Mary, Mary, quite contrary. How does your garden grow?
She used to have enough good nature to laugh – good-natured, that's what she is, a real Bennet – but something's sapped it up lately. And now, when someone sings it or asks it, what she wants to do is intellectualise them. (That's what her father calls it sometimes; that, or Mary's vociferations. As if bettering herself is a silly female thing. It's not, she wants to shout. Don't they all see? They gave her no room to be anything else. They just didn't give her any room. She's not handsome, and she's not charming, and she cannot walk through mud without caring. This is what they left her. They can't begrudge her it.)
She does care. It's just about the wrong things.
When she reads, she wants to appreciate the book. The lines; she wants them to speak to her. But her eyes always stray to the number at the top of the page, and she remembers the plot as if it's a lesson. She can't find it in herself to care what will happen. The sooner it's finished, the better. Then she'll be more accomplished, and you always need to be more accomplished at the end of something. Accomplished is better.
It's not an unusual measuring rod. The difference is that Mary doesn't have any other. Her sisters are all so free. They don't need her rigid standards – they've developed some of their own, and they're happy. Jane is happy. Elizabeth is happy. Kitty is happy. Even Lydia is happy.
What Mary cannot stand is pretending to feel sorry for that girl. She is in love, and she is married. Wickham is a rogue, and she wouldn't want him for herself, but Lydia chose him. Whatever else Mary can decide – she can decide to wear black when no-one's dead, to play the piano when no-one's listening – she can't pick out a suitor.
For one, none of them appeal to her. Also, there are none.
Which should be fine, because she wasn't doing it all for them, anyway. She has God and morals and Mozart, and it's all because this is what brings her satisfaction. (She doesn't like to call it an obligation; the most righteous martyrs didn't have to do anything.) She's good at it, too. The others can bet pretty all that they want. They don't have her talent, or her dedication, or, most importantly, her character.
But they are happy, and they are all spoken for. Even little Kitty is engaged now.
She will stay with her mother and her mother's nerves, and care for both in their old age. Her father will stay in his study, venturing out only when she plays too loudly.
She is determined not to mind any of this. If she minded it, she'd have to do something about it. Mary is no champion of the idle. She keeps herself busy most admirably. Pianoforte first – how she enjoys saying the full thing – and then more intellectual pursuits. She nurtures her ear, then her understanding.
Also, she takes Mrs Bennet her breakfast when the servants aren't being sympathetic enough to her plight. Mary understands her, even if she talks in a rather stilted manner – she tells her as much regularly. Mary's vaguely proud, but mostly uneasy. Either her mother is getting lonely, or she's getting more adapted to her family and their secular ways.
As she ages, perhaps her edges are wearing off. But she's fond of them. How else can she bruise people when they rub against her?
Mary, Mary, quite contrary: her name sealed her fate. She thinks, from time to time, that it might have turned out differently. It's never too late. Maybe one day, she'll be asked how her garden grows, and respond, "Quite well, thank you."
Today is not this day. She knows because it started with one of her mother's lists. This day's theme: people who lacked empathy for her ever-beloved nerves and their doings. (Mr Bennet, Mrs Darcy, Mrs Phillips, the neighbours, her cousins, you-Mary-won't-you-close-those-curtains-the-light-is-blinding-me, the rector, the geese, whoever brewed this wretched tea.)
And so it goes on. How much longer can she endure? (Religious strength is one thing; patience is another. She admits this, as vanity is a sin. She's not even quite sure that she wants to fix it.)
Her garden has yet to grow much.