Chapter 1
Nobody's Listening

"The carriage from Netherfield!"

"It's stopping out front!"

"A young gentleman is getting out. It must be Mr. Bingley!"

"He has a fine blue coat."

"A lady is with him, and another gentleman."

Mary Bennet heard the excited voices of her younger sisters, Catherine and Lydia, chatter rapidly as she listened uninterestedly from her small room upstairs. Her room was right above the living-room, and one could hear everything that was said. At the moment, this was unfortunate, as Mary was trying to study. She rolled her eyes as Mama's voice wafted up to her room.

"Elizabeth, smooth down your hair, and watch your sharp tongue! Jane, my dear, be composed, as I am. We must not show undue interest. Lydia and Kitty, tone down your voices, remember your manners, and Kitty, do stop coughing! Oh, and Hill, tell Mary to come down immediately."

There was a flurry, then a pause. After a while, Mary heard her father speak.

"My dear, I think for the moment your family is under control," Mr. Bennet said dryly.

Mary snickered. His sarcasm and dry humor was the only way he must've been able to survive in a houseful of women, most of them as silly as their mother! She pitied him.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door that made her jump. Hill, the butler, stuck his head in and started to speak, but Mary cut him off. "I know, I know. Mama wants me downstairs. I'll come in a moment."

Hill chuckled at her procrastination, then bowed and stepped out of the room. Mary went back to her studies, promising herself she would go in a moment just to appease her mother.

She then heard the door shut and Hill announced the visitors as Mr. Bingley, Miss Bingley, and Mr. Darcy. As hard as she was trying to ignore the voices as they introduced themselves and began to make conversation, it was impossible to study with the distraction. She flopped down on her bed, and then sat back up straight, thinking, I've been spending too much time with Kitty! She smoothed her hair and her dress, then grabbed her shawl (it was chilly downstairs) and slowly, reluctantly began making her way downstairs.

Mr. Darcy was speaking disdainfully of dancing when she burst in the door and crossed the room to stand by Papa's side. He made the introductions and she curtsied, then took a good look at the visitors as the conversation continued. Miss Bingley was a beautiful, proud young woman a little older than Jane. She seemed to wear a perpetual sneer and look down her nose at the entire Bennet family. Mr. Darcy was no better, only he seemed to make even less of an attempt to be cordial.

But then Mary looked at Mr. Bingley. He was tall, handsome, and much more good-natured than his companions. A joking half-smile never left his face. Right now he seemed to be enamored with Jane, who was returning the attention.

Mary bit her lip as she noticed that she might as well have been a part of the settee or a painting on the wall. Everyone in the room, save Papa, was carrying on as if she hadn't even been there. Desperate to be noticed, especially by this handsome guest, she spoke at the slightest break in the conversation directly to the visitors.

"I am sorry I was not present when I was called. I have been reading."

Mr. Bennet nodded, but none of the guests seemed to know why she had spoken.

Wishing she had kept her mouth shut, yet feeling the need to say something else, she stammered, "One finds such comfort in a good volume of sensible thoughts..."

This time she got a response from the handsome Mr. Bingley, who nodded and started to reply, but was cut off by his sister who had completely ignored the remark. "What a delightful library you have, Mr. Darcy, at Pemberley."

Mary was disgusted with this proud woman, but masked it well in remarking offhandedly aside to her father about how attracted Mr. Bingley was to Jane. The rest of the conversation went on without including Mary in the least, and finally the guests prepared to leave. As they were walking out the door, Hill came in to announce another visitor. Mary was so distracted that she didn't even hear Hill say the name of the caller. A few moments later, as the Bingleys and Mr. Darcy were walking out the door, this other visitor came in. Mary's heart skipped a beat when she saw Mr. Wickham enter.

George Wickham was a young, good-humored officer who was often the subject of interest to Mary's younger sisters. What Mary never told her sisters was that Wickham was very much a subject of interest to her as well. Little did he know that she even existed, however. So it was, and so it always would be for Mary, the plain one. She thought he was very good-looking, witty, and charming but had never allowed herself to think about him for more than a moment, because she knew there was no point. He would never admire her, and she thought she might as well not set herself up for disappointment.

Once the Bingleys and Mr. Darcy had left, Mr. Wickham had come in. Mr. Bennet excused himself to his library, and Mary, feeling her face grow hot, excused herself to her room. Once she closed the door to the living-room, she immediately began running up the stairs to her room. When she was halfway up the stairs, she changed her mind and went around to the back door of her father's library. She could've gotten some more studying done, but she was tired of being alone, and she would much rather go into the library and have a sensible conversation with her father than go back into the living-room and listen to Lydia, Kitty, and Lizzy flirt, while thinking thoughts she would rather not think about a certain young officer.