Page 212 of Pride and Prejudice Resolutions

Georgiana extended her hand. Mary took it.

"Iron for air," Georgiana whispered.

"Backbone for beauty," Mary replied.

They shook once, firmly, in the manner of generals concluding a successful campaign. Georgiana's handkerchief remained dry. Mary considered this a victory.

Elizabeth appeared in the doorway, her expression caught between amusement and affection.

"The carriage is ready, Mary. And there is a delivery for you. A rather large one. It appears to be... flowers?"

Mary turned.

A footman stood behind Elizabeth, looking significantly wider than usual because he was obscured by a vegetative explosion. His arms were full of yellow blooms—roses, chrysanthemums, and several varieties Mary could not immediately identify but suspected were expensive. The arrangement was enormous. It was cheerful. It was aggressively optimistic in a way that made Mary instantly suspicious.

"There must be a mistake." Mary approached the bouquet as one might approach a potentially venomous creature. "I do not receive flowers. I receive books from Aunt Gardiner. Occasionally, I receive unsolicited advice about my posture. I do not receive shrubbery."

"The card is addressed toMiss Mary Bennet." Elizabeth plucked a small envelope from the arrangement and offered it with a smile that suggested she knew precisely how entertaining the next few moments would be. "Quite clearly. In a hand that appears to have been educated at a very good school and then immediately forgotten everything it learned about penmanship."

Mary took the card. She opened it with the detached eye of an anatomist examining a suspicious growth.

Miss Bennet,

Thank you for the depth.

—C.B.

She stared at the words. She read them again. She turned the card over, as if additional explanation might be hiding on the reverse, perhaps a bibliography or a footnote. There was none.

"C.B." Mary's voice emerged flat. "Who is C.B.?"

"I cannot imagine." Elizabeth's eyes were dancing now, bright with barely suppressed mirth. "Though I did notice Mr Bingley leaving his card recently. He seemed rather distracted. He walked into the doorframe on his way out. Twice. It was very thorough of him."

Mr Bingley? What new madness is this?

Mary looked at the flowers. They were very yellow. They were the colour of sunshine and optimism and people who believed the world was fundamentally jolly. They were entirely impractical. They would wilt within a week. They served no purpose whatsoever except to be beautiful.

She found them, against every instinct she possessed, far more interesting than a Doric column.

"I shall take them with me," she announced, surprising no one more than herself. "The carriage has room. And botany is a respectable science."

Elizabeth said nothing, though her smile said everything.

Mary gathered the flowers, tucked the card into her reticule, and walked out to the waiting carriage. She did not look back at Darcy House. She held the bouquet very gently as she was helped into the equipage.

The road from London to Hertfordshire stretched before Mary like a sentence in a particularly tedious sermon—long, winding, and inevitable.

She sat with her back straight, her spectacles polished to a gleam, and Mr Bingley's yellow flowers arranged on the seat beside her. The bouquet was another passenger, one that beamed at the upholstery and shed pollen cheerfully.

The maid, a sensible woman named Hobbs who had been lent by Elizabeth for the journey, was situated opposite. Hobbs was knitting a grey and shapeless thing, and she did so with the rhythmic clicking of a ticking clock.

Mary watched the city give way to the countryside. The cramped, soot-stained streets of London dissolved into rolling green hills, hedgerows, and the occasional cow that stared at the passing carriage with the vacant expression of a creature unburdened by the concept of social expectations.

Mary envied the cows. They stood in fields, they chewed grass, and—most importantly—they did not have mothers. Or if they did, the mothers were likely in a pie, which was tragic, but quiet.

She opened the small notebook she had begun keeping, a log of her "improvements," as she called them. Previously, she had only dared to keep these accounts in her head, where no one could see the deficit. But London had changed things. It was important to keep accounts on paper now. One could not manage what one did not measure properly.

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