“I had some business to take care of in this area on behalf of a friend,” our honored guest explained, “and recalled when I’d finished that Longbourn was not far away.”
A good many people had lost interest in Charlotte after her marriage to Mr. Collins, and not least of these was Lizzy, who sought to keep up as short and infrequent a communication with her former friend as politeness would permit. Charlotte’s reply to Lizzy’s most recent letter had already gone for over four months unanswered, so she inquired now how her visitor’s charming spouse fared.
“She’s perfectly well,” Mr. Darcy said, swirling the dregs of his teacup. “And my sister is also perfectly well,” he added, anticipating any query which might eventually have been made on that front.
After everyone’s health had been fully established, and by this I mean that Mr. Darcy, Lizzy, and Georgiana were all “perfectly well” and Sir William, Lady Lucas, Maria, and the Collinses all “well enough,” Mr. Darcy, gazing absently out the sitting room window, expressed an interest in taking a tour of the grounds. Mr. Collins at once offered his services, but his guest declined.
“No, please don’t put yourself to any more trouble,” Mr. Darcy said, standing. “I’ve already taken up enough of your time as it is and, I fear, interrupted your morning schedule.”
“Not at all! Not at all!” Mr. Collins protested. “Please permit me to dispel your concern by assuring you that I had nothing planned this whole day which would prevent my giving you a thorough tour of the house and the surrounding land.”
“I’m sure I wouldn’t dream of disturbing your plans,” Mr. Darcy remarked, plainly ignoring his host. “I wonder, however, if Miss Bennet could be prevailed upon to accompany me, provided she can be spared from her other duties.” And he looked with open disdain into the sour, disapproving face of the tiny Roman emperor still enthroned on the edge of my knees. I held on to Julius, warm blood flooding my cheeks.
The Collinses had no choice but to give in to his wishes. Julius was promptly removed, and Darcy waited for me at the door while I put on my coat. My fingers fumbled uselessly with the buttons. Of course, in passing through the area, he wished to pay his respects, I thought to myself. Nothing less. Nothing more.
When we were alone and a reasonable distance from Longbourn, Darcy inquired again after my health.
“I am well,” I repeated. We kept our gazes fixed on the view in front of us and did not look at each other. Speech, which had once flowed liberally from our mouths, was now a stilted, agonizing thing to undertake. I knew he must leave; whether that would be an hour from now or after dinner mattered little. He would leave, and once he was gone, I would feel his absence like a wound which I couldn’t locate on my body, though I must suffer its pain.
“And you?” I asked more coldly than was my intent.
“Well enough,” he replied and offered nothing further. “Do the Collinses treat you well?”
“I’ve no reason to complain,” I said, which was the truth. “The Collinses treat me as civilly as they can, and Charlotte has grown used to my company. They are very happy to keep me busy with small tasks, and I am willing enough to oblige them, so long as I can remain at Longbourn.”
We’d been walking for some time away from the house and into the surrounding fields, and I confess the morning did not feel any more extraordinary for the fact that Darcy had come. The air still smelled, as it always did, of animals and earth, and the sun, which had never been educated in the art of moderation, shone too hot and bright on everything. There was no soothing wind to be felt, no birdsong to be heard. Then he said, “Mary, I have come with a purpose—to deliver some news.”
We stopped. The light, at that moment, was just behind his head, and I could not look at him without also blinding myself. I waited for him to speak.
“Egerton has agreed to publish your book,” he said, as my eyes adjusted to the sun, “and he will pay you two hundred pounds for it.”
Two hundred pounds.
“Leonora?” I asked, incredulous. I was aware that my mouth remained open, yet I had no sense to close it.
“Yes.”
For a whole minute, I seemed to lose all faculty of speech. My writing would be printed. My novel, which had been ridiculed by my detractors at Pemberley, would be sold to complete strangers in bookstores. People would pay money in order to read my work. In the precious hours before bedtime, a duchess might very well seat herself in her favorite armchair and read the opening lines of Leonora, while downstairs, the housekeeper and cook argued over which princely suitor would win the Danish queen’s heart. No longer was Leonora merely a jumble of paper, of handwritten passages and blotched ink. It would be reborn into that most sacred of man-made conceptions: a book.
“There are some papers you’ll need to sign,” Darcy continued. “The terms are quite simple, and I’m fairly confident you’ll find the language agreeable, as I helped to negotiate several of the provisions myself.”
“I’ve never earned any money before,” I said, my mouth twitching into a smile. “What would I do with two hundred pounds?” At the mention of money, I remembered the measly allowance which Papa would distribute among us at the beginning of every month, and which Lydia and Kitty would oftentimes deplete in the space of a single afternoon upon visiting the milliner’s shop in Meryton. My sisters and I had learned, practically from our infancy, that a lady’s fortune was always inherited, never earned. It was an act of Providence that Caroline Bingley should have twenty thousand pounds to her name and Georgiana Darcy thirty thousand pounds. How different the concept of wealth becomes, I thought, when it is actually of one’s own making. How frighteningly glorious.
“I hope you didn’t have to bribe Egerton into publishing my novel,” I said. My feet felt so light I was in danger of skipping.
“A preposterous notion,” Darcy replied. “Egerton is a businessman before he is my friend. He would never lose money for the sake of sparing my feelings.”
“I would like the cover to be a dark red,” I spouted, knowing I was getting ahead of myself. “And the title to be printed in a pretty script, preferably in silver or gold.”
“There will be time enough to make such decisions later,” Darcy said, seeming pleased by my enthusiasm.
We continued to walk. After we’d covered another short distance, I asked him when he planned to return to Pemberley.
“This evening” was the reply, and instantly, I felt a small pang of grief. The wings which my feet had sprouted vanished, and like a lead weight, my spirit returned to earth.
When I’d recovered from the moment of pain, I inquired after Lizzy.
“She has gone to Bath to take the waters with your mother. I have rented a house for them there. It’s possible they may stay the whole season.”
“And was Kitty well when you left her?”
“Very well. I believe the wedding will take place in a few months’ time.”
“Yes, she wrote me in her letters about it,” I said. “I am very happy for her.” For a while, we stood and observed everything in our surroundings except each other—the hedges and dirt paths, the woolly strands of clouds, and the black lines of geese that threaded through them.
“I have started writing again,” I said, as there seemed little else remaining which was innocuous enough to discuss. “It is to be a satire of masters and their servants.”
“Anyone we know in it?”
I grinned. “I won’t reveal too much, except to say the main character is a Mrs. Caroline Collingwood, tyrannical wife of the scholarly but very dull Mr. Aloysius Collingwood.”
The air was so quiet I could hear the sound of our breathing. In that moment, we exhaled together.
“I have missed our talks,” he finally said, his eye caught in the branches of a nearby tree.
“Yes, poor Queen Leonora always gave us much to d
iscuss.”
“No, not just Leonora, Mary.” His gaze still unmoving, he added, “If I could choose for you, Mary, if it were in my power to craft a perfect life without blemish, I would have you live at Pemberley. For the rest of my life, I’d be content to sit with you for a few hours every day in the library, as you wrote your stories and read your books. You’d be the first person I saw each morning, and your voice would be the last thing I heard before retiring.”
I stole a glance at him, and a curl of hair loosed itself, tickling the bottom of my chin. I imagined having Pemberley’s library to myself and falling asleep and waking up at whatever hour of my choosing on the wrinkly velvet green sofa. For the briefest moment, I luxuriated in this fantasy of independence. In my mind’s eye, I saw the shelves, which reached like Ionic columns from the floor to the ornate ceiling, the thick forest of books they contained, the dusty pages that had not been opened for decades. I envisioned afternoons of rigorous study, and in the evenings, solitary walks in the fragrant gardens. Yet Pemberley still had walls and gates. It belonged to another, and I knew one day I would outgrow its dignified beauty. I could never call it home.
“Leave this place, Mary,” he said, turning towards me at last. “Even if I can’t have you by my side, I would have you leave these awful people and never set foot in Longbourn again.”
There was a pause, long enough that I looked curiously into Darcy’s face. I waited for him to continue.
“There is a cottage not five miles from Pemberley which has been vacant these several years, since its previous occupants left Derbyshire. If you consent, I will draw up an agreement with my solicitor to permit you to live there free of rent for as long as you wish. Even if anything were to happen to me, I would ensure that the agreement could not be broken.”
I shook my head, though my heart quickened at the prospect. “I fear it’s not a practical arrangement. How could I live alone? It would be unheard of.”
“You will have a companion—and servants. Two, three, if you wish.”
“I still couldn’t….” I heard myself utter mechanically, even as I envisaged sitting down to a dinner for one, a silver platter of roast beef to my left, an entire stewed partridge to my right. I would be a kind mistress, I thought, and treat my servants well.
“Why?”
“It’s not simply what I want to do,” I said, though I could feel my resolve weakening. “I have Lizzy to consider, to say nothing of my mother and sisters. What would they think?”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters,” I said, turning away and attempting to dismiss the temptation of what he was offering.
“When have they ever considered your happiness? Or gone out of their way to ensure it? Kitty will be married soon. Jane has had her first child with Bingley. And Lizzy has made her decision; she has everything she wants from our marriage in the form of society parties and a generous monthly allowance.” Seeing me shake my head again, he persisted, growing excited. “Why are you so willing to live the rest of your life in obscurity, catering to the likes of Mr. and Mrs. Collins and their infant? Why can’t you pursue your happiness as your sisters did? This is no way to live, Mary. This is not you. I am giving you the chance to start again, to leave all this behind. I beg you to accept it.”
The sky blurred behind a film of tears. At Pemberley, I had come the closest I’d ever known to freedom. I’d regulated my days as I wished and behaved improperly, even recklessly. Everything had been the product of my own choice: the liberality with which I gave my body and love, the heartache that followed, the mornings and nights spent in solitude at a desk, alone but far from lonely, a single pen scratching far-fetched tales across a blank page. “It is true,” I said softly. “I was happy at Pemberley.”
Once again, I saw before myself the unattainable line of the horizon. It did not feel so very distant anymore. Somehow, what had been denied to Jane and Lizzy, Lydia and Kitty, my mother, my aunts, and all my female acquaintances was now being offered to me. If I held out my hand, it would be mine—a life of my own. And like my book, it would be of my own authoring. I would compose its pages, whatever shape and course they took. The creation would belong wholly to me, to Mary Bennet, to the writer known only as Mary B.
“You could be happy again,” Darcy whispered.
Was it his hand or the sun that then touched my cheek and warmed it? Was it love or the brightness of light that dazzled my eyes and muddled my brain? I hardly knew.
“A third path has opened to you, Mary, where you’ll never be a governess or a nursemaid or a companion,” I heard him say. “Take it, Mary. Accept this chance of happiness. Say that you will.”
I’d entered this field many times before, and it had always seemed to me a stark and unattractive landscape. It remained so now, nondescript and inscrutable, yet a calming breeze had begun to blow. It combed the flat plains of grass like soft hair, stroking waves of verdant gold to an iridescent shine beneath the sun. The trees, too, shook awake, and a solitary bird emerged from its green nest to ride the wind until it soared to impossible heights. Myth overtook my senses, and I saw the sun embrace this bird, though it was common, small, and gray. I imagined that from the flames, a new bird of fire would fraternize with dancing stars, headstrong comets, and tempestuous meteors. As I stood in the center of this familiar field, my spirit ascended higher and higher, until fire touched and transformed it, and what emerged was as lustrous and freeborn as the phoenix.
“I will,” I said through my tears. “I will take it.”
This last scene is one of springtime. A lonely cottage with an overgrown garden and a drooping wych elm sits between two hills, and a green-eyed, catlike girl emerges from the newly painted front door to sweep the path. If anyone wonders why this pretty housemaid should smile, it is because, at that moment, her mistress has company, which is always, I suppose, a good enough reason for a woman to smile, but especially so if the visitor is pleasant, tall, and gentlemanlike, which this guest certainly is.
At present, this gentleman sits elegantly poised on a large blanket spread across the only clearing the overgrown garden has to offer. His friend, the proprietor of this humble country cottage, is a young woman of middling height, plain dress, and even plainer exterior. They are talking between themselves of the “monstrous thing” at her feet, which is wrapped in brown paper and string and bound for Egerton’s in London, her third in as many years and a behemoth of pretty words and decadent sentences, full of “lovers’ sighs” and “tearful adieus.” Behind them, a few feet away, the promised lady’s companion, Mrs. Helena Crosbie, of excellent and unsullied reputation, sits slumped in her chair, snoring and emitting sleepy grunts. A thunderstorm wouldn’t wake her, which suits the others just fine. In fact, a forgetful memory and an insatiable appetite for sleep played an instrumental role in her securing the position in the first place.
“Tell me what you shall write next,” Darcy said, helping himself to another slice of cake.
“I think I have run out of ideas,” I replied.
“Never!” my guest cried out.
“Oh yes, I’m afraid so. Try as I might, I can’t think of a single worthwhile subject to write about. I am done composing novels about servants and beautiful ladies and great houses. I require a challenge—a new story to tackle.”
“Well, I shall help you think of something….” Darcy furrowed his brow.
Three years had come and gone since I moved into Darcy’s cottage. Within a week of my arrival, I forgot all about the Collinses and their tyrannical infant. In my own sitting room, I unwrapped the first bound copies of Leonora’s Adventures: Chronicles of a Tragic and Deeply Unhappy Queen. A year later, I added The Strange and Peculiar Tale of Mrs. Caroline Collingwood and Her Most Unlucky Housemaid to my modest bookshelf. As for my sisters: Kitty, engaged when I left her at Longbourn, had since settled in a great mansion in Norfolk, and Jane,
who proved equally successful as wife and mother, gave birth to her second child, a healthy, laughing boy whom she and Bingley named Fitzwilliam. Having grown fond of Bath, Lizzy convinced Darcy to purchase a house for her in one of the fashionable seaside neighborhoods. To the rest of the world, even to Jane, all was exactly as it should be between Mr. and Mrs. Darcy. Every year, they attended enough balls that the appearance of conjugal joy seemed undiminished; in front of their acquaintances, they laughed and gibed and bartered terms of endearment with convincing authenticity. But at Pemberley, they continued to live and to sleep, even to dine, separately, and Lizzy, who had become a staple of the most glamorous parties in both the city and the country, was frequently away from home. At least half the year she spent in England’s most famous spa town, under the pretense of needing to take the waters for her health; another three months she passed in London, which left only three to spend in Derbyshire. Mama, finding an aloof companion in her second daughter, moved to live with Jane and Bingley permanently, much to the chagrin of the happy couple.
As our lives took shape and deviated from what we had known of each other in our youth, letters grew fewer in number, though I continued to write my sisters and Mama. Jane and Kitty proved assiduous in keeping me apprised of dinners hosted, new introductions, and the vicissitudes of married life. Mama could always be counted on to complain about her nerves, but my letters to Lizzy asking after her health and happiness went unreturned.
Aside from my writing and books, my friendship with Darcy remained the single most important part of my life. In his person, I discovered the intellectual outlet I’d craved since childhood, and the many evenings spent in his company eventually dissolved all memory of the unhappiness which had been caused by others, keeping at a distance the distress caused by Lizzy’s silence. Not a day passed during his visits that wasn’t also spent in laughter, and I became as easy in his company as when I was alone. To love him was to love the better part of myself, and this was as natural as breathing.
Mary B Page 30
