The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

“No, Papa. Let’s call it equal, and begin again.”

“That is a deal, Charlie,” said Fitz huskily. “Now only remains to mend my fences with your mother.”

The gold was removed over the course of five days with remarkably little fuss. It never occurred to Pemberley’s faithful retainers to question their master’s story of four and a half tons of lead, nor would it have occurred to the least naпve among them that Fitzwilliam Darcy and his only son were capable of the hard labour involved in lifting, wrapping and roping one hundred pounds many times over. No glint of gold showed through a rent in the light canvas, nor did any parcel fall apart while being manhandled. After some rather exhilarating rushes down the hillside, the contents of the sleds were loaded into wagons and so to Pemberley, where they sat in the big “safe house”-a stone barn Fitz used to store items of value. In the fullness of time several wagons conveyed the parcels to London and a curious destination-the Tower.

The public caves had been reopened for inspection; once more tourists could wonder at the maw of the Peak cavern, wander inside to see the rope-maker’s walk and the ancient houses that had, from time to time, sheltered the people of Castleton from unusually remorseless weather, or, in lawless times, bands of marauders.

Much to Elizabeth’s delight, Fitz had ordained that his girls should in future dine with the family, and actually spent a little time with them. Cathy’s tendency to play pranks dwindled, Susie learned to hold up one end of a conversation without turning the colour of a beet, and Anne displayed an eager interest in all matters political and European. Georgie tried very hard to conduct herself like a lady, and had consented to having her nails painted with bitter aloes-it tasted vile-while heroically managing not to wash the hideous remedy off.

“What happened between Susie, Anne and Charlie’s tutor?” Fitz asked his wife, frowning direfully.

“Absolutely nothing, except that they fancied themselves in love with him. I think that shows good taste,” Elizabeth said tranquilly. “He gave them no encouragement, I assure you.”

“And Georgie?”

“Actually rather looking forward to her London season now that Kitty has painted alluring pictures for her delectation. She’s such a beautiful girl that she’ll take magnificently if she loses her Maryisms, which Kitty assures me she will. Witness her struggle to conquer the nail-biting.”

“It has been a terrible summer,” he said.

“Yes. But we’ve come through it, Fitz, and that’s the main thing. I wish I had known that you and Ned were brothers.”

“I would have told you, Elizabeth, could I.”

“He always reminded me of a huge black dog guarding you from all comers.”

“He filled that role, certainly. Many others too. I loved him.” He looked directly at her, dark eyes on hers. “But not as much as I love you.”

“No, not more. Just-differently. But why did you stop telling me you loved me after Cathy was born? You shut me out of your life. It wasn’t my fault that I could give you no son other than Charlie, or that he was so unsatisfactory. Still, you don’t find him unsatisfactory now, do you?”

“No better son could any man have than Charlie. He’s a perfect fusion of you and me. And it’s true I shut you out of my life, but only because you shut me out of yours.”

“Yes, I did. But why did you shut me out?”

“Oh, I was so wearied by your endless mockery of me! The quips and smart remarks, the poking sly fun-you couldn’t forgive it in Caroline Bingley when she denigrated you, yet you denigrated me. It seemed I only had to open my mouth, to be ribbed for my pompousness or my hauteur-things that are innate, for better or worse. But that was nothing compared to your lack of genuine enthusiasm for married life. I felt as if I made love to a marble statue! You didn’t return my kisses, my caresses-I could feel you change into that thing of stone the moment I entered your bed. You gave me the impression that you loathed being touched. I would gladly have kept trying for a son, but after Cathy I could bear no more of it.”

She was aware of a tremor as fine as a cat’s purr, swallowed painfully, looked not at him but out the window of her sitting room, though it was long after dark and she could see nothing save the dancing reflections of candles. Oh, how sure she had always been that she could lighten Fitz’s nature, make him see how ridiculous he could be, with his icy demeanor and his stiffness. Only over this last year had she given up on poking gentle fun at his rigidity, and that had been from anger and disgust. But now she finally understood everything there was to know about leopards and their spots. Fitz would never be able to laugh at himself! He was too obsessed with the dignity of a Darcy. Charlie might succeed in breaking Fitz’s ice, but she never would. Her touch was too remorseless, her sense of humour too irresistible. As for his other accusation- what could she say to defend herself?

“I have nothing to say. I concede defeat,” she said.

“Elizabeth, that isn’t enough! Unless you speak, we can never heal the rift between us! Once, a long time ago, when Jane was so ill after the birth of Robert, she said in her delirium that it was only after you saw the glories of Pemberley that you changed your mind about accepting me.”

“Oh, that one, unguarded remark!” she cried, pressing her hands to burning cheeks. “Even Jane doesn’t know when I’m funning! I didn’t mean it the way it sounded, and had no idea Jane took it so seriously.” She walked on her knees from her chair to his, and gazed at him with soft, glowing eyes. “Fitz, I did fall in love with you, but not because of Pemberley! I fell in love with your generosity, your kindness, your-your patience!”

Looking down at her, he knew himself lost all over again in those lambent eyes, that wonderful lush mouth. “I wish I could believe you, Elizabeth, but the statue doesn’t lie.”

“Yes, it does.” Perhaps if she didn’t need to look at him, and that was far easier here at his feet, she could tell him. “I’ll try to explain, Fitz, but don’t make me look at you until I’m done. Please!”

He put one hand on her hair. “I promise. Tell me.”

“I was utterly revolted by the act of love-it still revolts me! I found it cruel, animal, anything but an act of love! It left me physically hurt and spiritually bereft. The Fitz I love is not that man. He can’t be that man! The humiliation, the degradation! I couldn’t bear it, and that’s why I turned into a statue. Eventually I prayed that you’d stop visiting me, and eventually you did stop. But somehow nothing was solved.”

Fitz looked at the fire through a wall of tears. The one thing he had never dreamed of! That what to him was evidence of the strength of his passion appeared to her as a rape. They go into marriage so virginal that its fleshly side is an utter mystery. Yet, coming from that family, I didn’t deem her so sheltered. The mother must have been a Lydia in her youth, and her daughters had all seemed anything but unaware of love’s physical side.

“I suppose,” he said, blinking the tears away, “that we men assume our wives will recover from the shock of the first time, and grow to enjoy what God really did intend to be highly enjoyable. But perhaps some women are too intelligent and too full of sensibility to recover. Women like you. I’m very sorry. But why did you never tell me, Elizabeth?”

“I didn’t think that man would understand.”

“Separating him from me.”

“You’re many men, Fitz, with many secrets.”

“Yes, I do have secrets. Some I’ll tell you, but not all. Just rest assured that the ones I keep from you are not concerned with you in any way. Those I’ll confide in Charlie, who is my heir and my blood son.” He began to stroke her hair rhythmically, almost as if he didn’t know what he did. “That man, as you call him, is absolutely a part of me! You can’t separate him from the whole. I was an unfeeling brute, I can see that now, but from ignorance, Elizabeth, not from deliberation. I love you more than I did Ned, more than my son or my daughters. And now that I’m going onto the back benches, you’ll have no rival in Westminster.”

“Oh, Fitz!” She lifted her head and pulled his down to kiss him, slow and languorous. “I love you just as much.”

“Which leaves us with the basic problem,” he said, moving over in the chair so that she could squeeze in beside him. “Is it at all possible to breathe life into the statue? Can I be Pygmalion to your Galatea?”

“We must try,” she said.

“It’s probably a good thing that this state of affairs has lasted so long. I’m a man of fifty, and have far more control over my primal urges than a man of thirty. It’s up to me to breathe life into you.” He kissed her again, as he had done during the halcyon days of their engagement. “You need something I’m not prone to give- tenderness.”

“I have hopes for that man as well as for you, Fitz. We’ve all changed over the past year, from Mary to