The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet. Colleen McCullough

and faced him, chin up. Just because her knees gave way did not mean her backbone would!

      For a moment Fitz said nothing more, simply gazed at her with a trace of puzzlement. Then, “How like Elizabeth you have become. It was the pustules, of course. Fortunate that they did not pock your skin.” The physical niceties over, he embarked upon her other deficiencies. “I never heard a worse voice, nor one more prone to give vent in song. My hair still stands on end at the memory.”

      “You should have informed me of its lack, brother.”

      “It was not my place.” He folded his hands together in front of him, their pose indicating their owner’s indifference. “So, Mary, your duty is done.” The cold black eyes bored into hers, gradually taking on a tinge of uncertainty when she neither withered nor shrank. “At the time that your father died, Charles Bingley and I decided that you should be adequately recompensed for your willingness to stay with your mother. Your father was not in a position to leave you anything, preferring to bequeath his unentailed capital to Lydia, in greater need. You, he understood, would put Charles Bingley and me in your debt by caring for your mother at a distance remote from the North.”

      “Insulate you from her idiocies, you mean,” said Mary.

      He looked taken aback, then shrugged. “Quite so. For which service, we have funded you to the tune of five hundred pounds per year. Eight and a half thousand pounds in all.”

      “It is certainly true that lady’s companions are not so well paid as I have been,” said Mary tonelessly.

      “However, Shelby Manor must now be sold in the same manner as it was bought — whole and entire, including the books in the library and the services of the Jenkins family. A buyer has been found already, not least because of the Jenkinses. I must therefore uproot you, sister, for which I am very sorry.”

      “Lip service,” she said, snorting.

      A soft chuckle escaped him. “The years may not have wrought destruction upon your face or figure, but they have coated your tongue with more acid than syrup.”

      “For which, blame the exhaustion of a religion picked to bare white bones, and the enticements of far too much leisure. Once I had Mama properly trained — which was not difficult — the hours of my days sat upon me heavily. To change the metaphor, you might say that the creaking gate of my mind received lubrication from the contents of this excellent library, not to mention the company of your son. He has been a bonus.”

      “I’m glad he’s good for something.”

      “Let us not quarrel about Charlie, though I take leave to tell you that every day you do not appreciate his quality is yet one more day proves you a fool. As to me, I, myself, what do you propose doing with them now their task is ended?”

      His colour had risen under her scathing words, but he answered civilly. “You should come to us at Pemberley, or to Jane at Bingley Hall — your choice, I imagine, will depend upon whether you prefer girls or boys.”

      “At either place it would be an empty existence.”

      The corners of his mouth turned down. “Have you any kind of alternative?” he asked, sounding wary.

      “With over eight thousand pounds, a measure of independence.”

      “Explain.”

      “I would prefer to live on my own.”

      “My dear Mary, ladies of your station cannot live alone!”

      “Whyever not? At thirty-eight, I have said my last prayers, brother. Take myself an Almeria Finchley? Pah!”

      “You don’t look your thirty-eight years, and you know it. Shelby Manor has sufficient mirrors to show you. Is it Lady Menadew you wish to join?”

      “Kitty? I would kill her in a month, and she me!”

      “Georgiana and the General have housed Mrs Jenkinson ever since Anne de Bourgh died. She would be pleased to keep you company in — what? A commodious cottage, perhaps?”

      “Mrs Jenkinson sniffles and sighs. Her tic douloureux is at its worst in winter, when it is harder to elude a companion.”

      “Then some other suitable female! You cannot live alone.”

      “No female, suitable or unsuitable, from any source.”

      “What do you want?” he demanded, exasperated.

      “I want to be useful. Just that. To have a purpose. I want self-esteem of the proper kind. I want to stand back and look at something I have done with pride and a sense of accomplishment.”

      “Believe me, Mary, you have been useful, and will be useful again — at Pemberley or Bingley Hall.”

      “No,” she said, meaning it.

      “Be sensible, woman!”

      “When I was a girl, I had no sense. It was not inculcated in me because I had no example to follow, including my parents as well as my sisters. Even Elizabeth, who was the cleverest, had no sense. She did not need sense. She was charming, witty, and full of sensibility. But to have sensibility is not to have sense,” said Mary, fairly launched. “Nowadays, brother Fitz, I have so much sense that you cannot bully or cow me. To have sense is to know what one wants from life, and I want to have a purpose. Though I admit,” she ended rather pensively, “that I am not quite sure yet what my purpose will be. What it will not be is to live with either Lizzie or Jane. I would be underfoot and a nuisance.”

      He gave up. “You have a month,” he said, getting to his feet. “The bill of sale for Shelby Manor will be signed then, and your future must be decided. Banish all thought of living alone! I will not permit it.”

      “What gives you the right to dictate to me?” she asked, spots of colour burning in her cheeks, her eyes glowing purple.

      “The right of a brother-in-law, the right of your senior in years, and the right of a man owning sense. My public position as a Minister of the Crown, if not my private standing as a Darcy of Pemberley, makes it impossible for me to tolerate eccentric or otherwise-crazed relatives.”

      “What will eight and a half thousand pounds buy me?” she countered.

      “A dwelling I will happily find you, provided that you live in it with proper decorum and propriety. In the country rather than the city — Derbyshire or Cheshire.”

      “Hah! Where you can keep an eye on your eccentric or otherwise-crazed sister-in-law! I thank you, no. Is the eight and a half thousand pounds mine, or is it put in trust for me? I want a direct answer, for I will find out the truth anyway!”

      “The money is yours, safely invested in the four-percents. Kept invested, it will give you an income of about three hundred and fifty pounds a year,” Fitz said, having no idea how to deal with this termagant. On the outside she was so like Elizabeth — did that mean Elizabeth harboured a termagant too?

      “Where is it lodged?”

      “With Patchett, Shaw, Carlton and Wilde in Hertford.”

      The look in her eyes gave him fresh pause: about to go to the door, he delayed. “You will kindly allow me to conduct your business, sister,” he said, voice adamant. “I forbid you to do it yourself. You are a gentleman’s daughter, allied to my own family. It would not please me were you to defy me. In the new year I expect you to give me a satisfactory answer.”

      Apparently put in her place, she followed him out of the room and down the hall to the front door, where Lizzie and Charlie had assembled, together with Hoskins, the dour woman who maided Elizabeth with fierce possessiveness.

      Mary took Charlie’s face between her hands, smiling into his dark grey eyes tenderly. A beauty almost epicene, yet below it lay no feminine streak at all, if his self-absorbed father had only one-tenth of the brain the world accorded him to see it. Do not despise Charlie, Fitz! she said silently,