Jump to new as of June 16, 1999
Chapter One
As the leaves fell and days became shorter and colder, Mary Bennet changed. When before she asked no one their opinion of anything and went on for hours whether someone was listing or not, she now valued her friend's opinion of her singing, dress and hair. (Which she had just began to worry about.) No one really noticed but her father, and he only saw that she had changed somehow.
If someone had asked her why she had changed or what had changed her, she would have blushed, actually blushed. Although she did not know it and would not have admitted it if she did know, Mary had fallen in love. For while staying during the summer with some friends in the country, she had met Thomas Hastings. They had much in common, both loving old books and far-off places. He was 24, pale and dark, with a kind, melancholy look that made most girls melt on sight. But when they found that he talked more about trains and such, or books and poems that never mentioned love or moonbeams, most went looking else-where for romance.
He knew of romance, though, if any girl knew what kind was his. He was from a time long passed, as was Mary. She loved the old ballads that he loved, and they sang them together in the twilight, "Of all the Airts," "Ye Banks and Braes" and "Lord Randal." They danced together at parties, and she enjoyed it. She had always thought before that dances were very dull. His dark brown eyes often became soft and warm when he saw her and her cheeks flushed. He taught her that silence could be as friendly as discussion and that a look could be something to be remembered. They often walked through the meadows, singing. They did this the day before she was to leave. When they sang, "Birks of Aberfeldie," he pleaded with his eyes during the burden- "Bonnie Lassie, will you gae, will you gae, will you gae? Bonnie Lassie, will you gae tae the birks of Aberfeldie?" Tears welled up in her gray eyes and he took her hands in his.
"Miss Mary, may I write?"
"Yes." she answered, a brave smile forming on her trembling lips.
"And may I come and visit someday?"
"Yes!" a tear rolled down her cheek and he brushed it away, gently.
"My hieland Mary." he whispered as they turned and walked back. She smiled sorrowfully at him as the carriage took her away. Those who tried to talk to him that night found him quite absent-minded and his condition did not improve with time.
Mary had been to the meadows. In one hand she held a song-book of ballads and in the other, a small bouquet of Autumn flowers. As she stood in the hall, placing the flowers in a vase, her eyes gazed dreamily past her father in a way unknown to the straight-forward girl. Mr. Bennet looked at her with warning.
"Mary, how odd you look! So like Jane used to. Are you sick or in love?" at this Mary started and stared at him as one awoken to a dream.
"Papa, I did not know!"
"Not know what?" he asked, even though he knew the answer.
"Remember the man I talked of in my letters this summer? Mr. Thomas Hastings?"
"I do, and I saw this coming even then, my dear. You have succumbed to romance, Miss Sensible, and there is no cure, you realize." (or is there, he thought.)
"Oh, Papa! Is there not?" her look was a comical mixture of hope and horror.
"No, Mary, you can only become more and more romantic until you have as much sensibility as Lydia and Kitty. I had hoped that one of you might escape it, but I see that my thoughts were in vain." his eyes laughed at her seriousness, although his face mirrored hers.
"If there is no cure," she said, seeing his laughter, "Then what is to be done?"
"You saucy girl! Marry you off like the others, I expect, unless you have another idea?"
"No, although I had never thought of it before, cannot but think you to be right." she shook her head sadly, with a impish grin on her lips.
"Never thought of it, why, what strange girls are mine! Lydia and Kitty are a silly pair, I'm afraid, Jane is a saint and Eliza is indescribable, then you! You fit in with none of them at all. You turn from serious book-worm to happy romantic in a day, what am I to do?"
"Not really in a day, Papa, it started when I met him, I think." she dropped her head and colored prettily. Mr. Bennet sighed, for he was only half joking about hoping she would stay at home. He missed his daughters with their silliness and talk. Even though he often visited Jane and Eliza, who had Kitty under their control, it was not the same. Mary was his last link to the old times. He had aged greatly during the time when he and Mr. Darcy were hunting for Lydia and Wickham. But he would by no means hinder Mary in her happiness. He could only wonder what Mrs. Bennet would do when she heard. Probably be in need of her smelling salts.
"Mary," he said as he went into the library where she was replacing her song-book, "I would not tell this to your mother yet. It might prove too much at the moment."
"Or any moment, you mean, Papa! I understand. There is no need bother her with this, for she would start planning the wedding at once, and who knows but there might not be one!"
"There will be one, my dear, do not worry. He sounds like a good fellow." but I'll be surprised if I don't know everything there is to know about him by this day next week, thought Mr. Bennet as he walked to his office. He could not risk having another Wickham in the family.
Chapter Two ~ Meeting Mary
Back at home, Thomas Hastings realized that he was a solitary man. His gentle mother had died when he was but five, after giving him a sister who lived a day longer. His father had died when he was twenty. Since then, he had lived quietly, sometimes visiting other parts of England, sometimes going traveling farther away, but always being alone with loneliness. Walking in the woods and meadows that were his and riding his horse, as well as reading, were the activities that filled his long days when at home. But in the spring, some cousins had wrote to ask him for a visit that summer. For a reason unknown to himself, he accepted. After staying there for two weeks, being bored by his youthful cousins' escapades, he met Mary.
She stood leaning against a fence, frowning at some merry children who were having a picnic on the other side. Each time one of them laughed loudly, she wrinkled her face more and glared. The reason she had come to the meadow in the first place was to escape the friends was staying with, for they would not let her play the piano forte or tell them about the books she was reading. She did not know how very, very, boring she was to them and how they wished she would leave. Seeing such a look on such a young face made Thomas laugh quietly. But not quietly enough for Mary's sharp ear.
"Who are you and what are you laughing at?"
"My name, fair lady, is Thomas Hastings. Yours, I believe, is Miss Mary Bennet." he bowed in a jesting way which produced a greater frown.
"It is, however you may have come to know it. Were you laughing at me?"
"I was, in a way." he answered after pondering for a moment if he should tell the truth or not.
"Why?"
"You did not look as if you were really mad, although your face was." his gentle laugh sounded over the children's' noise. She looked at him for a second, her eyes puzzled, and then did something rather unknown to her. She actually giggled. Her frown disappeared into a doubtful smile and he responded likewise.
"Do you live here?" she asked, almost hoping he did.
"No, but I am staying at Northlands. Are you not staying with the Woodhursts at Maplewood?"
"Yes, I am. For a while." the thought of wanting to go home which had filled her mind just an instant before fled with her frown.
"Are your family here as well? If you have family, that is." his eyes clouded with his if.
"No. My parents are at home in Meryton and three of my sisters are married and the other get passed between two of them. Do you have family here?"
"No. I have none at all. No close family, that is. I am staying with some cousins."
"Oh." it slipped through her lips like a sigh, for it seemed to her that he should not be lonely.
"Will you go for a stroll, Miss Bennet?" she had always scorned strolling, thinking if you were going somewhere you might as well go there quickly and then come back quickly, but now the idea seemed pleasant.
"Yes, but do call me Mary. Miss Bennet sounds as though I were my sister Jane."
"Come then, Miss Mary. Let us be off, then."
When jolly, young Mrs. Woodhurst heard Mary come in that night and turned to welcome her with a pasted smile, she almost gasped in shock. Not only was Mary truly smiling, but she was humming as well.
"Why Mary Bennet! What has happened to you?"
"What?" asked Mary, her day-dream flying away to unknown heights, "Did you say something?"
"No, 'twas nothing." she shook her head and thought of the resent time when she, too, had looked like that.
"Mrs. Woodhurst?" asked Mary suddenly.
"Yes?"
"You said I might invite anyone I wished to come and visit here?"
"Yes, I did say you might." a knowing grin hid in her eyes and she dropped her head quickly.
"May I ask Mr. Hastings to come soon to see me?"
"Well, you might, but normally he would ask."
"He did!" replied Mary queenishly.
"Well, then, of course he may come!"
"Thank you." with a look triumphant she turned and went to her room, where sitting at her table, she wrote a note and sent it by way of a servant to Mr. Thomas Hastings.
Pacing the veranda at Northlands, Thomas thought thoughts that he had not before. Mary Bennet may not have been the most beautiful girl he had seen, but she could converse better than any he had talked to before. Books had been his meat and drink and he could not stand someone who knew nothing while pretending to know everything. Mary pretended nothing, but innocently let her thoughts escape in a child-like way that he liked greatly. When her message came, he went, as Mary had, to his room, passing children playing, a young pair looking earnestly into the other's eyes and his elderly cousins sitting side by side happily. He looked at them as never before.
When Thomas was ushered in at Maplewood the next afternoon, Mary's faced beamed, Mrs. Woodhurst glanced at Mr. Woodhurst and Thomas did not know what to do. He stood in the middle of the room looking awkward, which was not something he did often or well. At last, although it has been but a few seconds, Mr. Woodhurst asked him to sit and stay a while. The evening seemed perfect to both Mary and Thomas, especially after a dusky walk through Maplewood's gardens.
"May I call again, Miss Mary?"
"Why, yes!" she nodded, "Whenever you wish."
"Even at four in the morning?" he said teasingly.
"Mr. Hastings!" laughed Mary happily.
"Thomas." he corrected.
"Oh, sorry, I forgot." Mary smiled, as she had hoped he would say that.
"I must go now." he said as the sun dipped away from sight.
"Must you?"
"Yes."
"Good night, then." Mary sighed.
"Good night." called Thomas as he went down the walk-way.