Chapter 6 An Offer to Pike
An Offer to Pike
After my talk with Elizabeth, I began to consider my future more seriously.
When I felt myself succumbing to self-pity, I thought about the fate of the great scientists of the past. My lot was really not so bad compared to Galileo, who was imprisoned in his house for a decade, or poor Bruno who was burnt at the stake for the sin of correctly inferring that the earth orbits the sun.
And let us not forget Newton, who went mad, though that was perhaps his own fault for drinking too much mercury.
Compared to the trials of these great men, being a young lady was nothing.
Yes, as a man I could have gone to university and learned at the feet of the great thinkers of our age.
And, of course, if I were a young man, I would not have to look around for a husband to save me when my father died and we lost the house. Longbourn would simply be mine.
Still, I decided I must remember poor Bruno, be grateful that there was no burning pyre in my future, and discover a solution.
The first question was what to do about Pike. My initial instinct was to run him off, once and for all. He had no idea how unpleasant a companion I could be when I chose (and sometimes when I did not).
However, I soon thought better of it. The thought of marrying him still made me shudder—but, I realized, the thought of marrying any man was nearly as bad.
Even if I found a more amiable suitor than Pike, he was unlikely to be richer or better-smelling.
I would spend my life cooking his dinners and having his progeny.
My research career would end, and no matter how violently in love I managed to fall with this imagined spouse, I could not reconcile myself to that.
Anyway, my preference was to keep Pike as a business partner, which he would hardly do if I made him loathe me.
If not him, then who? And if I did not marry, how was I to live?
As a poor relation? If I had to watch Lizzy bite her tongue in irritation with me all my life I was quite sure I would end by burning her house to the ground, which would be most wicked.
Think, Mary , I told myself day and night. You are supposed to be clever. There must be another way out.
And then, one day, I found one.
My aunt and uncle Phillips were dining with us at Longbourn.
My uncle was always rather loud and braggish when they came to us.
Maybe it was the superiority of Papa’s cellar, which led him to drink deep, or maybe the grandeur of Papa’s gentlemanly status that made him feel inferior.
Whatever it was, he was even more overbearing than usual.
“It’s been a very good year for the practice,” he said.
“A very good year. Lots of young men need their wills made, coming back from war with their pockets full of prizes, and I’ve been made solicitor to Lord Henry Charing.
” He paused to see if any of us would express admiration for this.
No one did, so he continued, “A very good year indeed. But of course now I’ve the duty to sort out what to do with the excess!
Ah, well, a prosperous man’s work is never done.
” He laughed as though he’d told a great joke.
“Excellent pudding tonight,” my father said.
“I’ve done not a little research,” Uncle Gardiner said. “Of course I’ve thought of buying an estate of me own. How would that be, Bennet, eh? Two gentlemen in the family then, eh?”
“Mmm,” said Papa. “That would be a welcome change.”
“However, upon consideration, I felt that a life of idleness would not suit me. No, I must invest .” He dropped his voice, as though there might be spies lurking beneath the table.
“You mustn’t tell anyone about this—but I’ve got word of a tremendous new factory enterprise up north.
I’ve got it on excellent authority that if I commit my funds I am guaranteed to see returns of 13 percent. ”
“That would indeed be extraordinary,” said Papa.
I was only half attending to this—my uncle lost his life savings every few years, but luckily my aunt never let him gamble more than they could afford to lose—when he said something that grabbed my attention.
“Think I’ll send young Pike up north,” he said. “He can keep an eye on my investment for a year or so.”
“Did you say you are sending Septimus Pike up north?” I said.
My uncle gave me a disgustingly knowing smile.
“The prospect disturbs you, eh, Miss Mary? You are not the only young person who does not want to be parted! Septimus himself refuses to go. Foolish boy doesn’t see what a fine opportunity it is.
I believe he is afraid I will forget about him.
” His smile was now so knowing it was almost a leer.
“And perhaps he has other reasons as well.”
I ignored my uncle’s innuendoes. My mind was in a whirl. I knew how to rid myself of Septimus Pike once and for all—perhaps of any need for a husband.
The next afternoon, I walked into Meryton. When I stepped into my uncle’s office, he was there and working, but he was very quick to tell Pike to take a break and take a turn about the town square with me.
Pike looked at me with a slight frown. “I’m in the middle of the letter to Captain Berwyck’s executor,” he said.
“Never mind that. Go, lad, go.”
So Pike gave me his arm, and we went.
“Not the town square,” I said. “Let us climb the hill.” He looked at me with surprise but said, “Very well,” and we left Meryton behind us.
When we reached the top, I sat on the puddingstone for a rest. Meryton’s rooftops lay below us. No one was now close enough to hear.
“Why do you wish to marry me, Pike?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Why not? We have always got on. We suit.”
“You do not seem to like me very much.”
“Like? Oh, I don’t know. But I mean to have you all the same.” He had taken up a stick and was whacking the heads off dandelions.
“You won’t give up, will you.”
He turned to me with a sudden, wolfish grin. “Actually, I was on the fence about asking for your hand at all, until you left me on the dance floor. Since then it’s all I can think of.”
That startled a laugh out of me. At least he was honest. I could almost like him.
“It wouldn’t be so bad,” he said. “We’ve managed a very successful partnership as gunpowder traders. Why not expand it?”
This was my opening, and I seized it. “Actually,” I said, “that is just what I’d like to do.”
“Marry me?”
“No. Expand our partnership.”
You will recall, Holzmann, my experiments with galvanization of blood.
I had, unfortunately, hit a wall with my current research.
My results had plateaued; I could make no accurate conclusions about what, actually, made up the thing called life, at least not without better equipment.
The little jar in which I saved my coins for an electrical rig was, despite years of savings, only three-quarters full.
However, one of my attempts had produced a bright, tart green dye, the color of new spring leaves.
I now brought out a handkerchief dyed with the stuff and showed it to Pike.
I thought I might have to explain it to him, but to Pike’s credit, he wasn’t stupid.
His eyes narrowed, and he turned the scrap over in his hands.
“Mercy,” he said softly. “That’s ten times as green as any green cloth I’ve ever seen.
” He lifted his eyes to me. “You did this?”
I nodded.
“And it’s fast?”
“I’ve washed and dried that scrap a dozen times. It’s hardly faded.”
“Expensive to make?”
“Not really.”
He nodded. “What do you want for it?”
I drew a deep breath. “Don’t marry me. Go up to Manchester, as Uncle asked you. There are dozens of cloth factories there. I am sure you could sell this stuff, don’t you agree?”
“It’s possible there’d be a market,” he said cautiously.
“Good. Then the same arrangement as before.” I nodded. “We split the profits down the middle. People are always making huge fortunes up north.”
“I hardly think one little dye will net us a fortune. Do people really like green that much?”
“Yes,” I said. I had no idea. “Anyhow, I don’t need a fortune. Just enough to live comfortably. I imagine five thousand pounds or so ought to be enough.”
“Oh, is that all.” He drew the cloth between his fingers. “How will you account for your sudden windfall?”
“We can pretend some distant, eccentric relative left it to me. You can mock up a realistic enough will, can’t you? My father pays little attention to his relations, except as it pertains to the entail. I do not think it is impossible.”
“Wouldn’t it be easier to just marry me? We could skip the fraud.”
“Wouldn’t you rather have five thousand pounds to your own name? You’d have many pretty prospects then.”
He looked skeptical. “Forgive me if I lack your optimism.”
I drew a deep breath. “All right,” I said. “If… if the dye does not make us enough to live on… I… I’ll marry you.”
He rubbed a hand and regarded me with narrowed eyes, like I was a particularly complicated codicil in a will. That honest grin broke out again. “We have a bargain.”
The next week, Pike went north. In his trunk, well-padded and carefully hidden, were six phials of my greenest dye.