The Keeper- Mary Bennet's Extraordinary Journey

by Don Jacobson

  “But, you would not benefit from being exiled to a classroom with other young women being prepared to be like Emile’s Sophy.[xx] There is a different destiny for you, and it will not involve you deciding seating plans for dinner or quietly embroidering handkerchiefs while the men determine the fate of peoples. You are a bit young yet to know more, but I do know that you will not lead a boring life.

  “Now, go climb your mountain. If you come across your sister on your way out, please tell her that I wish to see her immediately,” he concluded.

  Chapter XI

  Mary quickly exited the library and grabbed her heaviest wrap. Shrugging it on, she turned toward the kitchen. She surprised Mrs. Hill and Cook who were settled over a cup of their morning coffee, a beverage for which Mary had little desire. Chocolate was her pleasure, rich, dark and frothy, but a little less sweet than preferred by her Mother, Jane and Kitty. Lizzy was the other coffee drinker besides Papa.

  Both older women regarded Mary with interest, as she was rarely the first Bennet daughter to appear for breakfast, let alone to beat the serving dishes to the sideboard in the dining room.

  Mrs. Hill greeted her cheerfully, “Why, Miss Mary, good morning to you. If we had not seen her off yesterday, I could have sworn it was your older sister Miss Eliz…Mrs. Darcy coming to test our morning rolls before she took her walk.”

  Of all those living at Longbourn, Mrs. Hill had been the one who had paid attention to, first the girl and then the young woman, Mary. Mama cared little for her once it became clear that she would never come close to Jane’s stunning beauty or even Lizzy’s more exotic looks. And, once both Kitty and Lydia joined the adolescent cadre with promises of being on par with the two eldest, any chance Mary had to appeal to her mother’s maternal instincts vanished.

  So, it was that, without a governess or a mother who would invest time in her children, Mrs. Hill quickly became the surrogate for all five girls. Banged knees and scrapped elbows were all treated in the kitchen with good soap, a bit of healing balm, a clean bandage, an enveloping hug, and something fresh from the oven. Childhood heartbreaks, youthful dreams, and sisterly squabbles were listened to and impartially adjudicated. If no conversation was needed, none was forced. Other times the older woman—she was in her fifties—would just sit and listen to whichever Bennet girl needed listening to…and usually that was Mary. After all, Jane and Lizzy had each other. Lydia had her mother and Kitty was so much under Lydia’s spell that she had almost no idea of what she required. That left Mrs. Hill for Mary.

  Even though Alma Hill was Longbourn’s senior servant (aside from her husband George), she was still an employee subject to the whims and discipline of her mistress. That meant that her discomfort at Mrs. Bennet’s treatment of Mary had to be hidden behind tightly drawn lips. But, what she held back in the form of complaint to the mother of the girl, Mrs. Hill released in an abundance of affection for the middle child. As a result, Mary Bennet was always different with Mrs. Hill. Gone was the pomposity and sermonizing. Rather, a sensitive and caring young woman emerged.

  Offering Cook and Mrs. Hill a bright smile, Mary replied to their greeting, “Well, Mrs. Hill, I have decided to take after Lizzy a bit more. While I cannot hope to sing like her, I think I should be able to walk like her. So, I am going up Oakham this morning, but I am unsure about how long it will take. Was Lizzy able to accomplish both directions and still be home in time to break her fast?”

  Mrs. Hill smiled for a moment recalling a rosy cheeked, slightly winded Elizabeth racing through the kitchen, leaving bonnet, gloves and pelisse fluttering in her wake on her way to the dining parlor. Then she popped up out of her chair and said to Mary, “Why rush through a beautiful morning, my dear girl? You might be distracted from what you would see and hear if you were concerned about getting back to the house in time to eat. Let me pack you a bit of this and that so you can have your own picnic atop the Mount.”

  Using a large serviette, the housekeeper quickly wrapped two apples, a healthy piece of cheese, two thick slices of bread slabbed around some of Mary’s favorite strawberry preserves and a sweet roll. In the meantime, Cook had warmed some cider on the stove and poured it into a stoneware bottle. Both items were packed into a musette that Mary slung over her shoulder. After tying the strings on her bonnet, Mary pulled on a pair of Dutch knit gloves and started out the back door.

  As she left, she called over her shoulder to Mrs. Hill, “I am not certain how long this walk will require. However, I imagine I will be home by midday. I have told Papa that I am going to follow the path past the cut-off to Lucas Lodge.

  With that, she turned toward the ever-brightening eastern horizon.

  Chapter XII

  Quickly departing the garden behind the house, Mary followed the track that skirted several of Longbourn’s fields as she headed toward the trail leading up the hillock’s side. The crispness of the air quickly chilled her exposed skin, giving her cheeks a rosy glow. The countryside still slept under its glaze of overnight frost that gave the brown expanse a pale overcoat. The last days of autumn had yet to give way to a winter that was not due, if Papa’s almanac was accurate, for another eleven days on the twenty-second. Even then, it was doubtful that Meryton would experience anything more than cold weather over the next few months. Unlike Darcy’s Derbyshire, southerly-located Hertfordshire rarely enjoyed more than one or two snowfalls during a season.

  As she warmed to her exertion, Mary realized that the combination of the cold air and activity was positively bracing. She had never felt more alive, more in tune with her surroundings than at this very moment. Minor details which she would have ignored in earlier days, self-absorbed as she was in her swamp of self-hate, now called out for her attention. A disused bird nest hung precariously from a drooping branch overhead. A hedgehog preparing to enter its burrow blinked in the brightening pre-dawn twilight. A woman bundled with multiple shawls worked her way across a field seeking turnips or swedes that had been missed by the late harvest. Mary knew of some landowners who chased away the poor. She was proud that her father followed the Biblical injunction

  "Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up

  the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for

  the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God." [xxi]

  Turning away from the lane she was on, Mary began the ascent up Oakham’s lower slopes. While not a mountain in its truest sense, Oakham dominated the area around Meryton. Mary knew that the hump was one of the easternmost of the Chiltern Hills downslope—chalk rises that stretched northeast from Oxfordshire up to Luton. As she walked, Mary looked down to be sure to avoid roots and rocks so positioned as to trip the unwary. In the process she observed a vast and colorful array of mosses and lichens clinging to south facing tree trunks and rock faces. That there was life even amongst the russet skirts of Nature’s autumn ensemble threw Mary into a state of reverie.

  How can I have missed all of this in nearly twenty years of existence? I thought I understood the glory of God’s handiwork. This world is true evidence of divine power…not the fortunate elevation of a few “chosen ones”—chosen, not by God, but rather by men. These sermonizers, these Collinses, seek to be higher not because that would bring them closer to God, but rather that it put them above other men.

  And, that was just what I wanted. I needed to find a way to be better than my sisters. I had to find a way to shine to my father. I had to become something to push aside Mama’s remarks. In the end, my behavior separated me as completely from society as if I had stood by the roadside and rang a leper’s bell.

  Lost as she was in her thoughts, it took Mary several minutes to realize that she was no longer climbing. She had reached the wide-open tabletop summit of Oakham Mount. All of Hertfordshire stretched out before her.

  

  Pausing to drink in the scenery, Mary looked southeast toward the darkened smudge on the edge of the world—London, some four-and-twenty miles away. Here she was, young Miss Be
nnet, standing above all that she knew, waiting…waiting…

  The first slice of sun broke the horizon and dispersed the haze that marked the great metropolis. A wave of rose hued light raced toward Mary, illuminating the fields and farms, manor houses and cottages, lanes and pastures. The edge of the band splashed against the base of Oakham and sped up the pitch to embrace Mary in its warm folds as it washed over the plateau. With the dawn came a surge of energy that left her breathless. The minutes that she stood stock still, eyes closed, faced upturned into the brightening day, were different from any other in her memory.

  The rays of the late autumn sun caressed her, their crystalline clarity speaking soundless volumes of peace and comfort.

  Let go!

  And then the tears came.

  Gently at first, seeping from the corners of her eyes and coursing down the soft downiness of her cheeks.

  Then in harder shoulder-shuddering spasms, as the dam of a dozen years of isolation holding back her anger began to crack.

  At some point, her knees buckled, and she collapsed onto the turf-covered hilltop, sitting on her haunches, head bowed, weeping her sense of loss. But for what was she mourning?

  Was it for the little girl, still in ribbons, running into the parlor eager to show her Mama her drawing of the horses in the stable only to be ignored in favor of some juicy gossip offered by Aunt Philips? Or was it for that same untutored child feeling the sting of criticism as she fumbled the notes of one of Mr. Bach’s sonatas? What of the day she became a woman and the elders in her life did little to ease her fears?

  She had spent half of her life counting every grievance committed that made her feel less than her sisters, unwanted by her parents and ignored by the community as she fumbled her way from one disaster to the next. She raged against those who should have guided her but did not. Even the eye rolls of her sisters and their husbands-to-be scoured deep wounds in her heart. It was so much easier to deny them all, to be separate, to imagine herself to be superior, to create that persona of Mary Alone.

  Mary turned her face into the rising sun, tilted her head back and let out a gut-wrenching scream. She shrieked her injuries out to the bare branches of the ancient oaks that circled Oakham’s crest. She laid each word, glance, slight, and hurt onto the Mount’s high altar for all Creation to see. As Mary recalled each one, she felt them whither and blow away as they lost their power over her. She let them go for the first time in her life. And her soul cried out for joy.

  

  When Mary returned to her senses, the sun was higher in the sky and the hoar frost had burned off the grasses upon which she lay. Rubbing her eyes, Mary sat up, and, spying a large log about half way across the meadow, stood to walk over to it. As she approached, she could see a bare spot worn in the ground near its middle.

  This must have been where Lizzy sat and scrubbed the ground clean as she pondered the view.

  She settled onto the trunk, finding it smoothed by years of use. Being taller than her sister, what must have been a perfect perch for Lizzy was a bit low for Mary. The seat was ideally situated to take advantage of Oakham’s attributes. There was a compelling silence, undisturbed by noises from the outside world. A gentle breeze rattled the few remaining leaves in the trees. The view was enhanced by the dappling of the fields by the clouds that gradually swept across the azure December sky. The air seemed fresher, crisper and was a tonic that soothed Mary’s heartaches.

  She breached the musette and unwrapped the bread and jam packed by Mrs. Hill. Sips of tangy cider washed down her first few bites of sandwich. After the past hour’s emotional turmoil, such basic tastes helped her center herself.

  Strange how elemental articles like cider, bread, and preserves help me find my way back to where I should be!

  The calming influence of a full stomach and the surrounding beauty allowed Mary to reflect on her catharsis. She was struck by the revelation that every sensation upon which she had built her adolescent reality was in truth no defense against further outrages, but rather the corrosive cause for her social isolation. She had been caught in a cycle where her own responses to others led to censure of her own behavior that, in turn, caused her to be even more critical of those around her. Everything she had tried to this point had failed to help her fit in, to be accepted by her family.

  As this last passed through her mind, Mary’s eyes narrowed. There was something wrong with idea of just “fitting in.” That sounded as if anyone, despite whom they were, could wedge their way into a group. That was a world away from being accepted.

  How did one become “accepted?”

  That was a thought to ponder. Mary recalled the time Lizzy, just after she had returned from visiting Charlotte at Hunsford last April, had confronted her after one particularly awful scene with Maria Lucas.

  “Mary, you try too much. You wear people down with all the exhibition of your capacious memory, your prosy moralizing, and your disapproving scowls. Just sit back and enjoy what people have to offer. You will discover that each person is special, unique, and has God-given gifts which they will freely share if you open your heart to receive them.

  “And, who made you so upright and holy? What does the Book say? “Judge not lest ye be judged?”[xxii] and “He who is without sin, cast the first stone?”[xxiii]

  “Honestly, Mary, you would think that with all the use your Bible has enjoyed in the past few years, you would be a deeper vessel of Christian charity. Your disapproval, especially of an innocent creature like Maria, does you no credit and, in fact, alienates you from those who would like you if you only allowed it,” Lizzy railed.

  Closing her eyes, Mary recalled the earlier scene in the Lucas’ parlor, but not as herself, but rather as a fly on the wall. She could see and hear everybody…Lady Lucas, Mama, Maria, Lizzy, herself, and Lydia…around the room. Kitty was at home recovering from a cold. Jane was still in Town with the Gardiners. In her imagination, she did what she rarely did during these calls; she stopped to listen to the conversation.

  Certainly, Maria was capricious and somewhat silly. But, she was still a young girl, barely old enough to merit attention on the marriage mart—and even then, only in the country. So being flighty was not out of Maria’s norm. Mary then looked across the room to where she herself sat. She could see the anger billowing from the posture of her other self, the ever-darkening glower on her face, the way in which she snapped the pages of the book she held in her lap.

  What was it about Maria’s prattle that bothered me so? Was it because I felt so insecure in groups of people talking of topics about which I have no knowledge or interest? Or was it something else—Lydia! Yes, Lydia! Maria reminded me that Lydia, Mama’s favorite, could spout inanities without end and still be petted and rewarded. Yet, anything I would say or do earned me nothing but criticism.

  Mary watched as her spectral form lifted her eyes to Maria and delivered a remark (the words mattered not) that stopped the conversation in its tracks. Maria’s head snapped as if she had been slapped. She bit her trembling lower lip as tears began to flow. In a moment, she had gathered her skirts and had dashed from the room. Even normally oblivious Lydia threw Mary a piercing glare before she looked to Mama who nodded her permission for Lydia to chase after her friend. Lizzy spoke momentarily to Lady Lucas and practically dragged Mary from the room and out the front door.

  Ending the vision by opening her eyes, once again drinking in the beauty of the summit, Mary felt hot tears of shame wash down her cheeks. Was she really such a shrew? How could any even stand to be around her? Would everyone be better off if she never came down from Oakham?

  No…self-murder is the worst of all sins!

  So, she had to find a way to carry on; she had to find a way to live with herself, to exist in this world. That meant that Mary needed to make a radical change and to undergo a complete alteration, not just a minor course correction.

  A clarifying thought powered through her mind. She had always turned to the Word for
guidance, but she had also always depended upon fusty old men to explain it to her. Today’s tears had flushed away layers of calcified thinking. Mary realized that the solution for all her problems began with her.

  And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye,

  but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

  Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote

  out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

  Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and

  then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.[xxiv]

  Saint Matthew’s words glowed in front of her. She first had to release her log—her anger. Then she had to stop being so selfish, so concerned to make everything about her when most had nothing to do with her. Then, finally, she had to realize that building a better self-image began with appreciating others for what they were, not what she believed they should be. Each person was treading their own path and would have to settle their own accounts when they faced their Lord.

  Mary Bennet realized that her ledger had mostly black marks in it, but thankfully she had seen her failings before it was too late. While winter was in the air atop Oakham, spring had begun in the breast of Mary Bennet.

  

  The path down the hill seemed shorter and her footsteps were quicker as she returned to Longbourn. Mary hummed a tuneless song as she strode along. There was a lightness of spirit that bubbled throughout her body.