B00BKPAH8O EBOK

by Winslow, Shannon

  Kitty laughed at this. Mary could not, for she knew that his idea was far nearer the truth than her own suggestion.

  As the four of them ate and talked together that evening, Mary had further opportunity to observe the interaction between Mr. Tristan and her sister. There was no billing and cooing apparent, no overt sign of peculiar regard. But perhaps they were being careful to conceal it. What remained with Mary into the night was the first sight of them together – that picture of Kitty on horseback at Tristan’s side, her countenance aglow with happiness.

  All Mary could think of was that it ought to have been she herself in that place.

  21

  Heart to Heart

  The next morning, Mary sought out Charlotte Collins, who was still employed at Pemberley as head housekeeper, to renew their acquaintance. “You should have joined us for dinner last night,” Mary said, pressing her hand. “You would have been more than welcome.”

  “I know,” Charlotte answered. “Elizabeth always invites me, and I do sometimes. But I thought I had better not on your first night here. Tomorrow perhaps.”

  Mary nodded in understanding. “You walk the same fine line here as I do at Netherfield – not a servant, and yet not quite family either. It sometimes makes it difficult for one to know how to behave. At least in your case, you can be sure that the master and mistress of the house are true friends and have your good at heart.”

  “Yes, there is no question of that. I am well satisfied with my position here, believe me, Mary. There is plenty to keep me occupied. I take a great deal of pride in my work. And I have many dear friends, here in this house and in the parish round about.”

  “And what do you think now you have met your brother-in-law?”

  “I must admit he is not at all as I expected, not at all like my poor late husband. More like his sister Ruth, I suppose. At any rate, he is a most agreeable young man, and I am happy to know him.”

  The two women spent a few more minutes exchanging news and civilities before parting ways for the time being – Charlotte continuing with her duties and Mary joining the others in the breakfast room. Afterward, the men turned each to his own affairs. Mr. Darcy closeted himself in his study with his steward Mr. Adams, and Mr. Tristan rode off to Kympton parsonage to visit his sister again, leaving Mary and Kitty to themselves.

  “Had you a pleasant trip from Hertfordshire?” Kitty asked a few minutes after they had settled together in one of Pemberley’s spacious drawing rooms.

  “Tolerable,” Mary answered. “The roads were dry, although it is too great a distance for true comfort.” She trailed off and then added, “As well you know, having made the trip many times yourself.”

  “Yes.” After a considerable interval, Kitty continued. “And you said that Mama is well… and all those at Netherfield.”

  “Quite well, I assure you.”

  “Such good news you brought us about Jane,” said Kitty presently, without looking at her sister. “Another boy.”

  “Christopher.”

  “Christopher?”

  “That is what they plan to call him.”

  “Ah.” Kitty sighed and pulled a pillow from behind her back, tossing the offending object aside.

  Mary examined the brocade fabric on the settee most earnestly, tracing the intricate pattern over and again with her finger. She had never felt such awkwardness with her own sister before. Here they were, ensconced in the most comfortable room imaginable, and neither one of them could be easy, not whilst this unspoken question loomed between them. Yet Mary could not bring herself to open the topic.

  “Take pity on me, Mary, for heaven’s sake!” Kitty exclaimed at last. “You can guess how anxious I am to hear your reaction to what I told you in my letter. Do not keep me in suspense any longer.”

  Mary shot to her feet as if pulled up on puppet strings. “Let us go out into the garden first,” she insisted. “I have a great desire to see it again.”

  “Surely not,” Kitty objected, “for it looks like rain.”

  “We shall stay near the house, if you wish, but I simply must get out of doors.” Mary felt she could better bear hearing whatever her sister might next tell her if she were out in the open. Should the news be bad, even the cavernous spaces of all Pemberley House would not contain enough air to revive her. “We can talk just as well there.”

  Kitty obeyed, and their conversation was suspended until they reached their destination. There they strolled by the China, Damask, and Gallica roses at the perimeter before entering the maze of precisely clipped hedges making up the heart of the formal knot garden.

  “Well?” demanded Kitty, whose forbearance was utterly at an end.

  Mary took a deep breath and plunged into the depths. “Very well then. I must tell you I was surprised, even a little alarmed by your letter, Kitty. The idea that, after all your protests, you should end by liking Mr. Collins seemed to me so incredible.”

  “You said yourself that you admire him.”

  “Yes, but when have you ever agreed with my opinion about what is good and valuable? In the past, you have liked nothing half so much as a red coat and a ball, whereas I have always preferred music and books. And to be already contemplating marriage, after so sort an acquaintance! How can that be prudent?”

  “It is not time alone that determines intimacy, but also disposition. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others. I know what I feel for Tristan. It is real and true; I have not invented it.”

  Mary perceived then that her sister was not to be easily discouraged. She was not to be talked out of her attachment to their cousin by bringing reason to bear. “I collect that this thing between you is serious, then,” she said. “And you have no doubt of his returning your affection?”

  “None whatever,” Kitty declared with her chin raised. “Nothing could be clearer.”

  “I see.” Mary gathered her courage. The next question was critical. What little remained of her hopes hung on its answer. “Tell me straight out, Kitty. Are you engaged to him?”

  Kitty hesitated only a moment, and yet it seemed an eternity to Mary.

  “No, we are not engaged, not exactly. I am still in mourning for Papa, after all.” This much she stated without emotion. Then she turned pleading eyes on her sister. “Shall we have your blessing when we are? That is what I am desperate to know.”

  Now it was Mary’s turn to take pause, and for longer than a moment. She bent her head and walked further into the maze of the knot garden, contemplating her response. Other than the fact that Tristan and Kitty were not finally engaged, she had learnt nothing encouraging. So what could she say now that was both kind and truthful? Mary chose her words with extreme circumspection. “As your sister, I want nothing other than what is best for you, Kitty. Should I become convinced that your marrying our cousin is the best thing, I shall wish you both very happy.”

  “Oh, thank you!” Apparently unaware of Mary’s equivocation, Kitty spontaneously embraced her. “And please tell me you had not thought of marrying Tristan yourself. It was only friendship you felt for him.”

  A hysterical little laugh escaped Mary’s lips. “What a question! How could I not at least have thought of marrying him when you yourself insisted that I should?” she demanded sharply.

  Kitty gasped and looked appalled.

  With a sigh, Mary turned away, crossed her arms, and studied the clouds hovering overhead. They had darkened considerably, just in the last minutes, and a deluge could not be far off now. There was nothing for it but to seek what shelter might be had and wait out the storm.

  “Never mind that,” Mary said presently. She placed her arm about Kitty’s shoulders and ushered her toward the house. “That is all in the past… and with no harm done. I admit that, upon first meeting Mr. Tristan, I thought something more than friendship might not be unpleasant, especially if it would also benefit you and Mama. However…” Mary swallowed the b
ile that rose up in her throat before continuing. “However, it is not enough that a woman should find a gentleman agreeable. He must find her so as well. Then together they might hope to build something more substantial – a future. It seems that is to be your story, Kitty – yours and Mr. Tristan’s.”

  “Oh, Mary, I can scarce believe it myself, that he should love me. It is too wonderful! He shall make you a very charming brother, I promise. You shall always be welcome to Longbourn.”

  “Yes… a very charming brother indeed. And what could I want for more than that?” Mary could feel her sister scrutinizing her and took care to keep her expression impassive. “You know my practical turn of mind, Kitty. I am hardly the romantic sort. You should not imagine that I lay awake pining over one man and then another.”

  “Of course not,” Kitty answered, exhaling deeply. “Dear Mary, you are not at all the kind to fall in love, are you?”

  “I never was. Perhaps it is not in my nature.”

  “Then you are safe. I see now I had no reason to worry for your heart.”

  “No, no reason at all.” Mary continued putting one foot in front of the other without seeing where she was going, her features frozen in an unreadable mask.

  Kitty, with her last scruple finally swept away, grew cheerful as a lark, and such was the brilliance of her felicity that it blinded her to every symptom of dullness and ill health in her sister.

  22

  Demands of Duty

  When she had tarried with Kitty as long as she could bear, Mary pled a headache and retreated to her bedchamber with the vague idea of finding some bittersweet consolation in having a rare cry out. If any circumstance justified such an indulgence, this one surely did. Hope was at an end. Although the final word was yet to be written, her sister had left no room to doubt how matters would ultimately be settled.

  No one but she would regret the outcome, Mary knew full well. It was what her mother had dreamt of from the start, and probably her sisters too. Kitty so obviously needed somebody to depend upon; whereas she… She had boasted to them all that she could, and would, look after herself. With chagrin, Mary recalled her exact words.

  “I thank you for your concern, but I believe I am not so much at a loss as to require your assistance. I shall do very well on my own.”

  “What pride! What conceit! And what a just punishment, this!” she rebuked herself. She had written her own sentence, and now, ‘on her own’ she always would be, without even a sister to confide in. To be required to eat the unpalatable fruit of her own vanity was no more than what she deserved. She, who had clearly valued her talents too highly, who had often disdained her supposedly weaker sisters, who had flattered herself into thinking her cousin cared for her… “Oh, what an unappealing portrait is now before me!”

  Going to the mirror, Mary took a long, hard look at herself. Her physical image was no more promising than the picture she had just glimpsed of her character.

  Having by then worked herself up for it, Mary fell prostrate on the bed and waited for the tears to come. They would not. She willed, she demanded, she pleaded for them to come. Nothing. Perhaps, she ruefully considered, all those years of forced banishment had finally driven them off for good, and they would visit her no more.

  Ten minutes later, eyes still dry and feeling quite ridiculous, Mary got up and sharply tugged her clothing back into order. Very well, then, she thought, she would return to her stoic way. Her brief departure from it had only brought her grief in any case. The important thing now was to determine how to proceed. One must go on; one simply had no choice.

  She went to the window and stood gazing out over the lawn and the lake for a long while. The storm clouds had come and then gone just as quickly. Now, in the heat of the midday sun, little stirred out of doors except the light itself, its merciless rays breaking up every shadow and glaring off the face of the water. Nothing could hide from their harsh scrutiny, which laid bare the real nature of every object. Refusing to look at it would not change the truth.

  It was perfectly clear to Mary what she must do, and there would be no room for complaint or compromise. She felt it to be her duty to try to overcome all that was excessive, all that bordered on selfishness, in her affection for Tristan. To call or to fancy it a loss, a disappointment, would be a presumption for which she had not words strong enough to satisfy her own humility. To think of him as Kitty might be justified in thinking would be insanity. To her, he could be nothing under any circumstances, nothing dearer than a brother.

  ~~*~~

  Now that she had learnt what she had come to Derbyshire for, Mary would as soon have quitted the place at once. Of course, that was impossible without explanations she would be much too mortified to give. The best she could contrive was an early departure on the excuse of spending an extra day at Heatheridge before collecting her charges and returning home. Until then, she was trapped at Pemberley, trapped in an earthly paradise that would yield to her no benefit, where she must continually witness the happiness of others, though it meant the ruination of her own.

  It made her heart ache to see Tristan now, not because he had changed toward her, but because he was exactly the same – just as amiable and kind as before, both reminding Mary what she had lost, and proving once and for all that any partiality he had seemed to show for her was entirely in her own imagination. Did he not demonstrate every bit as much regard for Elizabeth when she returned the next day, and also for Kitty?

  Even worse, however, was bearing with Kitty’s exaltations as she expounded upon the manifold attractions of the man she regarded as her future husband. It appeared the only thing standing between her and utter bliss was that Mr. Tristan Collins was not yet at liberty to declare his intentions to the world. Their mutual attachment could not be officially announced until a few months hence, when Kitty’s year of mourning had at last come to an end.

  “In the meantime,” Kitty explained, “we are obliged to be discreet. We must hide the real extent of our affection, although I believe that at least Elizabeth may suspect it. But with you, dear Mary, I may be entirely open. What a blessing it is to have a sister who shares my secret and can rejoice with me in my private happiness!”

  Mary told herself that it was not Kitty’s fault; she had no clue that every word in praise of Tristan or in celebration of their love grated like a sharp stone ground into her already wounded soul. Oh, why had she ever been so foolish as to put off her armor, to lay aside her shield? Now it was too late; the damage was done.

  Mary found some refuge from these assaults in the familiar world of the schoolroom and nursery. There she could both escape Kitty’s triumph and distract herself with the antics of Elizabeth’s three sons. After all, getting better acquainted with her nephews had been a secondary goal for coming north.

  No governess had yet been engaged, since the eldest, Master Bennet, was not yet six. A nurse and an under nurse had the charge of the children when they were not with either of their parents. Mary willingly volunteered her services as well. If her family members thought it odd that she should prefer spending so many hours with her nephews rather than with them, they did not say so.

  Little James, at the tender age of two, needed only to be held and have stories read to him to keep him happy all the day long. Four-year-old Edward could not sit still for reading or codling of any kind. He was constantly in motion, and constantly making his younger brother cry by stealing away his toys. He would not mind the nurse, and Mary had little success with him either.

  However, she discovered young Bennet Darcy to be a quiet, serious boy, bright and eager to learn – so different from Edward and from her own reluctant pupil Michael. Mary therefore took it upon herself to advance his knowledge of numbers and words, the basics of which he had already mastered, and to teach him such little songs and rhymes as she had attempted to impart to the Netherfield children at a similar age.

  These, Mary had the satisfaction in hearing the boy recite for the company of an evening. On
the third night after her arrival, Bennet stood before them in the drawing room and, with a little prompting from his aunt, produced the following in a small, yet confident voice:

  The Grand old Duke of York,

  He had ten thousand men.

  He marched them up to the top of the hill,

  And he marched them down again.

  When they were up, they were up.

  And when they were down, they were down.

  And when they were only halfway up,

  They were neither up nor down.

  The five adults, friends and relations all, applauded the boy’s efforts enthusiastically. Mary nodded her approval.

  Mr. Tristan Collins cried, “Bravo!” and Kitty echoed the same.

  “That was delightful,” exclaimed Elizabeth. “What a clever boy you are, Bennet, and your aunt is a very clever teacher. Well done, Mary.”

  Mary smiled. “It was nothing; he is a clever boy, just as you say.”

  “Have it your way, Mary, but I think we will be very fortunate to find someone half as qualified when we go to hire a governess.”

  “Come here, son,” said Mr. Darcy, and Bennet obeyed. “That was a very good rhyme. Do you know what it means?” The child shook his head. “It is about a battle that took place a very long time ago.”

  “Really now, Mr. Darcy,” Elizabeth censured him mildly. “Do let the boy enjoy his rhyme without making a dull, old history lesson out of it. He is only five, after all.”

  “Never too young to learn,” Darcy said. “Mary will support me. These old nursery rhymes, many of them have some basis in history. I believe this one refers to the defeat of Richard – the War of the Roses, fifteenth century. Is it not so?”

  “Yes, you are correct, Mr. Darcy,” said Mary, “although I had not attempted to impart all these details to Bennet. Learning the rhyme seemed challenging enough for the moment.”