Page 52 of The Vanished Bennet Sister

Mary did not reach for the bread. What followed was swift and unhesitating — Alice's hand in her hair and a sharp pull of it that brought her forward. The force was not enough to do lasting damage but was efficient enough to demonstrate that damage was an available option. The bread was pressed to her mouth. She ate because the alternative was worse, and because she required energy to face the next challenges that were bound to come her way.

She looked at the wall above the tray and ate, and did not weep, because she had decided in the small hours of the morning that weeping was a resource she was not going to give Alice access to.

James was leaning against the wall and he produced a sound close to a laugh.

"You are a stupid girl," Alice said, settling into the chair. She nodded as she spoke, like it was a statement she had arrived at independently and considered accurate. "A foolish, simple girl. I cannot imagine what I expected, but you exceeded even my worst estimate. Several months of letters about boring Handel and you never once asked yourself why a stranger would be so very interested in your foolish devotional opinions."

Mary braced against the onslaught of harsh words directed her way. The sweet friend named Elena was gone, replaced by the image of cruelty before her.

"And your suitor." Alice continued, her features rearranging into satisfaction as she doled out statements maliciously formed to produce pain. "Did you truly believe a man of Mr Thwaite's estimate would remain interested in you, once Miss Bingley provided an alternative? You are plain, too serious, and without the ease that men of his standing actually require. By now he will have understood this. As we speak, he will very likely have made other arrangements."

Mary's eyes became wet, against her intention. She turned her face away to conceal it. But Alice had already noticed the gesture, releasing cackling laughter in the air.

"Why," Mary began, and her tone was steady despite the blur at the edges of her vision, "are you doing this? Why?"

"You want a complete account."

"I want to understand what I have been brought here for, beyond the obvious."

"It's fairly obvious. There's a trust I need released and for that to occur, I require your signature."

"You spent so long corresponding with me. You could have found any number of other methods to obtain my signature on a document. You chose this one. I want to know why."

Alice shrugged. "You were never going to come to me willingly; the method required some ingenuity. What other reason do you presume I'd have to do this?"

"Why now, is what I mean. You had plenty of time to scheme and attempt to have access to me before I grew into an adult."

"You're an irritatingly nosy lass."

Mary glanced down at the leftover bread on the tray, which she had eaten without tasting, then returned her attention to Alice's face, which reminded her disconcertingly of her own. In the timeframe of a day, she had discovered the truth about her true identical mother, closely followed by learning that the same mother was someone who wished her harm.

"Tell me the rest," she insisted. "If there's a missing piece in this narrative, I'd like to know it. If you are going to keep me here, you might at least be honest now."

Alice regarded her with a type of attention that had once, in letters, seemed like true interest, and now read differently.

"I was not yet twenty when you were born. Your natural father left when I told him. My family did not know. My maid helped conceal it, which she later regretted sufficiently to confess to my father and that was the source of a great many subsequent difficulties. I was relieved when Mrs Bennet took you. I want you to understand that plainly. I was thrilled, in fact."

"And then?"

"I married some years after you were born. A titled man. A baronet. A respectable connection on paper, if not a wealthy one. I had expected the title to open certain doors, but it turned out to come with little else. He was in debt when I married him, a fact he had not disclosed, and his estate was in worse condition than the exterior suggested. James was in service with the household before I came into it. We developed an understanding that our lives would be much better without my husband in it."

"You had your husband killed?"

"I arranged for circumstances to resolve themselves in the direction I wanted, yes." She seemed to have no trouble with the moral dimension of the event and had retained only its practical significance. "My life with him was insufficient. But soon after, I learned that his estate could not be made to produce what I required, even without the encumbrance of my husband. And my father…" She paused and something in her face altered slightly, the first crack in the surface of her equanimity.

"My father learned about you. The maid who helped me conceal the pregnancy was overtaken by conscience at some point in her later years and told him. He placed my rightful inheritance in a trust that cannot be released unless you, his granddaughter, sign it. He framed it as an incentive to find you and make amends. He was sentimental about it. He believed the gesture would produce a reunion of some genuine kind."

"Perhaps he believed you capable of remorse and wanted this to be an opportunity for atonement," Mary said.

"He was mistaken about that. But he was not wrong about the compulsion. The money is mine by right. It has always been. The fact that it sits behind a document requiring your signature does not change what it is."

"So you searched for me."

"I had done so years earlier, when you're much younger. That was after I married my husband. I told him about you and he wished to have you brought into the household. He was earnest about it. He wrote to Mrs Bennet himself, in fact, in addition to my own letter. He considered it a matter of moral obligation. Mrs Bennet refused us both. She said you were settled and happy and she would not have you disturbed. My husband intended to pursue the matter, but the years passed and then he died."

"You mean he was murdered."

Alice shrugged. "If you insist on using that term."