Page 48 of The Vanished Bennet Sister

She felt foolish beyond measure. How had all of this played out without her having an inkling of it? Had Alice predicted that it would rain? That would explain why the sitting room felt like it had been prepared for her arrival. In a fit of turmoil, she had invited Alice to join her at the park, but unbeknownst to her doing so would lead to unpredictable outcomes.

A throbbing sensation emerged in her head but Mary ignored it.

She sat with this and every other piece of information she had just learned, even as her mind threatened to collapse from the weight. She did not attempt to rush her thoughts, aware that doing so was rarely useful and was almost always a response to anxiety rather than reason.

She was afraid, she knew this. She also knew that fear was not the most useful thing available to her at present, and that what she needed most was to think.

She sat for several minutes without stirring. Then she heard voices.

They came from below, muffled, in the familiar way of conversation being held in a spot directly beneath her. She would not ordinarily have been able to hear them, except that she was accustomed, from years of family life, to picking up low tones in rooms she was not meant to be paying attention to. She had always been good at it, the silent middle daughter, the one nobody noticed was listening.

Mary rose from her seat, nudged the door open and strained her ears.

Alice, her voice compressed to a carrying whisper, as though she had considered the possibility of being overhead and did not wish to take the risk, commented: "She has no idea. I gave her the impression that I had written to several parishes in search of her when in truth, I only wrote to Meryton to lure her out."

James's response was in a lower, indistinct register. “She does not seem in the right frame of mine to elicit a signature.”

"Now that she’s here, I shall ensure she signs the papers," Alice said, "Once she does so, the trust will be released. That is all we require. After that, I have no other use for her."

Mary gasped under her breath.

She understood what was occurring with complete, immediate clarity. The clarity was painful and fixed, with no interval of doubt or confusion between Alice’s words and their meaning. Months of correspondence, discussions about Handel, the comforting statements and the questions about her family — all of it had been a method. Not a friendship.

She needed her for something.

She stepped out into the hallway without making a sound.

There was a back stair. She had noticed it when she arrived, the kind of narrow secondary passage that most houses of this sort contained, used by the household staff and running from the upper floors to the kitchen level and the rear areas.

She nudged it open an inch. The hall was dim. The back stairs were to the right and behind her, accessible from the end of the corridor.

She moved along the corridor with a deliberateness that came easily to her as someone for whom silence had never been a difficulty. Down the back stairs, one hand on the wall, she tested each step before it received her weight. The kitchen level was deserted. The rear passage led past the kitchen towards the front of the house.

She reached the main hallway.

The front door was in her line of sight and the latch was a simple one. She crossed the distance in rapid steps that must have alerted the other occupants. But Mary was far beyond the point of caring. All she wanted was to leave the townhouse and be free.

Her fingers were on the handle and she was turning it when a voice behind her called her name.

It was Alice's voice.

The thumping in her chest grew louder.

She got the door a few inches open before a hand closed on her shoulder, and the door was slammed shut. She was dragged back, disappointingly aware that James now occupied the space between her and open air. She pulled against the grip but his hold did not give.

Frustrated tears dimmed her vision.

"Let me go," she said. "Let me go this instant."

He did not.

She was steered around and made to look at Alice, who was standing in the hallway with her arms crossed and a frown on her face. The expression on her face was the most frightening thing Mary had ever seen.

It was not the calm welcome of the sitting room, or the serene evenness with which she had delivered her story. It was much worse.

It was satisfaction.

"I am afraid," Alice began with a conniving smile, "that I cannot let you leave quite yet, my sweet."