"Mary, I must speak to you," Mrs. Bennet said, entering Mary's bedchamber as Mary packed the last of her things.
"Certainly, Mama," answered Mary, "What would you wish to speak to me about?" Her mother, if it was possible, looked too discomforted to speak. Mary was surprised, for she had never known her mother to be shy about speaking on any subject.
"Mary," her mother began, "tomorrow you will be a wife. Mr. Wickham will have certain expectations of you tomorrow evening. Do you know of what I refer?"
"I believe so. Marital relations, to produce children."
"Yes Mary, that is right. He will come to your chamber tomorrow night, and I am glad to hear he has two bed chambers, else I know not what you might suffer. You must lie down on the bed. He will lift your nightdress and he will insert himself into the area out of which your courses come. He will move inside of you. Then he will be done, and he will leave you alone. It will hurt, but not a great deal. Do you have any questions?"
"No, Mama."
"Very good, child, now off to bed with you, lest you look wretched in the morning. If you do not look your best, Mr. Wickham might not wish to marry you, and then what should become of you?" her mother said, in the way of a goodnight. Mary changed out of her dress and into her nightgown and laid down on her bed, wondering how the two descriptions of the marriage bed she had heard varied so much. She supposed her mother was attempting to frighten her, as Mr. Wickham said. Yet, she could not think what use there was to frightening her. She was to wed on the morrow. Either way, he was to be her husband, so why not tell the truth?
Just as Mary decided to think of other things and attempt to sleep, there was a knock on her door.
"Enter," she called.
"Mary," her Aunt Gardiner said softly.
"Yes, Aunt?"
"Has your mother spoken to you?" her aunt asked, entering the room.
"She just left not a quarter-hour ago."
"And she spoke to you of the wedding night?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Did you have any questions that you wish to ask?"
"Aunt," Mary began, "Mother said I would suffer unless George and I had separate chambers. We decided that we shall share one chamber, since we only have two and we wish to use the other for other things. Why would sleeping next to him cause me to suffer? I have often shared chambers when your family visits or when visiting friends, or just when I fall asleep in Jane or Lizzy's bed. George says he does not believe he snores, at least as far as he has been told."
"I see. And your George, he is kind to you? He is a good man?" she asked.
"Oh yes, Aunt. That is, he says when he was younger, he was not such a good man, but his circumstances changed about 6 years ago. He stopped playing cards and drinking strong liquor because he had greater responsibilities. He realised that he needed to be a better man to meet those responsibilities."
"Well, I believe we can forgive his youthful follies since he has overcome them," her aunt said, taking up the seat at Mary's vanity "but he is kind to you? He listens to you when you speak, and he speaks kindly to you?"
"Oh yes, Aunt. He is very good to me. I was so very frightened when we first become betrothed, as he was so unknown to me. But he has been very kind and reassuring and I like him very well."
"That is good, my dear," her aunt said. Her aunt looked thoughtful for a moment. "Has he kissed you?" she asked, and Mary blushed.
"Yes, Aunt. I know I should not have allowed him, but it was not so long until the wedding and I did not see any very great harm that might come from it," she explained in a rush.
"My dear niece, you need not justify yourself to me. Did you like his kisses? Did it feel good?"
"Yes, it felt very good. It was a most unusual feeling, but it was good." Mary was certain her cheeks must be crimson. "I wished him to kiss me again, and didn't wish to go back to the path we were walking on. I wanted to be alone with him. You must think me wanton, Aunt," said Mary, ashamed.
"I will not scold you, my dear. The fact that you have such feelings does bode well for your felicity in marriage. If you enjoyed that, and it made you feel such a way, you will enjoy marital relations. You need not feel ashamed of what will happen in your marriage bed. However, if you do share a bed nightly, relations may happen…more regularly than it would if you slept separately. Men's ardour can arise from sleep, and when you are there upon his waking, he may wish to fulfil his urges."
"I believe I understand, Aunt."
"Good. Now, I have a gift for you as well, a nightgown and wrapper to wear tomorrow night. I am putting it in your smaller trunk, so you may find it easily. Try to relax, get some sleep, and do not think about what your mother told you. She is very silly sometimes," Aunt Gardiner said, kissing her cheek and quitting the room. Mary tried to sleep but could not. She thought of what she had been told by George, her mother, and now her aunt, his lips on hers, and the deep stirring it had caused inside her.
Eventually, she must have fallen asleep, for she awoke to the sound of her mother yelling at Lizzy, and Kitty and Lydia running down the hallway with the Gardiner children. Sarah came into her room to help her dress in her gown, the most beautiful gown she had ever owned. It was ice blue with silver embroidery, another gift from her Aunt Gardiner. Sarah pinned up Mary's hair in an intricate style, leaving just a few curls out to frame her face. Mary allowed her to apply a small amount of rouge to her cheeks and coal dust to her lashes. She vastly preferred the rouge to pinching her cheeks. Sarah even mixed the rouge with a small amount of fat and applied it to Mary's lips to brighten them. Mary donned her blue slippers, complete with new white shoe roses, and waited for the rest of her sisters to finish their own preparations.
"Sarah! You must help me find my pink shoe roses!" Lydia cried.
"Leave Sarah alone. She is helping Mary," Kitty hissed.
"It's not as if Mary cares a wit what she looks like anyway. She never has. Besides, it is not as if Wickham can back out now. I want to look beautiful for Colonel Fitzwilliam and some of the soldiers from the regiment in Meryton will be there. I don't want some boring attorney. I will marry an officer," Lydia claimed.
"I believe Colonel Fitzwilliam is only here to wish his friend happy in his marriage, not to find a wife for himself, Lydia. Sons of earls do not marry penniless flirts," said Kitty.
"When did you become such a bore? La, you sound like Lizzy, Kitty. You have been spending far too much time with that Miss Darcy. She is so very dull."
"She is not dull. She is reserved, but she is very kind, and she tells wonderful stories. You simply have not been there to listen for you have gone off to chase officers instead of helping Mary and Wickham during their courtship."
"Stories! The officers must certainly have better stories than Miss Darcy. What does she know?"
"She has been all over England, and to Spain as well! Did you know that she went to Ramsgate this past summer? She told me of sea-bathing and all of the corals and shells she found. She even has been on a ship! Besides, Colonel Fitzwilliam says the militia do not make enough money to support a wife, at least not in the manner a woman of gentle breeding would be accustomed to. You would be poorer than Mary unless the gentleman has a fortune of his own or is at least a General. Some of the lower officers earn less than your pin money!"
"I don't believe you," Lydia protested.
"You should. The Colonel would know better than you!"
"Lydia! Kitty!" Elizabeth called, "We are leaving in just a moment. Find your slippers and come downstairs." Kitty went downstairs as she was ready to leave, but Lydia ran around for nearly ten more minutes, with the help of Sarah who located the shoe roses that Lydia had lost.
When they finally arrived at the wedding, they were nearly the last to arrive. Mr. Darcy was waiting at the door, looking nervous. He sighed in relief when he saw them, and all except Mary and Jane to their seats. The wedding was lovely. Mary looked beautiful, and very happy, regardless of what Lydia thought. When the bride and groom looked at each other as they said their vows, no one would have assumed that they had only known each other for a few weeks or that their match had not been made purely from affection. Kitty thought that she would rather like a man to look at her the way that Wickham looked at Mary.
Mr. Darcy surprised the couple by purchasing the home that Mr. Wickham had been renting and presenting the deed as a wedding gift. Mr. Wickham was so touched by the generosity of his friend that he embraced him in the sight of the entire wedding breakfast. Mr. Darcy stood stiffly throughout the embrace, to the great amusement of the attendees. Mr. Darcy was quite mortified as he had not meant for his gift to be noted by anyone other than the groom, for he, like his sister, disliked drawing attention to himself.
Mr. Bingley and Colonel Fitzwilliam spent the wedding breakfast making themselves agreeable to all. They were decided to be the most pleasant young men to have ever visited Hertfordshire. Mr. Darcy was as he ever was, reserved yet well-mannered. He danced some, but not all, of the dances, including once with each Bennet sister. Several other of the Darcy relations had come to the wedding, including Mr. Darcy's great-uncle, Mr. Frederick Darcy, who was a retired judge. Wickham and the elder Mr. Darcy stood talking law for some time together, and Wickham was glad to have reconnected with such an amiable and useful acquaintance.
Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley spent the entire wedding breakfast finding things to dislike about the arrangements and Longbourn itself. The rooms were smaller than at Netherfield, so the party had to be spread throughout the entire ground floor. The food was not fine enough. The cake was too plain. Mostly, however, they enjoyed themselves as they were able to whine the entire breakfast. Lord Barlow's manner baffled Kitty greatly. At first, during the meal, in particular, he seemed to frown and be displeased by everything. When the music began, however, he asked Jane to dance with him and later asked Mary as well. He danced twice more, once with Charlotte Lucas and once with Grace Goulding, and no more. He was a good dancer, Kitty would give him that, although his conversation was lacking. He answered all of her attempts at conversation with as few words as possible. She was not, then, disappointed to discover that Lord Barlow was to return to Matlock with his brother, leaving the next day after the wedding, for while she thought him terribly handsome, she found his manner displeasing.
When Mary and Wickham departed from the wedding breakfast, it was already early afternoon. Mr. Darcy ensured that all of the leftovers were packed up into baskets, and that two of such baskets were sent home with Mr. and Mrs. Wickham so they would not have to worry about cooking for the first few days of their marriage.
As soon as the Longbourn carriage pulled out of sight of the waving guests, Wickham pulled the shades on the windows closed and began to kiss Mary.
"George, Tom and Tristian will hear us."
"I don't care," he said. He pulled back and looked at her. "They are men, and even if the coachmen did not hear us, they would likely assume as much. Now please, my darling, my dear Mary, if you truly wish me to stop, I will, but I desperately do not want to."
"Very well. Do not muss my hair. I don't want them to see me look a mess," she said. With great joy, he continued his onslaught, his lips kissing every bit of exposed skin, and as much as he could reveal without undoing her gown. She was certain that the coachmen, who had known her for nearly her entire life, could hear her reacting to his attentions. When the sound of gravel country roads changed to that of cobblestones as they entered Meryton, she bade him desist and straightened their appearance before their arrival. She could not look the coachmen in the eyes as they unloaded the last of her belongings into her new home and took their leave.
Wickham swept her up and carried her to the bedchamber as soon as the door closed behind the coachmen.
"I'm supposed to wear the nightgown my aunt got me," she protested.
"It is four in the afternoon. You don't need a nightgown," he responded, turning her away from him so he could undo her buttons. She couldn't quite make his logic fit with the fact that they were also retiring at four in the afternoon, but she surrendered to his superior knowledge.
It is not the purpose of this work to relate what happened next. I leave this portion of the narrative up to the imagination of each reader. It is sufficient to say that Mary became Mrs. Wickham in every way that mattered.
"Are you well, Mary?" Wickham asked. She lay on her stomach next to him, blankets covering her from the waist down.
"Mmmmhhhhmmm," she mumbled, eyes closed, "tired, though. And hungry." He retrieved one of the baskets that Darcy had sent with them and found cider, fruit, cheese, bread, and cake. He fetched two plates and two glasses from the kitchen and returned with their repast. They ate eagerly.
"I did not hurt you too much, did I? I saw you wince," he asked. And the blood. It made him slightly uneasy, even though he knew that there was always some blood for a maiden. She pinched his arm, hard.
"It felt like that. Now we are even," she said before kissing him on the cheek. He feigned injury, holding his arm with his other hand as if he had been shot. She laughed and pulled his hand away.
"It will be better next time, as you will not be a maiden and I will not be so out of practice."
"Out of practice?" she asked.
"It's supposed to take longer than that," he admitted self-deprecatingly, "I just lost control after going rather too long without…. practising. Six years is a very long time."
"As I am a complete novice, it is not as if I can judge your skill, so we shall apply ourselves to our practice to become accomplished in the activity. I believe you promised that after the first time, it felt better for the woman. I expect you to keep your promise."
"Indeed," he said, taking their dishes and setting them on the bedside table, after which he spent the next little while keeping his promise.