A Match for Mary Bennet (5 page)

That afternoon, Colonel Fitzwilliam thanked Elizabeth for receiving him and tried to retail all the news from Kent. “Charlotte Collins sends her love. She keeps busy trying to adopt all Lady Catherine's prescriptions for raising children. I believe she did not appreciate Lady Catherine's returning health as much as Mr. Collins did.” Fitzwilliam took time to admire the fine work on the nearly-finished christening robe. Then he sat fidgeting until Elizabeth asked what bothered him.

“I did not tell Darcy, but I do worry about Lady Catherine. During her illness, she called for him urgently, as if he were needed for something. Then after recovering, she spoke no more of him.”

“Returning health brought returning stubbornness as well?”

“Perhaps. She spoke of the de Bourgh estate as if it were falling into danger, and she wailed incessantly about Anne's future, uncertain about her daughter on account of what she called the ‘wretched old age' of both herself and Mrs. Jenkinson. She even asked me to consider marrying Anne.”

Elizabeth's eyebrows went up. “What a fine offer! And it is a pretty property for an earl's second son.”

He laughed. “Not so pretty to my mind. And I couldn't help thinking she deliberately ignored Darcy—possibly even intending to spite him by alienating the estate from him. At least there was something, I felt sure, that she withheld. When I told her that truly Anne did look well and appeared in fine spirits, she looked away, coughed, and said it did not matter. That was not like her. At any rate, Anne is of age, but I have no intention of becoming the steward of her property—which is about all her husband will be.”

Elizabeth nodded wisely. “Actually, since last year's holidays, I have been half expecting to hear that you had proposed to Miss Bingley. She certainly smiled on you all through the ball, and I thought you got on well together.”

Fitzwilliam snapped, “Did Darcy tell you that?”

She started, surprised, and examined his chiseled features, again trying to find some resemblance to her handsome husband. “No indeed. He told me only that you carried letters for me.”

Fitzwilliam apologised then, both for his ungallant reaction and for forgetting the letters, and he drew out the packet just as tea was brought in. Elizabeth stifled her wish to tease his secret out of him and let the subject of Caroline Bingley drop. She poured his tea and offered plum cake and fruit. After pouring her own tea, she opened Lady Catherine's letter.

A few moments later Darcy arrived, poured his own tea, greeted the Colonel, and stared at Elizabeth, who seemed in a trance, her letter resting on her sorry excuse for a lap. “What is it, darling?” Worry crept into his voice.

Elizabeth looked up and smiled. “Oh! I was still doing it homage. Here.” She held out the short note. “I believe I am ordered to serve you a son.” She watched, amused, as Darcy read his aunt's note, his teeth growing tighter and his face darker as he read.

“What kind of reply is this?” he thundered.

Elizabeth put a gentle hand on his. “After all, it is an answer, even an acceptance. When we have been ignored for two years, this has to be an improvement. Let us enjoy the progress.”

Colonel Fitzwilliam looked from one to the other. “An acceptance? What does she say?” Then he flushed and asked pardon for his boldness.

Darcy put him at his ease, cleared his throat, assumed a stance of despotic authority, and intoned, “‘Finally you give my nephew an heir. Anne and I will arrive to see the boy on the Wednesday before Christmas. Prepare the orchid room for me and the gold room for Anne. Our two maids and a footman need rooms above us, and Mrs. Jenkinson will stay next to Anne, as always. We stay until Candlemas. Have your son christened during that time. Lady Catherine de Bourgh.'” In his own voice, still determined, Darcy added, “Those rooms are taken.”

Elizabeth, laughing at his performance, shook her head playfully. “No. Mama will like to be nearer our rooms, and Lady Elliott will never know she has been moved.”

Darcy held the note cushioned flat on his hand and relegated it ceremoniously to the grate, where it burst into flame.

Elizabeth gasped in mock horror. “Have you no respect for my letter?”

“Of course. I merely assured that it adds warmth to our home.” He relaxed, sat to drink his tea, and told them both of his choice for vicar of Kympton. “Young Oliver will stay until year's end in the gardener's cottage. I will be glad to have it occupied again.” He turned to Fitzwilliam. “Brooks, you know, married a widow last year, and now resides with her in Lambton, coming daily to tend my gardens.” He looked again at Lizzy. “Oliver can use Billum to reach Kympton as often as he wishes to consult Reverend Wynters and acquaint himself with the parish.”

Elizabeth thought briefly of the choice, praying that Mr. Oliver would prove better for the parish than Mr. Darcy senior's choice, Wickham, would have been. Then she read her father's letter, learning of Mr. Collins's concerns for his daughter, as if the raising of her would not be principally Charlotte's responsibility. Somehow that sensible Charlotte managed to quietly keep Mr. Collins from realizing how little the household order depended on him. What a clever woman she was! As Lizzy finished her letter, she laughed aloud, and Darcy looked up in interest. She responded to his unspoken question, “Papa says he gave Mary one of Pope's essays to read, hoping she might profit from the line, ‘To err is human, to forgive, divine.' He deplores her habit of ignoring Lydia as if she did not exist. But he says that as she read, she found many snippets to note and quote, but that one was not among them. Finally he came out and asked her what she made of that line. She said, quite solemnly, ‘Forgiveness is the prerogative of God Himself and of Him alone.' Papa felt properly foiled in his attempt to guide her reading.”

Darcy shared the humour of the item, and then, reminded of his own sister, he said, “Lizzy, you would enjoy watching Georgiana as she entertains visitors on your at-home days. I almost think she has studied your manner to imitate it. She tells me you warned her about the acquisitive Miss Johnstone, and she has calmly helped Mrs. Reynolds to confront her on two occasions, rescuing a vase and a small mirror. I am quite proud of her.”

Elizabeth agreed. “She does well indeed.” She grew thoughtful. “Poor Alicia Johnstone! She told me she came here as a child once and saw you and Wickham playing by the stream. From that time she dreamed of being mistress of Pemberley and likes to pretend that she is even now. Mrs. Reynolds, who is fully aware of her propensity to assume ownership, simply cues the hostess to perform the confrontation.”

“That lady was a hoyden from her childhood! Why on earth do you permit her visits? Surely you would be more at ease if she were forbidden from visiting the manor?”

“No. I visited here once myself after refusing you. By then I had read your letter and felt differently about the honour you had offered, and this place gave me a wistful feeling because I thought it was forever lost to me. Miss Johnstone seems so wilted of spirit when I speak to her. I prefer to have more compassion than distaste for withered lilies—or even withered hoydens.”

Darcy said, “That prodigious lady's resemblance to a lily or indeed to anything withered is a contradiction of the highest order.” He exchanged a look with Fitzwilliam that shared his esteem for the charming mistress of Pemberley, grateful anew that she had at last accepted Darcy's proposal.

The Bennets arrived at Pemberley, as promised, in mid-October, though Mr. Bennet and Catherine stayed but a day. Mr. Bennet visited Elizabeth in her sitting room, stifling his discomfort at the delicate elegance of its furniture. He sat on the edge of one ornate chair, as Elizabeth tried to keep back her smile at his unease. After asking about her health, Bennet voiced his request. “I leave Mary to you, hoping you may instill in her a few social graces. She has made a conquest in Hertfordshire: an unusual young man who currently leases Netherfield. His name is Grantley—the Honourable Lewis Grantley, M.P.—and I believe our neighbours all agree that she is the only young lady he has singled out for conversation.” Bennet attempted to sit up straighter, found he almost tipped the chair, and resumed his former perilous perch. “Before we left Longbourn, that stiff young man called on me, ostensibly to interest me in a bill he plans to support in Parliament, something about the flogging of soldiers. He means to introduce legislation that will proscribe all physical punishment for any offence short of treason. After his discourse on that subject, he began to hem and look uneasy, and finally, he produced a small book and asked me to give it to Mary, in whose mind he is interested. The essays in it were by American authors, and they all extolled the joys of freedom. I cautioned him that Mary's propensity to read serious works did not include the likelihood of her understanding them in quite the way authors intended. “He actually seemed heartened by the idea that the interpretations will be all her own, as he esteems her mind an original one, and left in a sanguine frame of mind.” Bennet took Elizabeth's smile as agreement and so finished. “See if you can prepare her to be the wife of an M.P.—just in case.”

It amused Elizabeth that her father now played her mother's game: jumping to thoughts of marriage over any insubstantial hint that her daughter might have a chance. But she fully intended to do his bidding, and she mentally reviewed the yard goods she had on hand, meaning to interest Mary in needlework. She did not see why hands so good at the pianoforte should not also ply the needle more often than Mary's did, and she meant to devote an hour or so of each afternoon making linens and other items for a trousseau—just in case! Perhaps, Elizabeth mused, marriage had made her a matchmaker like her mother.

Mr. Bennet and Catherine left the next day with the Bingleys to settle at their estate, which Catherine called “Otherfield,” chiefly because, she said, it was so much finer than Netherfield. Then Mrs. Bennet, as soon as she was settled in the room near Elizabeth's, began proposing a regimen of exercises for her daughter. When told that Mr. Darcy seemed rather to recommend almost constant rest, Mrs. Bennet kept right on showing her how to tighten muscles and stretch her arms and legs. Though usually much in awe of Darcy, Mrs. Bennet sniffed. “What do men know?” She hastened to add, “Oh, humour him, of course, when he is present. But otherwise, do all you can to strengthen your back and torso. You will need much strength.” She went on demonstrating, moving Elizabeth's arms and legs, and urging her to breathe deeply. Elizabeth felt a sense of entering a mother lore that may have come from Mrs. Gardiner—the grandmother she never knew—and she complied readily.

On the accustomed at-home day when Georgiana received morning callers, Elizabeth asked Mary to assist her. Not knowing exactly what to do, Mary told Georgiana she would sit in a corner and watch her for a while. She soon noticed that many callers seemed familiar to both Georgiana and Mrs. Reynolds, and Mary had her first taste of an at-home day in a fine manor. Soon little knots of guests extended even into her corner, and she became privy to their conversations. A very pretty young matron spoke her unmitigated approval of the absent lady of the house. “I always enjoy calling here, and Miss Darcy is an excellent hostess, but I do miss Mrs. Darcy. I feel so at ease in her presence.”

The large, rather square lady to whom she spoke could not agree. “Miss Darcy is real gentry and was born to the manor. Mrs. Darcy is from Hertfordshire. She does not know our ways.”

Mary watched as the lovely lady sipped her tea daintily, and her companion reached out for the scones that had been offered, spilling her own tea into its saucer. Mary turned her attention to the newcomers Georgiana greeted as Mrs. and Miss Langley. She studied their faces to see if she could remember them, hoping to attach names to them should they meet again. For a while she followed them with her eyes as they made way for even later arrivals, took tea, and went off to sit near the fireplace.

When Mary returned her attention to the two near her, the large lady was complaining of a shoulder ache. “I can hardly extend my arm, you know. I fear the intense pain will cripple me entirely. The surgeon prescribed hot packs, you know, and Katy applies them regularly, three times daily, but to no avail. Soon I fear I must give up the use of my right arm entirely. Even to hold a teacup sends rays of pain through me from elbow to neck.” Her companion made sympathetic sounds and said something about a change of physicians. “Oh no, indeed, Mrs. Jennings. I quite depend on Mr. Williams.” The tray of cakes went round, and as they were offered to the pretty lady, the other reached for one, attaining it before the tray came to her. As she used her right hand, Mary winced for her, but the lady herself seemed hardly discomposed at the motion.

Mrs. Jennings refused the desserts politely, adding to her companion, “I will wait for the fruit if you please. I try to limit my sweets, Miss Johnstone, which I find make me a bit slow of foot about my work in the garden.”

Miss Johnstone agreed. “I quite know what you mean. I find myself winded at a mere stroll in the shrubbery. I am ever so careful of what I eat, and yet I notice no improvement. I am sure it is the fault of my constitution. My dear mother was the same. Oh, there is that sour-faced Mrs. Leighton. One should not aspire to be thin if it deprives one of a talent for happiness!”

Mary again turned her attention elsewhere, admiring Georgiana's aplomb while conversing with all her guests. She thought Mrs. Reynolds seemed intent on watching the two closest to her, Mrs. Jennings and Miss Johnstone, the whole time. Then Miss Johnstone excused herself, extricated herself from her chair with some difficulty, and headed for the adjacent parlour. Mrs. Reynolds followed her there. As other guests too began to take their leave, Georgiana brought Mary to her and introduced her as Mrs. Darcy's sister who would be visiting them for a while. They all smiled and welcomed her. Later, when most were gone, Mary realized she had seen nothing of Miss Johnstone. Mrs. Reynolds hurried in then, whispered to Georgiana, and took her place with the remaining guests, while Georgiana hurried to the small parlour. Mary felt glad indeed when she too could excuse herself and seek out the library. At-home day at a great manor did not much appeal to her.

***

Slightly ahead of schedule, on November the eighth, the Darcy boy arrived in a painfully long ordeal Lizzy could never have imagined, and she appreciated all the work at strengthening her muscles. The surgeon, who had been requested to stay in the house just the day before, assisted the birth, as did an attendant nurse-midwife, Mrs. Kaye. Finally the doctor handed a bundle to Mrs. Kaye, who washed and wrapped him, and called for Mr. Darcy. Darcy had been right outside the door, had not liked what he had heard from the room until then, and accepted his son a bit gingerly, craning his neck to look at Lizzy, who was being cleaned up while the bed linens were changed beneath her. Having been assured by the doctor that Elizabeth was fine, Darcy relaxed somewhat and regarded his perfect little son. Leaning over Elizabeth, he solemnly asked, “May we call him Charles?”

As Charles squalled and jerked his fists in the air, Elizabeth said, “I'm not sure he likes it.” Mrs. Reynolds came in with Mrs. Downey, who was to be the baby's wet nurse, took the baby from Darcy, and handed him to Mrs. Downey, who knew just how to quiet the babe.

“See? He likes it fine.” Darcy grinned.

Elizabeth, tired and spent, murmured weakly, “Not Fitzwilliam?”

“Oh no. I never used that name. Why should I give him what I did not like?”

Elizabeth nodded and whispered, “Charles.”

Darcy sat next to her and took her hand. “To keep peace with Aunt Catherine, I welcome the boy, else I would have loved a little Elizabeth and watching her grow. However, Lady Catherine would have blamed you if we had produced a girl, or possibly would have accused us both of intransigence.” At this point, Georgiana and Mary were permitted a glimpse of the baby and Elizabeth, who was just nodding off to sleep. The serene picture the room now presented made childbirth a sweet prospect indeed for the young ladies.

In the weeks following, Elizabeth rejoiced in her gradually returning strength, even with the new call in her life for patience, responsibility, and sweet needfulness. She asked Mary to join her in her sitting room each afternoon for an hour of needlework, and Mary, thinking she was helping Elizabeth, gladly did so. She even began to enjoy working the needle and grew adept at it, her fingers strong and disciplined from her musical practise.

When she was again permitted stairs, Elizabeth ventured down to the breakfast room, leaning on Darcy's arm. After breakfast, Callie, the official nursemaid, brought little Charles to place in her arms, and she nursed him, as her mother had urged her to do, despite Mrs. Downey's ministrations. Darcy, who had breakfasted earlier, spent the quiet time reading the day's mail, exclaiming over the many answers to the invitations they had sent for the Christmas ball. “The Gardiners say they will not miss it.” “Lady Elliott looks forward to it.” “The Langleys gratefully accept.” Then an exaggerated groan introduced, “Miss Johnstone will gladly attend.” Later, after a long pause, in a sad voice, Darcy read, “Lord Exbridge regrets that he cannot leave his London apartment.” Darcy sighed. “Again this year! He cannot seem to accept life without his wife and son. I do wish he would not continue this mournful solitude.”

“Has he ever taken your suggestion to invite his daughter-in-law and grandson to live with him?” Elizabeth's voice echoed his sorrow.

“He does not say so, though the invitation included them.” Darcy grew determined. “Lizzy, if you are well enough in the spring, we must try to visit him again and urge him to it. He cannot continue to live as if he too died on that icy bridge.”

Mrs. Downey and young Callie came in then to take Charles back to the nursery, and Elizabeth reluctantly yielded him to their care. Mrs. Bennet came in frowning as they went out with the child. “Do you not nurse him yourself?”

“Oh yes, Mama. It gives me such a tranquil half-hour to do so. But we must not let Mrs. Downey feel she is not needed.”

“Do you think that young Callie is able to handle such an important charge? She cannot be much older than Lydia!”

“Mama, Lydia is old enough and married long enough to have a child herself.”

“But she has none, and that is good. She is really too young. And so is that Callie.”

Elizabeth shook her head dismissively. “Mama, Callie has cared for three younger brothers of her own. She has more experience with boys than I do! Please do not make her feel incompetent.”

Music wafted into the breakfast room from the music room, and Elizabeth hoped Mrs. Bennet would stop to listen. But the lady just said, “Oh, carols,” and walked out.

Elizabeth loved to hear Georgiana and Mary practising noels and dances for the coming festivities. The friendship of the two musical members of the family had been good for both. It kept Georgiana from playing that doleful snatch of melody which seemed to haunt her, and Mary no longer played the endlessly droning études she practised so often at Longbourn.

Mrs. Bennet, having spent two weeks nervously and needlessly instructing the long-suffering Mrs. Kaye on midwifery, had of late spent hours pestering the fair-haired, wide-smiling Mrs. Downey with her opinions and her misgivings about young, rosy-cheeked Callie. Fortunately Charles, a healthy, even a robust, child, thrived despite all the fuss. After a time, the nursery routine became established, dampening Mrs. Bennet's spirit so bent on excitement, and she transferred her attentions to the chambermaids preparing rooms for the coming Christmas guests. After all, some of the rooms were for the Bennet and Bingley families, and who better to know what they would want than Mrs. Bennet? She ignored the great buzz over Lady Catherine's requirements, which Mrs. Reynolds struggled to recall from that lady's last visit so long before. Mrs. Reynolds well knew that any item overlooked would constitute the very pivotal necessity that would set Lady Catherine against all the servants. “Remember to tend the fireplaces before seven every morning, put double washstands in their rooms, and each morning at nine bring in two ewers of hot water and two of cold.” Mrs. Reynolds cued the chief chambermaids on each idiosyncrasy that she remembered.

Mary elected to stay well out of the way. After a morning hour in the music room, she repaired to the library for an hour or so. It was so handy to her room—just down the hall to the great ballroom and across the dance floor where a small door opened onto a balcony surrounding three sides of the immense library. It was on that balcony, right near her door, that she had discovered a copy of Bunyan's
Pilgrim's Progress
. She would settle in a comfortable, leather chair in the corner of the sturdy balcony, read a bit in her chosen book, and occasionally dip into some poems by Cowper from a volume that was shelved nearby. After that, she usually met the family for a light repast of soup or fruit and nuts, chat awhile—usually about the baby—and return to the library until time to meet Elizabeth for needlework before early dinner. If at that hour the high round east window did not lend sufficient light on a dull November afternoon, she made use of the candle sconce near the chair. There, she gloried in the education she planned to give herself in the magnificent library. Occasionally she drew out a small pad of paper from her pinafore pocket so that, with the pen from the writing desk in the corner, she could jot down a pithy sentence to memorise for some future conversation. She was grateful to have learned this custom from the vicar of Hunsford, whom she, alone of the Bennets, admired.