Chapter 93
Once back at the Gardiners’, Mary felt at first as though a great weight had slipped from her shoulders.
She had slain the dragon that was Miss Bingley by calling upon hitherto unsuspected reserves of bravery and self-possession.
She had spoken her mind and told the truth, and there was relief of a kind in that.
She did not allow herself to dwell on the extraordinary story of Mr. Ryder’s good fortune.
For when she did think of it, it could not help but raise him in her estimation.
His declining to mention it suggested a delicacy on his part which was wholly admirable, a desire to be accepted for himself and not for his expectations.
That made her think better of him as a man; but it did not encourage her to reconsider his offer.
Any doubts that had lingered about whether she had been right to refuse it had been swept away in the tea shop.
The strength of her affections had been put to the test, and her bleak declaration to Miss Bingley had summed up the truth of the matter.
She loved Mr. Hayward and only he would make her truly happy.
This knowledge, however, was not calculated to bring her any peace.
She supposed she must assume whatever affection he had once felt for her was quite obliterated—what else could explain his long-continued silence?
But that did not prevent her from thinking about him at all hours of the day and night.
She missed him at the dinner table, where his jokes and observations had made her laugh, and in the drawing room, where she had first heard him talk properly of poetry.
Her heart contracted when the children asked where he was, and when he—and his pockets full of sweets—would return.
She no longer wore the dress made from the cotton he had recommended when they first met at Harding and Howell’s, but folded it up and put it away.
Every knock at the door, every arrival of the post, was a new occasion for pain.
She did not know how she would face him when he returned to London, as she knew eventually he must. How would she conduct herself?
What would she say? No matter how often she imagined it, she did not know.
As the days went by, Mary attempted to impose some discipline on her feelings, telling herself she must find ways not to dwell upon her sadness.
To abandon herself to misery was to allow the Miss Bingleys of the world victory over her, and to confirm the correctness of all her mother’s opinions on the relations between marriage and happiness.
In their different ways, Mary understood that neither of these ladies would have been disappointed to learn that she was miserable; and this spurred her into making efforts that she would not otherwise have had the energy or spirits to attempt.
Thus, she forced herself to rise early, to have her hair properly dressed, and to keep herself neatly turned out.
These seemed minor victories over such a profound sense of loss, but she saw them as essential battles in a campaign she could not afford to lose.
If she allowed unhappiness to swallow her up, she might never escape its clutches again.
So she dusted off her books, got out pen and paper, and tried to think of a new course of study to engage her mind.
She played with the Gardiner children; she practised on the piano once more.
And when she went out on her City walks, she pushed herself to explore beyond her usual territories, forcing herself to discover new streets, unfamiliar monuments, and different districts.
It was always better, she found, to do something rather than nothing; and thus, for week after week, she occupied herself.
It was on exactly such a journey that one afternoon Mary found herself in an area she did not know at all.
She had gone beyond St. Paul’s, and was attempting to find her bearings, when she heard the sound of shouting and singing approaching along the street.
She shrank into the shelter of a nearby shopfront, resolving to escape inside if the noise proved to indicate trouble; but as it drew nearer, it became clear that it was a very good-natured hullaballoo.
She stole cautiously out of her refuge to see what it was, and beheld a large group of young men, cheering and huzzahing as they marched along.
On the pavement, an older man stood watching them with the greatest satisfaction, beating time to their singing with his stick.
He looked prosperous and respectable enough for a woman alone to speak to him; and Mary decided to risk an approach.
“Excuse me, sir, but may I ask you what is going on? Who are the marchers and what are they celebrating?”
The gentleman doffed his hat and smiled at her, seemingly pleased to be asked.
“Why, ma’am, they are medical students from Barts Hospital. They have finished their exams and they are parading in triumph, off to a grand dinner at a tavern to mark their efforts.”
He gazed at them indulgently and turned back to Mary.
“I was one of them myself more years ago than I care to admit; and I like to see the old traditions kept up.”
“They will be doctors then, sir, as you are now?”
“Yes, if they survive their time on the wards. Usually there is one amongst them who has done better than the rest and is appointed their king for the day. He is distinguished by the wearing of a crown of oak leaves—like the Caesars you know—ah, here he is now, right in the midst of them!”
He pointed at the crowd, and Mary found herself looking directly at the flushed, happy face of John Sparrow.
He was a young man now rather than a great boy; but there was no mistaking his familiar features.
The oak leaf crown had slipped a little and gave him a slightly tipsy look; but beneath his excitement, she could see a sharp, intelligent face.
His fellows patted him on the back, cheered and joshed him; it was plain he was utterly at home in their company.
He has found his place, thought Mary, deeply moved.
He is happy. I did not injure him so badly that he could not recover his spirit.
He will become everything he wished to be, with his brass plate on the door and his carriage outside.
She turned away, for she did not wish to catch his eye and ruin the moment.
She was part of his past and had no place in his joyous, noisy present.
Her face was shining as she bid the older man goodbye.
“Thank you so much, sir, for explaining it to me. I am so glad to have seen such a remarkable thing.”
He tipped his hat to her again as she left, pleased to find that he was not old enough to have lost his appreciation for the smile of a charming young woman.
Mary did not know quite why it was, but somehow her encounter with John Sparrow began to soothe her anxious mind.
Seeing him so carefree and fulfilled released her from a burden which she had been carrying for so long that she did not appreciate the weight of it until it slid away.
If she was not any happier, she felt steadier, more able to contemplate a future in which Mr. Hayward played no part.
If she must find her way forward alone, then so be it.
Perhaps the life of a single woman need not be as miserable and as humiliating as was universally insisted upon.
Perhaps much depended on the circumstances and the woman.
After all, Mary thought, she would never be as poor and as desperate as the unfortunate Miss Allen.
Her sisters’ marriages had rescued her from that fate.
They would always provide her with a place to live.
She should never find herself hurrying up the drives of country houses to teach young ladies the piano, unable to say where she should find her next shilling.
She would always have some little space that was hers; and perhaps a room of one’s own was all a thinking woman really required.
She could read and study. She might even attempt to write something herself.
Mrs. Macaulay had shown it might be done.
Why should she not follow in those footsteps?
It was hardly what Mrs. Bennet would regard as a suitable occupation for her daughter.
But then her mother had washed her hands of her.
She was free now to think as she wished on such matters.
Through all this, Mrs. Gardiner watched her niece, uncertain what to think.
She admired Mary’s strength of will. She applauded her bravery.
She was relieved to see her no longer so hopelessly, desperately miserable; but for all her dry-eyed fortitude, there was something quashed and doused about her that was painful to watch.
Resignation was clearly to be preferred to the alternative, but perhaps only just.