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It is Hill she remembers first.
If she must think back through her lonely, frustrating childhood, it is Hill’s arms she remembers running to. Hill who would dab her grazed knees, who would pull her onto her lap for a story, who would bathe, dress, comfort her.
She has no memory of her mother holding her, taking her hand, not even fussing her.
It is strange, in a house so full and loud, that she should have felt so… apart. The others, in their pairs, would brush each other’s hair or help each other dress. But not her. Never her.
(Father, once, had squeezed her shoulder for no ascertainable reason. That was almost the worst part, that there was nothing she could emulate to make him do it again.)
But Hill was there. When there was nobody else, there was always Hill.
She thinks of that as she stands beside the carriage, about to leave her family home. Her mother, still upstairs, does not give her a farewell embrace. Not even a touch on the arm.
It is Hill who pulls her in close, even as Mary stands with her arms by her side, unsure how to respond. She feels herself stiffen, somehow simultaneously waiting for it to pass and revelling in the rareness of it. There is a sharp pain in her chest at the contact, and a gaping hole when it is over.
She wishes, not for the first time, that it were not so.
***
And how are you, Mary?
The question is asked as easily as the gesture that accompanies it. Yet Mary cannot help but startle a little, blinking back the unease that floods through her. She is not used to any of this. Her aunt’s question is gentle, there is no ulterior motive or underlying teasing. She takes her hand as if it is simple.
(And, Mary supposes, it should be. But it never has been, not for her.)
Pins and needles shoot through her fingers and she breathes through the absurdity, hating herself for it. It is too much. She pulls her hand away from her aunt, skin tingling, and breathes.
Things are different here, in this house, and she will have to rise to the challenge.
***
She passes him the hoop. That is all. His finger rests along hers for the briefest of seconds, and she inhales sharply, but the discomfort does not come. She feels warm and calm and then it is over.
For three nights she thinks on this. Catalogues the disparity, the change in her, how this stranger did not cause her heart to race or her skin to burn. She does not understand - and she does not like it when there is something she cannot understand.
Then he is back again, offering to play Graces with her. She crashes into him, quite inelegantly, and feels only awkwardness and embarrassment. Her arm against his, and yet it does not hurt.
Mentally, she logs this with her findings.
***
Rebecca is ill. Certain it is smallpox, come to collect her, she demands that Mary take a look at her.
Mary, even with her limited medical knowledge, is certain that it is not smallpox. It is, at most, a cold.
With a melodramatic sigh of relief, her smallest cousin summons her to her bedside and places a book in her hands. Read to me, Mary. Please.
She perches on the very edge of the bed, a lifetime of trying to remain small and out of the way still embedded within her. She begins to read.
A hand, small and warm, finds her elbow, and - with far more strength than Mary had anticipated - pulls her closer. Shifting so that she is sat against the headboard, Mary opens the book and continues on.
Rebecca curls her hand around Mary’s arm, head resting against her shoulder. While Rebecca’s breathing slows, Mary’s is erratic. She tries to calm herself, tries to keep reading even as her arm stings and her shoulder aches.
It is nothing to this little girl who has known only love and comfort all her life. She is sleeping now, and Mary closes the book quietly - and she does not move. She forces herself to remain until the sting and heat fades to a manageable buzzing.
It grows easier, even in a short time. Rebecca barrels into her each morning, arms flinging around her waist. Marianne loops her arm through Mary’s as they walk to church. George grabs her hand and pulls her through the garden, pointing out a variety of bugs and other creatures. There is still that initial shock, that immediate need to let go - but the buzzing, the burning, lessens, becomes more manageable, and she finds she does not mind so much.
(And when they take her hands, spinning and dancing with her so joyfully, she wonders if perhaps she is cured.)
***
She adds the feeling of Mr Hayward’s hand to her ongoing catalogue of confusion. He helps her down from the carriage, his skin on her skin, and the world does not begin spinning. She can feel the callouses on his fingers, the tightness of his grip, and again she does not recoil.
It is most unlike her.
Or, again she wonders, if he is some sort of anomaly.
But then his hand is near her face, and for the first time in his presence she panics. This man who has been nothing but kind and gentle, whose mere existence shifts the great weight that has pressed upon her since before she can even remember.
She flinches.
Unthinking. Awkward.
She will think of it for far too many nights to come, but she flinches.
It is only a petal.
I must leave London.
It is the only logical next step for her. As her heart thunders, blood whooshing through her ears, a voice that sounds far too similar to her mother repeating he does not love you, he is promised to another, he does not love you.
I must leave London. The idea solidifies itself even as it passes her lips. Yes, she must. For she cannot be near him, close enough to touch and yet forever set apart. Cannot bear to watch him with her dear friend - watch them marry. It will break her.
It is better to leave.
***
Allow me. Her Aunt picks up a hairbrush and begins to try and tame her unruly waves. Mary startles a little as her hand brushes the back of her neck.
There is a pause. So small it could pass without mention.
But that is not how life works in the Gardiner’s household.
Would you prefer to do this yourself? (Mary wonders how she would have turned out if her mother had been half as gentle, as understanding with her.)
She shakes her head, determined. No, I am fine.
Another pause and then she resumes, working diligently and with great purpose. They are quiet, but the house around them is alive with preparations for the evening’s entertainment, and three children doing their best to persuade their father that they, too, should be allowed to participate.
The task is finished, and Mary clears her throat. Thank you. With far more bravery than it should take, she reaches for her Aunt’s hand. For everything.
***
Mr William Ryder is unlike anyone she has ever met.
(She is not sure that is a good thing)
Unknowingly, he traps her fingers under his hand and the pain returns. It is partly the crush of his weight, but also the unfamiliarity of him that causes her skin to burn, daggers pressing into her chest as she tries to pull away.
When he grabs her wrist, she knows he wishes only to celebrate her. And she tries, so desperately, to focus only on her victory. But his hand squeezes her wrist and her lungs feel similarly tight, and she needs, she needs, she needs -
He lets go.
The relief is immediate, and she cannot at first tell if it is merely that she has been freed, or that Mr Hayward is there before her - with his smile and his spectacles and his ability to make everything seem just a little better than it was without him.
He does not touch her.
Strangely, she wishes he would.
***
As London becomes easier, so does everything else.
Rebecca regularly falls asleep against her during her bedtime story. It quickly becomes one of her favourite parts of the day.
Her Aunt greets her with a kiss to her cheek, and nothing terrible occurs.
She lets Ann paste something vile-smelling all over her face. She does not flinch once.
Even as Mr Hurst pats her shoulder after their illuminating discussion about horses, she finds it does not cause her any pain. A little fizz, still, a small sting, but it does not last long.
If it weren’t for Caroline Bingley, she thinks there would be nothing to complain about in her new life.
Or at least, almost nothing. Again and again her gaze drifts to Mr Hayward. Tom.
It is not allowed. She does not belong to him, no matter what she wishes, no matter what she dreams of.
(And she does dream)
***
It comes crashing down around her as soon as she hears her mother’s voice.
Cutting. Harsh. Scolding her before she has even stepped foot in the room.
She moves, unthinkingly, hoping to embrace her even so.
London, the Gardiners, Tom, they have changed her. Have opened her heart, her mind, her whole world. The actions that would once have caused pain and distress now come readily to her.
But she is not in London.
There are no Gardiners.
No Tom.
Her mother is unchanged. Thrusting a plate into Mary’s open hands, understanding begins to filter through her exhausted state.
You look well. (I do not need to be here, she realises, anger clawing at her throat. I could be home.)
Lizzie embraces her gently, as does Jane, and Mary hates how stiff she feels around them. All those months of softening and yet in the presence of her family she is immediately back to her old self.
That night, she dreams of a garden. Wisteria blooms around her and another hand holds her own. She feels nothing but calm, home, and wakes with a tear running down her cheek.
***
When Mr Ryder appears at Pemberley she is, once again, unsure.
But he brings with him a reminder of who she is now. Who she has worked so hard to become.
William Ryder likes her company. He thinks she is worthy of spending time with.
He takes her arm without a second thought, and she feels that familiar buzzing, a shock running through her skin, making her shiver even on such a warm day.
She pushes through the strangeness of it, partly because her sisters are watching from afar, and partly because she wishes it would disappear.
(She finds she cannot fully relax around him. He is… light, easy. His pursuit of joy is infectious. But she is not entirely herself around him. And he is not her home.)
***
Of course it is Lizzy who weasels out the truth from her. Mr Ryder’s sort-of-proposal.
An escape. That is what it is.
Lizzy’s hand is light on her back, soothing her as she explains how the world will see it.
Not an escape.
Ruination.
(She thinks of Mr Hayward. He would never ask such a thing of a woman. But he is promised to Ann and she must stop thinking of him.)
Lizzy’s hand is light, but her words are not. She is clear, firm, and later Mary will be glad of it. Now, however, her mind is confused and blurry and her spine is tight where Lizzy’s hand lays.
She flinches away as the argument builds, tears and pain unlocking something deep within her.
All she wants, all she has ever wanted, is to be known. Accepted for who she is and nothing more. Nothing less.
She wants to be back in London, at the Gardiner’s dinner table. George on one side of her, Mr Hayward on the other.
Safe and loved and home.
***
Her stay continues. Drags on, day after day.
Sometimes she feels like her old self again. Her London self. She finds a volume of Keats’ poetry in the library and spends the rest of the afternoon wandering around the gardens, allowing the words to wash over her. Or she tucks Lyrical Ballads close to her heart and hides in her bedroom, away from them all. She carries Ann’s letter with her to dinner, folded in a particular manner so that she may glance down and read My dearest Mary, how I miss you, whenever her mother pushes her too far.
Kitty finds her during one of these escapes. She brings her own book out into the sunshine and joins Mary on a low stone wall.
They read in silence for a little while before the absurdity of the situation hits her.
Kitty? (There are far too many questions, she does not know where to start)
Her little sister simply smiles, offering up the spine of her book so that Mary may read its title. They return to their silence and it is only when her arm becomes suddenly itchy that she realises Kitty is leaning against her.
Mary shifts a little, allowing the fabric of their dresses to settle against each other. The itching softens to a low, simmering prickle across her skin and she relaxes into it.
There was a time when Kitty was hers.
She remembers it with blinding clarity, despite how young she was, those two years before Lydia arrived. She thinks of those nights in the nursery, Jane and Lizzie whispering together under the covers - and Kitty.
A tiny baby, pink and wrinkled, who always stopped crying the second she was placed next to Mary.
Whose tiny fingers had curled around Mary’s own small hand, and clung on with a devotion that Mary had never before experienced.
She had been chosen. For a little while, at least.
Here, in the cool breeze of the evening, Pemberley towering in the distance, she feels a little of that connection tethering her to Kitty once again. She prays, earnestly, that it would only be the beginning. That Kitty might be someone she considered home once again.
***
They are here, they have come for her.
Her smile grows, her heart feels light and she is hugging her uncle tightly without thinking, accepting the kiss her aunt presses to her cheek.
There is no pain. No fizzing. Nothing but a state of calm she has not felt since she left London.
It feels like home. She is home - because they are here.
Her Aunt keeps hold of her hand, firm and solid, the foundation that she has been missing this whole time.
Behind them, she can feel the disappointment rolling off her mother in waves.
And yet, it does not touch her. Not anymore.
Part of her home, her heart, has returned to her.
(The other part she is still, most adamantly, not thinking about.)
***
The first night in the Lakes passes without fanfare. Mr Hayward has not yet arrived, and without the children around she finds herself in the rare position of being the sole focus of her aunt and uncle.
If they do not stand on ceremony in London, it is even less so here in the Lakes. Her aunt pulls Mary’s feet onto her lap without thinking, hands resting on Mary’s ankles, without even pausing her sentence.
And Mary feels nothing.
No, that is not quite right. What she feels is relief. She feels comforted, noticed, chosen. There is no stinging, no tingling, no uneasiness.
Her uncle yawns, slaps his knees and stands as he declares his intention to get some sleep. He bends, kissing his wife on her cheek, then Mary on the top of her head - and those feelings settle within her.
She is loved. There is nothing she has to do, no need to impress or sparkle, she must simply be herself.
And she is loved for it.
As she tries to fall asleep that night, her mind revisits her conversation with Ann.
He took the news as well as could be expected.
That could mean anything.
She returns to her mental catalogue, her list of every time Mr Hayward had touched her. Each one had brought nothing but calm - from the very first time. A comfort that she has never known what to do with, it had been so unfamiliar to her.
He had felt like home before she even really knew him.
(Love, the deepest part of her heart whispers to her, it has always felt like love.)
***
Even when he is not touching her, she feels his warmth. They have never spent this much time in each other’s company and she is intoxicated.
He waits for her, always aware of her in every situation. Draws her into conversations, asks her opinion on all sorts, laughs brightly at her terrible jokes.
She has never felt such attention, such intention from somebody, and if she ever has to lose it she does not know if she would recover.
He knows she is not engaged. She knows that he is not engaged.
It forms a lightness between them, an ease that has never been present before. There is nobody else who might appear and take him from her. In this place, with its majesty and wonder, she can pretend he belongs to her.
(Sometimes, when he looks at her in that particular way, she wonders if he feels the same)
***
Their hands touch - passing a cup, or a pencil, or a book. And Mary feels, each time, that same sense of calm washing over her.
She allows herself to think about it one evening, in the low light of the fire. Her aunt is writing a letter, her uncle has engaged Mr Hayward in a legal discussion, and she is free to think.
Her fingers trace the cover of Lyrical Ballads as she thinks. She considers how natural it is now for her to reach for people. Those she loves, her chosen people, who know her and love her and would never harm her.
She thinks of the way Lizzie hugged her when she left. Firm, unrelenting, as if making up for something long past. She thinks of Kitty. Of Jane. Wonders at how they had shared more hugs in those last days at Pemberley than perhaps in the whole of their childhood.
And it had been fine.
Her gaze rests on Mr Hayward. Briefly, so as not to be caught.
She imagines what it would be like to have his arms around her. To rest her head against his chest and hear his heart beating.
Fine would not be enough of a word to explain it. Not at all.
***
As she passes him the book (their book, she has always privately thought) his finger rests along hers.
It is like an anchor. A reminder. You are here, you are home.
She picks up her pencil, distracting herself from such fanciful notions, and waits for him to read.
She puts down her pencil.
And waits for him to read.
His voice washes over her and she cannot help but close her eyes. The words are familiar, she has been trying to understand them all day, but hearing them in his steady tone, at last it makes sense.
She wonders if he would understand. If she were to explain the change in her, how the slightest touch had once burned and scalded, but now she was free.
And that never, in all the time they have known each other, she had never felt that from him.
Only calm. Safety.
Love.
He finishes speaking, asks something of her, and she drops her wondering.
***
Your shawl, he states.
That is all.
Your shawl.
She goes to rectify it, not fully understanding why the slight dip of her shawl should concern him, when their hands meet.
His hand surrounds hers and she lingers. There is no need to flinch this time. She lingers a moment longer than necessary, basking in the warmth of his palm, before allowing him to pull the fabric up and over her shoulder.
A short breath leaves her, not quite a sigh but almost. He is still so close to her, searching her face with those eyes that have always looked at her as if she were something important. Something worth looking at.
Someone worth knowing.
She grasps her shawl, her hand still warm where it had touched his, and she smiles.
If he were to hold her hand, properly, she thinks she might finally be made whole.
***
In her delirious state, she is not fully aware of what is happening.
All she knows is one minute she was freezing, shivering, exhausted, and the next there was him.
She presses her head into his neck and closes her eyes.
There can be nowhere safer than in Tom Hayward’s arms. Of that she is certain. (Of that she has been certain for many months, though with nothing to base her theory upon.)
Tom is holding her, his arms firm and capable, and she knows everything will be alright.
She is home, in his arms.
And so, content with that thought, she falls asleep.
When she wakes, he is gone.
The hole in her chest splits open once more.
***
Happiness must, she assumes, be different for everybody.
She believes she has found her happiness. A home where she is loved, a job she enjoys, and friends who bring light and laughter.
There are gatherings and parties. Games and dances. Stories, and learning, and fun - and she is happy.
George still grabs her hand when there is a discovery to share. Marianne still links their arms whenever they go anywhere. Rebecca hugs her almost every time she sees her. And there is no more pain. No discomfort, no pins and needles at the slightest contact.
She thinks she is cured. Happiness and home have blossomed, intertwining themselves within her, and now she reaches for her loved ones without a second thought.
Kitty brings her little one to visit, and Mary pulls the baby onto her lap, tiny fingers gripping her own with a strength that is impressive. And she feels joy.
The Darcy family travel to London, without her mother, and Lizzie embraces her with the same ferocity as when they last parted. Mary inhales deeply, warmth and affection filling her lungs, and tightens her arms around her sister.
Yes, she decides, she is happy.
(The hole in her chest, the one shaped like Tom Hayward, still hurts.)
***
When William Ryder takes her hands, she knows.
I do not love you.
(She regrets the hurt that crosses his face. He has been a good friend, but she cannot marry him.)
His hands do not feel like home.
There is no discomfort anymore, she knows him and likes him, but he is not her home.
Her home, it turns out, has been in Yorkshire.
Yorkshire! What do you mean, Yorkshire?
He explains and she is so angry, so hurt, but so relieved to have him standing in front of her in one piece.
Tom takes her hands, holding them tightly, squeezing her fingers as if he is afraid she might run away. And yet she feels no pain, only a certainty that everything will be okay.
There is so much she wants to say, but it all comes down to - I love you. I have only ever loved you.
Her heart beats wildly in her chest and tears fall from both of them as he confesses his love for her. As he asks her to marry him - the words rushing out of him as if he feels he might die if he does not ask her.
And then, he kisses her.
Once, twice, three times. His arm snakes around her back and pulls her in close and she feels quite certain that this is where she has always belonged.
It seemed her heart had known something she did not. Even in that first meeting, the first time their hands had met, she had felt at home with him. There had been no pain, no sting, just an overwhelming feeling of rightness.
Of love.
She knows it now, as he rests his chin on her head and she burrows in as close to him as she can manage. Tom Hayward was always meant for her. And she for him.
As they walk back to Gracechurch Street, Tom tucks her in close, pressing kisses to her forehead without breaking his stride. His smile does not waver, and she cannot look away.
He is beautiful.
He is hers.