By the time her purchases were ready to be retrieved from Meryton, Mary had developed a renewed sense of confidence.
Once she had returned home with them, she took it all up to her room. Fortunately, she managed to avoid awkward questions since Mama and Kitty were out visiting, and Papa was in his bookroom with the door closed. Mary hid the bow and arrows under her bed, and she placed the book on gardening on her desk.
She hesitated, however, before sitting down to study it.
A feeling of fear hit her as she prepared to do so. The sight of her desk reminded her of the many days and many, many hours she had sat there feeling trapped, forcing herself to try to make sense of the nonsensical, slaving away over the effort it took to learn Italian and French.
She looked from her new book on gardening and back to her book on medicinal herbs which she had glanced through over the past week. Then she looked at the shelves which were now nearly empty, since most of her notes and extracts had been gradually burned over the last week.
She took a few deep breaths and reminded herself that this time would be different. She would be learning thingsshe truly wished to know rather than what society dictated an accomplished young lady should learn.
Slowly, Mary settled into the chair in front of her desk. She took out a sheet of paper and readied her pen and ink, so that she could take notes when she needed to. Then she opened the book on gardening.
Four hours later, Mary was startled out of her fascinating studies when Sarah entered the room and told her it was time to prepare for dinner.
Chapter 4
"…no one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half-deserved.” … “All this she must possess…and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading."Austen, Jane. Pride and Prejudice (p. 24).
January 6, 1815
Mary Bennet watched as her younger sister, Kitty, exchanged marriage vows with Mr. Rogers. It had been a whirlwind romance between the two of them. Mr. Rogers had only moved to Meryton a little more than two months ago to set up a shop. Almost as soon as he laid eyes on Kitty, he was smitten, and Kitty quickly returned his affection.
Mary was genuinely pleased for her sister. Kitty had grown up a bit over the last two years. She seldom giggled anymore, and she wasn’t quite so easily annoyed. After the awful outburst following Elizabeth’s and Jane’s wedding, the two sisters had found common ground in their mutual appreciation for fashion.
While Mary didn’t necessarily follow the dictates of fashion, she had found that Kitty was quite helpful in finding which styles and colors suited her. In exchange, Mary had helped Kitty improve her embroidery and needlework. They had frequently gone shopping together, and after a time, Mary had begun accompanying Kitty on her visits to her friends.
The two sisters weren’t particularly close, but Mary could honestly say that she was closer to Kitty than she had ever been with any other person. As such, she was very happy that Kitty had found someone who appreciated and adored her.
When the vows had been exchanged and the wedding breakfast was dutifully consumed, Mary waved as her sister and her sister’s new husband drove away to spend three weeks at Brighton. Then she turned and headed into the house and up to her room.
As she looked around, she realized that it had certainly changed quite a bit in the last two years since the last wedding in the family. Gone were the various books in Italian and French. Gone were the history and philosophy books that had given her headaches as she tried to understand them. Gone were the religious books that had, without her ever realizing, warped her understanding of people and how to deal with them.
Gone were the stacks and stacks of papers containing summaries, notes, and extracts. Most of all, however, gone was the sense of suffocation and driving need: the need to be noticed, to be loved, to gain accomplishments at all cost.
Mary still sometimes wished she was not quite as overlooked as she often was. Mama still gave most of her attention to Kitty and her friends and seldom spoke to Mary. Papa hardly ever said a word to anyone other than to tease or criticize. Even so, her heart was not nearly as empty as it once was.
Acclaim and attention had come, at least a little, not from showing off but simply from attempting to be friendly with her neighbors. She still was not particularly sociable, but since she never offered useless esoteric advice to their complaints anymore, people were far more likely to wish to speak with her.
The entire neighborhood had been a little shocked when Mary refused to play piano for the first time two years ago, but they eventually accepted it when she was calm and steady in her refusals. It had been over a year since anyone asked Mary to play.
She hadn’t given up the instrument entirely, but she now only played for her own amusement and only when she was certain she would not be seen as she danced and swayed in her chair along with the slightly faulty music she created.
Mary looked at her desk. Just as before, more than two years ago, there was a book and a stack of papers there. The book, however, was not some weighty tome but a book on how to grow various plants out of season in a greenhouse. The notes were not extracts, whose intention was to help her memorize pithy bits of advice, but rather plans for what she wished to grow next.
There was even a half-written letter there, but it was not to Jacob Lucas or any other gentleman. Rather, it was a letter she would send to Jane once she had described the wedding thoroughly.
Mary had not written a single love letter since her sisters’ wedding two years since. She had not fallen in love since then, not even a little bit. She had no interest in men who had slighted her all her life, which was every single man in the neighborhood.
Mary sat down at her desk and picked up her pen. It was one she had chosen herself, because she loved the extravagance ofit. It was a peacock feather, longer and fatter than was common for pens, which made it a little awkward to use, but it made up for that by its color, which was mostly an eye-catching iridescent green. Simply looking at it tended to bring a smile to Mary’s face.
She dipped the extravagant, impractical pen into the ink and began to write.
~~~~~
The day after Kitty’s wedding, Maria Lucas and Mary King called on Mary. Miss Lucas was a year younger than Mary and Miss King a year older. Mary was quite surprised to see them, since she had assumed that with Kitty gone, she would no longer have an easy connection to the other young ladies. Miss Lucas’ first words quickly put that thought to rest.
“We thought you might be lonely now that Kitty is gone, so we came to keep you company,” she said.
