Chapter Text
When Mary had been ten, Lydia had decided that she was to climb as high as possible in the tree outside their house. Standing below and looking up, Mary had thought that Lydia seemed to be reaching the clouds with how high up she was. Mary had never been one for climbing, much preferring to stay on the ground and observe as her sister reached higher and higher. Watching her sister, she could almost feel the clouds at her fingertips. She knew that clouds were wet, rather than fluffy, despite what they looked like. She imagined that touching a cloud would feel like engulfing one’s hand in the softest of liquids, barely touching but infinitely cold. The coldness had filled her entirely when Lydia fell to the ground with a loud shriek. When their mother had ran over, comforting Lydia as she cried, she had looked at Mary with blackened eyes from the fury. Her mother’s words made it clear that it was Mary who should have stopped Lydia from getting hurt. Mary decided then to never reach for the clouds, they were not to be caught.
Reaching for the clouds was not the only thing that Mary had never done. If she was completely honest with herself, there were quite a lot of things that she had never done, and most she never expected to do. A lot of things, she had read about and thought that she, through her books, had experienced in a way. She thought that surviving a shipwreck was something she would leave to the books, she might not understand it simply by reading it, but she understood enough to know that it was not something she wanted to experience. There were other things that she watched other’s do that she felt like she had experienced and therefore did not try herself. Watching her aunt’s neighbour’s daughter get caught up in scandal when she turned out to be pregnant with no husband in sight was one of those things. It wasn’t that she expected it to be a situation she might find herself in, but she would remember Miss Abernathy’s hopelessness if she, against all expectations, were to end up alone with an eligible man.
Her father had given her a lot of things, life being just one of them. He had given her the books which she had found herself in, he had given her room to grow and encouragement to do so, but he had also given her the firm belief that the consuming of alcohol was something that no one should be partaking in. Her father had been a man of few words. She had often wondered if he liked her and therefore had spent many days trying to earn his love. After his passing and her growing up, she had come to the conclusion that he was a man who showed his care though slightly harsh acts rather than with fancy words. She knew that he must have loved her when she used the spectacles that he had gone against her mother to make sure Mary got. She saw his care in the endless books that had never run dry in her childhood home. The father that had acted lovingly, however, had only been the sober one. Her father had not drunk often; he was not an alcoholic like some of the people who slept on the streets of London was. He seldom drank, but when he did, he turned nasty.
When her father drank, he lost his composition. His patience was nowhere to be found, and she and her sisters had quickly found out that it was best to not talk when he drank. Mary had thought that it was the alcohol that was the issue when she was younger, but when she had moved to London it became evident that it was not. She thought it might be a Bennet thing then, but without her sisters to observe, she could not say if this was true. Nonetheless, drinking had never been for her. She loathed the smell of it, thick in her nostrils at the breaths of whoever was speaking to her. The stickiness of it under her shoes, from where it was spilled on the dancefloor made her frustrated, the sole of her shoes catching while she was already struggling to move with grace. The loss of control made her skin crawl; it seemed that anyone grew careless and loose when they had consumed it. She had never understood the need to be let loose. She had never tasted it, but she hated the taste of it the most. It had to be delicious, for she saw no other reason for everyone to be so obsessed with the liquid if it was not equal to the nectar of the gods.
Mary had often been questioned about her lack of drinking. Her family had never understood why she was so terribly upstuck, fellow dinner attendees would share amused looks when they realised that she was not touching her wine, as if she was blind and would not see them in her periphery. Alcohol was always present at the parties, dinners and balls that she attended in London. It was not until she got to know Thomas Hayward, and his former fiancée, Miss Baxter. They consumed alcohol like it was simply another part of the meal. Slowly, she saw the other side of drinking. She saw that it was not all or nothing. It was not unrestrained drinking that led to mistakes every time, nor was it embarrassments and harshness left in its wake. She knew that she held fondness for Mr Hayward, and she knew that it was not hers to hold. Despite this, she could not stop herself from being eager when she saw the faintest slip of his well-built façade, heart pattering when his smile for her grew lazy with the effects of the alcohol. It was not kind, nor was it proper for her to think about seeing him in such an unrestraint state without the alcohol involved. But she did think of it. She thought of it to a concerning degree, thinking of the way his smile would go on forever and of how his eyes would look drunk with lust instead of with wine. Despite her sinful thoughts, she did not let them show, for her own façade was too strong and she refused to let her true feelings show through.
It all toppled over when she met William Ryder. He was so unapologetically himself, in a way that she would have assumed involved alcohol had she not been close enough to smell his breath at multiple occasions, completely deprived of any trace of alcohol. She saw how alcohol turned into a tool in his hands, how he drank it intently without getting lost in it. He took sips of his wine with his eyes glued to hers, smiling over the rim of his cup and tongue chasing stray drops of crimson on his lips. His hands would touch hers as he poured her a cup, all while making it clear that he did not expect her to drink it. The attention from him became overwhelming, for she was not used to such unrestrained behaviour from a man. Especially not from a man she genuinely liked to spend time with. It was with her hand around a cup of wine from him, that she started to think that she might have been too quick to decide that she had experienced alcohol enough through the actions of others.
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Tom had watched Miss Bennet for weeks. For months, if he was honest with himself – though he preferred not to be. She was impossible to ignore, and he had fallen like a tree in the forest during a storm. It had been violent and sudden, but no one had noticed just the same. When he spent time with her, he felt like he could fully breathe again for the first time in a long time. That is, until she got too close and he lost the ability to do so at all.
He thought of her enough that it was worrisome, she was there in every part of his day. She was in the food he ate, thinking of sharing his breakfast with her, sleepy conversations over the rim of cups of tea. She was in the breeze on his way to work, the soft scent of honeydew caressing his senses. When he came home to an empty house, she was missing in every nook and cranny, missing from his table and missing from his bed. The image of her laughing face in the soft light from candlesticks were vivid visitors in his mind late in the evenings, along with the sweet sound of her joy.
Her joy was ringing through his head as he watched her share it with another. It felt like it was scraping against the confines of his skull, torturing him, for it was not brought to her by him. Her hand gripped Ryders jacket, and the dishonourable rake had his own on her leg as she leaned forward, doubled over in laughter at something he had said. Her other hand held an empty chalice, it was dangling from her fingers. He had never seen her drink before. He had never seen her like she was tonight, and it infuriated him that Ryder was the one to bring this part of her forward. She seemed so at ease, filled with joy with her hand on Ryder and his arm around the back of her chair.
“Tom, I do think something is amiss with Mary.” Ann said beside him, reminding him that he was not only starting at the other pair, but also that he was neglecting her.
“I agree, and the thing that is amiss is 6 feet tall and has an uncanny ability to put himself where he is not wanted.” His eyes were still glued to the way Ryders hand moved against Miss Bennet’s exposed shoulder.
“Thomas! I do not mean Ryder; I mean that she has never before consumed alcohol and that she might not know what she is doing. I doubt she would let him show her such public affections if she had not drunk tonight.” He knew his friend was correct, but he also knew that he could not intervene when she was not in any danger.
“She would not appreciate us intervening. It is not our place when she is clearly enjoying herself.”
“Then if you are not to do anything, take me out of the misery of watching you yearn away in your chair, and bring me to the dancefloor.” He tore his eyes away, with some effort, and took Ann’s hand in his, willing himself to concentrate on her as they danced. He managed somewhat, until the dance was almost over and he heard the impossibly loud voice of Ryder decreasing in volume. He looked up, expecting Miss Bennet to sit by herself, except she did not. She was hanging of an equally drunk Ryder, on their way out into the dark garden. The dark, private, garden. He felt cold all over at the implications of what could happen to her out there. He knew that Ryder would not do anything she did not want to, but he feared she might want things she knew better than to have when her mind was whole. After excusing himself to Ann, who urged him to hurry to their friend’s side, he set off after the couple, only a few minutes behind and heart in his throat at what he was about to find.
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Another thing that Mary did not do, was spending time alone with eligible bachelors. It was not a conscious choice she had made; it was partly something that had been drilled into her mind as a child from her mother, and partly something that simply never happened to her. That is, until she found herself in the dark garden with William Ryder. She had drunk a cup of wine, not expecting it to hit quite so hard. The sensation was not like what she had expected. Her mind was still her own, if a bit slower and less filtered than usual. The biggest change was in her motoric skills. The world spun and she struggled to walk without the support of William. He had seen how queasy she had gotten and suggested some air to clear their minds. Since she had completely lost her ability to walk straight after the second cup, she had clung to him as they made their way out. She had laughed with him, both finding it endlessly funny that they could not seem to walk properly, no matter how hard they tried.
She found it less funny when she was sat on a bench, too close to William for propriety. Her stomach was uneasy and she had the creeping suspicion that she might end the evening with its contents on the ground. She also found it less funny to realise that alcohol did not change who she was, it simply removed some reservations she usually kept. This meant that the nasty man her father had become when drinking had nothing to do with the alcohol itself, but with him as a man. Another wave of nausea washed over her. She stared intently at the spinning gravel beneath them, trying to steady her mind. It did not help.
“Mary, may I call you Mary?” William slurred beside her, leaning against her and making the world spin even more. She nodded, unsure that words could form in her cotton-filled mouth.
“I fear I might have shown you too much fun tonight. I hope you can find it in you to forgive me.” Another nod while not losing her intense focus on the spinning gravel.
“It is just that I get so very nervous when you are around, you see I have this fondness for you that I am unsure of how to tell you about. I mean I guess I just did, but I had not intended to do so.” It seemed that William was not afflicted with the same wordlessness that she was when drunk.
“I do hope you and I both will forget what I just said before the morning, so that I may do this in a more dignified way.” The gravel showed no signs of slowing down and she was only becoming more nauseous from looking at it. She raised her eyes to William, leaning back against his arm in search for support. This was a mistake, for he took it as a reaction to whatever he had just said when she had been distracted by the spinning world. He leaned in, smelling like wine and cologne and she closed her eyes to stop herself from emptying her stomach all over him. One second, he was close enough that she felt the heat radiating off his cheek against her own, and the next he was not on the bench at all. She dazedly looked up to find him lifted by the collar of his shirt in the hand of one furious Thomas Hayward. She had never been happier to see him than she was in that moment. If Tom was there, all would be well. She opened her mouth to tell him so, but instead of words passing her lips, she threw up the evening’s food and drinks all over his shoes and the damned spinning gravel.