Previously: the Darcys unsuccessfully tried to retrieve Georgiana and then had a confrontation with Lord Matlock.
Thursday, August 13, 1818
The Great House, Pemberley, Derbyshire
The Darcys may be excused if, after four long, hot, dusty days on the road from London to Pemberley, they felt the need to sleep in and then, after breaking their fast, take a long walk around the park to shake off the miasma of town, rather than immediately attending to their correspondence. So it was after supper and the children were abed before they moved to Mr. Darcy's study to do so. After not five minutes Elizabeth said to Mr. Darcy "Do you have a letter from Mr. Edwards?"
He looked through his pile of letters. "Yes."
"Read it. I have one from Mary, I imagine they are the same in substance, but I would like to be sure."
He did so. "Well, well." They exchanged letters.
The letters varied in tone; Mr. Edwards' being formal and respectful, as might be expected in a letter from a clergyman to his patron; Mary's somewhat (which is to say, not a lot) lighter, from a younger sister to her elder; but in gist they were the same:
'Thanks very much for all you've done for us; we've enjoyed our time in Kympton but the call of family in Cheshire has proved too strong.'
The Edwards were gone.
Decamped to Cheshire where Mr. Edwards' brother, the baronet had given him a living (Mr. Edwards took pains in his letter to point out that he was retaining the Kympton living, he had already hired a curate; if Mr. Darcy was not satisfied with his choice, Mr. Edwards would hire another).
"Why would they leave?" asked Elizabeth "They had it so good here."
Why indeed.
Here Gentle Reader we will step back and see why Mary (Mr. Edwards left the final decision to her) would decide to leave.
It all started with how yellow the sitting room in the Vicarage should be. Not yellow at all as far as Mary was concerned but...
Monday, February 8, 1813
The Vicarage, Kympton, Derbyshire
Mary was all aflutter. Her honeymoon respite was up and today she was to host her first official guest for tea. And a most exalted guest it was, the lady of the manor herself. Mind you, it was just her sister, Elizabeth, but still she was now Mrs. Darcy, mistress of the great Estate of Pemberley, and wife to Mr. Darcy, who was patron to Mary's husband, so it behooved Mary to kill the fatted calf as it were. To this end, Mary had scoured the shop in Kympton for its finest tea and prevailed upon her cook to make the seed cake Elizabeth favoured although neither Mary nor her cook had the exact receipt. It looked and tasted right though.
The tea started off well enough, which is to say the two ladies exchanged proper curtsies, took their places and Mary poured. Then things veered off course.
Mary saw that Elizabeth frowned slightly after she took a sip of tea.
"Is the tea alright?" asked Mary.
"Yes, yes, it's fine" said Elizabeth. She sighed, "It's just that I've been spoiled so, I've lost my appreciation for plain black tea. Mr. Darcy has a special blend of tea which is flavoured with oil of bergamot, a kind of orange, sent up from London; I'll send some over to you."
Mary also saw that Elizabeth only nibbled at her cake but forbore saying anything for fear that Mr. Darcy had a special cake flavoured with oil of saffron sent up from London.
From there conversation progressed much as it would have at Longbourn's dinner table: Elizabeth talked and Mary listened, the only things missing were Mrs. Bennet's and Lydia's competing voices, Jane's murmuring, Kitty's nodding, and Mr. Bennet leaving for his book room. Though the end result was the same.
"This room is too dull" said Elizabeth.
Mary looked around. The room was a study in greens. She liked it. It was like being in a forest glade; only without insects. She disliked insects. She hated their incessant buzzing. And with her bad eyes she could never see where they were.
"I don't think so. I find it very soothing" she said.
"I think a nice yellow would brighten it up considerably. Cheer things up. I will have Mr. Darcy send some painters over." said Elizabeth.
Mary hated yellow. That arbiter of fashion, Lydia, had once told Mary that wearing yellow made her look sallow. And for once Mary had agreed with Lydia. She owned nothing that was yellow. The closest was her gold wedding ring. Besides, she had always thought cheerfulness a false emotion.
"No, don't bother. I like it as it is."
"Don't worry, it's no bother" said Elizabeth. "Now about the furniture, in the attics at Pemberley I saw …"
And so, just as at Longbourn Mary's entire life, Elizabeth ignored Mary's opinions; and proceeded to redecorate and refurnish the whole Vicarage (one thing of course having led to another) to her own taste. Which was exquisite but that is beside the point as far as Mary was concerned.
And Elizabeth's munificence did not end there. Elizabeth took to dressing Mary. Fabric was provided, appointments were made with the dressmaker in Kympton, and questions were asked if Mary did not appear dressed in something made with such fabric.
And the food; not a day passed when Elizabeth was not sending, or bringing, some foodstuff to the Vicarage. It seemed that the Vicarage had become an extension of Pemberley's larder to the point that Mary had no accounts outstanding with any of the merchants of Kympton.
Mary complained to her husband, the Vicar, asking him to intercede with Mr. Darcy. The Vicar, knowing of Mr. Darcy's, to be charitable, over protectiveness of Mrs. Darcy and having no desire to run afoul of it, and besides, rather enjoying the manna, counselled Mary that when she was accosted with Mrs. Darcy's benevolence, she should turn the other cheek and be gracious about it.
Everyone who visited Mary admired the transformation of the Vicarage and asked her to pass on their compliments to Mrs. Darcy (everyone in the vicinity of Pemberley knew whose doing it was) which Mary, with a smile modeled on Miss Bingley's smarmy one, said she would. And, in obedience to her husband's edict, she did. But she took a perverse pleasure in embellishing some of the compliments on the theory that you could never spread the jam too thick. No one heard her teeth grinding.
Wednesday, September 15, 1813
Primrose Cottage, Kympton, Derbyshire
Mary thought Jane's arrival in Kympton would deliver her from Elizabeth's generosity. Elizabeth would shower her largess on her favourite sister, Jane, and Mary would resume her role as the forgotten sister and finally be left alone to run her household as she wished.
She was wrong.
The garden of the Vicarage adjoined the garden of Primrose Cottage, the two gardens being separated by a hedge. There was a gap in the hedge and Mary was almost there (she was headed to see how Jane and Rick fared) when she heard voices. Jane and Elizabeth were talking on the other side of the hedge. She would have continued through the gap and greeted them but she heard Elizabeth say "Mary let me" and so she stopped and eavesdropped.
"Perhaps she had no choice" said Jane.
"No choice? Mary had lots of choices. She picked out that nice yellow in the drawing room" said Elizabeth.
Mary had to chew on her knuckle to keep from gasping.
Jane said "I won't argue with you, Mary's drawing room is yellow now, whomever chose it, but mine will not be. The cottage is fine the way it is."
"But…"
"No, there will be no painting."
"But what about furniture? You need …"
"The furniture in the cottage is fine."
"But …"
"No."
"Just let me …"
"No."
Elizabeth changed tack with no better result. "Will you come to dinner tomorrow night?"
"No."
"Papa would like to see you."
"He told you that?"
"Well … no, not in so many words, but you should come see him."
"No, if he wants to see me, he can come with you the next time you come to tea."
"Well, if that's the way you feel," Elizabeth huffed. "I'll leave you to your own devices." And she left Jane's garden.
Jane watched Elizabeth leave and then she said "You can come over now, Lizzy is gone."
Mary stepped through the gap in the hedge. "You could see me?" she asked.
"Yes, but Lizzy couldn't. Come into the house and I'll pour you a cup of plain, ordinary tea."
Once the two ladies were settled, each with their cup of tea and a slice of Banbury cake, Mary said "How can you say 'no' to Lizzy like that? I must have said 'no to yellow' two and twenty times and I still ended up with a yellow drawing room."
Jane, who knew of Mary's antipathy towards all things yellow, shook her head, then reached over and patted Mary's hand. "Mr. Darcy is your husband's patron and so it behooves you to accept Mrs. Darcy's largess. On the other hand, I am not in thrall to Mr. Darcy; neither he nor Mrs. Darcy have any hold on me, and so I shall do as I please. And as it so happens, it pleases me to leave my cottage the way it is, and it pleases me not to attend at Pemberley."
Mary gasped in shock at Jane's candour, and not a little at the bitterness inherent therein, but recovered gracefully, and soon the two were talking of gardens.
Mary and Jane became confidants, and the best of friends; quite supplanting Elizabeth, although she was not aware of this as the three of them were so seldom in company together.
Friday, July 17, 1818
The Vicarage, Kympton, Derbyshire
And so, in 1818, when Jane discovered that Mr. Darcy did indeed have something over her, as he took her son away from her, Mary burned in empathy. Then it became very personal when Jane announced that she was leaving Kympton and Mary faced the loss of her only true friend. Mary's anger had almost burnt through her native reserve to a point where she was prepared to say things to Mr. Darcy, that once said, could never be retrieved, 'damn the consequences', when Mr. Edwards informed her that Mr. Travers had died and they could also leave Derbyshire if she wished.
Mr. Travers was the rector of Werburgh Parish, home parish of the brothers Edwards. Mr. Travers had been appointed to the living back in '96 by Edwards père. Mr. Travers had been of the full age of fifty and nine at the time and it was anticipated that he would have 'shuffled off this mortal coil' by the time Daniel Edwards had taken orders. But Mr. Travers confounded all expectation by easily exceeding his allotted three score and ten years and in fact looked to be heading for a Methuselahian age so Daniel Edwards had applied for, and accepted, the living at Kympton. And now a simple misstep leading to a fall off the chancel had killed Mr. Travers.
Sir James Edwards, Bart., older brother (by twenty minutes) of Daniel, wanted to offer the living to his twin but was reluctant to given that the Rectory was old and small, suitable perhaps for a widower as Mr. Travers was, but not for a young and growing family. Lady Edwards, née Bennet, really wanted her sister, Mary, to come live beside her. Kitty had always been a follower, and having acknowledged that to herself, thought that sensible and moral Mary would be a good leader to follow (Lydia already having proven the folly in following a foolish and frivolous leader). Kitty prevailed upon her husband (which is to say that he gave her the credit for an idea he had been on the verge of having when she mentioned it) to give Daniel and Mary title, in fee simple, to the dower house and the adjacent one hundred acres; they could then rent out the rectory if they wished.
An express was sent to Kympton with the offer and the acceptance was returned by express the same day it was received.
Mary left Kympton, and by extension, Pemberley, with nary a second glance.