Page 30 of The Vanished Bennet Sister

"It is not enough. It is nowhere near enough." Mrs Bennet's face had reddened; she pressed her hands flat against the tablecloth as though steadying herself. "Do you think I enjoy saying this? I am trying to preserve what little advantage this family has. The best strategy must be utilised—"

"Mary is not a strategy," Elizabeth said.

"Everything is a strategy when you have five daughters and limited money. Mary's situation affects all of you. She must realise that."

"She knows it."

"Then she must act as such."

"She is not a chess piece to be moved at your convenience."

"If Mary had done what was needed, he would have proposed before now. Other girls would have made certain of it. She has had every opportunity to do so!"

"She is her own unique self and Mr Thwaite likes her for that reason. He developed an interest in Mary solely and I doubt he is a man who lets himself be pressured. If anything, being too headstrong would produce the opposite of what you want."

"I am merely suggesting she do something. Anything. Rather than sitting in a library and trusting that a man whose wife died years ago is going to simply arrive, in his own time, at a proposal."

"You are asking her to manufacture an urgency she does not feel and perform a desperation that would be immediately obvious to a man of his intelligence, and the result would be the loss of the very thing that interests him about her in the first place."

The room went silent. Lydia and Jane had stopped eating. Kitty was glancing between Mrs Bennet and Elizabeth as though watching a play whose outcome was not yet clear.

"You are very clever, Lizzy," Mary said. "And incredibly confident of your own reading of situations. Yet you have not, as yet, demonstrated any inclination for securing a partnership yourself."

"Mary, I know you understand the situation and I’d like to believe you are not being thoughtless. But I am frightened that we shall return to Hertfordshire with nothing gained, and your sisters without prospects."

Mary set her napkin beside her plate. Her hands were steady and she was mildly surprised by this.

"I agree," she said, "with every word of what you have said. I’m aware that our circumstances are precarious and that whatever happens between Mr Thwaite and me has consequences that extend well beyond myself." She rose. "Excuse me."

She did not wait for a response. She went through the door and shut it behind her, the loud thud reverberating along the hallway.

Chapter Thirteen

Mary

The house was not entirely dark when Mary came downstairs hours later. She noticed a faint line of candlelight beneath the sitting room door, steady and yellow against the floorboards.

She had not left her room with any fixed intention. Sleep had proven unavailable, and she had concluded, eventually, that lying in the dark turning the evening over in her mind was not the best use of her time. She had left her room, reasoning that a book and a different room might accomplish what her pillow had not.

Now she ventured ahead, despite the light.

Mrs Bennet was on the sofa with her feet tucked beneath her and a cup of warm milk in her hands. Without her cap, in her nightwear, she looked smaller than she did in the day. The word that came to Mary, unbidden, was tired.

"You could not sleep either," Mrs Bennet said.

"No."

"Come and sit, then. There is no point in standing in the doorway."

Mary did so without further encouragement. The room was comfortable, the shadows close and flickering. Neither of them spoke for a moment. This was unusual between them; silence with her mother had always had an element of incompletion, always wanted filling.

Tonight, Mary let it be.

Then, because she was exhausted, and the evening had already depleted whatever reserve of caution she normally maintained, she said: "May I tell you something?"

Mrs Bennet looked at her over the rim of her cup. "You may tell me anything. I am your mother."

"I did not have the opportunity to tell what I thought in detail," she began, raising a hand to halt any interruptions. "I should like to do so now."