Pomp and Circumstance: A Pride and Prejudice Continuation

Chapter 18: A Restorative Balm is Applied

But indeed, as the days passed, and Mary's departure loomed ever nearer, such affectations of indifference became increasingly more strenuous to maintain. It was all well and good to repeat to oneself, confidently and certainly, one's apathy to something; but to practice this apathy was an altogether different exertion; and more than once did Mary find herself wandering the grounds alone, in wistful contemplation, of what should await her at Longbourn, and what should be forsaken, here, at Pemberley.

To Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, she wrote of her imminent return in detached agreeableness; 'how lovely her stay had been, how kind and welcoming her sister and brother; how pleasant the expectation of returning to the familiarity of Longbourn, her favorite books, her quiet, undisturbed studies.' To Georgiana, when the subject was brought up, she spoke officiously, brushing over it brusquely in favor of returning to other more agreeable topics of discussion. And all the while she slipped away to go on her solitary walks, to the chapel, to the gardens, past the greenhouse which remained, as ever, stubbornly empty. She had thought, once, that she had spotted movement behind the glass; and the joyous way in which her heart had leapt, the weighty pall of sullenness which had all at once swept off of her, had revealed to her much of her own sensibilities; but the movement had been a trick of the light; she could see, as she peered in, that the easels and supplies were all untouched, left just as they had been several weeks hence; and the powerful blow of disappointment that was delivered upon her in this realization was something akin to grief, so acutely painful and intense was it – and all the more painful in the removal of this momentary hope.

It was no longer her lot, then, with this unintentional revelation being thus stumbled upon, to continue effecting apathy with any sort of conviction; but in its stead, she turned her efforts upon berating herself, and holding herself and her sensibilities in disfavour. For Mary was never one to shy from the unpleasant scalpel of introspection, and where a less brave soul might have been perfectly content with leaving their inner workings unexamined, Mary was always determined to thoroughly scrutinize her emotions, her current sensitive state, and from whence these were all born; and thus, to get at the very seeds of the matter.

So she asked of herself, quite pointedly, why indeed it should matter so much to her whether Mr. Crawford should return, and whether or not she should ever meet with him again; and on this she thought at great length; until at last she was forced to admit to herself, reluctantly, that she had grown fond of his company; and even dependent upon it in part for her happiness; and had come to desire his approval, and his esteem, and take pleasure in their conversations.

And how was such an attachment formed, by her, she who so carefully guarded herself against any inadvisable imprudence? It was, she decided, the fault of a cruel coincidence; that a gentleman would thus appear in her acquaintance, who should so well agree with that which she had long desired and imagined of an intellectual companion - one who should listen to her with interest which was genuine, who should not spurn her thoughts, but respect them; admire them, even – and who should have novel thoughts of his own, which challenged hers, and from which sprang forth new and wholly unexpected paths of discourse. This, which had always been so wanting in her life, and so secretly desired, once granted, was bound to enthrall and enrapture her; she had, indeed, no defenses prepared against such an outcome. This, then, was a failing of her inexperience and unworldliness, for if only she had a larger pool of acquaintances from which to draw, a larger party of company to whom she had been exposed, she would have not found Mr. Crawford's attentions to be so novel, or indeed so precious to her.

This train of thought, too, had the effect of making clearer to her the intentions of the gentleman: to him, she was no such great novelty as he was to her; he lived the free, undisturbed life of a modern academic; he dined and kept company with the smartest sets in London. How many clever and eloquent women he must speak to there, she could not begin to guess at; but she doubted such ladies to be the rarity in town that they were in her quiet Hertfordshire. Perhaps, she might flatter herself in saying he, too, had enjoyed the conversations the two of them had shared; but that was the most she could say – and now his sudden departure, his impersonal farewell, was rendered scrutable; an oak is bound to make a greater impression upon a sapling than a sapling upon the oak. It seemed she had fallen prey to a trap of her own construction.