Well, this is the new chapter. I hope you like it, I liked writing it. I hope it will make sense. Anyway, wanted to thank isabella and kate cee for their considerate reviews. Oh and about the first man...well Mary supposed he was married and he was, but she did not try to be aware of it, she just really wanted him close.

First, it was my hearing which came back to me. I heard women muttering over my head like sparrows. Then I began to see some shadows. I supposed it was the fire.

I saw a large painting on my right that portrayed a young gentleman, clad in armor. Under the painting there was a small table and on the table a bright, glowing candle and a cross.

I had never seen this room.

Madam Zoë placed a wet handkerchief on my cheeks.

'She's coming round,' she said to Anabelle who was sitting next to her, white as a ghost.

'Thank goodness,' Claudia said taking my hand.

'You may go now,' Madam Zoë ordered Claudia. 'Your presence is no longer needed.'

'But madam…'

'Anabelle, show her the way out. I want to speak to Miss Bennet alone.'

When they left she turned to me holding a mirror in her hand. I looked at a sallow girl. She was staring at me also – it was my likeness.

'The paint had terrible effect on your complexion. You had some sort of reaction, but the physician esteemed you would be fine come morning. However, we won't paint you anymore; it would be a nuisance and a risk, not to mention waste. Your medicine has already set me back a pretty penny,' she said disdainfully.

I felt only too relieved to hear this. It was the first good news I received ever since I came there. I suppose a shy smile appeared on my face because the madam frowned.

'Now listen well. We are not a hospital or an asylum. I do not care for feeble girls like you. Unless you bring money into the house, you shan't stay here. And if you do not have clients, then I shall throw you out.'

Madam Zoë did not know I was still happy. I understood that she would no longer try to render me "handsome" and she perceived the consequence to this to be that I would no longer be wanted as company.

I did not retort or oppose her insinuations. I was only glad to be exempted from the painful rituals.

Every child is the same; they would rather not feel pain than hunger, thirst or any other inconvenience. And I was most indisputably the youngest child.

When I was a little girl I did not want to know what sufferance was, so I did not join my sisters in their games and running outdoors. I walked alone thinking that this was the only way not to be harmed.

I once lay in the snow for hours thinking the snowflakes would make a fortress around me. After that, my constitution was always weak, but I never regretted lying in the snow.

There are moments in one's life when it does not matter anymore if pain and beauty are two different things.


I scalded myself with the hot water that afternoon, worse than ever before and the red marks drew a circle on my palm.

The following night I came to my room exhausted from the day's work and lack of nourishment and sat on the mattress waiting.

When an hour passed in this fashion I went downstairs, to see if the gentlemen had arrived. I put on the new dress Claudia had bought for me, though to be fair, it looked slightly shabby. I crept behind the banister and inspected the drawing room.

Anabelle was serving rum and cherry scones on large gilded trays and the men read their newspapers, as always.

The girls came out one by one and the gentlemen followed them like geese. No one picked me or singled me out. In fact most of them remarked how "I see this kind of face at home too!" or "she isn't very further from my wife". Therefore, I was left behind for one night, one night when I was being myself.

I didn't have any embellishment to promote me, so I suppose only I could love myself this way.

The second night the same occurrence took place and the night afterwards. I must say Madam Morceau had particular customers. The men were strict in their scruples and tastes and nothing short of an exotic, exuberant mistress would please them…or at least someone that did not bring their minds back to their wives, sisters, mothers.

Women are all the same to me; old or young, opulent or destitute, naïve or bold, insane or sensible. When it comes to the crucial moment of sacrifice every woman acts in the same manner: she opens her arms.

A young school boy, not older than sixteen, took me on the fourth day and I felt ashamed with my unexceptional blandness. We all crave to be different and when we discover that we are common, even after having thought of everything that should be thought, we decide that we have irrevocably failed and we wait for somebody else to make us different.

He was studying hard to become a lawyer, but his father was very cruel and undeterred in his plans to make him a cold-blooded being like him, carrying no remorse. He said he needed something to wipe away his father's harsh words, ergo, he did not buy books anymore; he set aside all his pocket-money for a future young girl who would be his loved one. He would take her everywhere and tell her everything.

'And you would give up the law for her?' I asked as he was falling asleep.

'Surely not... We would only have a month of solitary happiness, but then she would be mistress of our house and I would go to court every morning, wouldn't I?'

I did believe he would be a cold-blooded being, like his father, but I did not dare dislike him in my mind because he had accepted me for a while. When I loathed someone, the distaste was reflected in my face clearly.


But then – my little lie ended and no one wanted me anymore as the dark circles grew blacker, the cheeks greyer and the mouth more restless; the unveiled image of a nineteen year old girl who did not like herself very much.

Anabelle told me to pack my little belongings, if I had any and depart. I received the news in the afternoon as she came in with a bucket of cold water. I started walking about the room, thinking of a plausible solution.

If I returned on the streets all I could hope for was a job as a sweeper, but that was honourable for a creature like me. The only dilemma that swam in my mind was the following: I could never marry, or have children, or take to kinder conditions.

I couldn't return to Pemberley either.

'Anabelle, is it certain? Am I not given a second chance?'

'I'm afraid not, Miss Bennet. You're awfully shy and now that you don't even look animated anymore it can't be helped…'

'But there must be something I can do.'

'Well, you ought to make some money. We're keepin' you here for free. I think that this is uppermost.'

I nodded disappointed and put my hands over my head.

'Do not lose hope, Miss Mary,' the child said indifferently. 'Would you…like to come with me? I have some errands in town. I can tell you more on the way.'

I followed her obediently outside the house but she did not elaborate more on my departure, instead she started gossiping about Madam Zoë and called her some awful names. The passers-by did not notice us, but I paid attention to everyone.

When we turned a corner, however, I saw a figure of a man, lying on the cold pavement of the alley. I approached it curious.

'Miss Bennet, do not get too close, it might be some ill beggar,' Anabelle said pulling me away. Yet before I could turn my head I saw the man's face and recognized him.

It was my first customer.

And I believed… I believed he was not breathing as a small rivulet of blood was gliding down his chin.


I climbed the stairs to the lavatory. The door was surprisingly unlocked and as I stepped in, I was hit by a diffuse smell of sweat and anger.

I sat on a small stool and looked in the mirror.

Mr. Collins, Mr. Bingley, Mr. Darcy, Colonel Fitzwilliam, they were all men that I had met and passed by and I wished they had all proposed to me and confessed their undying love so I could have rejected them all, so I could have thwarted their feelings.

Men die every day but women live on in their minds and they play silly, unorthodox, shocking games in their scalps. I finally understood what it felt to have an arrow in a heart. I finally understood the necessity of powder.

I disentangled my hair from my bun and let it fall on my shoulders and then proceeded to wash my face. I took out the white powder and I held it between my fingers but I coughed several times. I dipped my fingertips in the small box and smeared it on my forehead and cheeks. I looked like a ghost and I laughed at myself and put more and more until I was whiter than snow. I blew some away and watched it fly in the air and stick to the glass.

My chin was in my palm and I yawned lazily, afraid of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Mary Bennet was the name of a very young child.

Something caught my eye. It was a small, black flask. I took it out and I saw a wiped-out label on it that I could not make out. In it there was water and coal, I guessed but I was not sure. I dipped my pinkie in and I looked at the black substance.

I had seen actresses wearing it in plays around their eyes, but it was only a small, delicate line that inspired poise and modesty. Madam Zoë made our eyelids green or red and it inspired vulgarity and love.

I tried my best to achieve something; I traced the line of my eye with the black finger.

I looked very strange, did I not? Perhaps I was very sinister or I had drawn a mask that was very sinister. Yet, I liked it better than any other mask I had drawn.

Upon another inspection, I noticed my clothes did not go well with my new apparel.

I opened the wardrobe and a swarm of moths flew out. I skimmed through all the garments, but in the end I put on a white, large petticoat.

I checked myself again and liked the general effect, so much so that I giggled. I promised myself I would walk out of the house clad and masked like this.

I felt content with the situation, because it was something of a novelty in it. My destitution, my being abandoned…well, it was mostly me and my obstinate character.

Perhaps the simple detail that I had brought on this fate made me more conceited than ever. I relished in the adventure of going away from a brothel and I wanted to prove to the commoners that I had stayed here.

When I returned in my room I realized there was nothing for me to take but some pennies and a brown coat. All my other clothes, but for two dresses, had been stolen by other girls and some had been burnt or used in different toils.

Without a look back I shut the door behind me and climbed down the stairs.

I would have wanted to say goodbye to Claudia but she was in town and I could not wait for her.

In the drawing room the men were gathered again, like every evening, sipping their port wine broodingly, frowning at some issue tormenting their otherwise simple thoughts, furrowing their brows simultaneously, cracking their knuckles at the fireside, breathing in impatiently and groaning from headaches.

Anabelle was trying to clean the table, as Sally, another girl was talking to a gentleman in a corner. Janet was leading a man upstairs. Isabel was crying on the landing because someone had slapped her hard over the face.

Janet stopped in front of me and bowed solemnly.

'I heard you are leaving,' she whispered.

I smiled cheerfully, since nothing could dampen my spirits.

'You look very odd,' she added.

But I felt someone grasping my arm roughly. It was Janet's gentleman. He was staring at my eyes, almost as if he had found a hole in them.

'You…' he muttered and pulled me towards him as he climbed the stairs.

Janet looked back baffled.

'Sir?'

'You are dismissed,' he said absently and grasped my fingers.


And when I stepped into the room again they swarmed to me like the moths had.

It was beyond the reason of a beautiful woman, for I was not one. And it was beyond the reason of a loving woman, for I was not one. Most of the reasons were not rational.

I said I was the youngest child, all dressed in white and they all wanted me because they wanted to be my father.

They came into my room and I did not wait, I kissed them all.