The visitor was not Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
The woman’s hair was a fierce grey, and even in the low light, her eyes were piercing. The man next to her was only slightly taller than the woman, and was young, probably in his twenties. He flashed a smile that would have caused Kitty and Lydia to giggle but did nothing to impress Mary.
The woman cleared her throat and looked expectantly at Mary.
A terror seized Mary: she did not know this person, who was obviously her superior, she could not speak to someone unless she was introduced, and there was no manner by which they could be introduced. The housekeeper, Mrs. Hill, would know exactly how to handle this situation, but Sarah did not and stood there as dumbfounded as Mary.
The woman scrutinized her, and Mary self-consciously looked down at her dress. She owned several new black dresses for mourning, but she had chosen, tonight, to wear one of her older dresses. It had been taken apart at the seams, dyed black, then stitched back together by a servant.
She swallowed and tried to curtsy. The woman raised her eyebrows. The man’s smile diminished.
“You are a Miss Bennet, I presume?” asked the woman.
Mary nodded.
“I am Lady Trafford, and this is my nephew, Mr. Henry Withrow. I am a relative of your father, and I have come to pay my respects to him.” She leaned towards Mary, her chin jutting forward. “Well, are you going to stand here, or let me in?”
Mary did not know the social protocol for accepting distant relatives in the middle of the night, but she supposed letting them in was a part of it. “You may come in.”
As Lady Trafford and Mr. Withrow stepped inside, their servant returned to the carriage. Mary closed the front door.
“Sarah,” said Mary, “would you wake Jane? And…Mr. Collins?” Waking Mrs. Bennet at this hour would do no one any good, but since it was now Mr. Collins’s house, she supposed he must be woken.
“That will not be necessary, Sarah,” said Lady Trafford. “There is no need to wake anyone else at this time of night. But it would be excellent if you could prepare tea for the three of us.”
Sarah hurried down the hallway to obey Lady Trafford’s directions as if their visitor were the mistress of Longbourn.
Unsure of what else to do, Mary led Lady Trafford and Mr. Withrow to the sitting room. Mr. Withrow’s nose wrinkled and Lady Trafford raised her handkerchief to her mouth. Even after being away for only a moment, the smell was almost overpowering. Piles of flowers surrounded Mr. Bennet, and new ones had been added daily, but they did not mask the scent of death. It had been over a week since his death, and with each progressing day, the odor grew stronger.
Mary walked around the room, lighting more candles to provide greater illumination. Lady Trafford stood at Mr. Bennet’s side and whispered a prayer. Mary could not hear the words, but the woman’s facial expressions testified of her sincerity. Once she finished with the candles, Mary waited, unsure whether to sit or stand. She glanced at Mr. Withrow. He nodded at her and said, “I am sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.” Mary looked away, and again twisted the ring on her finger. After a few minutes, Lady Trafford stepped away from the body.
“You are welcome to take a seat,” said Lady Trafford, as if this were her sitting room and Mary was the visitor.
Mary sat in the middle of the room, facing her father. Lady Trafford sat in a chair to her right. Instead of sitting in one of the chairs next to his aunt, Mr. Withrow sat to Mary’s left.
Unsure of the best way to start a conversation with the guests, Mary said the first thing that came to mind. “You should have come during the day.” Elizabeth would have found a better way to say the same thing. Something like, we expected most of our visitors to come during the day. But Mary had already spoken, and it was too late to change her words.
“I was passing by this way, and I had read about it in the paper, so I decided to stop. Unfortunately, we have business in another village and will not be able to attend the funeral, but we wanted to pay our respects.”
Lady Trafford’s words did not make sense. To Mary’s knowledge, her father’s death had only been published locally and in one of the London papers, The Morning Post. In their announcement, The Morning Post had neglected to publish the information about the funeral, but they had promised to do so in today’s paper, which had not yet been distributed. Mary blinked her eyes and stifled a yawn. “In what paper did you read about his death?”
“I do not remember. There are so many.”
She supposed it did not matter how Lady Trafford had heard the news. It surprised her, though, that she had never heard of Lady Trafford before, given that she was a relation.
Sarah came in with the tea and poured it for each of them, and then she left to sit in the hall. Mary hoped that Sarah did not fall asleep again, for doing so would embarrass their entire family in front of this great lady.
Mary sipped her tea. It did not do much to help with her fatigue. She looked to the right, to Lady Trafford, then to the left, to Mr. Withrow, unsure where her attention should fall now that the conversation had gone silent. She decided to compromise by looking at her feet.
After a few agonizing minutes in which Mary searched her mind for a suitable topic of conversation, Lady Trafford spoke again. “Now which daughter are you?”
“I am the third daughter.”
“And what is your given name?”
“Mary.”
“It is a pleasure to make
