lizzy to grieve with her before she was whisked away by Henderson to tend to more arrangements. I’d seen nothing of Darcy. A few hours before the guests were due to arrive, Mrs. Reynolds had looked in on me to inquire if I needed any help with dressing. I’d asked her then what the party was for, and she’d replied with a strange smile that I would find out soon enough.

  “My sweet Molly,” Caroline Bingley cooed, and I considered it a wonder she did not pinch my cheeks, “we have so much to catch up on. I’ve hardly seen anything of you since I arrived at Pemberley…nearly three weeks ago.”

  “Yes, well…” I searched the crowd for another familiar face, anyone I could drift to, like a foundering vessel looking to moor on the shores of a friendly nation, but I knew no one.

  “So how did she—your sister—pass away?” Powerful jaws obliterated a biscuit to powdery dust.

  “A fever, but I’d rather not talk about it, if you don’t mind. It’s all rather recent for me.”

  Caroline crooked a critical brow. She pouted. Perhaps she had intended an expression of condolence, but hers was an arrogant face, unused to not having its way. Three dark red stones hung from a thick chain around her neck like fresh, shiny organs. She thoughtfully fingered these as she finished the rest of her punch. “Well, I’m certainly glad you’re back,” she said shortly, brushing off her injured feelings with a brisk shake of her plume, “and, in fact, I congratulate you on the fortuitous date of your return.” But before I could ask her why this was, she’d caught her sister’s eye between the arch of two enormous decorative fronds, and the temptation of migrating to a more respectable neighborhood within Pemberley’s largest and stateliest drawing room proved an irresistible temptation. “Oh, Molly,” she lamented. “I’m afraid we’ll have to continue our little tête-à-tête later, as Louisa is just desperate to tell me something. But I’m so happy you’re here tonight and away from that awful part of London!” And shuddering at the thought of those persons and buildings she had never seen and likely never would, she swept away, feather eagerly bobbing in the direction of wealthier climes.

  Earlier the same day, I had haunted a new room at Pemberley. The occasion of my return seemed to call for a change of scenery, and death, too, proved an unexpected stimulant. Prior to London, we had worked our way down an entire corridor, naming the rooms we conquered as we went along. There was the room we called simply English Breakfast—the colonel’s idea—which featured a singularly beautiful table of mahogany mounted on a gilt-wood pedestal with lion’s feet. There was also the Cursed Study, so christened because one side of the room was covered with antiquated books, and a few of these had dropped, startling us, during our intercourse. We tried to make the rooms’ names funny or, at the very least, curious. So before long, there were, in addition to the two already mentioned, the Hall of Mirrors (named after the famous gallery at Versailles), Cheapside (my favorite), and the Chapel of the Holy Fountain (for an unfortunate accident I’d had while pressed against a window ledge).

  The new room, however, was devoid of any notable features which might assist us in giving it a name. We considered this as the side of my head rose and fell against his chest.

  “Wastel
and?” he offered.

  “That’ll have to do, if we can’t think of anything better,” I murmured, still dissatisfied.

  “Mary, I want to tell you something….”

  “What is it, Marmalade?”

  “I do wish you’d be serious for once, my ugly little thing.”

  “Only if you’ll be serious, too, Marmalade.”

  “While you were in London,” he began, “Darcy and I had a rather upsetting discussion…and I’m afraid it turned into an argument. You know we’ve been friends since childhood; we’ve never really had any reason to be cross with each other.”

  His skin had become too warm for my face, and I rolled away from him, onto the cool, hard floor. On my back, my nipples pointed unseeingly upwards at the bare ceiling’s one exposed beam. A slight breeze which emanated from nowhere made my legs cold, and my ankles wound together in a belated attempt at chastity. At the ends of my hair, a pair of tangling spiders disappeared through the floorboards, into oblivion.

  “What Darcy and I talked about…” he said.

  “There’s a draft in this horrible room,” I complained, interrupting him. “I think we shall name it Hell. What do you think?”

  “That would make us sinners.”

  “We are sinners, my dear Marmalade. At least until we are not.”

  He sat up. “You don’t really believe that, do you?” His voice trembled with anger, or perhaps it was fear. “If you’re trying to be funny, you can stop right now. It’s not funny at all and is in very poor taste.”

  I saw that he was serious and kissed him. When this didn’t work, I stroked the white scar on his chin and kissed the jagged line. “Look!” I teased, playing the nursemaid. “All better now.” More kisses.

  “Why did you have to go to London?” he continued, and this time, it was despair, not anger, that shook his voice. “Couldn’t you have just stayed put at Pemberley?”