Chapter Mrs. Bennet #6
“Isn’t that a form of love?” Jane asked.
“In this house it is,” Mary said. “I see it every day.”
“So what you’re saying is, ride it out? Don’t make a plan for our parents as they age and develop health problems?”
“No, Lizzie, that’s not what I’m saying. I think we see how Pa does with this procedure, and once he’s better, we can discuss this,” Mary said.
“This in no way means we aren’t grateful to you.” Jane patted Mary’s hand.
“Thank you. But please understand why I stay. I love them and I love this house—and I can’t imagine living anywhere else in the world, even if you offered it to me.”
“I felt the same until I moved,” Kitty said. “You find you can make your home anywhere when you set your mind to it.”
“You have a husband and children. That’s different.” Mary looked at them. “You all have husbands and children. I’m alone.”
“You will fall in love someday,” Lizzie assured her.
“Will I?” Mary wondered. “Well, it won’t happen tonight, that’s for sure. But I will put it on my list of things to do.”
The doorbell rang. The girls looked at one another.
“Probably ,” Mary guessed as she went to answer the front door.
Mary unbolted the lock and peered through the chain. “It’s Lydia!” she shouted. Mary loosened the chain and let her sister in.
Lydia wore pencil jeans and a tight sweater. She teetered on stiletto heels. Her hair was long, pulled up into a high ponytail that cascaded down her back.
Lizzie, Kitty, and Jane joined them in the vestibule.
“That was some train!” Lizzie said, hugging her sister. “You smell divine.”
“Mademoiselle by Christian Dior. Thanks. I blew off the train. A corporal out of Fort Belvoir was driving up for a meeting and offered me a ride. Very handsome. Single. About thirty-two. Just right for our Mary. I had the most wonderful four hours looking at his perfect profile.”
“How was he from the front?” Mary asked.
The girls laughed.
“Not bad. The eyes are a bit flinty, but a good strong nose and chin,” Lydia reported.
“How do you grow your hair out so quickly? I might need biotin.” Kitty patted the barrettes that held her hair in place.
“I don’t grow anything. It’s a weave,” Lydia explained as she flicked it.
“Oh.” Lizzie and the girls examined Lydia’s hair like it was a sculpture in a museum.
“Are you hungry?” Jane asked.
“Of course. I hope you have carbohydrates.”
“Tons,” Mary promised.
Mary, Lydia, and Kitty went into the kitchen. Lizzie pulled Jane back into the front parlor as she followed them.
“What are we going to do about Mary?” Lizzie whispered.
“What do you mean?” Jane asked.
Lizzie ran her hand over the arm of the old velvet-covered chair. “She wants to stay in the house.”
“New York City holds an allure for single women. It always has. This is no place to bring up a family.”
“We were raised here, Jane,” Lizzie countered. “And if I’m honest, I dream of the day I can return.”
“I thought you loved your garden.”
“I do. But there are all kinds of gardens. I could put a garden on the roof someday.”
“I’m afraid the house will be long gone by then,” Jane said.
“Mary loves the old barn. I would have liked to help her keep it. But where will we find the money to fix it? I have college to worry about.” Lizzie bit her lip.
Fitzy and little Mary were a few years away from college, but Lizzie was planning ahead.
Her husband had done well, and Lizzie’s marketing company was breaking even, but as with all women raised in homes with financial insecurity, the fear of poverty loomed in the corners of every endeavor, squashing ambition.
Lizzie avoided risks, but it was necessary to take them to grow the business.
Lizzie Bennet Darcy played it safe, even when she knew it would prevent her from reaching her potential.
“My husband and I will help,” Jane said, looking around. “But look at this place. It’s falling apart. We’d have to fix it up to sell it for the proper price.”
“In this neighborhood? I wouldn’t worry.”
“Mary fixed a pipe upstairs by herself.” Jane rolled her eyes.
“Poor thing.”
“She won the playwriting prize, but every penny is going to fix the sidewalk,” Jane said sadly.
“She shouldn’t spend her money on repairs,” Lizzie said. “She should spend it on what she needs, what she wants.”
“Mary will never tell you what she wants. Ever,” Jane said. “And now, Dad has gotten sick.”
“He’ll be fine,” Lizzie assured her.
“You’re always positive.”
“And you worry too much,” Lizzie said. “He has to take better care of himself.”
“Mary is the one to make sure he will,” Jane admitted.
“Are you gossiping about me?” Mary smiled from the pocket doors.
“We were just talking about how beautifully you take care of Mama and Pa.”
“I am happy to do it.” Mary didn’t believe her sisters were chatting about her largesse. She knew something was up.
A VISIT FROM CHARLOTTE AND MR. COLLINS
Mrs. Bennet and her daughters were dressed, putting on their coats and grabbing their purses, about to depart from Number 10 Jane Street, when the doorbell rang. They looked at one another as the bell rang again, and Mary opened the door.
“Cousins!” Mary said a bit too cheerily.
William Collins, fiftyish, bald, and short, beamed while his wife, Charlotte, taller than he and ten years younger, searched the eyes of her cousins.
Charlotte’s empathy lived in every feature of her face, from her warm smile to the eyebrows that acted as arrows for her emotion.
Lydia groaned, and Mrs. Bennet shot her a look. Lizzie looked at Jane, who plastered a smile on her face. Kitty buttoned her jacket. She didn’t care who stopped by; she wanted to be with her father.
“I’m so sorry, Charlotte”—Mary turned to Mr. Collins—“William. We’d love to visit, but we’re on our way to the hospital,” Mary said.
“That’s why we came early.” William smiled pleasantly and brushed Mary aside, entering the foyer. It was fascinating how high the chandeliers seemed when a man of slight stature stood under one. Mary wanted to remember the moment to write about it later.
“William, this is a bad time,” Charlotte said. “The Bennet women are on their way out.”
“I’ll say,” Mary laughed.
Lizzie embraced Charlotte. “It’s never a bad time for a visit with you.”
“See? What did I tell you?” William said. “I appreciated the text, Mary. I want you to contact us whether it’s good news or bad.”
“You’re welcome.” Now Mary was sorry she’d sent it.
“Shall we join you at the hospital?”
“No!” the all-girl Bennet Greek chorus rang out.
“Oh, all right then.” William shrugged. “We can talk later. How is my cousin?”
“We hope he’s even better this morning,” Mary explained. “He took a little spill—”
“A great doctor once said if you want to make it to ninety… don’t ever fall.” William laughed at his own joke alone.
“Pa is not ninety.”
“He’s on his way. Ten years after eighty is like three. This is not meant as a slur; it’s an achievement to grow old,” William insisted. “An honor.”
“Indeed,” Lizzie said. “And knowing Pa, he will bounce back better than ever.”
“Regardless of his chronological age.” Kitty crossed her arms over her chest.
“I hope so—and I also hope that you ladies are making plans for your future. With your parents reaching elderly status—”
“I am already there,” Mrs. Bennet said. “I’m knee-deep in old age with the bad knees to prove it, and I’m not ashamed of it.”
“You shouldn’t be. It’s a natural part of life, for things to fall apart,” William explained.
“William, please. Everything you say is sounding odd under the circumstances.” Charlotte shook her head. “Can’t you see our cousins are worried?”
“We’re family!” William said.
“Yes, we are.” Lizzie forced a smile.
Mary looked at William and wondered what his definition of family could possibly be.
Was it to be of help to relatives? Or was it to sit like a spider until someone was ill and swoop in for the financial kill?
The floor in the old house beneath Mary’s feet suddenly felt soft, like wet sand.
Was the foundation of everything she had worked so hard to maintain washing away?
Were she and her parents going under with the outgoing tide?
Where would they go? How would they live?
Maybe she could call Charlotte later and reason with her to get to her husband.
Maybe it was time to bring Lizzie in and have her deal with William Collins.
She had had her altercations with him before, and Mary believed William was afraid of Lizzie.
Surely her father had more rights than a renter!
“The ladies understand the situation. Their father has lifetime rights to the house, and upon his death, I take over the deed.”
“Unless we pay off the debt.” Mary folded her arms over her chest.
William Collins looked around the foyer and into the parlor. “That’s always an option.”
“Good to know,” Lizzie said in a tone that meant she wasn’t fooling around.
“We’re due at our next appointment,” Charlotte said.
“I cleared the afternoon.” William looked at Charlotte, who glared at him. “We’ll be off then. Next time, cocktails? Tea?”
“Sure. Sure,” Mary agreed. William invited himself to the Bennets’, which Mary thought was rude.
“We’ll be happy to have you over once my husband is home,” Mrs. Bennet assured him.
Mary opened the door and let her cousins out.
She noticed that Charlotte turned to Lizzie and made a telephone receiver motion, hand to her ear, before closing the door behind her.
There was a secret language between Lizzie and Charlotte, but whatever the case, it made Mary feel better to know that she wasn’t alone in the fight to remain at 10 Jane Street.
“What was that all about?” Lydia wanted to know.
“He wants to sell the house out from under us,” Mrs. Bennet said.
“I’d like to see him try.” Lizzie squeezed Mary’s hand.
“It’s too late,” Mary said. “He’s like a vulture waiting for the worst to happen.”
“Don’t think about it,” Kitty said.
But that was all Mary thought about.