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“1760, she is 50 next year.”
“Given that you have sacrificed part of your upbringing to support me and my family it seems to me that she will be an ideal guide into how to behave as a young lady. Enjoy the correspondence.”
Little did anyone know.
--
The start of each year brought a visit from Mary with the ledgers for Longbourn. The January visit was when Elizabeth saw how the estate was performing, and how well her father was managing it. Mary did not have Elizabeth’s aptitude for arithmetic but she did have her own perspective from all her tenant visits. The two of them talked at length about their home, and the estate around it. Neither realised how candid they had become when it was just the two of them.
“Do you mind continuing to maintain the ledgers for Longbourn?”
It was a question Mary asked regularly, now almost every visit.
“The easy answer is no. I maintain the ledgers for Uncle Gardiner as well. I am good at arithmetic, why not use my God-given talents. The more difficult part of the exercise is actually seeing what all the numbers mean. I have been maintaining the ledgers for let me see.”
Elizabeth thought for a moment.
“I started to help accidently when I was sitting with Papa at his desk. Just watching him I spotted several mistakes. That was right around my 10th birthday and I did the year end update for the first time that year. I am now 18 so this is the eighth year I have seen the outcome of running the estate. And it has been a long gradual decline. That is the hard part, seeing the downward slope. Actually updating them is comparatively easy, at least for me. You can see the numbers, what is your perspective.”
It was here that Mary had changed the most, much more than their oldest sister.
“For my part, nothing has changed. I started accompanying Jane on the tenant visits the autumn after you came to London, so I was only 14 years old at the time. You know what Jane is like, she was so patient and guided me as I learned the importance of the visits. But in the last two and a half years it is as if everything is frozen.”
“Frozen?”
“We list the same issues and nothing seems to get done about them. Jane and I deal with the tenants but are not really making their lives better. The three of us keep things from falling apart but beyond that we lack the authority to make improvements. It is frustrating.”
Elizabeth worked to choose her words carefully. It was a reflection of how annoyed Mary was that she did not even get the chance to construct her question.
“I will save you the trouble of trying to carefully phrase your question. Neither of our parents are much of a help. Mama is out and about in the neighbourhood at least three days of every week. And Papa is the exact opposite, barely stirring from his bookroom. These two week trips every quarter are a chance for me to escape that environment.”
“Escape?”
Mary sighed.
“Every time I visit it feels like I list a litany of complaints against our parents. I try not to be so negative, so disloyal, but it is very difficult. I struggle with our family.”
Mary stood and walked to the window, removing the creases from her dress as she did so. Elizabeth saw many of her own mannerisms in the action. It was a chance for Mary to gather her thoughts. She waited until Mary had settled back down and looked at her expectantly.
“I do not want to make you uncomfortable. You will be back in their company in less than a fortnight.”
“I know Lizzie, I know. What I am struggling to reconcile is the chaotic blend of stasis and change. As I have already mentioned Mama and Papa have not changed. You have totally changed, which is hardly surprising given the circumstances of your life here in London. I think I have changed, not as much as you, but probably the most of any of us left at Longbourn.”
“More than Jane?”
“That is probably the part that I am struggling with the most. Jane, and Charlotte Lucas, are trapped. As the oldest women they are at the beck and call of their mothers. Both could easily be spared to visit here for a week. That Charlotte has never been allowed and Jane is no longer able, says more about Lady Lucas and Mrs. Bennet than anything else. Yet at the same time all four ladies want the younger two to be married. I do not understand how Mama and Lady Lucas will not let either of their eldest daughters out of their sight, yet if either of them does get married then they will move away with their new husband. So like I said, the two of them are trapped in a role that nobody can break. And they are easy compared to Mariah Lucas and our two youngest sisters.”
Mary shook her head.
“Listen to me moan, I am sorry Lizzie. I am no longer a slave to the words of the Rev. Fordyce but I will occasionally browse through some of the passages. However much I wish it there is no way that either Kitty or Lydia would ever read even a page of that book. And if ever there were a pair of young women that needed to heed some of his words it is the two of them.”
Elizabeth had been secretly very pleased that Mary no longer had the time to constantly read the, to her, tiresome ‘Sermons for Young Women’. But Mary did not sound like she was proselytising rather she just sounded worried.
“Is it really that bad? Are they really that poorly behaved?”
“In a word, yes. Lydia had her menarche at a younger age than normal, even before Kitty. In addition, she has ‘bloomed’ in both bust and hip. So although she is only 13 and a half she already has more of a figure than either Kitty or myself.”
Mary had flushed during this admission but had maintained eye contact with Elizabeth.
