Mary Bennet: A Novella in the Personages of Pride & Prejudice Collection (5 page)

Mary blanched at her mother’s thoughtless words, but Miss Hardcastle smiled at Mrs. Bennet.

“How very kind of you to think of me and my brother,” she said with only a hint of stiffness.

Oblivious to her offense, Mrs. Bennet nodded graciously and returned her attention to her newfound task. “Now, whom shall we invite?”

“We ought to write a list of each gentleman and his assets,” Mrs. Philips added helpfully. “If I recall correctly, Mr. Sewell has two thousand a year….”

Now that her mother and aunt had conceived of this idea, they would not rest until they listed the financial value and acreage of every eligible gentleman in the county.

“Mary,” Miss Hardcastle beckoned from her spot across the room, “I know you are engaged in conversation, but would it trouble you overmuch to help me navigate this difficult passage? I can make nothing sensible of it.”

Miss Hardcastle held up the book, but Mary could not discern the title from such a distance.

“What do you read, Miss Hardcastle?” Mary asked as she stood and walked across the room, dodging a stool
en route
. She dearly hoped it to be a tome with which she was acquainted, perhaps Fordyce.

“Penelope,” Miss Hardcastle corrected her.

Despite the fact that she had no intention of using the familiar appellation, Mary nodded and reached for the book. Miss Hardcastle refused to relinquish it for Mary’s perusal. Instead, she kept it within her grasp, leaned near, and whispered, “I brought you across the room under false pretenses.”

Mary blinked. “You have no need for interpretive opinion?”

“Oh no!” Miss Hardcastle said, flipping the book shut. “This is merely some tripe I pulled from Mrs. Philips’s shelf.”

Mary recognized it as one of her aunt’s Gothic romance novels. She had never read a book of that particular genre, but her sisters often indulged in them. It seemed just the sort of book that would suit Miss Hardcastle.

“I can think of no one who would have trouble understanding the plot of this novel,” Miss Hardcastle continued. “It is ever so predictable: crumbling castles, a mysterious figure in the night, and a romance continually thwarted by circumstance. The only question I have is whether or not I shall bother continuing to the conclusion, for it seems that I can now predict it. But is not that part of the charm of such a book? Though I can guess the ending, I yet worry about the heroine’s happiness.”

“I suppose so,” Mary said. It sounded like errant nonsense to her, and she thought to say so. Glancing at her mother and aunt, Mary found them engaged in list-making and decided it better not to risk offending Miss Hardcastle by insulting her choice of reading material. “Why have you lured me here?”

“May I speak plainly?” she asked, patting the seat beside her.

“Please,” Mary said, sitting obediently. “I greatly prefer plain speech to innuendo. It leaves less room for discomfort.”

“I hoped we might escape for a few moments,” Miss Hardcastle confessed in a quiet voice. “Shall we not walk about Meryton?”

Mary’s brows drew down in confusion and then realization struck. Miss Hardcastle must be uncomfortable with her mother and aunt’s choice of conversational topics. Mary concealed a smirk. If only her mother knew that her conversation was found wanting, and Miss Hardcastle sought Mary’s company instead.

Seven

The two young women hardly stepped from Mrs. Philips’s front door before Miss Hardcastle linked their arms together and said, “Forgive me if my forthcoming remark intrudes on your privacy, but I agree with you, Mary. You ought to meet your suitors before a marriage settlement is made. We are not living in the Middle Ages when women were chattel. It is no longer in fashion for parents to decide a child’s matrimonial future.”

Unused to such intimate contact and conversation, Mary felt ill at ease and barely restrained herself from removing her hand from Miss Hardcastle’s grasp. She walked steadily and silently, maintaining a strict focus on the bustling town around them.

Midmorning had come and gone, and the tradesmen had long been about their labor. Shopkeepers bustled about, hawking their wares. Mary glanced with abhorrence at the millinery shop, a favorite of all her sisters, and in anticipation of being dragged within its confines, she prepared a demurral. But Miss Hardcastle hardly spared a look at the bonnets and ribbons displayed in the window.

She still awaited a reply, so Mary spoke her mind truthfully. “I do not believe my family intends to sell me off. They simply wish me to marry for practical reasons, for security. But I do confess to mixed thoughts on the subject.”

Miss Hardcastle gave her a practical look. “Do you not wish to fall in love and be married?”

“I hardly know,” Mary confessed. Unaccustomed to having emotions and even less accustomed to speaking about them, she said the first thing that came to her mind: “Marriage is an estate settled upon us by God, so I must not disapprove of it.”

A small laugh burst from Miss Hardcastle’s lips.

“Why do you laugh?” Mary asked, pulling at her arm and finding Miss Hardcastle’s grip unbreakable. “I have said nothing so very humorous.”

Miss Hardcastle shook her head, still smiling. “You have told me God’s opinion, but what are
your
thoughts on the subject?”

Mary did not comprehend her meaning. “I have just told you my opinion.”

Miss Hardcastle appeared as if she might argue the point, but finally, she asked, “Have you never been in love?”

“In love?” Mary repeated, her voice dropping low so that passersby might not hear. Her mind drifted back to those weeks when her cousin Mr. Collins had visited Longbourn.

Mary would have accepted his proposal with gladness, for the sacrifice would have saved her family. As her father’s heir, Mr. Collins would inherit Longbourn upon Mr. Bennet’s death, thus leaving the females of the family without shelter or protection. Had Mary secured Mr. Collins, she would have likewise secured their futures. She would have won her parents’ eternal gratitude, and she would have had the prestige of being the first of the five Bennet sisters to be wed.

Mary would finally have been valued.

All that would have occurred had Mr. Collins sought her hand in marriage.

But he had not.

Instead, Mr. Collins had considered every other woman within the district, always excepting Mary, who was under his beaky nose all the time. Instead, he had wed Charlotte Lucas, their neighbor.

Beside Mary, Miss Hardcastle said, “I must interpret your pause to mean that some gentleman from your past has wronged you.”

“There was a gentleman,” Mary admitted slowly.

Miss Hardcastle laughed again, a joyful sound that caused Mary to frown. “Just as I said! There is romance in your past.”

Mary did not often speak with such intimacy to anyone, and she felt herself blush. “There was no romance. Nor did he wrong me. He—he did not recognize me.”

Miss Hardcastle raised a blonde brow. “I do not take your meaning.”

“I did not expect you would,” Mary said, her tone blunter than she intended. “Your beauty is recognized wherever you go. I seem to blend into the background. I think you may be the only person outside of my own relations who has ever held a conversation with me.”

Miss Hardcastle began to walk again, her arm still firmly joined with Mary’s, and they continued in silence for some minutes.

“So this gentleman,” she said softly. “Were you in love with him?”

Mary conjured an image of Mr. Collins. Though she could have been prevailed upon to marry him, she had been keenly aware of his defects. She discerned a solidity in his reflections, but the truth was that he was not half so clever as herself. Mary, however, had believed that if she encouraged him to read and improve himself by such an example as hers, he might become a very agreeable companion.

“I am too practical for bouts of feeling,” Mary said, her words intended to persuade Miss Hardcastle as well as herself.

Miss Hardcastle only nodded, and a few steps later, they reached the door of Mr. Philips’s law office.

“And here we are,” Miss Hardcastle announced.

Shock and panic hit Mary in a unified blow. Miss Hardcastle had brought them to the very last threshold she wanted to cross.

She stopped, jerking Miss Hardcastle to a halt as well, and glared at the faded wooden sign that swung gently above the door.

“I—I have no reason to call upon my uncle!” Mary protested as she attempted to take a step backward.

Miss Hardcastle tightened her grip on Mary’s arm. “Who mentioned your uncle? I have come to pay a call upon my brother.”

Mary’s eyebrows flew toward her hairline. She must forget Mr. Hardcastle and the strange feelings he elicited in her. She simply could not see him.

“My uncle will not
appreciate an interruption at this hour,” Mary said, hoping to strike upon an argument that would end her companion’s nonsensical plot.

“Nor will my brother!” Miss Hardcastle said with glee, pulling Mary inexorably forward. “He despises interruptions of any sort at any hour. That is precisely why we must call upon him. It will be ever so entertaining. He will do his best to appear annoyed with me, but do not fret. It does not follow that he will be annoyed with you.”

“Why ever should I care if your brother became annoyed at me?” Mary squeaked, knowing she protested too much.

Miss Hardcastle smiled and dropped Mary’s arm. Then, she whirled and flung open the door of the law office, eliciting the excited chiming of the bell that hung above the door.

Surprised by her sudden freedom, Mary stared at the back of Miss Hardcastle’s blue and white day gown as it disappeared into the building.

Of their own accord, Mary’s feet took her inside. She halted just inside the doorway, hands clutched in front of her as she awaited her uncle’s reception.

Mr. Philips looked up from his worktable. He pushed his shaggy, graying hair from his eyes.

“Mary!” he said, surprise, or perhaps frustration, rendering his voice a higher pitch. He stood and rounded the large table. “What do you do here? Has your mother sent you on some errand or other? Would that she could have waited until the workday was done.”

Wondering why no one ever acted as if they were pleased to see her, Mary gripped her hands tighter and prepared to issue an apology for her unexpected visit.

Beside her, Miss Hardcastle cleared her throat, a dainty sound that drew both her attention and Mr. Philips’s.

Her uncle’s eyes swung toward Miss Hardcastle and lingered there for some seconds. Miss Hardcastle curtsied as though to the Prince Regent himself, and she finished her gesture by peering up at their host through her long, wispy eyelashes.

“Oh,” Mr. Philips said, his face lighting in a smile. “I did not see you there, Miss Hardcastle.”

Miss Hardcastle returned his smile with deliberate slowness.

“Good morning, Mr. Philips,” she purred. “I do hope you shall not turn us away, for we have walked quite a little distance.”

“Certainly not,” he returned, clearing his throat so loudly that the sound echoed through the quiet of the office. “How could I not receive two such lovely young women?”

“You are too kind,” Miss Hardcastle said, casting a look about the empty chamber. “We have come to see my brother. Only for a moment, of course, for we know you have business to attend.”

“He is about his labors in the back room. Please, do sit down,” Mr. Philips said, gesturing to a small wooden bench positioned beside the door. “I shall send your brother to you forthwith.”

Mary plunked down on the hard bench beside Miss Hardcastle while Mr. Philips disappeared into the back room of the small establishment. She stared at her dull gray skirt and listened to the murmur of masculine voices, though she could not make out their words.

“You see!” Miss Hardcastle whispered cheerily. “I assured you of our welcome. A dash of flirtation renders most gentlemen highly amenable to any request.”

Mary’s head snapped up sharply, and she scrutinized her friend.

“My brother will be ever so pleased that
you
have come.” Miss Hardcastle winked at her. “And here he is now.”

Indeed, Mr. Hardcastle’s footsteps approached.

Even before she turned her eyes upon him, Mary’s heart leapt, and she became overly conscious of her posture, her clothing, her every action. Each breath she drew sounded quick, labored. She felt every bit the fool that she was.

She did not even know Mr. Hardcastle, had exchanged barely three sentences with him. She should not feel such attraction. Surely, this was temptation, and she should flee it.

Mr. Hardcastle strode into the room and stopped before the bench, his ink-stained fingers clenched into fists at his sides.

“Penelope! What in God’s name do you do here?” he demanded as his sister rose. Mary followed suit, her action drawing Mr. Hardcastle’s notice.

“Oh,” Mr. Hardcastle said, his hands relaxing at his sides. “Pardon me.”

“As you see, Brother,” Miss Hardcastle said, giving Mary a gentle nudge with her elbow, “I have brought my dear friend Mary with me.”