Chapter 21: The Heroine Departs
Mary awoke to find a morning which had dawned fair and gentle.
It is disquieting always when the weather is entirely disparate to one's mood; and it did not seem fitting to her, that the day should be so fine and pleasant, when her own current temperament was so inclined towards sullenness and listlessness.
At breakfast, she was joined only by her sister. Lady Catherine and her recovering daughter had requested their breakfast be brought up to them; and Georgiana was asleep still, doubtless exhausted by the tribulations of the previous night.
"Are you prepared, then? All your things packed?"
"Yes. I need only for them to be brought down." The sketch, Mary had decided, would remain at Pemberley, and she had left it sitting placidly still upon the desk in her room.
"Did you enjoy yourself at the dance? Mr. Benson's friends seemed to make you fair companions for the evening."
Mary smiled at Lizzy ruefully over her tea. "I should say they were more Georgiana's companions than they were mine; but in truth, the ball was not so tedious as I had feared."
"You are always too generous with your compliments, sister, dear," Lizzy said drily, and gave Mary a look which spoke to sisterly understanding and amusement. "And what of you, Mary? You shall not waste away in Longbourn? You shall not let it fret you, if Mama is too silly, or Papa too satirical?"
Mary caught at last that somewhere in the lightness of her sister's tone was an earnest note of concern, and lowered her cup. "I shall be perfectly alright, Lizzy," she said seriously. "I shall have much to occupy me, and Georgiana shall make a lovely correspondent, I am certain." And she meant the words as much as one could, without the capability to truly know what lay before them; but she believed – or at the very least, hoped earnestly – that as soon as she was back at Longbourn, and Pemberley was a distant recollection, growing only more indistinct with each day, that she would be soon in righting herself, and returning to her previous apathy. There now also, of course, loomed before her the vital consideration of what should become of her once the entail was inherited by Mr. Collins; but then, she told herself, that was a matter to reflect upon another day.
Whatever her fears for Mary had been, Lizzy seemed at least somewhat satisfied by her response; and the matter was brought up no more the rest of breakfast.
With her cases at last brought down, it seemed someone would have to be sent to waken Georgiana for her farewell; but then it was made known to them that the coach had not yet arrived; there seemed to be some untimely delay, and it was unclear when it should be expected.
Mary wavered between spending her remaining time in the library, or roaming the grounds; at last, she decided the weather was, after all, too inviting; and soon she was already as far as the gardens, and the avenue of lindens. She paused to lean against one of the great trees, and closing her eyes, she allowed herself to focus only on the coarseness of the trunk, the cool, teasing breeze against her cheeks, the honied scent of fresh bloom.
"Miss Bennet."
Mary started, and when she turned, she was under every impression that she was in a dream; that she lay in her bed still, fast asleep, having simply dreamt the entire morning thus far; for before her stood Mr. Crawford, his hat clutched in his hands, and his hair fairly disheveled from the wind.
But then, if it had been a dream, she was certain he should not have appeared to her thus – no, he should have been his usual composed, amused self. But as he stood before her now, he could not be accused of any great composure, for his dress was rumpled, and had an air of unkemptness about it; he gripped his hat tightly, with the air of one who is attempting to steady himself; and his voice, when he had called her name, had contained the colouring of urgency.
"Mr. Crawford," Mary said faintly. "Is something the matter?"
He paused a moment, and seemed to grow conscious as to how he must appear to her; he made a discernable effort to collect himself, straightening his coat, and relinquishing his iron grip upon his hat. "I apologize, Miss Bennet. I must appear to you to be in a rather unprepossessing state; but I fear I have had little chance to gather myself." He spoke swiftly, as if he feared he should be interrupted. "I could not entirely resolve myself to it, you see, for some days now; on whether I should delay the matter, or act upon it directly; and once at last I had resolved to acting upon it directly, it had by then become a matter of haste, that I should arrive without missing your departure. Therefore, I must beg pardon for my appearance, and state of disarray, and for not being so eloquent as would be generally desired in such matters; for I have not had much time, as it were, for a great deal of rest."
Mary could not say this reply had done much in reassuring her. For him to come upon her this morning, so suddenly, after she had at last settled upon the idea of never laying eyes upon him again, remained as acutely disconcerting to her as it had been at the start of his speech; she had not yet had time enough to regain her wits; and his agitated state, and unreserved manner of speaking, only served to perplex and unease her further. Indeed, what might she say to such a speech? All thought of joyous greeting, of natural and happy reunion, was deterred with such frenetic dialogue; and all imagined responses she might provide to his appearance, which she had planned and rehearsed in moments of hopeful fancy, were rendered now quite useless; she could hardly say, "Please, compose yourself, sir; let us take a turn about the garden, and restart this exchange one more time."
All she could think to do was to say, in the hope that the sooner she understood more of the matter, the better she might assist him: "I ask you, sir, to quit such vague and discreet terms, and to explain the matter directly, that I may better understand its urgency."
"Once again, I must ask for your pardon, Miss Bennet," Mr. Crawford said feelingly. "I have not found myself equal to fixing upon the proper phrases, that should suitably and completely express my sentiments; but all that is done now; I shall delay it no longer." And here, to Mary's great astonishment, he reached out, and took her hand in his, and said, with such intense sincerity, that she felt almost dizzy with it: "Miss Bennet, I wish to tell you that in these months I have known you here at Pemberley, you have claimed my heart quite thoroughly; and that indeed, I have bestowed it upon you gladly; and all that is left in the conclusion of my whole and total happiness is that you may return to me this favour, by accepting my hand in marriage."
This was the abrupt conclusion of his stunning address; and following it, there began a silence, which Mary, through the haze of shock which had descended upon her, knew that she alone was tasked with breaking.
Before her had suddenly been laid the precious promise of a future, a future to which she had been wholly insensible when she first awoke this morning; and she knew, in that moment, what it was to desire something, wholly, and passionately, and even madly; but indeed, rather than the veil of blind happiness which should have descended upon her then, she was instead those few moments made to endure some of the greatest anguish of all her life; for she knew, without any doubt, precisely the answer she must give.
"I must thank you most earnestly, sir, for your kind and noble intentions, and for the warmth of your feelings; but I fear I cannot accept the offer of your hand."
Here, then, descended a silence between them which was truly severe; words such as these could not easily be retracted; and certainly, their nature was no less a shock to Mary herself than they were to their recipient; but now that they had been spoken, she could not disavow herself of them; for regardless of how acutely agonizing they might be to her, she knew them to be nevertheless correct.
Mr. Crawford wore an expression of one who had just been wounded, sharply and mortally; but her hand had not yet been relinquished by his own. He spoke to her in a low, pleading tone. "If that is so, may I at least be given to understand from whence such a refusal stems?"
"I cannot accept you when you are in such a state, sir; you are not yourself; and I cannot know what matter has kept you from Pemberley all these days, but I can at least know that it has not produced a healthful effect upon you. Whatever you may think yourself to be desirous of at the moment, might appear very differently in several weeks' time, or in a month's; I cannot accept your offer, sir; it should be gravely unjust to the both of us." And here Mary removed her hand from his, not because of the intimacy it displayed, but because she had felt her hands begin to shake, and did not wish him to be conscious of it; for she would not allow him to know the pain she was inflicting upon herself in this moment, or the grave wound she was steadily cutting into her own heart.
But rather than assuaging him, her answer seemed to reanimate him with the disquiet manner with which he had at first appeared, and he declared, excitedly, "Oh! But if that is all you fear, Miss Bennet, you may reprieve yourself of it; for these are not sentiments which have been borne in the matter of mere days; as surely as I stand before you, I have felt affections for you long before I departed for London; I have felt them only burgeon and bloom each time we have spoken, and here, in this moment, they are now merely come to fruition, as such affections inevitably must."
"And if you had not been called away to London, and not been occupied with resolving some great misfortune, as you surely have been these past several weeks; if you had stayed at Pemberley, as would have been natural, you have no doubts, sir, that you had already plans then, at that moment, to propose to me marriage, before my departure?"
This was her final chance of solace; for if only he would take up her hand again in this instant, and say, 'Yes, surely, beyond any certainty, my dearest!' with such great conviction, that there should be no room left for doubts, if only he were to do that, then she might have been assured, and might have yielded to the painful temptation which was before her.
But alas, he hesitated. A moment passed before he could reply, and for that moment he could not meet her gaze; and even though he recovered himself swiftly, and began to speak assurances, and repeat confirmations that his warm feelings towards her, and his love for her, had begun long before his leave, he would not directly answer her question; and with this hesitation, he delivered a fatal blow to her heart, for it revealed to her the plain truth, as she desperately did not wish to see it; that there were external circumstances, circumstances unknown to her, which were the cause of this unexpected solicitation; and that, had they been removed, there might well have been no such solicitation at all.
"Sir, you have answered me clearly by not bestowing upon me an answer; do you not see, yourself, the folly of all this?" – this last was spoken almost harshly; she had not intended to exclaim it so loudly, but the cruelty of her situation had all at once overcome her.
Mr. Crawford was halted in his speech; for the first time, he seemed to truly look upon her, and examine her face, with a fixed intentness. "You will not believe that I mean it seriously," he concluded at last, in a quiet, defeated tone.
"Can you believe it yourself, sir?" Mary demanded. "You are half-mad with exhaustion; you have been these past few days busy with banishing your own doubts about coming here; you have only told me so yourself."
"Do you not believe, Miss Bennet, that at times one's circumstances do not preclude opportunity, but instead inspire it? And that even if one's intentions are hastened or spurred by a sudden misfortune, that they may nevertheless be just as pure, just as steadfast, as if they had come about naturally?"
"I believe, sir, that one's judgement is by necessity at such instances impaired; and that to barter on whether or not the fruits of such judgment are to be relied upon, can in the end be nothing but a fool's game."
This was a cruel way indeed to put an end to Mr. Crawford's remaining hopes; but an unfortunately effectual one. It was also a cruel way, certainly, to end such a fraught, tempestuous conversation, and she had not intended to conclude it thus; she had intended to follow it by saying, in a softer, more earnest tone, that she said this for his sake as much as for hers; that the neither of them deserved to be thus trapped in an ill-fated agreement; and that her resolution to this could be testament only to her concern, and regard, for him; but just then, a servant was seen coming around the corner of the house, with the clear intention of fetching her.
The both of them knew their conversation had drawn to its close; Mr. Crawford took a step back, his hat pressed tightly against his chest; she made the mistake of meeting his gaze for a moment, and saw within his eyes the injury she had inflicted upon the gentleman. "Mr. Crawford…" she said, almost in a whisper, but could not be made to finish her sentence.
He bowed stiffly to her, and said, "I can only assure you, madam, that my impaired judgment, as you call it, shall be not so easily overcome as you presume it to be." And then his expression softened, and she saw, briefly, the glimpse of the familiar Mr. Crawford she had come to know, and the fond, warm way which he had of looking upon her, though now it was through the obscuring lens of sadness and injury. "I wish you safe travels, Miss Bennet."
The servant had at last reached them, and informed her that the coach had arrived, and was ready for her departure. With a final nod, Mr. Crawford turned, and strode off in the direction of the greenhouses. It was only left for Mary to make her way back to the house, where the coach was awaiting her.
Her sister and Georgiana were both there to see her off on her journey, the latter apologetic for her lateness; if either of them noticed Mary's paleness, they must have attributed it to the anticipation of the journey, or the want of rest, for they did not inquire as to whether anything was the matter; and she was just barely adequate to responding to their farewells, to saying all those things which are decent and proper upon one's departure, and to generally executing satisfactorily all expected pleasantries.
"Write when you have arrived, Mary, dear!" were Georgiana's final parting words as Mary boarded the coach; an altogether different creature to the one who had first disembarked it so many months ago; and as the door closed upon her, and the coach started to rattle down the road, Mary began to fervently weep.
A/N: Y'all, when I tell you this chapter was genuinely painful to write... I have been planning the plot for a long time, but actually making it happen to poor Mary - as it turns out, it was just as painful for me as it was her.
So, how are we all feeling after this? This chapter, to me, concludes Part I (of III) of Pomp and Circumstance. Next week's chapter will start Part II - her return to Longbourn.
Hope you all enjoyed reading. Thank you as always for sticking with me and my version of Mary Bennet. I truly appreciate all of you guys so much! See you all next week :)