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Tuesday, December 8, 1811

Longbourn

Mary

Mary sat at the pianoforte, her hands resting motionless in her lap. No music stirred beneath her fingers; no melody rose to meet her troubled thoughts.

Three days had passed—three days since she had last seen him.

For all his professed intention to engage her in friendship—for all his pointed questions and spirited arguments, which had, in a most unwelcome yet undeniable manner, unsettled the very foundations of her long-held beliefs—he had vanished. Nor had she been afforded the opportunity to thank him.

And she had meant to thank him, for in scarcely three conversations, Colonel Fitzwilliam had revealed to her a self not merely proud, nor falsely pious, but—what was far worse—profoundly small. It was not humility she had been practising all these years, but a kind of veiled vanity, hidden beneath self-pity and ever measured against others. Her sense of inadequacy had not humbled her—it had enslaved her.

She had not been humble at all, but merely—diminished. And worse, content to be so.

And now he was gone. Colonel Fitzwilliam—so full of words, of mirth, of insight—had absented himself entirely. A soldier, a man who had braved the field of war without faltering, had chosen to retreat from her without so much as meeting her gaze. And she could not help but feel it to be cowardice of the most particular sort: the fear of being known.

If he were merely indifferent, she might have borne it better. But to leave so abruptly, without so much as a word of parting—that was unkind. She had wished, somehow, to acknowledge the strange and unwelcome gift he had given her: the gift of being seen, and not dismissed.

But perhaps that was the true humiliation: that a man might look at her, speak to her with apparent intelligence and interest, and then depart, as though nothing of consequence had ever passed between them.

Mr. Darcy had mentioned that Colonel Fitzwilliam had been summoned by the militia on Saturday, something to do with Mr. Wickham’s departure. Sunday, of course, had been the Sabbath, but if he had attended church, she had not glimpsed him. And Monday had come and gone without his presence.

Now it was Tuesday, and only Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley had arrived at Longbourn. There was no sign of the Colonel.

And the ball was to take place this very evening.

She would go, of course. It was expected. Her mother would insist. But she would go as she always had: to sit, to smile, to fade gently into the wallpaper while others danced and laughed and shone. And yet tonight, the prospect of it filled her with a dread she had never before known—for tonight, she could no longer pretend not to care.

The mask she had worn for so many years had slipped. It had been torn away by a man who saw her too clearly, and left her exposed.

He had made her vulnerable once more, and she knew not how to address it.

She had never been one to pursue or importune. Her habit was to wait—to shrink rather than advance, to hope in silence rather than to act with boldness. It was her nature: a temperament formed of caution, of observation, of long years passed unseen.

And yet now, in the absence of the Colonel, she felt with aching certainty that she could not endure the evening without him. It was not pride that urged the thought—it was need. If nothing else, it was his responsibility. He had left her raw; he had disturbed her hard-won composure. One did not disturb the soul in such a manner, and then withdraw as though nothing of consequence had passed.

For the first time in her life, Mary Bennet chose to act—deliberately, improperly, boldly. She was afraid. Her heart beat too quickly; her thoughts scrambled against her courage. And yet, she could not remain still. She had to make one attempt to reach him.

And, curiously, when she looked about for an ally, it was not the genial and affable Mr. Bingley who first occurred to her, nor her sisters.

It was Mr. Darcy.

How she came to choose him—stiff, formidable, exacting Mr. Darcy—she could not explain. Perhaps it was because, beneath his reserve, she sensed a man who understood what it was to be proud, and then humbled. To be blind, and then see. To be changed.

And so, she approached him.