"Politeness!" Mrs Bennet seized Mary's arm with a grip of iron. "Men do not send flowers out of politeness, Mary. Men send flowers when they have intentions. What are his intentions? Does he have a house? A title? Is he handsome? He must be handsome. Even you deserve a handsome husband, Mary, though I confess I had given up hope—does he have a pulse? At this point, I will accept a pulse and five hundred a year!"
"Mamma, please—"
"Hill! Hill!" Mrs Bennet began marching Mary towards the house, dragging her like a prize of war. "Prepare Mary's room! And find a vase! A large one! The largest we have! My daughter has received flowers from a gentleman, and we must display them prominently in the window in case he calls! Or in case Mrs Long walks past!"
Mary allowed herself to be dragged inside. She clutched the yellow flowers to her chest protectively.
The hallway of Longbourn welcomed her with the quiet, faint, lingering despair of a household that had forfeited three daughters in six months.
"A suitor for Mary!" Mrs Bennet was shouting to the ceiling. "Oh, perhaps I shall not die of nerves after all! Perhaps I shall survive to see another wedding breakfast!"
Mary closed her eyes.
She was home.
She left her mother with Hill, and walked towards the study with a deliberate stride, having just survived the maternal ambush and requiring a moment of solitude to regroup. The hallway stretched before her like a neutral territory in a domestic war. The polished floors were scarred by years ofsibling skirmishes, and the walls were papered in a pattern that had once been fashionable and was now merely enduring.
A low, vibrating rumble emanated from the shadows near the staircase.
Mary paused. She recognised the sound immediately. It was not thunder. It was not the settling of the house. It was worse.
Charles leapt into her arms with the grace of a cannonball fired at point-blank range.
The orange tabby cat landed squarely on her chest, his claws extended just enough to secure purchase on her travelling habit without drawing blood—a calculated act of mercy reserved exclusively for her. His fur was the colour of overripe carrots, his eyes narrow yellow slits of perpetual disdain, and his tail lashed back and forth like a whip in the hands of an impatient coachman.
Mary steadied herself against the wall to avoid being knocked over by the projectile of ginger fury. She cradled the beast with care, ignoring the way his substantial weight pulled at her gown.
"You have grown heavier, darling." She scratched him behind the ears in the precise spot that transformed his rumble from a threat to a reluctant, gravelly purr. "Too many scraps from Hill's kitchen, I suspect. You are becoming decadent, Charles."
The cat had appeared in December, huddled in the barn during a storm that had turned the roads to ice and the world to a frozen misery. Mary had found him there, a ball of spitting defiance hissing at the hay bales.
No one else dared approach.
Mr Bennet had declared him "a republican in feline form, ready to overthrow the household order and guillotine the mice." Mrs Bennet shrieked that he would bring fleas, muddy pawprints, and general ruin to the carpets. Kitty and Lydia threw boots at him and ran away giggling when he arched his back and hissed like a kettle on the boil.
Mary had named him Charles.
It had been a deliberate choice, inspired by the collective venom of Longbourn and Meryton towards a certain gentleman who had vanished like smoke after raising hopes and breaking hearts. The despicable Charles Bingley, who had danced with Jane twice at the ball and then fled to London without a backward glance.
The cat embodied that sentiment perfectly: charming at a distance, vicious up close, and utterly unrepentant about the turmoil he caused.
No one liked Charles. Charles liked no one.
Except Mary.
He tolerated her ministrations with grudging acceptance, his purr vibrating against her chest like a faulty engine.
"I suppose I owe you an apology," Mary whispered to the cat, thinking of the yellow flowers currently being arranged in the largest vase Mrs Bennet could find. "It turns out the original Charles is not a villain. He is merely... porous. But you, my darling, remain a monster."
Charles-the-cat yawned, displaying a set of teeth sharp enough to punch holes through a leather riding boot, and head-butted her chin.
She carried him into her father's study, seeking the one room in the house where silence was usually respected.
She halted.
Mr Bennet was not there, but Kitty was.
This was, in itself, a cause for concern. Kitty Bennet in a study was as unnatural a sight as a fish in a tree. Kitty did not frequent studies. Kitty frequented millinery shops, the window seat overlooking the lane to Meryton, and anywhere Lydia happened to be causing trouble. The study was Mr Bennet's domain, a sanctuary of leather bindings and pointed silences where Bennet daughters ventured only when summoned for lectures or desperate for hiding places during a visit from Mr Collins.
