But even as she spoke, she thought she understood. Anne lived in comfort, even splendour. For as long as she lived, her home, the vast and handsome roof over her head, was secure. She need never fear deprivation, or possibly worse – all the uncertainties of relocation, starting out in an unknown neighbourhood, with a new household to run, new servants to manage. She breathed familiar air, saw only familiar faces and sights. In as much as anyone who lived under Lady Catherine’s sway was able, she had only herself to please. Why would any woman fortunate enough to find herself in these circumstances expose herself to the risks, the haphazard lottery of marriage?
‘The Colonel is sincere enough. It is not me he wishes to marry; it is Rosings. It pleases me that he does not dissemble. The first time he proposed, it was with all the flutter of flattery. I confess I laughed out loud at his protestations of esteem. The man is no fool – he soon retracted his claim to have lost his heart. I had knowledge that it was in fact his chaise and pair he had just lost, and I charged him with this. Oh, his face!’ Anne snorted, a surprisingly robust sound coming from her tiny form.
She reached down towards a green shrub with a spreading aspect and pale pink blooms cross-hatched with darker pink, and picked a star-shaped leaf. She passed it to Charlotte: ‘Here, crumble this between your fingers and then hold it to your nose.’
The leaf was tough, almost leathery, and covered with a down of fine hairs. Charlotte did as she was told, and was overwhelmed by the bright smell of citrus, with a powdery undertone of rose. She exclaimed, and Anne answered her unspoken query: ‘It is a pelargonium, from the Cape of Good Hope down at the tip of Africa, family to the geraniums found in our northern gardens. A transplant, like you. If you wish, I shall send over cuttings, but you will need to keep them in a warm spot indoors. They will not withstand frost.’
They strolled on, and this time Miss de Bourgh picked a forced peony and began to shred its petals. ‘Mrs Collins, you might have been fortunate enough to marry for affection, but matrimony for the rich is a matter of cold, hard business. Of contracts and lawyers’ agreements, of land and estates, pounds and shillings. The Colonel keeps making what is essentially a business proposal. A merging of assets, an exchange of goods. But the assets, and hence the power, are all on my side. He has only status, a certain position in society as his wife, to offer me. And such things carry no weight with me.’
Charlotte winced. Her marriage might not have been a matter of papers and seals in a dusty lawyer’s room, but it had been as brazen a trade as in any marketplace: her husband’s intact pride in exchange for her security. She had known this from the start, even if he could not acknowledge it. And yet their union had made them both content. She gained true pleasure from knowing that she was a good wife and helpmeet, and real affection flowed through their family. Their children were happy. Tom – oh, Tom! – she could swear he had enjoyed every minute of his short life; and for this and all her other blessings, she counted herself fortunate.
She wondered how to respond to these unexpected intimacies. Every question she wanted to ask was indelicate, but her companion seemed to have lost all reserve: ‘I see you wonder why I should not accept an offer that means I will stay in my home, but under the protection of a charming and universally liked man, educated and a brave officer, enjoying all the standing and congratulations due to a married woman. But I have never longed for union with any man; the truth is that I shudder at the idea. And my health will not stand the bearing of children. My line will end with my own flesh. There will be no issue from any marriage I might undertake.’
Charlotte stood still. The trickling of water through the pipes that warmed the hothouse seemed loud as she tried to compute what she had just heard.
Miss de Bourgh turned to her. ‘I see you are shocked. Well now, imagine the Colonel’s surprise when I was equally candid with him. He would indeed be safe, respectable and comfortable, married to me. But men assume that marriage means heirs, and the means of making heirs. I can offer no such thing.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘I have read too many Gothick romances, Mrs Collins. Why would I enter such a marriage, and pay for my husband’s pleasures – which will no doubt include a mistress and her establishment in town? I would not mind the mistress, but I would baulk at footing the bill. And men who fancy themselves in love are not to be trusted: what if he began to see me as an impediment, and I had an unfortunate tumble down the stairs and broke my neck?’
Charlotte must have allowed her amazement to flicker across her face, because her companion added wryly, ‘I see you think that I grow wild and rave – blame my habit of indulging in novels at a tender age, if you wish.’ She sighed as she picked a spray of rosemary and began to strip its leaves. ‘Ah, this reminds me of Provence, and the scent of the maquis there!’
For Charlotte, the fragrance suggested only her own herb garden and the savoury aroma of roasting chicken, but she remembered that Miss de Bourgh and Mrs Jenkinson had indeed spent a winter abroad a few years back, for the sake of the former’s health. She had returned a little browner and with some much-needed flesh on her bones, but had soon reverted to her usual wraith-like appearance.
‘You see, Mrs Collins, the Colonel is at a crossroads. He must marry, and he must marry well. And I am not the only wealthy single woman of his acquaintance. Miss Georgiana Darcy – I believe you met her three years ago, when she visited here on her way to London – is now twenty-two. She is beautiful, accomplished, a charming young woman now that she has overcome her natural tendency to shyness. And she has a fortune of thirty thousand pounds. The Colonel is her cousin, and her brother’s close friend. He is, along with Mr Darcy, her legal guardian – there are no family secrets or matters of business that can be kept from him. He has access to her. All seems set fair, should he cast his eyes in that direction. But women are not items in a shop window to be chosen, picked up, set down again. It is Miss Darcy’s very beauty and youth, allied with her wealth, that gives her room to choose, too. She was the toast of London society when she was presented at court. So you see the Colonel’s dilemma.’
Charlotte frowned. ‘I beg your pardon, Miss de Bourgh, but I do not understand.’
‘I am small, feeble, and advancing in age. I have no special talents or beauty to attract admiration or even envy. Miss Darcy is every impecunious young aristocrat’s dream: rich, exquisite, from one of the first families of the land. Her brother is a byword for diligent guardianship and excellent management. All bodes well for her future. But while she has a dowry – and one that is magnificent by any standards – I have Rosings: the buildings, land, grounds, woods, cottages, rents, crops, livestock. Every acre I see—’ here she gestured at the wavering aspect of the land seen through the rippled glass of the hothouse windows ‘—will be mine when my mother dies. There is almost not a woman in England, no matter how rich or high-born, who can say the same. And yet the moment I sign the marriage register in Hunsford Church – or St James in London, or wherever the ton stage their weddings – every particle that is Rosings, every stick, plant, and pheasant on the property, every sod of soil, becomes the property of my husband, to do with as he pleases.
‘So the Colonel is in difficulties. He is enough of a gentleman not to court two women simultaneously. He cannot be suspected of any double-dealing; Mr Darcy, and indeed his own conscience, would not countenance it. And he cannot be sure of Miss Darcy, should he turn in that direction. Who is to say that his attentions will inspire her affection? They are indeed close, but he has been in the position of an elder brother to her all her life; and some young women require the novelty of a fresh admirer. Miss Darcy might harbour dreams of romance. Her wealth and position allow her that luxury.
‘And so Colonel Fitzwilliam presses me hard for a favourable reply. He offers new terms: should I accept his hand, we will live as brother and sister. He will accept that there will never be issue from our union, no heir to inherit. He speaks of fostering instead, perhaps a boy from a family close to
ours. And I confess, I am tempted even as I feel harried. It would be something to be settled, to know what the future will hold.’
She looked into Charlotte’s face again: ‘Forgive me. I did not wish to burden you. I have said far too much. I understand that without even asking your permission, I have treated you as a confidante, and enjoyed all the ease of speaking freely while placing you under constraint. But I have had no peace since receiving the Colonel’s offer several days ago, an offer he repeats in a letter I received this morning. I must reply; at the very least, I must not torment the man. He is no villain who deserves to be played with. Hence my need to speak my mind to someone of sense.’
Charlotte murmured something about Lady Catherine’s advice being always helpful, and was answered with another snort: ‘Mrs Collins, this is not a matter to canvass with my mother. Believe me, beneath her officiousness lies real shrewdness, and genuine awareness of and compunction for the lot of women in our society, both high- and low-born. After the death of her sons and my birth, she moved heaven, earth, a tribe of lawyers, and my father in her attempts to safeguard Rosings for herself and me. She spent the first two decades of my life not so much determined – as decided – that I would marry my cousin Darcy, deliberately, almost wilfully blind to the lack of any mutual interest or affection beyond familial connection between us.
‘Yet she is no fool. Disappointed in her first goal, she is well aware of Colonel Fitzwilliam’s ambitions in my direction. The very fact that she has never spoken of the matter to me – she who never ceases to advise and browbeat all and sundry – means that she is prepared to leave this decision to my judgement. And I must use that poor judgement as best I can, and take the consequences.
‘One last thing; might I depend on your discretion in this matter? I have not had you as neighbour these years without observing that you are a close-mouthed woman, not given to gossip or tattle, or even idle rattling on. Having already abused your kind nature, I must now ask you to betray the rule of marital candour; please discuss none of this with Mr Collins. He is a well-meaning sort of man, but I cannot believe he would have any advice of value to vouchsafe, and indeed, I do not seek advice. I must make my own decisions here. I have spoken to you for entirely selfish reasons: I wished the relief of speaking aloud.’
Charlotte gave her companion all the assurances she could wish for; in any case, she could not imagine explaining any part of the strange tale to her husband in a form that would not baffle or alarm him.
Back home, she was nevertheless absorbed by the account she had heard, so much so that her husband had to rebuke her for inattention as she sat stitching by the fire. Who would have thought that Miss de Bourgh faced a dilemma both so different and yet similar to the one that had faced Charlotte in her spinster days? One thing was clear: it was poverty only that made celibacy contemptible in the eyes of the public; with her wealth, Anne would always be respectable.
CHAPTER VI
CHRISTMAS CAME AND WENT, AND Charlotte made an effort at cheer for the sake of her daughters. She knew now how every date that was marked on the calendar and in the Christian year carried a tax: ‘this time last year’, the days mocked or murmured, tugging at her, tormenting her with her own blindness, her unreadiness. Had she not been told often enough that they would lose Tom, that he would never grow to be a man? And yet each day that passed when he was so very present in her life, so solid and vividly himself, had lulled her. The human heart imperilled itself with its inability to live in the future, and hers was no different.
The anxious first year of his infancy, where every sniffle, every spot on his skin, had had her guts knotting, had passed without crisis; and he had seemed to thrive, growing stronger each day, passing through the same stages of growth as his sisters; producing a set of teeth as beautiful as seed pearls and as sharp as fishbones on her nipples, pulling himself up on the fender, putting handfuls of earth in his mouth, staggering across the lawns, thrilled at his own locomotory cleverness, bawling heartily when he tripped on his own petticoats. She had accepted the salve of each day that passed without incident or alarm; she knew that disaster stalked, but at a distance. She had given in to the lure of security. But how could she regret this? Was she to have set her heart aside, barricaded it because of impending loss? No parent possessed of normal feeling could have done so.
And so the season of goodwill passed in a blur of carols and new candles for the church, holly branches laid out on the window-ledges, all the tiring work of extra parish business, visits to Rosings to drink mulled wine and eat fruitcake studded with cherries and cloves. On these occasions, Anne de Bourgh sat close to the fire, huddling into her chair as if wishing to recede into its frame and fabric, not letting any word or glance suggest even a hint of their recent intimacies. Charlotte took her lead, and supplied only slightly warmer smiles upon greeting, giving no other indication of any private communication between them. She assumed, in the absence of any happy announcement, that Miss de Bourgh had once again declined Colonel Fitzwilliam’s proposal – a decision that raised her esteem for the other woman.
In January, the countryside shuddered in the grip of a cold snap, and the ground rang like metal under hard frosts. The days were short and sunlight meagre; spring had never seemed so far off. Charlotte still viewed the nights as battles to be survived, with whatever weapons she could muster. She had the upper hand some of the time but, at regular intervals, sleep and wholesome rest found new ways to elude her.
One night she woke only an hour after retiring, with a new torment; her hands and feet possessed by a sense of heat and ferocious itching. She lay unquiet, trying to stave off the desire to scratch, and failing. As soon as she had attacked one spot with her nails, another began to itch. Then it was the turn of her scalp and the V of skin just beneath her throat.
In desperation, she threw back the bedclothes, and found a little relief in the chill air on her inflamed skin. Mr Collins was away overnight on a visit to his bishop, and Charlotte felt suddenly trapped, stifling, a bird caught in lime. She had to get out. Surely she could leave her sleeping children for an hour, with Katie slumbering in the attic room above?
She did not dress, but wrapped a heavy mantle and shawls over her nightgown, and went downstairs as quietly as possible, pushing her feet into boots kept in the mudroom, finding mittens in an apron pocket. She slipped out the back door, leaving it unlatched. No thieves would be abroad in this weather; the cold was intense, bracing, overwhelming – as she needed it to be. It bit at her skin, wrenched tears from her eyes, insisted that she keep moving.
She found the ruts in the lane difficult to navigate by faint starlight and a half-moon only, and turned into Rosings park; she would follow the paths there for a while, until the restlessness and burning left her limbs. She soon struck out across the frosted grass, the crunch under her boots as satisfying as the lungfuls of icy air she sucked in.
The silence was intense; no sleepy chirrup of bird or chime of church bell broke the spell of deep night. Only the sound of her own steps, the blood rushing in her ears, echoing her heartbeat.
And then her heartbeat took on a life outside her body, thudding into a distant gallop. It took a few minutes before Charlotte realised she was indeed hearing the drum of hooves, approaching fast. She had no time for more than a moment’s panic – what would highwaymen be doing on the Rosings estate? – when the shape of a horse and rider loomed, silver and black in the black and silver night, tangible more through scent and sound than vision. There was a long harrumphing snort, the equine form convulsed as it shied, a figure tumbled from its back with a thin cry, and the rhythm of hooves broke apart in panic.
Charlotte ran for the broken-bird figure on the ground, only to be sent back by the voice, which, to her amazement, belonged to a woman: ‘Catch him! Catch the damned horse, for God’s sake!’
Such was the voice’s urgency that Charlotte whirled round, trying to make out a denser patch of dark in the darkness. Fortunately, she did no
t have to go far; loud snorts and the jangle of bridle and tack led her to the trembling bulk of a horse. Several frustrating minutes followed, during which it evaded her every attempt to approach it, but just as she was beginning to wonder if she would ever catch the animal, it paused to nibble at a hedge, and made no objection when Charlotte felt for and took charge of the reins.
She led the beast back to the shape on the ground; she already knew its identity, although she could not believe or fathom the evidence of her own eyes and ears. But it was unmistakably Anne de Bourgh’s voice that greeted her: ‘For the love of God, Mrs Collins, what are you doing out here in the middle of a winter’s night? Bruno almost ran you down. You startled us both, and now look at the poke we find ourselves in. My ankle is hurt, and I shall need your assistance.’ This last was resentfully said, and Charlotte found herself apologising for her trespass as she hunkered down beside Anne, stretching out tentative hands.
The Rosings heiress was recognisable by her voice only; the person before Charlotte was a young man, in breeches and riding coat of antique cut, cursing as fluently as any sailor. Charlotte set her shock aside for the moment; she could deal with only one crisis at a time, and questions could come later. How badly was the midnight rider injured?
In response to her queries, she received only tart replies: ‘Just my ankle is amiss, no thanks to you. Bruno is usually as sound as a rock. What d’ye think you’re doing, roaming about our park at night?’
Charlotte, wondering why she should be the defensive one – given that her interrogator was a lady dressed in man’s clothing, out alone on horseback in the middle of the night – stammered something about sleeplessness, her compulsion to be outside, to feel only the roof of the sky.
This seemed to mollify her interlocutor. ‘Ah Mrs Collins, it seems we both needed an escape. Well, now you see: this is my means of making that escape. But I require your help. Let me see if I can stand – if my foot will bear my weight.’
Charlotte Page 4