Chapter 36 Visitors #2
“For heaven’s sake, Mamma,” Lizzy said, and they fell to bickering as of old.
They both appeared to thoroughly enjoy it.
After that Lizzy had a thousand questions about our old neighbors, and about the fire, and about Bath.
I began to think that Lizzy’s loneliness might save me from the things I did not wish to discuss.
Of course Lizzy had many kind inquiries for me, too. In the old days she seemed always to be cross with me or ashamed on my behalf; she seemed now to remember us as the best of friends.
“And of course you must play our piano while you are here,” she said to me. “It is a very fine instrument, and I do not take advantage as I ought, I am so busy with the house. I know you have not been so lax, Mary.”
I winced a little. In truth, all my travel had made it difficult to practice, and my dear Longbourn instrument was lost in the fire. Even with all that, I might have kept it up, but I had another reason for my slackness. My right hand drifted to my left forearm.
My mother jumped in and said, “Mary has not been strong, you know, and so cannot play so often. Jones said she must preserve her strength.”
“Oh, Mamma, you are not still listening to that charlatan Jones?” She turned to me. “Come, Mary, I entreat you to play something for us. Surely you will? I have not forgotten how you enjoyed an opportunity to exhibit your skills.”
I thought of that night that Pike had jilted me.
The way the dark music seemed to flow from my fingertips.
The way Lizzy had dispatched Papa to practically drag me from the keys, in front of all we knew.
I tried not to react, but a flinch ran over my body, involuntary as the twitch of a horse’s flank. “No, thank you.”
Lizzy, to my surprise, looked stricken. “There, you see,” she said.
“If I had said anything so thoughtlessly nasty to one of the ladies hereabouts, she would force a laugh and pretend to think it a great joke. I did not mean anything by it, truly—only that I really wish to hear you play. You have come just in time to save me from growing too sharp-tongued to be borne, Mary.”
“But surely you have company in the house,” Mamma pointed out. “Surely you have Miss Darcy.”
“Yes, but she is too shy and obliging. She will never check me.” Shy? Obliging? My Georgiana?
No. Not my Georgiana. We had not laid eyes upon each other in years.
“And how is Miss Darcy?” said Mamma. “We miss her. I hoped she would be here to greet us.”
Lizzy, in the course of pouring more tea, froze for an instant. “She is well,” she said.
“Does her illness trouble her still?”
“Sadly, yes. But she manages very well.”
“Well, I hope we may see something of her. She and Mary are such friends, you know.” My mother laughed. “I once found them sleeping with their arms round each other, as innocent as two babes.”
I made sure, this time, not to flinch. What she had seen us doing that day was not what I would call innocent . I have never been able to look at blackcurrant jam the same way.
Lizzy smiled. “I am sure she will be glad to see you if her health allows.” Whatever Mrs. Darcy knew about Miss Darcy would not give itself away with the rattle of a teacup.
Presently Mamma went upstairs to unpack her things. Lizzy drew her chair a little closer to mine. “I got your letter of last week.”
My heart leapt into my throat. “Oh yes? I have been on the road, so if you replied—”
“I have not.”
“Ah.”
“I knew you were coming, and”—she drew a deep breath—“I thought I had better tell you this in person. Mary, I cannot send you any more money.”
I deliberately smoothed out my brow. Be agreeable. Be charming. No is not always no . “I am sorry to hear that,” I said. “Of course I would never want to strain the Darcy finances.” I dabbed at my lips, then let my eyes steal to the gold candlesticks above the fireplace.
She sighed. “You are not straining the Darcy finances, naturally. However, my own funds are not infinite, and a great deal goes already to keep Lydia and Wickham out of the gutter.”
I had often wondered if my wayward sister and her husband would do better if they had to fully fend for themselves.
They both struck me as possessed of more cunning than they were generally given credit for.
However, it was hardly my place to demand harsh measures be taken.
“I see. I will manage.” Though I had no idea how.
“Manage what ?”
“My travels.”
“Why must you travel?”
“Quindley says that appropriate travel, such as to visit sites of historical or religious importance, is salutary for a young lady’s moral development.”
Lizzy passed a hand over her brow. She looked as though she was beginning to remember why she had found me so irritating.
“I cannot believe you are still so attached to Quindley, that—” She took a deep breath.
“It is to your credit, Mary, to wish to improve yourself. However, I am not sure all this travel is really good for you.”
I frowned at the floor. Seeing a sister I had not met for some years made me feel about twelve again. None of my own words would come to mind. “Quindley says—”
“ Bother Quindley.” Lizzy leaned forward.
“I mean it, Mary. I have had letters from Charlotte, from the Gardiners—everyone says how pale and thin you have grown, and now I see it is even worse than they said. I know how you have suffered. If I lost Darcy—” The sympathy in her eyes made me squirm.
“But you must not wear yourself away like this.”
I glanced down at myself. I had indeed grown thinner. It was hard to keep my figure up, skipping meals to fund Mamma, and, of course—my left arm gave a throb—I had Papa to care for as well.
“Stay here,” she continued. “Stay at Pemberley. Just for a little while.”
I stood up so fast that my delicate little cake plate tumbled off my knees to the ground.
Luckily for the strained Darcy coffers, it was cushioned by the thick rug. “I cannot. Thank you, I—No.”
“Then your only other choice is to go back to Longbourn.” A cold sensation crept down my back.
“To Longbourn?”
“Yes. I have had a letter from Papa. He says the repairs are nearly finished. You and Mamma are to go home straightaway.”
I sank back to the chair. “Oh.”
“That is the only journey I will fund, I am afraid,” she said gently. “Jane feels the same. It is no use applying to her.”
If Jane, usually a soft touch, had employed Lizzy to cut me off, they must have discussed me extensively. My cheeks burned with embarrassment even as my mind was working furiously. I could not stop now. Pike was still out there.
Lizzy sighed again. “I can see you are by no means resigned. You always did have to take the most difficult path. Go and rest before dinner. Perhaps with a little time to think you will feel differently.”
I rose and gave her a deep curtsy. “I thank you for all your generosity to a poor girl, Mrs. Darcy.” I felt rather than saw her flinch. Lizzy might have mountains of money, but at least I could still make her feel like rubbish. Cold comfort as I swept from the room.
“Mary?” her voice called as I exited. “What passed between you and Georgiana?”
I pretended not to hear as the door swung shut behind me.
I did need a little time alone, in any case.
Not to rest, though. As soon as I was alone in my borrowed room, I set out my travel kit, took out my razor, and ran it down the inside of my left forearm.
No fashionable ballgowns for me anymore—both arms were streaked with scars.
Every dress I owned covered me to the wrists.
I stared at the ceiling as my blood plopped into the little basin. Bother Lizzy. I had so counted on wheedling a little more money out of her. Without it we could go no further.
Well. I had thought this might happen. It would be a difficult conversation, but I had to speak to Miss Darcy anyway. May as well add this to my list of demands.
Once my blood had filled the little basin up to the mark I’d scratched in the glass, I quickly bent and bandaged my arm.
This had been awkward at first, but I had done it so many times now that I could quite easily manage one-handed, even though I felt a bit lightheaded as well.
The bloodletting always seemed to hit me harder if I had not eaten.
Perhaps Sir Gregory could write a monograph on it, if I lived out the year.
Mamma came in from the adjoining room. “Still at it? We will be called for dinner.”
“I am sorry I could not bleed faster.”
She clucked. “You ought to let me.”
I was lighting the small burners on my travel kit, a folding metal apparatus of phials and burners that was cunningly made to fold into a small suitcase. Cunningly, and expensively. This, at least, my father had been willing to fund. “You know he prefers mine.”
“He will take what you send him,” she said. “Me next time. I insist.”
She often insisted, but when it came time to cut her she always spent thirty minutes screaming and fluttering and considering falling into a faint, and most of the time could not actually bring herself to lose a drop of blood.
I found it far easier to use my own. Besides, Papa did not like her bright pink serum, which he claimed made him nervous.
He preferred my own red. “It’s all right, Mamma. ”
“It is not all right. You are a single girl, Mary. You will never get a husband if you scratch yourself to ribbons.”
“Mamma, you know perfectly well I will never get any husband at all.”
“Nonsense.” But her answer was halfhearted, and she sank onto the bed and watched me prepare Papa’s next phial.
I joined her on the bed while the mixture steeped and leaned on her shoulder. Mamma has many faults, but her shoulders are very soft. When the bell rang I sprang to my feet, only to find the world going gray.
I was in the carriage again. The rattling journey would never end. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a tawny owl sweep past. When I looked right at her she was gone.
I awoke once more on the bed. Mamma was just stoppering a little red bottle. I groaned. “What happened?”
“You fainted, my girl.”
I tried to sit up. “The serum—”
She brandished the bottle at me. “Finished.”
Mamma was no great hand at making my serums, but she had watched me often enough, and it was too late now, anyway.
Then when the dinner bell rang, she rebound my arm, which had begun to bleed again, and helped me into my evening gown.
It was a grayish-brown color that even I knew was hideous and far too old for me, and the long sleeves made me look either eccentric or hopelessly out of fashion, but it covered my arms and the fabric had been cheap.
For a moment, she stood behind me in the mirror, looking at us both, her hands at my shoulders.
I had a sudden flash of memory of being very small, leaning against her leg and practically disappearing into her skirts.
Now, of course, I was taller than she was.
“Nothing to be done, Mamma.”
“But it’s so ugly,” she said. “I have nightmares, sometimes, about those arms of yours. It is not right for a gentleman’s daughter.”
“It is because I am a gentleman’s daughter that I must do it. For Papa. For Longbourn.”
Her lips thinned, but she said nothing, patted my good shoulder, and led the way downstairs.
However, Mamma was correct that I had taken too much blood. As soon as I turned the corner outside the dining room, my vision began disappearing in a veil of gray mist again. For there, standing at the door on the arm of an unknown young man, was Miss Darcy.
This is the true reason I am writing you again, Harry. I am under the same roof as my former coll lo friend, and I find I cannot face her without you. There is much to tell, but even this much has taxed me. More anon.