The Unexpected Miss Bennet (16 page)

‘You are absolutely right, Lady Catherine, such a person would be impossible to find.’

‘I have it!’ Mr Collins cried. ‘Miss Bennet would be just the thing!’

T
HE POST BROUGHT two letters to the Bennet household, a small one from Mary to her mother and a more lengthy one explaining matters to their father from Lizzy. Those simple missives had to wait, for the news came to Longbourn in a more accustomed matter.

‘Mr Bennet!’ his wife cried when she came home from visiting Lady Lucas. ‘Have you heard the news? Why, Mary is to be the companion of Miss Anne de Bourgh, and it may be because she read her a sermon! Our Mary!’

Mr Bennet put down the letter he had just received from Lizzy apprising him of the same situation, although with rather less emphasis on the sermon.

‘Ah, I see you have received the word via Lucas post, my dear. She is efficient, to be sure.’

‘But Mr Bennet, don’t you know what this means?’ Without waiting for him to guess, Mrs Bennet plunged on. ‘We have no need to worry about Mary finding a husband!’

‘As I hadn’t been, I can’t be as delighted as you, Mrs Bennet. But I congratulate you on your triumph.’

‘Oh Mr Bennet, of course you must know that I have been very worried about what will happen to Mary after you die and all we own passes to Mr Collins. For she is not likely to have found a husband and now she will remain with Lady Catherine and Jane will not have to take her in.’

Mr Bennet considered that. ‘You have been planning, my love. But what if Mary should not like it?’

‘Well, she must like it! She has no other choice. My nerves would not stand it, if she first takes the position as the companion to Miss de Bourgh and then decides against it.’

Mr Bennet knew better than to argue, but he frowned as he folded the letter and set it down on his desk.

He hadn’t thought much about all of his daughters. He had heard them described as beauties, but to a man of his years, such distinctions no longer interested him. To him, all girls were alike in silliness, including his own, except for Lizzy. But what it all meant was that by the standards of society – that is, the ladies who determined who was a beauty and who was not, and often by the most arbitrary of details – he supposed that Mary wasn’t as pretty as Lizzy or Jane. On the other hand, neither was she as simple as Lydia or Kitty, which attribute could recommend itself to more discerning husbands. Those, however, were as much at a premium in the current day as in Mr Bennet’s youth, and so he expected that his wife was right. Mary would have difficulty in finding one such, she was so little in company beyond that of Meryton.

And yet he was neither pleased nor satisfied. For a daughter of his to retire as virtually a servant in the household of Lady Catherine de Bourgh ruffled his self-esteem in a most unaccustomed manner. Certainly Mary would not make a spectacle of herself as Lydia had, but somehow, this was worse. Well, it could not be helped, he thought. Foolish girl. Just when she was becoming interesting. For he had noticed that she was also no longer as silly, no longer as eager for attention as she had been nor as intent on exposing her awkward talents as she had been used to do. Though it seemed more martyrish than usual for Mary to consider becoming a companion to Miss Anne de Bourgh, a companion it would have to be.

It did not occur to Mr Bennet that he could put a stop to Mary’s decision. Shortly after the unpleasantness concerning Lydia’s impetuous marriage that had bid fair to ruin them all, he had returned to his customary indolence once the hubbub was over. Mr Bennet easily adjusted to his new circumstances, of having put himself in serious debt to his son-in-law, then cast off the uncomfortableness of his situation with the air of one who allowed himself not to think of uncomfortable things. With little effort on his part he could remove Mary from the danger of fading into obscurity. He chose not to make that effort.

Unaware of his musings, Mrs Bennet chattered on.

‘So we must send her things. She doesn’t have much – she took most of what she had with her to Lizzy’s. With all the girls gone, I am not sure we even have a trunk to pack for her.’ Mrs Bennet bustled off, calling for the servants to help her pack Mary’s meagre belongings, leaving Mr Bennet to contemplate a much quieter house. It had contained just himself and his wife these past few weeks, but he had tempered that with the knowledge that his daughters would soon be home. Now, he had to revise his expectations. Soon, there would only be Kitty at home, a thought which did not please him much.

Ah, Kitty. She was off to London with Jane and Bingley for a taste of the Season. Although all his daughters were out, Kitty had never been to town, and once more Mr Bennet thanked God that Bingley would be the one to introduce Kitty to London, or rather London to Kitty. The thought of himself bringing his daughters to town, there to find husbands, had been a distasteful idea to him, so naturally, he had made no effort to do it.

He
did not expect Kitty to take London by storm and be married before the end of the summer, for all that Mrs Bennet hoped she would. He knew there was not much wrong with Kitty that a few years and separation from Lydia would not cure. She was very young, after all, and that was a fault that time fixed all on its own. But her youth was not likely to attract a London beau. Mr Bennet hoped only that Jane kept a tight leash on her young sister and made sure she didn’t expose herself to any more ridicule than could be expected for a younger Bennet, and finish the work of destroying the Bennet name that Lydia had begun so thoroughly.

So Mr Bennet had few hopes for Kitty and equally few expectations for Mary. But he thought, ‘We ought to have sent Mary to London with Jane and Kitty to stay with Lizzy. In that way, Mary would eventually have acquired a certain amount of polish, and Kitty would have been so cowed in the presence of Lady Catherine that she could not possibly have got into any trouble.’

He knew better than to give voice to such thoughts to Mrs Bennet, for she would have been by turns astonished and disdainful that he thought Mary would benefit more from London than Kitty would. It was just as well that she supervised the packing of Mary’s few things.

Mr Bennet turned back to his book on his desk. With the door closed the room was blessedly quiet, even as the excited voice of Mrs Bennet wafted down the stairs. It turned out that there was a trunk, in the attic. The last one, it seemed. The thought was disquieting. For an instant his wife’s voice fell silent, and all that was to be heard was the ticking of the clock on the shelf by the window, and the song of a few birds outside his window.

Mr Bennet was not used to melancholy. His was a silent nature, though he was quick to voice his opinion of others, especially his family. But he felt lonely at the thought of his quiet house, a quiet that he often had longed for when his five daughters had all been at home. He could almost hear the ghosts of their presence from when they were little children, now long gone. No more girls. No more chatter, no more laughter, no more bursts of energy and exasperation over typical girlish things. No more surprising conversations with Lizzy or tender ones with Jane, not unless he travelled to meet them. He missed Lizzy, he decided. Yes, he missed Lizzy. All of these strange sad thoughts of his daughters he’d experienced lately had everything to do with Lizzy, and nothing to do with the passing of time and children growing up.

Mr Bennet closed the book and set out in search of his wife.

‘Mrs Bennet,’ he said. ‘How would you like to go on a trip? We shall visit my heir Mr Collins as well as Lady Catherine, and deliver Mary’s trunk ourselves.’

‘I
HAVE IT!’ MR Collins cried. ‘Miss Bennet would be just the thing!’

Upon Mr Collins’s exclamation, Mary’s protest died on her lips. She looked at once at Miss de Bourgh. The young woman’s expression was one of surprise and, to Mary’s astonishment, growing delight.

‘Miss Bennet?’ said Lady Catherine.

‘Oh, I think not,’ Lizzy said quickly, but she was at a loss for words with which to turn down Mr Collins’s suggestion without offending everyone in the room. As the hubbub rose, Mary and Anne looked at each other. Anne’s delight turned to apprehension and she ducked her head, fading back into the withered little thing she had always been, except for the day of the dreadful reading.

Don’t,
Mary told herself.
Don’t agree
. But she could not forget Anne’s look of delight. She bit her lip, knowing she would say yes, and knowing she would be made miserable by an impulse of charity that could not end other than badly.

‘I – I would like that,’ she said quietly. The animated conversation died away. ‘If Miss de Bourgh would enjoy my company,’ she added. She looked at Anne. ‘I would not wish to impose. Perhaps I could stay until you found a companion more suited to your liking?’

Anne de Bourgh sat up a little straighter. She looked over at her mother, who was struck dumb.

‘I would like that, Miss Bennet. I would like that very much.’ Anne de Bourgh spoke quietly and with halting words, but she spoke firmly.

Still, how quickly it had all happened. Charlotte announced in her placid way that she had written to her mother with the news, and then Lady Catherine had said that Mary would have to move into the house as quickly as may be, now that Mrs Jenkinson was gone. Lady Catherine supposed that Mrs Jenkinson’s small apartment near Anne’s chambers would suit Mary quite well.

‘It has a piano,’ Lady Catherine said, ‘but you will not mind that, of course. You will scarcely need the space yourself. And the view is quite spectacular – it looks over the wilderness at the back of the house, and you have a view into the valley and the fields and the farms. I think it quite the best view from the house, Miss Bennet. I wonder that I don’t take it myself. You will be at home there.’

DARCY AND LIZZY and Georgiana delayed their departure long enough to help Mary settle into her new apartment. As Lady Catherine had said, the small rooms were airy and open and looked down into the valley so that she could see the villages and farms all around. The rooms were along the side of the house and down the hall from Anne’s apartments, which overlooked the well-kept park to the front of the house. As promised there was a small piano in the sitting room.

The room had a melancholy air of having been recently abandoned. As Mary put away her few things, she was reminded of Mrs Jenkinson’s former presence by a slight aroma of pomander in the cupboard and a hairpin left in a crack on the dressing-table. Lizzy and Charlotte helped her and exclaimed over the windows and the large bed; all to herself, they kept saying, Charlotte with more wistfulness than Lizzy. Mary found herself wishing for privacy. She realized that she might never have another moment to herself again. It’s not for ever, she thought. I may leave and go home at any time I wish. Well, perhaps her mother would not wish it, but she could always go to Lizzy’s if she needed to. Or Jane’s.