No. 55

Prompt: Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice; any of the Bennett sisters in old age.
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Mary Bennet was content with being old Aunt Mary, spinster aunt to the impressive Wickham, Bingley, Darcy, and even Collins broods as Charlotte Lucas had had no sisters. Her nieces and nephews fancied themselves grown-up and patient for indulging Mary when she played her piano concertos or read them passages from boring books. She always brought nice gifts, and her sisters felt so guilty for her spinsterhood that they didn't question where the money came from, because if she could afford such nice gifts then being a spinster hadn’t been too awful for her. Mary was too old for much excitement now, but she was content in her own knowledge, that her money came from her own work, her own two bands, playing piano in officers’ bars while dressed as a boy until that ploy no longer worked, and then writing penny dreadfuls that she saw in people’s hands all over London when she took a turn around Hyde Park with Kitty or visited Lizzie at Grosvenor Square. Boring though her relatives thought her, she could ride like a man and fight with a sword, and she could write to bring the city to a standstill, and if she took that knowledge to her grave, she would be the one having the last laugh in heaven.