Chapter 9 In Which Two Gentlemen Refuse My Proposals of Marriage #2
He had changed a great deal in the years we’d been apart.
His face no longer bore the hungry, pinched look he’d had under my uncle’s employ.
His smile was easier, less sly. He looked older, too—more a man than a boy, now.
His bow was smooth and assured, that of one who moved comfortably in society.
He straightened up and I noted the biggest change: his clothes.
They were not as fine as the rich gentlemen’s suits, but his coat was well cut and nearly new, his gloves spotless, and his cravat a brilliant white.
Not a rich man, but a prosperous one. All hints of his bygone shabbiness were banished.
In his pocket, he wore a square of silk of the deepest green.
“How wonderful to see you,” he exclaimed. “You were always so kind to a poor clerk.” His eyes twinkled. “I was quite grateful in those days to be distinguished by your attentions!”
“Mr. Pike!” I exclaimed. “Are you back? What are you—do you have—”
“Excuse me, Miss Mary.” He cut me off. “I should be very pleased to reminisce with you about our childhood days, but I promised Miss Ella Long a dance. I must beg your pardon.” He bowed again and moved away.
I wanted to follow him, but a lady does not follow a man she barely knows.
He danced with Ella Long, then with Charlotte Lucas, then Margaret Cross; all the time, I had the feeling he was really watching me, to see how I would react.
Perhaps, though, that was only because of how hard I was watching him.
I could not help it. Surely he knew I must be dying to hear about our venture?
From the looks of him it had gone well. His dancing was much improved, and he danced nearly every dance.
I thought he might ask me—it would give us a chance to talk, after all—but he did not.
If he meant to avoid me all evening, however, fortune did not favor him.
We found ourselves seated tête-à-tête for dinner.
Luckily for me, it was as noisy and chaotic an affair as such things always are.
Mamma was bellowing down at one end of the table about Jane’s probable marriage to Bingley.
At the other, my younger sisters were giggling with Aunt Phillips.
In between, everyone else in Meryton was making merry with all the restraint that three glasses of wine usually bring. It was a perfect opportunity.
Dropping my voice and leaning in to be heard, I asked Pike, “Well?”
He gave me a kind smile. “Well what, Miss Mary?”
“You’ve obviously done well for yourself.” He merely inclined his head microscopically. “So what’s my share, Pike?”
His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Your… share?” Then he gave an incredulous laugh. “Oh! You mean that little box of ‘dye’ you sent me north with? Heavens, I’d forgotten that.” He shook his head fondly. “Such fun we had together as children.”
Fun? Children? My stomach sank. “It didn’t sell?”
“Hmm… let’s see… No, I rather think it did sell.
The owner of a small factory very kindly took an interest. Rather an eccentric fellow.
He’s since gone bust. But you are absolutely right, I do owe you a fee.
” His smile widened. “Come by your uncle’s office this week, and I shall pay it. It comes to about four pounds.”
Four pounds!
I swallowed hard. “Surely… surely it was worth more than that.”
He looked apologetic now. “I’m sorry, Miss Mary. Really. Things are much cheaper up there, you know. And the bottles were really very small.”
“But… but it was so concentrated. It should have been enough for hundreds of yards…”
Again, that regretful shake of the head.
“I’m afraid it did not go so far as you imagined.
” He patted my hand. “Do not be too upset. It was really very clever as far as it went.” My eyes burned a hole in his green pocket square.
His gaze followed mine; he stroked it. “Plain old vegetable dye, I’m afraid,” he said.
“The techniques for deepening its hues are improving all the time.”
Strange, Holzmann. An hour earlier I would have said I had given up completely on the dream of the green dye, but now that Pike was here and quashing it definitively, I felt as crushed as though I had been waiting for him every day.
And maybe, I realized, I had. Maybe some deep, secret part of me had never stopped hoping that Pike would return with the fortune that would save me.
That hope was gone now.
Pike was still speaking, making the usual genteel inquiries after the health of my family.
My answers were so slow and monosyllabic that he soon turned away to speak with his other neighbor.
By the time I had regained my wits, supper was drawing to a close.
Pike, rising from the table, was making his way toward young Miss Abigail Charing, who was smiling at him invitingly.
Clearly he meant to dance the rest of the evening away.
It appeared that I was entirely gone from his thoughts.
Well. We would see about that.
“Why, certainly,” I said loudly. “I should be very glad to oblige the company, if you insist upon it.”
I spoke to no one in particular, but vaguely in the direction of Sir William Lucas.
Dear Sir William, red in the face with drink and enjoyment, looked confused, but he never missed a chance to be gallant.
“Yes—er—yes!” he cried. “You must, I say you must play for us, Miss Mary. Everyone, you are lucky, for this little creature plays the most complicated bits of tune I have ever heard. Do, do play for us, and sing, too!”
Bingley’s sisters looked as though they had stumbled across my saltpeter pit, but in the face of Sir William’s hurricane of civility all they could do was join in his entreaties.
“If you insist,” I said again, sweetly (well, as sweetly as I know how). “And thank you, dear Mr. Pike, for agreeing to turn for me.”
Pike looked as though he’d swallowed a toad, but I’d left him little choice, and he was obliged to come forward. “Your pardon, madam,” he murmured to me quietly, as we looked through the sheet music available. “I do not seem to remember making such a promise, though I am of course glad to oblige.”
I had no time for such civilities. “I can make more dye,” I said under my breath. Sorry, Quindley.
He froze for an instant. “I told you, it only sold for eight pounds and the client went bust. I’m sorry.”
“But—”
“I’m sorry .”
Behind us, Caroline Bingley cleared her throat impatiently. Pike grabbed blindly at the sheet music in my hand. “An excellent choice, Miss Mary,” he said, and set it on the music stand.
Trapped, I sat down and played. It was some stupid Scotch air of the kind that are so popular now. I am an excellent sight reader, but I did not know the piece, and I soon realized that the vocals were not comfortably in my range, which is rather lower than is fashionable.
Miserably, I got through it as best I could.
Piano benches are small. If someone is turning for you, they are obliged to press against your side from knee to shoulder.
Pike was rigid as a stone, trying to lean away from me despite the impossibility of it.
Whenever he turned a page, buying him a little time, his gaze drifted over to Miss Abigail Charing.
The last time I’d seen this man, he’d been willing to do anything to drag me into marriage with him. Now he was acting as though I was beneath his notice. The money he’d earned up north was enough to banish me from his mind and heart.
One good thing about Scotch airs is that they leave most of one’s mind unoccupied.
Mine was racing as I played and sang. When I reached the end of the song, grimly grasping that final high C like a hound bites the throat of a badger, I was rewarded with ten seconds of tepid applause.
I felt Pike’s muscles tense, ready to leap up and away from me.
“Good heavens, how marvelous,” exclaimed Bingley. “I am sure no one I know can play half so quick. I’ve half a mind to demand another, Miss Mary!”
Elizabeth managed to catch my eye. She shook her head slightly.
Elsewhere in the crowd Miss Bingley, who had started to come toward the piano herself, shot me a look of venom.
“Certainly,” I said, “if Mr. Pike will continue to turn for me,” and I turned to the stack of music once more.
Next to me, Pike slumped infinitesimally.
“I suppose,” I said under my breath, “that you intend to enforce the other part of our bargain then.”
He kept his gaze on the stack of music, as though advising me. “The other part?”
“I am to marry you.” The titles swam in front of my eyes. I selected a piece at random and opened it. Perhaps this was a sign. I had been right to close my laboratory. As Quindley told me, true female happiness rested in marriage and family. No man would ever understand me better than Pike.
His look turned to pity. “Oh. Oh, Miss Mary. I never dreamed—well, we were just children playing, really. Weren’t we?”
I turned away and slammed my fingers onto the keys in order to avoid smacking him in the face.
I do not know what I had in mind, exactly.
I had some mad notion of holding him hostage until he gave in, I suppose.
Certainly Meryton little knew what they got just then.
Instead of a Scotch air I’d selected an Italian aria, but I found myself straying from the delicate tune on the page.
I embellished it with rolling, thunderous chords that seemed to mock the simple, high vocals that my voice could barely carry in the first place.
The keys had probably never been played this hard. They buzzed beneath my fingers. It was not as though I had wanted to marry Pike. But oh, that look of pity on his face.
I slammed out a series of minor chords an octave lower than the piece called for.
I was so tired of seeing that look on everyone’s face any time I asked not to be ignored. “ Che faro, oh, che faro ,” I sang, and for a moment the light melody sounded more like a scream.
Before I knew it I had reached the end. The last chords still rang in the air as the silence greeted me. There was no language in Meryton for what I’d just done.
After a moment the crowd remembered their manners and began timidly to clap. The thunder was still rolling in my chest. Without thinking about it, I brought my fingers back to the keys. They had more to say.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Elizabeth dart a look of alarm at Papa. He stepped forward. “That will do extremely well, child. You have delighted us long enough. Let the other young ladies have time to exhibit.”
I heard Miss Bingley suppress a snicker.
I would not look up. I knew that look of pity would be on a dozen faces.
Staring at the floor, I fled. As I hid myself in a shadowed corner between the curtains and an open french window, I listened as Miss Bingley began to play the same aria, properly.
The applause when she finished was considerably more enthusiastic.
I caught Elizabeth looking at me several times that evening. She, at least, looked a little ashamed. I was unmoved. What had she expected our father to do, if not that?
When we were in the carriage going home, she tried to squeeze my hand. I wrenched it away.
The next day, Mr. Collins proposed to Lizzy.
I barely remember it, if I am honest. After the previous night’s barrage of humiliations, I was utterly spent.
I had made three attempts the night before to secure my future, two matrimonial and one entrepreneurial.
All had been firmly rejected. It was as though I was standing on a melting iceberg. Would I ever find solid ground?
I mention this, Holzmann, only to make you understand what a desperate state I was in when Pike came to call.