The Unexpected Miss Bennet (9 page)

‘There you are,’ said Mr Aikens. He bowed, and Mary and Lizzy rose and curtsied to him. He wore an evening coat on this occasion, and his boots had had the mud knocked off them, but they were the same boots. Out of the corner of her eye Mary saw Lizzy hide a smile, and hoped the young man did not see. He would think she was mocking him, but Mary knew Lizzy and recognized her appraisal of his easy manner.

‘How do you do, Mr Aikens?’ Lizzy said. ‘How is your business in town?’

‘Very well, thank you,’ he said. ‘I cannot think a day better spent than in riding about the countryside and then attending a ball in the evening.’

‘To many it would be rather tiring,’ Mary put in, meaning to add that she approved of such activity when so many others would choose indolence, but she could not finish the rest of her thought before he interrupted.

‘Not at all! I find it invigorating. A fellow would rather fall asleep after a day inside at cards or conversation. It makes me very low to have nothing to do and only to sit about with merely a modicum of exercise.’

As that had been the pattern of much of the ladies’ day there was an awkward pause. Mary was struck by the thought, not previously entertained, that perhaps her unquietness of spirit came about because she had too little to do. Before she could explore the idea further, Mr Aikens turned to Lizzy.

‘Mrs Darcy, would you think me very forward if I asked you to dance?’

Lizzy looked at first surprised, then she smiled. ‘I would not think you forward at all, but you see, I am keeping my sister company, and I am waiting to stand up with Mr Darcy when he is finished dancing with his sister.’

‘Of course. I had heard you were a capital dancer, and I thought it would be great fun to have one dance.’

Lizzy thanked him for the compliment. Mary kept her attention out at the swirl of dancers, the women’s gowns intermingling with the sombre black coats of the men in a most mesmerizing fashion. It doesn’t matter, she thought. I do not like him and he does not like me. If Jane were here he would fall in love with her. As it is, he is in love with Lizzy, of course. And if she dares to mention that he could dance with me as second best I shall . . . I shall . . .

She didn’t finish the thought.

‘Miss Bennet?’ he said. ‘Then perhaps you will do me the pleasure?’

Mary’s mouth opened and she was conscious of heat rising into her cheeks. ‘I—’ she began faintly, but once again he did not let her finish.

‘I know that you don’t usually dance, but that is because you play,’ he said. ‘Except here you are not playing, and not dancing, and so . . . ?’

He looked at her very earnestly. Mary looked at Lizzy for help. Her sister nodded the tiniest bit. Mary grabbed on to all of her courage and mumbled an assent.

‘Good!’ He took her hand. ‘Just in time, for this dance is ending and we have time to find our positions for the next.’

It had been so long since she had danced that she was a bit stiff at first, but she soon felt at ease with the familiar music. She was not permitted to manage the figures with more comfort for long. Mr Aikens danced much as he did anything, without stopping and with a great enthusiasm. Mary found herself alternately laughing and scandalized at his performance. Everyone would be looking at them! Soon others in their set were laughing as well, and all of the couples swung their partners with abandon. Mary could almost not keep up but the fun was infectious. Years of reserve were broken down in minutes of lively music. Mary breathed hard at the end of the dance, and she curtsied to his bow with a happy smile as the musicians ended with a flourish. Mr Aikens clapped happily, and all of the couples laughed and clapped as well. One young lady opposite Mary, her complexion roses on milk and her brown curls dishevelled, said to Mary, ‘La! I have such a stitch in my side! What fun!’

Mary could only agree while at the same time marvelling. Dancing with a young man, and conversing with another young lady! Perhaps this was why people enjoyed rather than endured assemblies and balls.

Mr Aikens took her by the hand. ‘Capital!’ he said. He smiled at her. ‘Hyperion didn’t lie, you see.’

‘Hyperion! Your horse tells you whom to dance with?’

Mr Aikens grinned. ‘Oh, remember, he is just a dumb animal to whom God has not granted speech. But he whispers it to me, like this.’ The last two words were spoken straight into her ear in a whisper, as Mr Aikens dropped his head and put his lips close to her ear. Mary stood straight, rigid with shock at the feel of his warm breath. She could scarcely look at him, as the next dance started straight away, the warmth of the exercise not accounting for the colour in her cheeks.

She hardly knew what to do with herself then. The dancing began again and she took his hand, conscious of his strong fingers around her hand. He tightened his grip as they swung through the steps and a little bit of the abandon she had sought came to her. Mary was conscious of her hair flying free around her face and her gown making each turn a small dance in itself. At the end of that dance she curtsied hurriedly and almost ran back to Lizzy before he could make her dance another.

Lizzy had gone. Their seats had been taken by another couple and she stopped in bemusement as they looked up at her with surprise, and, she thought, some disfavour. Mary curtsied again, stiffly, and made her way to a small anteroom with as much decorum as she could muster.

She sat at the pretty little window seat, telling herself she needed some air. Where had Lizzy gone? She craned her neck to see her in the narrow view she had of dancing in the ballroom. Couples swirled by the doorway, but none of them revealed Lizzy. She calmed a little, wondering why she had reacted so strongly to Mr Aikens’s partnering. It was hardly a liberty, to whisper something in a friend’s ear – except that they were not friends, only acquaintances, having just been introduced. He was certainly lively, but not indecorous. She shivered a little at the memory of his whisper at her ear. She stood and took a deep breath. She resolved to go back into the ballroom and when they crossed paths again she would simply say nothing about it. It’s not a lie of commission, she thought. It will do us both a favour, just to say nothing of it ever again, for he would be embarrassed to find out how much he embarrassed me, and I would not want to make him think ill of himself.

Mary ventured back into the ballroom and was enveloped in heat and light and music all at once. Someone came up and grabbed her sleeve, laughing. It was Georgiana.

‘Mary! I saw you dancing with the alarming Mr Aikens,’ she said, her expression bright. ‘He dances as if he were riding to hounds. I thought I would have a fall at the fence.’

So he had danced with Georgiana too. Mary hid her pang.

‘He was most energetic,’ she agreed. ‘Where is my sister?’

‘Oh, they are in conversation with Mr Grey.’ She nodded in their direction. ‘This is such a wonderful night. I have danced almost all the dances so far, and this time my brother has not hovered over me. I think it is Lizzy’s doing – she has made him forget his fears.’

Or at the least not act on them, Mary thought, remembering Darcy’s still expression. She was almost about to ask Georgiana what Darcy had to fear about her dancing with a young man when a shadow passed over the young girl’s face. ‘I should not be exasperated with him,’ she said. ‘He is worried, and he has reason to be. It’s just – he doesn’t have to fear for me any more. Mary, sometimes I think he doesn’t know how much I’ve grown up.’

Mary was about to venture the opinion that brothers rarely do know about their sisters, when she remembered that she had no brothers of her own to compare. At the Lucases, she knew that Maria and Charlotte’s brothers took no more notice of their sisters than they did of their mother. Yet Darcy did not seem so careless. It was all confusing. Men were brothers, gentlemen, fathers – all so commonplace, yet one knew very little of them at all.

She heard a familiar voice rise up in indistinct conversation over the general commotion of dancing, music, and laughter. Both she and Georgiana looked over at Mr Aikens, standing with a group of young men, laughing in rowdy tones.

The music finished with a flourish and there was much clapping and general cheer. Then in the din a small bell chimed, and the company began to file in to supper. Mary found a seat at a table next to her sister and family, but was conscious again of Mr Aikens at a table near them, deep in conversation with the others. As luck would have it they sat with their backs to each other, and Mary found it highly distracting to be so near him.

‘So have you come to an opinion about this ball and its merits compared to those at Meryton?’ Lizzy asked Mary.

‘I think a ball is very like a ball anywhere,’ she replied. Lizzy’s expression was merry.

‘Come now, Mary, I cannot believe you. You danced the liveliest set of them all. Surely this ball is better than any of those in Meryton?’

‘But they are the same,’ Mary insisted.
It is I who am different
. She went on, ‘But I don’t think we look for variety in our entertainment. If that is the sole purpose we quickly become jaded.’ Mary paused, trying to collect her thoughts. ‘I wonder whether balls should not always be the same, so that they become as comfortable and familiar as anything else.’ Then a person would not have to build them up so, whether in anticipation or dread. It would just be a ball, and one could enjoy the dancing and the company.

‘Well, I think they are great fun,’ Georgiana declared. ‘And if this one seems no different from the others in your experience, it is different in mine, if only because my brother has decided to let me dance.’ She gave him a look full of impudence.

Darcy raised a brow at his sister. ‘You have Lizzy to thank for that, Georgiana. She persuaded me that locking you up in the tower as you deserve would only give you delusions of persecution. Henceforth I ignore you for your own good.’

The whole table laughed at their teasing, and Mary felt a nudge at her back.

‘I beg your pardon,’ Mr Aikens said. He turned around and put his arm over the back of his chair most familiarly. ‘But I could not let your opinion of this ball colour your opinion of all of them.’ His eyes crinkled in a smile. ‘This is the best one, for that is the way of it – they are always the best, until the next time.’ He paused for effect. ‘But no ball, no matter the music or the dancing or the pretty girls’ – he made sure to look at all of them each in turn, Mary too – ‘can compare to riding to hounds on Christmas morning!’

He was booed good-naturedly by all who heard him, and even Darcy took part in the teasing. Mary found herself laughing with the others.

IT WAS LATE when they made their way back home to Pemberley. A ghostly half-moon was shrouded by thin clouds as the tired horses carried them back at a solid trot. When they reached the door and the footmen handed them out, one by one, Mary was so tired that she stumbled down a step. But with a strong hand the footman helped her up and she thanked him in a small voice.

It was hard to resist the urge simply to tumble into bed. Instead, Mary unpinned her hair and undressed, letting the maid help her as she sleepily pulled on her long comfortable nightdress. As she fell into bed, she thought that Mr Aikens was wrong. This ball was the best and no other party to follow would ever surpass it. She fell asleep to the memory of his hand holding hers, his warm breath, and the way he smiled at her at dinner.

For once, Mary Bennet had the attention of a most unsuitable suitor.