eyes, now so intelligent, expressive, alert? She was leaning on Charlie, who held her hand: an odd pair. Something about them hinted at a divorcement from this maudlin parody, as if their persons stood there while their spirits cruised among other worlds.
Do not be ridiculous, Caroline! she told herself, and inched her rump onto the edge of a convenient stone; that frightful mushroom, the Reverend Mr Collins, was preparing to add a few words of his own to an already overly long service. By the time that Caroline had unobtrusively adjusted her weight in some relief, Mary and Charlie had returned to who they actually were. Yes, Caroline, a ridiculous notion. As well that Louisa and I bespoke the carriage for immediately after the funeral; to have to exchange civilities with all five Bennet sisters at Shelby Manor is not an enthralling prospect. If our coachman springs the horses, we can be back in London by nightfall. But if I am invited to Pemberley for this summer’s house party, I shall go. With Louisa, of course.
All save the Pemberley party had gone before the beginning of December, anxious to be home in plenty of time for a Christmas spent with children and loved ones. This was especially true of Jane, who loathed being away from Bingley Hall for as many as one night, except for visits to Pemberley, fairly close at hand.
“She is increasing yet again,” said Elizabeth to Mary with a sigh.
“I know I am not supposed to be aware of such things, Lizzie, but can’t someone tell brother Charles to plug it with a cork?”
The crimson surged into Elizabeth’s face; she put both her hands to her cheeks and gaped at her spinster sister. “Mary! How — how — oh, how do you know about — about — and how can you be so indelicate?”
“I know because I have read every book in this library, and I am tired of delicacy about subjects that lie so close to our female fates!” said Mary with a snap. “Lizzie, surely you can see that these endless pregnancies are killing poor Jane? Why, brood mares have a better life! Eight living children and four either lost at five months or stillborn! And the tally would be larger if Charles did not sail to the West Indies for a year every so often. If she is not prolapsed, she ought to be. Has it escaped your notice that those she has miscarried or borne dead have all been after the living ones? She is worn out!”
“Dearest Mary, you must not speak so crudely! Truly it is the height of impropriety!”
“Rubbish. No one is here save you and me, and you are my most beloved sister. If we cannot be frank, what is the world coming to? It seems to me that no one cares about a woman’s health or welfare. If Charles does not find a way to have his pleasure without causing Jane to increase so frequently, then perhaps he should take a mistress. Immoral women do not seem to increase.” Mary looked brightly interested. “I ought to find some man’s mistress and ask her how she avoids babies.”
Speech utterly failed Elizabeth, so mortified and at a loss that she could do nothing but stare at this apparition, no more her young sister than some female out of the hedgerows. Was there perhaps some gross peculiarity in Mama’s ancestry that had suddenly come out in Mary? Plug it with a cork! Then from a time far away and a place long gone, her sense of humour came to Elizabeth’s rescue; she burst into laughter, laughed until tears streamed down her face.
“Oh, Mary, I do not even begin to know you!” she said when she was able. “Pray assure me that you do not say such things in other company!”
“I do not,” said Mary with an impenitent grin. “I just think them. And confess it, Lizzie, don’t you think the same?”
“Yes, of course I do. I love Jane with all my heart, and it grieves me to see her health declining for no better reason than the lack of a cork.” Her lips quivered. “Charles Bingley is the dearest man, but, like all men, selfish. It is not even that he is trying for a son — they have seven already.”
“Odd, is it not? You bearing girls, Jane boys.”
What had happened to Mary? Where was the distressingly narrow and imperceptive girl of Longbourn days? Could people change so much? Or was this dangerous emancipation from female constrictions always there? What had inspired her to sing when she could neither hold a note nor keep a tune nor regulate the volume of her voice? Why had she pined for Mr Collins, surely the most unworthy object of any woman’s love ever put upon the earth? Questions to which Elizabeth could find no answers. Except that now she could better understand Charlie’s affection for his Aunt Mary.
A huge guilt washed over her; she, no less than Fitz, had thoughtlessly sentenced Mary to the caretaking of Mama, a task that, given Mama’s age, could well have lasted another seventeen years. They had all expected it would last a minimum of thirty-four years! Which would have made Mary fifty-five when it ended — oh, thank God it had come to an end now, while Mary had some hope of carving a life for herself!
Perhaps, she thought, it is not wise to isolate young women as Mary had been isolated. That she possessed some intelligence had been generally accepted in the family, though Papa had sneered at its direction, between the books of sermons and the gloomily moral works she had chosen to read as a girl. But had that been forced upon Mary? Elizabeth wondered. Would Papa have given her a free rein in his own library? No, he would not. And Mary had trotted out her pedantic observations upon life because she had no other way of gaining attention from the rest of us. Maybe the singing was a way to gain our attention too.
For a long time now I have looked back upon my childhood and girlhood at Longbourn as the happiest years of my life; we were so close, so merry, so secure. Because of the last, that security, we forgave Mama her idiocies and Papa his sarcastic attitude. But Jane and I shone the brightest, and were well aware of it. The Bennet sisters were layered: Jane and I considered the most beautiful and promising; Kitty and Lydia empty-headed jesters; and Mary — the middle child — neither one thing nor the other. I can see shades of that Mary in this one; she is still a merciless critic of frailties, still contemptuous of material things. But oh, how she has changed!
“What do you remember of our years at Longbourn?” Elizabeth asked, seeking answers.
“Feeling a misfit, chiefly,” said Mary.
“Oh, a misfit! How awful! Were you at all happy?”
“I suppose so. Certainly I did not repine. I think I was absorbed in a goodness I could not see in you or Jane, or in Kitty and Lydia. No, do not look alarmed! I am not condemning any of you, but rather myself. I thought you and Jane were obsessed with making rich marriages, while Kitty and Lydia were too undisciplined, too wild. I modelled my own conduct on the books I read — how dreadfully prosaic I must have been! Not to mention boring, for the books I read were boring.”
“Yes, you were prosaic and boring, though it is only now that I understand why. We left you no other recourse, the four of us.”
“The pustules and the tooth did not help, I confess. I saw them as a punishment, yet I had no idea what my crime had been.”
“No crime, Mary. Just unfortunate afflictions.”
“It is you I have to thank for ridding me of them. Who could ever have believed that something as banal as a small teaspoon of sulphur every two days would cure the spots, and that extraction of the tooth would allow the others to grow into place perfectly?” She got up from the breakfast table, smiling. “Where can the gentlemen be? I had thought Fitz wanted to make an early start.”
“Charlie’s
