Mary’s Secrets (Pride and Prejudice Sequel)
Chapter 1
Mary watched with a tiny twinge of resentful jealousy as her oldest two sisters were married to two very wealthy men. She didn’t understand why Elizabeth and Jane were always treated so kindly by the world and everyone in it.
Neither of them had done anything to deserve their good fortune.
They had not studied or learned anything other than what was absolutely necessary.
In fact, Elizabeth often indirectly boasted about how little she practiced the piano while simultaneously enjoying the praise and gratitude she received for playing the simple songs she could manage.
Jane was even worse. She had no accomplishments at all. She couldn’t sing or play an instrument. She couldn’t draw or paint. She couldn’t even speak a foreign language. She had nothing to recommend her except her good looks and perhaps her gentle disposition, and she was born with those.
Despite all this, Jane was the favorite in the family and the neighborhood as a whole, while Mary, who had devoted her life to learning everything she possibly could, was shoved aside and ignored unless she was adamant in displaying the results of her hard work in every way she could.
Mary was not jealous of the men her sisters married.
Mr. Bingley was too cheerful for Mary to be truly comfortable around.
His overly optimistic view of life was almost oppressive to her.
Mr. Darcy was quite the opposite. With his severe demeanor and clear pride, he hardly ever spoke to anyone other than Jane or Elizabeth.
Philosophically, she could see why Jane might love Mr. Bingley very much, though Mary held no admiration for him in the least. His sunny disposition matched Jane’s own forgiving and happy nature.
As for Mr. Darcy, Mary was certain Elizabeth must be marrying him for his money, despite her many protestations against that idea.
It was simply not possible that Elizabeth could love a man who was not capable of being pleasant toward anyone.
Mary could not condemn Elizabeth for being selfish in such a way, but she couldn’t condone the way Elizabeth tried to hide her motivations.
In short, Mary was jealous of the love Jane and Elizabeth received rather than who they were marrying, for it was clear that their husbands loved them. Even Mary, who could not always understand other people’s emotions or how and why they affected their behavior, could see their adoration.
Well, good for them. They would continue to live their lives the way they had always done.
They would be adored for qualities they had no control over and would be the center of attention for the rest of their lives.
They would be pampered and spoiled by their rich husbands, and they would be deliriously happy because of it.
Mary worked hard to keep a grimace off her face.
She knew that such would never be her own fate. She would be lucky if her hard work and study managed to garner the mild admiration of her neighbors. She would never be loved in any way: not by her parents, not by her siblings, not by her neighbors, and certainly not by any gentleman.
Mary pulled her trail of thinking to a halt, for she did not wish to ruin a beautiful wedding with her tears of self-pity and jealousy which were even now stinging her eyes and begging to be set free.
She closed her eyes and sent her imagination to the place she was happiest.
There was quite a large, wooded area between the farmlands of Longbourn and Netherfield.
It was nearly three quarters of a mile wide and a mile long.
It was jointly owned by her father and Netherfield’s owner, Mr. Simpson, and the two men split the cost of a woodsman to manage the area and ensure that no dangerous wildlife attempted to settle there.
Her father and Mr. Simpson made the cost back by selling the mushrooms that could be foraged there and charging the local gentlemen who did not own their own hunting grounds a fee to hunt there in the autumn.
She had heard her father say that it was his least profitable use of his land, but he inexplicably would not give it up.
Since the stream that ran through the middle occasionally overflowed its banks, Mary could understand that the area might be unpredictable and unsuited to farming.
However, it was her opinion that it could still be used as pasture.
She had even told him so once or twice years ago, but her father said that it would be too much bother to clear out the trees simply to let some cows or sheep graze there.
As time passed, Mary gradually grew quite pleased that he had never cleared it out.
Over the last three years, ever since she came out, that forest had become Mary’s refuge.
While she wandered its paths, she was no longer concerned with forcing herself to study subjects she did not understand and had no interest in.
She was no longer concerned with trying to make herself as pretty as she could despite her efforts yielding no reward.
She was not the ugliest, most boring, and least recognized of the Bennet sisters.
When she was among the trees, she was not Mary Bennet.
She could do what she liked without regard to whether it brought her attention or acclaim.
Mary managed to get through the rest of the ceremony without any further threat of tears by reliving various joyful times spent among the trees. When it was all over, it was time to head back to Longbourn to enjoy the wedding breakfast.
For this, Mama had prepared the most extravagant meal of her life. Since her new sons were far wealthier than the Bennets, she felt as though she could do no less. Even so, Mary had heard her wondering if it would be enough.
Mary thought that neither of the grooms cared over much about the fineness of the decorations or the rarity of the food.
They simply wished to be married and gone.
She knew that much about men, though she did not know anything about what would happen to the newly married couples following their departure.
She did not need to know. She would never need to know.
Once the breakfast was underway, Mary mingled among the guests as best she could. She was polite, and her neighbors were polite, but no one was particularly friendly to her. There was no one who sought her company and no one whose company she particularly sought.
After an hour of eating and socializing, the moment that Mary had been looking forward to most finally arrived.
When Mama was originally preparing for the breakfast, Mary had realized that she could contribute as well, not by helping with planning or decoration, since those were tasks she was not well suited to, but by providing entertainment in the form of music for the guests.
When she suggested her idea to her sisters, Jane readily accepted her offer, but Elizabeth hesitated, saying she didn’t think it truly necessary. She further explained that with so many guests, they would be in multiple rooms, so it was likely that not everyone would hear her.
Mary had assured Elizabeth that she was perfectly capable of playing loudly enough that everyone would be able to hear. This silenced Elizabeth’s objections, though for some reason she still didn’t seem particularly pleased.
Mary was determined to show Elizabeth that she could be useful.
She had prepared her most complex and most beautiful piano piece specifically for this day.
She went over to the piano which sat in the drawing room and opened it.
Several of the guests were surprised to see her doing so, but she carried on.
She set her music on the stand and sat down. Her foot hovered over the pedal and her hands floated over the keys for several moments as she breathed and calmed her nerves.
Then she began to move, and music poured from the piano. The feel of her fingers moving in complex patterns and rhythms was delightful, and the music moved through her, tempting her to dance and sway along with it.
She dampened that feeling, squashing it down with every ounce of self-will she had.
She was playing for others, not for herself.
She must play the song as written, precisely, accurately.
Joy in the music had nothing to do with it, and her own movement would simply distract her from reading the score properly.
As she confidently played the piece exactly as written, a feeling of pride began to grow within her chest, though she would never call it that.
She was simply pleased that by working hard, she could provide her mother’s guests with entertainment and pleasure.
She was happy that such excellence at the piano would garner praise and gratitude once she was done.
Finally, after fifteen minutes of strenuous exertion without a single wrong note, the song was complete. The sound of the piano faded, and the room was silent. Mary looked around, expecting to see happy faces or at the very least expressions of approval.
Instead, what she saw was Elizabeth and Jane looking embarrassed and everyone else simply staring at her.
Worried that perhaps they were noticing something scandalously wrong with her gown, she looked down. Perhaps her slipper had come off, or her stocking had slid down. But no. All was right with her clothing.
Gradually, the stunned faces morphed into tight smiles and nods of forced approval. Her mother called out, “That was well done, Mary.”
She waited for other compliments or expressions of gratitude for all her hard work.
None came.
The silent room gradually filled with the noise of conversation and the clatter of teacups and silver on china saucers.
Mary did not understand. It had taken her two months of practicing for four hours a day to perfect this piece to such a level.
Though she had begun to learn it before their engagements, she had perfected it specifically to honor her sisters on their wedding day, and it was almost completely ignored.
What more could she do? How could she ever gain approval from these people if this much effort gained her nothing.
Mary gathered her music and stood, aiming for the door. The room was completely full, so it took some time to navigate to the exit. The hallway wasn’t much better, but once she gained the stairs, she was clear. No guest would even consider going up there.
She walked carefully with upright posture and her chin held high.
She hoped that no one would notice that she was just barely preventing herself from running up the stairs as fast as her legs could go.
Once she was certainly out of sight of anyone, however, she let go of the iron maiden which she usually kept clamped around her heart to prevent her real feelings from showing.
Pain rushed from her lonely, isolated, underappreciated heart up to her throat, practically choking her with its sudden tightness. From there, heat flooded her face, and the salty sting of tears filled her eyes.
She managed to reach the safety of her bedroom before it all burst from her in sobs so loud and so violent that she had to muffle them with her pillow for fear of them being heard even over the din of voices downstairs.
She had worked so hard and studied and practiced so much.
Her hands would never be smooth like Jane’s or Kitty’s because the fingers were tipped with callouses from playing piano so long.
Her arms frequently ached with the effort of holding her hands over the piano keys.
There were even more callouses where she frequently held a pen while writing extracts to help her learn better and more thoroughly, and she couldn’t count the number of times she had stained her fingers or dress with ink.
And it was all for nothing.
Nothing!
All her studying of philosophy and religion, trying to understand human nature, all her reading and learning, was all for nothing.
No bit of information from all of the millennia of history she had ever learned of could tell her why she was never loved, never appreciated.
Learning French had not given her the passions of the French.
Nor had learning Italian given her more culture.
She had known for some time that her efforts never garnered quite as much attention as she hoped, but she had always assumed that she just needed to work harder to stand out more.
Her experience downstairs just now proved that her assumption was completely wrong. So much effort had gone into this performance, and it had gained her nothing but a half-hearted compliment from her mother, which she would have gotten if she had just played Mary Had a Little Lamb.
It was all for nothing. Four hours a day practicing, and another four at least, studying.
Eight hours a day, often more, every single day.
All of it devoted to studying topics she had no real interest in, learning subjects she had no real genius for, and forcing herself to play with precision rather than the chaotic feelings that would ruin it. It was all pointless.
Her mind howled in pain, and her heart screamed even louder with loneliness.
Eventually, the sheer physical fatigue of her outburst overcame her and she fell asleep.
When she awoke, the house was silent, and the dimmer light hinted that sunset was less than an hour away.