Chapter Ten #2
"I agree." Mrs Bingley's gaze moved to Mary, her smile dimming. The distinction was perhaps only two degrees lower by temperature, and would not have been legible to anyone who was not as perceptible as Mary. "Miss Bennet."
"It's a pleasure to encounter you here, Mrs Bingley." Mary returned the acknowledgement in kind, and then Miss Bingley's.
Mrs Bingley had already turned back to Mr Thwaite. "We have just been talking about you, or rather, about the upcoming Covent Garden production, and Caroline was certain you would have attended."
"I have not decided that yet," Mr Thwaite said.
"Then you must. We saw it the past week and it was remarkable. I was saying to Caroline on the way here that you would have definite views on the staging of the third act. It is the sort of artistic material that demands proper understanding."
She and Caroline Bingley had arranged themselves beside him on the path, which was narrow enough that Mary fell back a step, and then another, without quite intending to.
She walked beside Lady Hamilton instead, paying attention to the conversation before her. She was aware that she was not included in it, which was an odd realisation. After all, no one had done anything rude that could be pointed to, therefore making the matter more difficult to address.
As Mary treaded the path, she tried to determine, with as much fairness as she could summon, whether she was responding to something real or simply to her own anxiety.
"My daughter here, Caroline, has recently gifted me a collection of sacred anthems," Mrs Bingley said.
"An eighteenth-century edition. There are two pieces in particular—a Buxtehude and a rather unusual Telemann setting—that she suggested would be of interest to you.
I thought of you immediately when I came across them. "
"I should be glad to hear more about them," Mr Thwaite replied. "You have always had excellent taste in sacred works, Miss Bingley."
A huge chasm of biting emotion opened up within Mary, but she kept walking and did not permit any of the ache she was feeling to be visible. Lady Hamilton commented that the side of the street they ventured along was muddier than it looked. Mary agreed that it was.
Mr Thwaite said something in reply about a composer he thought she might find of equal interest, to which she murmured a reply, maintaining the image that all was well.
She did not hear his next words because she was attending to the task of maintaining inner balance and could not manage any further conversation.
Finally, the Bingleys took their leave. Mrs Bingley shook Mr Thwaite's hand and told him she hoped to see him at the ball the Finches were holding later in the week.
Caroline said she would bring a rare edition of the Buxtehude if he would like to see it. He said that would be very kind.
As Mary and Mr Thwaite continued along the path with Lady Hamilton behind them, encompassed by a silence that he did not appear to find uncomfortable.
What Mary was thinking, through it all, was this: Miss Caroline Bingley was a woman who had assessed an opportunity and was closing the distance. She had done it with haste, moving towards her target determinedly.
Could Mr Thwaite be interested in Caroline Bingley? Not incredibly so, as far as she knew, but who could really say? He was polite to her as he was to everyone. And his commendation of her tastes had been expressed with the same brevity she had heard a dozen times.
Yet, the situation had startled Mary considerably. It was still reverberating in her mind over the course of the carriage journey home, and she was not yet certain how long it would continue to do so.
***
Elizabeth
Mary came upstairs at half past three and sat down on the edge of Elizabeth's bed. She had a posture that made it obvious that she was holding certain feelings in.
Elizabeth set her book down and tilted her head at her sister.
She did not speak. She had learned, over years of sisterhood, that Mary's confidences were not extracted. They arrived in their own time, and any attempt to hasten them produced instead a retreat that could last for days.
So she said nothing and merely stared into the fireplace. After a long moment, Mary spoke up.
"Caroline Bingley came to Mr Thwaite's house this afternoon, with her brother. And then we met them both again in the park."
The account came in Mary's way, without embellishment, providing the events in sequence without editorialising them. She described the way the day had reoriented itself around Miss Bingley's arrival, and the comment Mr Thwaite had made on the path.
"He also said she had excellent taste in sacred works," she said, at the end. "I don't know that he necessarily meant anything by it…"
"What did you make of it?"
"I found it humiliating. To be standing two steps behind on the path, listening, and to have nothing to say because she had said it first, with such ease. I worry that he’ll…" She stopped. She did not need to finish.
Elizabeth understood her sister’s feelings, even the unsaid ones. Mary had undergone years of being the Bennet daughter that rooms did not commonly acknowledge. Now there was one person who matched her interests and her mind, yet the fear that too might be taken from her remained prominent.
She understood that Mary had the persistent sense of being uncommon in a family known for having louder or distinguishable qualities. And now Caroline Bingley, who had the vocabulary that appealed most to Mr Thwaite, posed a direct challenge.
"Did Mr Thwaite seem to enjoy Miss Bingley's company?" Elizabeth asked curiously.
"He was perfectly civil and there was no excessive feeling."
"Then there is your answer."
Something in Mary's face shifted. It was not relief yet, but Elizabeth hoped it was the earliest precondition for it.
Mary thanked her for support before heading to her own room. Elizabeth sat for a long while afterwards, turning the situation over in her mind. Caroline Bingley had identified her target and was closing the distance.
She wondered what, if anything, could be usefully done, and she had no ready answer.