Page 5

The Bennet sisters found the following days trying in different ways.

Jane found herself markedly more ill than she supposed.

Casting up her accounts from the back of a horse, barely a hundred yards onto Longbourn property, was embarrassing enough, and it was repeated a dozen times before Friday (thankfully without the horse).

She could not remember a cold turning quite so nasty.

In addition, her illness turned into a fever that kept Elizabeth up all night tending to her, thus adding a load of guilt to her embarrassment and disappointment with the Netherfield tenants.

It took an event that to the untrained eye could easily pass as a screaming fit, for Elizabeth to ensure that only herself and Mrs Hill were allowed in Jane’s room.

It finally took a rare example of her father putting his foot down to at least ensure she had one refuge in the house.

She suspected he did it more to cut down on the number of loud arguments than any desire to protect Jane, but Elizabeth would take what she could get.

The young lady found her nights consumed with Jane, and her days with her mother’s complaints—which were long, loud, vigorous, and (to be honest) repetitious. After all, there were only so many ways to say, ‘You should have stayed a week so your sister could entrap the lunkhead?’

The lack of variation in the complaints in no way reduced Mrs Bennet’s need to express them in the strongest possible terms. The only saving grace was that the matron was of the firmest opinion it was Elizabeth who dragged her poor beleaguered sister from the happy hunting ground of Netherfield, and her second daughter made no attempt to correct the record.

She was accustomed to her mother’s antics, and she preferred the lady never learn the full story and Jane’s part in it.

Her two youngest sisters would have been similarly annoying on the same topic had they not entertained entirely different (though still repetitious) raptures about the officers.

According to them, the officers were all a gentleman should be, and no amount of arguing could entice them to add the suffix ‘except solvent.’ Trying to convince them that most officers were poor as rats or they would not be militia officers, was a fool’s endeavour.

Even Mrs Bennet, who had once fancied a red coat herself, but stumbled upon the good sense to capture a gentleman instead, remembered the excitement of youth, and had no qualms about reliving the experience through her youngest daughters.

Jane’s ill-advised sojourn to Netherfield began on Tuesday and her ignominious return was Wednesday. By Friday, Jane’s fever was down to manageable levels, and she could keep broth, tea, and toast down.

In the world of Jane Bennet, that was practically good as new.

~~~~~

On Friday, Elizabeth was attending her mother in the drawing room at her insistence, primarily so the matron could chastise her, and once again ask her how Jane could keep Mr Bingley’s attentions.

Both questions had been answered many times, and regardless of how much or how little Mrs Bennet changed the wording, the answer was still just as unsatisfactory.

Just as Mrs Bennet was winding herself up for another chastisement, Elizabeth was half-startled to hear Mary say, “Parents should be careful to set their children examples of industry, sobriety, and every virtue which they would recommend to them.”

Mrs Bennet was stopped momentarily in her tracks.

Elizabeth stared at her sister in wonder. “That is… both erudite and appropriate, Mary. Where is it from?”

“Fordyce, of course.”

“Has he any other pearls of wisdom? I admit I seldom listen when you quote him.”

“He is not all bad, Lizzy.”

“I never said he was… but I will admit to thinking it occasionally,” she said with a cheeky grin, hoping to interject some levity in the day.

Marry shrugged, clearly feeling the sentiment was neither new nor unexpected, but much to Elizabeth’s surprise, she gave a slight smile.

“Has he anything else useful?”

“To make children happy, and at the same time wise and good, is to rear up the most valuable of human beings.”

“Enough, Mary!” Mrs Bennet snapped furiously. “Nobody wants to hear your sermons. Let us return to Mr Bingley.”

“The young of both sexes should be careful not to form any connexion which has not the sanction of reason and virtue,” Mary said without batting an eye.

Elizabeth tried her best not to laugh. Her best was admittedly not perfect, but it would do.

“I am astonished, Mary. I would have doubted such sense from the good reverend.”

“Let us quit wasting time on your sermons and return to Mr Bingley… or do you think starving in the hedgerows when your father dies will be amusing,” Mrs Bennet asked even more stridently.

Mary winked at Elizabeth. “Young persons should be cautious not to indulge in idle and frivolous conversation, as it frequently leads to impropriety and vice.”

Elizabeth frowned, thinking Mary was coming uncomfortably close to what happened at Netherfield; but then she reasoned she need not worry about her mother catching on, since that would require her to listen.

For the next ten minutes, Mrs Bennet and Mary went back and forth, with the matron expressing some wish about the Netherfield party, and Mary replying with something entirely different.

Mary’s first few quotes were erudite, relevant, and well chosen. As the conversation continued, she seemed to pick verses at random or to deliberately provoke their mother.

By the end of the half-hour Elizabeth had promised herself to endure, she was still just as annoyed with her mother as ever but astonishingly amused by her next younger sister.

Eventually, in a fit of pique, Mrs Bennet banished both daughters from her company as if she were punishing them.

As the sisters stood to leave, Elizabeth noticed something she had never seen before. Mary turned away with a smirk on her lips. It did not last long, as any expression save a serious mien seldom did, but it was there.

As they left the parlour, Elizabeth said, “Thank you, Mary. That was well done.”

“What was?” Mary asked innocently, though the smile she could not quite repress put the lie to her assertion.

“You know what, but I will not demand you own it. Would you like to visit Jane?”

“I would love that above all things.”

~~~~~

Elizabeth joined Mary in Jane’s room and recounted the story of the encounter with great enthusiasm.

Jane thanked Mary warmly then became pensive. “Mary, I will admit to sharing Lizzy’s astonishment, and it puts to mind a question. Have we been unfair to you?”

“How so?” Mary asked with a questioning look.

Elizabeth was puzzled by the query as well, but felt no great compulsion to jump in.

Jane said, “I am ashamed to say it, but it seems to me that Lizzy and I have a close bond, as do Kitty and Lydia. You have been left mostly alone and ignored. I belatedly realise it was probably badly done. You should not have to look to a fifty-year-old book of sermons for conversation.”

Elizabeth frowned but recognised the justice of Jane’s question.

Mary asked, “Do you mean, were you unfair to treat me exactly the way I wished to be treated?”

“What do you mean?”

“I am not like the rest of you. I do not crave attention… or conversation. To be honest, most of the time I feel lucky to escape whatever is happening in the house. I can certainly not fault you for acceding to my wishes.”

Elizabeth said, “I can see your point, but are wants and needs always the same?”

“Explain!”

“Think of Aesop’s fable about the Fox and the Grapes. The fox cannot get the grapes, so he asserts they are probably sour anyway. That is where we get the expression sour grapes. I do not assert the same applies to you… but I cannot deny it either.”

Mary thought about it for a minute and finally smiled.

“To answer the question, one would need to know if the grapes are in fact sour. If they are, then the fox should be applauded for giving up on his ill-formed quest to obtain them. If they are sweet, he should be chastised for not putting forth more effort.”

Jane laughed. “Are you asserting that Lizzy’s and my friendship might be sour?”

Mary blushed but held her ground. “Lizzy is the one who wants to shoehorn sisterly relations into a two-thousand-year-old fable.”

“Now you are prevaricating,” Jane replied gently.

Mary sighed. “I cannot say. Our sisterly relations have evolved over a long time and a lot of interactions. I am four years your junior, and two years Lizzy’s. Such a gap not often bridged.”

“Why is that?” Elizabeth asked.

“I cannot say. Perhaps, by the time I could talk, think, and say something mildly interesting; you were both too advanced and already too entwined in each other’s lives. I do not know why it is, but I know few sisters who are close with such a gap.”

“Perhaps that is the way it typically is,” Jane said gently, “but that does not necessarily mean it is the way it must be.”

Mary just shrugged.

“The duty of brothers and sisters towards each other is reciprocal; it consists in mutual kindness, forbearance, and affection,” Elizabeth said. I found some of the tracts you wrote down one day in the parlour. I believe that was one of them.

“It was.”

“Perhaps we need not answer the question about the grapes today. Suppose we mimic the fox and reach for the branch; but refrain from despair if we find we cannot reach them, or they are not to our taste.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning it is not too late. Mama’s predictions of Jane’s imminent departure to Netherfield are wildly premature…”

Jane interrupted to correct. “ Impossible! ”

“Let us say improbable.”

“Fair enough.”

Mary asked, “Meaning?”

“Meaning we have plenty of time to know each other better if we put forth some effort. I believe Jane and I will be around for some time, since suitors are rare as hens’ teeth in this town, and we just walked away from the only eligible man to visit in years.

I know it will be uncomfortable to break old habits, but what can be the harm? ”

“What indeed,” Jane asked.

Mary sat clenching her fists for some minutes. It was a nervous habit she had tried to either lose or hide for many years with limited success.

She finally snapped her fingers. “Eureka!”

Elizabeth laughed. “I always wanted to emulate Archimedes, but you beat me to it.”

Jane laughed, while Mary simply quoted Fordyce again:

“Too many resemble the fox in the fable, who, failing to obtain the grapes he longed for, sullenly said, ‘they are sour.’ When you cannot compass the object of your wishes, be content, and believe that it is beyond your deserts, or not suitable to your circumstances, and endeavour to render yourself easy and happy in some other way.”

Jane asked, “I take it the good reverend suggests trying, but not making yourself miserable if it does not work out.”

Mary seemed nervously optimistic, so Elizabeth suggested they sit together and simply talk for a few hours to see what happened. How bad could it be?

They spent the next two hours in general discussion, but then Jane was fading so they helped her into a clean nightrail, re-braided her hair and sent her to bed.

The following day, the elder sisters told the entire story, starting with the assembly, Lucas Lodge, and a few other interactions; then ended with a complete description of their abortive stay at Netherfield.

In the end, poor Mary said, “I cannot believe anyone could say something so… so…”

Jand laughed. “I suspect we have stumped the good reverend. Perhaps Shakespeare might manage the job, though whether we should seek the comedies or tragedies is a mystery.”

Elizabeth sniggered in a most unladylike manner. “Thou art a boil, a plague sore, an embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood… King Lear.”

Jane and Mary burst out laughing.

A few minutes later Mary, much to her sisters’ amusement laughed, “Oh, ye of little faith.”

Her elders looked at her most fervently, awaiting her wisdom.

“There is nothing that so effectually recommends a man to a woman as a steady and uniform conduct.”

“Hear! Hear!” replied Jane with a sigh.