The Secret Life of Miss Mary Bennet

by Katherine Cowley

  “Sir Pickering,” Mary heard Harriet say rather loudly. “I knows you owe me five pound.”

  Mary smiled. Colonel Radcliffe had been arrested for murder, and Harriet would receive her money. Despite what would surely be a bruise from Colonel Radcliffe’s foot, Mary much preferred this to all the needlework and gossip that Meryton could offer.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “SUSSEX—On Saturday a murderer who had been at large for several months was apprehended. Colonel Oliver Radcliffe was a recent resident of Worthing and had previously served on the continent, during which time he defected to the French. His treasonous plans were discovered in September by Mr. Frederick Holloway of Crawley, after which Colonel Radcliffe killed Mr. Holloway. Colonel Radcliffe has been arrested for murder and treason and will soon stand trial. An accomplice of the colonel, a Frenchman named Jules Corneau, has fled from Worthing, and no knowledge is known of his whereabouts.”

  –The Times, London, England, December 9, 1813

  It had now been six days since the ball, and five days since the apprehension of Colonel Radcliffe, yet still the castle had not resumed a normal rhythm. The Tagores had left the previous day, but her lessons with Madame Dieupart and Mr. Linton had not resumed. But more than that, something had changed, something had shifted between her and Lady Trafford. Before, Lady Trafford had always treated Mary with focused attention. She had sought out Mary’s thoughts and ideas, and made her feel central to any gathering. Mary enjoyed their discussions and took pleasure in surprising Lady Trafford with new insights.

  But now Lady Trafford treated Mary the way that everyone else always had. Mary regretted her rudeness to Lady Trafford the morning after the ball, and she had apologized for it a few days before. She still regretted not wearing the dress Fanny had made. But she did not feel that these two transgressions merited a response of this magnitude. Perhaps something else was troubling Lady Trafford and preventing her from giving Mary the same amount of attention.

  She had found herself rather bored the past few days, with only books, the pianoforte, and drawing to occupy her, and no murder to distract herself with. In Longbourn, books and her music had always been more than enough for her, but she had become accustomed to a different pace of life, and now it was hard to return to the former. While she was still attempting to find out more about Lady Trafford and Mr. Withrow, she had not made much progress.

  Someone knocked at Mary’s bedroom door, interrupting her thoughts.

  “Come in,” she called.

  Fanny stepped inside. She had been very distant since the ball and seemed to be avoiding Mary. “You asked for me?”

  “Yes,” said Mary. “I have something for you.”

  Mary retrieved the package containing her purchase from the fabric shop. She laid it on the bed, untied the string, and opened the brown paper to reveal the blue fabric.

  Fanny’s fingers went immediately to the fabric. “What is this?”

  “It is silk taffeta. You know that of course,” said Mary, wishing for a clarity of speech that she did not often possess. “I thought that since you love designing clothing so much, you might like to make yourself a dress. At the shop they said that this was their newest fabric, and that you really liked it the last time you visited. They said that five yards should be enough, but I bought six to be sure.”

  Fanny stepped back. She intertwined her fingers and pulled her hands against her chest. “Miss Bennet,” she said, “you do not need to, you should not—”

  “Yes, I do.” Mary picked up the fabric and forced it into Fanny’s arms.

  “Thank you.”

  “You do not need to thank me,” said Mary. “You do not owe me anything, Fanny. I cannot make things right, I cannot fix what I have done, but at least I can attempt to do something.”

  Fanny looked as if she might become emotional, and Mary was fully unequipped to deal with emotions, so she rushed out of the room and fled downstairs to the pianoforte. Lady Trafford and Mr. Withrow were already seated in the large parlor, but Mary decided to play anyway.

  Mary had begun her second song when Lady Trafford asked her to stop.

  “Your music is lovely,” said Lady Trafford, “but I was attempting to converse with Henry. Maybe you could do something else right now, and come back and play later, when the room is vacant.”

  Mary stood abruptly from the instrument. “Have I done something wrong?”

  “Not at all, Miss Bennet, but I am rather tired today, and the sound is too loud for me.”

  Yet Lady Trafford was not like Mrs. Bennet, with very sensitive nerves.

  “What is it that I have done wrong?” asked Mary again. “Surely it is more than playing the pianoforte at an inconvenient time.” Mary could not help but feel that if she had told Lady Trafford about her role in discovering Radcliffe and Corneau then nothing would have changed: everything good about her stay at Castle Durrington would have remained the same. But she would not tell Lady Trafford, she could not.

  Lady Trafford folded her arms across her body and looked at Mary with resolve.

  “If you must know, you disgraced me and Castle Durrington at the ball. Despite all the lessons I have tried to teach you, you did not show humility or any manners or breeding. You left without saying goodbye to any of the guests and foolishly went off into the night. And you monopolized too much of the general attention towards yourself.”

  “I—I was simply attempting to demonstrate my accomplishments,” said Mary, unable to address more than the final critique.

  “You may have been the most accomplished girl in Meryton, but Meryton is a very small place, and you may find that your accomplishments are not so great when you join a larger company.”

  Mary felt sick to her stomach and tears began to well up in her eyes, but she would not cry in front of Lady Trafford and Mr. Withrow—she could not let herself do it. Withrow sat, not saying anything, but with a smug look on his face. Mary sniffled, then swallowed, trying to control her emotions.

  Lady Trafford’s face softened. “I only meant that a bit more humility may be useful in large gatherings, but you truly have shown great progress in many areas over the past few months. I am quite pleased.” Lady Trafford paused. “I have been writing to various acquaintances, and I may have found someone who needs a governess not long after Christmas.”

  Mary used her handkerchief to dab her eyes. She tried to speak with a level voice. “I am not sure that I am ready to be a governess yet. I still have not decided on that as my fixed course.” It had only been an excuse to draw closer to Lady Trafford so she could track her movements. But the last few days she had not even been able to do that, for she had been kept at such a distance.

  “It is a rather large decision, perhaps one that is best made in consultation with your family. Speaking of which, it has been quite some time since you have seen them. Your mother must be needing you, and surely you will want to be home well before the holidays.”

  Now Mary understood the shift in Lady Trafford’s mannerisms since the ball. The woman had spent all this time trying to find a way to rescind her invitation for Mary to stay at Castle Durrington. Mary had not expected it to end like this, but she knew when she was no longer welcome.

  “I will write my mother at once and make arrangements for my return.”

  Mary rushed from the parlor. As she reached the hall, tears slid down her cheeks. She had planned to go upstairs and weep in her room, but as she reached the rotunda, wracking sobs shook her body and she collapsed on the floor next to the top of the grand staircase.

  She truly had not realized that her actions at the ball had disgraced Lady Trafford, a woman who had done so very much for her over the past months. And Mary had never meant to make a spectacle of herself. Mary’s mind ran ceaselessly over Lady Trafford’s words, repeating them again and again.

  Mary had thought that she recognized her flaws—she knew she could be cold and distant; she knew that she could be rude and too quick to correct. B
ut this was more than just the walls she hid behind. It was as if there was a fundamental defect in her character, something irrevocably wrong with her.

  She had to work much harder than other people to behave in expected, acceptable ways. She could never simply interact with the world around her; she had to intentionally process everything and consider how normal people would act in any given circumstance. It seemed, over the past months, that Lady Trafford had been trying to teach her to do this better, but despite Lady Trafford’s kindness and diligence, and despite Mary’s efforts, Mary had failed. And it felt inevitable that Mary would continue to fail.

  She could not even hide behind her accomplishments, not any longer. Her perceived accomplishments, the things she had worked so hard to gain, must, in fact, be paltry. This was not Lydia or Kitty mocking her skills at the piano, this was Lady Trafford, a woman of superb taste. If Mary did not have her accomplishments, then what was she left with? She had no beauty, no money, no social competence…she had nothing.

  Mary’s sobs quieted and her body finally stilled. She twisted the mourning ring on her finger, remembering her father’s dying breaths, how he had looked at her but said nothing. Elizabeth might have talked with their father at a time like this. But Mary had not had that sort of relationship with him. She had never had that sort of relationship with anyone. There was no one she could turn to with her emotions, no one who would give her any comfort.

  Not a single one of her family members had mentioned Mary returning for the holidays in their brief, occasional letters. Mary had slipped out of their lives and they had hardly noticed. They certainly did not desire her return.

  Mary pressed her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs, grateful that no servants had come upon her when she was like this. There was a mottled light on the sleeves of her dress, and she looked up at the dome above her. Through it shone a cold, weak December light, providing a dreary illumination even at midday.

  Footsteps sounded in the hallway, accompanied by the voices of Lady Trafford and Mr. Withrow. She stood quickly; she did not want them to see her tear-streaked cheeks. She considered fleeing up the stairs, but then they would hear her and what if they followed? Instead she stepped behind one of the curtains covering the panels, the same one she had hid behind before, the night of the midnight visitors. She urged herself to be perfectly still and quiet as they entered the rotunda.

  “A plan must be decided upon,” said Mr. Withrow.

  “I need to see the papers myself,” said Lady Trafford. “We will discuss this in the library.”

  Their footsteps echoed as they descended the grand spiral staircase. At least they had not noticed her. She shifted under the curtains, bumping her elbow against the panel behind her. It made an almost hollow sound. She peeked out from the curtain to make sure no one was in the rotunda and proceeded to tap the panel. It was definitely a hollow sound, more like one would expect from a door than a wall. She pushed the panel, but it did not budge, even when she pressed her full weight against it.

  She must be wrong, it was only a panel, but she remembered her initial confusion about the castle. This was a circular room surrounded by square rooms. There must be a gap in between.

  Mary ran her hands along the intricate, decorative moulding around the edges of the panel. It was difficult to tell what she was feeling in the near darkness, and she could not throw back the curtain in case someone walked by, but it was probably raised and textured leaves and flowers. She did not find anything, so she examined each part again with her fingers, moving more slowly this time.

  One section of the moulding drew her attention. It had the same texture and shape as the rest but felt slightly less firm. She fiddled with it for a moment until it loosened, and she discovered a hidden latch. She pulled on it and was able to swing the panel open.

  Mary’s breath stopped. She had been right! There was something. She peered into the dark space revealed by the panel but could see nothing of note, and she was not keen to stumble around an unfamiliar space blindly, so she pulled the paneling closed, secured the latch, and then walked to her room and lit one of the candles. As she returned to the hidden room, a servant passed her and, staring at the lit candle in her hand in the middle of the day, asked, “Do you need anything, Miss Bennet?”

  “No,” said Mary, attempting to sound cheerful. “I am perfectly well.”

  She reached the rotunda, checked to make sure she was alone, and then stepped again behind the fabric curtain, careful not to light it on fire. This time she found and opened the latch easily.

  The candle flickered in the darkness, matching Mary’s trepidation, and she stepped inside, closing the panel behind her. It appeared to be a storage room. There were a number of small crates filled with old items, and several pig head statues that matched the ones on a rather whimsical section on the estate’s castle-side exterior. Mary’s hopes sank a little—it was just a storage room, nothing of note. She had hoped for something more, for evidence of Lady Trafford’s misdeeds.

  She sat on top of one of the crates. Her candle flickered as if there was a slight movement of air, and yet there should not be any draft. She stood and on one wall noted a vent. Air must be coming in from the rest of the house. But what would be on the other side of this wall? She visualized the floor plan she had pieced together in her mind and realized it would be the large drawing room, the one with the pianoforte.

  If air could come through, so could sound. One could sit here and overhear a private conversation happening in the drawing room.

  Lady Trafford and her deceased husband had built Castle Durrington. They must have known of this space. She pictured Lady Trafford creeping into this room and eavesdropping on a conversation, and she found that the action seemed in keeping with her character.

  Mary paced back and forth around the small space, wondering if the room held other secrets. Her candle’s light flickered on the walls, on the floor. At the edge of one of the crates she noted that some of the floor was wood, not stone. She set down the candle, picked up the crate, which was not too heavy, set it aside, and discovered what could only be a trapdoor.

  She pulled it up, as carefully and quietly as she could. It was a trapdoor, with a rope ladder hanging down to the space below. A space that must solve the same circle-in-a-square problem downstairs in the main entryway. This space must directly adjoin the library, where Lady Trafford and Mr. Withrow might still be having their private conversation.

  Mary’s heart raced painfully in her chest. If she were Lydia, she would squeal right now, out of excitement or fear, but Mary kept her emotions contained inside of her.

  She set the candle on the ledge and carefully, ever so quietly, climbed down the ladder. It was difficult to do in her dress, but somehow she managed.

  She crouched on the floor, close to the wall, and indeed there was another grate, large enough, perhaps, for a small person to pass through. Or voices.

  “But who will be his partner?” asked Mr. Withrow. “Surely there is someone else in London who could—”

  “It is too late for that now.”

  “William will not like it.”

  “Mr. Stanley will do as directed,” said Lady Trafford.

  There was bit of silence. Mary tried to piece together their conversation but did not know enough context.

  Mr. Withrow said, “He should be in Arundel right now. Once he is finished with his work, he will ride directly here. He estimated that he will reach Castle Durrington around three o’clock.” He paused. “And before he does, I want Miss Bennet out of the way.”

  “You were right about her, Henry, you were right. I was too blinded by my hopes to see it. But do not worry, I will get her out of our way.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “On the day before yesterday, the Emperor [Bonaparte] held a Council of Ministers, and a second Council of Administration of War, concerning the clothing of the troops.”

  –The Times, London, a translation from a Fre
nch newspaper report,

  printed on December 9, 1813

  After waiting several minutes to ensure Lady Trafford and Withrow were finished with their conversation, Mary climbed the rope ladder, her heart racing.

  She closed the trapdoor and replaced the crate, careful to make sure it was in the exact position she had found it. She used the inside latch to open the panel, blew out the candle, and peeked behind the curtain. She waited as Fanny walked across the rotunda and used the smaller spiral staircase to go upstairs. Mary waited for a minute more, then left the shelter of the curtain.

  Her body felt like it would burst with energy, and she felt a strange urge to run, but she forced herself to walk across the rotunda and up the staircase to her bedroom.

  Fanny was just leaving her room. “I was looking for you, Miss Bennet.”

  “I was…taking a turn about the house.” Mary tried to hide the still hot candle in her skirts.

  Fanny appeared not to notice. “Lady Trafford would like to speak to you.”

  “Can you tell her that I will join her in a few minutes?”

  “She requests your presence immediately.”

  “Do you know why it is so urgent?”

  Fanny shook her head.

  “Give me just a moment.” Mary stepped into her room, leaving Fanny in the hall, and put the candle back in its spot. Then she followed Fanny down two flights of stairs to the library.

  Fanny turned to leave, but Lady Trafford directed her to remain. Mary’s fingers fidgeted, so she hid her hands in her skirts, fearful of whatever was to come.

  Lady Trafford went straight to the point. “I have been considering our conversation from earlier, and I realized that it is not fair to you to keep you in a state of suspension, unsure of your place here, or whether you should become a governess, or when you might have the opportunity of returning to your beloved mother. It would be for the best if you returned home immediately.”