Chapter Five Mr. Dane proposes

It was now only three days until the family departed for Humberton and then Pemberley. They could not go soon enough for Mary. The flurry of preparations before the departure helped keep her occupied but any remaining spare time was spent constantly thinking about Mr. Dane.

The shock and disappointment was not something that she could easily recover from despite all her admonitions to herself and the repeating of words of advice from the classics. Mr. Dane's words about respecting and esteeming one's spouse came to her again and again. Each time, Mary grew angrier at his hypocrisy and underhandedness. She examined her own conduct minutely to see if she had anything to reproach herself about but concluded that she did not.

Her new dresses were delivered the day after the ball. Any pleasure that Mary might have felt as she tried each pretty creation on before packing them away, was destroyed by the words she kept hearing repeated in her head, 'Plain to boot.' It was also galling to reflect that her efforts to take more exercise and to be more restrained in eating had not yet appeared to have paid any dividends in her appearance.

The evening shadows were beginning to fall over the gardens the next day when Mary and Kitty took a stroll around the garden. Mary happened to catch sight of Mr. Dane coming towards them. She stiffened and said to Kitty, 'I have changed my mind. I will return to the house.'

She at once turned around and began to walk away.

'Miss Bennet!' Mr. Dane called.

Mary pretended not to hear him and continued to walk away, faster than before. However, Mr. Dane had much longer legs than she, and no long skirts to hamper him, and easily caught her up.

'Did you not hear me call you?' he asked.

'Did you call me?' Mary feigned ignorance.

'Yes, but no matter. Good afternoon, Miss Kitty. Miss Bennet, I would like to speak to you on a very important matter.' He looked significantly at her and then at Kitty who immediately said that she wished to smell the roses on the other side of the garden. She moved away before Mary could protest.

'Important matter?' echoed Mary. She was sure she sounded like a parrot.

'Very, I.., could you not stop for a moment please, Miss Bennet?'

Mary reluctantly halted and looked at Mr. Dane. He coughed and began again.

'I wish to say something very particular to you, Miss Bennet.'

'Yes?' Mary wondered that he could not detect the coldness of her tone.

'We have only recently become acquainted, but I flatter myself that an attachment has sprung up between us. Miss Bennet, would you do me the honour of consenting to be my wife?'

He had done it. Mr. Dane had actually asked her to marry him in order to stop any other gentleman forming an attachment to her while she was away. But this did not expose jealousy on his part only calculation. If he had only asked her before the ball! She would have been so delighted. Then Mary reflected if she had consented to a proposal before she had heard the conversation at the ball, it would have been very difficult to then withdraw from the engagement if she had subsequently discovered his perfidious nature.

Mr. Dane was gazing at her. He was expecting her to say something. He was so very confident she would say yes.

'You are asking me to marry you?'

'If you would be so kind,' answered Mr. Dane, half laughing.

This inflamed Mary. He did not even give her the courtesy of seriousness.

'And why should you wish to marry me, Mr. Dane?'

He looked puzzled. 'Why should I wish to marry you?' Now, it was his turn to sound like a parrot.

'I would like to know your reasoning behind this proposal. We are both rational creatures.' She darted a look at him. 'I am sure you have given a great deal of thought to this.'

Mr. Dane frowned. 'Why would I not wish to marry you?' he tried.

'A very charming answer, Mr. Dane but it will not do. Please answer my question.'

'Because you are an intelligent and educated woman, I have warm feelings towards you, and I believe that it would greatly enhance my chance of future contentment with you as my wife.'

'And does the fact that my uncle is your employer have anything to do with your proposal?'

Mr. Dane blinked at the question. 'It did slightly, but only very slightly influence me,' he admitted. 'It made the prospect even sweeter.' He smiled at her.

'Therefore I take it that if I had not been related to your employer, I would not be receiving this marriage proposal?'

'Your assumption is incorrect. I would have proposed whether you were Mr. Philip's nephew or not. That was not a major factor in my decision.'

'Really? Because I heard another story from your friend, Mr. Sutton, on the evening of the ball,' Mary told him.

Mr. Dane's eyebrows drew together. 'What did he say?'

'I heard him relate how your campaign to marry one of your employer's nieces was going. I heard you told him that you had been warned off the prettier niece but that the library was a consolation for being forced to choose the plainer niece and although I was only tolerable, beggars could not be choosers.' She flung the words at Mr. Dane as if they had been stones and saw him recoil.

'Miss Bennet, whatever you may have heard, please let me explain—' Mr. Dane began.

She interrupted him with, 'No. I cannot conceive of an explanation that would satisfy me. I do not wish to marry you Mr. Dane. I have been much deceived in you. I thought you a man of good character who possessed both sense and a delicacy of feeling, but you have revealed yourself to be a calculating, cold hearted, mercenary man. Good day to you, sir.'

Mary called to Kitty, 'Come now, it is time to go into the house.'

She turned on her heel without waiting to see if Kitty followed and walked into the house. She looked over her shoulder and saw Mr. Dane staring after her. Her eyes were burning but she vowed fiercely to herself that she would not cry.

'What happened?' asked Kitty as she entered the hallway. 'Have you two quarrelled?'

'Mr. Dane and I do not agree,' replied Mary.

'Ooh, so you have quarrelled. What about?'

'Kitty, I must beg you never to mention Mr. Dane's name to me again,' Mary said impressively.

Kitty gaped at her.

As she went up the stairs, as swiftly as she could in her skirts, her mother called out from the parlour, 'Who is that? Mr. Dane? Is he not coming in? Why did he come then?'

Mary could not bear the torrent of questions and was glad to reach the sanctuary of her room. She had been very afraid that she might burst into tears while talking to Mr. Dane, and then when talking to Kitty. Then she heard her mother storming up the stairs and braced herself. Her mother flung open the bedroom.

'Why did Mr. Dane go away so quickly? What did he say to you?'

Mary hesitated. She had no wish to lie to her mother.

'He came to propose.'

'To propose?' shrieked her mother. 'Oh what wonderful news.'

'I declined his proposal,' Mary said quickly.

'You declined him? Mary, what were you thinking?'

'Mr. Dane and I would not suit.'

'Is it because he is only an attorney's clerk? A little low for us it's true but you may never get another proposal, you know.'

Mary had not considered people might think she had turned down the proposal because of Mr. Dane's position. She was not surprised her mother might think this, but she hoped Mr. Dane did not.

'That is not the reason,' she said.

'Then why?'

Mary found that even if Mr. Dane had only wanted to marry her to improve his prospects, she did not wish to tell her mother that. Her mother would tell her aunt who would tell her uncle and that might damage Mr. Dane. Angry though she was, she had no wish to injure his prospects. That would be an ignoble thing to do.

'I prefer not to discuss it,' she said.

'You prefer? I am your mother and I have a right to know.'

Mary said nothing. Her mother waited but Mary was determined not to have any more words about the matter. In the end, her mother turned and left the room with an angry swish of skirts.

Mary's tears fell for some time before she was able to gain her composure.