Mary's first attempt at a novel, Her Evil Genius, would not make a name for its author and in fact it was never published. Her youngest sister Hester considered it ‘horribly vulgar’ and it is likely that it formed part of the final bonfire Mary remembered fuelling with at least two early novels when she left Hodnet many years later. In her masterpiece of 1899, Red Pottage, she would allow her writer heroine a dazzling revelation, in the sudden realization of her talent, followed by a sensational success only a year later, before she is brought to near breakdown by the stifling regime of her brother's household. But if Mary's own first novel was not to project her into overnight fame, it did at least confirm that writing and not painting would be her career.

It was a direction that she could follow, like other women of the time and in common with her famous heroine Hester Gresley, only with difficulty. The prejudice against female writers was compounded in her own case by class prejudice, as acquaintances greeted her desire to become known as a writer with disbelief. For the boys of the family a career was not only acceptable but necessary, given the lack of a private fortune. As they grew older they would have left home as a matter of course, Tom becoming a land agent, Regie joining the 27th Inniskillings and Dick emigrating to Australia, where he became a successful vintner. But for the girls it was different. While they were all well read and four of the five seem at least to have considered a career at different times, their first priority had to be running the family home and helping their father in the parish.

There were of course the more lively entertainments of village and hunt balls, and visits to Condover and Hodnet Hall.