Mary Bennet

Everyone at Netherfield, even Mrs Allardyce, now seemed especially anxious to reassure me that I was welcome: I was not to consider myself a visitor, I was part of the family. Nonna immediately set about teaching me Italian, in which I made such rapid progress that my grasp of the language soon rivalled that of Elizabeth — much to her annoyance. But when Mr Coates tried to teach me to ride, the outcome was rather less happy. I simply could not conquer my fear of horses, their snorting and eye-rolling and unpredictable tricks, although for George’s sake I persevered with lessons for several weeks.

Fortunately, this did not affect our friendship. By now, George and I were much too fond of each other to allow anything or anyone to come between us: we absolutely confided in each other. I could tell him about my sisters — how I felt excluded from Kitty and Lydia’s juvenile pursuits and equally shut out from Jane and Elizabeth’s new adult world, or worse, included as an act of charity. George for his part could talk to me of Sam’s oafishness and childish clowning. There was also the exquisite comfort of complaining about our respective mothers, their partiality and caprice. And George even confided — swearing me to secrecy — that his father was not dead but very much alive, having divorced his mother years ago when they all were still living in Italy.

But of course over and above everything, we had our music — an excess of it so far as Mrs Allardyce was concerned — and it was at this time that George and I first began to rehearse Mozart’s Two-piano Sonata in D major. (Recalling the experience still has the power to bring tears into my eyes — and this despite its being one of the happiest of Mozart’s compositions, galant from first to last.) Not long after we began practising it under the direction of Mr Bray, Mr Coates decided that a Musical Evening must be held at Netherfield. First, there would be a dinner, after which George and I would perform the sonata before an audience of appreciative guests.

A date was accordingly fixed and then came the business of deciding who was to be invited. It was during the course of these preparations that I witnessed a dreadful quarrel between Nonna , Mrs Allardyce and Mr Coates.

George, Sam and I had been seated at the great chart table in the library transcribing under Nonna’s supervision the names of guests on to cards of invitation. We had filled in about half the cards when Mr Coates and Mrs Allardyce walked into the room. They had been out riding and looked dishevelled and hot and — in Mrs Allardyce case — out of temper.

“Good God!” said she, surveying the piles of blank cards. “Have you not finished yet?”

“Che cosa!” said Nonna indignantly. “We have thirty-six invitations to be writing, Christina.”

Mr Coates had come to stand behind my chair. “Very elegant handwriting, Mary.”

Mrs Allardyce then plucked the list of guests from Nonna’s grasp and walked about perusing it, the skirt of her riding habit trailing on the floor behind her.

And now everybody seemed to speak at once:

“Christina! I am needing the list per favore!”

“What about my handwriting, Uncle Jasper?” Sam held up a barely legible specimen.

“Agh!” George scoffed. “Yours is good for nothing. You scribble so and make great blots.” (All of which was perfectly true and all of which Sam denied shrilly.)

“Well well.” (this from Mr Coates) “I’m forever blotting my copybook too, Sam.”

“How is it —” Mrs Allardyce’s voice rose above the rest. “How is it that Mr Frederick Purvis has not been invited?”

There was a sudden hush and then Mr Coates gave one of his odd laughs. “The builder? Fellow who wears corsets?”

“Mr Purvis is in the list, ” said Nonna. “You tell me yesterday to put him in, Christina and I do.”

“Well I can’t see his name, Mama.” Mrs Allardyce thrust the list at her mother.

“Why the devil do you want to ask Purvis?” said Mr Coates.

Mrs Allardyce answered him in Italian, speaking sarcastically and pointedly, perhaps forgetting I was now able to understand: “Because he has a lot of money.”

She then snatched the list back from her mother and spoke rapidly in Italian, only some of which I understood. The confusion had arisen because two distinct classes of guest were to be invited: the first lot were to come to dinner while the second “inferior” group were to come later in the evening merely to hear the music. Mrs Allardyce now wanted Mr Purvis to be included in the first group.

“And I notice,” said she, “that Jasper’s beloved Bennets are asked to dine.”

“Oh for God’s sake, Tina.”

Mr Coates was now looking and sounding quite exasperated, but it was Nonna who finally exploded: “Sono stufo! All morning the children and me are writing and no person is never grateful!” So saying, she swept the pile of completed cards off the table so that they scattered in all directions.

Mr Coates immediately tossed aside his riding whip and began to pick them up, saying: “Dear Nonna Renata. We are most grateful, I assure you.”

Much to my surprise Mrs Allardyce also began to pick them up, catching up the train of her riding habit and bending gracefully. “Really, Mama. What a fuss.”

Nonna was not in the least mollified. She had earlier placed a hand on my shoulder, preventing me from rising to retrieve the cards and now I could feel her trembling. “It was me who is asking the Bennets to dine, Christina — not Jasper —”

“Really Mama, I couldn’t care less.”

“The parents of this little person.” (Gripping my shoulder.) “Of course I ask them to dine — and I ask her two old sisters Eliza and Jane also.”

Mrs Allardyce laid the last card back upon the table. “Well Mama — provided Elizabeth Bennet is placed next to Jasper and Mr Purvis is seated next to myself —”

“Tina. That’s enough.”

I had never heard Mr Coates speak so sharply. He had collected his riding whip from the table and now he took a step towards Mrs Allardyce who immediately accused him in a high breathless voice of “threatening” her. “Oh!” said she with a little laugh, a mere “ha” of furious breath. “I know you want to be rid of me. First my mother, then me —”

“Come.” With his free hand he took hold of her arm. “We will talk of this above stairs.”

“How dare you, Jasper! I will not — Unhand me!”

Mr Coates now rather spoilt the effect by laughing — although he did not let her go. “Don’t write any more invitations, Nonna. Tina and I will be happy to finish them — won’t we, Tina?”

Mrs Allardyce’s response was spoken in Italian but unfortunately I did not understand one word of it.

Later, after I had returned to Longbourn, I wondered very much about this quarrel. It seemed preposterous that Mrs Allardyce should be jealous of Elizabeth — a fourteen year old girl with no particular claim to beauty and an inflated idea of her own intellect and powers of penetration. But the more I thought about it, the more probable it seemed: incidents which at the time had appeared trivial and unrelated now struck me as part of a pattern.

I had often observed Mr Coates talking to Elizabeth; he clearly enjoyed joking with her and teasing her. On a recent visit to Haye Park they had spent half the afternoon playing at battledore and shuttlecock together. And they frequently, inexplicably, laughed at the same things — things which to my mind were not in the least funny — such as when poor Mr Knowles was badly scratched by Lydia’s cat Beelzebub. (On being told that the sty on his eyelid might be cured by rubbing it back and forth with the tail of a black cat, Mr Knowles had rather unwisely selected Beelzebub for the purpose.)

They were also very curious about each other, especially Elizabeth about Mr Coates. She asked numerous seemingly casual questions of me. How did they all behave at Netherfield in private, and in particular how did Mr Coates conduct himself? Was he good tempered? Considerate towards the servants? Mr Coates for his part had often asked me whether both my elder sisters were to be present on such and such an occasion. And once when Nonna was praising Jane’s beauty to the skies, he had said (impatiently, speaking over the top of his newspaper) that yes, Jane Bennet was undoubtedly a very pretty girl but Elizabeth was infinitely more taking.

Reflecting on all this up in my little room, I was conscious of feeling out of all proportion vexed, stirred into a state of restless, unpleasant excitement. I had come to regard Mr Coates — indeed everyone at Netherfield — as peculiarly my property. I was resigned to playing fifth fiddle to my sisters everywhere else, but at Netherfield it was Mary Bennet who was petted and preferred. Netherfield was my kingdom, the place where I had garnered up my heart.

All my old dislike and mistrust of Elizabeth came flooding back. It was as if we had never enjoyed that earlier rapprochement. How did she contrive to so insinuate herself into people’s hearts? Within her own family, she had all but annexed Jane and appropriated our father. And Aunt Gardiner too was fast becoming her exclusive property. Aunt was presently visiting Longbourn with her two little girls, and she and Elizabeth were forever walking together in the shrubbery, parasols held at the exact same angle and height. (Elizabeth had grown prodigiously in the past year.)

In an effort to check these envious thoughts — and ever mindful of Mr Knowles’ teaching — I threw open the lid of my pianoforte, resolving to devote the remaining hour before dinner to my music. But even as I played the opening bars of the Mozart sonata, my thoughts flew back to the morning’s quarrel. Mrs Allardyce had accused Mr Coates of wanting to be rid of her — “First my mother, then me.” What had she meant by those words? Mr Coates seemed sincerely attached to Nonna. And I had never heard him express dissatisfaction with the way Nonna ran his household. On the contrary, he was always thanking her, grateful for the least little thing. Why should Mrs Allardyce make such an accusation?

By the time Gil came to summon me to dinner, I was no closer to solving this riddle. It was Aunt Gardiner who unwittingly provided me with a clue. Aunt had never met Mr Coates — her last visit to Longbourn had been at Christmas, long before Netherfield was let — but she had read his very first novel.

“I may say I read it ‘hot off the press’. A friend of Edward’s has an interest in a publishing house and he very kindly gave us a copy. I enjoyed it immensely. All about a young man who sets off on the Grand Tour and meets an Italian lady, a widow, many years older than himself. He falls in love with her but then he discovers she is actually the widow of his own father —”

Papa looked up from the letter he was reading. “I take it this is Mr Coates’ version of
Oedipus?”

Aunt laughed. “Oh no! the lady is his step-mother merely. But then, a little later, he meets her daughter — of whose existence he had hitherto been completely unaware . . .” Aunt paused in her recital, perhaps belatedly conscious that the story was not suited to the dinner table where there were children present.

Mama of course had no such reservations. “Go on, sister. What then?”

“Oh! the usual vicissitudes. It’s a great while since I read it.”

Mama was peeling an apple for Lydia. “I daresay it was a bit warm, was it? Most of your novels are.”

Aunt and Elizabeth exchanged smiles (they were constantly exchanging smiles) but Aunt said merely: “I daresay. But very convincing nonetheless.”

“Founded upon his own experience perhaps.” Papa pocketed his letter and rose from the table.

There was general laughter then, although Mama cried out: “My dear Mr Bennet! You’re surely not suggesting that Mrs Rossi —”

“What was the name of the book, Aunt?” Elizabeth had become adept at heading Mama off whenever she sailed too close to the wind.

“It was called Renata. But you won’t find it in the circulating library. The author had a change of heart shortly after the book was bound and tried to arrest publication. When that failed, he bought up every copy he could lay his hands on.”

I sat very still, experiencing one of those moments when one recognizes a truth both logically and intuitively. Nonna’s second name was Renata and Mr Coates not infrequently called her by it. And innocent and ignorant as I was, I had long sensed that Mrs Allardyce’s hostility towards Nonna was founded on jealousy.

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