Page 13

13. The Lesson Plan

After the stern lecture, Mrs Black led the ladies into the lane to find two dilapidated looking carriages with piebald nags attached. She divided the ladies and set off. Mary was in another carriage from their tutor, which gave her a good chance to observe Miss White, though she was not likely to talk to her, as conversation was discouraged.

Miss White was an interesting looking girl, probably about Lydia or Kitty’s age. She was womanly and fairly handsome, but seemed to vacillate between nervousness, boredom, and what looked like annoyance. She seemed even more distressed by their choice of clothing, and sneered at the quality of the coach, so Mary guessed she was higher born than the Bennets. Perhaps, she was one whose guardian actually paid the big fee. She thought it might be interesting to throw her in a room with Lydia and see who emerged alive after a day.

Her companions were Miss Blue (Jane), Miss Violet (Alicia Weatherby), and Miss Yellow (Kitty), but they kept their knowledge of each other to themselves. Mary supposed she might get to know the younger Miss Alicia better when they returned home. She did not have all that many friends, and one more would not be amiss. They would certainly have something in common after this.

They travelled for what seemed like hours, but since nobody was allowed a watch, she had no way of knowing.

Toward the end of the journey, she noticed they were entering an area full of soldiers. Their uniforms looked slightly different from the militia’s in Meryton, at least for the tiny bit of attention Mary had paid the men. She did not know if that meant these were regulars, or just a different company.

They debarked into what seemed like the most crowded town any of them had ever seen. Without moving a muscle, one could see houses, stables, ale houses, tents, stores, washerwomen, cooking fires, blacksmiths, soldiers, chimney sweeps, drunks, vagrants, children, dogs, merchants, carts, beggars, officers, enlisted, horses, and some women whose business they did not wish to know about.

Mrs Black led them off into the melee at a brisk pace. Mary was slightly frightened when two rough looking men followed them until she worked out that they were probably her own guards.

They continued along for about a half mile, brushing close and even bumping into all sorts of people that they had never known even existed, let alone expected to encounter. Mary suspected she had walked by more people in that half mile than existed in the whole town of Meryton by at least double.

They were triply horrified when dirty beggar children darted in quick as lightning, grasping for the reticules they did not carry, and begging with open hands for alms they also lacked. She supposed that explained their dress, at least partially. Even her worst morning dress might have gotten her robbed, and she suspected Miss White’s worst might get her killed.

Occasionally, one of the urchins would get a bit too fresh and Mrs Black would cuff him on the side of the head, which most of the other ladies found somewhere between frightening and impressive. The woman moved like lightning but seemed to deliver just the precise amount of force necessary, leaving most of the ladies wondering if her former occupation might have been a barmaid in a tavern at a navy port. She certainly had the build and reflexes for it.

Eventually, they arrived at a nondescript, wooden house, well past a decade overdue for paint, and Mrs Black led them in directly after knocking a few times.

They entered a crowded little room that seemed to be something like a sitting room except there was a cook stove in the back… or at least, most of the ladies presumed it was, having never seen one. There were two or three children running around the room, and another in a cradle, not a shoe between the lot, and one who just stared unnervingly at the ladies. They were all encouraged to stack themselves like cordwood in the door, as the parlour had nowhere near enough room to house all, or even half of them, in anything even vaguely approaching comfort.

Mrs Black made the introductions. “Mrs Mason, well met.”

“Mrs Black, you are very welcome,” the haggard looking woman said.

Mary thought the woman’s appearance must be the result of decades of hard living, as she looked the sort of tired that no amount of rest could improve. Her hands and face were far more wrinkled than Mrs Bennet’s, but she spoke calmly and forcefully. The children mostly seemed to have enough sense to not annoy her when she had guests, but the room looked as tired as the lady did. The matron shooed all but the baby out the door to make a tiny bit of room, but she obviously could not offer seats to any of her visitors because there were but two chairs in the room.

“I suppose your little flock would like my story,” she asked.

“If you would be so kind,” Mrs Black intoned.

The woman started her tale, and the ladies listened intently. They had promised their best effort, and besides that, none of them had the vaguest idea where they were, how to get back to civilisation, or more importantly, how short Mrs Black’s temper was.

Mary was amused that Miss Bingley thought Meryton was a savage wilderness, but that lady probably did not even know places like this existed in the whole world, let alone a few miles from her oh-so-fashionable Mayfair townhouse.

Mrs Mason was a good storyteller—Mary would give her that. She looked old and tired, but she could turn a phrase far better than her condition in life suggested, which made Mary wonder about her background. She was certainly literate, and spoke like a gentlewoman, but there was no evidence of even a Bible in the house, let alone any literature.

“As you can see,” she continued, “I am quite well situated now that my Jacob has made colonel. We did not live anywhere near this flush before his promotion.”

The way she said it with a flourish, Mary wondered if that was just showmanship, or she was actually proud of her accommodations.

“I see most of you look down on my abode, and I cannot rightly blame you for it; but I can assure you that delivering a child in the mud in a tent in the rain is nothing to aspire to. This is luxury!”

They all gasped in horror, though Mary wondered if she was being truthful. The lesson Mrs Black was imparting seemed clear enough to get through to even Lydia, though it never paid to underestimate her sister’s wilful intransigence.

Over a quarter-hour, the matron told the story of her life. She fell in love with a dashing lieutenant at fifteen, was caught in a compromising position, and made to marry. She had not the slightest objection to being married to her handsome beau at the time, but that was just because she knew nothing about anything, having never been educated in the harsher side of the world.

She then gave a brief accounting of the years leading up to her present agreeable situation in life. Two children had died, though nobody could say for certain if they might have lived if they could afford an apothecary. Her story of delivering a baby in a tent in the rain was true, and to make matters worse, that tent was in Portugal, the midwife spoke not a word of English, and her husband was fighting a hundred miles away.

The baby started crying in the middle of the story, so Mrs Mason picked her up, unlaced her dress, and started feeding the child without the slightest hint of remorse or embarrassment. She relented and covered herself with a blanket after half of the students looked like they might feint, but Mary was nearly certain she did that just for her own amusement. The small smirk on Mrs Black’s face confirmed the thesis.

A half-hour later they exited, and Mrs Black ushered them into a small alleyway where she could speak without being overheard.

Mrs Black’s accent became more pronounced when she was speaking emphatically, and Mary wondered if she would ever learn where the woman hailed from, since it was clearly not England.

“That is lesson one. She is incredibly lucky, but you can see how she lives. She was raised in similar circumstances to most of you, but you can see what her choices led to. Who wants to guess how old she is?”

Miss Green guessed thirty-five, and every other lady made a guess between thirty-five and forty.

“She is twenty-six,” Mrs Black stated, then continued relentlessly, “She married at fifteen, had her first stillbirth at sixteen, lost one child at around two years of age, has moved house thirty or forty times, some of those homes being tents, and barely keeps her children fed. I pay her to let you gawk. She feeds her family for several months on less than most of you spend on ribbons in a quarter.”

The lesson was stark and seemed clear enough, though whether it was enough to bludgeon some sense into her younger sisters, Mary had no way of knowing.

Jane was appalled, but really did not know whether she was more appalled that the woman lived like that, or that she had been forced to witness it. The poor were far easier to understand in the abstract than when they were feeding a baby right in front of you, hoping it would survive to run around his hovel shoeless until it grew into… what, exactly?

The poor woman was less than Charlotte’s age and practically worn out… all because of a poor choice she made at Lydia’s age.

Miss White was appalled and frightened but was still having trouble seeing how that applied to her situation.

Miss Green wondered if she was seeing Mrs Forster in a decade, and it gave her something to think about.

~~~~~

The next stop was the home of a lieutenant, similar to what could be expected for a militia officer, and they began to see why Mrs Mason felt like bragging about her situation. A house the size of Colonel Mason’s contained three families, and all looked like they were on the ragged edge of starvation. Two more worn out wives told comparable stories. They came to it from different places, though similar, which seemed to be the point of the exercise.

One had eloped with an officer by choice, thinking it quite a lark. One had simply been incautious with her flirting and found herself in a dire situation. The third had done nothing particularly wrong but was forced against her will. All were in even more dismal situations than Mrs Mason, and all worked hard at jobs outside the home to keep them fed while one wife tried her best to keep all the children out of trouble as much as possible. It was brutal, and that did not even count the very real possibility of becoming widowed. Considering they were in the regulars, that possibility was not the least bit abstract.

It was heartbreaking, and the amount Mrs Black gave them would feed all three families for months, but it would run out soon after they moved on with the regiment.

~~~~~

They paused in a small open spot near a fountain that might even have worked sometime in the sixteenth century. A couple of ragged beggars saw Mrs Black signal, and they brought a couple loaves of stale bread that was at least a day old, and probably more like a week.

One boy had a wooden board and a knife, and he carefully cut one slice of bread for each lady and handed it to them with a bow. Then he poured some less than pristine ale from a pail into a single large flagon and suggested they share it around.

Mrs Black said, “That boy would kill to have a whole slice of bread for himself for lunch every day, and you may have noticed how careful he was with the crumbs. We shall not embarrass him by watching him eat your leavings. Eat up. It is the last you will have before supper.”

The lesson may have stuck, or not, but nobody had the strength to argue with her.

As they left, Mary looked around for the two rough men she assumed were her guards and saw nothing. She wondered what it meant, but suspected they were just being unobtrusive.

~~~~~

They had walked a few hundred yards bunched up like scared sheep when a large, fat, rough-looking man sauntered up to Miss White, and spoke loudly in a heavily accented, lower-class cant.

“Oy, love, fancy a bit o’ sport? What’s the damage for a roll in the hay?”

Miss White’s face changed colour to match her name and backed up, only to be blocked by her companions. The man kept pressing forward and even reached out to pinch her cheek.

Mrs Black spoke angrily, all traces of her foreign accent replaced with a lower-class cant exactly matching the reprobate’s, in a threatening, grating, tone.

“Oy, shove off, cully! She ain’t fer the likes o’ you. She ain’t in the game. Best leg it ’fore I learns ye some manners!”

“Ain’t no doxy in the ken till she’s played her hand,” he said blithely, apparently not the least bit worried, despite being surrounded by dozens of people, probably because most seemed intent on minding their own business.

Mary looked around desperately for the two guards and almost missed when the man screamed like a banshee. She looked over to see him on his knees, begging and blubbering for the madam to take pity on his poor old soul and let him go.

With complete nonchalance, Mrs Black waved her charges over, all traces of the cant gone from her voice, so she once again sounded slightly foreign.

“I am afraid this… hombre…” she said and punctuated it by making him scream another time. “…has disrupted my careful instruction schedule. You should not learn about thumb locks until the second week, but I may as well show you now, since he volunteered so nicely. Look carefully at how I have his thumb, and how I bend it back like so—”

She demonstrated by bending it back a few times, each of which made the ruffian scream and Miss Green giggle, until she got a good stare down from the instructor and remembered how she had cuffed the orphans upside the head and had a large grown man screaming on his knees.

For a couple minutes, she did what could hardly be considered anything short of torture to the man while patiently instructing her charges about how to make it hurt without breaking it before she finally released him and sent him running.

She turned back to her charges and spoke calmly and emphatically.

“That man committed no punishable crime, according to our legal system. However, if he were a gentleman of any means or status, I would have by defending myself. Keep that in mind. He could assault each of you in turn, and the magistrate would not lift a finger. You must learn to protect yourselves. The first step is not putting yourself in a position where you need to defend your own person. However, as you so clearly see, you cannot always be so lucky, so you should be prepared to do what is necessary… but ideally with less fuss. I could have broken his thumb with just a bit more pressure, wounded or killed him with my knife, or broken his arm with little more effort or risk to myself. Any of those would be messy and likely to result in a charge I would just as soon avoid; but I would not hesitate if the situation called for it, and neither should you. Now, follow me.”

All her charges stared in shocked silence, but eventually Miss Violet took off to catch up with their teacher who had outpaced them by a dozen yards, and the rest followed at a run.

At that very moment, Mary gasped in even more shock as the scales fell from her eyes, and she noticed her tutor was none other than her long-lost sister. The disguise was brilliant , and she doubted anyone short of a sister would be able to pierce it. That said, once she was aware of the subterfuge, the pieces came together and made sense. She noticed the thick soles and heels on her boots, as well as the fact that her dress did not move quite correctly. That made sense. Elizabeth was unlikely to have gained a stone overnight, so she was obviously padded. The earrings were like the red cape Spaniards apparently waved at bulls, something that drew the eye and distracted, as were the dark and slightly unnatural looking eyebrows. She wondered how she simulated the colour and wrinkles in her skin to make herself look older, because she could easily pass for anywhere from thirty to forty. The accent would just require practise, and the hair could be a wig or some sort of dye on her naturally dark tresses.

She wondered when any of the others from Meryton would work it out, if ever. She wondered at the purpose of the ruse, but assumed Elizabeth had even more reason to maintain her anonymity than they did, since this was clearly not her maiden voyage on the choppy waters of instructing dunderheads. Simple logic suggested that if a fortnight had some risk to reputations, months or years just compounded the hazard.

She did not even want to think where or when her innocent looking sister had learnt servant’s cant or thumb locks.

Later in the evening, Mary worked out that this must be an unusual class and thought to ask Lizzy about it when it was over. After all, there could not be all that many families with four daughters to instruct, nor did she think it likely there were usually so many from one town; and of course, Elizabeth could only train her own sisters once, though Mary was sceptical that once would be enough for Lydia or Kitty.

She remembered that Lizzy said the course was for wealthy ladies, so guessed Uncle Gardiner must be gifting it to other women in Meryton who he considered vulnerable to the militia, as they were not the least bit wealthy. She did notice that the attendees had all been consistently kind to Lizzy over the years, even though she was at Longbourn less than half the time.

She decided she had a great deal to discuss with her sister, and even hoped Elizabeth might somehow offer her an escape from Longbourn. That would obviously require her to give the course double her best effort.

~~~~~

The afternoon was spent in similar pursuits, though not all with soldiers’ wives or bad situations. In London, you could go from the grandest mansion to the meanest hovel without leaving an area half the size of Longbourn, so it was easy enough to see a wide variety in a few hours if planned carefully. Mr Darcy’s London house was closer to Cheapside than Netherfield was to Longbourn.

They saw wives of tradesmen, merchants, blacksmiths, shopkeepers, and a few others. It was not all gloom and doom. Many of the situations were comfortable—different from what they were accustomed to, but suitable enough.

It eventually sank in that Mrs Black was showing them a range of possibilities. In fact, some of the wives were gentlewomen who had deliberately chosen that route, sometimes because there was a dearth of marriageable gentlemen, where the lesson for Meryton ladies was not the least bit subtle. A few were even love matches, or cases where a lady could find better comfort in trade than gentry. Aside from the supposed loss of consequence, a banker’s wife lived far better than any but the wealthiest wives of gentlemen. Mrs Black very helpfully pointed out that if you took their status as the daughter of a gentleman and added a shilling, you could buy one meal. She even introduced them to a seventy-year-old wife of a bookseller who was happy as she could be after fifty years of marriage. It had taken her over a year to convince her father to allow the marriage, thus proving that occasionally, even a duke could be worked by a beloved daughter.

~~~~~

The very last stop of the day seemed like it would be the worst, because even the indomitable Mrs Black looked discomposed by what was in front of them.

“Be very quiet and respectful here,” she cautioned, as if they had not been doing that all day. Even Lydia had been subdued after the first visits to officers’ wives.

They entered a tiny little room in a nondescript hovel, and the smell drove half the ladies back into the street to cast up their accounts into the gutter.

They gathered at the side of a bed to observe a listless woman who looked at least a hundred years old, who barely managed to wave her hand at Mrs Black, though she made no effort at all to get up.

“Ah, Mrs Black. I wondered if I would see you again in this life.”

“Mrs Stacy,” she replied quietly. “I told you I would return.”

“Another week would have been too late, child,” she replied seemingly casually, then coughed outrageously.

“How are you?” Mrs Black asked.

“My trials are nearly over, as you can see.”

“Do you care to speak to my charges?”

“You know the story as well as I.”

Mrs Black sighed. “Another victim of unfortunate choices.”

“Not unfortunate!” she stated emphatically. “ Bad choices! Stupid Choices! Do not mince my words!” Then she coughed ferociously again.

“Yes, bad choices. This is Mrs Stacy. She fell in love with the handsome and charismatic Captain Stacy and eloped. Unfortunately, she did not realise the best way to become charming and charismatic is like any other accomplishment—you practise . Captain Stacy practised a great deal, before and after marriage.”

“Aye, that he did… that he did. Brought me the pox, too. He is dead of course, and nobody rues his loss, especially me.”

All the charges were looking decidedly green.

“Her family disowned her,” Mrs Black said quietly. “Her father took her shame as an excuse to gamble her dowry away.”

“Aye, that he did. Right handsome dowry it was, too. He is dead as well, and good riddance.”

Mrs Black continued in almost a whisper. “Has the madness started?”

“It has,” she said, then her hand reached out to grab Mrs Black’s, which startled her companions no end.

“Hush, ladies. Be easy. It does not pass that way,” Mrs Black said softly.

Mrs Stacy said, “I am ready, child. Might you say some words as you promised?”

“You are certain?”

“I am.”

Mrs Black sighed, and a tear rolled down her cheek unnoticed. “I wish I could do more. Should I get a priest?”

“I have had enough attention from men for one lifetime, thank you very much.”

They clasped hands a moment longer, and Mrs Black spoke in a raspy whisper.

“Miss Red, our hostess does not have long to live. Might you have a prayer for her? From the Bible, mind you, not your usual.”

“Of course, Mrs Black,” she said, and then taking her at her word, she fell to her knees beside the sickbed, took both of the sick woman’s hands, and quietly spoke from Psalm 23 and 2 Timothy with tears rolling down her face.

“Bless you, child. Bless you. You have done me a great kindness. Now go! Mark my words and listen to Mrs Black if you do not wish to repeat my mistakes.”

They all shuffled out of the house after giving a very respectful curtsey, mostly because they had no idea what to do. They gathered back near the fountain a quarter-hour later, with most still with tears in their eyes that they had to wipe with their sleeves, since they lacked handkerchiefs.

Mrs Black said, “She told me some time ago that if she could save just one of my charges from a similar fate, she could meet her maker with a glad heart. Who knows, perhaps it will be one of you.”

Mary thought she showed admirable restraint in not looking at Kitty or Lydia, though for all she knew, Miss White or Miss Violet could have been at just as much risk.

Miss White asked, “Will you see her again?”

Mrs Black looked pensive for a moment then finally shook her head.

“I doubt it. As I mentioned, I pay these poor souls to allow us to learn from their fates. It is a Devil’s bargain—their dignity for food and medicine. Mrs Stacy has survived on my pay alone for the past year, but she is using greater and greater doses of Laudanum. I will be very surprised if she survives the night.”

“Suicide is a sin!” Mary stated in horror.

Mrs Black looked at her critically. “So is judgement , according to Mathew and James! It is neither your place nor mine to judge, Miss Red.”

Mary gulped, not at all certain she agreed, but powerless to argue, especially since she knew what the Bible said as well as Mrs Black did.

Mrs Black let her stew on that for a minute or two, forcing her to at least acknowledge the ambiguities of life, then finally took pity on her as the rest of her charges held their breaths.

“She will not commit suicide, if that helps your conscience. She is in agony you cannot comprehend, and she has been suffering longer and harder than you can imagine. She has had a full bottle of Laudanum on her table at all times. She could have deliberately and painlessly taken her own life in less than five minutes at any time in the last year. She has refrained, for her own reasons, but everyone has their limits. She has paid her price and will stand for judgement head held high. Can any of you say you would do the same in her place? Can you honestly say the present course of your lives are likely to allow you to go to your reward in peace some years hence? If you died tomorrow, would you be satisfied you had lived the best life you could?”

Mary at first thought she was splitting hairs, but then decided Lizzy was right. It was not her place to judge, and what would it accomplish anyway? She at long last realised that there was a fine line between taking enough Laudanum to ease your pain and enough to kill you, and she decided that refraining from judgement was the very least required of her.

It would be some time before she came to the startling realisation that she had been devouring Fordyce and the Bible for years and had yet to learn the essence of compassion—which, by all rights, should have been the very first lesson.

An extremely subdued group returned to their lodgings. They did not complain in the least to get the same stew they had endured the night before, nor did they complain about the size or quality of their bedchambers.

It was probably not enough to reform the worst of them, but it was a start.