Chapter Eight The Library Pact
Mary Bennet stood on the periphery of Meryton's main thoroughfare, observing the slow-motion collision of social obligation and collective resentment.
It was a fascinating study in provincial friction.
Before her, the entire village was engaged in what she privately termed the "Civility Offensive"—a campaign of such frigid politeness that it threatened to lower the local temperature by several degrees.
At the centre of this atmospheric disturbance was Mr Bingley.
The gentleman was currently traversing the cobbled street wearing a pained expression reminiscent of a stray dog that had been offered an expensive collar but no actual supper.
He tipped his hat to Mrs Goulding, who returned the gesture with a nod so stiff it suggested her neck had been recently replaced by a length of unyielding oak.
"Good morning, Mrs Goulding." Mr Bingley's voice carried that familiar, airy quality indicating a total absence of troubling thoughts.
"Mr Bingley," the woman replied. The name was uttered using the precise amount of warmth required to prevent a total breach of etiquette, yet it remained cold enough to preserve a side of beef.
Mary adjusted the grip on her reticule, balancing the significant weight of the books she was returning.
She had spent the last week observing the village's reaction to the master of Netherfield's return.
The consensus was clear: Hertfordshire did not forgive a desertion, even if the deserter possessed five thousand a year and a smile capable of melting butter at fifty paces.
They loved Jane, and in their eyes, Mr Bingley had not merely left a girl.
He had committed a grand larceny of the local hope.
Worse still were the reports filtering through the village grapevine regarding his activities at the great house. According to the agitated whispers of the local delivery boys—who were, in Mary's estimation, the only reliable source of intelligence in the county—Mr Bingley had taken to "studying."
This news had been met with the level of scepticism applied to claims of dancing bears in Meryton Square.
The image of Charles Bingley engaged in intellectual labour was a difficult one to reconcile with reality.
Mary had heard a detailed account from John, the Longbourn gardener, who had it from a cousin at Netherfield.
Apparently, Mr Bingley was "reading" her father's agricultural notes.
However, the "reading" involved Mr Bingley lounging on a chaise on the veranda, looking pensive and slightly confused, while he had a valet named Tepper read the actual words aloud.
Mr Greene had explained the mechanics twice, yet the master of the house continued to stare at the diagrams as if they were ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs describing the end of the world.
It was a performance of depth as shallow as a decorative pond, Mary mused.
She watched as Mr Bingley stopped near the butcher's shop.
He was clearly trying to appear busy and purposeful, but he lacked the necessary gravity to pull it off.
He appeared less like an industrious gentleman and more like a brightly coloured kite that had lost its string and was now wondering if the ground was a friendly place to land.
The villagers continued their dance of avoidance.
A group of young ladies suddenly found the display of a nearby milliner's shop utterly engrossing the moment Mr Bingley turned in their direction.
Even the local muzzled terrier seemed to stir away, its tail twitching with a distinct lack of neighbourly feeling.
Mary felt a strange, unwelcome prickle of empathy.
She knew the sensation of being the atmospheric anomaly in a room.
She had spent her life as the middle sister, a position that carried all the prestige of a spare wheel on a carriage that only ever used four.
She was the "serious" one, the one whose presence was tolerated rather than celebrated, much like a recurring chest cold.
There was a fundamental difference, of course. She had chosen her isolation, wrapping it around her like a protective woollen shawl. Mr Bingley, conversely, seemed to be drowning in his, reaching out for a lifeline of civility that was being systematically retracted by every hand in Meryton.
He checked his pocket watch for the third time in as many minutes. The frantic movement suggested a man realising the theatre was empty, the actors had gone home, and he was still standing on stage waiting for his cue.
Mary stepped out from the shadow of the draper's awning.
She did not intend to speak to him—the social risk to her own fragile standing was too great, and her mother's current state of pique regarding the gentleman was enough to turn the milk sour at three miles range.
But as she moved towards the library, she could not help but note the slump of his shoulders.
Mr Bingley was not merely a vacuous gentleman of fortune. He had discovered that the world did not always provide a soft cushion for his landing. For the first time since she had known him, he seemed... heavy.
It did not suit a man of his constitution. It was like seeing a butterfly trying to carry a brick. It was unnatural, distressing, and fundamentally wrong.
Mary turned the corner, her mind already cataloguing the metaphors for his failure.
She would not intervene. She was a scholar of life, not a participant.
And yet, the image of that pained, hopeful face remained etched behind her eyelids, a stubborn inkblot on the otherwise tidy ledger of her morning.
The Circulating Library was presided over by Mrs Chester, a woman who treated books as if they were fragile hostages and the public as the enemy combatants attempting to rescue them.
Mary established herself in her habitual corner—a nook between "Morality and Ethics" and "A Treatise on the Correction of Domestic Pests"—when the bell above the door gave a cheerful, optimistic chime.
It was a sound that had no business in such a sombre establishment.
Mary watched through the gap in the shelves as Mr Bingley entered. He did not merely walk in. He arrived, bringing with him a scent of expensive pomade and the unmistakable aura of a man who was trying very hard to belong in a place where people did not usually wear such well-tailored waistcoats.
After a minute, she spotted her sister Kitty, who was currently undergoing a transition so profound it bordered on the subterranean.
Having lost Lydia to the embrace of Rosings Park, Kitty had decided that her previous life of ribbons and officers was a hollow pursuit.
She was now "Serious," a state she manifested by wearing a bonnet with a brim so wide it functioned as a portable isolation chamber and maintaining an expression of such intense gravity that one expected her to begin reciting the funeral rites at any moment.
Charles Bingley did not notice Mary. His focus was entirely on the desk where Mrs Chester sat, currently engaged in the aggressive repair of a spine.
"Good morning!" Mr Bingley's smile was radiant enough to illuminate a small ballroom.
Mrs Chester looked up. She did not return the smile. She regarded him as if she had just seen a donkey enter her establishment and request a tray of tea and biscuits. Her expression was one of profound bafflement, laced with a thin veneer of professional contempt.
"Can I help you, sir?" she asked. The "sir" was delivered with the same warmth one might afford an especially persistent mould.
"I should hope so!" Mr Bingley replied, seemingly oblivious to the atmospheric shift. "I am in pursuit of... depth. I find myself in a period of intellectual expansion. I require a book. A deep book. A heavy book."
Mary winced. Using "heavy" as a synonym for "intellectual" was a tactical error of the highest order in this building.
Mrs Chester's eyes narrowed. "By 'heavy,' sir, do you refer to the physical weight of the volume? We have a large ledger on the history of the canal system if you are aiming to strengthen your wrists."
Mr Bingley's smile faltered, just for a second. "No, no. I mean... profound. I wish to engage with a text that challenges the mind. A work of significant gravity."
He was stumbling. Mary could almost see the gears inside his head grinding to a halt in the face of Mrs Chester's provincial scepticism.
"I attended Eton," he added, his voice dropping an octave as if the name of his former school was a secret that would unlock the mysteries of the library. "I graduated Cambridge. Barely, admittedly, but the degree is quite real."
Mrs Chester continued to stare. The silence stretched, filled with the ticking of the clock and the sound of Kitty sighing with the weight of her newfound maturity.
"Is that so?" Mrs Chester said at last. "And did they teach you at Cambridge that a library is arranged by subject, or did you spend your time chasing after horses and spilling port on your cravat?"
The insult was calculated. Mr Bingley glanced at his impeccable cravat, and for a moment, Mary saw the realisation hit him. He looked ignorant. He looked like he had more money than sense and was now trying to buy the latter by the pound.
It was a painful sight. The cheerful Charles Bingley was a creature of the sun. Seeing him shadowed by the petty tyranny of a librarian felt like watching a goldcrest get caught in a web.
"I merely wished to broaden my horizons." His voice lacked its usual bounce.
"The horizons are in the back." Mrs Chester pointed a bony finger to the travel section. "Next to the cookery. Try not to get your hair oil on the pages."
She returned to her mending. Mr Bingley stood frozen for a moment. He was disheartened. He looked, Mary realised with a sudden jolt of unwanted feeling, quite small.