A Match for Mary Bennet (29 page)

Mr. Bennet paused at the library door, and Mary took each step deliberately, slowing her progress. She breathed, “Lord, I have no sense.” As she neared Mr. Bennet, further words of that Gospel came into her head: “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.” Unaccountably restored in strength, Mary faced her father, confident that at least some decision must result from this conference.

Mr. Bennet closed the door to the dim library. He indicated a chair near the cold fireplace for her, and she sat facing him, though he remained standing. He fixed an exasperated stare on her, took her letter from his pocket, and brandished it before her in the half light. “Mary, what do you mean by this request?” Lessening the menace of his tone he went on. “Have you come to love this man?”

“No, Papa.” Mary's earlier regrets compounded and mingled with the fright of the scene she had just witnessed above. Only with a struggle had she made her meager reply firm and free of tears.

“Then what does this mean?” She could think of no sensible reply, and it came to Mr. Bennet that this daughter might conceivably sacrifice herself for another. “Have you come to believe that he loves you?”

“No, Papa.”

Bennet stuffed the letter back in his pocket, pulled out a chair from the table behind him, and sat, more puzzled than ever. “Then why ask to marry him? How can you hope for any happiness in a loveless marriage with a selfish wastrel?” She still struggled for an explanation, and Bennet attempted another surmise. “You do not make a mission of him, do you? Do you plan to reform him?”

“No, Papa.” She wanted somehow to make him aware that she rescinded her request. “And I never looked for any happiness in marriage. I merely asked if you would release me from my promise. But if you will not…” She shrugged, as if she considered the matter closed.

Bennet erupted. “Of course I will not! You have no reason to marry this ne'er-do-well with his horses and his foppishness and his daft family who wish to make you his sorry guardian! Not even a saint could keep this man out of trouble, and the two of you would be penniless in six months' time.” He inhaled deeply and began again in a tone to match her matter-of-fact one. “I more readily gave Lydia to Wickham than I could give you to Stilton, and God knows I debated long over that affair.”

The mention of Lydia steeled Mary's resolve. She raised her head high and faced him. “Papa, he told me he has given up the races and his life of speculation.”

“Then he is a liar as well. Darcy saw Stilton at Lambton's horse fair not long ago, where he won five hundred pounds on a wager with a horse breeder.”

“He has begun to repay his father.”

“If he has done so, it is out of his winnings. Tell him to finish what he has begun, and he will not need you. How could you, who have loved truth all your life, abide a liar as husband?” Bennet stood again and walked a few steps, then turned back to her. “And he would laugh at you, as he laughs at his parents, every time you attend a church service. Could you endure that?”

Mary felt defeated. “Papa, it is not as if I wished to marry Stilton. But he keeps asking, and he seems desperate, and…” She held her tongue, as her actual reason almost emerged.

“And what?” Bennet leaned over her. “What earthly reasons have you to accept a husband even worse than Lydia's? I never thought you capable of such nonsense!”

Mary heard the disappointment in his tone. She bent forward, her face in her hands. “Lydia,” she began softly but could not continue.

Mr. Bennet shook his head impatiently. “Oh yes, I know that Lydia stays at your cottage. Has she talked you into such a thing?”

Mary stared at him even as she shook her head in reply. “How did you find that out?”

“Mr. Darcy wrote of it, even before you wrote, knowing I would worry about her.”

“Mr. Darcy knows?” Mary, crestfallen, could already hear Lydia's accusations in her mind.

“Naturally Mr. Darcy knows what goes on around Pemberley. He is loved and respected by servants and tenants. How could he not know? And why is Lydia so bent on secrecy? Is she afraid of Wickham? I never thought him vicious, only foolish.”

Mary felt obliged to describe Lydia's plight when first she arrived, her protestations that Wickham never harmed her, her gradual improvement at the cottage, and her growing jealousy of Mary's life there. “I thought if I left it to live with Stilton, she might be allowed to stay there.”

Mr. Bennet touched her shoulder gently. “My dear, Lydia is my responsibility and Wickham's, but certainly not yours. Her husband came to Longbourn seeking her and, of course, money. I told him I would find her and ascertain the degree to which he had allowed her the pin money he had agreed upon, and that I would then consult with Mr. Philips about whether to consider divorce. He filled the room with his promises then and as much as admitted that he had deprived her but would treat her generously in future. I sent him away to find a situation. I mean to deal with Lydia next. But first, you must know that I will never consent to see you tied to an immature, prodigal freethinker. Your new-found compassion is touching, but whatever became of your prudence?”

“But, Papa, he said we could be married in church—“

A howl trumpeted from the dark corner under the balcony overhang and rang through the library and beyond. “A fine concession! If everyone treated a church as nothing but a romantic venue for a wedding, there would not
be
any churches! Miss Mary Bennet! Is this the friend who meets God on his own without benefit of ritual or congregation? And you would
marry
him? Marry a man who does not open your heart? Yoke yourself to a liar? What fellowship is there between devotion and scorn? What harmony links Christian with unbeliever? What commonality between honesty and manipulation? Child, you are the temple of God! Can you join yourself to a gamester? You, who should be kept from every contamination!” Mr. Oliver left off his preaching volume and came forward pleadingly. “I respected your choice and forbore courting you because you wished not to marry. I laboured to establish you to live independently because it was all you left for me to do for you.”

By this time, the roar of his opening had drawn Darcy into the library where he stood near the door, a surprised half-smile on his face.

Oliver approached Mr. Bennet and apologised for overhearing some of his discourse and for interrupting him. “Sir, if your daughter will accept to choose matrimony, would you allow me to court her?” He turned to face Mary, who stood transfixed before him. His voice broke sorrowfully. “I withheld no affection from you; yet you contrive to marry one who has none for you. How could you?”

Mr. Bennet looked questioningly to Darcy, who nodded and beckoned. Wordlessly, Bennet took Oliver's hand and placed it in Mary's, noting that she did not draw away. He slipped off to join Darcy, and they quietly withdrew, shutting the door behind them.

Mary felt herself grow younger by degrees, and when she spoke her voice squeaked high and thin. “But, sir, you and Kitty… I thought… I wanted you to marry her.”

“Catherine? Your sister? Why wish her for me?”

“I wanted the best for you. You were sure to favour her: she is younger, prettier, charming, she—“

“‘Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain,'” Oliver quoted. “And my dear, I wish a virtuous woman that feareth the Lord; one with the strength to try a position before she knows she can do it, and then with God's grace completes it. Miss Bennet, did you never see how I loved you?”

She shook her head solemnly. A great light turned on within her, and a cool, deep calm, refreshing as a mountain pool, welled up in her deepest soul. “I thought… the closest to you I had any hope for… was sister.” Suddenly, she knew what made a woman accept even the pain of childbirth for love.

Oliver squeezed her hand and pulled her close. “When you were considering marriage, my dearest, I wish you had told me. I need you near me. I need your transparency, your guilelessness.”

As warm as the day had been, Mary moved happily into his embrace, which tightened, unleashing a feeling totally new to her—one she had not even dreamed of. Mr. Oliver murmured into her ear, “I fell asleep in
Inferno
, and the candle went out. I awoke in Purgatorio. But all the light is on now. I have found Paradiso.”

Mr. Oliver led Mary out to the parlour where Mr. Bennet and Darcy chatted. The couple held hands as if the condition was permanent, and one look at Mary's radiant face made official Bennet's acceptance of Steven Oliver as Mary's fiancé. Darcy laughed, saying, “Lizzy told me over a year ago that this would happen. I am not sure I appreciate my wife's knowing things on our estate so much sooner than I do.”

Mrs. Bennet came down from the nursery to learn the happy news. “Oh, my dear, you will be so happy! I thought Kitty wanted him, but I believe she will be content with Mr. Grantley. And you know, Mary, I never did look forward to becoming related to Mrs. Long. I would have had to take an interest in her tiresome nieces. Now I daresay she will keep all her relatives to herself.”

***

Catherine had slipped over to Mary's cottage before ever learning of Mary and Oliver. Lydia had written to her the “great secret” of her whereabouts, and Kitty went over to tell her about Bennet Darcy and of many other things. But when she actually saw Lydia, she asked, “What happened to Wickham's getting Hunsford? Why are you here?”

With Catherine, Lydia could only be saucy and smug, and she tossed her head. “You must know that the mourning over Lady Catherine puts it off for at least a few more months. Money got tight, and nobody gave us credit any more, so Wickham took Darcy's offer to support him at Oxford, though it did not include me. Wickham sent me to Longbourn, but I was furious with him for going without me and furious with Darcy for offering such a thing. Mary was my only salvation.” Lydia showed off the dress that Catherine recognized as Mary's, remade in the expensive and daring fashion Mary would never have admired. Catherine decided she preferred the dress as it was on Mary at the Nottingham ball. She deliberately did not warn Lydia that her father meant to come claim her. She just sat down and let Lydia tell her how Mary spoiled her with berries and clotted cream for breakfast, Sundays at Kympton and that handsome Mr. Oliver, walks in the enclosed cottage garden even at night, barefoot, and in her nightgown! Catherine encouraged every disclosure, smiling quietly, knowing more of Lydia's future than Lydia did. Of course, she did announce their new nephew Bennet, and Lydia crowed as if he had been named for her.

When Mr. Bennet arrived, Kitty slipped away as Lydia, shocked to see him, stormed pettishly about what she termed “Mary's betrayal.”

Mr. Bennet waited for her to finish, surprised at the length of her mean-spirited diatribe. She had learned much from living with Wickham, he deduced. Then he calmly assured her that Mary had kept faith with her and that she was an idiot if she thought she could keep anything at Pemberley from Darcy's knowledge. “Mr. Darcy wrote me of it almost as soon as he returned home. He knew I would worry about you. Now get your things together and return with me to Pemberley until we leave shortly for Longbourn. Your husband has been there asking after you.”

Lydia smiled broadly. “He has?”

Bennet scowled and continued. “He hoped you had some money for him. His source of funds at Oxford abruptly dried up, once Mr. Darcy wrote Mrs. Younge that the scoundrel had left his wife behind. She is too smart a woman to support Wickham against Darcy's wishes.”

Lydia showed her disbelief. “But it was Darcy who supported him at Oxford.”

Bennet laughed. “Darcy indeed! When Betsy reported that to him, he guessed immediately why your husband did not want you with him. Mr. Darcy might have supported his study as an attorney. He said there are scheming attorneys enough that Wickham would fit in, but scheming preachers Mr. Darcy would never encourage.”

Lydia's eyes widened, and her bravado dissolved. “What am I to do?”

Bennet softened to her. “Come to Longbourn. If your husband does as I advised and takes a post as an attorney's clerk—even Mr. Philips could use him, I expect—then you can return to him and stay as long as he allows you to keep your money. Your husband will never grow up if you keep on bailing him out. Mary assures me Wickham has never touched you in anger. Is that true?”

“Yes, Papa.”

“Then Mr. Philips and I will watch him, and when he can support you, you may return to him.”

Lydia sunk in misery. “If he has money, he will never want me.” She left to collect her few things.

Mr. Bennet tried to avoid either encouraging or disheartening her. “We will see.”

Mr. Bennet and Lydia set out with what few possessions they could carry, but Darcy approached them with horse and cart, making the short move easier. About halfway to the manor, James Stilton met them on his way to Mary's cottage. He pulled up beside the cart and announced to Mr. Bennet his intention to speak for Mary, and in his humblest manner, he requested Mr. Bennet's blessing. Bennet shook his head. “I am sorry for you, son; I gave my daughter Mary to her betrothed but a few hours ago.” As he looked up, he saw Mary and Oliver walking leisurely behind the stable area, approaching the coppice.

Lydia exclaimed in amazement, “Mary engaged? Papa, why did not Kitty tell me?”

Stilton laughed. “No, Mr. Bennet. I see you are putting me on. Am I to think some knight in shining armour rode in and swept her off her feet and her sister does not know it? Tell me another tale.” His sneering tone confirmed Mr. Bennet's delight that Mary had escaped this bounder.

“Young man, it happened not as you suggested. Rather, a young man of shining character walked in and swept her off her feet.” Mr. Bennet spoke with deliberation, in a soft and serious tone.

Stilton's tone did not change. If anything, his sharpness increased as if he felt himself the butt of a joke. “Oh, come now, Mr. Bennet. Gentlemen are not suddenly standing in line for your plain and prudish daughter, unsung and unloved all this time.”

Bennet invited Stilton to direct his gaze to the trees behind the stable, where Mary walked with her beloved. Mr. Stilton saw a smiling, not-so-plain-looking Mary with her face dangerously near a gentleman bending to her—the same gentleman he had seen with her at Nottingham! “Why, that sneaking little liar! She said he was her pastor and her employer.”

Mr. Bennet alighted from the cart, stood before the young dandy's horse, and fixed a stern gaze up at him. “Mr. Stilton, my daughter may have been at times unwise, perhaps even uncharitable, but as far as I know, she has never been untruthful, and to my certain knowledge, she has never been unloved.”

Lydia craned her neck to see the couple. “Mr. Oliver! So that is why he did so much for her!” Bennet noted the tinge of envy in her voice.

“Mary told you the truth about him at the time. He is her pastor and her employer, and for the past hour or so, he has been her betrothed as well. My daughter Mary has her faults; at times, she displays a tiresome gift for stating the obvious; but she takes no liberties with truth. I trust any business you may have had here is at an end. Convey my sympathies to your parents and your aunt. Since hearing your estimate of my plain daughter, I cannot imagine that you require any for yourself.”

Stilton's manner crumpled into abject self-pity. “What am I to do? I cannot wait until I am thirty-five for my inheritance.”

Bennet climbed back into the cart. “Nor should you, young man. Show your parents your independence of them. Since you feel that occupation is beneath you, you must marry some wealthy woman and forget the inheritance. Perhaps your parents may use it to satisfy your creditors.”

Darcy spoke then for the first time. “I have just the wealthy woman for you, young man! There is a maiden lady with a fine estate near Lambton; enquire at the Inn after Miss Alicia Johnstone. I daresay she will welcome your attentions.”

Stilton stared at Darcy in puzzlement. Then he seemed to take his words as serious, thanked him, and rode off.

Darcy turned to Bennet, smiling. “Let him find out what plain and prudish looks like!”

Lydia still watched the happy couple, twisting around as the cart again jogged ahead. “Such a fine, tall man. And handsome! I never thought a clergyman would make a good husband, but he is so gentle, and I would bet he will not ask her for money. Does Kitty know?”

“By now, I expect so,” said Bennet.

“Oh, I do hope not. I would love to tell her that her beloved Mr. Oliver is taken.”

Bennet, happy to remove such a mean pleasure from his bitter young daughter, said, “You will be surprised to learn that Kitty has a beau of her own at Hertfordshire, and I do not think she will mind at all having a brother like Steven Oliver.”

“A beau? She did not tell me. Who is he?”

They pulled up at the side entrance to Pemberley. Bennet stepped down and helped Lydia, while Darcy directed the footmen to take her baggage. Bennet shook his head sadly at the daughter he really did not know what to do with. “Her beau is a fine and serious young man. He seemed at first interested in Mary, but when she moved permanently to Derbyshire, he transferred his affections to Kitty.”

Lydia's eyes widened. “La! Mary of all people was wanted by
three
young men? Who would have thought it?” Mr. Bennet said nothing, though he could readily believe that a man of sense would appreciate a quiet wife.

Mary and Oliver reached the glade where she had once seen Oliver painting, but the deepening dusk caused them to turn toward Mary's cottage. They had walked aimlessly in companionable silence most of the time. Mary, confused by the turmoil of feelings the day had wrought in her, savoured the happiness that had settled on her, though she had neither expected nor sought it. She sighed, conscious of the immense blessing of loving and being loved by so fine a man.

Oliver guided her deftly through the trees, which deepened the darkness. “Do you know that you interested me profoundly before I ever saw you?” He smiled down at her as she showed her wonder at this. “Picture my surprise when I fell into this fine living at Kympton and learned that my patron's wife, named Elizabeth, was with child and that a kinswoman named Mary was soon to visit. I felt I had been planted right into Saint Luke's gospel! I eagerly looked forward to meeting you, and I was not disappointed.”

“But I hardly said three words to you!”

“Precisely. You kept all sayings in your heart. You did not display great wit nor did you prattle away. Your interests were music, books, and religion. Rather soon I knew that you suited me more than any woman I had previously met.” They reached the path where trees no longer deepened the darkness. He took her hand and drew her to face him. “Are you reconciled to marrying? You did not wish to marry, and I would not force myself on you.”

“Yes, indeed. You are so much finer than any future I dared wish for.”

“Will not your other young man be terribly disappointed?”

Mary laughed heartily. “Oh yes, because he will be deprived of his inheritance for a few years. By this time, God only knows how many.” Mary's thoughts took a serious turn when the mention of inheritance reminded her of her own poor portion. “But you must know that my father can offer little in the way of dowry. You did not imagine me as rich as Lizzy, did you?”

Oliver put his arm around her waist as they walked the path slowly. “You are all the riches I could wish for. But to answer your question, I once did regard you as wealthy, and therefore much beyond me. But one day Mr. Bingley told me laughingly how Mr. Darcy once warned him not to marry the eldest Miss Bennet because she had neither money nor connections. How joyously I welcomed that news! But soon after that, my hint of hope was dashed from me when you announced that you would not marry. I had myself talked into remaining unmarried also, until I awoke in the library to hear that you had changed your mind. Then I silently prayed for your father to forbid that marriage.”

They reached the cottage door, where Betsy waited to tell of Lydia's departure. “There is plenty for dinner if your young man wishes to stay.”

Oliver declined sadly, before Mary could ask. “Mrs. Birch will have my dinner ready for me. Perhaps some Tuesday, on her day off?” They agreed that Tuesday dinners would be shared at the cottage until all dinners would be at the manse.

If Mary feared Catherine's reaction to her news, she soon found relief. The next day when she visited to learn how well Elizabeth rallied after her ordeal, she overheard Catherine begging her mother for permission to stay in Derbyshire. “Mama, you know Mary does not think of clothes for herself, and she has given so much of what she had to Lydia. Lizzy will be busy with her baby, and someone should attend to Mary's trousseau.”

Mrs. Bennet reminded Kitty, “You will be looked for in Hertfordshire. You do not wish to discourage Mr. Grantley.”

“Oh, Mama. I neither encourage nor discourage him. But he has a sadness that makes him move very slowly toward marriage, and I do not blame him. At any rate, I will go home with you after Christmas, I promise.” When her mother seemed to accept this, Mary stepped in and asked if Kitty would like to stay at the cottage. “Yes, indeed. I will be able to see what you have and what you may still need.”

On their very first evening at the cottage, Mary approached the subject of her seeming to usurp Kitty's place with Oliver. “Kitty, I am so sorry. I know how you liked Mr. Oliver, and believe me, I never thought to interest him in myself.”

Catherine laughed. “I know. Papa told me you even said that to him. I believe I like to think of him as a brother. In fact, by choosing you, he shows me the kind of woman a good man loves.” Kitty spoke in deepest confidence. “I believe I owe it to you that Mr. Grantley takes a serious interest in me. He had thought me flighty until you told him I did not dance to attract men. He says he watched me at dances after that and took courage to ask me.”

Mary recalled her first strange encounter with Mr. Grantley. “To tell the truth, Kitty, I believe he watched you at dances before that as well! Even when he first talked to me, his eyes were on you. But do you really like him? You do not find him melancholy?”

“I like him; but yes, he is sad. And he may never ask me to marry him. He told me his sad history.” Mary did not wish to pry, so she said nothing to that. But Catherine went on, “Once he was married to a young lady he says I remind him of. She died in childbirth, along with the baby. He used to watch girls at dances, pitying them for their ambition to get husbands, knowing that for some it would be their deaths. I try to let him see that I am healthy like my sisters, but if he never asks me, I will know it is only because he wishes me long life. I am content to bring him some joy in friendship.”

Mary greatly wondered at this knowledge, and at the new Catherine that emerged from the association. “Then, whatever happens, I wish you great joy. Papa says he is good for you.”

“He only means that I am calm and patient, and that is partly because my older sisters show me the right way to go about finding a good man.” Kitty embraced Mary in genuine sisterly love and gratitude.

Mary kept thinking of Mr. Grantley's experience, and she wondered what gruesome torment his poor wife endured, since it had gone so badly with Lizzy, who had rallied and had a healthy baby. How could anything go worse? She shook off the horrid image and turned to Kitty. “Your thoughtfulness as to my wedding clothes is so touching, Kitty. I really need little, but I must say I will have only whatever you are kind enough to make because, from now on, my needlework must go to make a surplice and stole for Mr. Oliver. They must be perfectly done, and that may take me until the wedding day.”

Catherine's thoughtful offer took on increasing necessity when Mr. Oliver insisted on keeping Mary with him as much as possible. He involved her more and more in his visits around the parish; and her calm helpfulness, especially with the poor and sick, endeared her to the parish more each day. Whenever she met the girls of the choir, she feared their envy, but she hoped they would soon accept losing him. Tom told her one day that his brother loved her as soon as he heard of the betrothal. Mary was amazed until she learned that Fred Hooks, who had been sweet on Emmaline, had been much ignored since the new vicar arrived.

Tuesday mornings still found the vicar pursuing his art while Mary joined Catherine in needlework. Afternoons still found them in Pemberley's library, though not so far apart as formerly. Any spare time involved them in arranging the space in the vicarage to suit them both, and they now shared the duty of preparing the church for services. In short, Mary found little time to think of her clothes, even had she been so inclined. Fortunately, Catherine enjoyed working with Letty on gowns and a pelisse, keeping Mary's modest preference in mind. Georgiana helped Catherine also, and together they sewed a new silk tunic, a lace tippet, and other more ordinary undergarments to replace what Mary had given away. Once Jane came to join them, and for a week, Mrs. Gardiner offered her services, suggesting that they add a few nightgowns as well. She often provided finishing touches, where her expertise produced just the finery a trousseau needed. By the time the Gardiners left, promising to return for the holidays, Mary could boast of a wardrobe more complete than that of any of her sisters, but Mary hardly noticed. Her attention remained fixed on the stole and surplice she had almost finished, and she learned from Mrs. Gardiner how to complete them to perfection. Even so, she adjudged her work not good enough for Mr. Oliver. When Georgiana asked, “But where are the linens?” Elizabeth smiled smugly.

“They are already at the manse. They filled a chest at the cottage, because very early I had hints of Mary's need for them, and I began with her two years ago on the work.”