Page 201 of Pride and Prejudice Resolutions

She was the plain Bennet. It was not an insult. It was a classification, like a genus of fungi. Jane was the Beauty. Elizabeth was the Wit. Lydia was the Scandal. Kitty was the Echo. Mary was the Other One. The one who filled the empty chair at dinner to balance the numbers. The one who quoted sermons because she had discovered early on that if she could not be admired, she could at least be righteous.

"And where has it got you?" she whispered to the empty room. "Righteousness is excellent for the soul, but it is terrible for conversation."

She lifted the lid of the keys. Ivory and ebony, waiting like teeth. She had spent years mastering them, drilling scales until her fingers ached, learning the most complex concertos she could find. She had thought that if she were technically perfect—if she never missed a note, never faltered in tempo—they would have to listen. They would have to value her.

But they did not listen. They tolerated.

They nodded politely, their eyes glazed over, waiting for her to finish so they could resume their laughter. She had been playingatthem. She had been demanding their attention with every aggressive arpeggio, wielding Bach like a broadsword in a desperate bid for relevance. And she had only succeeded inbecoming part of the background noise. A very loud, very precise piece of furniture.

She dropped her hands into her lap, clenching them into fists against the potato-coloured muslin.

She had been trying to force the world to see her on her terms, but her terms were boring. She was boring.

"I need to change," she announced. The words hit the ceiling and fell back down, heavy and true.

She could not change her face. She knew that. No amount of pinching her cheeks would turn her into Jane, and no amount of smiling would give her Elizabeth's spark. She was Mary.

"I cannot change how I look. But I can change the voice," she decided.

She touched a single key. Middle C. It rang out, clear and solitary, hanging in the air without apology.

If she could not be beautiful, she would be undeniable. If she could not be charming, she would be formidable. She would stop quoting other men's words—Dr Fordyce could stay on the shelf—and perhaps—she would find a sound of her own.

She was halfway through a sonata when she sensed she was no longer alone. The door had not made a sound. The hinges were oiled to perfection, and the carpets clearly designed to muffle footsteps. But Mary knew. She had four sisters. She had a preternatural sense for the distinct displacement of air caused by feminine presence and fraught nerves.

Mary froze, her hand hovering over a C-sharp like a claw. She turned slowly, fully expecting Elizabeth coming to drag her to an exhibition of "Landscapes Featuring Bees," or perhaps Jane coming to tell her that the strawberries were now seedless and the world was perfect.

The door creaked open, and a figure hesitated on the threshold.

Miss Georgiana Darcy was everything Mary Bennet was not. She was tall. She was graceful, even when doing nothing more than breathing. She had a face that made poets weep and painters throw down their brushes in despair.

She was also, at this precise moment, looking as though she would very much like to apologise for occupying three-dimensional space.

"I heard you," Georgiana whispered. She stepped into the room, closing the door softly behind her as if she were afraid of waking the woodwork. "I heard you playing. It was like you were thinking very loudly."

Mary adjusted her spectacles. "I was merely taking stock of my situation."

"It sounded like a battle," Georgiana noted. She crossed the room, her movements fluid and silent, like a very expensive cloud passing over a lawn. She hesitated at the bench, then sat down beside Mary, not too close. There was a respectful no-man's-land between them. "Do you mind?"

Mary shook her head.

They remained silent for a moment, two breathing statues in a room built for sound.

"I feel unfinished," Mary admitted. The words slipped out before she could check them for propriety or draft a bibliography for them. But there was something about Georgiana—perhaps the fact that she looked ready to bolt if a butterfly startled her—that made honesty feel less dangerous. "I am a collection of quotes and good intentions. I have read all the books on how to be a woman of substance, and yet I feel entirely hollow. Like a very well-bound book with blank pages."

"I am the same," Georgiana whispered, looking down at her hands.

Mary turned to her. "You? You are perfect. You are accomplished, you are well-dowered, you are a Darcy. You are practically a species of royalty."

"Exactly," Georgiana sighed, a small, trembling sound that was tragic in a very decorative way. "I am a Darcy. I am an heiress. I am 'Mr Darcy's Sister.' I am 'The Earl's Niece.' Everyone sees the name, or the fortune. No one sees Georgiana. I do not know if I am even real. Sometimes I think I am just a very expensive doll that my brother keeps in the best cabinet and dusts off for company."

"You are more than that, Georgiana." Mary sounded firm and absolute. "You are kind. And you play like an angel."

"I play because I was trained," Georgiana countered miserably. "I have been trained to speak three languages, remember thirty names in one evening, and play the harp without wincing. But if someone asks me whatIlike, I panic. I say 'Mozart' whether it is true or not. Once, a baron asked me my favourite food and I blurted 'sustenance.' I have no will, Mary. I have the willpower of a damp biscuit."

"My aunt Gardiner adores you," Mary pointed out. "She is wise. She would help you."

"Mrs Gardiner is wonderful, and she has adopted me, in a manner of speaking," Georgiana agreed with a small, affectionate smile on her lips. "But she has the children. Henry is boisterous, Alice is vivacious, and little Ruth is currently experimenting with gravity. Mrs Gardiner is always so busy being capable. I do not wish to impose my vapours on her. She has enough to manage without a mouse trailing after her."