Epilogue
Pemberley Cottage
Some time later
Hello, Harry. I suppose I shall call you that, for old times’ sake.
It is a long time now since I wrote you. A long time since I needed to. My life now is more settled and comfortable than I would have thought possible.
Settled? Comfortable? I believe the word I am looking for is happy .
I write this in the drawing room of Pemberley Cottage.
It is a snug little house on the grounds of Pemberley, near the lake.
I have a little desk in the corner, and there is one for Georgiana in the opposite corner.
We make our notes here, or sometimes she experiments with proofs.
She claims she once proved Goldbach’s conjecture, then forgot it.
Not sure if that is an invention of the Darcy pride or the true result of Georgiana’s absentmindedness. What a darling.
There is yellow-green sunshine pouring in through the window, filtered through the leaves of the trees in the garden.
It is so beautiful it makes me ache. I do not believe I would have noticed that a few years ago.
Taking the time to notice something beautiful—I would have considered it a shameful waste of time. I was ashamed of so much in those days.
There are those, I believe, who feel sorry for me. Warehousing their old maids together—the Darcys will live to regret it! Such a difference in their situations and dispositions. Those cats will soon begin to scratch…
If they only knew.
To be fair to the naysayers, it did not begin auspiciously.
I shall never forget how pinched and frozen Georgiana looked when I first returned to Pemberley.
I sat there in the parlor with Mamma and Lizzy and Darcy and watched her pleat her skirt with anxious fingers.
I tried to tell her with my eyes how sorry I was, but she would not meet my gaze.
“Did you hear that, Georgiana? Mary has become interested in fossils,” Darcy said presently. “Did you not recently attend an interesting lecture on the subject?”
Georgiana’s eyes caught mine at last. “Fossils,” she said.
“I adore them,” I said. “A lecture, you say? Won’t you tell me of it? Please?”
She leapt to her feet and ran from the room.
“Why, Georgiana!” Darcy cried, and half rose, but Lizzy put a hand to his arm.
“Mary,” she said calmly. “Would you please go and see if Miss Darcy feels quite well?”
I wanted to say no. I knew I was the last person she would want to see. But the tears that were now never far threatened to spill over if I spoke, and I could do nothing but nod and exit.
I found Georgiana by the lake. She was tucked on a stone bench under a willow tree, hidden beneath its boughs until one was a few steps away. I brushed aside a curtain of switches and stepped closer.
“I am so very sorry,” I said. “I was wrong.”
“About what?” came the whispered reply.
My heart was pounding madly in my chest. I fought the urge to run. I fought the urge to throw my arms about her. “About girls turning into birds, for one thing,” I said. “I have seen it now. Twice. I ought to have believed you.”
No answer.
“And… and everything else. Pike. Everything.”
“Everything?”
“No. Not everything. Hardly any of it really. Just the bits where I made you cry.”
My voice broke and it made her look up at last. Her eyes widened. “Mary, you’re crying.”
I sniffed. “Yes. I do that now. Oh, dearest, please .” I sank to my knees at her feet and seized her hand in mine.
She started. “Miss Bennet—”
“Georgiana, I beg you listen. I did not trust… my feelings. I thought I could only drag you down—that my love was as twisted and excessive as the rest of me. But darling, darling—I’ve been so wrong…
and I know… I know I am too late. I know you no longer desire my company.
But I had to tell you, just once… how sorry I am…
how foolish I was… how entirely I am yours. ”
I drew a deep breath. My agitations had ridden up my sleeves. My scars were plainly visible. The sight brought me back to earth. I pulled back and tugged them down my wrists. “Sorry. I know I am just an eccentric, scarred old maid now. But I thought you deserved to know.”
“Stop it, Mary, stop it.” She seized one of my wrists before I could cover it completely.
Before I could resist, she’d brought it to her lips and kissed my scars, one after another.
Each touch of her lips on my skin was like a jolt of warmth so intense that I had the mad idea that when I looked again my scars would be gone.
But I did not look, because Georgiana was crashing to her knees beside me, and threading her fingers through my hair, and then her lips were on mine again, our arms locked tight about each other as though we could become one creature, and I wanted to die with relief that the thing that burned between us lived on.
We broke the kiss only to seize each other in an even fiercer embrace.
I buried my face in the crook of her neck.
She still used pear-scented soap. It was like coming back to life.
She dissolved her engagement. Mamma and I moved up to Pemberley Cottage. She joined us shortly thereafter.
Indeed, my situation appears to be exactly what I feared as a young lady. No home, no fortune, no husband, no permanent place. Dependent. Ignored. Pitied. I took great lengths, once, to avoid this.
Life takes strange turns.
For one thing, I am not quite so dependent on the Darcys and Georgiana as I appear.
True, Georgiana is an heiress, and I have a scant thousand pounds to my name.
True, I live in Darcy’s cottage rent-free.
However, while Mary Bennet is quite poor, Mr. Gregory Pike—brother to the late Septimus and, thanks to a brilliant idea from Georgiana and some sternly worded letters, his heir—has rather deep pockets.
Mr. Gregory Pike elected not to continue his brother’s business, but the sale of his assets proved of considerable value.
Especially the sale—in an improved, bloodless form—of the formulae for his dyes.
Of course I cannot touch the substance of this money. Most inconvenient questions would be asked. Still, I can nibble at the interest, and it is a comfort not to have to scrimp and save for new laboratory equipment.
Other than that, I live as I appear: a young spinster of more breeding than fortune. I have adapted quite well to the modesty of my circumstances. Even if the snugness of the cottage means that Georgiana and I must share a bed.
We talk occasionally of setting up house farther afield.
In the North, maybe, or perhaps even abroad.
If we ever find that we embarrass the Darcys, we will.
However, we have been surprised to find how much we like it here.
They have been surprised, I think, to find how much they like us—like me .
The older Lizzy and I get, the less irritated we are by one another’s faults.
Mamma has come into her own as a grandmother to Lizzy’s children.
She and Lizzy irritate each other as much as ever, but they have found common ground in doting on the small creatures tumbling about the nursery.
Mamma will exceed our income, but since our income is actually several times bigger than what she believes, this causes us little trouble.
Almost every day, we make the ten-minute walk to Pemberley and call upon our family there. I never liked children, but I am surprised at how fond I am of the little Darcys. Charlotte is opinionated, talkative, and clever, just like her mother. She rules the nursery with an iron fist.
Next is Small William, as we all call Mr. Darcy’s namesake.
He is a comically pompous child, convinced that if anything is amiss at Pemberley it is due to some neglect of his own.
I once saw him come to visit the cottage and, instead of coming straight in, he walked around it, hands clasped behind his little back, examining the roof and tutting to himself.
He was six. We will have our hands full with that one, seeing to it that he not grow up into too much of a Darcy.
To be fair, he was right about the roof, and the house is much warmer and drier now after the repairs he insisted upon.
Then there is little George. He is ours.
George was born after a terrible lying-in that frightened us all very much.
Lizzy pulled through, thank heaven, and so did her son, but he is not quite like other children.
He is undersized and sickly, and there is a palsy in his left side that is not fading as we hoped.
He cannot ride, or shoot, or dance, and sending him away to school will likely be impossible.
His parents are very fond of him, but they are not sure what to make of him.
More and more, he spends his afternoons with us.
He glories in our library (smaller but more serious than Pemberley’s) and far outstrips his older siblings in mathematics and natural history.
He is in our back garden now, flat on his stomach, examining an anthill.
Apologies. I was startled and knocked over the inkwell. As I write this, Georgiana has come up behind me and put her arms around my neck, her cheek pressed to mine. I almost shoved this manuscript into the coal bin, as I do when I hear the creak of the front step signifying callers.
But no, read on, my love, if you like. I have no secrets from you.
All that I am is yours. From the bedroom we share in the attic, with the little skylight through which I watch you depart on your monthly flights, to the cellar laboratory, where only we two are admitted.
You may read this whole manuscript, if you like, Georgiana. You will find it amusing, perhaps, to laugh over what fools we were when we were younger. I think, though, that what I really ask is that you keep it safe for someone else.
I do not think George has an easy road ahead. If I go first, pray give him this manuscript when he is old enough. I once got a similar gift, but it went astray, and its lack cost me dear.
Darling boy, if you are reading this: Take note of how your young Aunt Mary approached life with the grim avidity of a boxer or a gambler.
Everything, it seemed to me, from money, to beauty, to accomplishments, to making a good match, was just a way of keeping score.
Earn enough points, and one earned the right to like oneself.
It must be so, I thought, for all the things I was supposed to want seemed so totally incapable of bringing happiness themselves.
Do not repeat my mistakes, child. There is no scorekeeper. No wrong way to be happy.
Gentility may seem like a cage, but the gaps between the bars are so much larger than you think.
Observe how Aunt Georgiana and I step in and out at will without anyone noticing.
As a very dear relation once said to me, “Pray look for other nettle-leaved bellflower people, and cling to them when you meet them, never minding the thorns.” You are not alone.
The shadows are growing longer, and I can see you begin to shiver in the grass. Time for me to drag you inside for tea.
Much love,
Aunt Mary.
THE END.