“Yes,” said Mary. “That is Catherine. I can introduce you and your aunt.”
“That would be most agreeable,” said Lady Trafford. “Thank you, Miss Bennet.”
Kitty reached them and clasped Mary’s hands as if they were the dearest of friends. “Oh Mary, I am so glad I went. It was beautiful and solemn to attend the procession, and then Lizzy and I joined the funeral. It was the most lovely tribute to Father.”
“I am glad to hear it.”
“And who are your friends?”
“This is Lady Trafford, and her nephew Mr. Withrow. They are distant relations, come to visit us from Worthing, in Sussex.”
“Then you have travelled a long way to see us. I have always wanted to visit Brighton. Do you live far from there?”
“About fifteen miles,” said Withrow. “It is a trip I make regularly. But we have our own view of the ocean in Worthing. In fact, if the sky is clear, you can see it from the house.”
“I have never seen the ocean before,” said Kitty. “Can you believe that?”
Kitty engaged in a vibrant conversation with both Lady Trafford and Withrow. She drew people to her in a way that Mary never had.
Suddenly, over all the voices in the room came that of Mrs. Bennet. “Why is the food not ready?”
And then Mr. Collins. “It is Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s opinion that a company must always have the opportunity to converse prior to eating, so I instructed the staff to have the meal ready thirty minutes after we returned from the funeral.”
Trapped in between them—and suffering the frustrations of both—was the poor housekeeper, Mrs. Hall. Quickly both Mrs. Collins and Elizabeth crossed the room and joined the fray in an attempt to appease both parties.
Normally Mary could ignore this sort of debacle, but today she could not, maybe because of her lack of sleep or all the forced pleasantries. It was as if the unpleasantness floated up from the argument and over the room until it landed on Mary and enveloped her in its uncomfortable embrace.
After a dismissive smirk in their mother’s direction, Kitty resumed her conversation. At a convenient pause, Mary said, “If you will excuse me, I need to step out for a moment.”
“Are you feeling well?” asked Lady Trafford.
“Quite well,” said Mary, though her statement did not sound convincing even to herself.
“I hope you will still be dining with us.”
“I will,” said Mary, and then before anyone could say another word, she slipped out of the conversation and up to her room. Or, to be more factual, to one of Mr. Collins’s rooms that she was borrowing.
She lay on top of her bed, staring up at the ceiling. The room was stuffy and smelled faintly of damp fabric: the maids must not have dried the clothes out properly before putting them away several days before, causing them to slowly develop an odor.
Mary had an urge to leave Longbourn, to go far from Meryton and leave all of this behind. To do something entirely new. She wanted the lessons; she wanted to learn. Yet at the same time she wanted things to stay as they had always been, though that was not possible. In her mind, she compiled a list of possible positive and negative consequences of accepting Lady Trafford’s offer.
After a while, she thought it best to make her way back to the group, in case one of the maids forgot to fetch her for the meal. As she walked down the hall, she heard a faint noise from her parents’ room. She paused outside of it. The door was cracked open. She pushed it open a bit farther and peered inside. Someone stood at her father’s clothes press, lifting up his clothes and looking beneath them. The person was not one of the servants. She considered his coat, and the cut and shade of his hair. It was Mr. Withrow.
Fear paralyzed Mary. She wanted to confront Mr. Withrow. She wanted to tell him it was not his place to handle her father’s things, and yet the thought of speaking to a man alone in a bedroom, even if it were not her own, seemed highly improper. It might be even less proper than whatever he was doing. Even if she were to speak to him, she would not know what to say or do. She had never been in a situation like this before.
Mr. Withrow stilled, and then he turned towards the door. Mary fled back to her bedroom, heart pounding, unsure if Mr. Withrow had seen or recognized her.
She waited next to her doorway, listening, but heard nothing from the hallway. There were no footsteps, and no one to accuse her of prying. After a minute, she left her room again and went back down the hallway, worried that Mr. Withrow would still be there, but determined to yell for a servant if he was.
The door to her parents’ room was wide open, and no one stood inside. Nothing seemed to have been touched or disturbed. Her father’s clothing press had been closed, and she reopened it; while the clothes were a touch disheveled, nothing appeared to be missing, and she could not understand what Mr. Withrow had been looking for.
Mary walked down the stairs to the crowd, trying to interpret Mr. Withrow’s behaviour. But the time had come for the meal, and with all the bustle, there was little room for thought. She was relieved to be seated between Lady Lucas and her daughter, Maria Blankenbeckler. She was even more relieved that while Lady Trafford was seated near her mother, she was not immediately next to her, and Mr. Withrow was on the opposite end of the table, in between Mr. Darcy and Kitty.
Maria, the second daughter of the Lucas family, had wed six months prior and moved with her husband to Brighton. After the first course was served, she turned to Mary.
“I have missed you,” said Maria.
