The Unexpected Miss Bennet (26 page)

‘Oh! Yes, oh, of course. Please forgive me! Mr Aikens, please do come in.’

‘Fine by me,’ Mr Aikens said cheerfully. ‘I suppose a rescue can wait for tea.’

Mary wasn’t sure if she had the right to ask him in for tea, but the butler took care of things. He had Mr Aikens’s coat and soon they were settled in the small parlour with a cheerful fire and tea things. Mary poured, praying she wouldn’t spill a drop. Mr Aikens sat back with a sigh, a small teacup in his large hands.

‘Now that’s the thing,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘Tea on a day like this. I daresay I could eat all of those sandwiches.’

‘Please do help yourself,’ Mary said. She had a sense of great contentment as she watched him eating with gusto.

‘You should jump in, you know,’ he said, chewing and swallowing.

Mary selected a sandwich. The small parlour with the crackling fire and the rain sliding down the windows was pleasantly comfortable. For a moment she had a wonderful thought. If she were mistress of her own establishment – nothing grand, not at all, nothing like Rosings or Pemberley but more like comfortable Longbourn, but if she were her own mistress – how agreeable that would be.

‘Now,’ he said, washing down the last sandwich with tea. ‘Do you wish to be rescued? Is all this a gilded cage?’

‘Mr Aikens, I don’t know what my sister told you, but I am here as a friend of Anne de Bourgh. It’s really quite pleasant. We’re friends.’

‘Nonsense,’ he said. ‘What about me – and Hyperion? We’re your friends too. Have you ever thought of that?’

She coloured at his forthrightness. ‘I do apologize, Mr Aikens.’ She wondered what she was apologizing for. ‘I did not know – that is, I did not think—’

‘You didn’t think we are friends. Why? Because I don’t dance with as fine manners as a gentleman should, or sit indoors but must always be outside in the weather? I daresay you think me too wild and windblown with my hair in knots and up to my topboots in mud to be a friend. I’m not a fellow who sits in a salon and reads fine books, so we can’t be friends?’

He was quite beside himself. Mary stared at him.

‘No,’ she said, and she could barely force the words past her unwilling lips. ‘No, it’s because – I am none of those things. I never thought we could be friends because I scarcely do go out of doors and I don’t ride and I thought you were just being a gentleman and kind.’

He snorted a laugh. ‘That’s amusing. Even my mother says I am no gentleman.’

And my mother thinks I am no lady, or at least, not a marriageable one, Mary thought.

‘I meant no disrespect or injury,’ she said. ‘I think – if you wish it, I would like to be friends.’

‘Good! Then you’ll come back. You have to finish the book, you know.’

Mary looked at him suspiciously. He looked quite pleased with himself. Had he set a trap for her?

‘Mr Aikens, I am Anne de Bourgh’s guest. I promised I would stay with her, and it has hardly been more than a month and a half, and they believe in long visits here. I can scarcely run off. . . .’

Run off. Good God. He wasn’t asking her to elope, was he? She set down her teacup with a shaking hand so that it rattled in its saucer.

‘What is going on here?’

Lady Catherine stood in the doorway to the parlour, the housekeeper hovering behind her, as were the butler and the two footmen. Mr Aikens stood hastily and for
not a gentleman
made a quite credible bow.

‘Ma’am, your servant,’ he said. ‘Thomas Aikens, ma’am. You must be Lady Catherine.’

She glared at him sourly. Now the housekeeper and the footmen stood aside and Anne came to stand next to her mother, looking from one to the other in fright. Lady Catherine spoke up icily.

‘What do you mean by bursting into my house and speaking with Miss Bennet?’

Mary stood. ‘We’re friends, Lady Catherine. I met Mr Aikens when I stayed with my sister at Pemberley this spring. He came to resc – visit me.’

‘Impertinent girl! Have I not expressly told you that I will not permit you to entertain your suitors in this house?’

Mary reddened. What would Mr Aikens think of Lady Catherine’s accusation? She would not cry. She would not cry. But I will not apologize either, she thought firmly, and clamped her lips shut. She was not a servant girl. She might not be one of the
ton
, but she was a respectable young lady and she could have visitors if she wished. Mr Aikens made as if to speak, but she interrupted before he could come to her defence.

‘I can see that I have angered you, Lady Catherine,’ she began. Indeed she could. Lady Catherine was not as pettish as she was usually when Mary put her out of sorts. She was angry. This must be how she had been when she came to see Lizzy, Mary thought. ‘But I was not aware that as Anne’s guest I was to have no other company while I lived here at Rosings. As for Mr Aikens, he is a friend. He is not a suitor.’

Again Mr Aikens opened his mouth to say something, but was again interrupted. Lady Catherine swelled in her anger.

‘You make yourself at home here, Miss Bennet, far too easily. This is not your home. You were given a place at Rosings to be my daughter’s companion, not her equal. You are a Bennet; no Bennet is the equal of a de Bourgh. Your youngest sister is proof of that.’

That was enough. Mary was acutely aware of Mr Aikens standing by mutely, his every suspicion of her position confirmed by Lady Catherine’s hateful speech. She burned with shame but also with anger.

‘Then, Lady Catherine, I will trouble you no more. I will pack my things at once and remove to the parsonage, where I will stay until my parents can send for me.’ Oh dear, she thought. What will Charlotte think?

‘No!’ That was Anne. ‘No! Mother, you must not send her away.’

‘That is enough, Anne. My mind is made up. This girl – this abominable girl – is an ungrateful, spoiled fool. She thought nothing of you, Anne, or your position, only of herself. No doubt she thought of this as a comfortable sinecure and that she would live on my hospitality till the day she died. No! I will not have it.’

‘Oh, that is quite enough,’ said Mr Aikens. ‘Ma’am, how dare you! How dare you insult Miss Bennet, who is nothing but good and kind and even can bear one such as me? You are very wrong, Lady Catherine. You are very wrong about Miss Bennet. I thought that someone who had such stables could be a kindred spirit, but it’s clear to me that you care nothing for your fellow creatures, only for yourself. To treat Miss Bennet thus – if you were a man I would call you out.’

Everyone in the room gasped, possibly even the two footmen. In the stark silence that followed, Mary turned to Anne and curtsied.

‘I am sorry. I wish you to know that on my part, I thought we had become friends. I will miss you, Miss de Bourgh.’

‘I know,’ Anne said, and her weak eyes brightened with tears.

‘Enough!’ thundered Lady Catherine. ‘You will pack immediately, Miss Bennet, and leave this house at once. You will never set foot inside Rosings again. And you, sir, will remove your horse from my stables immediately, and depart, never to return.’

H
OW MARY WAS to carry her trunk by herself down the stairs, let alone to the rectory in the pouring rain, she had no idea, but she must consider one thing at a time. She set to work packing her belongings neatly and carefully, placing the book and her small things on top of her few clothes. Then she closed the trunk and looked around her in the empty room. It had become comfortable, even welcoming, but now that she was forced ignobly from it, she could see that the striped wallpaper was dingy and grey, and that there was an air of must that no pomander ball could disguise.

She pressed a key on the piano so quietly that it made scarcely a sound. She could hardly believe she had just begun to play again, after so many months.

There was such a feeling of unsettlement in the pit of her stomach that it took her a moment to identify it as fear. She was frightened. Where would it end? Where could she live? Her parents were growing old. Longbourn would soon pass to Mr Collins and Charlotte. If she did not marry, would she wander from small room to small room like this one until she died?

How could I have thought that this was my life? she asked herself. She had been frightened, that was all. She was frightened by Pemberley and the life Lizzy led there. It was a life of great consequence, but it was not for Mary. And so when the chance came to live in a small room she chose that instead. But a small room, even in a great house, was much too confining. I do not want much, she thought, but even a cloistered nun would find Rosings confining. It was not just the room, it was the box that Lady Catherine was determined to put her in, sitting on the lid until Mary inconvenienced her no more. Mary had not liked the fact that Mr Aikens had thought he should come to rescue her, and little did she like his seeing her humiliation at the hands of Lady Catherine, but he had at least known what she had wilfully closed her eyes to: just because she was not meant for a great life, it did not mean she was meant for a small life.

She was meant to live one life only – her own. Mary looked around the barren little room and shook her head. When she spoke it was out loud, and the room gave back a dusty little echo.

‘I have been a fool, as great a fool as any when I was determined to be known for my singing and playing and my sermons. At least this time I have inconvenienced no one but myself.’

That was not quite true. She was now about to inconvenience Charlotte and Mr Collins, once she could work out how to get her trunk downstairs. Mary looked at the little bell pull next to the door. She had never used it; she had known even then that although she was one step above servant she could not summon one of the housemaids as if she were a member of the household. This was her last hour at Rosings, however, and she could not carry her trunk by herself. Surely she could call upon
one
footman. Lady Catherine would begrudge it, but Lady Catherine begrudged the air she breathed, and there was little Mary could do about that.

She pulled the tasselled rope. It promptly broke off in her hand. Mary stared at it, and laughed out loud. She gathered up her gloves and shawl and small reticule and went off to find a servant.

NEITHER LADY CATHERINE nor Anne was there to see her go. Mary was let out by the side door near the stables, where a cart waited for her, drawn by a fat and patient farmhorse that shook the rain from its blinkers. One of the men carried her trunk, threw it in to the back of the cart and helped Mary on to the seat next to the driver. He grinned kindly at her.

‘Like the good Lord decided on another flood, eh, miss?’ he said. He clucked to the horse and slapped the wet reins against the animal’s hindquarters. The cart rumbled forward. Mary held on with one hand and pulled her bonnet over her eyes. Her head was soon soaked. The rain was unrelenting.

‘The Lord gave us a rainbow,’ she said but she didn’t think he heard. She heard wet hoofbeats and looked back. There was Hyperion, tossing his head against the rain. Mr Aikens’s coat was draped over the horse’s flank. He pushed the horse up next to the cart. His expression was serious, and Mary felt dreadful once more that he had to see her in exile. What was more, her nose was probably bright red and her hair hanging in lank strands under her wilting bonnet.

‘Miss Bennet, where will you go?’ he called out.

‘To my cousin, Mr Collins,’ she replied. It would be the stuff of embarrassment, but it was her only option. ‘And thence to Longbourn.’

‘I will escort you there,’ he said, and fell in beside them, the spirited Hyperion jogging light-footed even in the muck of the road next to the plodding farmhorse.

Mr Aikens was one of that sort who can talk to anyone. He was soon in deep conversation with the driver over the carthorse and its breeding, Hyperion’s own bloodlines, and the general merits of the English horse compared to horses of other countries. The two discussed matters of founder in the hoofs, and horse draughts and colic while the rain hammered down and Mary despaired of her bonnet, her gown, her slippers, and her trunk, for no doubt it was drenched in the back of the cart. There was no help for the situation, however, and despite her despair over her things, her heart was becoming light. It was as if Rosings had oppressed her spirit without her even being aware of it, so that leaving Rosings, even though it meant she must bear Mr Collins next, was the best thing she had ever done. She would miss Anne, though. They had become friends. Well, perhaps I have given her the strength to be herself and she can stand up to her mother’s wishes, Mary thought. She knew better, however, than to place any dependence upon Anne’s strength. The poor girl had had too many years in her mother’s house to suddenly straighten up under her thumb. She will always have my best wishes, Mary thought. And I think I will have hers. Perhaps we will meet later and can be friends again.