Mary B

by Katherine J. Chen

  “This is an excellent development,” Aunt Philips assented. No doubt she had plans to circulate this piece of news to every member of her intimate acquaintance before the actual proposal had taken place. My aunt preferred to live several steps ahead of everyone else. In hearing rumor of a marriage proposal, she would consider it her duty to express at least a few thoughts on the arrangement of the flowers in the church, the best material and fabric for the bride’s gown, the likelihood of the marriage’s success, and how many surviving offspring it would produce. She was prevented from making any of her usual prophesies in this instance, since she did not know the identity of the intended bride, and after a momentary pause, she asked (as I’d predicted she would), “And who, Mrs. Bennet, do you think Mr. Collins will ask to marry him? Has he shown any special preference for one of them?”

  “Lizzy seems the obvious choice,” Mama said, “although she hasn’t exchanged more than three words with him since he arrived.”

  “That is of little consequence,” my aunt said consolingly, “but I would have thought Mr. Collins was more Mary’s type. In temperament, Mary seems well suited to be a clergyman’s wife. She looks the part and is capable of expelling great quotations.”

  “We’d be lucky to get her married at all,” Mama huffed. “No, I think Mr. Collins will settle on Lizzy. He as much as said so when I hinted that Jane might very soon be engaged, and he agreed that in such circumstances, it would be best to honor sequentially the seniority of the sisters, which he would have done with Jane had Mr. Bingley not fallen in love with her first. Besides, sister, you’d do well to remember that Mr. Collins is still a man after all, and an unattractive man is just as inclined to choose a pretty girl as a handsome one is.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Aunt Philips announced, as though the decision were hers to make. “Lizzy will be Mr. Collins’s wife. But if you don’t mind my saying so, Mrs. Bennet, I don’t think my niece stands much chance of being happy with him.”

  My mother answered magnanimously: “As far as I am aware, happiness doesn’t enter into it. She’ll be saving Longbourn for myself and her sisters; on top of which, I recall Mr. Collins mentioning that Lady Catherine would wait upon him and his wife when they were returned to Hunsford, so she has that to look forward to, if nothing else.”

  “There are many marriages with far less to credit them,” the other agreed. “Well, where is Mary? I believe you called for her nearly twenty minutes ago, and we’ve already finished all our tea and biscuits. I hope she hasn’t taken to locking herself in her room.”

  I opened the door—perhaps too suddenly, for my aunt and mother jumped in their seats, and, like birds that have been disturbed from their roosts, neither could settle in their chairs again for some minutes.

  My countenance must have given away the distress I felt at overhearing their conversation, for Mama at once asked me what the matter was.

  “Nothing,” I replied simply. “I’m sorry for keeping you waiting.”

  “Well, where have you been? I asked Hill to fetch you some time ago,” Mama complained.

  “I’ve been out…walking.”

  “Well! Have you ever heard of such a thing?” Mama cried. “And why should your face be so red from walking, Mary?”

  “Some color would do her good, sister,” Aunt Philips murmured. Looking me over, she clicked her tongue accusingly. “Color, Mary,” she scolded, as my cheeks throbbed with warmth. “You might take some advice from your sisters and wear more than just these ugly browns and grays all the time. They do you and your figure no favors, you know.”

  “She has no figure,” Mama replied on my behalf before I could speak. “And we’ve given up trying to do anything with Mary. First, she won’t accept any interference, and second, nothing seems to improve on her anyway.” She told me she’d forgotten what it was she’d called me up for in the first place and said she’d send Mrs. Hill to fetch me again once she remembered it. I then left the room, making directly for my own, and Mama and Aunt Philips resumed their animated conversation as though nothing had ever interrupted it.

  My sister’s acuity had not failed her. What asses men were.

  So! Mr. Collins had determined to settle on Lizzy, and with Mama’s approval, too. Hateful man. How boring and expected! How ridiculous and stupid! Well, if she accepted him, the wedding would be a merry one indeed, for all the laughter in the church when the time came to kiss the bride and the groom found he had to stand on his toes for being too short to reach her mouth.

  I executed a little twirl in my room as I thought of his bumbling, greedy fingers undoing the back of her dress and the multitude of depressed-looking children they’d bring into the world soon afterwards—at least eleven, I decided, with one set of twins, and all stampeding after their mother in the small rooms of the parsonage house, while downstairs, their father expounded to Lady Catherine and her daughter some obscure passage from the Bible. Yes, a fine scene of domestic bliss!

  I pictured myself purple-faced and drunk at their wedding, executing a flawless cartwheel across the lawn of the church in a hideous saffron dress. “Color, Mary,” Aunt Philips had said. “Yes, Aunt,” I’d reply, before emptying a glass of wine over her head. I smiled to myself, shoving my hands into the pockets of my dress, and my fingers grazed the parcel which Mr. Collins had given me earlier. With some difficulty, I wrenched out the package and tore it open. A half-sheet of paper detached from the other pages and slipped through my fingers, onto the floor. It contained only the following short lines in an elegant hand, which I might easily have mistaken for a woman’s had I not known its author to be Mr. Collins:

  To my dear cousin Mary—

  Being a cultured man, I am able to appreciate in kindred spirits (such as yourself) a refinement of taste, which souls untouched by the divine balm of our Lord’s sweet music will sometimes consider repellent to their uncouth sensibilities. Though lesser and ungifted minds will attempt to dissuade you from your endeavors, you must never give up your instrument and continue just as you have always done. My condensed thoughts on the matter being thus dispatched and hopefully of some helpful instruction to my young audience, I’ve thereby taken it upon myself to restore to you that which you have lost in the expectation you will find it useful, and I hope my gesture—the motivations of which are entirely steeped in kindness and concern for the happiness of my musically inclined cousin—will not be discredited for its boldness and presumption.

  Respectfully,

  Mr. William Collins

  P.S. I will undertake to return the original to your estimable aunt at the first opportunity, so kindly have no worries on this account.

  Tentatively, I unfolded the remaining pages. It is a strange and, I think, peculiar behavioral trait that wrath and discontent should be so easily dispelled by the receipt of a bouquet of flowers, a silver locket enclosing a tuft of hair, or, in my own case, a few pages of meticulously copied sheet music containing “The Last Rose of Summer” by Thomas Moore. I’d already determined not to be put off by Kitty’s violence and to beg my aunt, in my next walk to Meryton, for the opportunity of borrowing the same music again in order to recopy it, but this…this I hadn’t expected and wouldn’t have expected for another hundred years should I have lived so long, as strange and wonderful a surprise as it was.

  Smoothing the pages against the wall, I marveled at the cleanness of the lines, the mechanically even spacing between the notes, the remarkable absence of ink blots, and the neat annotations written with an especially fine point over and under every bar to denote where one should play louder or softer or repeat a refrain. I pictured him stooped over the small table in his room, crafting, then coloring in each rounded note and drawing with a steady, disciplined hand measured rows of black lines in the moving, inconstant flame of a single candle. I felt happy. Looking up and around my empty room, I wished he were here now, so I could thank him better
than I had done downstairs. But I wanted selfishly to savor, too, the feeling of being singled out and respected and admired. Was it possible that Mr. Collins loved me? Even if it were true that he’d come to Longbourn intent on choosing a wife and had at first admired Lizzy or Jane, his affections could change, as feelings often do, and alter from their original course. He could come to realize, upon steady and gradual interaction with myself, that the third and plainest Bennet sister possessed qualities which might prove more valuable than mere physical attractiveness and feminine charm.

  This was not, I think, impossible to believe. Perhaps Mr. Collins had discovered a virtue which others before him had been unable to discern, and if he had, there could be no reason why I shouldn’t reward him accordingly with the greatest love and esteem in my power to give. It was impossible—everyone knew it to be impossible—that either Lizzy should be in love with Mr. Collins or that Mr. Collins should be in love with Lizzy. By his own admission, she had laughed at him at the dinner table, though perhaps she mightn’t have been so much in danger of falling in his estimation had the subject which she found amusing been anything other than the Right and Honorable Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Surely this was a breach of decorum too near all that Mr. Collins held sacred and dear to be forgiven. And Lizzy, who was candid to a fault, had confessed that she’d perceived no special preference from the man most unsuited to her in personality, opinion, and, I daresay, physique. No, Mr. Collins would be sensible. He, unlike the multitudes of unknown others, would not abandon all reason for the trophy of a hollow partnership with a pretty face, not even one as bright-eyed and agreeable as Lizzy’s. He would know which among Papa’s daughters would be least likely to dishonor him in the partaking of tea and cake at Rosings Park and, therefore, best able to secure his own success and future happiness. I sighed, and hugging the pages of sheet music to the flat expanse of my chest, I tried and failed to recall a time when I’d felt so enamored of myself.

  “Good Lord, Mary, what is that you’re wearing on your head?” Mama cried, gawping as I descended from my room that evening to join my sisters and Mr. Collins in the hall. “And your dress…where did you get a dress like that, Mary?”

  “Jane lent it to me, Mama,” I replied, smoothing the folds of cream-white muslin.

  “And Lizzy lent the feather in your hair,” Jane added from below.

  “And Lizzy lent the feather in my hair,” I pronounced exuberantly, beaming at everyone from the landing and ignoring Lydia and Kitty, who looked quite ready to explode from unvented laughter.

  “But…” Mama protested. “But you’re just going with Mr. Collins and your sisters to your aunt Philips’s for supper and cards. It’s hardly a special occasion.”

  “I know,” I said and descended the final stair with a light hop and a skip. Love filled my heart, and my awakened spirit would not be thwarted. I turned to Mr. Collins, who I hadn’t seen since leaving him several hours ago in the library, and to my pleasure, he seemed to look at me, too, with visible wonder at my transformation. “Mr. Collins,” I said with more garrulousness than was my custom, “I’m so glad we’ll be going to Aunt Philips’s tonight. I have every expectation that this evening will be a most engaging one, and I’ll be treating you all to a new rondo by Steibelt I’ve recently learned and committed to memory.”

  At this, Lydia and Kitty could restrain their laughter no more and, standing huddled together in front of the mirror above the hall table, started howling at their own reflections. Mr. Collins, glancing in their direction and then at me, answered politely that he looked forward to hearing my well-known proficiency at the piano, a sentiment unquestionably shared by the rest of my family. I thanked him with a bold smile, at which he turned a little red, which made me blush as well. We then spent a few moments wordlessly regarding the well-worn tassels of the carpet and the faded calico of the window curtains. But Mama hadn’t quite finished with me and, continuing to gaze with confused horror from the white feather perched at the top of my head to the embroidered front of my dress, said, “Mary, my dear, does this…erm…arrangement you’ve put on have anything to do with what your aunt said to you earlier today about your usual clothes?”

  “No, Mama,” I replied simply.

  “Well, Mary,” she continued. “I can’t be sure what’s inspired this sudden change, but I feel, as your mother, that I must take advantage of every opportunity to share the wisdom I’ve accrued in my old age, which is that while in some cases effort certainly can make a difference, sometimes something…or rather someone…will look much better undecorated than—”

  “Ah, look, Lizzy’s here,” Jane exclaimed, and Mama had no chance to say any more, as the next ten minutes were spent arranging all our persons into the carriage that would take us to the elegantly furnished parlor room of my aunt Philips’s home, which, despite its crowded dimensions, had never quite abandoned its pretensions of resembling Blenheim or Chatsworth.

  For most of the evening, I occupied myself with entertaining Aunt Philips’s guests at the piano. But when I felt least in danger of committing a mistake, I’d venture to look around the room and search for Mr. Collins among the crowd. In doing so, I was happy to find him on almost all occasions talking excitedly to his hostess with many histrionic gestures while the latter listened and nodded and beckoned one or two others over to show off her new and well-connected friend. Lizzy, who’d quickly established herself as the reigning favorite of the most handsome man in the room (Mr. George Wickham), was too engrossed with the latter’s tall figure and coaxing smiles to pay any attention to the plain black garb of our clergyman cousin. As for the rest of my sisters, Lydia and Kitty were perched in the part of the room where the population of officers was thickest and ladies, excepting their own selves, of course, were scarcely to be found. And Jane—dear Jane; in the absence of her light-footed Mr. Bingley, she entertained herself by sometimes sitting with me and helping me turn the pages of my music and sometimes chattering with female acquaintances she without fail proclaimed to miss very much.

  Even if her emotions are not outwardly displayed, owing to exceptional self-control, a woman will remain as obsessive about the object of her affections as a cat that has smelled the odor of fish and will continue to think about the fish, though the cat cannot see the fish or taste it. And rain may pour on the cat and people may unkindly strike it for no other reason than that it is a cat, but the beast will still be contemplating the gray-finned delicacy it hopes one day to hold between its black-and-white paws, though by then, the fish may already have been eaten by the humans who purchased it at market. I use this comparison simply to illustrate the behavior of women in love.

  So we might conclude that Jane’s claims to have missed her female friends since Mr. Bingley’s arrival may be considered mere polite formality, spoken with moderate conviction on one side and received with even less conviction on the other. But this was civilized society, and everyone smiled and laughed most cheerfully to one another’s faces, even if they hated each other. On behalf of Jane, I was pleased to find that these same women showed themselves eager to overlook the fact that no less than a month ago, they, in partnership with their fanatical mothers, had also contended vigorously for a certain newcomer’s affections and miserably failed.

  Otherwise, the evening progressed with little to distinguish it. On two occasions, Mr. Collins came over to the piano to listen to me play, but as Jane was in my company both times, neither of us ventured more than the wordless exchange of a few friendly though, I think, meaningful and admiring smiles. And when Jane finally left my side to join her friends in a game of lottery tickets, I wished Mr. Collins would again return to the piano so that we could talk and make a spectacle of sitting together on the same bench, but by then, he had resumed his conversation with Aunt Philips and three other guests. I entertained no hope of his being able to excuse himself anytime soon from this discussion, as I heard uttered several times from that group’s
general direction the name of his noble patroness and that of the lady’s daughter, as well as the phrases “chimneypiece at Rosings Park” and “eight hundred pounds.”

  Some point after Aunt Philips and Mr. Collins had together lost more rounds of whist than was acceptable to the sensibility of the former in so short a time, my hostess visited me in the middle of a doleful sonata to ask if I could play anything more appropriate to the mood of the occasion.

  “For goodness’ sake, Mary, this isn’t a funeral,” she whispered, leaning over the keyboard.

  “Not even though you’ve lost every game so far?” I asked.

  “Please don’t be disagreeable now, or I’ll have a word with your mother in the morning.”

  “No, Aunt, I don’t mean to be,” I replied.

  “You look…well, you look different tonight,” Aunt Philips said.

  “Do I?”

  “A bit much, don’t you think? The feather in your hair?”

  “Jane said it lends a certain dignity to my appearance. She said I look as fine as a queen, especially with the feather in my hair.”

  “She did, did she?” Aunt Philips said. “And may I ask to what we owe this charming alteration?”

  “I don’t know, Aunt. I think I may have become quite vain overnight,” I lazily replied. From his seat at the whist table, Mr. Collins unexpectedly caught my eye, and my aunt, who had the instinct of a hawk in circumstances as these, noted at once my flushed cheeks and spun her head in the direction of my gaze. She raised her eyebrows to nearly the edge of her forehead and, turning back to me, grinned in the manner of one whose world has received sudden and most revealing illumination.

  “I see,” she said, drawing out her syllables and tapping her fingers on the edge of the piano. “I see very clearly now, my dear—no need to explain any further.” Smiling, she waved to an unseen person at the other end of the room and left my side in considerably better spirits than when she’d first arrived.