Mr. Farnsworth had once been a captain in the Navy, so his military bearing did not surprise Mary. Whilst the others scrambled to obey, she studied her new employer, taking his features apart one by one – the bristling dark hair, the deliberately narrowed cobalt eyes, the hard set of his mouth, and the prematurely graying beard. The beard, she told herself with devilish satisfaction, had probably been grown by way of disguising what would ultimately prove to be a weak chin. Yes that must be the case.
It was a trick she sometimes used to steady herself when confronted with an ominous problem, mentally dissecting it into a collection of smaller, more manageable bits. In the brutish case before her, she perceived one part tyrant and one part diffident boy, both covered over with a quantity of practiced intimidation. The gentleman did not appear so alarming under this analysis. He was formidable, not by true essence, she concluded. It was rather by considerable effort, as if he could only bolster his own confidence by cowering others. Judging from the prodigious scowl he wore, Mr. Farnsworth had next set himself the task of cowering her.
“Well, Miss Bennet,” he commenced, slowly striding across the room with hands clasped behind his back and a cool, sideways gaze leveled at her. “Let us come to a right understanding at once. My wife may have engaged your services, but you shall stay or go according to my verdict. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly, sir.”
“Good.” He turned to retrace his steps. “I must say that I was none too pleased to hear of her selection. Although I know no harm of you personally, there certainly has been a good deal of talk about the Longbourn family in general throughout the neighborhood – not all of it to your credit, I might add. I understand there was some sort of scandal with one of your sisters several years back, and then there is the matter of your mother’s low connections. What do you say to that?”
Being keenly conscious that this one conversation would likely determine the tenor for all their future dealings together, Mary had carefully weighed her answer. If she were too outspoken, she would lose her position altogether. Yet if she allowed herself to be subjugated, she would before long learn to loathe not only her employer, but her occupation and her own want of fortitude as well. Presently she straightened herself and replied.
“Sir, allow me to say first that you are most assuredly within your rights to do what you can to determine my fitness for tutoring your children. Your scruples do you credit, I am sure. However, I fail to see where your present line of enquiry is much relevant. All you need know on that head is that I have been brought up a gentleman’s daughter. If you wish to interrogate me further concerning my own character, education, and accomplishments, however, I will be more than happy to supply you with the information you require. In truth, I would welcome the opportunity to do so.”
Mr. Harrison Farnsworth drew up short and regarded the governess with a menacing glare of a long minute’s duration. When she did not waver, he at last moved on in a new direction, both with his pacing of the room and in his mode of interview. He stated his expectations, which were very high. He warned of his tolerance for disobedience and disloyalty, which were exceptionally low. He reiterated her salary, which was equitable.
“And then there is the matter of my music lessons,” Mary had reminded him. “I trust Mrs. Farnsworth has acquainted you with the arrangement we arrived at between ourselves.”
“Mrs. Farnsworth did mention some such nonsense. I could not credit it, however. Music lessons for the governess? It is highly irregular. Why, I have never heard of such a preposterous idea!” he declared, pacing more furiously.
Mary had to consciously rein in her irritation. “Irregular it may be, sir, but certainly not preposterous. I was raised a gentleman’s daughter, as I have said, and so I am still. The daughters of gentlemen often have the instruction of a music master. I understand you have engaged one of some renown for your own children – your sister’s personal instructor, I am told. What reasonable objection can there be to allowing me to have a lesson following them? It will make me more fit to guide your children, and it can do you no possible harm. I am to use the instrument in the schoolroom for my practicing. And it is all arranged that I shall pay for my lessons out of my own salary, if that is what worries you.”
“Huh! Did I say that I was worried about the trifling expense of it? No, it is the propriety of the arrangement I question, the efficiency of it. What are my children to do whilst you are closeted with Monsieur Hubert?”
“Your children, Mr. Farnsworth, are no longer infants who need constant attendance. Surely you do not mean to tell me that they are so unruly as to be impossible for the nursery maid to look after for one short hour. Otherwise, I begin to fear I may require more compensation for having the charge of such an unmanageable lot.”
Again the imperious gentleman shot her a glare; again the governess remained unwavering under its force.
Just when Mary thought his mouth might be curling at one corner, Farnsworth brought his hand up to cover a cough. “Very well, Miss Bennet,” he said afterward, “we shall give the arrangement a try.” He coughed again before continuing sternly. “I warn you, though, should it interfere with your primary duties, I shall have no scruple whatsoever in putting an end to it. Do you understand me?”
A year and a half passed with hostilities in the household running just below the surface. The bad-tempered master blustered, and everybody else gave way. Then, following another unsuccessful lying-in, poor Mrs. Farnsworth was carried off by an infectious fever. The next Mary heard was that her husband had forsaken his country home in favor of London, and that he was sending his sister, Miss Lavinia Farnsworth, to act as mistress of Netherfield in place of his dead wife.
When he returned, he was quite altered. Much of the fight had gone out of him, and he began to make more of an effort with the children. Mary postulated that the change might be accounted for by a tormented conscience. Perhaps, she speculated, he finally felt proper remorse for having treated his wife so badly.
Mr. Farnsworth’s new spirit of charity did not always extend as far as the governess. Yet from the beginning there had existed between them a tacit understanding, a wary truce born out of the healthy respect each felt for the peculiar strengths of the other. Mary was always careful to treat her employer with the deference his position demanded, and in return he generally refrained from practicing his manipulative arts on her, at least until recently.
5
Mrs. Bennet’s Plan
On Sundays, Mary rested from her duties at Netherfield and returned to Longbourn to spend a few hours of liberty at her family home with her mother. According to their original arrangement, Mr. Farnsworth was obliged to send her off in one of his good carriages early in the morning, and then see to it that she was collected again at night. This particular Sunday in the middle of May was no different. Mary took her place with Kitty and Mrs. Bennet in their pew at Longbourn church, where the Netherfield carriage had set her down.
With their father having been gone for only five months, the sisters were both still garbed in full mourning, as was their mother next to them – Kitty in black crepe, and bombazine on the other two. For the widow and younger Miss Bennet, it constituted a dramatic departure from what had been their usual style. For Mary, it meant only a dimming of her dark governess’s habit by one more degree, putting the light out entirely.
All through the service, Kitty fidgeted and sighed, singing the designated hymns less vociferously than usual, and attending to the sermon not at all. She had to be corrected by her sister more than once for moving amiss or losing her place in her prayer book.
“Are you unwell?” Mary demanded of her in a low voice as soon as they had done and made their way out into the churchyard. “Because otherwise I cannot account for your behavior in the least. I have often seen better self-command in a child of three.”
“La! When I tell you my news, I daresay you will be sorry for taking that critical tone,” rejoined Kitty, a fretful expressi
on on her face. “It is a very great secret, and not for Mama’s ears, so we shall have to look out for the first opportunity to get off by ourselves. Then we shall see if you do not think it worth an hour or two’s agitation.”
Mary, who suspected her sister of possessing nothing more than a bit of town gossip, did not press for more information.
Soon their mother finished her tête-à-tête with Mrs. Elkhorn and joined them for the brief walk to Longbourn. They proceeded rapidly, Mrs. Bennet setting the brisk pace.
“I declare, that lady would try the patience of a saint!” said she presently with an expression of disgust. “Every Sunday it is the same. ‘Oh, my poor Mrs. Bennet, how ill you look.’ Then she goes on to lament my ‘unfortunate circumstances’ in such melancholy terms as to make me grow quite distracted!”
“I suppose she only wishes to condole with you, Mama,” suggested Mary. “She is a widow too, and should thereby understand better than most what you must be feeling.”
“Then you suppose wrongly, Mary, for she has always been jealous of me, that I married so much better than she. Now she would see me fall back to her level and rejoice at it. Can you guess what she had the impudence to propose today? Hmm? Can you, Mary, Kitty?” Receiving no insightful speculations from her offspring, Mrs. Bennet hastened on. “Well then, she said that I had better start making inquiries for a cheap situation, and she actually dropped a hint that Mrs. Bell might have a room to let. As if I would ever consider such a thing!”
“What did you say to that, Mama?” asked Kitty. “I suppose you gave her a very sharp set down.”
“I most certainly did! My words were perfectly cordial, mind, and yet my tone she could not mistake. I thanked her for her kind solicitude, but that I was in no immediate danger of sinking into poverty, not with two such wealthy sons-in-law. Then I let it drop, just in a casual way, what are the incomes of Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley. Well, she could make no answer there, for her Eleanor is only married to a curate, and she has still got Caroline on her hands. So that, I daresay, is the last I shall hear on the subject from Mrs. Elkhorn!”
Mrs. Bennet, savoring the recitation of this triumph, took an intermission as the three women covered the final portion of their passage home. Once inside the hall, however, her complacency seemed to falter. “Of course Mrs. Elkhorn has just the one daughter still unmarried, and I have two,” she thought aloud whilst Mrs. Hill helped her off with her spencer. “I wonder that she did not mention it. It would be very like her, you know, to throw that in my face, and another time she may. Well, we shall soon remedy that, if only my plan might be lucky enough to succeed.”
Mary and Kitty exchanged a speaking look. They had already had a month’s worth of Sundays on the topic of Mrs. Bennet’s “plan.” After her husband’s sudden demise, she had wasted no time in convincing herself that the heir to Longbourn would prove to be a single man of a most eligible aspect. To her way of thinking, it immediately followed that he must be in want of a wife, and that either Mary or Kitty ought to have him. By all that was natural and just, Mr. Tristan Collins was the rightful property of the one or other of her daughters.
“You assume far too much, Mama,” Mary observed when the plan first came to light. “He may not even be single. As Mr. Bingley said, he is a man of thirty and has likely taken a wife by now.”
“What? Marry an American! Have you lost your senses? From what I hear, there is nobody there but heathens and savages. What proper English gentleman would stoop so low? No, mark my words. He left England without a wife, and he shall surely return the same way. That is where you come in, Kitty.”
“Me?” Kitty exclaimed with a violent start. “Why must I be the one who secures him, Mama? Mary is older and therefore has the higher claim.”
“Yes, why must it be Kitty?” echoed Mary, hardly knowing why she said it.
It had then come out that Mrs. Bennet, having clearly consigned her elder daughter to the shelf, thought the younger, prettier one the only credible prospect for catching Mr. Collins. “Consider, Mary,” she concluded, “if your sister can get him, then you and I will always have a home here at Longbourn. It is the best solution for us all; of that I am perfectly persuaded. It is unlucky, however, that we should be in mourning, for black is not very becoming, even on you, Kitty. Still, in another month, I think you girls may safely moderate your dress. That should do nicely. Of course the wedding will have to wait until a full year has elapsed, but that can be no great hardship I daresay.”
It had since that day been quite a settled thing in Mrs. Bennet’s mind, and every week since had brought forth from her lips further discourse on how her plan might best be accomplished. Indeed, her daughters began to dread every mention of Mr. Tristan Collins’s name. However, all their considerable disinclination for the subject was insufficient to prevent its being canvassed again and again by their mother. Like a tune lodged firmly in her head to where she could think of nothing else, the tired refrain came out once more that Sunday in May. “Yes, if only my plan for Kitty and Mr. Collins might succeed,” she said.
Meanwhile, Kitty impatiently awaited the opportunity to set her own ideas at work, ideas that were sure to sound a note of discord against her mother’s unremitting theme. Although marriage was always her object, according to Kitty’s way of thinking, being wed to anyone by the name of Collins could not possibly be agreeable. Her chance to set her escape in motion came directly after church with Mrs. Bennet’s pronouncement that she would take a lie down until dinner, in consequence of a sudden headache.
“Come, Mary,” said Kitty, taking up her sister’s hand and pulling her toward the front door. “Let us leave Mama in peace and go out to the garden… to cut some flowers for the table.”
“Yes, you girls go on,” agreed Mrs. Bennet. “Take yourselves out of doors, and your noise with you, for I really cannot bear another sound. My head is very ill today.”
Seeing that their mother truly wished them away, the Miss Bennets could not but oblige her. Venturing forth, consequently, they proceeded in silence along the gravel walk that led to the copse. Mary was determined to make no effort for conversation, still supposing her sister to have nothing more worthwhile than gossip to divulge.
Kitty willingly postponed beginning the conference a few minutes longer as well, scarcely knowing whether the keeping or the telling of her secret intelligence would prove the more harrowing. “Sit down, Mary, and prepare yourself,” she said when they had reached that part of the garden where they were least likely to be interrupted.
After a pause and a sigh, Mary obeyed without comment, seating herself on the bench her sister indicated.
“Now you shall see why I am in such a flutter,” Kitty said. She drew a packet of paper from her pocket and held it out to her sister. “Look what I have got.”
Upon inspection, Mary discovered it to be a letter directed to her mother and written in a hand wholly unknown to her. “What is the meaning of this, Kitty? Who is this letter from, and why is it such a great secret?”
“It is from the heir to Longbourn – Mr. Tristan Collins! He has written from America, and it is a great secret because Mama has not yet read it. Nor must she! What a prodigious piece of luck it was that I came upon it first.” Kitty held up a hand to forestall the anticipated protest. “I know you will say that I should not have taken it. But before you quote me a sermon, read the letter yourself and hear my proposal. Then, on the grounds of sisterly loyalty, you must come to my aid, else before Michaelmas Mama will have me engaged to this stranger and forever miserable.”
With this impassioned plea, Kitty sat down to wait in much perturbation. When her instructions were not immediately obeyed, she added, “You need not be afraid, Mary. There is nothing so very personal or private in it. I daresay Mama would have shown it to you herself, had she read it.”
Mary looked grave, and yet she opened the letter.
Dear Madam,
I feel myself called upon by our relationship to condole with
you on the grievous affliction you are now suffering under, of which I was only yesterday informed by a letter from your solicitor in London. I pray you will forgive me for introducing myself to your notice at this difficult time, and that you will not think my sympathy any less genuine for the awkwardness of our situation. I write chiefly to reassure you that I am very sensible of the severity of your loss, and that I mean to in no way add to your misery where it can be helped. Therefore, although I propose myself the satisfaction of coming to you without delay, I do not anticipate any need for you to vacate your comfortable abode at once. I ask only that you allow me to be a guest therein whilst we sort out between us what is best to be done. I travel alone, and so hope that my presence will not incommode your household unduly. I believe you will find that my wants and needs are simple, so I beseech you to make no special preparations for my coming. My intention is to follow this letter as soon as I am able to settle my business affairs, and I hope to arrive within three weeks of your receipt of the same. Until then, please convey my respectful compliments to all your family.
Tristan Collins, esquire
“Well? What do you think of it?” Kitty demanded.
“I think it is a very good letter – well composed and clearly expressed.”
“Is that all you can say on the subject?” cried Kitty in exasperation. “How can you be so tiresome, Mary?”
“Very well, then. Let me look again.”
Kitty rose to walk to and fro whilst her sister reread the short missive. Mary’s second appraisal was more comprehensive and more gratifying to her sister’s feelings.
“The content reveals nothing so very remarkable. It was always to be expected that he would come to inspect his property. This is only a little sooner than anticipated. As to the style of the letter, I must say that I am pleased with it. His generous sentiments do him credit, and they are elegantly conveyed.” Mary took a moment to consider before adding one more point. “There is a certain something in his way of expressing himself, however. It is rather reminiscent of a person we used to know.”
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