The Clergyman's Wife

by Molly Greeley

  “I THOUGHT MY cousin looked very well,” William says as we ready ourselves for bed. “Marriage and motherhood are good for her; she was far more restrained in her opinions than she used to be.”

  “Mmm.” I remove the pins from my hair one by one and take up my hairbrush. From behind me comes the rustle of cloth as William removes his clothing.

  “Mr. Darcy must be very pleased to return to Rosings,” he says, his voice muffled as he pulls his nightshirt over his head. “I can only imagine the distress of being denied entry here for so long. Did you think he seemed pleased, my dear?”

  Mr. Darcy was as taciturn tonight as I remember his being both in Hertfordshire and when he came to Kent just after my marriage. He was quiet at their wedding as well, though Mrs. Bennet was so talkative that she scarcely left room for anyone else to speak. Lizzy told me, when she wrote of her engagement, that Mr. Darcy’s behavior had undertaken a dramatic change for the better, but this evening I could not see it.

  I draw the brush through my hair again and again. “I imagine he is happy,” I say.

  “Yes.” William sits on the edge of the bed. “How could he be otherwise?”

  Lady Catherine’s determination to never see her nephew again softened when she learned that Lizzy was with child—for, as she said to me over tea one day, Mrs. Darcy would need her guidance if she was to properly raise the heir to the Pemberley estate. Lizzy confessed to me in a letter that neither she nor Mr. Darcy could decide whether Lady Catherine’s forgiveness was more blessing or curse.

  “Make sure that Mrs. Baxter knows she must serve cake when they come to call tomorrow,” William says as we settle into bed.

  THERE IS PLUM cake, and the silver with which to eat it gleams from Mrs. Baxter’s careful polishing. And there is plentiful sunshine, making the front parlor bright and cheerful. Were it not for the stream of nonsense issuing from William’s mouth, I would be perfectly content. As it is, Lizzy and I have not managed to say more than three words to one another, and Mr. Darcy, who is the object of my husband’s unwavering attention, seems to be making an effort to say as little as possible. Only baby Thomas seems unconcerned by the awkwardness in the room; he sits in his mother’s lap, round faced and handsome, looking about him curiously.

  “Mr. Collins,” Mr. Darcy says suddenly, in the brief space between one of William’s thoughts and the next; his voice is too forceful, and we all give little starts, William especially. “I hoped you might indulge me. I have the responsibility of installing a new rector at Lambton, and if it is agreeable to you I thought we might discuss the candidates. Your, er, expertise would be appreciated. Perhaps the ladies could enjoy a turn or two in your garden.”

  William touches the fingers of both hands to his lips and closes his eyes. “It would be my honor,” he says after a moment, then stands quickly. “Mrs. Collins—be sure to show the roses to Mrs. Darcy. They were”—he gives a slight bow in Mr. Darcy’s direction—“your aunt’s idea entirely, Mr. Darcy, and let me assure you that her generosity and solicitude are felt deeply by both Mrs. Collins and myself. Come—we can adjourn to my book room; it is from the window there that I was fortunate enough to see your carriage pass yesterday morning . . .”

  His voice fades as he goes down the hall. Mr. Darcy pauses to cast a look at Elizabeth that is at once exasperated and laughing, which she returns with a brilliant smile, and then he follows William from the room.

  We hear the door to the book room close a moment later, and our eyes meet. Eliza’s mouth twitches. “He knew I wanted time to visit alone with you,” she says.

  I should not laugh, not when William is, however obliquely, the butt of the joke, but I cannot help it. “How very inventive of him.”

  She steps toward me, and suddenly she has wrapped the arm not holding Thomas around me in a quick, fierce embrace. “I’ve missed you,” she says.

  WE HAVE BEEN nearly an hour in the garden together when we see Mr. Darcy and William emerge from the house, the latter looking much more pleased with the world than the former. Mr. Darcy comes straight to Elizabeth, who is sitting beside me on a bench with the baby in her arms. I collected Louisa from the nursery before coming outside, and she is exploring the nearby hedgerows, Martha following at a little distance.

  “We should be going,” Mr. Darcy says upon reaching us. “Lady Catherine will be expecting us for tea.”

  “And I am meant to practice the pianoforte for at least an hour before dinner.” Lizzy’s smile has a sardonic edge. “As you heard yourselves last night, my playing has not sufficiently improved for her ladyship’s taste.”

  Lady Catherine winced and tutted through last night’s performance, and dismissed Lizzy from the pianoforte when she had finished playing with a disgruntled wave of her hand.

  “It would behoove you, my dear cousin, to take her ladyship’s advice to heart,” William says. “She wants only that the mistress of Pemberley be worthy of the role.”

  Mr. Darcy’s face is a picture of outrage, but Elizabeth merely rises from the bench, obviously diverted.

  “You are quite right, Mr. Collins, I am sure,” she says. She turns to me. “I wish we could stay longer—”

  I shake my head. “I understand. And we will see you at the ball in only a few days.”

  “If Lady Catherine does not invite you to tea or dinner before then.” Elizabeth smiles, glancing at Mr. Darcy. “Now the families of Rosings and Pemberley are reconciled, I expect we will be visiting here more often—and hopefully for longer than a week next time.”

  Mr. Darcy makes a noncommittal noise, but the harsh lines of his face soften, just a little, when he looks at her.

  William and I walk them to the gate, William pausing beside the rosebushes. I feel a little drop in the vicinity of my stomach and bend to neaten Louisa’s bonnet, affecting deafness. But he only says, arms wide and palms raised, “These, Mr. Darcy, are the roses your aunt so magnanimously gifted us.”

  Lizzy and Mr. Darcy look. Even the single blossom has long since died, leaving the bushes looking more bedraggled than ever.

  “They are,” William hastens to add, “still immature, of course, and I could never presume to think that my garden could ever be the equal of Rosings’s—or, indeed, of Pemberley’s, Mr. Darcy, for I assure you that Lady Catherine speaks of your estate in the most flattering terms. But I do look forward to our roses reaching their potential—they can but stand as testimony to her ladyship’s generous spirit.”

  After a pause, he adds, “They are rather small, still. Perhaps we ought to have Mr. Travis back to look at them.”

  I stand quickly, deafness forgotten. “No!” I say, with such vehemence that three pairs of startled eyes turn to stare at me. William’s mouth gapes.

  I inhale a steadying breath, take in the summer smells of sun and flowers. “My dear,” I say, and my voice is calmer. “There is no need to bother Mr. Travis, not so close to the harvest. Perhaps after the ball, if you really think it necessary.”

  Elizabeth meets my eyes, one brow just slightly raised, as William makes a tetchy noise at the back of his throat.

  I RETURN TO the lawn with Louisa and Martha and settle back on the bench while the two of them play at hide-and-seek among the hedgerows. I should really find something productive to do, but my body is listless, my mind pensive. My thoughts keep returning to Elizabeth and her husband and then shying away again. I feel almost embarrassed to have witnessed the affection that does, apparently, exist between them; and more than affection, a true intimacy of the sort Elizabeth always said she must have or never marry, the sort of intimacy that allows for communication without speech. I only saw a little—just moments, out of months and months of a marriage—but I am unsettled, as if I went for a walk in Rosings’s woods and came across some lovely, fabled creature, the sort of thing one might tell children about in stories but which one never expects to find in life.

  Unaccountably, there is the tingling behind my eyes that presages a hard, cleansing cry. I t
ip my head up and widen my eyes to keep the tears away. I want to ask Elizabeth so many impertinent questions, but I do not want to hear the inevitable sympathy in her response. Lizzy, pretty Lizzy, who refused the man whose later proposal to me was not repugnant, as it was to her, but salvation. Or so it seemed at the time.

  Were I born with Elizabeth’s looks, perhaps I’d have had other suitors at a much earlier age, though it is hard to imagine myself, under any circumstances, being a true romantic. Years of observing my parents’ marriage, and the marriages of other couples in the neighborhood, had convinced me that wives guided their husbands subtly when they could and obeyed them when they must, and that felicity was something a woman found in other areas of her life—her children, perhaps, or her friends. My thoughts turn, as they so often have of late, to Mr. Travis. The book he borrowed was tangible proof that I am, at least sometimes, in his thoughts, that this improbable fixation is not entirely one-sided. The need to take to the woods seizes me, and I curl my fingers around the edge of the bench’s seat to keep myself in place.

  This would be no decorous stroll—if I let myself move, I will run, and run, and run until my poor body cries out at me to stop. I will kick up dust from the lane, my gown will be hopelessly dirty; I will run like Louisa, heedless of how I look, until my bonnet flies off and bounces against my back, its ribbons catching around my throat.

  I lean forward on the bench, rocking slightly with my hands still firmly anchoring me in my seat, and close my eyes. A deep inhale, the smell of the garden, the drone of the bees, and then Louisa’s high laugh. My eyes open, catch and hold on the sight of my daughter—she stands, bonnet in hand, as Martha scolds her for removing it. Louisa’s hair, so fine that pink scalp is visible, stands up all over her head in mad wisps, like seedlings just sprouting. When she laughs again, suddenly and for a reason that is obvious only to herself, her smile, with its uneven distribution of teeth, steals my breath entirely.

  “Make her beautiful,” I whisper, and it is not a prayer. It is an order, fierce and emphatic. My body hums with the force of it. I imagine my mother whispering those same words above my cradle; feel her creeping despair as it became clear, as the years passed, that her demand had not been answered. I carry her fear inside me now; it is a thread that connects us intimately, generation to generation. Louisa will never understand how desperately I love her, unless she has a daughter of her own.

  Of course, when William inherits Longbourn Louisa will have more prospects than I did. I have no doubt I will be able to ensure that William manages the estate more carefully than Mr. Bennet has, and so she will have a fine dowry. But still I long for the world to see her as I see her. The world must see her and recognize her worth. For I am not, for all the subjectivity of mother love, actually blind; though Louisa is still so small that it is hard to know how her features will change as she grows, I know the unlikelihood that William and I could ever create anything but a plain daughter. And yet—oh, no matter her looks, she is lovely, so lovely I ache with it. My girl turns in an unsteady circle, evading Martha’s grasp, searching until she finds me with her eyes. She waves her bonnet like a flag of triumph. My heart beats hard and steady in time with the refrain inside my head.

  Make her beautiful, make her beautiful, make her beautiful.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The harvest ball has been a tradition at Rosings Park since at least the time of Sir Lewis de Bourgh’s father. William has been at Rosings every day helping with the preparations, though I have been unable to determine exactly what form his help takes, or why, with a household filled to bursting with maids and footmen, it is needed.

  The ball is tomorrow, and this morning he left for Rosings directly after we breakfasted. I have been playing with Louisa all morning while Martha helps Mrs. Baxter with the laundry, but now Louisa is napping and I am unable to settle to any useful work, thoughts of tomorrow evening plucking at my mind and distracting me from the sewing in my lap. I rise and steal upstairs on my toes, hoping the creaking of the steps does not rouse Louisa. In my bedchamber, I open the clothespress and look down at my new gown. It was an extravagance suggested by William, though I made only a token protest about the unnecessary expense. Both of us, it seems, are vain enough to want me to look my best, though a part of me worries that—despite William’s assurances that my position requires elegance of dress—in making so much effort, I will merely look ridiculous among the tenants’ much simpler Sunday best. And it is with no small amount of shame that I know my desire to look well is only increased because I’ve no wish to look especially dowdy beside Elizabeth.

  The gown is prettier than any I have worn in a long while, the lutestring dyed the pale gray-green of sage leaves. When I dithered over fabrics at the draper’s, the young woman working there held this fabric up before me and declared that it was just the color to complement my hair and complexion. It is strange, at thirty, to feel so like a young girl looking forward to her first dance—that peculiar blend of nervousness and excitement and pure possibility—and of course, my first dance was not the triumph I had envisioned.

  I reach out, touch the gown with one fingertip, then snatch my hand back and shut the clothespress decisively. Some feelings, I think, are better not examined too closely.

  WILLIAM CALLS TO me from downstairs, his voice sounding as anxious as I feel. I take one last look in the glass, convinced that I must have disordered myself somehow, but I am still neat in my new gown, my hair smooth under a narrow ribbon bandeau. Then I touch my pearls where they lie against my collarbone, their warmth a comfort beneath my palm, and leave the room.

  William is waiting at the foot of the stairs. He looks harried, and he says nothing about my appearance, only offers me his arm.

  We arrive at Rosings to find the great hall brightly lit. “The expense,” William whispers to me, gleeful, as he looks around us. “Just think of the expense!” I can nearly hear his mind tallying the number of candles. Though the ball has not yet formally begun, Lady Catherine’s tenants already fill the space. They stand in clusters, dressed in their best clothes, chattering with excitement and furtively looking around themselves at the opulent room.

  William nods this way and that in acknowledgment of greetings but leads me unerringly to where her ladyship sits with Miss de Bourgh. Elizabeth, Mr. Darcy, and Mrs. Jenkinson stand beside the ladies of Rosings. We make our bows, and as we rise William says, “The hall is glorious, Your Ladyship! I imagine your tenants will be speaking of nothing else for weeks.”

  “I should certainly think so,” Lady Catherine says. She turns her attention upon me. “Mrs. Collins, I am pleased that you are able to attend. Your confinement last year was most inconvenient.”

  “I am very happy to be here, Lady Catherine.”

  She nods, but her expression is peevish. “If Anne were stronger, she would lead the dancing,” she says. “Had it not been for her illness, she would be a most accomplished dancer.” We all, as one, look at Miss de Bourgh, who sits in her chair like an unstarched gown. She gazes down at her lap, as though unaware of our inspection.

  “Indeed,” William says, “we must all feel the deprivation—to watch Miss de Bourgh dance would surely be the greatest of pleasures. Her grace would be recognized by all, her—”

  “Mrs. Darcy,” Lady Catherine interrupts, “you must lead the dancing in Anne’s stead. Mr. Collins will partner you.”

  “You do me great honor, Your Ladyship,” William says, and bows deeply to Elizabeth, who turns away to hide her smile. I pretend not to notice, looking instead at the hall, paneled walls glowing with soft light, tables laden with food for the supper that will come after the dancing. The air is thick with the heat of so many bodies and with the excitement of anticipation. Musicians stand ready in the corner; one draws his bow across the strings of his fiddle, a single long, high note, then adjusts something at the neck of the instrument. My eyes sweep across the familiar faces in the crowd, cottagers and tradesmen and farmers . . .

&nb
sp; I do not acknowledge to myself whose face it is that I am seeking until the moment I find it, half-turned aside and most of the way across the long room, and my blood begins to rush queerly in my ears.

  Mr. Travis’s dark hair is unusually tidy, and he wears a coat I have not seen before. I let myself see these things and then I turn away, look back at Lady Catherine in her high-backed chair with her mouth curled up and her eyes sharp. She makes a gesture and the musicians begin tuning their instruments in earnest. William turns to Elizabeth.

  “Mrs. Darcy,” he says, and Elizabeth, her face impressively blank, looks neither at me nor at her husband as she allows herself to be led onto the floor. I step back, nearer to Mrs. Jenkinson’s place beside Miss de Bourgh’s chair. A murmur runs through the crowd; a few brave couples join the set. Lizzy calls the dance.

  There is nothing like a dance to change the energy in a room; I feel the notes of the song in my fingertips and toes. I hear so little music, here in Kent, beyond a performance, now and again, on the pianoforte at Rosings. The dancers move through the figures with more enthusiasm than expertise—even Lizzy, encumbered by William, is less graceful than I remember her being—but it is a merry song, and enthusiasm, really, is all that is required. My feet tap lightly against the polished floor, hidden by the hem of my gown and soundless in their soft slippers.

  “Mrs. Collins, you should be dancing,” Lady Catherine says. She leans forward in her chair, reaches out and catches at her nephew’s sleeve. “Darcy—set an example.”

  My hands twitch, and I hide them in the folds of my skirt. Mr. Darcy’s shoulders are one tense line. “Your Ladyship,” I say, “it has been a long while since I last danced—”

  She frowns. “I am sure you have not forgotten how, Mrs. Collins.”

  Mr. Darcy turns to me, hand extended. “Will you do me the honor?”

  I am embarrassed for both of us. “Thank you.” I can feel the eyes of the parishioners upon us as we take our place at the end of the line; I keep my own eyes on Mr. Darcy’s waistcoat, not allowing myself to look about and see who, exactly, is watching us, until the moment comes to enter the dance. And then there is nothing but movement and music, people coming together and flinging apart. I had almost forgotten the heady rush of so many bodies, the heat generated among us, the din of stamping feet and clapping hands. The steps return to me quickly, and Mr. Darcy, for all his reluctance in a ballroom, is an excellent dancer. When the set has ended, I am out of breath and giddy with it. Mr. Darcy offers his hand, leads me from the floor.