Page 22 of The Vanished Bennet Sister

Write to me soon. Tell me more about your cousin, and about your lodgings on Jermyn Street.

Your friend, Mary

She sanded the ink and sealed the letter and set it aside to be delivered the next morning.

Then she sat for a moment, staring into the fireplace, which had burned lower while she was reading and writing. She hoped Elena would understand. She believed she would. That was precisely the thing about Elena, that she was the kind of person who could be counted on to see one’s point of view when needed.

Chapter Ten

Mary

Lady Hamilton had brought her knitting, which was a reliable indicator of an afternoon that would not require her active participation. She was Mr Thwaite's long-standing family friend, a connection from his mother's side, and a comfortable widow of sixty who had taken to chaperoning the Bennet girls at social occasions with great enthusiasm.

She was fond of the girls, which made her company easy, and she had strong views about the proper introduction of young women into society, which she shared freely.

She settled now into a chair in Mr Thwaite's library, her interest fixated on her knitting.

Mary and Mr Thwaite had been deep in Paley's Evidences within minutes of her arrival at his townhouse. The question at hand was whether Paley's watchmaker analogy adequately accounted for the complexity of moral experience. They were developing a cohesive analysis just as the Bingleys arrived.

The sound of a carriage on the gravel drive announced their presence first. Then came the voices in the entrance hall, one belonging to a man and the other to a woman, the first with a lightness she had come to associate with Mr Bingley, even at a distance.

The butler announced the presence of the new guests, who were subsequently directed to the library. Mr Bingley walked in first, a habitual smile lingering on his face. Mary knew him well enough by now: he had visited the Bennets on several occasions to see Jane, who spoke of him regularly enough for Mary to have formed a complete impression.

He was pleasant without effort and typically cheerful, and he always treated Mary with the same patient interest he applied to everyone. Behind him came Miss Caroline Bingley in a deep green gown that was perfectly suited to an afternoon call.

"Thwaite." Mr Bingley shook his host's hand. "I have been intending to visit for a fortnight. We have that outstanding matter about the northern property to discuss. I thought we might address it today, if you are not occupied."

"I am happy to discuss it in a couple of minutes," Mr Thwaite replied.

"Good, good. Ah, Miss Mary, how do you do?"

"Very well, Mr Bingley. I thank you."

"And your sisters? Miss Bennet is in good health, I hope?"

"She is quite well," Mary said. "She is to attend a garden party at the Fernsides’ this afternoon, I believe."

"Very good." He peered closer. "You were reading, I take it? We have interrupted."

"We were discussing Paley," Mr Thwaite said.

"Ah." Mr Bingley nodded. He was aware enough to realise he was in the presence of an intellectual conversation that he would be unable to contribute to and he didn't seem to mind that fact. "I shall leave Paley to you. Caroline has been very eager to call. She had some questions about the music at your last gathering, Thwaite."

This last statement was delivered innocently and made it clear he had been told this was the reason for the visit.

Miss Bingley had, through all of this, been conducting her own assessment of the room. She glanced at Mary with a surface-level attentiveness that quietly communicated that she did not include Mary in the orbit of the room's subsequent arrangement.

"Mr Thwaite, I have been meaning to ask," Miss Bingley began with ease, "whether you attended the Philharmonic's last programme. The Haydn ‘Surprised Symphony’ was quite extraordinary. I have seldom heard it so well performed."

"I did not. I had a prior engagement," Mr Thwaite responded.

"A huge pity. Until that attendance, I had never heard it performed with such delicacy. There was an immense amount of refinement in the strings! I'm not easily moved by instrumental work, but this was exceptional."

To Mary, Miss Bennet’s thoughts appeared to have been prepared well in advance of the current moment. She had learned the vocabulary of a subject only enough to speak it fluently, and relied on said fluency because depth was more difficult to produce.

Mary knew the Haydn in question and had formed a view of it that was not about the delicacy of the strings. The second movement was interesting structurally, due to its harmonic resolution, which was more technically audacious.

Yet, she did not offer her opinion.