Mary Bennet

I did not hurry: I dawdled. And I did not ask Gil to help me change my gown either. I was extremely angry with my mother — she had pulled me about unmercifully and very likely in the process split the seam herself: certainly I had not noticed it earlier. And there had been something about her treatment of me, a contempt, which I very much resented and which I vowed I would make her sorry for.

I knew such a thought was sinful, that Mr Knowles would be shocked, would urge me to pray, to cleanse my mind and heart. But the idea of making Mama sorry was too sweet to relinquish in a hurry, and while I removed my spectacles and polished them (slowly) and put them back on and combed my hair and stared at my reflection in the glass, I meditated on how best I could punish her.

Meanwhile of course the Lucases and the Netherfield party had arrived — loud-voiced greetings and bursts of laughter having gradually subsided into a general buzz of conversation — and by the time I had fixed on a most exquisite punishment, they had all gone in to dinner. The punishment was nothing more than that I had decided to return downstairs still wearing my torn gown — in fact I had made the split rather bigger.

I went directly to the breakfast room where Gil was serving up soup to Lydia and Kitty and the two Allardyce boys, but beyond a cursory nod in my direction and a “Where on earth have you been?” she paid me no attention. Consequently I was not introduced to either of the boys, and when I took my place at the table, the bigger (but as I later learned, younger) boy said in a loud impudent voice:

“And who might you be, Miss?”

Lydia thought this so amusing she spluttered her soup: “That is my sister Mary, you rude boy.”

The boy was cramming bread into his mouth and talking at the same time. “Why is she dressed in rags then, pray? I thought she was a maidservant.”

More spluttering from Lydia, with Kitty copying her as usual, but now the other boy spoke up pretty sharp: “Stow it, Sam!” And then turning to me: “I’m George Allardyce and I apologise for my brother’s manners.”

He had a very pleasant, albeit foreign looking face, red-cheeked and full-lipped and with beautiful dark eyes — so dark it was hard to tell where pupil and iris met. (His brother in contrast was more conventionally English looking: fairer, larger and lighter-eyed.) George’s manner too struck me as slightly exotic; he inclined his head when he spoke and used formal phrases. But at the same time he was eager to talk and full of questions. And while Lydia and Sam and Kitty sniggered and spluttered and (when Gil’s back was turned) rolled little pills of bread and threw them at each other, George Jesuitically cross-examined me:

Did I enjoy living in the country? Had I lived at Longbourn all my life? How long had the Lucases lived at Lucas Lodge? He had already met Maria Lucas and her brother William. But neither of them owned a pony. Did I have my own pony? Was I interested in music? Did I sing or play the pianoforte?

I endeavoured to answer all these questions and a dozen more besides — he was disappointed to learn that I did not own a pony and had never been taught to ride — after which I ventured to ask a couple of questions of my own: Had he and his brother always lived in London? And had they always lived with their uncle Mr Coates?
His reply surprised me. No indeed, Sam and he had not always lived in London. It was only in the last four years that they had lived there with Mr Coates — who by the bye was their step-uncle, not their real uncle. Before that, they had lived in Italy with their mother and grandmother.

“Nonna is Italian,” added George. “But her English is excellent I promise you. Two of her husbands were English, you see.”

“Two of her husbands!”

He nodded, smiling, but did not elaborate, turning his attention back to the business of eating, and I wondered perhaps if he was ashamed of his grandmother because she was a fast woman and a foreigner. But even as I was wondering this, the lady herself marched into the room, clapping her hands and calling:

“So. Where are my grandsons hiding? Where are my beautiful boys concealing themselves? Bene.” (Raising her voice.) “Jasper! Christina! Here it is. I have found them. Here is the room.”

For a grandmother, Mrs Rossi was amazingly youthful looking. True, her hair was silver but it was scissored into a feathery cropped style and her figure was slender, her skin remarkably unlined. And she had the same black eyes and full red mouth as George.

She was now marching around the table — she had a mannish sort of arm-swinging walk — tousling George’s and Sam’s hair as she passed behind their chairs, calling Lydia and Kitty by their right names, helping herself to nuts from a bowl set out on the table, and finally stopping opposite me and pointing:

“So. This is the person I do not know. This is Miss Mary Bennet I think it must be? No, do not stand up. I am Lucia Rossi and the mother of this boys’ mother and so now we know each other. And now you must call me Nonna too.”

Giving me a glorious white-toothed smile and crunching down on another nut. I was utterly dazzled; all I could do was smile weakly up at her. I am sure she was used to this sort of response and she continued to crunch nuts and nod approvingly at me for several seconds before turning her charm on Gil Pender, asking her whether she found the Bennet children extremely naughty ones.

But when it was obvious that poor Gil knew not how to reply to this, Mrs Rossi said swiftly: “Now I am the naughty one to ask the question, si? When they are lending us their little ears. And so you must talk to me later all about them, Gil — especially Miss Lydia the most naughtiest one of all.” (Calling again) “Christina! Jasper! Where are you? I am in the breakfast chamber, here!”

It seemed to take Mrs Allardyce and Mr Coates an age to obey her summons, and when they finally entered the room — Mrs Allardyce walking a little ahead — I had the impression that they had been quarrelling. Mrs Allardyce was saying something to him in a foreign language, speaking very low, and then too suddenly a public smile came on her face.

Until she smiled, I thought her the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was wearing a black silk gown trimmed with seed pearls and her dark hair was coiled up and plaited with similar strands of pearls. She was more voluptuous, more slow-moving, than Mrs Rossi, but there was a marked resemblance to her mother about the eyes and mouth. Her smile however — in contrast to the gleaming energy of Mrs Rossi’s — was disappointing; even-toothed but small, even a little sly.

Mrs Rossi meantime had placed her hands on my shoulders. “Here is the person you and Jasper do not know, Christina.” And then nodding towards Gil: “Here is two persons!”

“Well, Mama, and so?”

I marvelled that Mrs Allardyce should adopt such a dismissive tone towards her own mother (resolving meanwhile to adopt a similar tone towards Mama as soon as ever I could) but Mrs Rossi seemed not in the least put out and went on with her introductions: “This person here is Miss Mary Pender. And this one is Gil Bennet.”

At least that is what I thought she said — Bennet and Pender are similar sounding names after all and Mrs Rossi spoke with a foreign accent — but I did not like to correct her for fear of being thought impertinent and Mrs Allardyce did not seem to be paying attention anyway. She had moved off to bend over Sam, kissing him and tickling his cheek. Sam for his part reacted as if an insect was crawling on him, brushing away her hand and grimacing: “Mother please!”

But what of Mr Jasper Coates? How had he been occupied meanwhile? He had barely moved since first entering the room, intent on observing his company — as acute and unembarrassed an observer as ever Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy would later prove to be. He resembled Mr Darcy in appearance too — his person was equally fine, tall and well made.

The resemblance was only skin-deep of course: Mr Coates (as would later become apparent) was not a man of principle. But neither was he a hypocrite. And when I came to know him rather better I realized that although he was fond of studying his fellow creatures — as befits a writer of novels — he was not in the least censorious. He may have been cataloguing their imperfections, but he was far too fallible and self-deprecatingly aware of it to sit in judgment. And unlike Darcy, he was not reserved: he was more than ready to amuse and be amused.

In a word, Mr Coates was charming, but I fancy it was his laugh that made people, particularly young people and children, respond to him: it was an odd laugh — high and slightly cracked — an imperfection that made him irresistible, certainly to Elizabeth.

He was laughing now — in response to something Lydia had just said. When Mrs Rossi had announced that after dinner George was going to play Haydn in the drawing room, Lydia had understood her to mean the game of hide and seek: (“In the drawing room! Mama will never give him leave.”) But on learning her mistake she was not at all abashed, saying merely: “Oh! Well then Mary must play Haydn too. Mary is a capital player.”

Altogether it was an evening for misunderstandings for I later learned that Mrs Allardyce believed me to be Gil Pender’s daughter. And although George would eventually set her right as to my parentage, I am convinced she persisted in seeing me as some sort of under-nurserymaid employed to assist Gil in looking after Kitty and Lydia. It is hard to completely disabuse people of faulty first impressions: having consigned me and my torn dress to the servant class, Mrs Allardyce was content for us to remain there. And when I was later called on to play a Haydn sonata in the Longbourn drawing room, it was much like the shepherd boy being called in by his betters to sing in the parlour.

I do not think I would ever have learned the true state of affairs at Netherfield if Mrs Allardyce had not entertained this view of me — that somehow I did not count. I was soon to become a regular visitor to the house, and in the ordinary way of children I became privy to many family secrets. But their most closely guarded secret I should never have learned if Mrs Allardyce had not been quite unconcerned about what she said and did in my presence.

[ This novella will be continued in the next issue. ]