Posted on Saturday, 11 February 2006
The announcement that a single man of good fortune had rented Netherfield brought less excitement to Longbourn than it had in former days. Part of this, of course, was because there were fewer people in Longbourn to get excited about it. The renter took Netherfield after Mr. and Mrs. Bingley, who had bought an estate in Derbyshire, left it.
Still, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man of good fortune must be in want of a wife and Mrs. Bennet had – after all – two single daughters. Which is why she came from her round of visitations with a wishful smile on her lips and her gaze looking far off and dreamy as it hadn’t looked for two years, since the day she’d got rid of her two most deserving daughters.
“Oh, Mr. Bennet,” she said, bursting upon her husband as he was reading in his study. “We must send for Kitty at once.”
Mr. Bennet looked up from his letter. “And why is this?” he asked. “Why should we summon Kitty back from Pemberley?”
“If you must know, it’s because Netherfield has been let at last,” Mrs. Bennet said, her fingers fretting at the hat ties beneath her chin. She pulled the bonnet free, and tossed it down carelessly upon a chair, before flinging herself on another one and looking smugly at her husband of twenty-five years, as if she had just explained everything he might ever need to know.
“At last?” Mr.Bennet quirked an eyebrow upward. “It’s only been vacant for a month or so.”
“Well...” Mrs. Bennet said. “But it seems like longer. More importantly, it has been let to a single man of good fortune. Five thousand at least and a good estate in Norfolk.”
“I see,” Mr. Bennet said, desisting from his reading, setting the letter on the desk and giving his wife his undivided attention. Only something about the twitch of his lips and the glint in his eyes betrayed that he was about to play some joke. Of course, Mrs. Bennet should have been forewarned by these signs, but then she never was. “I see,” he said again. And I suppose you mean for him to marry one of our girls?”
“Well, of course,” Mrs. Bennet said. “What else would you have him do? Marry Maria Lucas? No indeed. My brother Phillips’ law clerk will do very well for the silly chit. We wouldn’t want her to think herself much above Charlotte who, after all, only married a parson, would we?” She grabbed her hat and fanned herself. “No, you must send for Kitty right away. He shall see her at the assembly and be smitten, just like Mr. Darcy was with Lizzy. For Mr. Darcy goes on about Lizzy’s fine eyes, and I’m sure our Kitty’s are at least as fine.”
“There is only one small problem, Mrs. Bennet,” Mr. Bennet said, and now the smile burst forth fully. “You see, this letter,” he tapped on the letter on the desk. “Is from Mr. Darcy. In it he tells me that the Baron of Mumford – young and in possession of seven thousand a year, plus a title – has just requested our Kitty’s hand in marriage. In my absence, Mr. Darcy has made some warranties, but of course, they request my confirmation of the whole so they may set a wedding for three months hence. The delay is necessitated by the dowager baroness having taken a great liking to our Kitty and wanting to take her to London and buy her clothes and anything else she wishes, herself.” He looked up at his wife, whose mouth had dropped open in astonishment. “I must confess it seemed like a good offer to me. But, of course, if you think Kitty must come back to catch the new inhabitant of Netherfield, there is nothing for it. I shall tell the Baron of Mumford to forget his offer, and I shall summon Kitty home immediately.”
“No,” Mrs. Bennet shrieked. “No. A baron. My daughter shall be a Lady. No, of course, Kitty must marry the Baron.”
“Ah, good. Then I shall write within the week and close with the offer.” Mr. Bennet smiled, glad he could still get his wife to rise to the bait. “And don’t worry my dear, the renter of Netherfield shall do very well for Mary.”
“Mary?” Mrs. Bennet said. “Mary.” She sighed. “If only Lydia were still single.”
“Indeed, my dear, but she is not.”
“And so, it must be Mary.”
“Indeed.” Mr. Bennet said, and his eyes sparked at the silliness he knew would soon ensue. Longbourn had been much too quiet lately.
Nothing could be further from the mind of Henry Crawford – the single gentleman of good fortune who had just rented Netherfield – than finding a wife.
In fact, he had just got rid of a notorious married woman whom he had seduced away from her husband – thereby rendering her notorious – and had narrowly avoided marriage with a another woman who – if all reports from Mansfield Park held true – was soon to become the most insipid clergyman in all of England’s wife.
No, Henry Crawford was very pleased with his life, just now. He would hunt. He would fish. He would ride his horse recklessly along the unbound fields. He would go to London and his club and get sodden drunk now and then. And perhaps gamble to excess. But he had no intent of falling prey to the traps of society or the confines of marriage anytime soon. Women! They were either pious or fools and all of them much too likely to fall in love with Henry’s curly hair, his classical features. He was well off single. And he would stay that way.
However, in the way of such things, he couldn’t totally avoid the invitation to the local assembly. These small locales ran on gossip and spite. No. He must go.
The tone of various comments about the assembly surprised him though. According to his butler, who had listened to local gossip, there was something about some girl or other – reputed as much a local beauty as her mother was a matchmaking genius – who had just become engaged to a baron. And something else about her younger sister and how their mother carried all before her. And something else about Miss Maria Lucas who was universally believed to be the prettiest single girl in Meryton.
He assumed that Miss Lucas would throw herself headlong at him, tilting her cap at marriage. Well – it wasn’t as if he hadn’t withstood all that and more since his live-in-lover had been reclaimed by her family. There was nothing the beauties of Meryton could attempt that hadn’t been tried by the belles of London. Mr. Crawford looked at himself as he stood before his mirror – his green coat, his well-tied cravat. He was very pleased with himself. Let the belles break their teeth on his impervious disinterest.
Mary Bennet was in no mood to endure her mother’s fussing. Truth be told, she was in no mood to endure anyone’s fussing. She was single, this was true. And she was almost two and twenty, this was also true. But the thing was that Miss Mary Bennet – alone perhaps amid regency women – didn’t see any compelling reason why she should marry. After all, since two of her sisters – soon to be three – had married very well indeed, she had connections enough who would take her in when the unfortunate day came that her father left this vale of tears.
As for her, having seen her sister Lydia’s disastrous headlong rush into marriage, and the responsibilities that Jane and Elizabeth had to shoulder as married women, she thought she liked her books, her strolls in the country and her solitary practicing at the pianoforte quite well indeed
However, Mrs. Bennet on a rampage would not be withstood. So Mary was wrapped in ribbons and festooned with lace, a gown with a plunging neckline pushed up her inconsequential bosom, and she was dragged to the assembly.
When she arrived and was comfortably settled into a chair at the side of the dance floor, she promptly pulled a book from her reticule, and proceeded to ignore the festivities.
“Mary, put your shoulders back. Show off your figure,” Mrs. Bennet hissed.
Mary turned her page.
“Mary, he’s dancing with every other girl in the assembly.”
Mary read on. Frankly, she had identified Mr. Crawford immediately upon entering the assembly, and she knew his kind quite well. A prancing peacock, much in the frame of her brother, Wickham. Far too pleased with himself to even notice anyone else, and amoral into the bargain. She wasn’t interested. Besides, in the week since he’d arrived in town, she’d done her own enquiries as to his past and from some ladies in her missionary society, she had determined that he’d recently been involved in a scandal with Mrs. Maria Rushworth, whose good name and standing in society were forever ruined because of him. Let other girls sigh at how handsome he was. Mary would read.
“Mary, Mary, he’s coming here, he’s coming here.”
Mary looked up to find the prancing peacock standing in front of her, smiling a smile as sweet and false as teeth-rotting candy. She glared up at him through her reading spectacles. “Yes?” she asked, hoping rudeness would dissuade him. Her mama gasped, beside her.
“I was hoping you’d give me the pleasure of the next dance.”
“No,” Mary said. “I do not believe I will.”
Crawford stood in front of her for a while, staring, while his confident smile froze upon his face. “No?” he asked.
“No. I prefer the pleasures of a good book.” She heard her mama faint, beside her.
“But... I have a good estate in Norfolk.”
“And I’m very pleased for you. Now if you excuse me, Reverend Fordyce’s point on the vanity of the world has me enthralled.” And she returned to her reading, leaving her mama to rouse herself from her swoon and Mr. Crawford to drown his disappointment in several dances with Maria Lucas.
Henry Crawford didn’t mind at all being refused. Why the Bennet girl was not even pretty. She wore spectacles. She had spots. Everyone said her sisters were all far prettier. Oh, he didn’t mind at all being refused. In fact, he woke up in the middle of the night to tell himself that he didn’t mind her refusal at all. And he stared at the sky and told himself that he didn’t like her at all. She wasn’t like Fanny, all sweetness, telling him to reform and seemingly holding out the reward of her hand. No. Mary simply ignored him.
He gave a ball, and she read throughout it. He went to dinner at Longbourn, and she read through the dinner, once passing him the salt without so much as raising her eyes from Fordyce.
And when he invited the Bennets for dinner at Netherfield, Mary played the piano and refused to converse with him.
Her father smiled unnervingly, too.
Henry Crawford promised himself that he would make Mary Bennet fall in love with him if it was the last thing he did. The sums he spent on his tailor could, easily, have financed an estate. Or a large library for his estate. And then he realized that if she didn’t look at him, he could not capture her heart with clothes. So he commenced reading. He read all the ancient philosophers, most of the modern. He even read – painful though it was – Fordyce. And still, Miss Mary Bennet ignored him. She who wasn’t even pretty.
His scheme was not working well at all. As he strived to improve himself for her, he found more and more blemishes in his own image in the mirror. Had he always looked this vacant? This false? Had he always lacked all substance?
Something else very strange was happening too. He was becoming to realize that Miss Mary was beautiful. Or at least her eyes were: velvety dark, and filled with wisdom. And her mouth, in the right light, was like a rosebud.
By declensions of madness, he found himself writing poetry for her. And then, one beautiful day, a month after his arrival to Netherfield – so fast had the madness come on – he found himself proposing.
She refused him, without looking up from her book.
This was when Henry Crawford lost his mind. He went to London and spent a week drinking. But all the drink in the world couldn’t erase from his mind the velvety-dark eyes of Mary Bennet.
So he set about finding out more about Mary Bennet. He found out her interests. He discovered she was the main contributor to a missionary society and other charities, many of them helping the poor. He befriended the other members of the charities. He gave generously. And because he knew Mary would be able to tell, he got genuinely interested. Really interested. He had no hope, really, of her ever accepting him. In fact, he wasn’t sure he could muster the courage for a second proposal. He realized how many people lived in poverty around him, and he devoted himself to alleviating it. And thanked Mary, his angel, for changing him so completely. Even without hope of ever deserving her, he felt that she had made him a better man.
Which was how, two months later, he found himself at Netherfield, asking for an audience with her and saying, “Be not alarmed, Madam, that I am about to repeat those sentiments or renew those offers which were so disgusting to you. However, I want you to know that you have improved me. Though you might not have noticed it, loving you has changed me. I am now a better man for having known you, sweetest, kindest Mary. And for that alone, I shall never stop loving you. Because you made me look beyond my mirror and at the needs of the underprivileged.”
He finished his speech and was about to walk back out, when he realized Miss Mary Bennet had set her book down. And was smiling.
Happy for all the mothers of daughters in Meryton was the day Mrs. Bennet got rid of her remaining single daughter to the moneyed and capable arms of Mr. Henry Crawford. With the Bennet girls all married and no granddaughters as yet born, much less of a marrying age, perhaps other girls like Mary King and Maria Lucas could at last find a match.
Truth be told, no one understood how Mary had contrived to catch Henry Crawford. She wasn’t pretty and she wasn’t pleasant, and she’d never even danced with him. They had to attribute it to the fact that Mrs. Bennet was a genius of matchmaking and leave it at that, never understanding how she had tamed the vain tiger with the whip of her indifference.