The Forgotten Sister: Mary Bennet's Pride and Prejudice

by Jennifer Paynter

  I also received a letter from Mrs. Knowles, replying to my own letter in a strangely evasive manner:

  While I know enough about music to confidently pronounce on your playing (which is positively inspired), I doubt whether I am a fit person to judge your singing. I suggest you apply to the Bath Harmonic Society for their opinion…

  I read no further. I felt she had failed me in an important test of friendship—I had asked her to be honest with me and she had equivocated. (Alas, in putting aside her letter I did not discover that she had also invited me to spend the Easter holiday at her brother Galbraith’s farm—which farm was the home-farm of the Great House of Stoke and a mere hop, step, and jump therefore from Peter.)

  The concert was set down for the Tuesday before Easter, and Helen held fast to her intention to stay for it. Of her intentions regarding George, however, I heard nothing more and could surmise nothing from her manner towards him. George’s manner towards her was not at all lover-like either—at least not in my presence. He was obsessed with his concert. He had earlier announced that his mother would be coming, speaking of her in the most unfilial fashion: “I would far rather she stayed in London. Poor old Purvis will run round trying to please her—a futile exercise—and we will all be made miserable.” And then as if it were all my fault: “But I have to tell you, Mary, that she is most eager to see you again.”

  “And I shall be happy to renew the acquaintance.”

  George and I were now careful to be civil to each other but I was no longer easy with him. He had disabused me of a long-cherished illusion and perhaps one day I would thank him for it, but not yet.

  I had been invited to take a bed at the Longs’ house on the night of the concert, and on the afternoon of that day Betty let me in with a warning that her mistress was in a rare taking. She directed me to Cassandra’s bedchamber, where lay Mrs. Long, clutching her smelling-salts.

  Cassandra was packing a trunk, pausing in her labors to greet me, whereupon Mrs. Long cried out: “Not a word of this to your mother, Mary! And if she asks where the girls have gone, you must tell her they have gone to Cornwall—to their cousins in Cornwall.”

  Cassandra said: “We leave for Islington tomorrow morning, Mary.”

  Mrs. Long burst out again: “I do not deserve this! To be woken at four in the morning and told that she had made up her mind to refuse him—that her conscience had spoken—”

  “George has made Helen an offer, Mary—”

  “The answer to all our prayers! And now she means to refuse him. She has made up her mind and will not listen to a word I say. ‘My conscience has spoken’—that is what she tells me at four o’clock in the morning.”

  Helen entered in time to hear her. “Poor Aunt. I am a sad trial to you, I know.”

  I saw that she was already dressed in her costume for the concert—a round gown of brown cambric in keeping with her village-maiden persona. George had commissioned Madame Bejart to make it weeks ago and now of course it was too tight.

  Mrs. Long must have noticed this too, for she said: “Are you wearing your corset?”

  “Yes, I am wearing my corset.” (The corset was a kind of under-waistcoat drawn tight about her stomach and with a lace behind. Helen had only consented to wear it to placate her aunt.)

  “I do not deserve this.”

  “Well, you won’t have to put up with me much longer, Aunt. I shall be gone in the morning.” She turned to me then and handed me a sealed letter directed to George care of Purvis Lodge. “You must post this to him tomorrow, Mary, after we’re gone. I simply have not the courage to tell him to his face.”

  Much to my dismay, Mrs. Long began then to cry. Cassandra went to her and after a moment so too did Helen, saying: “Dear Aunt, I cannot accept him. My conscience has spoken.” And then in an aside meant only for her sister’s ears: “Damn it.”

  17.

  Contrary to my spiteful prediction to George, there was a large audience for the concert. But if Mrs. Long had attended instead of taking to her bed, she would have been relieved at the lack of interest shown in her niece. Neither Helen’s figure nor her singing was remarked; everyone was too taken up with Christina Purvis. There was a collective drawing-back when she entered the banqueting hall—a “parting of the Red Sea” as it was afterwards described (there being a number of officers present)—and Mr. Purvis had followed in his wife’s wake, bowing to left and right and delighting in all the attention.

  Thereafter, the two of them contrived to be a cynosure. It helped that they were seated beneath a great chandelier, the candles of which lit up Mrs. Purvis’s jewels (notably a diamond tiara in a design of ivy-leaves all set en tremblant, which sparkled whenever she turned her head). And when it might have been supposed that people had grown tired of staring, the Purvises obligingly staged a whispered quarrel—this during the “Tide of Malice” duet.

  They approached me directly the concert was over, Mrs. Purvis asking with uncharacteristic hesitation if I “remembered” her.

  Purvis fatuously exclaimed: “How could she not remember you?”

  Her old impatience showed itself: “Oh go away, Frederick. Cannot you see I wish to talk to Mary?”

  She then complimented me on my playing before finding fault with George’s compositions: “But of course I am no music lover—as you no doubt recall.” And here there was a sort of conspiratorial smile, an acknowledgment perhaps that she had not forgotten bringing down the pianoforte lid upon my hand.

  “But let me look at you, Mary. Come into the light now so that I can see.” She led me to beneath the chandelier. “Upon my word, I never thought you would grow to be so pretty. Of course you will never be a toast, as they say—” (And here again the conspiratorial gleam, confident that she herself was such a one.) “But all things considered you have turned out remarkably well. ’Tis a thousand pities you have to wear spectacles though.”

  At that point, several people came up—ostensibly to talk to me but really to get a closer look at Mrs. Purvis. Wickham was one of them, ogling her even while he was complimenting me on my playing. But Chamberlayne at least had eyes only for me: “I had hoped to hear you sing, Miss Mary.”

  Mrs. Purvis then drew me aside, saying that she had a thousand questions to ask of me. I soon realized though that she wanted only to ask about Helen. “Pray, what sort of a girl is she? Purvis tells me that you are friendly with her family. Do they have any money?”

  I recalled this was what I had most disliked about her—her mercenariness. “Not very much, no.”

  Coincidentally, she now recalled something she had not liked about me. “Those dark, judgmental eyes!—how could I forget?—you and your sister Elizabeth—is she here tonight?”

  “No, she is in Kent.” And fearing I sounded a trifle curt: “Both my elder sisters are presently from home. Jane has been in London these past three months.”

  But she was not interested in Jane: “Elizabeth Bennet. What a sad tangle that was, to be sure. Poor Jasper. He was quite smitten with her, you know. And I behaved very badly—all things considered—very badly indeed. But—” (recollecting herself) “I would not have married Purvis otherwise so perhaps it was all for the best. And now you are giving me that look again!”

  “No indeed, I assure you—”

  “Never mind, never mind. But this girl—this Helen—according to Purvis, George is quite desperately in love with her.” She paused, perhaps waiting for me to speak, and when I did not: “This is all ‘according to Purvis’—George never tells me anything.”

  It seemed safe to say: “I believe he does care for Helen, yes.”

  “Oh! you must not fear my making mischief. Young people are forever fancying themselves in love—I am sure there is some young man of whom you dream, hey, hey?” (laughing) “But George is very young and I do not want him to be taken in. Has he made her an offer, do you know?”

  “I—yes, I believe so.” And seeing her expression change: “But she—Helen has not accepted him.”r />
  The face beneath the diamonds had now set hard. “He is under-age, you know.”

  “I know that, ma’am.”

  “Oh! you need not think I will forbid the banns—George will have his own way, he always does. But he is an exceptionally gifted boy and I confess I had hoped for something better.”

  “Is that all you wished to say to me, ma’am?”

  She now smiled her unsatisfactory smile. “I perceive I am getting ‘that look’ again. When you are a mother, you will understand. Are your parents here tonight, by the bye?” And upon my saying that they were not: “I fancy your father was always more my enemy than your mama. And your younger sisters? I fear I have forgotten their names.”

  “Catherine and Lydia. They are here with my aunt Philips.”

  “Lydia! The naughty one. I feel sure she is still very naughty. Like my Sam—he is always getting into scrapes.”

  Mr. Purvis interrupted us then, and I was not sorry. I went to join George and Helen and Letty Stoke on the stage of the hall where they were still receiving tributes—bouquets of flowers and, in George’s case, a brace of snipe presented by one of the officers.

  And now at last I heard Letty speak of Peter. She questioned the officer about bagging the snipes out of season, saying: “Our keeper thinks it is not sporting to shoot birds on the ground—he says you should only ever shoot ’em flying.”

  Whereupon Helen asked the question I so wanted to ask myself: “Is this the same keeper who was lately shot at? How does he go on?”

  “Oh, pretty well. Considering.”

  “Considering what?”

  I spoke the words—blurted them—and Letty gave me a look. “Considering he refuses to take our apothecary’s drugs and has not rested the arm as he should. But ’tis useless lecturing him—he always likes to go his own way to work.”

  Thinking about this afterwards kept me awake for hours. Neither Cassandra nor Helen were able to reassure me. Helen only laughed at the idea of Peter having nobody to look after him—to make him take his medicine—and Cassandra was far too busy for late-night confidences.

  18.

  Helen and Cassandra left for London on the mail coach early next morning, and Mrs. Long fretted after they were gone, seeking assurances that nobody last night had noticed Helen’s figure and that nobody would now wonder at her sudden departure. In the end, I resorted to the Commonplace Book: “Foolish tongues will always wag, ma’am, but people of goodwill ignore them.”

  She was not so easily comforted, however. A talker herself, she may have doubted the truth of the assertion—she certainly doubted my mother’s goodwill, confiding that she had chosen Cornwall precisely because my mother knew nothing of that county and had no acquaintance there.

  Luckily for Mrs. Long, my mother at this time was preoccupied with her own girls—principally with our failure to find husbands. She now despaired of Jane’s ever getting Mr. Bingley and considered Elizabeth to be wasting her time in Kent: “All this visiting at Rosings sounds like very dull work to me with only Lady Catherine and her daughter for company. She had much better have stayed in Meryton and met with more of the officers. Wickham is now taken to be sure, but there are plenty of other fish in the sea.”

  My mother had felt Wickham’s defection almost as keenly as had Lydia and Kitty, and so when she heard that his engagement to Mary King was at an end she was just as overjoyed.

  Lydia and Kitty brought the glad tidings to Longbourn on Easter-day. They had called on Mrs. Forster after church and she had told them that Mary King’s uncle had forbidden the match.

  “Apparently he believes poor Wickham to be a fortune-hunter,” said Lydia.

  Said Kitty: “Lizzy will be pleased.”

  This sparked a quarrel, with Lydia disputing Elizabeth’s claim to Wickham, whereupon I quitted the room. I was finding it increasingly hard to tolerate my youngest sister. In the absence of Jane and Elizabeth, she had become even more unruly. But I was at fault too. I was feeling lonely and irritable. I feared I would never see Peter again—that he had never really cared about me—yet still I could not stop thinking about him. I worried about his arm. Chamberlayne had told me of a fellow officer whose arm had been shot and how the physician had had to work to save it, applying flannels and fomentations, and finally, leeches. It had been a very close-run thing, Chamberlayne said.

  In my loneliness, I bethought myself of Mrs. Knowles. She had not been candid about my singing but she had proved herself a true friend at the time of my melancholia and did not deserve to be slighted now. I took out her last letter and this time read it in its entirety—including the invitation to stay at Stoke Farm:

  Should you like to come to me here at Easter, my dear? My boy is to pay us a visit with his bride and you would be a most welcome addition to our family party…

  I was very distressed. Not only had I missed the chance to see Mr. Knowles, but also, possibly, Peter. And I was angry with myself for neglecting Mrs. Knowles. I wrote her a full explanation and an apology—and began then to count the days after which I could reasonably expect a reply.

  And now suddenly it seemed that everyone I knew was writing to me—everyone except Mrs. Knowles. Cassandra and Helen wrote from Islington, Jane and Aunt Gardiner from Cheapside (in the absence of Elizabeth, Jane and Aunt always wrote to me because I was the only Bennet to write back), and Elizabeth and Maria Lucas from Kent. I also received a letter from the Secretary of the Bath Harmonic Society who—in response to a letter from Mrs. Knowles—had written to praise my “prodigious knowledge of vocal art and great industry.” (I was not taken in by this for a moment.)

  The only letter to contain any surprising news was Maria Lucas’s; it was full of what she called “interesting developments” and was in two parts. The first, dated Easter-day, read as follows:

  At last, dear Mary, there have been some interesting developments! Lady Catherine’s other nephew, Colonel Fitzwilliam, is also staying at Rosings and has taken a great fancy to Lizzy. When we went there this evening to drink tea, he and Lizzy talked and laughed together like anything. (You would have enjoyed their conversation, dear, but I fear it was too clever for me.) Anyway, I could see Mr. Darcy did not like it that his cousin and Lizzy were so talkative and merry. He kept looking at them and not listening to Lady Catherine, and in the end Lady C. ordered Colonel F. to tell her what he and Lizzy were talking of because she wanted to have her share in the conversation too. I was so frightened for I could see poor Charlotte was worried lest Lizzy say something impertinent. However, it all passed off and then Colonel F. again got Lizzy to himself by persuading her to play for him.

  And this time Mr. Darcy really did not like it because Colonel F. was leaning over Lizzy and turning the pages for her. And so then in the middle of Lady Catherine telling us the proper way to launder lace (it must always be washed in milk, dear, did you know?), Mr. Darcy got up and walked over to the pianoforte and just stood there and stared at Lizzy. After a minute she stopped playing, and then the three of them—Mr. D., the Colonel, and Lizzy—started talking but they were too far away for me to hear, and as soon as Lady C. called out to know what they were saying, Lizzy started playing again.

  My dear, I must conclude; it grows late and Mr. Collins has just now knocked on my door to remind me to be saving of candles.

  Yr affectionate friend, Maria

  The second part of the letter was dated the following day:

  I had meant to post this when I went with Charlotte to the village this morning, but unluckily forgot to take it with me and I am glad now that I did, for there have been more interesting developments! Who do you think Charlotte and I surprised in a tête-à-tête with Lizzy just now when we came back from our walk? None other than Mr. D.! Charlotte afterwards told Lizzy that she thought he must be in love with her to call in such a familiar way, but Lizzy only laughed. (Charlotte thinks it would be wonderful if Lizzy were to secure Mr. D., as he has extensive patronage in the church.)

  M.L.
r />   19.

  About a fortnight later, I finally heard from Mrs. Knowles:

  I confess to feeling disappointed, dear Mary, for I never could have put away one of your letters unread. My brother and my boy were disappointed too—my boy especially...

  The letter continued in this vein; I felt wretched reading it. And she did not renew her invitation to visit Stoke Farm, although the conclusion was kind enough:

  I note that your friend Cassandra has left Meryton and will be absent for several months. You must keep to your timetable of early rising and not neglect your prayers or your practice.

  A few days later I received a second letter from Maria Lucas. Again, it was in two parts, the first of which was dated merely “Friday”:

  Dearest Mary, there have been the most dramatic developments—a proposal, no less! Mr. D. called here yesterday evening when Lizzy was all alone. I heard about it from Hannah, the housemaid who opened the door to him. Hannah feared she had done wrong in admitting him——(Here, the pen had spluttered and the rest of the letter was written in a different-colored ink.) Pray excuse the change of ink, but I thought it best to write this in my bedchamber. I will start at the beginning. Yesterday evening just as we were about to set out for Rosings to drink tea, Lizzy begged to be excused, saying she had a headache. And when we arrived at Rosings without her you should have seen Mr. D.’s face! He was standing by the fire and frowning so, he looked like Lucifer. As soon as tea was over he said he had some “pressing business” to attend to—which pressing business consisted of going to call on Lizzy.

  Anyway, Hannah as I told you opened the door to him but afterwards she wondered whether she should have for she heard them having a dreadful argument and Lizzy saying that she would never ever have accepted Mr. D. even if he had behaved towards her in a “more gentlemanlike manner”! (Hannah thought he might have tried to force himself upon her! Can you imagine?) Hannah said he left the house soon afterwards—he let himself out—and a few minutes later she spied him through the window of Mr. Collins’s book-room, striding down the lane looking like a mad man.