Rockhill
The next morning
Mary Bennet stared down at the pianoforte, her fingers tingling with anticipation. Her own instrument at Longbourn was a reasonably fine one, but this one was magnificent with its gleaming dark wood and ivory keys. It appeared that her Uncle Gardiner was either quite wealthy or willing to indulge his eldest son, given that he had purchased such a fine instrument.
She quickly glanced through the lavish stack of sheet music sitting casually on a table nearby. She chose a selection of some difficulty which she had been working on for some time, but which she was close to mastering.
With a sigh of relief, she sat down on the bench, placed the music so she could see it, and began playing.
Her body relaxed as her fingers moved. Mary had been here at Rockhill for only a day now and while her new relations were charming and kind, she felt very out of place. She had only left Longbourn twice before, both times for short visits with her other Gardiner relations in London. She knew her place at Longbourn; she was the plain but most accomplished daughter. She knew her father thought her foolish and her mother was indifferent to her because of her lack of beauty. It was not, she knew, an ideal situation, but it was home and it was familiar.
Rockhill was jarringly odd. Many of the servants were Indian or Anglo-Indian, and some spoke another language to one another. The food was also strange, with odd spices. Her new cousins were incredibly welcoming and her aunt Sophia had literally embraced her with motherly fervor, but she still felt unsettled.
It suddenly occurred to her why she was so uneasy; she was certain that her new relations would be disappointed in her, just as everyone eventually was. Jane was incredibly handsome and kind, Elizabeth beautiful and bright, Kitty lovely if fragile. But she was just plain Mary. Uncle Aaron, and Aunt Sophia, and her new cousins, would find her wanting, and they would either ignore or pity her, and it was hard to bear that. She had not wanted to come to Rockhill, but her mother had given her no choice...
There was a sudden movement in her peripheral vision and she stopped suddenly in alarm. Her eldest cousin, the Earl of Chartham, was standing inside the door of the music room, an odd expression on his face.
"Lord Chartham," Mary said uncomfortably, rising to her feet. They had met last night at dinner but due to the seating arrangements, they had done nothing more than exchange conventional greetings.
The young Earl flinched slightly and shook his head. "Cousin Philip, please, Miss Mary."
She smiled a little. "Cousin Philip, then."
The Earl gazed at her with unnerving focus and she felt herself blushing. "Do you wish to play the pianoforte, sir?" she asked.
"No," Philip replied as he took a slight step forward. "Miss Mary, I have lived all my life in India and I confess I do not entirely understand British societal standards. May I ask you a personal question?"
Mary's blush deepened even more. "I ... you may ask, certainly, Cousin Philips. I cannot promise to answer."
"Do you enjoy playing the pianoforte, Miss Mary?"
Her mouth hung open briefly in amazement before she closed it with a firm click, "Enjoy it? I do not understand."
"Do you enjoy playing? Or do you play to bless others with music, or to impress others with your talents, or because a parent pressured you to play? Any of those reasons are valid ones. I merely wondered."
Miss Mary Bennet stared in amazement at the young man, whose eyes were strangely passionate.
"I ..." she said slowly, her brow furrowed with thought, "I do not entirely know. I do enjoy playing the pianoforte very much but I suppose perhaps I play to please others too, and to garner some attention for myself. I am not certain of all my motives, sir."
Philip took another step forward, and his face relaxed slightly. "You do enjoy playing, however."
"I do," his cousin replied in bewildered tone.
He let out a deep sigh and nodded slowly, "Then let me help you, Cousin Mary. I watched you play, and I can see both your long hours of practice and your interest in the music, but you are not playing as well as you could."
Mary stared at him with a mixture of humiliation and anger, and she said, "I do not understand what you mean, Lord Chartham. I have worked very hard and I play far better than anyone else in Meryton."
The young man shook his head apologetically and said, "I understand that may be true, but your timing is not quite perfect and, more than that, you do not press the keys with a sufficient variation in pressure. It truly hurts my heart that someone with your devotion and talent has not had the proper training."
"You cannot teach me," Mary insisted. "You are an earl, not a music master!"
Philip's eyes lit up with strange enthusiasm. "My parents met when my father was my mother's music master," he explained. "Not my actual father, of course, but Mr. Gardiner is my true father in every way that counts. I assure you that I would like nothing more than to work with another music lover like yourself."
Mary blinked at him in awe. He wished to spend time with her?
"Not Elizabeth?" she asked cautiously.
Philip shook his head and declared, "Your sister Elizabeth clearly enjoys playing, but she freely admits that she does not practice as often as she could because she has other interests. There is nothing wrong with that, but I have no desire to instruct someone with only a passing fancy for music."
Mary felt her face flush as she nodded, "I would be honored, Cousin Philip."
/
Darcy looked around the study with satisfaction. When he had first arrived at Rockhill, this room had been disorganized and disheveled; now, after considerable work by various servants, Mr. Gardiner, and Darcy himself, the documents and stewards' books were neatly organized, and the great desk was swept clean save for an inkpot and pen and a neat pile of foolscap.
He bent over the ledger in his hands, one which marked the crops grown on the nearby fields from year by year, just as there was a knock at the door. Aaron Gardiner, who was writing a list, looked up and called out, "Come in!"
The door opened to reveal Elizabeth Bennet, dressed in yellow, her expression uncertain. "Uncle Gardiner, may I come in?"
"Please do come in, Elizabeth," Aaron said with a smile.
Elizabeth walked into the study and then stopped in surprise at the sight of Mr. Darcy, who rose to his feet at the sight of the lady he loved.
"Miss Elizabeth," he said happily.
"Mr. Darcy," she answered, and her expression was sufficiently grave that he immediately inquired, "Do you wish for private conversation with your uncle, Miss Elizabeth?"
"No, I would be honored if you could remain. I wish to speak of Mr. Wickham to my uncle."
Darcy frowned at this. "You have not done so before, I presume."
"No," Elizabeth said with a sidelong glance at Aaron, who was staring at them both, his face curious. "I sent a letter to my father warning him of Wickham's reprehensible habit of running up debts. It appears, based on Mary and Kitty's report, that my father has chosen to do nothing. I am greatly concerned about this matter."
"Mr. Wickham?" Mr. Gardiner demanded. "The young man who accused Mr. Darcy of denying him a living? I knew that miscreant was up to no good. So he defaults on debts, does he?"
Darcy hesitated briefly and then said, "Yes, he does, sir, but I fear Mr. Wickham has other vicious proclivities with regards to young women, which is another concern for the good people of Meryton and its environs."
"Ah," Aaron murmured, his forehead wrinkling as he thought deeply. "Well, it appears we must do something about that ..."
Elizabeth, observing the determination in her uncle's eyes, felt her body relax. Something, she knew, would be done about Wickham.
/
A light and playful breeze ruffled pleasantly at Kitty's hair, and she lifted her brush as another wisp of cloud scudded briefly across the sun, waiting until the stronger light returned. It was a beautiful spring day, and she and fifteen-year-old Ruth had brought out chairs and easels and canvases and paints to set up under an old spreading elm near to the stables. Now the flowers and trees and fences around them frisked across their canvases in likeness.
The sun returned, and Kitty shifted in her chair, which creaked a little in protest, before thoughtfully dabbing her brush into the paint at her side and making another careful stroke across the canvas before her.
"Alexander, Rebekah!" a voice shouted near her right ear.
Kitty jerked in surprise, which caused her brush to shake. The green paint dabbed against the white canvas where no paint was intended to be.
She huffed in disgust, causing Ruth to say apologetically, "I am so very sorry, Kitty. I should not have been so loud."
Kitty sighed and smiled a little, "It is quite all right. I do not paint well anyway. It hardly matters."
Ruth tilted her head to inspect the image of trees and fields forming on the canvas, and said, "I think it is lovely, Kitty. In any case, my art master back in India says that so long as you are having fun, it does not matter how good it is. Are you enjoying yourself?"
Kitty smiled at her tentatively, "Yes, I am, Ruth."
She was telling the truth. For all that she had whined and fussed about coming to Rockhill, she was finding her time very pleasant indeed. Both of her new female cousins had been welcoming, as had her new aunt and uncle. Kitty also relished being out of Lydia's shadow; her younger sister always insisted that Kitty follow her lead, and Kitty was sufficiently weak willed that she did not care to fight against Lydia's powerful personality. But Ruth and Rebekah, and Jane and Elizabeth and Mary, were much kinder than Lydia.
"Good afternoon, Cousin Kitty, Ruth!" Alexander Gardiner said, riding up on his horse.
Ruth looked up into her brother's face, her expression roguish, "Alexander, will you do me a favor?"
"Perhaps," her brother replied cautiously.
"Can you and Rebekah please sit on your horses here for the next two hours while I paint you?" Ruth asked innocently.
Alexander looked briefly horrified, and then laughed along with Rebekah, who had just ridden her own steed up next to her younger brother.
"I do not believe that even my sweet Daisy would sit still that long," Rebekah commented, patting her white mare gently on the neck. "As for that deranged horse of Alexander's ..."
"Not deranged," her brother protested. "Kestrel is spirited, not crazy!"
Kitty stood up and edged back just slightly at these words. Her cousin's chestnut was very tall and his powerful legs were shifting around impatiently near the painting easels.
"Do not be alarmed," Rebekah said quickly. "Kestrel will not harm you, truly."
"I am not very familiar with horses," Kitty admitted. "We have a few horses at Longbourn, but they are older and mostly work the farm."
"Do you ride, Cousin Kitty?" Alexander asked, suddenly swinging down from the saddle to face her at ground level. He was a tall young man so he still loomed over her diminutive form, but she could see him far better than when he was up on his giant of a horse.
"No," Kitty confessed. "Jane does, but the horses have been busier in the last years so I never learned."
"Would you like to learn?" Rebekah asked kindly. "Daisy is a very gentle mare."
Kitty hesitated. She truly loved horses and would have liked to learn to ride, but Lydia had never been interested.
"I do not have a riding habit," she admitted shyly.
"You can borrow one of mine," Ruth said with enthusiasm. "I do not enjoy riding nearly as much as my older siblings, so it is no hardship for me if you borrow mine. Please do, Kitty. If Alexander and Rebekah are teaching you how to ride, they will have the horses slow down enough to let me paint properly. It is hard to get the lines right when the horses' legs are a blur!"