Chapter 4
When she felt too tired to sit any longer at the keyboard, it was Mary’s custom to retreat to her bedroom and read.
There she had a small bookcase in which stood the dozen or so books which belonged to her.
They were so familiar that she could recite whole passages from them by heart; nevertheless, it pleased her to open them and look again at the well-remembered words.
She could not recall a time when reading had not been both a comfort and a refuge.
Indeed, she sometimes thought she remembered the moment when the great joy of literacy had come upon her.
She was huddled in front of the fire in the nursery when the black lines on the paper that Lizzy had so patiently traced for her ceased to be random shapes and suddenly assembled themselves into letters—A is for Apple, C is for Cat.
Once she grasped this, there was no holding her back.
She raced on, advancing from picture books to rhymes and fairy stories.
She made short work of The History of Little Goody Two-Shoes, and The Story of the Robins did not detain her long.
In those days, she read in the company of Jane or Elizabeth, the three of them sitting together up in the nursery, each occupied with her own book in companionable quiet.
But as she grew older and more unhappy and her sisters drifted away from her, books became less a link between them than a solace for their loss.
When Jane and Elizabeth whispered together without including her, when they shut the door to their room and did not ask her to join them—then it was to her books that Mary fled, finding in them a distraction from the loneliness that depressed her spirits.
She read so much that she quickly exhausted not just her own shelves, but also the scanty resources of the Longbourn schoolroom.
Soon she had finished everything it contained, from the atlases of the world to hints on housekeeping; but the more she consumed, the sharper her desire for new reading matter grew.
She picked up anything she found about the house, bearing it away to study at her leisure.
The novels Mrs. Bennet borrowed from the circulating library occupied her for a while; but their beautiful imperilled heroines, their handsome upright heroes, and the complications of the plot that brought them step by convoluted step to the most improbable happy endings did not please her.
She condemned them as silly, and longed for more demanding fare.
Thinking she might prefer fact to fiction, she picked up Mr. Bennet’s newspapers, squinting at their tiny black print, spelling out to herself the unfamiliar names and places they described, until her eyes hurt and she laid them aside.
She read the agricultural magazines to which he subscribed, puzzling at the images of threshing machines and diagrams of crop rotations.
She spirited away the pamphlets brought into the house by the servants, with their lurid accounts of horrible crimes and dying confessions, studying the crude black line drawings of hanged men and murdered women, until Mrs. Hill discovered them and carried them angrily off to the kitchen.
Sometimes she happened upon more substantial volumes left about by Mr. Bennet, and these she would regard with great curiosity; but she did not dare to open them.
Her father’s books were sacrosanct and not to be meddled with by anyone but himself.
Mary was eighteen when she understood she could not go on in this haphazard way.
She longed to develop her intellectual understanding, just as she had done her musical proficiency; but she understood that to do so, two things were necessary.
First, she needed to consult a far greater range of reading material; and second, she required the assistance of a teacher.
She had Miss Allen for the piano. Why should she not have similar support in pursuing her intellectual interests?
Surely some steady, learned person could be found to direct her reading and give a shape to her studies.
If she had been a boy, a tutor would have been provided for her; but such a thing was unthinkable for a girl.
Nor was there any chance of her being sent away to school, as it was an article of faith with Mrs. Bennet that the food served to boarders was stodgy and damaged the complexion.
There was only one possible answer to Mary’s dilemma, and that was the appointment of a governess—but it was many months before she summoned up the courage to ask her mother if this might be permitted.
She approached the subject gingerly, as she knew Mrs. Bennet did not look kindly upon governesses.
Indeed, it was a matter of pride to her mother that she had never employed such a person.
A succession of masters had, over the years, marched up the drive to Longbourn, to instruct her daughters in those subjects she thought would add a final polish to their education.
From them, she and her sisters had gleaned a smattering of French, a little drawing, and a great deal of dancing.
But in matters of general education, Mrs. Bennet considered her own example, supplemented by a respectable number of textbooks, as enough to equip them with all they needed to know.
She had taught her girls how to cast up accounts, manage a household, and sew a good, straight seam.
They all read well enough and knew enough history and geography not to look absolutely foolish in company.
Anything more was not only unnecessary, but probably unwise.
Mrs. Bennet had not observed that learning was a quality most men sought in a wife, and she had no desire to add to her daughters’ disadvantages by burdening them with a reputation for cleverness.
All this Mary knew; but the desire to exercise her mind overcame her apprehension, and one afternoon, as she sat with her mother and sisters at tea, she made her request as boldly and as calmly as she could.
Mrs. Bennet was nonplussed, as Mary had expected she would be.
“A governess? Whatever can you mean? What could you possibly want with one at your age?”
“I should like to improve my education, Mama, to read more widely and cultivate my mind.”
“I cannot imagine what else you think you need to learn,” cried Mrs. Bennet. “Your head is stuffed full of useless facts already. I doubt there’s a country in the world whose capital you don’t know or whose principal rivers you couldn’t name. What more could a governess teach you?”
“She could help me study in a more rational way, direct me towards books that would stretch my intellect.” Mary felt enthusiasm quicken within her.
“And she need not work only with me. She could be of service to all us younger girls. I’m sure we would all benefit from improving our habits of industry. ”
Lydia, who usually paid no attention to anything Mary said, started up, horrified.
“Heaven preserve me from habits of industry! And my mind is stretched quite enough, thank you. The last thing we need is a governess sitting in the morning room sniffing and looking miserable, some poor spinster with a book of sermons in one hand and a twist of snuff in the other.”
She turned to Kitty, held an imaginary pinch of snuff under her nose, snorted, turned up her eyes, and groaned. Kitty burst out laughing, scattering crumbs from her cake across the table.
“I can’t imagine anything more awful,” declared Lydia, “and Kitty thinks the same, I’m sure.”
“It would be dreadful, especially the sniffing,” added Kitty obediently. “Please, Mama, don’t do it. We’re happy as we are.”
“I’m sure we could find someone we all liked,” persisted Mary. “Some well-bred woman with no annoying habits. And she need come only a few times a week.”
“That’s still far too often for me,” said Lydia. “Suppose she doesn’t come at all?”
Mary ignored her, fixing her mother with a supplicant’s stare.
“Really, Mama, when you consider the benefits to our minds—”
But it was no use. Mrs. Bennet had already made her decision.
“That’s enough, Mary. No-one else wants a governess; and I refuse to entertain the expense of one solely for your benefit.
If you wish to learn more, that is your affair.
There are books enough in Mr. Bennet’s library.
You may take yourself off there, as Lizzy does, and read to your heart’s content.
That is all I have to say upon the matter.
I don’t wish to hear it mentioned again. ”
Lydia, much relieved, helped herself to another slice of cake.
Mary knew it was pointless to say more. But as she sat there, watching her tea grow cold, the significance of her mother’s words slowly dawned upon her.
It had never before occurred to her that she might be allowed to enter her father’s library.
She often looked into it as she passed, a light and airy room, with bay windows that opened directly onto the garden, a vision of scholarly calm.
Its real attractions, however, were the books which lined its walls, shelf after shelf of them, a tantalising vision for a hungry reader desperate for something new to engage her.
Mr. Bennet spent most of every day there, closeted in a most forbidding silence.
Interlopers, as he liked to remind his family, were not encouraged to join him.
“As I do not quarrel with the general air of silliness that pervades every other part of this house, I do not think it unreasonable that there should be one room from which it is excluded.”
Neither Kitty nor Lydia, for whom the bookshelves offered no temptation, were troubled by this pronouncement.
Nor was Mrs. Bennet. She had no curiosity about how her husband spent his time in his library and it would not have occurred to her to try to find out.
Only Elizabeth slipped in now and then to borrow a book with the same easy confidence which characterised everything she did.
But Lizzy was Mr. Bennet’s favourite, and his usually sardonic gaze often rested upon her with a warmth and admiration he did not extend to his younger daughters.
Mary had never supposed a similar welcome would ever be offered to her.
Mr. Bennet rarely looked at her at all, and seemed quite indifferent to her presence.
She would never have considered the possibility of entering the library if her mother had not suggested it; but now the prospect of roaming freely among so many books overcame her fear of a refusal.
She plucked up her courage and waited until she judged her father was in his least capricious frame of mind before stopping him in the hallway and asking—very tentatively—if she might be granted admission on the same terms as Lizzy.
He considered for a moment before replying.
“You may come and take refuge in my library if you feel you will benefit from it. But you are to remember it is a not a place for conversation. I will not be teased with idle questions. A rational calm is to prevail at all times. And every book taken down from a shelf is to be returned to the exact place from which it was removed. These rules are inflexible. Do you think you can obey them?”
“Yes, sir, I do.”
“Then I have no objection to your coming. You may begin tomorrow.”