Colleen McCullough - The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet

“I have nothing to say. I concede defeat,” she said.

“Elizabeth, that isn’t enough! Unless you speak, we can never heal the rift between us! Once, a long time ago, when Jane was so ill after the birth of Robert, she said in her delirium that it was only after you saw the glories of Pemberley that you changed your mind about accepting me.”

“Oh, that one, unguarded remark!” she cried, pressing her hands to burning cheeks. “Even Jane doesn’t know when I’m funning! I didn’t mean it the way it sounded, and had no idea Jane took it so seriously.” She walked on her knees from her chair to his, and gazed at him with soft, glowing eyes. “Fitz, I did fall in love with you, but not because of Pemberley! I fell in love with your generosity, your kindness, your-your patience !”

Looking down at her, he knew himself lost all over again in those lambent eyes, that wonderful lush mouth. “I wish I could believe you, Elizabeth, but the statue doesn’t lie.”

“Yes, it does.” Perhaps if she didn’t need to look at him, and that was far easier here at his feet, she could tell him. “I’ll try to explain, Fitz, but don’t make me look at you until I’m done. Please!”

He put one hand on her hair. “I promise. Tell me.”

“I was utterly revolted by the act of love-it still revolts me! I found it cruel, animal, anything but an act of love! It left me physically hurt and spiritually bereft. The Fitz I love is not that man. He can’t be that man! The humiliation, the degradation! I couldn’t bear it, and that’s why I turned into a statue. Eventually I prayed that you’d stop visiting me, and eventually you did stop. But somehow nothing was solved.”

Fitz looked at the fire through a wall of tears. The one thing he had never dreamed of! That what to him was evidence of the strength of his passion appeared to her as a rape. They go into marriage so virginal that its fleshly side is an utter mystery. Yet, coming from that family, I didn’t deem her so sheltered. The mother must have been a Lydia in her youth, and her daughters had all seemed anything but unaware of love’s physical side.

“I suppose,” he said, blinking the tears away, “that we men assume our wives will recover from the shock of the first time, and grow to enjoy what God really did intend to be highly enjoyable. But perhaps some women are too intelligent and too full of sensibility to recover. Women like you. I’m very sorry. But why did you never tell me, Elizabeth?”

“I didn’t think that man would understand.”

“Separating him from me.”

“You’re many men, Fitz, with many secrets.”

“Yes, I do have secrets. Some I’ll tell you, but not all. Just rest assured that the ones I keep from you are not concerned with you in any way. Those I’ll confide in Charlie, who is my heir and my blood son.” He began to stroke her hair rhythmically, almost as if he didn’t know what he did. “That man, as you call him, is absolutely a part of me! You can’t separate him from the whole. I was an unfeeling brute, I can see that now, but from ignorance, Elizabeth, not from deliberation. I love you more than I did Ned, more than my son or my daughters. And now that I’m going onto the back benches, you’ll have no rival in Westminster.”

“Oh, Fitz!” She lifted her head and pulled his down to kiss him, slow and languorous. “I love you just as much.”

“Which leaves us with the basic problem,” he said, moving over in the chair so that she could squeeze in beside him. “Is it at all possible to breathe life into the statue? Can I be Pygmalion to your Galatea?”

“We must try,” she said.

“It’s probably a good thing that this state of affairs has lasted so long. I’m a man of fifty, and have far more control over my primal urges than a man of thirty. It’s up to me to breathe life into you.” He kissed her again, as he had done during the halcyon days of their engagement. “You need something I’m not prone to give-tenderness.”

“I have hopes for that man as well as for you, Fitz. We’ve all changed over the past year, from Mary to Charlie.”

“Shall I come into your bed, then?”

“Yes, please.” She heaved a sigh and put her head on his shoulder. “I have hopes for my own happiness, but I fear greatly for Mary’s. If she weds Angus, married life will come as a shock to her.” She giggled. “However, she’s not as ignorant as I was. Do you know, Fitz, that when we gathered at Shelby Manor for Mama’s funeral, she actually said to me that she wished Charles Bingley would plug it with a cork for Jane’s sake? I was appalled! She was so pragmatic!”

“She’ll walk all over poor Angus.”

“I very much fear that you’re right about that. Yes, she’s changed in many ways, but she’s still the one-sided, stubborn and determined creature she always was.”

“Give thanks for one thing, Elizabeth. That Charlie told her she screeched. Think of the songs we have been spared!” R as a formal chairman, Fitz held a roundtable conference about the gold. Present were Elizabeth, Jane, Kitty, Mary, Angus, Charlie, Mr. Matthew Spottiswoode and Fitz himself. He explained very carefully to the four ladies that each had a vote, that each lady’s vote was the equal of a gentleman’s, and that, since Mr. Spottiswoode owned no vote, their votes therefore were in the majority: they could, if united, outvote the gentlemen four to three. This confused Jane and Kitty, but thrilled Elizabeth and Mary. It appeared, however, that despite refusing to act as a chairman, Fitz had every intention of conducting the meeting. He rapped a paperweight on the literally round table.

“Each orphanage will be known as a Children of Jesus orphanage, and we will be known as their Founders, with a capital F . Since we have an odd number of votes-seven-it’s not necessary to have a formal Chairman Founder,” Fitz announced.

Flutters and whispers broke out.

Fitz rapped the paperweight.

Silence fell.

“There are one thousand and twenty-three ingots of gold, each weighing ten pounds,” Fitz said, rather like a schoolmaster. “To Matthew’s and my surprise, we discovered that Father Dominus chose avoirdupois for his ingots, not troy weight, which is customary for precious metals. Therefore the ingots weigh a full sixteen ounces to the pound, instead of twelve ounces, which is troy weight. This increases their value by one-quarter or four ounces. A druggist as skilled as Father Dominus must have known what he was doing. My theory is that he cast an ingot of a weight no government would, and also of a portable weight. Even a child can carry ten pounds avoirdupois.”

“He made the children carry it, you imply?” Mary asked.

“Within the caves, certainly.” He waited for other remarks, then went on. “Because of her vast colonies and trade routes, our own Britain is the source of the gold for a number of European countries desirous of establishing a gold-based currency. They buy the gold from Britain.”

“How do you pay for gold?” Charlie asked.

“With raw materials and other goods Britain needs but cannot produce. Coal we have aplenty, but our iron is running out, so are our supplies of steeling metals and copper. We cannot grow enough grain to feed the populace anymore-the list is virtually endless. However, gold is in short supply too, though some is coming out of India and some other of the old East India Company countries. But that means that we Founders around this table are in an excellent position, as it cannot be proved that our gold was ever government gold.”

They were hanging on his every word; when he paused this time, no one spoke.

“I believe we can sell our gold to the Exchequer for six hundred thousand pounds, and no questions asked. It’s worth far more.”