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Myfatherfoundhisway to peace about my extracurricular activities, and life at Longbourn returned to the way it had been. Each month I seemed to grow better at directing my abilities. I do not know if it was my concentration which improved or if my abilities gained strength with my years. I honed my power so that I could touch an injury with one finger, and in less than a minute, it would be almost completely healed. It took a great deal of concentration and my hands shook afterward, but it was useful skill, I thought.
I had no one to teach me. No one to tell me how to improve or control or grow my skills. No one who even truly understood what was happening or how. With each new illness or injury, I learned something more. To my great disappointment, my power did not seem to work on scars. Once the injury itself healed, my abilities ceased. If I repaired the injury right away, like I had done with my mother’s hand, no scar would form and therefore no mark remained. But if I did not reach the person until the wound was healed and the scar firmly in place, there seemed to be little I could do.
This frustrated me to no end.
In June of 1808, I turned seventeen. I came out in Meryton at the next assembly, the less said of which the better. Having Jane with me was the only consolation for being paraded about in such a manner, but I did enjoy the dancing.
Now that I was around more people, I paid closer attention to the signs of illness. Squinted eyes often meant a headache. A stiff gait usually denoted an aching back or hips, and if a knee was injured, the leg moved awkwardly. I became adept at casually brushing against people and sending them as much energy as I could in that small touch. It became a sort of game, and I would see how many people I could affect in one outing.
My mother was less than amused by my new activity.
“Are you trying to get caught, Miss Lizzy?”
“I am trying to help people, Mama.”
She gave me the look all mothers give their children when they believe they are spouting nonsense and changed the subject. “You must be more careful at table. Someone is bound to notice how much you are eating.”
A side effect of sending so much energy into others was that I had not much left for myself. My appetite had increased to double what my sisters ate; even Lydia, who ate like a horse. My family was accustomed to my habits and generally attributed my hunger to my constant movement—I walked all over Meryton and was rarely still. But my mother was right—outside of Longbourn, the amount of food on my plate, and my relatively slim figure, would be remarked upon. I would not care if I was not keen on keeping attention away from myself.
“Of course. I shall have something before we go to dinner.”
There was another curious side effect of healing others. The healed often became fond of me. At first, I merely thought I was likeable. But then Mrs. Landers, the draper’s wife who had never liked me or my mother, hurt her ankle and limped about the store instead of sitting down with her foot on a cushion as she ought to have. I made sure to brush by her and casually touch her as many times as I could get away with while I was in the shop. By nightfall, her ankle was healed. When I visited the shop the next day to inquire after her, she was all smiles and graciousness.
After this happened thrice more with various cantankerous individuals, I finally understood.
Time passed as it always does, and soon we began preparing for Mary’s coming out. There had been some talk of delaying it as Jane and I were still unmarried, but there were a few young men in the area whom Mary had known since childhood, and my parents hoped she would make a match with one of them. Jane, with her sweet nature and incomparable beauty, was destined for a great match. And I, well, I wished to marry a physician. My mother was not pleased by this, but she understood my reasons.
My mother and I had an odd relationship. She facilitated my mission, as I had come to think of it. In many ways, she was just as responsible for healing others as I was. Without her covering up my absences and explaining my strange ways, I would not be able to do half of what I did. She was invaluable to me.
But she was also my mother, and she wished to see me happily settled with a man I could respect and who would protect me and my gift. She knew I must choose carefully, but my marriage should also not reflect badly on the family.
It was a delicate line to walk.
Not wishing to harm my sisters’ chances of finding genteel husbands, my mother and I worked out that I would wait to marry until at least two of my sisters were wed, preferably three. Then I could be seen as the eccentric sister who married a Town physician and not a gentlewoman who hastily married beneath herself.
In preparation for Mary’s coming out, my mother decided to include Mary in a few functions at home before throwing her to the wolves at an assembly. Poor Mary was still terribly scarred from the pox she had had as a child. Most of the scars had faded to a pale white, but they were still rather visible, especially on her face. When she flushed, the scars remained white and she looked like pink spotted muslin, or so Lydia had said in a particularly thoughtless moment. Mary was not vain, or so she claimed, but I could not help but think she said as much because she knew nobody would ever consider her pretty now.
Hardly the attitude one needed when coming out.
Mary’s first foray into adult society would be a dinner party at Longbourn. A few neighboring families had been invited and Mary knew nearly everyone from church or childhood. Of particular interest were Arthur Goulding and Nelson Long. Arthur was his father’s heir and home visiting from wherever he had been the last two years, attempting to become a man. Nelson was Mrs. Long’s nephew. He had visited Meryton several times in years past and Mama thought it not outside the realm of possibility that Mary would like one of them.
I had nothing against Nelson—I did not know him well enough to dislike him—but Arthur was dumber than a turnip and I did not wish him for my sister. Mary had an inquisitive mind and enjoyed talking about history and politics and the plight of the common man. She was too smart for the likes of Arthur Goulding.
I had always thought she would do well with an intellectual sort of man. A professor perhaps, or one of those gentlemen who built laboratories on his estate and published papers with the Royal Society.
Alas, even intelligent men were stupid when it came to women, and they would rather have a pretty face than a lively mind. A man like Arthur Goulding would not be able to appreciate Mary’s finer qualities, even if he was amiable, which Mr. Goulding was not.
I helped Mary prepare for dinner, putting extra effort into her hair. I sent what energy I could into her, practicing something I had been toying with lately—sending vitality instead of simply healing. It appeared to work. Her eyes were brighter and her nerves calmed considerably.
Dinner was uneventful and everyone seemed to have a good time, or so I thought. As we were preparing for bed that evening, Mary was quiet and stiff.
“Did you enjoy the evening?” I asked her.
“It was a lovely dinner.”
“How did you find Mr. Long?”
Mary’s shoulders stiffened. Her back was to me as she looked out the window into the darkness. “I found him as expected.”
