Pemberley to Waterloo: Georgiana Darcy's Diary, Volume 2 (29 page)

I was taken aback. I have never thought that Mary cared for dancing before. Usually at any entertainment we attend, she does nothing but clutch her sheet music to her chest and hover by the pianoforte. Poised to be the first to jump at the keyboard as soon as any ladies are invited to perform a song.

"I thought you said that in your opinion, dancing was a frivolity suited only to small and meagre minds?" I said.

Which sounds as though I were being spiteful. But I have also discovered that it's extremely wearing to force myself to be sweet all the time.

And it is also quite true that Mary said exactly that; she really does talk that way. Constantly.

Mary sniffed and looked balefully at me. "And so it is. But it would have been nice to at least be
asked
," she said. She wiped her nose on the sleeve of her nightdress. "I talked to one young man for at least a quarter of an hour during supper. Mr. Porter. He was eating a very large helping of the roast duck, and I told him that modern medical opinion holds that a diet of too many rich meats can lead to gout in later age. I even outlined for him what a scientific paper I read recently gave as a recipe for a healthful diet--brown bread . . . raw onions . . . a great many carrots. But he
still
did not ask me to dance afterwards."

"Imagine that," I said.

Mary wiped her nose again and glared at me. "I knew you wouldn't understand, Kitty.
You
had men asking you for dances all night long. And you didn't accept one of them."

That is also true. It's very ironic, really. Since I have sworn off men entirely, I am besieged by invitations at every ball or assembly we attend. Tonight I started telling overly persistent gentlemen that I have a mother in the madhouse, a father in the penitentiary, and feel myself coming down with a touch of bubonic plague. And they only thought I was being charmingly witty; I was still refusing invitations to dance throughout the entire evening.

Apparently the secret to attracting male attention is to cultivate an air of unattainability. If only I had known that a year ago.

Mary doesn't know the full story of why I have sworn off men and dancing. So I suppose her glare was in some way justified. But it didn't last long. Her face crumpled after a moment, and she started to cry again.

"I'm never going to have anyone fall in love with me." She spoke between sobs. "No one will ever write poetry about me. Or try to kiss me. I'll never get married. I'll never have a house and a husband and babies of my own."

I stared at her. Thinking about how it is perfectly possible not to know your own sister at all. I admit the thought of anyone writing poetry about Mary strains even my imagination. Actually, it strains my imagination even more to picture Mary
accepting
a poem written in her honour, without being tempted to write up an answering critique of the meter and rhyme.

And Mary as a mother? The mind--or at least
my
mind--boggles.

Though I will admit that Mary is very good with baby Susanna. In Susanna's company, she forgets to be serious-minded and full of conceit with her own cleverness. She will even make ridiculous faces to get Susanna to utter one of her fat, delicious baby chuckles. But I had never imagined before tonight that Mary might want a family of her own.

But she is, after all, my sister. And, really, why shouldn't she have a husband and children if she wants them?

Besides, since there is no purpose in attending all the balls and parties of the London Season for myself, I might as well dedicate my energies to seeing that Mary takes some benefit from it all.

Mary fell asleep soon after that last outburst. But I've been lying awake, formulating plans and going over lists of possible young men in my mind--and determining that getting Mary wedded will be my good deed for the New Year.

Do present good deeds make up for past wrong ones? It would be nice to be able to believe it. But I can't imagine that life works that way.

Tuesday 2 January 1815

There are five of us Bennet sisters--which fact always makes strangers sigh and make comments about our poor mother, burdened with the task of getting five daughters married off, without even the benefit of decent dowries for us.

But while we were growing up, it always seemed to me that each of us had our assigned roles in the family. Jane was the oldest, and the most beautiful. Then came Elizabeth--Lizzy--who was always the most charming and witty. And then Mary.

Whom I suppose I can't entirely blame for turning herself into such an appalling blue-stocking, because she spent her entire childhood hearing what a shame it was that she was not as pretty as her older sisters. It's no wonder, really, that she started trying to distinguish herself as the most bookish and intelligent one of us.

I am next in age after Mary, and then Lydia is two years after me, the youngest of us all. Lydia was always the most spirited and vivacious of us. Which left me the only one of us without any distinguishing characteristic. I couldn't be the prettiest or the wittiest or the cleverest or even the most bouncing and lively. Which makes me . . . what? The boring sister? The one without any special talents--except possibly the ability to make terrible choices with her life?

This is turning into a very whining and self-pitying post--and another of my recent discoveries is that there is no fun whatsoever in feeling sorry for yourself when all you keep coming back to is that everything from start to finish has been entirely your own fault.

Besides, what I really meant to do when I started out writing was to set down how Mary and I came to be the only two out of the five of us who are unmarried, still.

Jane and Elizabeth married extremely well. Much to my mother's delight. Jane is married to Mr. Charles Bingley. Who is not only handsome and rich, but also agreeable and kind--and madly in love with Jane, even though they have been married now for nearly three years and have one daughter, Amelia, and another baby expected quite soon.

Lizzy married Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. Who is even richer than Charles. And who always struck me as very proud and disagreeable. But Lizzy seems to actually love him. And he loves her, too. I have stayed with them at Pemberley, Mr. Darcy's estate, and I've seen the way he looks at Lizzy. Mr. Darcy--he may be my brother-in-law, but I still cannot bring myself to call him Fitzwilliam--may be stiff and proud, but he would walk to the ends of the Earth just to see Lizzy smile.

And Lydia--

Lydia was always the closest to me, all the time we were growing up. I suppose mostly because she was the nearest to me in age. Lizzy and Jane were always perfectly nice to me. But I was so much younger that I was always a baby to them, and they had their own secrets and games that I was never a part of.

No one could possibly make a special confidante of Mary. Which left me and Lydia to play together when we were small and then be confidantes when we grew up.

Even though Lydia was the younger, she was always the leader. I wanted to be just like her. Fearless and bold, with scads of admirers to flirt with.

That Kitty Bennet seems so distant from me now. Thinking about myself then is like looking through the telescope the wrong way round. But it's quite true. Even when Lydia created a scandal by running away with George Wickham, I admired her. At least she had
done
something, instead of simply sitting on the sidelines of all the assemblies and balls like the rest of us, waiting for some gentleman to overlook our lack of fortune and save us from becoming old maids.

It is only in the last year that I have seen exactly where all Lydia's vivaciousness has got her: married to a man who is a lout and a drunkard--and a coward, as well. They have to live in France, because Wickham deserted from the army at the Battle of Waterloo, and now can't come home. The only time Lydia writes to any of us is to ask for money and to complain that French society is so very dull and stultifying compared to home. Which really means that she and Wickham haven't enough funds for her to cut any kind of a figure in the social scene.

At any rate, that is how Mary and I came to be the last sisters left at home. Our mother has more or less given up on seeing Mary wedded. But even after everything that has happened in the last twelvemonth, Mother has made it her especial mission to see me betrothed. To whom, she is not particular; her criteria for potential sons-in-law seem to be first a sizeable income, and second a beating heart.

That is why I was so happy to accept our aunt Gardiner's invitation for me and Mary to spend the winter in London. Lizzy invited me, too. But I can not possibly face her again. And Aunt Gardiner is such a calm, restful person to be around. She never fusses or worries. Besides, though she is very kind, she is too busy with the children to be overly occupied with Mary or me.

And beyond the one time Mary informed me that it was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all--and I emptied the entire contents of a teapot over her for it--Mary leaves me alone.

In my defence, at least the tea was (mostly) gone cold.

Wednesday 3 January 1815

Today marks the first day of putting my plan into effect: I dragged Mary out to the shops to buy her some new clothes. I was expecting it to be a battle royale, preferable only when compared to a visit to the dentist. But it actually went much better than I would have thought.

And it got me out of the house when Mrs. Ayres made her weekly effort to see me.

I will have to see her eventually, I know. But so far I haven't managed to force myself to be at home when Mrs. Ayres calls at the house. There are penances and then there are penances. And I still feel as though I would rather hurl myself under the wheels of a runaway carriage than see her-- because even I can't seriously contemplate a bare-faced lie to a woman whose son has just died at Waterloo.

If I see Mrs. Ayres, I will have to tell her the truth about me and John. The truth he apparently never told anyone, even his own mother.

It is honestly not for myself that I would mind. I
would
tell Mrs. Ayres the truth about John's and my engagement--and expose myself for a brainless, heartless flirt. If it weren't for the fact that I'm afraid it would tarnish her memories of John, to know he was once in love with me. And she and John surely deserve better.

So I took Mary shopping instead.

Mary has plenty of money--she has spent practically nothing of the allowance our father gave us, or the Christmas gifts from Lizzy and Jane. Until today, all she had bought were a few books. So I was able to bring her to the shop in Conduit Street of Madame LeFarge, the very fashionable modiste who makes all of my sister Jane's dresses.

Mary balked a bit at the prices--well, at the whole process, really. But I asked her did she want to spend the rest of her time in London a confirmed wallflower, or did she wish to occasionally have a dance? And she actually submitted to Madame LeFarge's measuring and clucking and draping her with various silks and gauzes and muslins.

Madame LeFarge was at least very enthusiastic. I think she saw Mary as a unique professional challenge. If she could manage to make Mary beautiful, she could succeed with anyone.

Though Mary is not so ill-favoured, really. Especially not now that her skin has cleared and her figure is no longer all awkward angles. She might even be pretty if she learned to arrange her hair properly, instead of simply scraping it straight back from her face. And if she left off wearing her spectacles.

She doesn't even actually need the spectacles--they are only plain glass, set in silver frames that she bought because she thinks they make her look more intelligent.

At any rate, if left to herself, Mary would have chosen the plainest, dullest materials Madame LeFarge had. But Madame and I joined forces and overruled her, and in the end actually persuaded her into some pretty things. A rose satin that is to be made up with an overdress of cream-coloured spider-gauze and trimmed with pearl rosettes. And an evening gown of pale blue crepe, ruffled at the sleeves and hem, that Madame LeFarge promised me faithfully she would have ready for the dinner party my aunt Gardiner is giving in two days' time.

That gives me two days to coach Mary in proper etiquette and persuade her not on any account to bring up the subjects of gout, brown bread, or raw carrots to any of the young men she meets.

I will write down in this journal whether I am successful or no. And whether Mary and I both survive my efforts.

Though I have some hopes. After we had finished at Madame LeFarge's, I made Mary come with me to Gunter's to eat ice cream. And she only mentioned once that the pastries and ices were shockingly over-priced and not at all healthful, and that she was afraid some of the other customers--she was staring at a pair of very elegantly dressed women with obviously rouged cheeks and varnished fingernails who were eating ices at the table next to ours--might possibly be
less than respectable
.

Thursday 4 January 1816

As it happens, I only need a single word to sum up the dinner party tonight: disastrous.

The evening began well enough. Madame LeFarge did manage to finish the blue crepe gown for Mary. It was delivered this afternoon. And it is lovely--Madame added rows of pointed lace to the sleeves and collar line, and caught up the overskirt with rosettes of deeper blue satin.

I forced Mary into it. And managed to persuade her to stop tugging at the neckline. Which was really not so very low-cut. Though certainly more revealing than the high-necked dresses Mary usually wears.

And then I sat Mary down in the chair in front of my dressing table--our room has two, one for each of us--and made her allow me to arrange her hair.

Mary's hair is quite pretty, really: glossy dark brown, with a natural curl. It's just that she invariably wears it dragged straight back from her face and pinned in a knot at the nape of her neck that makes her look more like a prim, priggish governess than any actual governess possibly could.