Page 137 of Twice Chosen

Her future husband noticed.

Thomas Bell was a young solicitor and nephew to Mrs. Bell of Brighton. He met Kitty during a visit to his aunt and later encountered her again when she stayed with Jane at Netherfield. He did not possess great wealth or striking looks, though Mrs. Bennet privately lamented both facts. He had kind eyes, an excellent memory, and a habit of asking questions because he genuinely wished to hear the answers.

The first time he saw Kitty sketching, he did not say, "How pretty."

He asked why she had chosen charcoal instead of pencil.

Kitty spoke for ten minutes.

Elizabeth knew then.

Not that Kitty would marry him. She had learned better than to claim endings.

But that Thomas Bell had seen her.

That was a beginning.

Their courtship lasted nearly two years. Kitty became increasingly interested in portraiture and spent one winter in London taking lessons from a respectable woman artist introduced through Georgiana.

Mrs. Bennet found the arrangement suspicious until Darcy pointed out that accomplished drawing was considered an asset in fashionable ladies.

Mrs. Bennet then praised Kitty's artistic ambition to everyone within reach.

"Your mother is adaptable," Darcy observed.

Elizabeth smiled. "When adaptation can be made to sound like her own idea."

Kitty married Thomas at twenty-two.

Mr. Bennet gave her the framed sketch of Longbourn from his library as a wedding present.

Kitty cried.

So did he, though he denied it.

Mary did not marry for years.

Mrs. Bennet suffered.

Mary did not.

She continued lessons with Mrs. Cunningham and later spent long visits with Georgiana at Pemberley, where access to a larger music library transformed diligence into genuine skill. Mary would never be a brilliant performer. Once she accepted that, she became a very good musician.

More importantly, she stopped performing every thought.

Elizabeth noticed the change one evening when Mary began to quote a moral essay during dinner, paused, and said instead, "No. That is not actually relevant."

Lydia nearly dropped her fork.

Mr. Bennet laughed, then caught himself. "Forgive me. I am laughing with you."

Mary considered and smiled. "I know."

At twenty-eight Mary became acquainted with Mr. Nathaniel Price, a widowed schoolmaster from a neighboring county who had come to Pemberley to discuss a charitable school. He liked theology enough to listen to Mary and possessed enough humor to interrupt her when listening became endurance.

Their first conversation lasted an hour.

Lydia watched from across the room in horror.