Читать книгу The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet - Колин Маккалоу, Colleen McCullough - Страница 5

TWO

All save the Pemberley party had gone before the beginning of December, anxious to be home in plenty of time for a Christmas spent with children and loved ones. This was especially true of Jane, who loathed being away from Bingley Hall for as many as one night, except for visits to Pemberley, fairly close at hand.

“She is increasing yet again,” said Elizabeth to Mary with a sigh.

“I know I am not supposed to be aware of such things, Lizzie, but can’t someone tell brother Charles to plug it with a cork?”

The crimson surged into Elizabeth’s face; she put both her hands to her cheeks and gaped at her spinster sister. “Mary! How — how — oh, how do you know about — about — and how can you be so indelicate?”

“I know because I have read every book in this library, and I am tired of delicacy about subjects that lie so close to our female fates!” said Mary with a snap. “Lizzie, surely you can see that these endless pregnancies are killing poor Jane? Why, brood mares have a better life! Eight living children and four either lost at five months or stillborn! And the tally would be larger if Charles did not sail to the West Indies for a year every so often. If she is not prolapsed, she ought to be. Has it escaped your notice that those she has miscarried or borne dead have all been after the living ones? She is worn out!”

“Dearest Mary, you must not speak so crudely! Truly it is the height of impropriety!”

“Rubbish. No one is here save you and me, and you are my most beloved sister. If we cannot be frank, what is the world coming to? It seems to me that no one cares about a woman’s health or welfare. If Charles does not find a way to have his pleasure without causing Jane to increase so frequently, then perhaps he should take a mistress. Immoral women do not seem to increase.” Mary looked brightly interested. “I ought to find some man’s mistress and ask her how she avoids babies.”

Speech utterly failed Elizabeth, so mortified and at a loss that she could do nothing but stare at this apparition, no more her young sister than some female out of the hedgerows. Was there perhaps some gross peculiarity in Mama’s ancestry that had suddenly come out in Mary? Plug it with a cork! Then from a time far away and a place long gone, her sense of humour came to Elizabeth’s rescue; she burst into laughter, laughed until tears streamed down her face.

“Oh, Mary, I do not even begin to know you!” she said when she was able. “Pray assure me that you do not say such things in other company!”

“I do not,” said Mary with an impenitent grin. “I just think them. And confess it, Lizzie, don’t you think the same?”

“Yes, of course I do. I love Jane with all my heart, and it grieves me to see her health declining for no better reason than the lack of a cork.” Her lips quivered. “Charles Bingley is the dearest man, but, like all men, selfish. It is not even that he is trying for a son — they have seven already.”

“Odd, is it not? You bearing girls, Jane boys.”

What had happened to Mary? Where was the distressingly narrow and imperceptive girl of Longbourn days? Could people change so much? Or was this dangerous emancipation from female constrictions always there? What had inspired her to sing when she could neither hold a note nor keep a tune nor regulate the volume of her voice? Why had she pined for Mr Collins, surely the most unworthy object of any woman’s love ever put upon the earth? Questions to which Elizabeth could find no answers. Except that now she could better understand Charlie’s affection for his Aunt Mary.

A huge guilt washed over her; she, no less than Fitz, had thoughtlessly sentenced Mary to the caretaking of Mama, a task that, given Mama’s age, could well have lasted another seventeen years. They had all expected it would last a minimum of thirty-four years! Which would have made Mary fifty-five when it ended — oh, thank God it had come to an end now, while Mary had some hope of carving a life for herself!

Perhaps, she thought, it is not wise to isolate young women as Mary had been isolated. That she possessed some intelligence had been generally accepted in the family, though Papa had sneered at its direction, between the books of sermons and the gloomily moral works she had chosen to read as a girl. But had that been forced upon Mary? Elizabeth wondered. Would Papa have given her a free rein in his own library? No, he would not. And Mary had trotted out her pedantic observations upon life because she had no other way of gaining attention from the rest of us. Maybe the singing was a way to gain our attention too.

For a long time now I have looked back upon my childhood and girlhood at Longbourn as the happiest years of my life; we were so close, so merry, so secure. Because of the last, that security, we forgave Mama her idiocies and Papa his sarcastic attitude. But Jane and I shone the brightest, and were well aware of it. The Bennet sisters were layered: Jane and I considered the most beautiful and promising; Kitty and Lydia empty-headed jesters; and Mary — the middle child — neither one thing nor the other. I can see shades of that Mary in this one; she is still a merciless critic of frailties, still contemptuous of material things. But oh, how she has changed!

“What do you remember of our years at Longbourn?” Elizabeth asked, seeking answers.

“Feeling a misfit, chiefly,” said Mary.

“Oh, a misfit! How awful! Were you at all happy?”

“I suppose so. Certainly I did not repine. I think I was absorbed in a goodness I could not see in you or Jane, or in Kitty and Lydia. No, do not look alarmed! I am not condemning any of you, but rather myself. I thought you and Jane were obsessed with making rich marriages, while Kitty and Lydia were too undisciplined, too wild. I modelled my own conduct on the books I read — how dreadfully prosaic I must have been! Not to mention boring, for the books I read were boring.”

“Yes, you were prosaic and boring, though it is only now that I understand why. We left you no other recourse, the four of us.”

“The pustules and the tooth did not help, I confess. I saw them as a punishment, yet I had no idea what my crime had been.”

“No crime, Mary. Just unfortunate afflictions.”

“It is you I have to thank for ridding me of them. Who could ever have believed that something as banal as a small teaspoon of sulphur every two days would cure the spots, and that extraction of the tooth would allow the others to grow into place perfectly?” She got up from the breakfast table, smiling. “Where can the gentlemen be? I had thought Fitz wanted to make an early start.”

“Charlie’s fault. He went ratting with Jem Jenkins, and Fitz has gone to find him.”

The queries swarmed inside Mary’s head, all of them crying for satisfaction. Ask, and ye shall know, she thought.

“What kind of man is Fitz?”

Elizabeth blinked at such bluntness. “After nineteen years of marriage, sister, I confess I do not know. He has such — such exalted ideas of who and what the Darcys are. Perhaps that is inevitable in a family that can trace itself back to the Conquest and before. Though I have sometimes wondered why, given this centuries-old pre-eminence, there has never been a title.”

“Pride, I expect,” said Mary. “You are not happy.”

“I had thought to be, but entering the married state is to commence a voyage into the unknown. I suppose I thought that, given Fitz’s love for me, we would settle to an idyllic life at Pemberley, our children around us. But I was not aware of Fitz’s zeal, his restlessness, his ambitions. His secrets. There are elements in his nature that elude me.” She shivered. “And I am not sure I wish to know what those elements are.”

“It grieves me to see you so blighted, Lizzie, but I am glad we have had this opportunity to talk. Is there a definite element to Fitz that worries you most?”

“Ned Skinner, I would have to answer. That is a very strange friendship.”

Mary frowned. “Who is Ned Skinner?”

“If you had come to Pemberley, you would know. He is Fitz’s general manager, overseer, factotum. Not his steward — Matthew Spottiswoode is steward. Ned travels a lot for Fitz, but what he does exactly, I do not know. He lives in a beautiful cottage on the estate, has servants of his own, and his own stables.”

“You called it a friendship.”

“It is, a very close one. That is the mystery. For Ned is not Fitz’s equal in society, which under ordinary circumstances would disbar him from friendship. Yet they are close.”

“Is he a gentleman?”

“He speaks like one, yet is not one.”

“Why have you never mentioned him?”

“I suppose the subject has never come up. I have not had any opportunity in the past to speak with you so openly.”

“Yes, I know. Mama was always there, or Charlie. How long has Fitz been close with this Ned Skinner?”

“Oh, since before he married me. I remember him as a young man lurking in the background, looking at Fitz with adoration. He is a little younger than I —”

Elizabeth cut off whatever else she might have been going to say when Fitz walked in, bringing a rush of cold air with him. Still a fine-looking man, Mary thought, even at fifty. Everything a young, sheltered female could have wanted in a husband, from circumstances to presence. Yet she remembered Jane’s saying once, with a sigh, that Lizzie had not loved him as she, Jane, loved her dear Mr Bingley. A true Jane statement, holding no condemnation or disapproval; just something about Lizzie’s setting eyes on the glories of Pemberley and thinking much better of Mr Darcy thereafter. When he had renewed his addresses in the wake of Lydia’s scandalous elopement, Lizzie had accepted him.

“Mary, a word before I go,” Darcy said, then turned to his wife. “Are you ready, my dear?”

“Yes. Did you find Charlie?”

“Naturally. Encumbered with a dozen rats.”

Elizabeth laughed. “I hope he washes his hands. I want no fleas in the coach.”

“He has gone to do so. After you, my dear Mary.” And he stood aside for her with his customary chill courtesy, thence to follow her to the library, a genuine one stocked with thousands of books.

“Sit down,” he said, going to the business side of the desk with the calm authority of one whose purse had paid for it and all the rest of Shelby Manor. Knees suddenly weak, Mary sank onto the client’s chair and faced him, chin up. Just because her knees gave way did not mean her backbone would!

For a moment Fitz said nothing more, simply gazed at her with a trace of puzzlement. Then, “How like Elizabeth you have become. It was the pustules, of course. Fortunate that they did not pock your skin.” The physical niceties over, he embarked upon her other deficiencies. “I never heard a worse voice, nor one more prone to give vent in song. My hair still stands on end at the memory.”

“You should have informed me of its lack, brother.”

“It was not my place.” He folded his hands together in front of him, their pose indicating their owner’s indifference. “So, Mary, your duty is done.” The cold black eyes bored into hers, gradually taking on a tinge of uncertainty when she neither withered nor shrank. “At the time that your father died, Charles Bingley and I decided that you should be adequately recompensed for your willingness to stay with your mother. Your father was not in a position to leave you anything, preferring to bequeath his unentailed capital to Lydia, in greater need. You, he understood, would put Charles Bingley and me in your debt by caring for your mother at a distance remote from the North.”

“Insulate you from her idiocies, you mean,” said Mary.

He looked taken aback, then shrugged. “Quite so. For which service, we have funded you to the tune of five hundred pounds per year. Eight and a half thousand pounds in all.”

“It is certainly true that lady’s companions are not so well paid as I have been,” said Mary tonelessly.

“However, Shelby Manor must now be sold in the same manner as it was bought — whole and entire, including the books in the library and the services of the Jenkins family. A buyer has been found already, not least because of the Jenkinses. I must therefore uproot you, sister, for which I am very sorry.”

“Lip service,” she said, snorting.

A soft chuckle escaped him. “The years may not have wrought destruction upon your face or figure, but they have coated your tongue with more acid than syrup.”

“For which, blame the exhaustion of a religion picked to bare white bones, and the enticements of far too much leisure. Once I had Mama properly trained — which was not difficult — the hours of my days sat upon me heavily. To change the metaphor, you might say that the creaking gate of my mind received lubrication from the contents of this excellent library, not to mention the company of your son. He has been a bonus.”

“I’m glad he’s good for something.”

“Let us not quarrel about Charlie, though I take leave to tell you that every day you do not appreciate his quality is yet one more day proves you a fool. As to me, I, myself, what do you propose doing with them now their task is ended?”

His colour had risen under her scathing words, but he answered civilly. “You should come to us at Pemberley, or to Jane at Bingley Hall — your choice, I imagine, will depend upon whether you prefer girls or boys.”

“At either place it would be an empty existence.”

The corners of his mouth turned down. “Have you any kind of alternative?” he asked, sounding wary.

“With over eight thousand pounds, a measure of independence.”

“Explain.”

“I would prefer to live on my own.”

“My dear Mary, ladies of your station cannot live alone!”

“Whyever not? At thirty-eight, I have said my last prayers, brother. Take myself an Almeria Finchley? Pah!”

“You don’t look your thirty-eight years, and you know it. Shelby Manor has sufficient mirrors to show you. Is it Lady Menadew you wish to join?”

“Kitty? I would kill her in a month, and she me!”

“Georgiana and the General have housed Mrs Jenkinson ever since Anne de Bourgh died. She would be pleased to keep you company in — what? A commodious cottage, perhaps?”

“Mrs Jenkinson sniffles and sighs. Her tic douloureux is at its worst in winter, when it is harder to elude a companion.”

“Then some other suitable female! You cannot live alone.”

“No female, suitable or unsuitable, from any source.”

“What do you want?” he demanded, exasperated.

“I want to be useful. Just that. To have a purpose. I want self-esteem of the proper kind. I want to stand back and look at something I have done with pride and a sense of accomplishment.”

“Believe me, Mary, you have been useful, and will be useful again — at Pemberley or Bingley Hall.”

“No,” she said, meaning it.

“Be sensible, woman!”

“When I was a girl, I had no sense. It was not inculcated in me because I had no example to follow, including my parents as well as my sisters. Even Elizabeth, who was the cleverest, had no sense. She did not need sense. She was charming, witty, and full of sensibility. But to have sensibility is not to have sense,” said Mary, fairly launched. “Nowadays, brother Fitz, I have so much sense that you cannot bully or cow me. To have sense is to know what one wants from life, and I want to have a purpose. Though I admit,” she ended rather pensively, “that I am not quite sure yet what my purpose will be. What it will not be is to live with either Lizzie or Jane. I would be underfoot and a nuisance.”

He gave up. “You have a month,” he said, getting to his feet. “The bill of sale for Shelby Manor will be signed then, and your future must be decided. Banish all thought of living alone! I will not permit it.”

“What gives you the right to dictate to me?” she asked, spots of colour burning in her cheeks, her eyes glowing purple.

“The right of a brother-in-law, the right of your senior in years, and the right of a man owning sense. My public position as a Minister of the Crown, if not my private standing as a Darcy of Pemberley, makes it impossible for me to tolerate eccentric or otherwise-crazed relatives.”

“What will eight and a half thousand pounds buy me?” she countered.

“A dwelling I will happily find you, provided that you live in it with proper decorum and propriety. In the country rather than the city — Derbyshire or Cheshire.”

“Hah! Where you can keep an eye on your eccentric or otherwise-crazed sister-in-law! I thank you, no. Is the eight and a half thousand pounds mine, or is it put in trust for me? I want a direct answer, for I will find out the truth anyway!”

“The money is yours, safely invested in the four-percents. Kept invested, it will give you an income of about three hundred and fifty pounds a year,” Fitz said, having no idea how to deal with this termagant. On the outside she was so like Elizabeth — did that mean Elizabeth harboured a termagant too?

“Where is it lodged?”

“With Patchett, Shaw, Carlton and Wilde in Hertford.”

The look in her eyes gave him fresh pause: about to go to the door, he delayed. “You will kindly allow me to conduct your business, sister,” he said, voice adamant. “I forbid you to do it yourself. You are a gentleman’s daughter, allied to my own family. It would not please me were you to defy me. In the new year I expect you to give me a satisfactory answer.”

Apparently put in her place, she followed him out of the room and down the hall to the front door, where Lizzie and Charlie had assembled, together with Hoskins, the dour woman who maided Elizabeth with fierce possessiveness.

Mary took Charlie’s face between her hands, smiling into his dark grey eyes tenderly. A beauty almost epicene, yet below it lay no feminine streak at all, if his self-absorbed father had only one-tenth of the brain the world accorded him to see it. Do not despise Charlie, Fitz! she said silently, kissing Charlie’s smooth cheek. In him lies more of a man than you will ever be.

Then it was Lizzie’s turn, and the party sorted itself out; Darcy astride a dappled grey horse as proud as Lucifer, Lizzie and Charlie in the coach with heated bricks, fur rugs, books, a basket of refreshments, and Hoskins. Hand up in a wave, Mary stood on the top step until the lumbering vehicle, its six gigantic horses making light of their load, disappeared around the bend all drives had, and so out of her life. For the time being, at any rate.

Mrs Jenkins was weeping; Mary eyed her in exasperation.

“No more tears, I beg you!” she said severely. “Shelby Manor will go to Sir Kenneth Appleby, I am sure of it, and Lady Appleby will prove as pleasant a mistress as he a master. Now get my own boxes from the attic and start preparing my belongings for packing. Not a crease, not a speck of dust, nothing chipped or dirty. And send Young Jenkins for the chaise. I am going out.”

“To Meryton, Miss Mary?”

“Heavens, no!” cried Miss Mary, actually laughing! And it so soon after her mother’s death! “I am going to Hertford. You may expect me home for tea. Home!” she repeated, and laughed again. “I do not have a home. How emancipating!”

Not having much to do, Mr Robert Wilde got up from his chair and moved to the window, there to gaze out at the muted bustle of the high street. No one had asked him to draw up a will or consulted him about some matter requiring the deftness of a lawyer’s touch, and a natural industry had long since reduced the assortment of pleated, red-taped files to perfect readiness. As today was not market day, the view offered him more pedestrians than wagons and carts, though there went Tom Naseby in his gig, and the Misses Ramsay perched upon their plodding ponies.

There he is again! Who the devil is that fellow? asked Mr Wilde of himself. Hertford was a very small capital of a very small county, so the stranger had been noticed by all and sundry — black–avised and big as a bear was the verdict of all who saw him. Sometimes he was mounted on a massive thoroughbred whose leggy lines contradicted the rider’s low appearance and garb, or else he was leaning against a wall with muscular arms folded, as now. The mien of a villain, Mr Wilde decided. His under-clerk had informed him that the fellow was staying at the Blue Boar, spoke to no one, had sufficient money to buy the best dinners, and had no inclination to avail himself of one of Hertford’s few trollops. Not an ill-looking villain, nor a very old one. Yet who was he?

A chaise came down the slight hill, drawn by two pretty greys, with Young Jenkins riding postilion: the Shelby Manor equipage, a familiar sight. Miss Mary Bennet was in town to shop or visit. When it stopped in front of his door Mr Wilde was surprised; though he managed all Shelby Manor’s business, he never had been permitted to meet the beautiful Miss Bennet, though he had seen her often enough. Mr Darcy had called on his way north to Pemberley — the last of several visits — but had said nothing about sending Miss Bennet to see him. Yet lo! here she was! She emerged clad in black from head to foot, her glorious hair quite hidden by a black cap and hideous bonnet. Her handsome face wore its customary composed expression as she trod up the steps to his front door, there to ply its knocker.

“Miss Bennet, sir,” said his clerk, ushering her in.

By this time Mr Wilde was standing the correct distance away, his hand out to touch her fingertips, all the shake propriety allowed. “My condolences upon the death of your mother, Miss Bennet,” he said. “I was at the funeral, of course, but did not condole in person.”

“I thank you for your sentiments, Mr Wilde.” She sat down stiffly. “You look a little young for a senior partner.”

“I doubt there ever was a Patchett,” he said with a smile, “Mr Shaw and Mr Carlton are deceased, and my father handed the practice to me a full five years ago. I do assure you, Miss Bennet, that I have served my articles and am fully conversant with a solicitor’s duties.”

This rather unprofessional statement did not thaw the lady’s expression; clearly she was impervious to charm, of which dubious asset Mr Wilde knew he owned much. He coughed an apology.

“You are the custodian of a sum of money due to me, is that correct, sir?”

“Why — er — yes. Forgive me, Miss Bennet, while I find your particulars.” And he ran a hand across a shelf of files marked B until a fat folder caught his attention, was removed. He sat down at his desk, untied its red tape, and perused it. “Eight and a half thousand pounds, invested in the four-percents.”

Tucking her gloved hand back inside her muff, Miss Bennet looked relieved. “How much interest has it accrued?” she asked.

His brows rose; ladies did not usually betray such a vast knowledge of financial matters. Back he went to the papers. “As of last quarter-day, one thousand and five pounds, nineteen shillings, and fourpence,” he said.

“In toto, nine and a half thousand pounds,” she said.

“That is correct, give or take a pound.”

“How long will it take to withdraw it from the Funds?”

“I could not advise that, Miss Bennet,” he said gently.

“No one asked you to, sir. How long?”

“Some weeks. Perhaps the middle of January.”

“That will be satisfactory. Kindly commence the process, Mr Wilde. When my money is free, deposit it in the Hertford bank. You will arrange that I can draw upon it from any bank anywhere in England.” She paused, nodded. “Yes, England will suffice. Scotland, I believe, has its own laws and customs, and Ireland is full of Papists. Wales I regard as a part of England. Further to my needs, sir, I understand that Shelby Manor is already sold, and I must vacate it. It would suit me to vacate before Christmas, rather than after. Kindly find me a small furnished house here in Hertford, and rent it for six months. I will be travelling by next May, and will no longer need a Hertford residence.”

His jaw had dropped; he cleared his throat, about to utter reasonable persuasions, then decided not to bother. If ever he had seen determination writ upon a face, he saw it now in Miss Mary Bennet’s. “With servants?” he asked.

“A married couple, one maid above stairs, a cook and below stairs maid, if you please. I do not intend to entertain, and my needs are simple.”

“And your lady’s companion?” he asked, making notes.

“I will not have one.”

“But — Mr Darcy!” he exclaimed, looking horrified.

“Mr Darcy is not the arbiter of my destiny,” said Miss Bennet, chin out-thrust, mouth a straight line, heavy-lidded eyes anything but sleepy. “I have myself been a dreary female for long enough, Mr Wilde, not to want another foisted on me as a reminder.”

“But you cannot travel unattended!” he protested.

“Why not? I will avail myself of the services of the maids at the various hostelries I patronise.”

“You will provoke gossip,” he said, plucking at straws.

“I care as little for gossip as I do for idleness, and have been prey to both for far too long. I am not a helpless female, sir, though I am sure that you, like Mr Darcy, thus regard all of womankind. If God has seen fit to release me to do His work, then God will be my helpmate in everything, including the attentions of the unworthy and the importunities of men.”

Terrified of so much iron purpose and quite unable to find any argument likely to deflect Miss Bennet from her chosen path, Mr Wilde gave up, only resolving that he would write to Mr Darcy at once. “All shall be done,” he said hollowly.

She rose. “Excellent! Send word to me at Shelby Manor when you have found me a house. What little property I have, Jenkins can move. It will give the poor fellow something to do. With my mother gone, he is rather at a loss for occupations.”

And out she sailed.

Mr Wilde went back to the window in time to see her step into her chaise, her profile through its glass pane as pure and sculpted as a Greek statue. Lord, what a woman! She would petrify Satan. So why, asked Mr Wilde of himself, have I fallen in love with her? Because, he answered himself, I have been half in love with the vision of her for years, and now this one meeting tells me she is unique. Suitable ladies are inevitably boring, and I have, besides, a penchant for mature women. She enchants me!

Oh, what a dance she will lead her husband! No wonder Mr Darcy looked disapproving when he broached the subject of Miss Mary Bennet and her tiny fortune. A fortune not imposing enough to form a decent dowry, nor sufficient, really, for a gentlewoman to exist upon without help. Mr Wilde had gathered that Mr Darcy wished her to retire to Pemberley, but such were very evidently not the lady’s plans. And what did she plan to do with her money, stripped of its potential to earn more? Uninvested, it would not last her into old age. The best alternative for Miss Bennet was marriage, and Mr Wilde very much wanted to be her husband, no matter how frightful the dance she led him. She was a nonpareil — a woman with a mind of her own, and not afraid to speak it.

The chaise drew off; not a minute later, the hulking fellow who had been lounging against a nearby wall was riding his black thoroughbred behind it. Not precisely like a guard or escort, yet somehow tied to it, for all that Mr Wilde suspected its occupant was unaware that she was being followed.

The letter to Mr Darcy had to be written, and immediately; sighing, Mr Wilde seated himself. But before he had dipped his pen in the standish, he had brightened; she would be in town for the winter … Now how did one get around the fact that she would be unchaperoned? No gentleman callers. A man of some resource, Mr Wilde mentally reviewed their mutual acquaintances and resolved that Miss Bennet would be invited to all manner of parties and dinners. Festivities whereat he might attend his awkward beloved.

A nice young man, Mr Robert Wilde, but rather hidebound was Mary’s verdict as the chaise bowled along; one of Fitz’s minions, to be sure, but not subserviently so. Her stomach rumbled; she was hungry, and looked forward to a good tea in lieu of any luncheon. How easy it had been! Authority, that was all it took. And how fortunate that she had an example for her conduct in that master of the art, Fitzwilliam Darcy. Speak in a tone that brooks no argument, and even the Mr Wildes crumble.

The idea must have been there all along, but Mary had not felt its presence until that interview this morning in the library. “What do you want?” Fitz had asked, goaded. And even as she spoke of needing a purpose, of having something useful to do, she had known. If the many eyes of Argus could see into every putrid English corner, then the two humble eyes of his disciple Mary Bennet could bear witness to all the perfidies he wrote about so briefly, and set down what she saw at far greater length than he. I shall write a book, she vowed, but not a three-volume novel about silly girls imprisoned in castle dungeons. I shall write a book about what lies festering in every corner of England: poverty, child labour, below-subsistence wages …

The landscape went by outside, but she did not see it; Mary Bennet was too busy thinking. They set us to embroidering, pasting cut-out pictures on screens or tables, thumping at a pianoforte or twanging at a harp, slopping watercolours on hapless paper, reading respectable books (including three-volume novels), and attending church. And if our circumstances do not permit of such comfort, we scrub, cook, drag coals or wood for the fire, hope for leftovers from the master’s dinner table to eke out our own bread-and-dripping. God has been kind enough to exempt me from drudgery, but He does not need my tapestry chair covers or tasteless pictures. We are His creatures too, and not all of us have been chosen for bearing children. If marriage is not our lot, then something else quite as important must be.

It is men who rule, men who have genuine independence. Not the most miserable wretch of a man has any notion how thankless life is for women. Well, I have thirty-eight years on my plate, and I am done with pleasing men as of this morning. I am going to write a book that will make Fitzwilliam Darcy’s hair stand on end far stiffer than ever it did for my singing. I am going to show that insufferable specimen of a man that dependence on his charity is anathema.

The fire was roaring when she entered the parlour, and Mrs Jenkins came in a moment later with the tea tray.

“Splendid!” said Mary, sitting in her mother’s wing chair without a qualm. “Muffins, fruit cake, apple tarts — I could ask for nothing better. Pray do not bother with dinner, I will have a large tea instead.”

“But your dinner’s a-cooking, Miss Mary!”

“Then eat it yourselves. Has the Westminster Chronicle come?”

“Yes, Miss Mary.”

“Oh, and by the way, Mrs Jenkins, I expect to be gone a week before Christmas. That will give you and Jenkins ample time to set the house in order for the Applebys.”

Bereft of speech, Mrs Jenkins tottered from the room.

Six muffins, two apple tarts and two slices of cake later, Mary drained her fourth cup of tea and opened the thin pages of the Westminster Chronicle. Ignoring the usual ladies’ fare of court pages and obituaries, she turned to the letters, a famous and prominent feature of this highly political newspaper. Ah, there it was! A new letter from Argus. Devouring it avidly, Mary discovered that this time its author was attacking the piecemeal transportation of the Irish to New South Wales.

“They have no food, so they steal it,” said Argus roundly, “and when they are caught, they are sentenced to seven years’ transportation by an English magistrate who knows full well that they will never be able to afford to return home. They have no clothes, so they steal them, and when they are caught, they suffer the same fate. Transportation is as inhuman as it is inhumane, an exile for life far from the soft green meadows of Hibernia. I say to you, Peers of the Lords, Members of the Commons, that transportation is an evil and must stop. As must cease this senseless persecution of the Irish. Not that this evil is confined to Ireland. Our English gaols have been emptied, our own poor indigent felons sent far away. Hogarth would scarce recognise Gin Lane, so denuded is it. I say to you again, Peers of the Lords and Members of the Commons, abandon this cheap solution to our country’s woes! It is as final a solution as the graveyard, and as loathsome. No man, woman or child is so depraved that he or she must be sent into a permanent exile. Seven years? Make it seventy! They will never come home.”

Eyes shining, Mary laid the paper down. Argus’s attention to phenomena like transportation did not thrill her as did his diatribes against poorhouses, workhouses, orphanages, factories and mines, but his fiery passion always inflamed her, no matter what his subject. Nor could the comfortably off ignore him any more; Argus had joined the ranks of the other social crusaders, was read and talked about from the Tweed to Land’s End. A new moral conscience was blossoming in England, partly thanks to Argus.

Why shouldn’t I make a difference too? she asked herself. It was Argus who opened my eyes; from the day I read his first letter, I was converted. Now that I am freed from my duty, I can march forth to do battle against the pernicious ulcers that eat away England’s very flesh. I have heard my nieces and nephews speak to beggars as they would not speak to a stray dog. Only Charlie understands, but it is not his nature to go crusading.

Yes, I will journey to see England’s ills, write my book, and pay to have it published. Publishers pay the ladies who write the three-volume novel, but not the authors of serious works: so said Mrs Rowtree, that time she gave a lecture in the Hertford library. Mrs Rowtree writes three-volume novels and has scant respect for serious books. Those, she informed us, have to be funded by the authors, and the publication process costs about nine thousand pounds. That is almost all I have, but it will see my book published. What matter if, my money exhausted, I turn up on Fitz’s doorstep to claim the shelter he has offered? It will be worth it! But I do not trust Fitz not to think of a way to stop me spending my money if it is invested in the Funds, so I will breathe a sigh of relief when it is safely banked in my name.

“Dearest Charlie,” she wrote to her nephew the next morning, “I am going to write a book! I know that my prose is a poor thing, but I remember once or twice your saying I had a way with words. Not a Dr Johnson or a Mr Gibbon, perhaps, but after reading so many books, I find that I can express my thoughts with ease. The pain of it is the realisation that none of my thoughts thus far has been worthy of commitment to paper. Well, no more! I have a theme would adorn the humblest pen with laurels.

“I am going to write a book. No, dearest boy, not a silly novel in the mode of Mrs Burney or Mrs Radcliffe! This is to be a serious work about the ills of England. That, I think, must be its title: The Ills of England. How much help you have been! Was it not you who said that, before anything can bear fruit, all the research must be done? I know you meant it for the rigours of Prolegomena ad Homerum but for me it entails the inspection of orphanages, factories, poorhouses, mines — a thousand-and-one places where our own English people live in impoverishment and misery for no better reason than that they chose their parents unwisely. Do you remember saying that of the urchins in Meryton? Such a neat aphorism, and so true! Were we offered the chance, would we not all choose kings or dukes for fathers, rather than coal-lumpers or jobless on the Parish?

“How wonderful it would be, were I, busy doing my research, to light upon some awesomely grand personage deep engaged in crime and exploitation? Were I so lucky, I would not flinch from publishing a chapter upon him, complete with his august name.

“When I have assembled all the facts, the notes, the conclusions, I will write my book. Around the beginning of May I will set out on my journey of investigation. Not to London, but to the North. Lancashire and Yorkshire, where, according to Argus, exploitation is most vicious. Mine eyes yearn to see for themselves, for I have lived circumscribed and circumspect, passing the wattle-and-daub hovels in the hedgerows as if they did not exist. For what we see and accept as a part of life when children has not the power to shock us later on.

“By the time that this reaches you at Oxford, I imagine I will have moved to a house in Hertford; believe me when I say that I will not mourn at quitting Shelby Manor. As I write this, the first flakes of snow are falling. How quietly they blanket the world! Would that our human lot were as peaceful, as beautiful. Snow always reminds me of daydreams: ephemeral.

“Do you mean to go to Pemberley at Christmas, or are you staying in Oxford with your tomes? How is that nice tutor, Mr Griffiths? Something your mama said made me think he is more your friend than a strict supervisor. And though I know how fond you are of Oxford, have a thought for your mama. She would dearly love to see you at Pemberley at Christmas.

“Write to me when you have time, and remember to take that restorative tonic I gave you. A spoonful every morning. Also, my dearest Charlie, I am tired of being addressed as Aunt Mary. Now you are eighteen, it seems inappropriate for you to defer to my spinster station by calling me your aunt. I am your friend.

“Your loving Mary.”

Stretching, Mary lifted the pen above her head; oh, that felt better! She then folded the single sheet of tiny script so that it had only one free edge. There in its middle she dropped a blob of bright green wax, taking care not to besmirch it with smoke from the candle. Such a pretty colour, the green! A swift application of the Bennet seal before the wax solidified, and her letter was ready. Let Charlie be the first to know her plans. No, more than that, Mary! said a tiny voice inside her head. Let Charlie be the only one to know.

When Mrs Jenkins bustled in, she handed her missive over. “Have Jenkins take this into Hertford to the post.”

“Today, Miss Mary? He’s supposed to mend the pigsty.”

“He can do that tomorrow. If we’re in for heavy snow, I want my letter safely gone.”

But it was not Jenkins who lodged her letter with the post in Hertford. Grumbling at the prospect of a tediously slow errand, Jenkins decided to drop into the Cat and Fiddle for a quick nip to fortify himself against the cold. There he found that he was not the only patron of the taproom; cosily ensconced in the inglenook was a huge fellow, feet the size of shutters propped upon the hearth.

“Morning,” said Jenkins, wondering who he was.

“And to you, sir.” Down came the feet. “Wind’s coming round to the north — plenty of snow in it, I hazard a guess.”

“Aye, don’t I know it,” said Jenkins, grimacing. “What a day to have to ride to Hertford!”

The landlord came in at the sound of voices, saw who had arrived, and mixed a small mug of rum and hot water. Hadn’t he said as much to the big stranger? If Jenkins has to go out, he will come here first. As Jenkins took the mug, the landlord winked at the stranger and knew he would be paid a crown for a tankard of ale. Queer cove, this one! Spoke like a gentleman.

“Mind if I share the warmth?” Jenkins asked, coming to sit in the inglenook.

“Not at all. I am for Hertford myself,” said the stranger, finishing his tankard of ale. “Is there aught I can do for you there? Save you a trip, perhaps?”

“I have a letter for the post,’ tis my only reason for the journey.” He sniffed. “Old maids and their crotchets! I ought to be fixing the pigsty — nice and close to the kitchen fire.”

“Do the pigsty, man!” said the stranger heartily. “It’s no trouble for me to hand in your note.”

Sixpence and the letter changed hands; Jenkins settled to sip his hot drink with slow relish, while Ned Skinner bore his prize as far as the next good inn, where he hired the parlour.

Only in its privacy did he turn the letter over and see the bright green wax of its seal. Christ almighty, green! What was Miss Mary Bennet about, to use green wax? He broke the seal very carefully, unfolded the sheet, and discovered writing so fine that he had to take it to the window to read it. Giving vent to a huff of exasperation, he had no idea that he was not the first man to suffer this emotion over Miss Mary Bennet. He took a sheet of the landlord’s paper, sat at the desk and began to copy the letter word for word. That took three sheets in his copperplate hand; Ned Skinner had been well schooled. Still, it was done. He picked away every remnant of the green wax, frowning at the landlord’s stick of red. Well, no help for it! Red it would have to be. The blob in place, he swiped his own signet across it in a way that rendered the sender’s identity unintelligible. Yes, it would suffice, he decided; young Charlie was not observant unless his eyes were filled with the ghost of Homer.

Pausing in Hertford only long enough to dispose of the letter, Ned hunched down in the saddle and rode for Pemberley. Out of this Lilliputian southern world at last! Give me Derbyshire any day, he thought. Room to breathe. The snow was beginning to drive rather than fall, and would get worse, but Jupiter’s strength belied his looks, he could forge through a foot and more with Ned up.

Having little to do and nothing save snow to see, Ned turned his mind inward. An interesting woman, Miss Mary Bennet. As like Elizabeth as another pea, and not, he knew now, pea-brained. Addle-pated, yes, but how could she be aught else, given the circumstances of her life? Naive, that was the right word for her. Like a child set loose in a room made of thinnest glass. What might she shatter were she not restrained? If she had selected London for her crusade, all would have been well. But the North was a dangerous place, too close to home for Fitz’s comfort. And the trouble with naiveté allied to cleverness was that it could too easily be transformed to worldly shrewdness. Was Mary Bennet capable of making that leap? I would not bet my all against it, Ned thought. Some of what she had to say to her pretty-boy nephew in her letter was not so much worrying as a nuisance; it meant he would have to keep an eye on her without letting her know that he was keeping an eye on her. Though not, he thought, heaving an inward sigh of relief, until May.

Of course Mary Bennet’s nuisance value could not keep his mind occupied for very long; rigging his muffler to shield his lower face as much as possible, he passed to a more agreeable reverie, one that always made the dreariest, longest journey of little moment: his mind’s eye was filled with the vision of a weeping, toddling little boy suddenly lifted up in a pair of strong young arms; of cuddling against a neck that smelled of sweet soap, and feeling all the grief drain away.

* * *

The snow had isolated Oxford from the North; Charlie could not have gone home for Christmas even had he wanted to. Which he did not. Much as he adored his mother, an advancing maturity had rendered his father less and less tolerable. Of course he knew full well that he, Charlie, was Pater’s chief disappointment, but could do nothing about it. At Oxford he was safe. Yet how, he wondered, gazing at the snowdrifts piled against his walls, can I step into Pater’s shoes? I am no Minister of the Crown, no ardent politician, no conscientious landlord, no force to be reckoned with. All I want is to lead the life of a don, an authority upon some obscure aspect of the Greek epic poets or the early Latin playwrights. Mama understands. Pater never will.

These unhappy thoughts, so familiar and answerless, were banished the moment Owen Griffiths pushed open his study door; Charlie turned from the window, eyes lighting up.

“Oh, the boredom!” he exclaimed. “I’m stuck in the middle of the stuffiest Virgil you can imagine — say that you have a better task for me, Owen!”

“No, young sir, you must unstuff Virgil,” said the Welshman, sitting down. “However, I do have a letter, delayed a month by the snows.” And he held it up, waved it just beyond Charlie’s reach, laughing.

“A plague on you! It is not my fault I lack your inches! Give it to me at once!”

Mr Griffiths handed it over. He was indeed tall, and well built for one who had espoused Academe; the result, he would say unabashedly, of a childhood spent digging holes and chopping wood to help his farmer father. His hair was thick, black and worn rather long, his eyes were dark and his features regular enough to be called handsome. A certain Welsh gloom gave his face a severity beyond his years, which numbered twenty-five, though he had little cause for gloom once Charlie had arrived at Oxford. Mrs Darcy had been searching for a tutor able to share a good house with her son as well as guide him through his in-college studies. All expenses paid, of course, as well as a stipend generous enough to enable the lucky man to send a little money home if his parents were in need of it. The miracle of being chosen from among so many hopeful applicants! A memory that still had the power to deprive Owen of his breath. Nor had it done his academic career any harm to secure this position; the Darcy wealth and influence extended to the upper echelons of power in Oxford’s colleges.

“Odd,” said Charlie, having broken the letter’s seal. “It is Aunt Mary’s handwriting, but the wax isn’t green.” He shrugged. “With so many people at Shelby Manor, perhaps the green wax was all used up.” He bent his head, absorbed now in what his aunt had to say, his growing look of mingled horror and despair giving Owen a pang of apprehension.

“Oh, Lord!” Charlie cried, putting the letter down.

“What is it?”

“A conniption fit — an attack of some feminine peculiarity — I don’t know how to describe it, Owen. Only that Mary — I am to call her plain Mary in future, she says — has well and truly taken the bit between her teeth,” said Charlie. “Here, read.”

“Hmmm” was Owen’s comment. He raised an eyebrow.

“She doesn’t know what is entailed! It will kill her!”

“I doubt that, Charlie, but I see why you’re concerned. It is the letter of a sheltered woman.”

“How could she be aught else than sheltered?”

“Does she have the money for this quest?”

That gave Charlie pause; his face screwed up in the effort of remembering something unconnected to Latin or Greek. “I am not sure, Owen. Mama said she had been provided for, though I fancied she deemed the provision niggardly in view of Mary’s sacrifice. See? She says she is living in Hertford — because Shelby Manor has been sold, I suppose. Oh, it is too bad! Pater could afford a dozen Shelby Manors to house Mary for the rest of her life!” He wrung his hands together, anguished. “I don’t know her circumstances! And why didn’t I ask? Because I couldn’t face a scene with my father! I’m a coward. A weakling! Just as Pater says. What is wrong with me, that I cannot face him?”

“Come, Charlie, don’t be so hard on yourself. I think you cannot face him because you know it will accomplish nothing, perhaps even make a situation worse. As soon as the post is moving again, write to your mother. Ask her what Mary’s situation is. She is not travelling until May, so you have a little time.”

Charlie’s brow cleared; he nodded. “Yes, you’re right. Oh, poor Mary! Where does she get these zany ideas? Write a book!”

“If her letter is anything to go by, she gets her ideas from Argus,” Owen said. “I admire the man immensely, but he is no friend of the Tories or your father. I would keep this from him if you can. It never crossed my mind that ladies read the Westminster Chronicle, least of all your aunt.” His eyes twinkled. “Whom, I note, you have no difficulty in calling plain Mary.”

“Well, I have always thought of her as plain Mary, you see. Oh, how I used to look forward to those holidays with her at Shelby Manor! Mama used to take Grandmother to Bath once a year, and I stayed with Mary. The fun we had! Walking, going out in the trap — she could talk about anything and was game for anything from climbing trees to pot-shotting pigeons with a catapult. With Pater snapping at my heels when my schoolmasters were not, my weeks with Mary remain the most wonderful part of my childhood. She loves geography most, though she is no mean historian. It amazed me that she knew the common and botanical names of all the mosses, ferns, trees and flowers in the woods.” Charlie’s perfect teeth flashed in a grin. “I add that — spread this no farther, Owen! — she was not above tying up her skirts to paddle down a stream in search of tadpoles.”

“A side to her that you alone were privileged to see.”

“Yes. The moment others were around, she turned into an aunt. A maiden aunt, prim and prissy. Having seen them splash through many a stream, I can vouch for her legs — very shapely.”

“I am intrigued,” said Owen, deeming it time he reverted to a tutor. “However, Charlie, the weather has set for some days, and Virgil is still stuffed. No Horatian odes until he is as empty as an English pillow case drying on a line. Virgil now, a letter to your mama later.”