Chapter One

"Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens."

~ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

It was a warm summer's evening when the four remaining members of the Bennet family found themselves in a carriage bound for Longbourn after securing an alliance for their second youngest girl, Katherine, to a most respectable, if not wealthy, parson in a nearby village.

Fortunately for Mr Bennet and his daughters, the upheaval of travelling from their manor had fatigued Mrs Bennet so much so that she was on the cusp of sleep for the homeward journey and unable to form a single word.

Mary detested quitting Longbourn for any occasion whatsoever, even ones at which she could play the pianoforte and sing to her heart's content. She much preferred to remain in the home and at her own pianoforte but when her mother insisted that the whole family had to be present, there was no way she would even attempt to dissuade her. For, there was no changing Mrs Bennet's mind once it had latched onto something.

Kitty was still reeling from the official news that she would be wed to her beau by next spring only three years after her elder sisters had married their own husbands and had been revelling in marital bliss ever since. She gleefully anticipated her own entrance into the marriage state, especially as her intended was a small, country vicar with a handsome pension and parsonage. Her thoughts turned to her youngest sibling, the notorious Mrs George Wickham, the memory of whom made her sigh. When her sister had made her unfortunate bed and was made to lie in it, she had been unwitting of the true nature of the scandal it brought down on the Bennet household, but now, faced with her own happy ending (and a few years older and less silly), she was finally able to comprehend the gravity of Lydia's actions and misdeeds. For, Henry Keaton would never have taken her had she continued on the same path Lydia coaxed her onto during their girlhood and there was nothing she would not do to deserve her husband-to-be.

As Mr Bennet observed his daughter's face as it smiled serenely in the wake of her engagement, he too reflected on the good fortune of his family: two daughters comfortably and happily espoused to good, amiable men, one daughter whom he had not set eyes on since her initial visit after her marriage and another about to marry a man, who – luckily – possessed more sense than the other man of God associated with his family. What, or rather who, perplexed him was his daughter, Mary.

He whispered, not wanting to rouse his wife, "Mary dear, we should start looking for an affable groom for you now. Your mother will not waste another day, now that our Kitty is well-matched, you know."

Mary clutched at her copy of Fordyce's Sermons and nodded slightly at her father, unwilling to contemplate marriage…ever. She much preferred to live out her days in peaceful solitude, or perhaps, with a niece, if one of her sisters could spare a child, merely playing music and praising her Lord. A life of some man, who would take no pleasure in her plain face and unremarkable form, that did not care for her and who would expect her to bear his babes was insupportable. It was a life that spelled misery for the middle Bennet daughter.

"Papa, you have four married daughters," Mary postulated, "two of them to rich men. You and mama have done well enough. Cannot I be left to tend you and mama…and the estate?"

Kitty interjected, "Mary, do you not want to get married? How singular!"

"Hush, Kitty! You'll wake mama. And I know it is unusual for a young woman not to desire marriage, but truly, papa, I do not wish that for my life and I beg you not to impose it on me. I would be content to remain at Longbourn and care for the house and my parents in peace."

All Mr Bennet could do in the wake of this surprising development was nod silently at his daughter's words. He would not force her to undertake vows of matrimony but neither did he truly believe that her true happiness would be found at the side of her old and decrepit parents. However, perhaps the best path for his socially awkward and shy child would be to let her find her own way without too many parental expectations.

"Very well, my child," he said resignedly, "you shall have your way. As I did not force Lizzy to spend her life with Collins, I can hardly coerce you into marriage."

Mary, in a slip of character, threw herself from her seat and embraced her startled father, thanks falling from her lips that were more accustomed to prayer and song as she clung to her father's lapel as the carriage jostled them about.

As they were bumped together, Mrs Bennet was roused from her drowsiness and the occupants of the phaeton were made aware that their velocity down the path was increasing…rapidly.

"Good heavens," she exclaimed in her own particular way, "are we to be thrown onto the road to die among the creatures of the night?!"

Mr Bennet rolled his eyes, but in the privacy of his own mind acknowledged that aside from his dear wife's hyperbole, she had a point. They were travelling too fast and were gaining speed as they went, so he placed Mary, who had not loosened her grip, back into her proper place and took his cane to beat the ceiling with it.

"Driver," he bellowed, "what's the hurry?"

When there was no response he took care while leaning out of the window, but what he saw agitated his fear for himself and his womenfolk. The driver was unconscious atop the carriage and evidently had been at the tavern sampling the local offerings by the bottle that was clutched far more tightly than the reins were.

"Driver! Driver!"

"Oh, Mr Bennet, what is it? What is the matter?"

"Papa?" Kitty and Mary chorused together in worried voices.

Mr Bennet tried as best he could to stick the inebriated driver with his cane, but to no avail, so the best he could do in such a dire situation was to usher himself back inside the bucking box and clutch his wife to his side with one arm and tightly grip the handle in the carriage with the other.

Seeing their father behave with such an air of abject fear terrified the young women to the point that they were paralysed and could do nothing in the face of the coming disaster except watch as their mother cried out in terror and their father held onto her with uncharacteristic fondness and attachment, and so it was that the Bennet family hurtled towards the side of the road and then downwards into the ditch where the carriage splintered and the wood speared the horses, the driver and the passengers all…but one.

Fate had dealt Mary Bennet a strange but equally as cruel hand as had been given to her parents and sister.