A Match for Mary Bennet (25 page)

Mary and Aunt Gardiner were shown to Jane's sitting room where Bingley and Jane quickly finished their conversation. Bingley rose and bowed to the visitors, took tender leave of Jane, and added, “I leave you in pleasanter company.” And indeed, it appeared to Mary that their converse had been serious.

Mrs. Gardiner kissed Jane, saying, “I trust nothing is amiss, my dear. Such a heavy subject I fear we interrupted.”

Jane laughed pleasantly. “Oh heavy indeed! My dear husband tells me that when Beth has a brother or sister, the two children must spend much of their day in the nursery. They, and any future children, will be company for one another, and Annie will have charge of them, though of course under my direction. It is to relieve me, he says.” She looked at Mary. “We grew up differently, but perhaps he is right. And I can always visit the nursery.”

Mrs. Gardiner heartily approved. “Yes, dear. We do our children no favour by keeping them near, coddling them, or showing them off to adult visitors. Not that a nursemaid does not sometimes spoil them. But the greatest favour we can do our children is to give visible example of love and esteem to our spouse. As they grow up, they may then look forward to maturity so they too can find such love. When they see how you and Mr. Bingley enjoy each other, they will long to enter adult society, and we can hope they will look for love and respect like yours. How I pity a child who has not that happiness to anticipate!”

Jane sighed and sat back, stiffening. Mary looked around. “May I bring you an extra cushion?” She took an ornamental one from the nearby settee and placed it behind Jane's arched back. Jane smiled her thanks as she quietly pondered her aunt's words.

Mary also thought about it. “I suppose a child cannot look forward to a good marriage if he sees parents ignore each other or quarrel.” She did not add her next thought: or if one parent does not take the other seriously. She began to examine her own preference for the single life, thinking it possibly had roots in her father's rather open enjoyment of her mother's more foolish outbursts. And could that also be the stimulus for her own search for wisdom in the wise words of others to adopt as her own?

Jane sighed again. “Oh when one is in love, how simple it all seems, with marriage as the end of a road instead of a lifework to be learned and passed on.” She brightened and turned to Mary. “Do you never mean to marry?—I do not mean Stilton; I mean anybody.”

Mary hesitated, as her aunt, curious about the reference, teased, “Stilton?”

Happy to turn to a topic she could explain, she replied, “He is a neighbour of Jane's who proposes marriage every so often. Either he wants practise—a need I can attest to—or he mocks me. At any rate, he does not love me, and by now he must count on my refusal.”

“And has he profession, pursuit, business…?” Mrs. Gardiner spoke as if she wished to establish in him something that would render him suitable.

“Hardly, unless you consider betting on horses a businesslike pursuit. He is a mere boy, due to inherit property in some distant future if he ever grows up. He is a nephew of Mrs. Long of Hertfordshire.”

Sarah interrupted them with a large tray of sandwiches and tea things. Annie followed with a bowl of fruit and a steaming urn. When they had enjoyed some fruit rolls and tea, Jane returned to her first question, which Mary hesitated to answer, since Jane might consider it a reflection on her own marriage. “But really, Mary, do you not look to marry one day?”

The burden of her knowledge concerning Lydia returned to her. “At present, two of my sisters present an attractive model of the state, while one presents nothing if not warning against it. Perhaps, when Kitty marries, there may be a preponderance of evidence on the side of marital bliss. Or else the enterprise may look like a gamble, with the balance even. But in either case, since I do not feel constrained by circumstances, I believe I choose to live like the angels in solitary bliss.”

Mrs. Gardiner interposed. “And have you none but your sisters to look to?”

“But it comes to the same thing,” said Mary. “You and Uncle Gardiner present a fine model, Uncle and Aunt Philips another picture entirely, and of Mama and Papa I remain in doubt.”

Jane smiled. “You know, Mary, Kitty and I guessed that a few years ago, when Mr. Collins chose Elizabeth, he might rather have settled on you. We thought you might have accepted him.”

Mary acknowledged it was so. “But that would have been only to save Longbourn for my sisters. I never loved him, though I believed in him then more than I do now.”

Jane and Mrs. Gardiner spoke together. “Thank God he did not ask you!”

Mrs. Gardiner looked about the sitting room, adorned with works of embroidery and pressed flowers like the one Mary had in her cottage. “But where is the chimney-board you decorated? Elizabeth quite raved about it in her last letter. Is it in the nursery?”

Jane reddened. “She should not have done so. It is a mere first attempt, which I would not have tried without Caroline's prompting and help, and my own knowledge that Beth was too young to criticize. Of course, I forgot that she will grow up to find it a clumsy effort.”

Mrs. Gardiner would not be put off, and Jane admitted that it was in the nursery. “Just go through the adjoining empty room, which will be a schoolroom.” As they went that way, Jane called, “I pray you, do not look for competence. Elizabeth is my least severe critic. In fact, she is no critic at all. Even Beth frowns upon it as an interloper in her territory.”

Mrs. Gardiner, not to be put off, led Mary through the bare schoolroom to the nursery fairly bursting with colour, where Beth napped in the large crib. They silently examined the delicate board screening the cold fireplace. Also behind it were toys to be used when the child was older, which may explain Beth's annoyance. By now Beth may well wish to play with the hobby horse, the doll house, or the building blocks with painted letters instead of the stuffed toys near her crib, Mary thought. The two women exchanged looks of approval, even admiration, for the work on the screen. The whole presented a happy composition sure to instill memories of beauty. The lower border of roses and the upper one of stars set off an apple orchard in the foreground and elms in the distance where stylized figures of horses, rabbits, and children roamed a field of bluebells under the trees. They returned to Jane exclaiming their delight and congratulations. “You have given it Otherfield's apple orchard, Netherfield's bluebells, and Longbourn's elms! How sweet it was to blend your own childhood with Beth's!” Mary could not place the roses and supposed they were added for colour.

“And the screen must follow them to the schoolroom, where they may need such a distraction when lessons become dull. Lizzy has nothing over me; I quite rave about it myself. And canvas on wood—was that not difficult to do?” Aunt Gardiner took Jane's hand in a congratulatory gesture.

“Oh no. Sarah helped me to stretch and glue the canvas.” Jane looked down, embarrassed at their praise. “We stretched one for Lizzy too. She said she hopes to brighten her nursery if Georgiana can find time to teach her.”

“You have set her a fine model and a challenge. I shall be eager to see her work.” Mrs. Gardiner reached for her gloves and stooped to kiss Jane. “Mrs. Reynolds will expect us to tea.”

In the carriage, Mary asked her aunt if it would be proper to add to a servant's pay if she takes on a particularly difficult cleaning task. “I tried to do it myself, but I perceived my certain failure almost as soon as she offered to take it on.”

“Yes, a few extra shillings are always welcome. By all means, show your appreciation. And pretty gifts on special occasions are in order besides.” Mrs. Gardiner sat back and studied her intensely serious niece. “You are learning to be a householder on your own now! No wonder you consider matrimony unnecessary.”

“Perhaps,” Mary said. “However, the more I live independently, the more my ignorance shows, and the more dependent I become on helpful advisors like you.”

Her aunt smiled approval on the niece so many had underrated as rigid and plain. She touched Mary's arm. “I am afraid most of us learn more about our ignorance daily. When we are very old, we hope, wisdom may arrive. The good God waits patiently for us to grow into it.”

Mary, surprised anew at her lovely and wise aunt, listened with an attention she did not remember according her on her visits to Longbourn. Even so, when they neared Pemberley, she made an excuse to take leave of her at the cottage rather than join her for tea, and she hurried to Lydia in her upstairs room. Lydia was engaged in putting careful darts in the muslin gown so as to preserve the lovely Spitalfields brocade, and without looking up from her tiny stitching, she remarked pensively, “You know, Mary, Lizzy tells Jane everything.” She looked up then. “You must not let either of them know where I am.” The top of the gown fell from her lap, and Mary noted that the extra material had been removed from the neck and shoulders. Mary thought ruefully that Lydia remained Lydia, even reduced to poverty.

“But we are on Pemberley grounds. Darcy
must
be told. At any rate, you are sure to be seen, and people tell Mr. Darcy everything.”

“Oh no. Your lovely fenced garden at the side door can afford my exercise. The high fence with its climbing vines provides privacy, and I can watch for the gardener or your servants before using it. Mr. Darcy keeps nothing from Lizzy, so he must not know. It must be kept from both.”

Mary did not care for the idea. “Mr. Darcy has been so good to me, and Betsy and Tom serve me only at his request. To keep so heavy a secret from him is unthinkable—and likely impossible.”

“Please, Mary. They are all so open, the Bingleys as well as the Darcys. I do not think any of them could lie for me, even if they wished to. They must not know at all.”

Mary promised only that she would say nothing, feeling sure that Betsy or Tom would reveal it to Mr. Darcy. But Lydia proved her slyness when, three days later, Mr. and Mrs. Darcy returned and Betsy enquired as to whether Mrs. Wickham had departed. Mary responded only what was truth at the time: that she did not know where Lydia was.

Some days later, Mary joined Elizabeth and Aunt Gardiner in the carriage to Nottingham for a long day with Jane. Bingley had engaged the surgeon and a midwife the previous day, as Jane had experienced the first real discomfort of her confinement. They found that the surgeon and the midwife were in Jane's room with Sarah, and the three women joined Bingley in the sitting room, where he had been banished, he said, for fidgeting. Soon the efficient-looking midwife bustled through for more towels and hot water, and returned to the forbidden room with them. It seemed hours later that a healthy squalling indicated the birth, and Bingley, who had been sitting with his head down in seeming agony, leapt to his feet. Dr. Pierce almost ran into Bingley as he came out of the room wiping his hands on a small towel. He pronounced Bingley the father of “a fine young hunter, his little fingers itching for a gun.” Jane groaned a low denial from within the room as if she hoped not, while Bingley smiled proudly.

Beth sent up a yowl from the nursery, and Annie ran through the room to tend to her. The midwife handed the wrapped bundle to Bingley to hold until the wet nurse arrived. When she did, nurse and baby went through to the nursery, and Mary heard Beth cry in wonder, “Baby, baby.”

Mary had fleetingly observed the red-faced newcomer wrapped in white as he was borne past them, and she watched with Mrs. Gardiner and Elizabeth as Jane and Bingley whispered together, and then Jane, exhausted, smiled at her visitors, who turned to let her sleep. Mrs. Gardiner took Elizabeth's hand as they returned to the sitting room, Mary following, while Bingley remained at his wife's bedside.

Mrs. Gardiner said, “Now, Lizzy, we transfer our vigilant attention to you. Have you kept up your exercises and got enough sleep these past weeks?”

Elizabeth grinned and begged her aunt to cease worrying. Mary wondered much at these sisters, her models throughout her youth now going through so much for children of their own, yet to her they seemed girls still. She counted on Elizabeth's ready wit as always, and on Jane's delicate tact, even as they now belonged to different families. Life's changes raised a touch of resentment in her, not aimed at anyone; but the orderly march of days, constant and predictable, was eluding her grasp. Inwardly she grieved, even as a new compassion for her mother formed within her. In spite of a thirst for gossip and excitement, Mrs. Bennet had been the chief engineer of the orderly youth Mary knew. What kind of mother would Lydia be, so like as she was to her mother? And, married a full six months longer than Jane or Elizabeth, why was she not a mother by now? Lydia's thinness now struck Mary as a possible sign of ill health, and she feared her care for Lydia had lacked the nurturing she should have provided. Yet the very persons she always turned to for advice and help in such ways were forbidden to her by her promise to Lydia. Every new day added, to Mary's dismay, more vagaries of that fickle monster known as Life.

With Darcy home and Bingley satisfied that Jane's health and strength were returning, the fishing party doubled. Shepard and Mr. Gardiner displayed their superior knowledge of fertile spots and effective bait, and Darcy vowed that he would regain mastery of his own stream. Mr. Hurst joined them for half a morning but soon dismissed the sport as uneventful and went to Lambton in search of card players.

Each day Mary, although grateful that the men kept busy so far from her cottage, fretted over Lydia, both wishing for and fearful of her discovery. She well knew that she would be blamed by Lydia for revealing her and blamed by Darcy for concealing her. She had requested more eggs and milk for the cottage provisions, hoping to improve Lydia's health and colour, but still she worried. She knew too little how to nurse, and Lydia knew less. Visits to Nottingham with Elizabeth and Mrs. Gardiner found Mary withdrawing more and more from the conversations, fearful of saying what she should not. But she enjoyed listening, and once in Otherfield's nursery, she smiled upon Beth's protective care of her brother William. (Darcy had forbidden Bingley's naming the child Fitzwilliam as both inappropriate and a name he abhorred; still he acquiesced to his godson being William.) Jane mentioned Bingley's strictures concerning the nursery, and Elizabeth laughed. “Darcy continues his prodigious care of your husband. It is the very rule he has given me, but I must say I agree with him. Callie, for all her youth, has more experience with little boys than I ever had, and I suppose we must bear the ills connected with having married above our station, Jane. We suffered enough in the getting of our husbands; we really must take time to enjoy them, however charming our children are.”

Jane smiled her agreement. “And we can always repair to the nursery like this when our husbands go hunting or fishing.”

Mary took it all in, remembering how much her mother had overseen their childhood. She could not recall ever having been confined to a nursery, and she did not think Lydia could ever have been contained in one. Except for library, kitchen, and laundry, they had the run of Longbourn. Should she pity her sisters' children for lacking such freedom? Mrs. Gardiner supported Darcy's view, and she should know; but Mrs. Bennet's concerns had always centered on her girls, and they seemed to still be so. By the time they had grown up, they had questioned their own parents' compatibility, or at least Elizabeth had done so. Might Lydia have fared better if she had learned her manners in a nursery? Mary did not know. Once again, she exulted in her own station in life; rearing children would not be a problem she would have to face.