Mary B

by Katherine J. Chen

  “Yes, Papa.” I closed the book.

  “Being aware of my condition, Lizzy has had the foresight to invite your mother and Kitty to live at Pemberley. And quite right, too—any overlap with the Collinses would prove most awkward and upsetting, certainly more than Mrs. Bennet is capable of enduring.”

  “That sounds very reasonable, sir,” I replied.

  “Yes, it is. There are some advantages, I grant you, of being married to money. What I wished to speak to you about, however, is this—Lizzy said, as concerned your situation, that she had already written to Jane, and Jane has agreed that you should stay with her. Would you like that, Mary? To live with Jane and Bingley in their big house?”

  This was the first I heard of the arrangement, and though it didn’t surprise me, I had no immediate reaction, except to think uselessly again of Darcy and our parting.

  “She mentioned that, rather than following your mother and sister, you’d appreciate the change of scenery after spending so much time at Pemberley. I’m sure you’ll be well treated at Bingley’s, Mary. A kinder, more agreeable man never walked the earth, and Jane will always be exactly as she is.”

  “And I am to play nursemaid,” I mused without smiling.

  “Well, it’ll be good practice for you,” Papa chuckled. “I’ll confess, Mary, that I couldn’t help laughing when I read Lizzy’s letter.”

  “Laughing, sir?”

  “All this talk of ‘change of scenery’ and writing Jane on your behalf.” He tapped me playfully on the wrist. “I don’t wholly believe it. Now, tell me, Mary, were you a poor houseguest when you stayed at Pemberley? You may be honest with me, for I am practically at death’s door. What did you do? Refuse to stand up for a dance? Stay in bed past breakfast in order to finish a book? My own guess is that you did another of your songs at one of her parties and embarrassed your poor sister in front of her new friends. And if that is the case, then I’m afraid I must side with my Lizzy. You are truly a terrible musician despite your diligence, which, I grant you, is admirable.”

  “Papa!” I scolded, though I laughed, too. Gibes at my poor playing no longer hurt me.

  “It’s also very likely Lizzy has turned into a snob,” he concluded thoughtfully. “Even a temper as naturally good as hers would not be able to withstand the influence of such a place—with so many servants and carriages and ancestral portraits swarming around her every hour. I suspected, when she was married, that Pemberley would change her. How she will put up with your mother and Kitty, I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  “She has enough finery to distract her,” I said, “and Mama and Kitty will be too dazzled by what they see to utter a single word for days.”

  Papa chuckled. “Very good, Mary,” he said. He pointed to the book I still held. “Now keep reading that awful poetry.”

  I had hoped, in Lizzy’s absence, that Papa and I should have become great friends and spent many hours talking about the books we had read and the books we still hoped to read. I’d imagined sitting with him in the library, exchanging quotations or making the occasional joke at Mama and Kitty’s expense. I wish that he might have imparted some greater wisdom in his last words to me, but he did not. He passed away the following morning, and having risen late, I had no chance to speak to him again. I was forced to admit I knew as little of my father as he knew of me. Our understanding of each other had been, at the best of times, superficial, and the assumption of affection between us was, of course, not the same as the proof of it.

  Mama, for all her diatribes against Papa while he was still alive, mourned his death with surprising calm. Over a cup of spilled tea and a cut of underdone pork, she might have bewailed the undiscerning cruelty of the Fates, but the loss of a lifelong partner, a man whom she must, in some early chapter, have loved with the reckless passion of youth, this she endured with remarkable forbearance and little self-pity. They had, after all, nothing in common, and whereas some wives will only feign annoyance when teased by their better halves, Mama had passed the majority of her days in a condition of continuous vexation. I only ever saw her cry once for him, and even then, the weeping was astonishingly restrained.

  I found her one evening soon after at her dressing table, sorting through the contents of a small jewelry box. She had just been trying on a very pretty agate ring that had proved too tight for her own fingers, and giving up the cause as lost, she slipped the ring into my hand.

  “Here, Mary,” she said. “Why don’t you see what luck you have with it?”

  I did, and the ring, though it slid onto my finger with ease, dangled so loose that if I tipped my hand even slightly, it came right off again.

  “Our poor Mary was never one for trinkets,” Mama remarked, picking the ring off the carpet with a sigh.

  “True, but only think of how many pounds, shillings, and pence I must have saved Papa in his lifetime because I did not care for such things,” I offered.

  She tossed the offending bauble back into the box and shut it. “Your father said to me many years ago, ‘Our Mary would have made a fine scholar or clergyman, if she could be one.’ I didn’t like that he could be so flippant about his own children, but he was right, of course. You were always different from your sisters. I think now what a shame we couldn’t send you to one of those private seminaries in London or take on a governess. You may have benefited by it, though what can be gained from so much book reading is beyond me.”

  “I doubt whether a governess or a seminary for young women could have taught me anything the circulating library didn’t, Mama,” I replied softly, moved by her acknowledgement.

  At this, my mother’s chest heaved a weary concession. “Mary,” she said, and the tone of her voice changed. “I have something I wish to speak to you about. Kitty and I wanted to tell you sooner, but what with all that’s happened, there never seemed any suitable moment to impart such news. Also, we were uncertain how you would respond—”

  “It is not your own health, Mama?” I asked, alarmed.

  “No, no,” she said soothingly. “It is, I promise you, good news…very good news indeed. You see, shortly before you returned to us, Kitty received an offer of marriage, and she has, after a period of consideration, accepted.”

  For many moments, the news had no effect on me. Then my blood quickened, and my face felt touched by an intolerable heat. I seemed to feel the reverberation of a pain that did not strike me so much as it flowered from somewhere within my body, the seed something bitter and raw that had been waiting for the right time to unfold itself. After a pause, I heard myself mumble a few meager words of congratulations. “If the man is good and worthy,” I said, “then I can be nothing but happy for my sister. Who is he?”

  “His name is Christopher Harper. Fairly handsome, though nothing, of course, to either Bingley or Darcy. He and Kitty met at an assembly. They knocked into each other while dancing, and he gave her a sprained ankle. It was love at first sight.”

  “What good fortune for Kitty.”

  “Don’t lose heart, my dear,” Mama said, as her hands warmed my own, which had grown cold. The unexpected tenderness of her voice made my nose twitch in the anticipation of tears. “One day I hope you shall marry as well, and the feat will not be any the less joyous for the fact that it has been delayed.”

  Sometimes the truth will withhold itself until it is spoken, and until it is spoken, it will not feel real.

  “I will never marry,” I said and stopped just after I had uttered the words to feel their residue, whether stinging or sweet or tasteless, on my tongue. “I will never marry.”

  But Mama, who knew no better, insisted I was only discouraged by Kitty’s news, and we ended the conversation good-naturedly by talking of a subject which pleased us both: the prospects of my sister’s future husband, a gentleman, albeit in trade, who had, at present, no less than four thousand pounds a year, a sum he owed in lar
ge part to the munificence of a doting and childless great-aunt.

  Afterwards, I went downstairs to find Kitty, and we embraced over her good fortune.

  “This is a triumph indeed,” I said politely, “and could not come at a more welcome time.”

  Kitty squeezed my hands. The summer months had browned her skin and given her freckles, which, I confess, suited her. “What good luck,” she said, sighing. I noticed then her red-rimmed eyes and asked if she had been grieving our father.

  “Mary, you revealed almost nothing in your letter about Lydia, except that she died of a fever. Was it very bad? Did she suffer?”

  “I believe she lost consciousness hours before she passed away. I don’t think she felt any pain.”

  Kitty nodded. “Then that is something. I don’t think there was anyone more distraught than Mama when we read the news. For two whole days, she would not eat anything. Papa, of course, locked himself away in the library and forbade anyone from disturbing him. And I could not stop crying for hours. Mrs. Hill told me I would go blind from weeping so much, and I told her I didn’t care.”

  “I have faith our sister is in a better place,” I said softly. “Wickham treated her poorly, but where she is now, neither he nor anyone else can hurt her.”

  “People were so cruel to her when she ran off with Wickham,” Kitty sobbed. “All they could think about was the shame of what she’d done, the disgrace she’d brought upon the rest of us, and now she is dead. I wish I could have seen her again. I still remember how well she looked when she left Longbourn for the last time with Wickham, the exact dress and bonnet she wore. And afterwards, I wrote her almost every week, but her replies grew shorter and less frequent over time.”

  “She was quite her usual self when I visited her,” I said.

  “Did she…did she say anything about me?” Kitty stared at me expectantly.

  I hesitated, though I smiled at the memory. “She said wouldn’t it be rather amusing if, after all, you turned out to be the old maid among us and not me?”

  Kitty laughed through her tears. “How like Lydia to speak such nonsense,” she murmured.

  “But I’m afraid,” I said, feigning humor, “that the honor of old maid shall always be mine.”

  “I do think Lydia would have been happy with my choice of husband, if she were here.”

  “And unlike the rest of the female population, I’m certain she would ask how tall and handsome he was before inquiring after his income.”

  “And whether he was an officer,” Kitty added.

  “Yes, that, too.”

  For a while, Kitty didn’t speak. I watched as she dried her eyes and neatly folded her handkerchief.

  “I hope you’re not terribly jealous, Mary,” she finally said.

  “Now, you and Lydia knew a long time ago that I would never marry,” I replied, pretending to smile, “and I daresay you were both right.”

  “Our poor Mary,” Kitty said, twining her fingers through mine. “But you’ll be so happy with Jane and Bingley. I know you will. Bingley is as reliable as Papa or Uncle Gardiner.”

  “He is.”

  “And there will be no awkwardness, for you’ll repay their generosity by looking after Jane’s baby when the time comes. So you needn’t worry about that.”

  I said nothing, and she embraced me again. It was then I knew. I would not go to Jane’s.

  It wasn’t courtesy but pride that stopped me. I was the unmarried sister, the woman who could not get herself a husband, let alone a proper one of five or seven thousand pounds a year. For the remainder of my life, I would be shipped like a parcel from one great residence to another, caring for an abundance of nephews and nieces and living, at most, two ranks higher than the housekeeper. No, I told myself, I wouldn’t give in so easily. If my destiny was to be a nursemaid, I would not do it for my sisters, where they, their husbands, and my mother should always be on hand to bear witness to my failure in following their fine examples. I would do it for strangers, or for people I did not care about. And I would begin at the place I still considered my home, at Longbourn.

  * * *

  —

  THE NEXT DAY, I informed Mama and Kitty I wished to stay at Longbourn for as long as the Collinses would permit me to remain with them. Time had tempered my dislike of my cousin, and in truth, a part of me professed terrible curiosity as to the state of his marriage to Charlotte. I could never think of Mr. Collins fondly, but to myself, I conceded that there was, in the end, very little to feel resentful about. We were temperamentally unsuited to each other, and I was a much different person now than when I’d claimed to be in love with him. He was neither the hero of my imagination nor a great villain. He was a man, in the plainest terms—small and delicate in stature, doting on the rich and mighty, scornful of the poor; in other words, no better or worse than many of his brethren.

  Mama and Kitty were, understandably, incredulous.

  “You cannot be serious, Mary,” said Kitty, who had attained a great deal more sense since Lydia’s departure. “What reason could you possibly have to stay behind?”

  “This is my home,” I said practically, “as it is yours and Mama’s, though we have no claim to it legally. And I am decided. I shall not leave until I feel ready to join Jane and Bingley.”

  “And when might that be?” Mama cried.

  “It could be a week or a month. Maybe a year.”

  “A year?” Mama and Kitty shouted in unison.

  “If it is comfort you are thinking of, I’m sure Bingley’s house cannot be unsuitable,” Kitty offered. “And he has a residence in London, too, one which does not lack amenities, from what Jane has told me in her letters.”

  I shook my head. “You misunderstand me, Kitty. I do not doubt that Bingley’s estate is ten times as grand as our little home, but I’m convinced I should stay here. Charlotte cannot have turned disagreeable, and being married to our cousin, she is probably most desirous for company.”

  “You shall be miserable,” Mama insisted. “You shall choose to be miserable and make me miserable in turn, as your mother.”

  “I am very fond of Jane and Bingley,” I explained, ignoring Mama. “But I do not think it can be a practical time for me to go. In a matter of days, Jane will have her baby, and I would only be in their way. Also, you forget that I have stayed at Longbourn hardly a month since returning from Pemberley. I should like to say a proper goodbye to our childhood home before leaving.”

  “Say goodbye to a house?” Mama exclaimed, but she could see my resolve and said no more.

  A few days before the Collinses were to arrive and take ownership of Longbourn, I parted from my mother and sister.

  “Write often,” Mama said, sobbing into her third handkerchief of the morning. “And tell me what you eat at every meal, for I promise the Collinses won’t be as generous with their table as I’ve been, not that you have ever taken notice.”

  “I have noticed, Mama,” I said. Then she kissed my forehead and my hand before entering the carriage, where more lamentations and sobs issued between great heaving sighs.

  “It is my sincere wish,” Kitty said, while embracing me in a sanguine attitude, “that you should play and sing as long as you like each day when Mrs. Collins moves in.”

  I laughed. “But you have never liked my singing.”

  “Exactly!” Kitty replied. “So sing, nightingale! Sing! Please do!” Then she, too, kissed me and, waving goodbye from the carriage window, was gone.

  Jane and Bingley both expressed regret that I would not come as soon as expected. “Of course you are sorry to leave our dear home,” Jane had written in reply to my letter. “But I hope, for reasons entirely selfish, that you will join Bingley, myself, and our healthy, laughing girl the moment you tire of Longbourn’s drafty rooms and yellowing wallpaper. We’ve named her Elizabeth, by the way—do you a
pprove of the choice?”

  Though it pained me to admit it, I remained at Longbourn also because of Darcy. If I stayed here, there could be no possibility of our moving in overlapping circles, and I would spare us both the vexation of meeting while being unable to say anything of importance. In order that I might one day forget what I could never have, I refused to succumb to longing. Still, every so often, the fragment of a pleasant conversation or a look would materialize to haunt me, and I would feel desire come to life again, like the first spark of a warming ember. But then I’d remind myself of the futility of such thoughts, and they would vanish for a time.

  I will refrain from relating in detail the tedium of the days that followed the Collinses’ arrival. Suffice it to say that Charlotte had grown fat and that Mr. Collins remained as small as I remembered in both body and spirit since we’d parted two years ago. Their child, ridiculously named Julius, was a sickly thing, prone to devastating bouts of bad temper. From the first, he was permitted to strike and kick me whenever he liked, but I shudder to think what his parents would have done to my person had I repaid his childish violence in kind.

  Our reunion began courteously enough. They declared upon their arrival that I shouldn’t entertain the slightest idea of going anywhere. I must stay at Longbourn; it would always be my home more than theirs, Charlotte generously commented, and Mr. Collins was quick to add that his dear wife was certainly correct in her remark, albeit only from a sentimental point of view.

  But generosity is a creature of unpredictable temperament, and a few hours later, the following conversation reached my ears from the direction of the drawing room, where Mr. and Mrs. Collins sat alone, drinking hot tea and eating the stale cake and biscuits laid out for them by Mrs. Hill, who’d been asked to stay on: