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boy of eight appeared.
    “So you are
come back,” he stated flatly.
    “Yes, Michael,
as you see. But please recall that you are always to knock before entering a
lady’s room, even mine. Now, unless there is some dire emergency…”
    Before she
could finish, another door – the one directly opposite the first – opened as
well, and two slight figures in yellow sprigged muslin issued through it. The
taller one, a pretty dark-eyed girl of thirteen, announced from the doorway,
“We heard a noise and came to discover what it was. Now I see it is only you ,
Miss Bennet. You stayed away so long that I thought perhaps you would never
return.”
    “Of course I
have returned, Gwendolyn,” Mary answered evenly. “I always keep my obligations,
as any lady should.”
    The other girl
– her sister’s inferior in beauty and by two years in age – pushed past and
came to Mary’s side. “Well, I for one am very glad of it, Miss! May we have a
music lesson today?”
    “By all means,
Grace. I hope you have not neglected your practicing whilst I was away.
Monsieur Hubert will not be pleased if you have.”
    “Oh, no, Miss!
I practiced every day!”
    “Good girl,”
said Mary, patting her shoulder. “Now then, we shall resume our regular studies
directly, but you must allow me time to get my bearings first. So, return to
what you were doing, all of you, and I will summon you shortly.” With that,
Mary began shooing the three children back whence they had come, closing the
doors behind them.
    There were no
locks, of course, and hence no real privacy. In five minutes, her solitude
might be interrupted once again, although she told herself this was no very
great difference from her prior existence at Longbourn, where at any moment her
mother or one of her sisters might break in upon her without so much as one
word of apology. There, however, her modest bedchamber had belonged more
exclusively to her than did this grander one, which was only designated for her
temporary use.
    Her services
would not be wanted at Netherfield forever. Michael was to go away to Eton in the fall, and the girls were nearly grown. Employment of six or seven years more
would be the utmost she could reasonably hope for. After that, she would be in
search of a new situation. She could not expect to find anything half so
convenient again – with a family of quality and in the very neighborhood of her
home. Yet she was not at all afraid of being long unemployed. She knew there
were places in town, offices where inquiry would soon produce something.
    That was a long
way off, however, and Mary resolved to think of it no more, quoting a memorized
scripture to herself. “ Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the
morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is
the evil thereof. ”
     
    ~~ * ~~
     
    Life at
Netherfield settled once more into its customary pattern. Other than an hour or
two in the evening, when they were usually suffered to enjoy their father’s
company, the three children were left chiefly to Miss Bennet’s supervision.
From Monday through Saturday, she not only oversaw their education, she took
every meal and excursion with them as well. The mornings were reserved for
academics – mathematics, geography, literature, a little Latin, and the modern
languages – and the afternoons for outdoor exercise and the arts. Masters were
engaged to periodically come to them from town, but it was the governess’s
office to provide rudimentary training in dance, drawing, and all forms of
music.
    Mr. Harrison
Farnsworth’s affairs kept him a good deal in London, so Mary saw little of him
those first weeks back. This suited her well enough, as she could then attend
to her duties without fear of falling under his critical eye. He unsettled her,
as he seemed to do the rest of Netherfield’s inmates to one degree or another.
    By contrast,
Mrs. Farnsworth had been a lenient, even indolent, mistress. Mary, upon