Chapter Fourteen
Elizabeth
The next day, Mary's place at the breakfast table was empty.
A note in her hand had been delivered to the kitchen staff ahead of time: she would take her meals in her room, she required no visits, she was quite well and wished only for some time alone.
The note was brief and permitted no argument, which Elizabeth mused as she set it beside her plate, was likely the best approach in a family like theirs.
Their mother arrived a while later. She sat, accepted her cup of tea, and glanced at Mary's vacant spot without speaking about it.
The restraint lasted approximately four minutes.
"I suppose she is very upset with me."
"That is a sensible conclusion," Elizabeth said.
"I spoke plainly. I have never pretended to do otherwise."
"You spoke unkindly. There is a distinction, Mama, between plain speech and otherwise. Last night, you managed both simultaneously, which is not an easy feat."
"I only wished to save us. All of us. Not to be the villain of the piece."
"I know that," Elizabeth murmured. "I do not think you a villain. You were frightened, and I think fear produces speech that runs ahead of consequences. But Mary needed kindness last night, not a reckoning, and that is what requires addressing."
Jane's voice came from the far end of the table, quiet yet carrying across clearly.
"I have enjoyed this season a great deal.
I am glad to be here, and I am grateful for every part of it.
But I would give all of it up — the house, the assemblies, outings most evenings — rather than have Mary made wretched so that we might continue.
If we are meant to have these things, we shall have them because Mary is happy and Mr Thwaite chooses her as a result.
Not because she has been pressed into an urgency that makes her someone she is not. "
"Very prettily said," Lydia responded. "But if it were me in Mary's position, I would not have let the relationship get this far without settling the matter. Miss Bingley would not have had the opportunity to discuss a single topic!"
"It’s true. Knowing Lydia, she'd have been engaged by the very first week of January," Kitty confirmed.
"Neither of you," Elizabeth said to her younger sisters, "is in Mary's position.
Mr Thwaite is not a prize to be captured at speed.
He is a man of considerable intelligence and feeling.
What has drawn him to Mary is what you are suggesting she abandon: the nature of her thoughts, the honesty of her manner and the fact that she engages with him as an equal rather than as a prospect.
You cannot fake that. If it is not genuine, he would know it within days, and the whole structure would collapse.
And what you asked of Mary last night, Mama, was not to do more.
It was to become someone else. That is not a fair thing to ask of her. "
Mrs Bennet glanced down at the table. The fight had disappeared from her face, leaving behind a mellow husk.
"I will apologise to her," she said finally. Her statement was not meant to be gracious or polite — she appeared chastened and made uncomfortable by that knowledge, but had decided to proceed regardless.
"Give her the morning. She asked for some time to herself, and that is a request worth honouring. Visiting later in the afternoon might be a better idea, if she will see you."
Her mother nodded, reached for her coffee, and for a moment Elizabeth thought the subject had found its resting place.
"I still maintain that none of this is Lavinia's doing. Caroline is her own woman and has her own reasons for behaving a certain way."
Elizabeth had been waiting for this. "Mrs Bingley is a woman of considerable social intelligence.
The friendship she has built with you this season has been formed with remarkable speed and thoroughness, and I do not think either of that is accidental.
She has used the friendship to learn a great deal about this family, about Mr Thwaite's connection to Mary, alongside other situations that are useful to her.
That is not the conduct of a person simply enjoying a social acquaintance. "
"You do not know her. As I said to Mary, she shared private concerns with me, which is not a common habit in this society of ours. A woman does not share grief as a stratagem."
"Some women do, because they are very good at knowing what another person most needs to hear, and providing it to them. The exchange produces trust that is then available for other uses. I have made my own enquiries and there is no ‘Mr Anstruther of Northumberland’. I’m willing to believe the figure was invented by Mrs Bingley to allay rivalry. "
"That is a dark reading of human nature."
"In this case, it fits the available evidence.
" She kept her voice even. "Mama, Caroline Bingley is in her third season.
She is well-connected, and in full possession of every social advantage available to her.
The absence of a settled match after three seasons has a cause, and the cause is either due to rigid standards or a want of sufficiently suitable candidates.
Then she comes to London and encounters a wealthy widower who is cultivated and eligible, whose attention is presently directed at one of the Bennet girls.
That is a convenient opportunity for a woman in her position.
And a woman like Mrs Bingley, would not fail to notice it. "
"You are saying Lavinia put Caroline up to pursuing Mr Thwaite."
"She almost certainly approved of it, and may have done considerably more than that. You have been told of how Miss Bingley has managed to appear wherever Mr Thwaite is and there’s the museum visit, among others — these are not coincidences.
They are a harmonised approach, I doubt Caroline Bingley is the sort of woman who manages things independently of her mother's knowledge. "
"You have no proof of any of this! You are constructing a theory due to a few random encounters and the strength of your own suspicion, and you are asking me to believe that a woman who has shown me nothing but kindness has been deceiving me since the start of the season.
I will not believe it without better evidence. "
"Then consider this," Elizabeth said. "I have heard, from more than one person this season, that Mrs Bingley is a considerable gossip.
She has a talent for learning what is useful to her and a tendency to circulate it when it serves her interests.
I hope, Mama, that in the spirit of what you believed to be a true friendship, you have not shared anything that you would not wish to have repeated. "
The colour left her mother's face with a speed that proved informative.
She sat off into the distance, which evidently contained something none of the rest of them was privy to. Whatever it contained, it was sufficient to drain all remaining argument from her face and replace it with something Elizabeth had rarely seen there: unguarded alarm.
She set her cup down, straightened herself, and left the room.
The door closed behind her, not loudly, which again was more alarming than loudness would have been.
Lydia looked at Elizabeth. "What could she have possibly said to Mrs Bingley?"
"I don't know," Elizabeth said. "But it must have been really important."
"Do you truly think Mrs Bingley would use whatever it was for nefarious purposes?" Jane asked.
"I think that Mrs Bingley collects details and keeps them until they are useful.
Whether she has already used it, is keeping it in reserve, or will choose never to use it at all, I cannot say.
" Elizabeth replied. "What I believe is that our mother has told her something she should not have, and whatever the secret is, is no longer as safely contained as it was before the friendship began. "
Her sisters listened to this in varying degrees of shock, too stunned to say anything else.
Elizabeth sat with her cooled tea and looked at the empty chair her mother had just vacated. The statement Mrs Bennet had divulged to Mrs Bingley was now information in a precarious, undecided state. The next question was what would be done with it, when, and by whom.
Whatever it was, she hoped it would be resolved quickly.