The Unexpected Miss Bennet (15 page)

‘Are we not?’ Mary said. ‘A woman’s virtue is so easily lost. One false step, one stumble, and she is judged, and judged harshly.’

Lizzy was silent for a long time. They were both thinking of Lydia. ‘You are right,’ she admitted at last. ‘I cannot deny it. Yet we have a choice, and we are not completely fettered. A well-regulated mind, practised in reading and understanding, will always find a way to thrive, even under the meanest conditions.’

‘Lizzy,’ Mary said patiently, ‘one cannot eat or put a roof over one’s head with only a well-regulated mind.’

Lizzy laughed. ‘You are determined to be low, Mary, and I am equally determined to raise your spirits. But I can’t. You win. Please, may we talk of something less dreary? Look – here’s Darcy. He’s come looking for us.’

He had come with good news. Lady Catherine had decided that they should go at the end of the week, for that would have made their visit exactly one month. That left them with three more days to enjoy the charms of the local hospitality, but they had one more hurdle to overcome. They must dine once more at Rosings.

M
R COLLINS WAS ecstatic at the lifting of the exile from his beloved Rosings. He hurried home with the news, gasping with eagerness, his expression fawning.

‘Be easy, cousin,’ he said to Mary. ‘You have done no permanent ill, or at least, the consequences of your whims have not been damaging. We have been invited to the farewell dinner at Rosings, before your removal to Darcy’s ancestral home. Charlotte, we will not have to cook the joint after all.’

‘I will tell Cook,’ Charlotte said, her lips twitching. Mr Collins, unaware that he had insulted his cousin with the suggestion that she was eating him out of house and home, turned to Mary. His face had grown solemn.

‘Cousin,’ he said. ‘We must have a serious talk.’ He took a breath and turned to his wife. ‘My dear Charlotte. If you could leave us for a moment for a conversation that I think Miss Bennet would like to hold in private. We are family after all, and thus it cannot be improper.’

‘Whatever you wish to say can be said in front of Charlotte, Mr Collins,’ said Mary. ‘
We
are family, but she has been a friend since we were children.’

‘That’s all right, Mary,’ Charlotte said. She rose. ‘I hear Robert stirring anyway.’

Mr Collins waited for her to leave, and even after the door closed behind her he paced in front of the fireplace, as if unable to find the words. Mary waited. She was actually curious. What was he going to try to tell her?

‘My dear cousin,’ he began, and then stopped as if choked with emotion. He was not a man who had much skill as an actor, though, and she was hard put to keep from laughing. ‘My dear cousin. I will not ask you to lie. If you feel you must tell Lady Catherine that you read a novel out loud to her daughter, then unburden yourself of the truth and ask forgiveness for the sin. I understand the need to clear one’s heart and soul of such a misdemeanour. Oh, I see by your expression that you don’t understand the grave impropriety of what you did. Miss Mary, you read a novel to Miss Anne de Bourgh under my roof. Lady Catherine cannot do other than blame me, as head of this household.’

‘Mr Collins, it was a novel written by a respectable lady for respectable ladies. It wasn’t Swift, after all.’ He gasped at the thought. ‘But if you think it best, I will confess to Lady Catherine that it was all my doing.’ Mary knew better than to bring Georgiana into it.

He looked as if he was finding it difficult to order his thoughts.

‘It is up to you, of course. I could not, in my capacity as a cleric, tell you to withhold a truth. On the other hand, it would not be
such
a lie, unless Lady Catherine asked you directly about the matter. I am only saying that if you wish to tell Lady Catherine what happened, if you felt the heavy weight of your transgression, your unthinking action, then by all means you should tell her ladyship and hope for her forgiveness. But if you feel that it would be better left unsaid, that we should talk no more about it, then perhaps that could be forgiven as well. For it was not so very bad, except that Lady Catherine might think I had something to do with it.’

Mary’s mouth dropped. Mr Collins didn’t want her to tell Lady Catherine anything! He was afraid that Lady Catherine would blame him! For a moment a mischievous impulse rose up in her. After all, she would be leaving in a day or two and Lady Catherine’s wrath would be nothing to her.

‘Oh,’ she said, as if considering the matter. ‘I had better tell, don’t you think? Because as you say, withholding the truth is as bad as lying.’

‘
Not
as bad,’ he corrected, holding up a hand. ‘Not as bad, in many instances. You misunderstood me, Mary. Unburden yourself, if you must, for it was a transgression, I cannot advise you otherwise, but be aware that the censure of Lady Catherine will fall on me.’

The poor man was tied up in knots. Mary decided to have pity on him.

‘If you are sure, Mr Collins, that it is not a sin to not tell—’

‘Not at all a sin.’

‘And you think it won’t be so very bad—’

‘No, no, not at all.’

‘Then I won’t tell.’

‘An excellent conclusion, my dear cousin. So long as you can rest easy in your decision and not think that I swayed you in any way.’

‘I may not rest completely easy,’ Mary added thoughtfully, only to see him blanch. ‘But if I feel I must clear my conscience, I will write a letter.’ She smiled at him. His returning smile was sickly. ‘If you will excuse me, Mr Collins. I must finish my packing.’

The Collinses and Mary walked over to Rosings at the appointed hour. Dinner was always early at Rosings, for Lady Catherine always dined at an unfashionable hour, and retired at the chiming of nine of the clock exactly. At least, thought Mary, the ordeal will be short. She was most eager to be leaving. She shivered in her spencer, for a wicked little wind had come up and ruffled her gown and petticoats. Night had fallen, for it neared summer’s end, and the path, though well trod, was in darkness. She stumbled in her dainty slippers and hoped that she had not stained them too badly.

The grand front entrance of Rosings was lit by two small lanterns at the door, where a footman stood waiting for them to lead them in. Mr Collins beamed and remarked upon Lady Catherine’s thoughtfulness. Mary thought it disdain instead, but she kept her counsel. It no longer mattered.

Within, the lights were ablaze, and the glory that was Rosings opened before them. They were led into Lady Catherine’s presence immediately, and Mary hoped they didn’t look too wild after their walk in the windy darkness. She glanced at Charlotte as they curtsied to Lady Catherine. Charlotte’s hair had escaped her neat bun and hung limply around her face, and Mary knew she looked much the same.

They were seated almost immediately at Lady Catherine’s impatient summons. Mary was seated across from Anne. Miss de Bourgh surprised her with her direct look. Mary smiled nervously.

‘How do you do, Miss de Bourgh?’ she said. Anne merely bowed and looked away, and Mary thought, ah, back to life as usual. Lady Catherine wasted no time in interrogating her captives.

‘Miss Bennet, your sister told me at her visit last year that you had no governess nor were you taken to town to expand your education there. Yet you enjoy reading? How did you manage that?’ She sounded more accusing than curious, as if Mary had performed a trick.

What on earth? Mary glanced at Lizzy. What had she told Lady Catherine? Lizzy looked at her with exaggerated alarm.

‘We had no governess, it is true, but we were allowed to study whatever we wished, so long as we did not neglect our other duties and chores,’ Mary said.

‘I see.’ Lady Catherine sounded dubious. Mr Collins seized an opening.

‘I think I can say that my cousins have had the benefit of a sizable library at Longbourn, Lady Catherine. Quite provident of my kinsman, Mr Bennet, to install such a large endowment of books.’

Mary and Lizzy exchanged small glances. Mr Collins had no doubt added the Longbourn library to his accounting of his inheritance.

‘
I
saw no sign of such a library,’ Lady Catherine said. ‘It is a smallish house, Mr Collins. Yet you say it has an admirable collection. Astonishing, that so much care should be put into books, but for many country gentlemen, books are more for show than for reading.’

‘That may be true of many other country gentlemen, but it is not true of my father,’ Mary said. ‘He has read all of the books in our library, and has read many more besides.’

‘I meant only to say,’ Mr Collins said, reversing himself in the face of Lady Catherine’s argument, ‘that it is
large
for so small a country house.’

‘I’m sure the Rosings library is magnificent,’ Lizzy put in. Mary almost applauded. It was not possible to spend a month in Lady Catherine’s presence without knowing that if she had a choice between insulting someone else’s station and praising her own, she would choose the latter.

‘It is the best library in the country and serves as a model for the kingdom,’ Lady Catherine said. ‘The de Bourghs have been adding to it for generations. I send my steward to London once a year to purchase the most important works in French, Italian, and German. Anne will add to it in her turn.’

The Mysteries of Udolpho
will be the first volume, Mary thought. She dared not glance at Georgiana, as the girl appeared to be having difficulty in maintaining her composure. Troublesome, to be thinking the same thing. It made solemnity most tiresome.

After dinner the entire party retired to the ladies’ drawing room, as neither gentleman expressed a desire to smoke or drink. Mr Collins made his protests with many flourishes and bows whilst trying to convey simultaneously that as a clergyman he did not drink or smoke but that he would be flattered to do both in Darcy’s company. Darcy merely said that he would rather join the ladies that evening. They sat in an uncomfortable silence, making small talk, while most of the party wished they could depart at that instant. Mary found herself beside Anne. She wished she had something to do with her hands, but she had forgotten the small bit of embroidery that she often carried when she couldn’t have a book. For the first time, Mary saw that someone was missing. Mrs Jenkinson was such a silent presence after dinner, for she never dined with the family, that it wasn’t until Mary realized she was in the woman’s usual place that she knew she was missing.

‘I hope Mrs Jenkinson isn’t ill,’ she remarked to Anne. With the attention of an eagle, Lady Catherine heard and responded.

‘What, Miss Bennet? Why do you care for Mrs Jenkinson? She is not ill. She has gone away.’

‘Gone away? Has she taken another position?’

‘I did not send her off without a reference, and with my recommendation she will find a new place quickly.’

She could hardly ask if the loyal servant had committed such a dreadful crime that she must be turned out. She also couldn’t commiserate with Anne about losing her faithful retainer, if it turned out that Lady Catherine was the one who wanted her to go.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘She was such a devoted companion.’

‘
I
did not wish her to go,’ Lady Catherine said, and she rested her baleful eye upon her daughter. Anne shrank under the haughty gaze.

So it was Anne who had expressed her dissatisfaction with Mrs Jenkinson. Mary wondered whether she had had to stand up to her mother to win that small bit of independence? Mary gave an encouraging smile to Anne, who almost smiled in response.

‘Yes, but now Anne requires a companion. I am most particular about my requirements, and I can see it will be difficult to find another creature such as Mrs Jenkinson. We had to turn away twenty to find her.’

‘Yes indeed,’ Mr Collins said. ‘Anne is such a flower, Lady Catherine, that in the wrong hands she would wilt and wither, rather than bloom.’ He beamed beatifically. Lady Catherine waved an impatient, beringed hand.

‘Perhaps a younger woman,’ Charlotte ventured, and she too gave Anne a kind smile. Anne did not respond, having retreated into her own thoughts, as she almost always did.

‘Young women are flighty and inconstant, and would trouble Anne no end,’ Lady Catherine said. ‘Anne would not like a young woman, would you, my dear?’ Anne said nothing. Lady Catherine warmed to her theme. ‘The proper young woman would have to be well bred, yet not too highly bred, impecunious no doubt, so that she may be properly grateful for her position, soberly dressed with a well-regulated mind, a lover of books and music but not so fine a dancer that she is in demand as a partner. Service, not marriage, must be foremost in her mind, and yet she cannot be one of those independent-minded women who believes she must earn a living. Finally, she must be quiet and biddable. But where in England can such a paragon of service and humility be found?’

The drawing room fell silent. Not a single person looked at Mary. Mary felt the colour drain from her cheeks, and knew how the mouse felt when the shadow of the owl fell over it. Mr Collins appeared to be thinking hard over Lady Catherine’s imploring question, his lips moving as if he were adding up a difficult sum. Suddenly his head lifted in triumph. Lizzy jumped in just as he spoke and their words tangled with one another.