Posted on Sunday, 19 August 2001

Plain and ordinary Mary Bennet did not see the man fall from his horse and land in the puddle before her, because her nose was buried intently in her latest novel of intrigue - as it usually was. She inadvertently stepped on the man instead of in the puddle and plodded on.

The middle daughter of five sisters, Mary also did not see the escaped goat being chased in the streets of Meryton. However, just as she stopped to turn the page, the goat ran past immediately in front of her, and it would have surely knocked her off her feet had she not stopped.

The only unmarried daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet of Longbourn House was no more aware of the two little children racing about her feet chasing one another. She stepped freely as they darted in and out of her path. Then a mother's beckoning howl sent them scurrying away.

"Miss Bennet," a voice bathed in admiration called out to no avail. Mary heard it not and kept walking.

"Miss Bennet," the voice sounded yet more urgent in volume as well as in intent. But Mary plodded on unaware that it was her name that was called upon.

"Miss Mary Bennet." Mary did not have to hear her name called a third time for she made physical contact with its originator by running into him. Backing up a step, she slowly lowered her book and glared at the thin, young man, three inches her inferior.

"Mr. Ditherspoon," she said, more irritated than not. "Pray, you may wait one moment." Mr. Ditherspoon not only had to look up to Mary in height, but also in age, for, at twenty, he was two years her junior, which did not do anything to cease the flow of his affections for her. Mary returned to finish reading the passage on which she was engaged before the collision, and Mr. Ditherspoon waited patiently. When Mary was done, she looked down at Mr. Ditherspoon and said with distain, "What is it, Mr. Ditherspoon?"

"Miss Bennet, if this is not the rarest of coincidences. Why, I was going this very minute to Longbourn to seek you out, and, the Gods be praised, here I run into you in the street, which, for all intents and purposes, will save me some time in which I can help my dear, dear mother..."

"Mr. Ditherspoon, you may explain yourself."

"Oh, yes...my mother's uncle, that is to say my grand uncle...or should I say my grand uncle twice removed..."

"You may be brief, Mr. Ditherspoon," Mary said sharply, closing her book, removing her little round spectacles, and glaring down at the wiry figure of whom she thought to be the most pathetic creature on the face of the Earth at that moment.

"Yes, yes. I will be brief." He fiddled nervously with the buttons on his waistcoat. "My mother's uncle has invited my mother and I to a party. I begged my mother to write back and ask if I could bring an escort...he is a most generous man, my grand uncle, and mother thinks that there would be some possibility..." he looked into Mary's halting eyes and removed himself immediately from the path of his tangent. "I want to write him back and ask if you could be my escort."

Mary snorted and resumed walking down the street. Mr. Ditherspoon's legs, being shorter than hers, required him to run in order to keep up with her brisk pace.

"I would be glad to play for your grand uncle," Mary said, as she opened the book, inserted her nose, and began reading again.

"No, Miss Bennet. No, no. Not this time." He pulled on her arm to stop her from walking. Mary put her book down and glared at him as though he had just put a hand on her fanny.

"I am sorry," Mr. Ditherspoon apologized like a seven-year-old to his mother. "It is just that...that...that..."

"You may come out and say it, Mr. Ditherspoon," Mary barked. "Really, Mr. Ditherspoon, you can be such a worm at times."

"I am sorry, Miss Bennet. I do not mean to be offensive, for I have the greatest admiration for you..."

"Pray, what will be my function at the party?" Mary impatiently blurted out.

Mr. Ditherspoon looked at his self-esteem lying on the ground. "I would like you to be my escort." Pleadingly, he looked up at her. "And nothing more."

"Do you not consider my playing adequate?"

Mr. Ditherspoon gulped loudly. "Oh, Miss Bennet, I love your music. You play the pianoforte like....an angel."

"Then it is my voice you object to."

Waving his hands in the air as if to remove from it, as though it were smoke, all ill-intention, Mr. Ditherspoon stuttered before continuing. "I-I-I think you sing wonderfully. Why, you have the voice of...an angel."

Irritated, she cleared her throat. "I am glad you think me so...angelic, but if I went to the party and did not play, pray, I would feel most out of place."

"Miss Bennet, please forgive my boldness. I love and appreciate your talents, but because you perform to the extent that you do at social functions, I never get the opportunity to ask you to dance." Mr. Ditherspoon bent his head shyly down, and then looked up at her. "You do dance, do you not, Miss Bennet?"

"What an impertinent question," Mary snapped, stepping around him and walking away briskly.

Mr. Ditherspoon immediately went after her. "Miss Bennet, please forgive my unintended rudeness. I know I have not had the benefit of a father for most my life, but my mother, bless her heart in her attempt, she has done her best by me, and I do not mean to offend..."

Mary stopped suddenly and Mr. Ditherspoon ran into her. In the collision it was he who suffered the most, for he was such a wiry, thin man that his mass was less than hers. She turned to him with such force that it caused Mr. Ditherspoon to shy away in fear. Rubbing his nose that had smacked against her shoulder, he began to whine.

"Mr. Ditherspoon, you may write to your grand uncle, and you may accompany me as my escort. Now, the matter is closed."

Before Mr. Ditherspoon could answer, Mary had turned on her heels and was walking nose in book along the street once more.

"Oh, bless you, Miss Bennet," Mr. Ditherspoon called out, barely able to contain his joy. "Thank you and bless you."

After the evening meal, Mary was reading in the parlor under candlelight when her father, Mr. Bennet, came into the room.

"My dearest Mary," he began, as if he had a long speech to deliver. "It has been three years since the double wedding of your two elder sisters, and nearly one since Kitty married."

Not taking her nose from her book, Mary spoke softly. "Yes, Papa, is it not wonderful? All my sisters are married, and I have you and Mama all to myself."

"Please suppose that it gives me more call for alarm as not. Your mother and I worried most gruesomely over getting five daughters settled in life with husbands...or, dare I say it: the majority of the worry was on your mother's part. But now I see you making no attempt whatsoever at acquiring a husband."

Still looking intently at the print in her book, Mary beamed happily. "You will be pleased to know that I have been invited to a party, Papa. And not to play or sing, but to be escorted as a real lady by a real gentleman."

Perking up, Mr. Bennet wrinkled his brow in surprise. "I see. And who is the lucky lad?"

"Mr. Ditherspoon."

Mr. Bennet took the book gently from his daughter and stared pitifully down at her. "Mr. Ditherspoon?"

"Why, yes, Papa. You remember Mr. Ditherspoon?"

"How can you use Mr. Ditherspoon and gentleman in the same description? It is...oxymoronic."

Mary giggled. "There is no such word in the English Language as oxymoronic."

"And there is no less a gentleman in the world than Mr. Ditherspoon."

"Posh," Mary snorted.

Mr. Bennet crossed the room and stared into the fire of the hearth. "He hardly counts as husband material, my dear."

"What, Papa? I could not hear you."

Mr. Bennet turned around quickly and put his hands behind his back warming them over the blaze. "And are any of your sisters invited?"

"Kitty is off to sea with her charming Captain Harford. And Lydia...well, the army is not so generous to her husband with time to visit family, and you know they are too far away in the North of England to come for only one night."

"And what of Mrs. Bingley? She only lives the next property over from us."

Mary rose, went to her father, and removed the book from his hands with the gentleness of a farmer removing a newborn colt from its mare. "Sister Jane and her husband will most likely be invited, as well as Elizabeth and her husband, Mr. Darcy. I shall ask Mr. Ditherspoon when next I see him."

"Lydia and Kitty. What silly...silly girls."

"And how I remember when you included me in a triumvirate of silly girls."

"Well, Mary. At the time...what I meant was..." Mr. Bennet stopped, unable to complete his defense. "I suppose I did. But your silliness was far different from theirs."

"And, pray, Papa, what was the difference?"

Mr. Bennet began to pace about. "Their silliness was childishness. With you it was more like...indifferentness..."

"No such word, Papa."

"Complacency then...and lack of caring for a woman's lot in life." He stopped by the fire again and turned to her. "This is a world of men as well as women."

"Well, Papa," Mary said, returning to her chair. "I never thought much of the inferior sex. Males spend most of their time chasing the world's adventures; chasing the whims of their unrealistic dreams; chasing their made-up fantasies of womanhood much as a puppy chases its own tail."

Mr. Bennet made a wry face and walked over to his daughter. "With an attitude like that, I should find you married in a fortnight."

"I do not care to be married in a fortnight, nor on any other night. My four sisters all married away, and I see it as my duty to remain to care for my parents in their latter years."

"That is all very well and good, but you cannot make our lives yours. You deserve a life of your own."

"If I marry, how will it be any different but for the worse? I have more freedom now than at the whim of a future husband. I like my life just the way it is, and I will do quite well without one."

Mr. Bennet stood over her. "Then why are you going to a party: a function designed solely for a single man to meet a single woman and start down the path of possible matrimony."

Mary looked up from her open book and smiled. "A girl just wants to have...fun. If Mr. Ditherspoon does not want me to perform my usual role at his grand uncle's party, then so be it. Escorted, I can at least get there."

"And why Mr. Ditherspoon? He is not capable of a single thing. Indeed capable does nothing to describe anything about the man. He is tucked so far under his mother's skirts, he excels at nothing but lack of excellence."

Looking at her book, Mary thought for a moment. "I agree with you on all accounts. I daresay that I suppose if there is anything that attracts me about him, it is his attraction to me. It is hard for a woman to ignore attention and flattery. Even for me. It is the weakness of our sex I suppose."

"Well, Heaven forbid the day should dawn that you come running home to me and tell me the two of you are to be betrothed. I would sooner see you a spinster as Mrs. Ditherspoon."

Mary put her book down and laughed. Soon both she and her father were laughing. He bent down, kissed her on the cheek, and left her to read her book.

Weeks later, at the party, Mary strolled up to sister Elizabeth and her husband Mr. Darcy. She gestured to her escort. "Mr. and Mrs. Darcy, I would like you to me Mr. Ditherspoon."

Elizabeth half-curtsied. "Pleased to meet you, Mr. Ditherspoon."

Mr. Ditherspoon smiled. "I am pleased as well to meet such a fine sister to Miss Bennet."

"The pleasure is all ours, I assure you." Mr. Darcy remarked, bending into a low bow.

Mary pointed across the ballroom. "And here comes my other elder sister, Jane."

When Mr. and Mrs. Bingley reached them, Mary made the introductions.

"So, Mary," Jane began, after the formalities were over. "Are you to play for us?"

"Why no," Mr. Ditherspoon interjected. "My grand uncle has hired professional musicians. Miss Bennet is free to dance."

Mr. Darcy extended his arm to Mary. "Perhaps the first dance will be mine?"

Mr. Bingley reached out also. "And I insist on the second."

The music was just beginning and couples were coagulating on the dance floor.

"Why, thank you, brother-in-law," Mary said to Mr. Darcy, as she took the arm he offered her. Seconds later they were lined up on the floor and dancing. Mary's sisters and Mr. Bingley turned to Mr. Ditherspoon and waited for him to speak. He stuttered and stammered for several seconds before something finally came out. "Please excuse me," he said, the hurt permeating his voice. Then he went to the area where the refreshments were being served.

"Funny little man," Mr. Bingley said. "And what a squirrelly looking thing he is."

"Do you think he has designs on our Mary?" Jane inquired to no one in particular.

"I think it evident," Elizabeth chimed. "But Mary must have an altogether different design. I am afraid the poor man is riding for a fall."

Mr. Darcy set a scorn on his face. "Another man's heart...dashed at the hands of a woman, hey Lizzy?"

Elizabeth looked at her husband. "How very droll you are tonight, Mr. Darcy. Your own heart would have been spared manhandling had you been more civil."

"Here, here," Mr. Bingley chimed in friendly agreement. "A fact that nobody dare deny."

"Least of all I," Mr. Darcy said as they all laughed.

When Mary returned to her sisters from the dance, she looked around bewildered. "And where, pray, is Mr. Ditherspoon?"

Elizabeth and Jane pointed across the room. When Mary looked, she saw three men standing around Mr. Ditherspoon, and all their postures told a most interesting story. The three men, with hands on hips, were bent over Mr. Ditherspoon in the attitude of three fathers scolding a single son. Mr. Ditherspoon was bent over to make himself yet smaller than he really was. His back was hunched forward and his head down. It looked at any moment that he would burst into tears.

Mary mounted some determination and marched over to the foursome. She burst into the middle of them and glared at each of Mr. Ditherspoon's three antagonists.

"And what, pray, are you doing to my escort?" she insisted.

Mr. Rollins gathered in his air of superiority. "We were inquiring as to when Mr. Ditherspoon contemplates moving away from his mother."

"Yes," Mr. Brinson agreed. "Do you not think that twenty is too great an age to remain a mama's boy?"

Mr. Ogden laughed. "Perhaps he still likes having his breechcloth changed."

Mary approached the last gentleman to speak. "Mr. Ogden, perhaps you forgot all too quickly about your French parlour maid. As I recall, she left rather suddenly and nearly nine months later word came back that she was the not-so-proud mother of a daughter." She turned to another. "Mr. Rollins, you are the eldest and the least likely to bring into question the manhood of my escort. What is it I hear about your wife? She has just dropped her seventh child...and seventh daughter all at the same time. How virile a male who cannot produce an heir, hey?" She turned to the last man. "And you, Mr. Brinson, of all people I would have expected to be the last person to find fault in a man not being manly. Would that I make your little secret known, I daresay all the other men would resign their gender immediately and join ranks with mine. How I feel for poor Mrs. Brinson who lacks your affections because of your opposite attraction. There, all of you: what say you concerning Mr. Ditherspoon's deficiencies now? Do we not all have deficiencies?"

The men bowed their heads and walked off. Mary grabbed Mr. Ditherspoon by the arm.

"Roger, when will you learn to stand up for yourself. You have just as much right to exist as do they."

"Miss Bennet, you have indeed become my champion. I know not why you have done this for me, but it is most appreciated, and it has served to draw me even closer to you. I must confess that I have the strongest..."

"You may hush now, Mr. Ditherspoon."

"Oh, please, Miss Bennet. I loved it just then when you called me Roger. The familiarity warmed my heart so."

"Think nothing of it, for it is the charitable thing to do to come to the defense of the weak. Nothing more."

Mr. Ditherspoon grabbed Mary's arm. "Please, Miss Bennet. May I bestow my affections on you just this once in gratitude towards your having spared me such embarrassment?"

"I think not, Mr. Ditherspoon. None are in order."

"But I believe it to be so. Please, allow me one of life's rare luxuries. It will so heal me from the previous experience."

Mary tapped her right cheek. "Very well. You may kiss me here," she said coolly.

Mr. Ditherspoon reached up and kissed Mary on the cheek. When he bounced down again on his heels, he could not retain his feelings. "Oh, thank you so very much. Miss Bennet, you are the sunshine in my withered garden."

"Come," Mary extended a hand to him. "The music is starting. You may dance with me this dance."

"But...Mr. Bingley?"

"Posh. Mr. Bingley is my brother-in-law and he will forgive me. I must have you near to keep an eye on you."

They took up positions on the floor as Mr. Darcy leaned over to his wife. "Look at that, Lizzy. I daresay your sister Mary has developed a wit even greater than yours. You see how she so thoroughly thrashed those three gentlemen with the sharpness of her tongue."

Elizabeth smiled up at him. "I am sure you wish her wit were greater than mine, Mr. Darcy." They both laughed.

A few evenings later, Mary was sitting in her room at a mirror brushing her long, brown hair when there came a knock at her door.

"Yes, Mama," she called out, but on seeing her father in the mirror, she turned. "Papa? Is anything the matter?"

He walked slowly over and sat in a chair next to her. "Forgive the lateness of this intrusion, my sweet, but my curiosity has the best of me. I find lately that I ponder about your situation a good deal too much. Can you enlighten an old man?"

"Mr. Ditherspoon? Papa, he is an extreme hopeless case who needs serious looking after."

"Not Mr. Ditherspoon per se, but marriage in general. Have you seen fit to think in another light?"

Mary went back to brushing her hair in the mirror. "I must confess, since our last conversation I have tried to imagine under what circumstances marriage would seem desirable to me. Though remaining a single woman seems to be my most holy endeavour, I do believe that I have settled on a marriage plan...should I ever change my mind that is."

"And what, pray, is that?"

A smile broke across Mary's lips before she realized it, which she quickly suppressed. "If I were inclined to marry, then it would never be for love...it would be for logic. In all probability I would rue intimacy and would demand it to be at a minimum. I should have all say in all matters with my mate strictly in the role of advisor. I should require large amounts of time alone for reading, playing the pianoforte, and other womanly endeavors, and I would demand that my husband not be a man of words, but a man of silence. And I shall call him by his Christian name as he calls me by mine." She stopped brushing and looked in the mirror smiling as her father's eyebrows tried desperately to merge with his receding hairline.

"And shall his name be Mr. Bennet?" he said in plain vanilla.

"You are in good humour tonight I see, Papa."

Mr. Bennet coughed uncomfortably. "Well, my sweet, that certainly narrows the field a little."

"Above all, he shall be willing to move in with me here and assist in ever making my parents lives comfortable and easy."

Mr. Bennet reached down and kissed Mary on top of her head. "Well, I see no more need to discuss your marriage plan. It is as likely to bear fruit as an apple tree in January. However, you have turned out far sweeter than I ever hoped, my dear. I am deeply touched by your concern for your mother and I. Please know that we will think none the less of you whatever you choose. We love you unconditionally."

Mary reached up and took his hand. After kissing it, she put it to her cheek. "Thank you, Papa."

"My dear," Mr. Bennet said, unable to keep surprise from his voice. "There seems to be a change in you."

"Nonsense," was all Mary could say, but she did sleep extra well that night.

Happy and contented Mary Bennet did not see the dog run past her, nor hear it bark, loud though it was, because her nose was buried intently in her latest novel of intrigue - as it usually was. She continued to stroll down the street unaware.

The only child still to be living at home with the Bennets, Mary also did not see the women in heated discussion as they were about to cross her path without realizing she was there. However, just as she stopped to turn the page, the women walked past immediately in front of her, and they would have surely knocked her off her feet had she not stopped.

The only unmarried daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet of Longbourn House was no more aware of the group of men swarming around the only man to hold her in high regard. Then, the only thing to penetrate her concentration sounded clear as the ring of a summer's eve.

"Mary! Help!"

Mary looked up from her book, drank in the situation, and charged into the fray. When she arrived, she pushed the same three men away from Mr. Ditherspoon that had accosted him at the party many weeks ago. When Mr. Brinson started to protest, she whacked him over the head with her book. Nothing more needed to be said, so the three men ambled off barking lowly to one another in tones of discontentment.

"You have done it again," Mr. Ditherspoon beamed with admiration. "Miss Bennet saved me from my peers."

"And you have done it again, Roger. You have allowed men less than you are to walk all over you. When will you defend yourself?"

"Pray, I feel I do not have it in me, Miss Bennet. I fear I am too mild mannered for such confrontations. I hope that you will think none the less of me, for I have nothing but fond admiration for you. These many weeks since the party you have spent generous amounts of your precious time with me; instructing me; helping me; tolerating me. You are so strong, so witty, and though others say you are plain, I find a beauty in you unequalled in any other woman."

Mary squelched a smile. "You talk nonsense, Roger. Why, I would as soon help a cat beset by a dog as I would anyone in your situation. It is the right and Christian thing to do."

"Surely you feel more than that."

"If I do, then I know not what I feel. Now, if you cannot defend yourself against those rogues, then I suggest that you..."

The burning intent in Mr. Ditherspoon's eyes caused Mary to stop speaking.

"Marry me, Mary. Make me the happiest man on Earth."

"What? You know my intention on the subject."

"Alter it...please...for my sake. I confess that my thoughts are filled with nothing but you when you are not about. I cannot sleep for want of thinking of you. I cannot think for want of having you near. I care not for nourishment for want of being with you. You are the sun and the moon and the stars."

Mary blushed for the first time. "Well, Roger, you do flatter me. Very well...you may marry me."

"What? Did you say you would allow it?" Unable to contain himself, he jumped up and down around her. "Oh, Mary, I think my heart is going to burst. Sweet, sweet, Mary. You have made me the happiest of men."

Mary stilled him by grabbing him by the shoulders. "There are conditions, Roger. I want that clearly understood."

"Of course, my honey bee. Anything you say."

"First, I am not marrying you for love. Understand that. I could not, and would not ever love a man. That is beneath me."

"Of course, Mary."

"I shall have final authority in all matters. You will move in with my parents and I, and I shall always be the one to decide how their lives should be comforted. I have a good head for everything and will take charge of running everything."

"Anything, Mary. Anything."

"I shall require a lot of time alone for reading, practicing the pianoforte, singing, and other womanly pursuits, and when I am involved in those pursuits, I will not be interrupted. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly."

"And you talk too much, Roger," Mary continued, softening the sting of her advice. "You should learn to be a man of few words, for such a man is highly thought of." She patted him on the shoulder. "Do not worry, I will change you into a more desirable man."

"And I shall revel in the education."

"And I shall always refer to you as Roger. That will put us on an equal footing."

"All I desire is you, my sweet Mary."

Mary held out a hand to her future husband. "Then we have reached an understanding through logic and reason?"

"We have...but...but...Mary..."

"Out with it. There shall be no secrets in my parents' house."

"Can we not seal the bargain with a kiss?"

Mary put her hand down and frowned. Then she pointed to her right cheek. "You may kiss me here."

Mr. Ditherspoon gave Mary a demonstration of his biggest puppy eyes. Reluctantly, Mary moved her finger from her cheek to her mouth. Mr. Ditherspoon kissed her lips lightly and they were off and 'walking' down the path to matrimony.

THE END