When Sir William Lucas announced his plan to give a sociable little dinner, it came as an unwelcome surprise to Mrs Bennet. She had not anticipated that the Lucases would seize the opportunity to invite Mr Bingley, along with his friends, to meet the families of the neighbourhood in which he had chosen to make his home. It was extremely aggravating not to have thought of this idea herself; and she received news of it with considerable indignation.
‘I consider it great presumption in them to hold such a dinner,’ she declared, ‘and very much intended to serve their own interests. They mean to have Mr Bingley for Charlotte, Mr Bennet, I’m sure of it. I’ve rarely seen such behaviour. I wonder they are not ashamed.’
‘Then I shall write and explain we cannot attend,’ replied her husband. ‘It would obviously be painful for you to witness their machinations at first hand.’
‘Whatever are you thinking?’ cried his wife, exasperated. ‘Of course we must go. I won’t see Jane cut out by that contriving Charlotte Lucas. I shan’t take my eyes off her for a minute.’
‘In that case, I shall convey our acceptance and look forward to what promises to be a most pleasant evening spent amongst out oldest and dearest friends.’
Thus it was that Mary found herself, when the appointed evening rolled around, in an undistinguished seat at the least favoured end of Sir William’s dining table, playing with her food and wishing the dinner over. From a rather better situation nearer Mr Bingley and his friends, Charlotte occasionally caught her eye, her cheerfulness no longer seeming as natural as Mary had once assumed it to be. Her bleak confession at the ball echoed in Mary’s mind as she surveyed the guests, all of whom appeared to be enjoying themselves with a gusto that grated on Mary’s sombre frame of mind. Her mood darkened further as she watched the men gathered round the table, and it struck her very forcibly that not one of them would consider her as a potential wife. There was Mr Bingley, working as hard to please as he had at the Meryton ball, all smiles and jollity and good nature. But for all his easygoing charm, Mary sensed he would never notice any woman who was not a beauty; and having Jane before his eyes, why would he look for anyone else? Mary rarely thought as one with Mrs Bennet, but as she watched Mr Bingley and Jane together, there seemed little doubt he was smitten with her.
As her gaze moved on towards the grand and severe Mr Darcy, Mary almost laughed at the sheer impossibility of his thinking of her in any way at all. He had not even registered the fact of her existence. She thought she saw him look sometimes in Elizabeth’s direction, but Lizzy resolutely ignored him, his use of the fatal word ‘tolerable’ woundingly fresh in her memory. At the other end of the table were a noisy group of young men in uniform, rather red in the face from too much wine, flirting with Kitty and Lydia. Mary found it impossible to tell them apart. She thought they were unlikely to be as particular as Mr Bingley or his friend; but where good looks were not to be found, they required jolliness and tearingly high spirits, and Mary had neither.
The truth was, she thought bitterly, that there was no one in her immediate society who considered her worthy of attention; and if this was so when she was still young, why should it improve as she grew older? In all likelihood, her next ten years would be spent very much like Charlotte’s lost decade, with little to hope for and not much to make her happy. As the evening went on, Mary felt herself steadily diminished by this knowledge, imagining herself fading from view, minute by minute, hour by hour, until she felt as though she had disappeared altogether, leaving nothing behind to remind anyone that she had ever been there at all.
It was only when dinner was over and the cloth cleared that she rallied somewhat. Dancing was called for; and, seeing an opportunity to break out of her unhappiness, Mary volunteered to oblige the company at the piano. For the rest of the evening, she hammered out Scottish and Irish airs while her sisters and the Lucases took to the floor with the keenest of the officers. When she could play no more, she received the thanks of the dancers with mixed emotions. She was glad to have done something other than sit in silence but felt she had purchased the gratitude of the party by absenting herself from their number. She thought she heard Charlotte reminding her how unprofitable it was to be content with warming your hands at the happiness of others, and it saddened her to think this might be her destiny, enabling pleasure for those around her while never enjoying it herself.