A Learned Romance Read online

  “Perhaps you would do better to visit Mrs Holt on Wednesday instead, my dear,” he said.

  “But she will want to go to Bond Street together. And did you not say I should visit the shops less? Except today—I must go today! Mary, you can go with me, and I will buy you something nice.”

  “I do not need anything.” Mary hesitated. “I would rather stay home, if you please.”

  “Home again! You have not gone to the shops above twice with me since you arrived, and heaven knows you need new gowns. You cannot wear my old ones forever. Indeed, you should not be wearing them at all.” Lydia gave a pointed look at the neckline of the muslin morning gown Mary wore. Lydia’s bosom had filled it out admirably, but it drooped on Mary’s bony frame. The waist hung similarly; Mary and Lizzy had always been the thinnest of the family. “At least let Addleby take them in a little. You look a fright!”

  “She is so busy. I would not like to bother her.”

  “She is paid to be busy. Isn’t she, Mr Wickham?” At his amused nod, Lydia continued. “If you will not come to Bond Street, at least get Addleby to work on those gowns. And—oh! I must hurry to the shops. It is almost time. For shopping, I mean.” Lydia’s rosy cheeks turned redder with some unexpressed emotion. “Mouse, you can help me choose a bonnet. Hurry now!” She pushed her chair back in an unladylike fashion, jostling the teacups as she moved.

  “My dear, your sister has not even finished eating,” Mr Wickham said in protest, but Mary hurried to defend her.

  “I am quite full, really,” she told him as she rose, though her fingers traced the edge of her toast longingly. With one last look at her half-finished meal, Mary followed Lydia to her bedroom.

  When Lydia had finally completed choosing her bonnet and run off to Bond Street, and Mr Wickham had trotted off to his own business, Mary passed Addleby in the hallway. The odour of dog hair hung in the air, trailing the lady’s maid. Addleby had one arm around a mussed ball gown and the other around Prince, Lydia’s pug, and from the way she held them apart from one another, they had already run afoul of each other.

  “Addleby.” Mary’s gaze flitted over the torn stitches in the silk and Addleby’s grim expression.

  “What is it, miss?”

  The weariness in the maid’s voice reminded Mary of her sister Jane when Mr Bingley had been driven away from her, or her father after a long morning of Mama’s tedious talk. “Um, nothing,” Mary said. Lydia can tell her to fit the gowns later. Or perhaps I can fix them myself. Mary had made up gowns before at Longbourn. The result was not likely to look as trim as a lady’s maid would produce, but perhaps it would pass muster. She entered her bedroom—an elegant display of Lydia’s taste, all cream silk, gilt, and mahogany—and pulled out a gown to work on, seating herself in the chair in the far corner. The chair, too, bore the gilt and arabesques that Lydia favoured. Indeed, the only things that marred the style were the rag doll perched on the bureau and Mary herself. And even the rag doll looked like she was making an attempt to conform to London elegance; despite a faded face and tufts of stuffing poking out one shoulder, she modelled the attire of a white silk gown and a bonnet stylish enough to be Parisian.

  Mary took out stitches and separated the pieces of Lydia’s old merino. As she worked, maids passed in the hallway outside her door and chatted with each other. Mary found the relative quiet soothing. When Jane, Lizzy, and Lydia had married, Longbourn had lost most of its noise and bustle, but it had still been chaotic enough with Kitty chattering about her lieutenant and Mama pouring forth her woes to all who would listen. Mary had, then, thought to dedicate herself to music, but her concertos, it seemed, were exceedingly trying to her mother’s nerves. It had been difficult to establish herself amongst the five sisters, being neither the most beautiful, the most witty, the most sickly, nor the most lively. The most of nothing, she chose to become the least of everything.

  Sitting still and mending had been Mary’s retreat, a way to be useful and to allow her fingers the movement they craved. Her father had seldom taken notice of Longbourn’s Mouse, but when his eyes did fall on Mary, she could almost feel her father’s sense of impatience. She had tried, like Lizzy, to establish herself through the absence of silliness that marked her younger sisters, but the subjects she preferred—mostly theological and historical—were too often met with vexation. She soon recognised that they all liked her best when she was quiet. Mary was of little use in the house, but she had the virtue of requiring little from her parents. She could not make her father laugh like Lizzy could, nor please the eye so well as Jane, but she could prove her worth in being clean, neat, and obedient and by restricting her practice on the instrument to times when the rest were away.

  Out of sight down the hallway, the voices of the housemaids drew Mary’s attention. “Mrs Wickham is out chasing that man again.”

  “No!”

  “She is. Not that I wouldn’t chase him myself. Have you seen him?” The voice was saucy and sure.

  The other sounded scandalised. “Hannah! You ought not to talk like that. Supposing Mrs Forrest heard you gossip about Mrs Wickham and Mr Cole?”

  “I’d say it to her face, housekeeper or no. I’d say it to anyone.” From the way the voices dropped into silence as Mrs Forrest’s slow tread approached, the boast was an idle one.

  Mary tried to focus on her sewing, but a shred of discomfort remained. Idle gossip, she told herself, and though a spike of fear went through her, she tried to ease it. Lydia had always been wild, but she was devoted to Mr Wickham. Devoted at sixteen might mean bored at eighteen. Mary had always believed that her sister had married far too young.

  Perhaps she had a mild fondness for another friend; gossip fed and grew fat on less. But so long as one kept quiet, most things blew over. In a few days or weeks, no one would even remember this Mr Cole.

  A housemaid entered Mary’s room, adjusting draperies and dusting a few spots. Mary watched her graceful movements in silence. When the maid picked up Mary’s doll and examined it, Mary drew in her breath sharply.

  “Oh!” Startled, the maid dropped the doll. She turned around and spied Mary in the corner. “Oh, miss, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were here! I meant no disrespect.” The voice had sounded saucy in the hallway, but now it was scrupulously polite. Wisps of blonde hair poked from under the maid’s cap. A multitude of lines indented the woman’s face, but she was young for all of that—no more than twenty, probably. She bobbed a curtsey and then bent to pick up the doll.

  “I will get her,” Mary said, setting her dress aside. She was not quick enough though; the maid scooped up the doll and started to put it on the bureau, only to notice the stuffing protruding from the shoulder.

  “Shall I have this mended, miss?”

  “No.” Mary tried to keep irritation from her tone. “I do not want it mended.” At the maid’s perplexed look, Mary felt obligated to say more, though she wished she could have been left alone in her quiet. “My mother made her for me.” For most daughters, such a statement would have signalled only happy memories. Mary had plenty of those—dressing her doll under her mother’s eye, carrying it about, and even once spending her own pocket money on a new doll bonnet rather than treating the Lucas boys to candy or giving it to Lydia for ribbon. But her first memory of the doll was not so cheerful.

  “That is very sweet, miss.” The maid settled the doll onto the bureau. Her hand rubbed at her back through her uniform, and she sighed. “I am sorry I did not see you. Indeed, it is hard to tell anyone lives in this room. You keep it very neat, miss. I have not had to do much with it since you came.”

  “Your name is Hannah, is it not?”

  “Yes, miss.” Hannah repeated her curtsey, and Mary found herself forgiving the maid the gossip as she saw the exhaustion tinging the pale face with colour. A moment of idle talk was probably the only break the woman got in a busy household like Lydia’s. Besides, it does not mean anything.

  Hannah waited a moment to see if Mary would say anythi
ng further, but Mary remained silent, and at length the housemaid bobbed another curtsey and exited.

  Mary shut the door behind her and returned to examine her doll. The shoulder was unchanged; neither more stuffing, nor less, stuck out from within, and the gown sleeve bore no smudges of dirt. Satisfied, Mary propped the doll against the wall and went back to her dressmaking, pushing thoughts of the gossip away. Her mind focused on the doll instead, centring on the day she received it.

  “New doll, new doll,” Mary sang, dancing around the drawing room. Mama’s stitches continued to line the patchwork doll, pulling the stuffing inward, giving the figure a recognisable shape.

  “I cannot see why you are so excited for a doll like that,” Lizzy said, sniffing with the disdain that came with entering her teens. “Mr Hampton sells dolls far nicer than Mama can make.”

  “But she’s making it for me.” In truth, Mary was growing a little too old for dolls, but the prospect of her mother’s attention focused on her gave a new allure to the idea. “Just for me!” Mary thrust her arms upward and spiralled. It would have been a full pirouette, but Jane was sitting nearby, and Mary caught herself before buffeting her just in time.

  Kitty and Lydia paused long enough in their quarrelling to gape at the dancer. “How come Mary is getting a new toy, Mama?” Kitty asked, pushing her sister’s head aside to get a clearer look at her.

  “Because you took the orange from her Christmas box,” Mama said. A hint of testiness had entered her voice, but Mary could not tell if it was because of the toys and mending strewn all over the floor, or the noise of the girls’ quarrel, the crash of a falling teacup, or the acrid smoke warning that the cook had forgotten something.

  “It was not me; it was Lydia.”

  “’Twas not!”

  “Well, whoever it was, that is why.” Mama sewed on, despite the noise, and Mary gleefully watched the doll take further shape. Soon she would be all neat and tidy, just as Mary loved all things to be. Not that their home ever looked that way in its common rooms—apparently, large families just laid things here and there—but her own blankets were pulled tight over her bed, even though Kitty and Lydia shared it, and she kept her toys lined up, unless one of her siblings took them to play with. Mary knew that in a large family, awkward things were bound to happen, like her sisters taking her orange. But Mama and Papa always found a way to make things right somehow, and she felt compensated. A large family might mean many mouths to feed, but it also meant many hands to push her on the swing, many smiles to reassure her when the neighbour’s dog barked, and many eyes to watch in admiration when she balanced on the fence post.

  And many ears to hear me sing. “New doll, new doll!”

  “Oh, Mary, do be quiet!” Mama’s voice sounded shrill, and Mary was startled enough to stop the dance. She watched uncertainly as Mama threw an angry look at Kitty and Lydia. “Stop your squabbling and pushing, girls. You are wearing out my nerves! Lizzy, cannot you see I have my hands full? Take Kitty and Lydia outside.”

  “But it is snowing, Mama.”

  “So much the better; they will use up a little of that energy keeping themselves warm. Go on.”

  Lizzy dutifully snapped her book shut and trudged out the door, pulling coats and scarves from the strewn clothing as she went, and Kitty and Lydia followed, albeit with the zigs and zags of chasing one another. With the comparative quiet, Mary dared to approach her mother.

  “She’s going to be a beautiful doll, Mama. Will you make me a dress for her, too?” She peered over her mother’s work.

  “Just be glad for what you get, and do not ask me for more.” Mama’s tone still held the testy note. The smoke from the kitchen was growing thick enough to smudge the ceiling. “What on earth is Hopper doing? Just because we owe her a little, she is determined to burn everything we eat and the house with it. Jane, go and see what she is doing. Move out of my light, Mary.”

  Mary shifted. She wanted to sing some more, but something held her back. “She is almost done, Mama. Look how pretty her eyes are!” They were only buttons, but Mary admired them all the same.

  Behind her, Jane returned. “I think Hopper needs help with the dinner, Mama. Everything is smoking again, and the new girl is not much use yet.”

  “Oh, here.” Mama thrust the doll at Mary and got up, sighing with an emphasis meant to attract sympathy.

  “But Mama, she’s not finished.” Mary looked at the left shoulder, where stuffing poked out of an unsewn gather. To her, it looked ghastly and deformed, like her neat and tidy little doll had become part hunchback instead.

  “I ran out of thread, Mary.” Mama said it firmly, as if that decided matters. Mary did not understand.

  “Where is more thread?” When Mama didn’t answer, Mary repeated it. “Where is more thread, Mama? When will you finish her?” She tugged at her skirt. “Mama, when? Her shoulder is bulging out.”

  “Oh, hush, Mary! You would think you were the only child on earth who needed something. Cannot you see I have enough to do already? My nerves are nearly jangling! Your father says we are in serious difficulties, that some of his investments—”

  Mama shrugged her shoulders, giving up the topic, as she usually did when pecuniary matters confused her. “Don’t be selfish. I’ll finish it some other day.”

  Mary shrank back from her. As Mama stalked towards the kitchen to scold the cook, Mary remained silent. I shan’t ask again, Mama. I shan’t ask for anything. The sickly feeling in her gut made the whole world feel unsafe. What did serious difficulties mean? She had never really thought there might not be enough for all of them—not enough oranges, not enough money, not enough love. You won’t have to do anything for me. I shall be good. Mary studied the doll’s figure. The face was still good. Most of the body was workable.

  Probably even Mary’s ten-year-old hands could sew up the rest of the shoulder, but she didn’t want to. She preferred thinking someday Mama would finish her.

  In the distance, Mary could hear her mother’s angry voice and Hopper’s irritated one lifting to match it. Her hand slid over the broken cup that had landed next to Jane’s upended sled. Did they have enough money for a new cup?

  Hesitating, she finally picked up the pieces and deposited them. Then she dragged the sled to the spot near the door where it belonged. The mending had to be corralled from a thousand places, but in the end, Mary got it into one round pile. I won’t be any trouble to you, Mama. I won’t talk back like Lizzy. I won’t fight like Kitty and Lydia. I promise. I promise. You’ll hardly even know I am here.

  A few hours after Mary’s musing, Lydia returned, her face flushed with a triumph that soon dwindled when their sister Lizzy Darcy was announced. Mary sat with Lydia in the much-maligned drawing room to receive their sister. Although the walnut chairs and thin rugs were not much to look at, they were serviceable enough in welcoming their sister.

  “You can come sit here, in our little purgatory, Lizzy,” Lydia said. “Mind the chair backs—there may be nails coming loose.”

  “I think not,” Lizzy said, amusement twitching her lips. She had the same dark hair as Lydia, and although it was not coiffured in the latest style as Lydia’s was, it was done up with elegant curls and a jewelled comb, a mark of her characteristic taste, rather than Lydia’s more slavish adherence to the whims of fashion. Her square-necked, white wool gown showed the same calm, independent style. “I take it you have some resentment against these chairs, that you malign them this way?”

  “Lydia wishes to redo the drawing room,” Mary said. Though her tone was soft, Lizzy caught it.

  “More redecorating! I thought you had had enough of that sort of thing.” Lizzy embraced each sister and seated herself with a grace heedless of any nails. “Mr Darcy will come with me tomorrow and pay his respects.” Though she did not say so, probably she was ensuring her husband would not have to meet Mr Wickham face to face. Though the old enemies were civil enough to each other when they met, no one wanted to test their civility unnece
ssarily. “We will not be in London long, I fear. Just long enough to tempt me with London’s dissipation and not long enough for me to fall into it.” She made a wry smile. “Luckily, Pemberley has its own attractions to harden my moral character.”

  “Oh, do not speak to me about being hard, Lizzy. I am all compassion now that we are rich. Did we not take in Mary? And I have half a hundred charities asking me for money every day,” Lydia said.

  “I do not think their asking you is a sign of your compassion,” Lizzy said, smiling.

  “Well, it’s true that I do not give them anything if I can help it. But sometimes I must, because there is someone standing by that I particularly want to impress—so there you are!” Convinced she had proved her compassion to their satisfaction, Lydia tossed her dark curls.

  They chatted a few minutes longer in a way that seemed aimless, touching on Jane’s confinement and Kitty’s husband requesting leave, but Mary sensed an undercurrent to Lizzy’s drifting conversation, and it soon turned to Mr Richard Cole. “I hear he is a friend of yours, Lydia,” Lizzy said, her voice sounding carefully neutral.