The Unexpected Miss Bennet Read Free

notice her reticence. Instead, he suddenly smacked the top of the pianoforte, making her jump.
    ‘I know. You should dance the next dance with me, and then we can compare whether dancing or music is the more tiring.’
    He spoke as if it were the simplest thing in the world, that she should just rise and dance. With him.
    Before she could say a word, Maria Lucas jumped in.
    ‘Oh no!’ she said. ‘Mary doesn’t dance – if she did we would have no one to play, for none of us has the patience. Go on, Mary – we’re all ready. Play more for us. Mr Aikens, you are ready, I know, and you promised to dance another with me.’
    The young man looked between them and his smile faltered. Mary felt her mouth move in a smile of her own, and she began another air. She kept her head down, concentrating on her fingers, until she sensed that the man had gone. When she looked up he was dancing with Maria Lucas.

    THE FAINT FEELING of discontent pricked at Mary for days after that evening. The piano at Longbourn remained silent, its lid closed. Mary sometimes wandered towards it out of habit, but when she sat at the worn bench she felt a vague disgust. It no longer suited her fancy to sit and play. With the piano silent, the house was quieter than ever, the liveliness that five daughters had brought to it muted. Kitty was full of chatter as usual, but only their mother answered her vivacity or querulousness with her own. Mrs Bennet never said a word about the unused piano – she only dozed in the afternoon in the parlour where the instrument stood. Mr Bennet was as silent as a father could be, spending his days on the farm and his afternoons in his library when he was not visiting Lizzy.
    With the piano no longer bringing joy, Mary turned to her sermons, but the familiar words no longer brought the same comfort. She had read Fordyce’s Sermons for Young Women so often that the pages had become smudged under her nimble fingers. Now, she read them with a less captivated eye. Where before she had found herself nodding in agreement with his admonitions concerning grace, charity, and humility, in which his opinions had so much become her own that she hardly knew where his left off and hers began, she now began to grow uneasy. For instance, had her copy of the sermons always held this counsel?
    It is very true, there are young ladies who, without any particular advantage of a natural ear or a good voice, have by means of circumstances peculiarly favourable, made great proficiency in music: But it is true that they have made it at a vast expense of time and application such as no woman ought to bestow upon an object to which she is not carried by the irresistible impulse of genius.
    Mary was disturbed. What exactly had Fordyce meant? Surely he could not mean that a young lady could practise too much? It was as if he had aimed his words straight at her. She knew there was a vast chasm between what she wished to play and what she could play: her fingers, no matter how diligently she practised, did not run along the keyboard as nimbly as did those of other women. And her voice was not pretty. Though she practised singing as often as she was able, she knew she had not the same pleasing tones as other women. None of the Bennet sisters could sing, but that was cold comfort. None of the others wanted to sing. Only Mary did.
    And now here was Fordyce admonishing her for her application. That bolt shot uncomfortably close to home. She was so unsettled by the betrayal of a most well-loved and comforting book that she shut the volume violently, rousing her mother, who woke from her nap with a small shriek.
    ‘Mary!’ Mrs Bennet said. ‘Have some consideration for my nerves. You know I cannot stand sudden noises that sound as if your father were shooting pheasant in the kitchen.’ She settled herself again, straightening her shawl and her cap rather like a ruffled hen.
    ‘I’m sorry, Mama,’ Mary managed, though the words choked her. She slipped