Page 10 of Five Gentlemen at Netherfield (Pride and Prejudice Variations)

Drawing Room

Netherfield Park

Evening

No one was looking at her, so Mary unobtrusively inched a little closer to the blaze in the hearth, grateful for the heat. While a servant from Longbourn had come with a change of clothes and shoes for the ladies, Mrs. Bennet had not thought to send shawls, and Mary was perpetually chilled.

She scanned the room idly, rather bored.

Elizabeth was sitting chatting with Sir Quinton, their voices too low for Mary to hear their words, but both of them were smiling.

Jane was playing Lord Stanton at chess, and Mary, glancing over the board, concluded that Jane would shortly be victorious.

The other gentlemen, Mr. Darcy and his cousin Colonel Fitzwilliam, seemed not to have yet realized this inevitability and sat near to the board and watched raptly.

Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst were seated side-by-side close to the fire, whispering with one another, which Mary thought was odd but beneficial.

She had never been entirely at ease in the company of those whom she did not know well, and these two ladies had proven themselves particularly annoying.

They had, of course, spoken at some length at dinner, but Mary had largely ignored them in favor of her food.

There had been an absurdly elaborate variety of dishes available, which Mary had regarded with a jaundiced eye.

Mrs. Bennet was prone to ordering overly extravagant dinners, but Miss Bingley's table threw Mrs. Bennet's quite in the shade, as was doubtless her intention.

Mary thought that it only demonstrated that Miss Bingley was even more extravagant than her mother, which was not a good thing.

Her mind turned wistfully to her mother’s dinner table and her own familiar room.

She wished that the roads were good enough to return home.

If one felt awkward in the company of comparative strangers, and she did, there was little enough to do at Netherfield.

Six months ago, Mary would have fretted over wasted opportunities to advance her own accomplishments, but now she merely wished that the Netherfield library had a better than paltry selection of books.

Secure in the knowledge of her dowry, she was not anxious to impress such people as Miss Bingley and Mrs. Hurst, and she had no need to attract a husband through her mastery of the pianoforte and intimate conversance with Fordyce and his sermons.

She had even laid aside her beloved and dog-eared copy of the Sermons in favor of novels, on occasion.

But Netherfield had very few novels, and none of them were of interest. It seemed that Mr. Bingley was not a great reader.

That gentleman drew her attention next. He, too, was sitting near to the chess game, if not quite so near as Mr. Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam, but unlike them, his eyes were more often on Jane's face than on the pieces, and Mary was able to observe him unmarked.

He was a very handsome man, she concluded fairly, with fine features and attractive blond hair and eyes as blue as Jane's, and his kindness was undeniable.

Certainly he was enamored of the eldest Miss Bennet.

Mary's thoughtful gaze switched to her sister.

Jane was always kind and polite, but Mary was reasonably confident in asserting that Jane was entirely indifferent to her hopeful suitor.

Mary was not the only one with a new peace of mind and a more relaxed outlook on life in light of their dowries.

Perhaps Jane would have yielded before to pressure to wed a man of good character and fine looks who nonetheless did not hold her heart, but she would not do so now.

Five thousand pounds was not a large sum, but it was a respectable one, and it afforded Jane – and all the Bennet girls – the freedom to wait to be married, and to be more selective about their husbands when, or even if, they did.

It was a happy remembrance, and Mary sighed softly in contentment over it.

Her own wealth remained a source of wonder to her, and she was still astonished each time she thought of it.

Five and twenty thousand pounds was truly a great sum, bringing in a full thousand pounds a year in the four per cents.

In truth, it still did not seem fair to her that she, plain and unassuming as she was, should receive so much and her sisters should get, comparatively, so little.

It was not that she was ungrateful to Aunt Amelia, not at all, but she was genuinely puzzled.

Why had their aunt not divided the money evenly among the five girls?

Her mind drifted back some three months previously, when Mary had asked Jane and Elizabeth to come into her room.

“Would it not be better,” she asked, “for her to divide her fortune so that each of us had a comparable amount?

“Please do not do that, Mary,” Elizabeth had replied immediately. “Aunt Amelia was an intelligent woman, and she made her choices for cogent reasons.”

“But what were those reasons?” Mary had demanded. “I liked her and she liked me, but I never thought she loved me more than the rest of my sisters.”

Jane, who had been sitting quietly in the window seat of Mary’s room, had stirred and said, “I do not think ‘love’ is the issue, Mary. Aunt Amelia cared about all of us, but she was sensible enough to know that you are an intelligent and cautious woman who will take good care of your inheritance. Moreover, the fact that Mamma largely ignores you because she prefers the looks of the rest of us is unfair and unkind and, frankly, stupid.”

“You are all of you more beautiful than I am by far.”

Elizabeth had sighed and said, “There is far more to a person than looks, dear Mary. Please do not feel guilty about your fortune. It provides you with plenty of options for your future, and you are such a godly and generous sister that I know you will assist the rest of us if absolutely necessary. I also hope that you will not make the mistake of giving in to the whining of our youngest sisters or, to be frank, our own mother when you have control of your entire fortune.”

“Checkmate,” Jane said quietly, and Mary shook herself as she came back to the present. Lord Stanton was seated across from Jane, shaking his head.

“That was very clever, Miss Bennet,” the viscount remarked. “I had no idea that your rook would be … well, in any case, thank you for an excellent game.”

“It was a pleasure,” Jane said, rising to her feet and shaking out her skirts.

“Darcy,” the viscount continued, “would you be interested in a game? I have at least some hope of beating you.”

Mr. Darcy agreed with alacrity, and Jane sat down across from Elizabeth and Sir Quinton, and Mr. Bingley took a seat beside her.

Miss Bingley rose at this moment and walked over to take another chair, which permitted her to sit near to Jane, and said, “My dear Miss Bennet, I confess to astonishment at how good you are at chess. An unusual skill for a female…”

“Your sister is obviously a truly remarkable player,” a voice said from her side, and Mary looked over and smiled at Colonel Fitzwilliam as he took a chair near her.

“Yes, Jane is marvelous,” she agreed. “The only person who can beat her with any degree of consistency is our father.”

“I have not met Mr. Bennet, but he must be an exemplary player.”

“He is, along with being generally clever and a great reader.”

“Are you also a great reader, Miss Mary?”

“Yes, I like reading very much,” she replied, lifting her chin and gazing directly into the colonel’s eyes. “It is my favorite pastime.”

This tended to discourage young men, who were rarely passionate enthusiasts of the written word, but the colonel merely smiled and said, “I will not pretend to be a bibliophile, but I enjoy reading as well. What are your favorite works?”

Six months previously, she would have said that she enjoyed sermons the most, but now, while she found sermons of value, she was willing to admit that they were more salutary than pleasurable.

“I rather like Gothic novels,” she confessed. “They are absurd, of course, but engaging.”

“Do you like the Castle of Otranto ?”

“I do,” Mary said. “Have you read it?”

“I have, and recently,” the colonel said with a chuckle.

“It is not the sort of book I generally enjoy, but I found myself trapped at my parents’ home in London a month ago on a cold and rainy day with nothing particular to do, and one of my younger sisters had left a copy of that book on a nearby table.

What other choice did I have but to read it? ”

“What indeed?” Mary said with one of her rare chuckles. “I know that you are a colonel in the Regulars, but have you seen active service?”

“I have been on the Peninsula, and I was sent home with a musket ball in my arm for my troubles.”

“I am very sorry!”

“Oh, pray do not concern yourself, Miss Mary. It was little more than a scratch, and I am almost entirely healed now. But yes, Otranto was overly dramatic, perhaps, but I would argue Shakespeare is as well on occasion…”

The ensuing conversation was remarkably pleasurable, with no awkward pauses. Mary enjoyed it and was grateful to Colonel Fitzwilliam, whose ease of speech was enormously helpful in lubricating the discussion.

When the Bennet ladies rose at last to ascend to their bedchambers, Mary was reasonably at ease, though she hoped and prayed that tomorrow they would be able to return home.

***

Breakfast Parlor

Netherfield Hall

The Next Morning

Once again, Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley were at breakfast when the Bennet ladies came downstairs. Elizabeth, who had already peered outside and found clear blue skies, was eager to break her fast and leave for home, and she hoped that Mr. Bingley would be agreeable to such a course of action.

“I would be pleased to lend you three horses,” Mr. Bingley said in response to Jane’s request, “but I am concerned about your safety. It is likely still very muddy.”

“Perhaps I should walk home and see how bad the path is,” Elizabeth suggested. “I can send one of our servants back with a note describing how much the mud has dried.”

This provoked shocked looks from both gentlemen, and Mr. Bingley said, “Walk home, Miss Elizabeth? There is no reason for that, not at all. If you truly wish to return home, I can send one of my footmen to ascertain the potential dangers, and then I can lend you a riding mare.”

Elizabeth took a sip of coffee and then deliberately put her cup down. “That is very kind of you, but I am not a horsewoman, so I will need to walk, regardless. Moreover, it is only three miles, which is no great distance.”

“But surely you will not walk alone,” Mr. Darcy said in a disapproving voice.

Elizabeth felt her jaw clench with irritation, but she forced herself to stay calm.

“I have walked many miles alone in my lifetime,” she said, turning to stare directly into Darcy’s eyes. “It is quite common in the country, and you need not concern yourself.”

“My dear Miss Elizabeth,” Bingley said in a distressed tone, “as your host, I cannot … that is, I am most concerned about the safety of such a course. All that rain, and the mud, and if you should fall and hurt yourself, it might be some time before someone found you. Please wait until I can send a servant to investigate the path!”

Elizabeth gazed into her host’s anxious face and said, with a sigh, “Very well, Mr. Bingley.”