The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

The snow had isolated Oxford from the North; Charlie could not have gone home for Christmas even had he wanted to. Which he did not. Much as he adored his mother, an advancing maturity had rendered his father less and less tolerable. Of course he knew full well that he, Charlie, was Pater’s chief disappointment, but could do nothing about it. At Oxford he was safe. Yet how, he wondered, gazing at the snowdrifts piled against his walls, can I step into Pater’s shoes? I am no Minister of the Crown, no ardent politician, no conscientious landlord, no force to be reckoned with. All I want is to lead the life of a don, an authority upon some obscure aspect of the Greek epic poets or the early Latin playwrights. Mama understands. Pater never will.

These unhappy thoughts, so familiar and answerless, were banished the moment Owen Griffiths pushed open his study door; Charlie turned from the window, eyes lighting up.

“Oh, the boredom!” he exclaimed. “I’m stuck in the middle of the stuffiest Virgil you can imagine — say that you have a better task for me, Owen!”

“No, young sir, you must unstuff Virgil,” said the Welshman, sitting down. “However, I do have a letter, delayed a month by the snows.” And he held it up, waved it just beyond Charlie’s reach, laughing.

“A plague on you! It is not my fault I lack your inches! Give it to me at once!”

Mr Griffiths handed it over. He was indeed tall, and well built for one who had espoused Academe; the result, he would say unabashedly, of a childhood spent digging holes and chopping wood to help his farmer father. His hair was thick, black and worn rather long, his eyes were dark and his features regular enough to be called handsome. A certain Welsh gloom gave his face a severity beyond his years, which numbered twenty-five, though he had little cause for gloom once Charlie had arrived at Oxford. Mrs Darcy had been searching for a tutor able to share a good house with her son as well as guide him through his in-college studies. All expenses paid, of course, as well as a stipend generous enough to enable the lucky man to send a little money home if his parents were in need of it. The miracle of being chosen from among so many hopeful applicants! A memory that still had the power to deprive Owen of his breath. Nor had it done his academic career any harm to secure this position; the Darcy wealth and influence extended to the upper echelons of power in Oxford’s colleges.

“Odd,” said Charlie, having broken the letter’s seal. “It is Aunt Mary’s handwriting, but the wax isn’t green.” He shrugged. “With so many people at Shelby Manor, perhaps the green wax was all used up.” He bent his head, absorbed now in what his aunt had to say, his growing look of mingled horror and despair giving Owen a pang of apprehension.

“Oh, Lord!” Charlie cried, putting the letter down.

“What is it?”

“A conniption fit — an attack of some feminine peculiarity — I don’t know how to describe it, Owen. Only that Mary — I am to call her plain Mary in future, she says — has well and truly taken the bit between her teeth,” said Charlie. “Here, read.”

“Hmmm” was Owen’s comment. He raised an eyebrow.

“She doesn’t know what is entailed! It will kill her!”

“I doubt that, Charlie, but I see why you’re concerned. It is the letter of a sheltered woman.”

“How could she be aught else than sheltered?”

“Does she have the money for this quest?”

That gave Charlie pause; his face screwed up in the effort of remembering something unconnected to Latin or Greek. “I am not sure, Owen. Mama said she had been provided for, though I fancied she deemed the provision niggardly in view of Mary’s sacrifice. See? She says she is living in Hertford — because Shelby Manor has been sold, I suppose. Oh, it is too bad! Pater could afford a dozen Shelby Manors to house Mary for the rest of her life!” He wrung his hands together, anguished. “I don’t know her circumstances! And why didn’t I ask? Because I couldn’t face a scene with my father! I’m a coward. A weakling! Just as Pater says. What is wrong with me, that I cannot face him?”

“Come, Charlie, don’t be so hard on yourself. I think you cannot face him because you know it will accomplish nothing, perhaps even make a situation worse. As soon as the post is moving again, write to your mother. Ask her what Mary’s situation is. She is not travelling until May, so you have a little time.”

Charlie’s brow cleared; he nodded. “Yes, you’re right. Oh, poor Mary! Where does she get these zany ideas? Write a book!”

“If her letter is anything to go by, she gets her ideas from Argus,” Owen said. “I admire the man immensely, but he is no friend of the Tories or your father. I would keep this from him if you can. It never crossed my mind that ladies read the Westminster Chronicle, least of all your aunt.” His eyes twinkled. “Whom, I note, you have no difficulty in calling plain Mary.”

“Well, I have always thought of her as plain Mary, you see. Oh, how I used to look forward to those holidays with her at Shelby Manor! Mama used to take Grandmother to Bath once a year, and I stayed with Mary. The fun we had! Walking, going out in the trap — she could talk about anything and was game for anything from climbing trees to pot-shotting pigeons with a catapult. With Pater snapping at my heels when my schoolmasters were not, my weeks with Mary remain the most wonderful part of my childhood. She loves geography most, though she is no mean historian. It amazed me that she knew the common and botanical names of all the mosses, ferns, trees and flowers in the woods.” Charlie’s perfect teeth flashed in a grin. “I add that — spread this no farther, Owen! — she was not above tying up her skirts to paddle down a stream in search of tadpoles.”

“A side to her that you alone were privileged to see.”

“Yes. The moment others were around, she turned into an aunt. A maiden aunt, prim and prissy. Having seen them splash through many a stream, I can vouch for her legs — very shapely.”

“I am intrigued,” said Owen, deeming it time he reverted to a tutor. “However, Charlie, the weather has set for some days, and Virgil is still stuffed. No Horatian odes until he is as empty as an English pillow case drying on a line. Virgil now, a letter to your mama later.”

THREE (#u56ad5afd-6ac2-5df9-ace5-44c552bac21b)

At first the winter passed more delightfully than Mary expected. Though she could receive no gentleman callers, Mrs Markham, Miss Delphinia Botolph, Mrs McLeod and Lady Appleby came often to her house, privately deploring its musty atmosphere and dark outlook, not to mention privately speculating as to why dear Miss Bennet had no lady’s companion. Enquiries met with a stone wall; Miss Bennet simply said she had no need of one, and changed the subject. However, if a carriage was sent for her or she hired one of her own, she could attend dinner parties and receptions. There were always enough unattached gentlemen, and Mr Robert Wilde had dropped unsubtle hints that he would very much like it were he to be seated beside Miss Bennet at a dinner table, or care for her on other kinds of occasion.

Wriggled brows and winks flew from face to face; it was no mean thing for a thirty-eight-year-old female to charm such an eligible bachelor as Mr Wilde. Who seemed not to care that he was her junior by a good six or seven years.

“Clever of him,” said Miss Botolph, whose sixty years meant she experienced no pangs of jealousy. “One hears that she has an adequate income, and if he snares her, it will elevate his station. She is Darcy of Pemberley’s sister-in-law.”

“I could wish she dressed better,” said Lady Appleby, a keen reader of ladies’ fashion magazines.

“And I, that she did not come out with those truly peculiar remarks,” from Mrs Markham. “I do believe she was seen in deep conversation with a gypsy.”

The object of these observations was seated on a sofa with Mr Wilde in attendance, her plain black gown so old that it had a greenish hue, and her hair scraped into a bun without a single curl to frame her face.

“What did you learn from the gypsy?” Mr Wilde was asking.

“Fascinating, sir! It seems they believe themselves the descendants of the Egyptian pharaohs, and are doomed to wander until some paradise or prophet arrives. What he was really trying to do was to separate me from my sixpences, but he did not succeed. His eyes hungered for gold or silver, not food. I went away convinced that his tribe, at least, is neither impoverished nor discontented. He said they liked their life. I did learn that they move on when they have fouled their camp site with rotten food and bodily wastes. A lesson some of our own hedgerow people should learn.”

“You say they like their life. But you do not like yours.”

“That will change in May,” said Mary, nibbling a macaroon. “This is very good. I must ask Mrs McLeod for her cook’s recipe.”

“That’s a relief!” cried Mr Wilde, forgetting that it was not polite for new acquaintances to contract words.

“A relief. In what way?”

“It says that there will be an end to your travels. That one day you will command the services of your own cook.”

“I do that now.”

“But do not entertain. Therefore, no macaroons.”

“I am reproved.”

“Miss Bennet, I would never dream of reproving you!” His light brown eyes grew brighter, gazed into hers ardently, and his whirling mind quite forgot that they were in Mrs McLeod’s drawing room with ten other people. “On the contrary, I ask for nothing more of life than to spend it at your side.” He took the plunge. “Marry me!”

Horrified, she wriggled down the sofa away from him in a movement so convulsive that all eyes fixed on them; all ears had been flapping far longer.

“Pray do not say it!”

“I have already said it,” he pointed out. “Your answer?”

“No, a thousand times no!”

“Then let us speak of other things.” He took the empty plate from her nerveless fingers and smiled at her charmingly. “I don’t accept my congé, you understand. My offer remains open.”

“Do not hope, Mr Wilde. I am obdurate.” Oh, how vexatious! Why had she not foreseen this inappropriate declaration? How had she encouraged him?

“Will you be at Miss Appleby’s wedding?” he asked.

And that, concluded the satisfied onlookers, is that — for the time being, at any rate. Sooner or later she would accept his offer.

“Though if she plays too hard to catch,” said Miss Botolph, “she may find her fisherman has waded far upstream.”