Charlotte

by Helen Moffett

  ‘Will you join us, Herr Rosenstein?’ asked Elizabeth, turning to the musician, who had long since become a welcome fixture at the breakfast table. ‘Or do the demands of your work make such an excursion impossible today?’

  ‘I have almost finished the glue-work and varnishing necessary to repair Fraülein Darcy’s harpsichord. Another day of further drying would be of benefit to the instrument before I retune it. So I will be happy to join your band of strawberry-pickers. Simply allow me an hour to complete my portion of work for the day – and I shall bring a surprise for Snow White and Rose Red here,’ he said, nodding affectionately at the children.

  Charlotte’s daughters clapped their hands at the news, and submitted with good grace to having broad bonnets tied on, although both were already as freckled as hen’s eggs from the amount of time they spent outdoors.

  Armed with trugs lined with rushes, the women and girls repaired to the fruit beds and set to. Charlotte enjoyed sinking down, her skirts spreading around her, and feeling for the fruit under the leaves, revealing their stippled ruby hearts, the edging of white around the frill of green where the stem attached. It was as if the strawberries blushed in reverse.

  She could hear her daughters chattering as they competed to find the biggest unblemished fruits, with no tell-tale beak-shaped cavities, but she knew the sweetest strawberries were the small ones, no bigger than her littlest fingernails, bred from the wild varieties. These, dense in jelly and containing not too much liquid, made the best jams and preserves, and she concentrated on filling her basket with these tiny treasures.

  Then they all heard a bird piping, except that the notes were too regular and tuneful to be any bird, and there was Jacob walking up the slope towards them, wearing a wide-brimmed hat that gave him a Bohemian air, his recorder at his lips. Sarah and Laura squealed with delight, dropped their baskets, and ran to meet him, an approach to which he responded with the greatest cordiality, sinking to his haunches and serenading first the one child, then the other, playing snatches of the folk tunes he had taught them to sing.

  There it was again, striking Charlotte with physical force: a moment of pure happiness. Such instants were beyond price to someone paying a toll of grief every hour of the day, and she inhaled deeply, taking in every sensation almost greedily: the febrile scent of the soil, rich, friable, and almost warm to the touch; the subtle distinction between the peppery scent of the leaves and the deep sweetness of the fruits themselves as their juice stained her hands; Lizzy’s peal of laughter at the scene before them; the light glancing off the polished wood the musician held to his lips. It was like opening a grey oyster and finding a pearl within, and she shut her lids once again, although the scene was fixed in her mind’s eye – the musician and his flute, the hills a blue blur behind him, the green spreading beds around him, her daughters leaping like puppies at his knees.

  When she opened her eyes again, she noticed a hawk swirling above Jacob’s head, riding the currents of air brought about by the fine weather, the way it turned the same way as the corkscrew wielded by the wine steward at Pemberley, but more elegantly and effortlessly. She knew it was prosaically waiting for some small rodent to panic at its shadow and make a fatal scuttle, but it was hard to believe those lazy sweeps were not done for the pleasure thereof, that the bird was not somehow aware of its airborne grace in the face of gravity.

  Herr Rosenstein put away his pipe and came towards her as she sat back on her heels, the girls dancing behind him. He caught her eyeline and turned to follow it. She pointed, feeling sure that he would understand her delight in that small arrow holding steady on the wind.

  ‘Ah, a falcon. I wonder if it is one of those that belongs to Pemberley? It is too high, and the sun too bright to see if it has a jess attached. Did you know they had a hawk house here in the grounds, Frau Collins?’

  ‘Heavens,’ said Lizzy, ‘I knew that and had quite forgotten. Mr Darcy took me to see it when I was first a bride here. It is very striking, you know, all those birds in their hoods. They put one in mind of knights of old. You should see it, Charlotte. It is something of a novelty. Perhaps Herr Rosenstein will take you and your daughters on a tour.’

  Charlotte confessed her ignorance, and it was explained to her that hunting birds, like hounds, were kept in special quarters on estates such as Pemberley. They slept in cages or on leashes, and were released into the sky by their trainers, who gentled them and taught them to return to their human masters.

  ‘But is that not a pity?’ asked Charlotte, her eyes still fixed on the chevron holding motionless against the silver sky, pressing its strength against all the currents of the upper air, and winning.

  ‘Indeed, some might say so, Frau Collins,’ said Herr Rosenstein. ‘But what are we all but tamed animals, grateful for the safety of our homes and our benign captivity therein? Birds such as these will never know savage hunger or buffeting storms; they have a measure of protection against such ills. And yet they are still able to fly, to hover, to hunt, all things instinctive and functional to their very being. Just not always of their own free will. This is not very different to the way our own civilised societies function.’

  ‘Oh! I wish Mr Darcy was here to listen to you, sir,’ said Lizzy with real warmth. ‘You have a talent for expressing philosophical things, for putting them just so, without sounding too clever or dry. Does he not, my dear Charlotte?’

  Charlotte concurred wholeheartedly, and it was agreed that after the strawberry-picking was done for the day, Herr Rosenstein would take them all back to the main demesne via the hawk house. But at that moment, the welcome spectacle of servants carrying picnic hampers and cloths appeared at the gates of the vegetable garden, and the party moved to the shade of the nearest orchard trees to enjoy haymakers’ punch, pork pie, and jellied eggs. In spite of having already consumed a superfluity of strawberries, everyone ate with good appetite: ‘I swear I am always hungrier on a picnic than at table,’ Lizzy opined. ‘It is perhaps the lack of ceremony that makes the dishes more tempting: no bringing and removing of courses, but everything laid out as a collation.’ Nobody was inclined to disagree, especially not when the little girls discovered that a kind-hearted cook had sent up figs from the hothouse – their first encounter with such fruits, which rendered the now-scorned strawberries merely commonplace.

  After eating, the little girls fell asleep in the shade, and the adults sat quiet too, speaking now and again, the women reminiscing about their lives in Hertfordshire, telling the musician stories from their girlhood there. At last the punch was finished, the sun at an angle in the sky, and the girls stirring. They were a little fretful upon waking, but Herr Rosenstein distracted them by reminding them of the proposed tour of the hawk house. With everyone on their feet again, the little party made their way further up the hill, around and behind a grouping of trees that ran along the skyline.

  They arrived at a building about half the size of the stables, built of dark wood with a roof of thatch, and fronted by a porch that supplied uninterrupted views of the estate and the distant hills. Here stood a bench encircled by arms of box, and they all rested on it and gazed downwards. It offered that magical combination of privacy, even secrecy, while also providing a bird’s-eye perspective on all happening below: the insect figures of gardeners far beneath them, the imposing bulk of Pemberley reduced to the size of a wedding cake, its great lake a silver puddle.

  After sitting a few minutes to take in the scene below, they ventured inside. In the gloom pierced by shafts of light from narrow windows, the birds of prey stood silent, occasionally scratching at their heads and necks with taloned feet. The dominant impression, for Charlotte, was of dormant force; all that ability to soar housed in the soft dark, tethered to the stalls, biding their time.

  She left it to Herr Rosenstein and Lizzy to answer the girls’ questions about the birds and their habits, content with looking around, her nose twitching at the sharp combination of smells, catching the gleam of topaz eyes here and
there. They did not go too close to the stalls, as the birds grew disquieted and stamped their feet or rattled their wings, a susurration of feathers and claws.

  Back outside, she sank down on the box bench once more and sighed deeply. She must have made some sound, of satisfaction or longing or both, and the musician’s head turned in her direction. He fixed his eyes on hers for a long minute, then nodded, as if they had entered into some compact.

  Then they set off back down towards the cascade for which Pemberley was famous, and to which Charlotte had taken such a liking. It began as a fountain spilling from a shallow temple-like structure, with a tiled Italianate dome and arch that cupped a series of fountains. These fed a stream running down a stone staircase in an undulating sheet before being pumped back up to begin the journey again. It was a favourite object and point of admiration for visitors, and Charlotte walked there almost daily, but now Herr Rosenstein explained something she had not noticed before: that each of the twenty-four stone steps down which the rills of water ran produced a different tone or note, creating a musical scale.

  Sarah and Laura were distracted from water that could sing by the opportunities for sport offered by the slope, and proceeded to roll down the grassy hill, shrieking with delight, while Lizzy, who had had the musicality of the cascade explained to her many times before, ran down the hill after them, laughing at the dizzy circles in which they staggered every time they got to their feet before lying down and propelling themselves downhill once again. Herr Rosenstein and Charlotte followed on behind at a less precipitate pace.

  ‘Your daughters are a delight, Frau Collins. They have been a bright part of my visit here. I commend you on being an excellent parent. I speak from observation, of course, but your children are not merely happy. They have a facility for happiness.’

  ‘I must thank you for these kind words. Nothing else you could say could give me half as much joy.’

  ‘Of course I know nothing of your late son, other than what you have told me. But looking at his sisters, I have no doubt that he too was a happy child. Your love and care would have made this a certainty.’

  Charlotte looked out over the glowing scene, the late light saturating the greens, blues, silver, and gold of the scene before them, its lawns and liquids, hills and trees, all now wavering as her eyes filled. She did not attempt a reply, but the musician offered her his arm with solicitude as they trod down the slope towards where Lizzy was now applauding the girls as they attempted to turn somersaults on the lawn above the lake.

  As they watched, Sarah and Laura galloped indoors, Mrs Darcy chasing them with as much energy and gaiety as if she too were a child. Charlotte laughed aloud before turning to her companion to thank him for his role in their day. As he had taken to doing before they parted, he kissed her hand, a mark of attention and courtesy she enjoyed, but did not attach any special meaning to – he did the same for Lizzy before they all retired for the night. But this time, perhaps intuiting the warmth, the unexpected happiness that flooded her, he turned her hand in his, and impulsively pressed his lips to the transparent skin on the underside of her wrist.

  A small gesture, but it transfixed Charlotte. Her husband had always been a clean-shaven man, so the brush of moustache was a novelty to her, as was the combined softness and firmness of Jacob’s lips.

  She halted, unable to move for the tumult in her body, and he snatched his mouth away and flushed deeply, rose coming up through the golden ivory of his skin. His eyes dropped, throwing into relief the half-circles of his dark lashes on his cheeks, and she was momentarily reminded of Tom. For the first time in their acquaintance, he looked uneasy, and as he began to stammer, she interrupted him: she could not bear to have an afternoon of such rich contentment marred by apologies or explanations, or to see him discomforted. Momentarily feeling the difference in their ages, she set about speaking in calm tones of the beauty of the vista before them, while moving on as sedately as possible, once again taking his arm with both formality and friendliness. He took his cue from her, equally eager to regain their footing of ease and affection, and they processed into the grand house once again apparently comfortable with one another.

  But upstairs, in the privacy of her chamber, Charlotte first leaned against the door, then looked at herself in the glass. Face flushed, her chest was rising and sinking as if she was the hapless heroine in one of the flimsier novels Anne de Bourgh liked to read. But no amount of self-mockery or chastisement could stop her sinking onto her bed and replaying the incident again and again, reliving the frisson that had flooded her body with warmth at that moment, raising gooseflesh and, to her mingled dismay and delight, tightening her nipples.

  Her unruly mind ran in pursuit of more intimate details: she flashed back to the musculature she had seen as his wet shirt had clung to his skin after he rescued Sarah, and her fingers tingled, anticipating touching, stroking: what would it be to caress his body, to feel his skin against hers? What might it mean to recline for him, to part her legs, open herself up to him, to bear his weight on her body, to melt and blend with him?

  She groaned with both the shock of desire and the hammer-blow of guilt: such wicked thoughts were forbidden, more than forbidden; their very existence was iniquity. The Bible from which her husband read to their family every day barred not only actual adultery; it inveighed against mental adultery too. She was as scarlet a woman for entertaining such scandalous fantasies as any Magdalene.

  But her heated body led her down still more prohibited avenues: was there not perhaps a world in which she, Jacob, and the girls could make an alternative life together, one in which she would be free to enjoy his caresses? She knew too little of geography to imagine his home country of Austria, as much a fairy tale to her as the stories she read her daughters, but a picture pushed into her mind: herself and Jacob, strolling in a foreign fir-smelling forest, hands interlocked, pausing to kiss: what if he gently opened her mouth so she could feel the moisture and press of his tongue? What would those lips and tongue feel like on her breasts?

  At this, Charlotte sat bolt upright in horror at her own thoughts. She was a married woman, the wife of a clergyman, outwardly and inwardly respectable. Her vows had been explicit: to be faithful until death parted her from her husband. But that set off a far worse train of thought: if she were to be widowed, then perhaps … and the illicit images began their shadowplay on her inner lids again. Again she felt Jacob’s mouth on her skin, and now it was compounded with all the other times he had supported her physically, his supple, strong arm around her waist, his warmth, his slightly peppery scent as she took his arm while walking: what would these translate into, if they could be alone together? She had a vivid memory of his laughter in the garden, the brown of his skin transitioning sharply to white at the borders of the V formed by the neck of his shirt, the notch like a thumb-print at the base of his throat. What if she could press her lips to that inch of his skin?

  She lifted her hand and gazed down at the subtle tracks of blue at her wrist, her pulse visibly thudding in the veins. There his mouth had rested, there it had pressed. She found herself kissing the same spot, placing her mouth where his had been, a means of returning his kiss. One last lasting kiss – and then she caught at herself. Such fantasies entailed wishing her husband – her harmless, oblivious, loyal husband – dead. They meant wishing her daughters fatherless; and at that, she slid to her knees by the side of her bed, and prayed most heartily for forgiveness. What if some imp, some evil embodiment of fate, caught her ignoble thoughts and struck her husband down?

  And then came the blasphemous prompting: I was a good wife. I kept every promise I made, fulfilled every part of the bargain I made. And still my son was taken from me. What point is there in fidelity, then? Swift on its heels came the response: The girls. My girls. I cannot risk their happiness, not even here in the privacy of my chamber, the secrecy of my own heart. She got to her feet and shook herself, fighting back both the tremble of want and bludgeoning guilt.

/>   Even more than a wife, she was a mother: she could do nothing, not even in thought, that in any way imperilled Sarah and Laura, or their happiness or station in life. That night, she would read her daughters improving tales, and then she would write her husband a diligent account of the innocent pleasures of the day. And they were innocent – barring that brush of skin and hair and warmth across her pulse. Which she was determined to put from her mind.

  CHAPTER XXX

  THE NEXT MORNING, THE USUAL tranquillity prevailed at the breakfast table, and Herr Rosenstein was as courteous and friendly to both Charlotte and Lizzy as always. If his colour was slightly heightened, Charlotte could ascribe it to any number of things, and she herself was assiduous in speaking as pleasantly as possible of general matters. She was fortunate to have both a distraction for herself and a topic of conversation for her companions: another, briefer, missive from Miss de Bourgh awaited her, and she opened it with some anticipation. Who knew what further surprises Anne might deliver?

  My dear Mrs Collins,

  I have not joined the piratical profession – yet – but I write this from the Île Sainte-Madeleine, a tiny island (one can perambulate its circumference in a morning) populated only by nuns of the Cistercian Order, who live in austerity and grow sufficient to meet their needs in between their prayers. They take in visitors such as myself to pay for necessities such as tea, coffee, and flour; I discovered this thanks to a chance encounter with the local père. His English matched my French, and so we were able to cobble together a conversation – which led to the happy discovery of this refuge.