"I admire the activity of your benevolence,” observed Mary, “but every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and, in my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion to what is required."Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice (p. 20).
Mary awoke feeling distinctly rumpled from her outburst. She rubbed her face and looked over at her desk. There were two stacks of papers, a book, and a half-written letter. That desk and the piano downstairs were the centers around which her life revolved. During daylight hours, she was always at one or the other unless she was eating or, very rarely, shopping.
She got up and flipped idly through the stacks of pages. She knew what was there. After all, she had written it herself. One stack was made up of extracts she had created to help her fix in her mind what various books were trying to convey.
Elizabeth had always looked scathingly at these extracts, clearly thinking they were a waste of time and paper. The rest of her sisters mostly ignored them. None of them realized that they were essential to her studies.
Mary was not particularly bright. The only way she could learn the intensely weighty topics in the books she read was to summarize them as she read them. Then she would study and re-study these summaries. When someone she knew appeared to be in need of help or advice, she could draw upon theseextracts to offer words of wisdom which she hoped would help them.
She moved her attention to the second stack of papers. These contained Mary’s own musings, which she never shared with anyone. She was certain they contained nothing of worth, since the ideas therein were substantially different from the ideas within her philosophy books. Still, these were essentially extracts of life.
Since she had trouble understanding people and society naturally, she often wrote down experiences that puzzled her. Then, later, she would re-read these experiences and try to understand what they meant. She would write her thoughts on the experience in the margins or even between the lines.
Needless to say, these pages were far messier than her extracts.
Then, there was the half-finished letter.
Without even reading it, Mary picked it up and threw it in the grate, where it immediately caught fire from the flame that burned within. She watched it disintegrate with a certain grim satisfaction.
That worthless, pointless, stupid letter represented Mary’s most embarrassing secret.
Though she had accepted long ago that she would never be the object of a man’s affection; though she knew people assumed she was all logic and reason and had little feeling in her; Mary had a tendency to fall in love.
The first time it had happened, she was only thirteen. Somehow, she developed an odd fascination with watching the blacksmith’s son learn his trade. She decided to write him a love letter to get her feelings, which could never be openly expressed, out of her heart. When the letter was done, she threw it in thefire, hoping that the fire would destroy the feelings along with the letter.
It hadn’t worked immediately, but once she had repeated the process three times, she lost her interest in the boy.
Once or twice a year since that time, Mary had gained a new object of her affection or fascination. Each time, she poured her feelings out onto paper and burned them up. Over the years, she had become quite adept at recognizing how it felt to fall in love, and she was even better at expressing it, at least on paper.
This knowledge, however, gave her no pride or sense of accomplishment. It was a useless ability for someone whose love and affection would never be returned or even desired.
This particular letter was for Jacob Lucas. He was two years younger than Charlotte Lucas, now Charlotte Collins, and five years older than Mary. He was the heir to Sir William Lucas’ fortune and property. Mary had recently begun to recognize that his curly hair simply begged for someone to run their fingers through it, and his childish grin was entirely too charming.
The letter she had just burned was the first one she had written to him, and it was incomplete. However, there was no point in ever completing it. The fire of her affection was already gone.
When Mary had looked out at the crowd of people who had heard her play her song, she had clearly seen Jacob Lucas grimacing in displeasure.
Mary’s crush was crushed. There were no more feelings to write and no reason to complete the half-written letter.
Mary sat at her desk and stared at the evidence of her life’s work. At the moment, it held no appeal whatsoever. She was no longer certain it ever would again. The whole point of it all wasthat it was something she could do to gain recognition, but as the years passed that recognition had waned.
Now, she couldn’t remember the last time anyone genuinely praised her music or was truly grateful for the words of wisdom she shared. Without that, what use was any of it?
Eventually, the sun set, but Mary still made no move to go downstairs. Instead, she sat there with the fire as her only light source and stared off into the air, allowing her thoughts to go where they wished.
When Sarah, the maid who helped her and her sisters with their clothes and hair, arrived, she made no comment on Mary’s rumpled dress, her messy hair, or her tear-stained face. She simply helped Mary wash up. Then she fixed her hair and buttoned up her dress. When Sarah’s work was done, she took her light and headed to Kitty’s room.
Mary sat in the near dark for several more minutes. She did not want to go downstairs, but her father had told her she could not study in her room after dark. Though he would pay for a fire in there during the day when it was cold, he would not pay for the extra cost of the candles she would surely burn if he allowed her to study at night.
With a great sigh, Mary stood up and headed for the door, making her way down to the drawing room where the family gathered before dinner was served.
She was the first one there, but her father entered shortly afterward. “That was quite a display you made at your sisters’ breakfast,” he said. His cryptic comment sounded disparaging, but Mary still did not know what she had done wrong, so she made no response.
Mama came down next, but she made no comment other than a greeting. She was clearly tired after hosting the biggest entertainment this neighborhood had seen all year.
Then Kitty came. It was obvious from the moment she appeared that she was furious. She walked right up to Mary and said, “Mary, how could you? It was mean and selfish, just as selfish as anything Lydia has ever done. I thought you were better than her or at least more mature, but you are no better. I can’t believe I am stuck here with you being my only sister left.”
Mary felt as if she had been slapped. It took her a moment to come up with any response whatsoever. As she attempted to gather her thoughts, she noticed her father watching them, the hint of his sarcastic smile curling one side of his lips. She wasn’t certain whether he agreed with Kitty or he was simply watching the entertainment of two sisters fighting.
