Mary couldn't remember ever not playing the piano.
When she was very small she had seen Jane learning to play and had demanded to be allowed to join in, and when this was vetoed by the master, had cajoled Jane into showing her everything she had learnt after each lesson. A few years later she had started lessons herself, learning from a rather weather-beaten old piano primer. At the back of a book was a catalogue of music by the author, and she had vowed to herself that one day she would know every song listed. By her late teens she had managed to track down a copy of almost every piece, plus many other works, and had become known amongst the young people of the neighbourhood for being willing to pay cash for copies of any songs not already in her possession, although where possible she would simply borrow the score and copy it out herself.
Learning to play all these songs was not generally any more difficult: she practiced doggedly every day, and was rarely caught out by any tricky key changes or odd tempos. As the years went on she sought out more and more difficult pieces, and prided herself on being able to play more different songs than the rest of her family put together.
But there was an entire section of the catalogue which remained out of her reach: the duets. Where there were two voice parts she learned them both without any difficulty, but could never find anyone to sing them with her. Even pliable Jane would protest that her voice was too poor to be borne, and after a few attempts Mary had been forced to agree. Worse were the duets with other instruments, since the piano was all that Mary knew how to play.
And so it remained until she came to Pemberley, and met Georgiana. She was everything Mary could have wished for: dedicated and talented, willing to practice for hours on end, and always jumping for the chance to play with someone else. She never gave criticism unless it was asked for, but her perfect pitch and experienced ear meant she noticed even the slightest error and was always ready with kind and softly worded advice. Not only did she play the piano with ease, but she had a fine voice and was an accomplished harpist.
This was, of course, insufferable, and had taken all the fun out of playing.
Being of resolute constitution, Mary was determined to continue regardless, and steadfastly practiced with Georgiana every morning.
"Mary," began her companion during their session the next day, "are you sure we want to perform this for everyone?"
Mary bristled. "Our fingering is perfect; we are in time with each other; I do not think we have anything to gain by practicing any more than we have. There is such a thing as having too high a standard, you know."
"Oh no," said Georgiana, "I did not mean to say we weren't any good! You are so precise! Though I still trip up on that final refrain. But no, I just meant that it is so scary to play for all those people. Your parents are family now, and I like them a great deal, but I do not want to embarrass them by playing badly. And my aunt and cousin have such fine tastes I am sure they will find fault with my playing."
"What is the purpose of learning the piano," asked Mary, "if not to perform for others?"
"I suppose that is true," replied Georgiana dubiously.
"Come now," said Mary, more kindly, "I have performed many times for audiences much larger than this, and by myself! In my experience, people will appreciate any music played with enough enthusiasm, and even in those times when I noticed myself slip up on a few notes, no-one complained. We are providing them with amusement after all, and their only responsibility is to listen and appreciate the fruits of our long labours."
"You are very brave. I could never perform for a room full of strangers!"
"Not so brave," said Mary. "When you come out you may find, as I did, that it is much more satisfying than trying to talk to a room full of strangers."
Mary left Georgiana to practice the final bridge one more time. As she walked towards the library, she wondered about Miss De Bourgh. She had seemed very ill last night, and at breakfast Lady Catherine had seemed convinced she would be bed ridden for at least a few days. Would they even have a chance to be properly introduced before Mary left?
She was thus surprised when she entered the library and once again saw Miss de Bourgh's head peeking up above the top of a chair.
"Good morning, Miss de Bourgh," she said, expecting to have to introduce herself and make conversation. Instead, Miss de Bourgh looked up and smiled briefly, then returned to the book laid out on her lap, caught in the folds of a large woollen blanket.
Mary took this as permission to return to her own book, and settled herself down at the table. Upon it lay the large old volume of natural history she had discovered hidden in an out-of-the-way shelf. She might have considered taking it out to read in another room, but it was very large, and very old, and anyway Miss de Bourgh did not seem like she would be a very disturbing companion.
The two shared the room quietly for some time. After a while, Mary was distracted from trying to puzzle out the inscriptions by a soft but noticeable sigh. She looked up, and saw Miss de Bourgh staring moodily into space, her book left dangling half off her lap. For a moment Mary wondered if she might need some sort of medical attention, but after a few moments passed and she did not ask for aid, Mary decided she must simply be bored. Not everyone was cut out for extended reading, after all.
More time passed. Mary was once again distracted by an audible sigh. This time, Miss de Bourgh was visibly frowning and rubbing her temples.
"Are you in need of assistance, Miss de Bourgh?" asked Mary.
Miss de Bourgh looked up but did not reply.
Mary took this as a 'No'.
The third time she was interrupted, Mary just glanced over briefly and was about to return to her book, when Miss de Bourgh finally spoke.
"I have trouble reading," she explained.
Mary was a little shocked. Trouble reading, at her age and in her position! She felt a sense of smug satisfaction: she might not be a member of the aristocracy, but at least she could read.
"My eyes strain very easily," continued Miss de Bourgh. "Mrs Jenkinson, my companion, used to read to me, you see."
Mary felt less smug and more sympathetic. Being too lazy to read was one thing, but to be physically prevented from reading! She could hardly imagine a worse fate.
"Oh," she replied. "How unfortunate."
There was an awkward silence.
"I suppose in a sense I cannot read my book either," commiserated Mary, "since it is in Latin."
There was another awkward pause. Mary got the distinct impression that Miss de Bourgh was annoyed at her, which seemed awfully unfair. It was not her fault Miss de Bourgh's eyes were faulty.
But, Mary reminded herself, invalids need special patience and care. The road they must travel is much bumpier than everyone else's, after all. She decided to be Christ-like in her generosity. "Would you like to look at my book?" she offered. "The pictures are quite large; they might not hurt your eyes as much as reading words."
When this received no positive reply beyond a hard to interpret expression, Mary could not think of anything else to say. Since she obviously was not going to be able to read in peace, she stood up and took her leave. Perhaps Georgiana needed some help practicing her chord progressions.
Miss de Bourgh was not at lunch: Lady Catherine said that she had a headache and needed some rest. When Mary went to the library again that afternoon, it was empty.
The kipper sat alone in the centre of a large white plate. A grey-orange sheen wavered over its glossy surface, and the sunken eyes in its bifurcated head glistened with fat.
Anne poked it gingerly with a fork.
Mrs Darcy frowned at her from her end of the table. "Is there something wrong with your food, Miss de Bourgh?" she asked with apparent sincerity. "Would you prefer something else?"
Anne's mother tore herself away from berating one of the servants about the table settings to look over at her daughter. "What is the matter, Anne?" she started before exclaiming, "Is that a kipper? Who served you this? You there! Come here this instant! Take away this wretched fish and get my daughter some appropriate food for an invalid."
After much wrangling and discussion about the correct soaking method for oats and pointed enquiries on the freshness of the cream, Anne was eventually served a bowl of porridge. She picked at it without much enthusiasm and watched the master and mistress of the house as they discussed their plans for the day. They were vexingly happy with one other.
She felt eyes upon her and was mortified to realise that Georgiana was watching her with concern. Anne coloured and turned away to attempt conversation with the person on her other side. Unfortunately, that person was Mr Bennet.
He started back from her salutation but rallied quickly. "I hope you are in better health this morning, Miss de Bourgh?"
She assented.
"Ah, good," he replied. "I think you were right to forgo the kippers. I mean no disrespect to Pemberley's cook, I am sure they are entirely fine as kippers go, but I never quite feel comfortable with my breakfast staring at me in that way." He then demonstrated his enthusiasm for breakfasts without eyes by taking a large mouthful of toast and chewing so determinedly as to prohibit further conversation. Miss Bennet, too, seemed unusually focussed on her mastication, and for no apparent reason Anne could figure.
Turning to observe her mother and Mrs Bennet, Anne was surprised to discover that Mrs Bennet was one of the few people of her acquaintance who was exactly as her mother had described her. The two older women were engaged in a spirited discussion about hypothetical names for any future Darcy children. Their opinions on this topic neither sought or desired, the parents of these hypothetical children were sharing some sort of private joke across the table.
Anne sighed, turned back towards Georgiana and smiled in what she hoped was a welcoming manner. Her cousin responded by flinching back with more horrified surprise than Mr Bennet. Anne wondered how people so easily spooked had lasted so long in a house with her mother.
Mrs Annesley looked at Georgiana with a mild frown. Georgiana nodded slightly and turned back to Anne with a brave attempt at a smile. She said, "I am glad you are well this morning; we were all quite worried about you yesterday." Mrs Annesley smiled at Georgiana approvingly, and Anne felt a pang of melancholy for her own lost Mrs Jennings, who had been of equal help when Anne was lost in difficult social situations. She had no such ally now.
"I am not well," replied Anne.
"Oh! No! Of course not, I just meant...um..." here she trailed off and looked about to attempt an escape like Mr Bennet's, before she suddenly exclaimed, "Mary!"
Miss Bennett looked up, surprised, from her philosophical meditations on eggs and toast.
"Miss Bennet and I are to perform a duet for everyone later, are we not, Miss Bennet?"
Miss Bennet swallowed and said, "Yes." She paused and then continued. "I hope you will be able to attend, Miss de Bourgh. Lady Catherine has mentioned that you are fond of music, and I have heard it said that music is food for the body as well as for the soul. Perhaps we two might affect some small positive change towards improving your physical afflictions."
Anne was spared having to think of some appropriate reply to this by Lady Catherine deciding to join the conversation.
"Anne! Georgiana! I am glad to see the two of you together again. It has been far too long since you came to visit us at Rosings, my dear. I know Anne has missed your company terribly."
Anne smiled encouragingly at Georgiana, but she hoped not so encouragingly that she might actually take up Lady Catherine's offer.
"It really is quite terrible about poor Mrs Jenkinson, for who is to take care of Anne now? Without someone to read to her she is quite without occupation."
"Oh!" said Georgiana. "That is terrible! Can no-one else read to her?"
"Well, but of course you would want to help, dear. I think this afternoon would be best, after we return from church."
Her goal achieved, Anne's mother went back to championing the proud history of the name Lewis, leaving her daughter and niece to wonder quite what had happened.
As Mary walked down the corridor after breakfast, she was unexpectedly accosted by a distraught Georgiana.
"Oh Mary, please tell me you will help me!" she said mournfully.
"If I can, of course, but with what?"
"Miss de Bourgh! It is not that I do not wish to read to her, but she is so fierce! I am sure I will read badly and she will be angry."
"Fierce?" repeated Mary. She thought back to the small, quiet women she'd seen at breakfast. "Is she the sort to be violent? I suppose she must be very different when she is well."
"Oh, no! She would never be violent! And she is never really well, though she does seem particularly fatigued at the moment. "
Mary regarded Georgiana with confusion.
"She never means to be cruel, I am sure, and it is not that what she says is so very critical, but...she has this look and I know she is displeased, and that makes me nervous, and then I say something really stupid, and that makes her more annoyed and it is just terrible."
"She does not make me nervous," said Mary stoutly.
"Exactly!" said Georgiana. "Even Lady Catherine does not pierce your calm, and I think she scares my brother. If you are there, I am sure I will be ever so much braver."
"What of Mrs Annesley?" Mary had come to admire Georgiana's companion's ability to stay calm and polite under the most trying of circumstances. Even Mary's mother could do no more than drive her to a coldly polite silence.
"Lady Catherine has taken a dislike to her," said Georgiana, sadly. "She said she would make Anne nervous, although I cannot see how. Will you help, Mary? Please."
Mary was unused to anyone desiring her presence. She could also see no way to say no without seeming unforgivably rude. "Yes," she said. "I would be glad to help."
Sitting in an ill-lit corner of Miss de Bourgh's room, Mary had ample opportunity to rue her generosity. As much as she did not enjoy reading to her mother, it turned out to be infinitely preferable to being forced to sit in silence and listen to someone else read what sounded like bad poetry in a language she didn't understand.
She had just counted all the leaves in the plaster cornices and was beginning to divide them into categories based on shape when Miss de Bourgh turned to her and said, "Do you not like poetry, Miss Bennet?"
"Poetry," Mary replied, "I have heard it said, is one of the finest forms of artistic expression devised by the human mind. I have memorised many edifying verses in both English and French. But I do not speak Italian."
"Oh," replied Miss de Bourgh. "Well, this can not have been very interesting for you."
"No."
"I am so sorry!" cried Georgiana. "How selfish of me not to think of it!"
"Do not be silly," replied Miss de Bourgh curtly. "It was my choice, and my responsibility. Now, Miss Bennet, which of these books would you find more suitable?"
Mary walked over to the bedside table and perused the spines of the small pile of books upon it. Some flicker of her thoughts must have passed across her face, since Miss de Bourgh felt the need to add, "My mother chose them."
"Ah."
Mary quickly rejected several volumes of poetry (there'd been enough of that for one afternoon) and anything that consisted mostly of pictures (that seemed rather to defeat the purpose). She began to wonder at finding anything worth reading, but right at the bottom of the pile found success.
Miss de Bourgh and Georgiana's faces fell when she held up her choice.
"The Pilgrim's progress?" asked Miss de Bourgh with a pained expression.
"It is regarded as one of the most significant works of English literature," replied Mary. "But I can choose something else if you wish."
"No, no, I am a woman of my word," she replied.
"Well, then. Georgiana, if you do not like it either, would you object to me reading the book instead?"
"Object? No, that would be...that is...no, I do not object," said Georgiana.
The two women swapped places cheerfully, both looking happy for the first time since entering the room. Mary settled into her chair and prepared her best reading voice. This afternoon might not be such a waste after all.