MARY
Longbourn’s laneswere paved with a local white gravel suffused with tiny, ancient shells. The distinctive crunch beneath our wheels plucked strings in my memory. As a child, I had dashed across these stones to hide, first playing games with my sisters, then later to read in solitary shade when the press of people became too great.
The hollyhocks were my secret place. They were constantly overgrown, filling the crumbling remnant of an old stone-fenced paddock. Their leaves felt like feathers. Thinking back, it must not have been very secret—Mamma would come retrieve me if I forgot about dinner.
The flower gardens looked small after so much time at Pemberley. The vegetable gardens were larger. Longbourn was a practical estate, not a wealthy one.
“I feel at home, yet also like a visitor,” I said as the coach swayed to a stop. Unnamable emotions jostled in my chest.
“While you are being wistful,” Georgiana said, “I am fretting about your mother.”
I pulled my attention from the spring foliage of our elm trees. “Why fret? You intimidate Mamma.”
“I do not want tointimidateher. Mary, I have not seen her since the ball in London. We have not seen her, together, since then. What do we say aboutus?”
Irreconcilable rules collided in my brain: the imperative of truth; the prejudices and naivete of my mother’s generation; her reliable, if disorganized, love. After futile seconds, I gave a despairing laugh. “When we performed for the Prince Regent, I knew immediately what to say. But I have not the most remote idea what to say to Mamma.”
Georgiana sighed, but she smiled. “I suppose we shall improvise.”
I rang the doorbell.Whoever came would be a happy surprise: our housekeeper, or Kitty if she were in a frivolous mood and answered herself, or one of the maids.
Instead, the door was tugged open by a small boy, nine at most. He set his nose in the air and said officiously, “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” I said. “Who might you be?”
“I am the butler,” he piped. He lowered his nose to see me better, gave a surprised, shy smile, and ran down the hall.
We followed, peering into familiar but empty rooms, until we reached the parlor where Mamma was sound asleep in a chair, an embroidery hoop askew on her knee.
She woke with a start. “Mary! How those children wear me out. I only closed my eyes… Oh, Miss Darcy!” She stood hurriedly, straightening her skirt as they exchanged curtsies. Mamma said, “Are you not pretty with those shiny buttons,” and Georgiana complimented her partially embroidered coif. Then silence fell.
“Have we hired a four-foot-tall butler?” I asked.
“That is the schoolchildren playing their games. Lizzy sent the London children to Jane’s, which is very sensible. Country living is much better for children. Although I think Lizzy was more worried about dragons. They quite destroyed the city. I suppose you know about that?”
I had been walking to Chathford House when Fènnù and Yuánchi fought above London. The sky blazed, and I stopped in the street, face lifted to a skyscape of divine wrath. Coal-dark plumes rolled to the horizon like black thunderbolts, stroke-by-stroke occluding the afternoon blue. Unbearable sun-bright flares ripped in opposition, each an eruption of streaming gold. The thunder shattered windows. Rained broken birds. Then the dragons took their battle to the streets, and buildings toppled.
“You know I was there,” I said. “Only part of the city was destroyed.”
Mamma clucked and patted my arm. “Well, you are safe here, just like the children, and I am glad for both. Jane and Charles hold the school classes at Netherfield, and it is a fine manor, but the children do not all fit, so the littlest ones are here. It makes us very busy. I told Harriet we must have the teachers back, but she goes on about the war. Still, there is the wyvern.” I did not understand that last part, but I forgot it when Mamma asked, “Is there news of dear, sleeping Lizzy?”
We had simplified Lizzy’s situation for Mamma, not hiding the bizarre aspects of it—those could hardly be concealed—but conveying confidence that she would return soon.
“There is no news yet,” I said. “I devote all my energy to finding a way to wake her.”
“As does my brother,” Georgiana added.
That, I knew, was an understatement.
Mamma nodded, her age-thinned eyelids crinkled with concern. Her gaze narrowed as she examined my clothes, which were very London in style.
“I am afraid this must be a short visit,” I said. “We are on our way to Pemberley, but I wished to fetch a book.”
As if addressing the air, Georgiana observed, “Iknewit would be a book.”
This was firmer footing for Mamma as well. “Nose buried again,” she scolded me. “How many times have I told you that a lady’s accomplishments must be in moderation?”
“It is lucky that Mary looks charming with her nose in a book,” Georgiana said with a brilliant smile.
