Charlotte

by Helen Moffett

  Mr Darcy was following this conversation, which he could hardly have anticipated when he sat down to his soup, with some interest: ‘But Herr Rosenstein, do you recommend this fiction by Mr Goethe? And has it been translated into English?’

  Herr Rosenstein asserted his belief that the work was well worth reading, supported by Mr Collins, who announced his intention to read it as soon as he could lay his hands on a copy.

  ‘It seems, then,’ said Mr Darcy mildly, ‘that I shall have to purchase a copy for the Pemberley library. I only hope that the elder works on the shelves are not thrown too much into the shade by such modern writings.’

  Charlotte spoke at last: ‘Herr Rosenstein, perhaps we could impose on your kindness, and pray that you would send us a copy once you return to your homeland? I cannot read any word of German but, as Mr Darcy says, there may be translations. And Mr Collins can read it to me, I think, and explain the meaning to me.’

  ‘Oh, I do not pretend to be any great scholar of the German language and its literature, I assure you,’ cried Mr Collins. ‘But for you, my dear, I shall be spurred on to attempt my best, and even to make humble efforts at improvement. If the subject matter is unsuitable for children, I can read it to you in the evenings after our girls go upstairs. Herr Rosenstein, we would indeed be most grateful for such a gift, and indeed any further recommendations you might make. I am determined to conquer my old prejudice against fables,’ he added, nodding earnestly around the table, ‘if only the better to entertain my dear Charlotte.’

  Charlotte raised her head and met Jacob’s eyes, and saw there only warmth and generous hope for her future happiness. She did not think she would ever again experience such a strange commingling of pain and pleasure. She could not help a smile breaking through, and she noticed Lizzy’s glance flickering her way.

  After the ladies left the gentlemen, Mrs Darcy lost no time in commenting on the strange alliance between Mr Collins and the musician they had just witnessed: ‘Mr Collins, a partisan for the novel! And discussing Teutonic romance at dinner! I did not think to see or hear such a thing. But Herr Rosenstein seemed very eager to aid and abet the programme of family reading for you all. He seems to value you highly, as indeed he ought, my dear Charlotte.’

  Charlotte made sure her voice was light and even as she replied, ‘We have indeed formed a friendship which – for my part – I hope will survive the vicissitudes of distance, time, national origin, and religion. I will always value Herr Rosenstein’s good opinion.’

  The gentlemen soon returned, but the party did not sit long together after dinner, as Mr Collins, who was no great rider, had been much fatigued by the journey, and was prompted by violent yawns to excuse himself early. Charlotte, with so much to think of, was grateful to have time to sit alone in her chamber and try to reorder her world.

  The next day, Mr Darcy proposed that the reunited couples take a walk in the grounds after breakfast, keen to be renewed by reacquaintance with the familiar outlines and vistas of the estate of which he was master, and to feel the slight weight of his fleet-footed wife on his arm. As the party gathered in the foyer of the great house, somehow the question of the piano-tuner accompanying them arose, and a servant was sent to invite him to join them. ‘He will probably decline,’ said Mr Darcy; ‘we do not wish to keep him from his work,’ but indeed Herr Rosenstein came that moment down the stairs, seemingly eager for exercise and company.

  Charlotte did not know whether to be dismayed or relieved when her husband attached himself to the musician, keen to continue the conversation of last night, and to beg the names of works of literature he might recommend not just to his wife, but to Lady Catherine as the doyenne of the Rosings library. At some point, the path they were following narrowed so that she was obliged to slip her arm from that of Mr Collins and, at that moment, Mr Darcy looked around and beckoned for her to join him and his wife. She had little choice but to step forward and join the couple ahead, but the Darcys made her welcome, and there was no sense of intrusion on marital communication as Lizzy included her in the scope of her remarks.

  ‘We have enjoyed ourselves, have we not, Charlotte? Who would have thought a small gathering of women and children could be so rowdy! Indeed, Mr Darcy, you have returned in time to civilise us once more, and not a moment too soon. We have been picnicking, both indoors and outdoors, picking fruit like gypsies, dancing with the children – such song and noise and games, Pemberley has at times resembled a bear garden.’

  ‘I am sorry you feel my absence is required for such debaucheries. Perhaps I too might be persuaded to make my dinner from sandwiches or dance the hornpipe in the company of such charming girls as the young Misses Collins.’ A fondness in Mr Darcy’s eyes as he looked at Lizzy robbed his words of any potential sting, and Charlotte glowed at the compliment to her daughters.

  She felt light-headed. In the background, the conversation between her husband and Herr Rosenstein had moved on to German philosophy, on which topic Mr Collins seemed to be discoursing with more enthusiasm than knowledge; and yet she was able to take pleasure in thoughts of her children, the lush summer views that stretched in all directions, the support of a strong masculine arm when the path grew uneven. She kept waiting to be wracked by guilt and anxiety, but these emotions arose mostly from their lack.

  Their walk took them to the principal bridge over the gleaming river, where they paused to look back over the handsome property, the stonework of the main house turning gold, then biscuit-coloured in the fitful sun, the plume of the lake fountain falling in a lazy arc. Mr Collins was in raptures, having learned that none other than the famous Mr Lancelot Brown had landscaped the grounds under the stewardship of Mr Darcy’s grandfather, and had turned from discussing philosophy to explaining the principles of landscape architecture to all who would hear him, with a long disquisition on Mr Brown’s motto concerning the ‘capabilities’ of a property. Mr Darcy was drawn into this conversation, and was now engaged in pointing out sightlines and horizons to her husband.

  Charlotte found Jacob standing beside her. ‘Frau Collins, would you not agree that to truly appreciate some things of great beauty, as in the case of this view of the buildings of Pemberley, perspective is required?’

  His question coincided with the party striking out on the return journey, and he offered Charlotte his arm with an ease and naturalness for which she was grateful: she could not have borne awkwardness or distance. His arm felt like an extension of her own body, and they moved automatically in step.

  ‘As you know, Herr Rosenstein, I am an ordinary and ignorant Englishwoman, with no special insight into the art of landscaping. I simply know what I like when I see it. And everything I have seen in my time here, I have liked.’

  They walked in silence for a minute, then she added: ‘I am no romantic, as all my friends – and I hope you are one – know. I rely on consistency for my contentment. I like to see the same things, to follow the same routes, each day. What is familiar to me is what is also dear to me.’

  ‘Ah!’ he cried. ‘I comprehend you. There is indeed comfort to be found in knowing, in a world in which we have little say over our destiny, that some things remain unchanging, that their beauty or worth will not decline, or very little, over the passage of years.’

  Charlotte’s heart overflowed. Every word they spoke to one other was laden with exquisite meaning, and she was confident they understood each other. There would be no recriminations, no false promises or hopes. They would part as friends and resume the patterns of their separate lives. But – and she had to consider the particular irony of this – Jacob and Mr Collins might correspond in future; indeed, she had heard the two men make such promises earlier that morning, with every token of earnestness. Letters would arrive from Austria, carrying news, perhaps addressed to the both of them. Her husband might read the words of her beloved to her; she might add snippets of information and compliments to letters he would pen in return. And all without any sense of underhand stratagem. It se
emed a delicate thread had been spun that she could take forward into her life.

  CHAPTER XXXII

  A CONCERT WAS PROPOSED FOR AFTER dinner that evening. ‘It will be our last opportunity to enjoy the talents of Herr Rosenstein before his departure,’ said Lizzy. ‘It can be his farewell gift to us. And our applause can be ours to him.’

  The little girls were granted permission to attend, on condition they did not run wild, and indeed they sat solemn and still through the grand sonatas Mr Darcy requested, which the musician played with skill and aplomb. He was praised for his performance, his patron expressing deep regret that his sister was not present to listen, and Mr Collins contributing many expressions of gratitude and admiration. Then it was Lizzy’s turn, and with her accompanist she sang several lighter airs that gave general pleasure. As she sang with her characteristic unaffected brio, Charlotte noticed the play of feelings on Mr Darcy’s face: anxiety, pride, tenderness. Eliza, you deserve a son, she thought. You both do.

  Mr Darcy even asked whether or not Herr Rosenstein could play any music suitable for dancing, and upon being assured that their merry band had indeed rehearsed for such an occasion, he gravely requested the honour of his wife’s hand as his partner. She assented with alacrity, he swept into a deep bow, and the musician struck up a Scotch reel. To the joy of the little girls, before giving her husband her hand, Lizzy invited Laura and Sarah to tread the floor as a couple as well, and Charlotte united with her husband in beaming at the sight of their daughters processing around the drawing room of Pemberley, none other than Mr and Mrs Darcy dancing alongside them.

  Stranger things have happened, thought Charlotte, but not many. And then she remembered the encounter at the hawk house with a shudder of joy and shock: she had to close her eyes and hold herself still for a minute before she could go back to smiling and nodding at her daughters.

  The dances came to an end, the girls made their curtseys, kissed their parents, and were dispatched upstairs. ‘What about you, my dear Charlotte?’ said Lizzy, flushed from exercise and gaiety. ‘Shall you not also entertain us? Have you not been practising these past weeks?’ Mr Darcy gallantly added his request to hers, and Charlotte was obliged to explain that she did not sing, and was not enough of a performer to play in company.

  Jacob came to her rescue: ‘Shall I play on your behalf, Mrs Collins? But you shall choose the piece.’

  She smiled back at him. ‘I wish you to play that air – the one with variations – by Herr Mozart, if you please.’ She was proud of pronouncing the composer’s name properly, the way he had spoken it to her the day they first met.

  The room settled into quiet, and Herr Rosenstein laid his hands on the keys as tenderly as if he were laying them on her skin. The first pure notes filled the room, as warm and clear as the candles in their sconces. Charlotte leaned back and tried to absorb every note, commit them to perpetual memory, to hold time still. Tears slid down her face unchecked, and she hoped those present would attribute them to her old grief – which assumption would not be far from the truth; that which comforted her for the loss of Tom would also always bring thoughts of him back to her.

  Sure enough, her husband reached for and squeezed her hand affectionately, causing her a further storm of feelings and counter-feelings, many of them uncomfortable, some exquisite, but none of them unpleasant. She was among friends, and could speak of her heart to no one; she had two happy, healthy daughters, and her son was dead; she had a devoted husband, and was sitting alongside him in the presence of a man with whom she was deeply in love – a state she had never expected to experience.

  The next morning, the entire party gathered to bid Herr Rosenstein adieu. Now that the horses had rested, one of the Pemberley carriages was to take him, his instruments and his tools as far as Dover, where it would await the arrival of Miss Darcy from the Continent.

  Charlotte had somehow thought that the two of them might contrive a moment alone together before his departure, but then dismissed this as absurd: what purpose would this serve? They had said all that was necessary two days before, and she was not so brazen as to wish a repetition, not with her husband on the very same property – and indeed, their last day together had already taken on the quality of a particularly vivid and intense dream.

  Standing before him, preparing to dip in a curtsey of farewell, it seemed impossible that she would never see him again. There was no trace of regret in her heart for what they had shared during this spell of blended pain and pleasure, but she pursued no fantastical endings in her imagination. The very notions of running away with him, going to live in a foreign land, abandoning her children and her religion, living forever on the wrong side of all laws of state, society, and God, were not to be countenanced. Her very fantasies had taught her that. She understood that divorce did occur among the rackety aristocratic set, and had heard that remarriage was permitted in some Continental countries, but such impossible adventures were not for the likes of her. Her roots ran too deep into the soil of her native land and familial connections, into the conventions of her class, faith, and education.

  All was affability, smiles, and nods abounding. Mr Darcy made his gratitude plain to the man who had played no small part in lifting the spirits of his wife, and was almost jovial in his expressions of appreciation, while Lizzy showed no restraint in her affectionate farewells to the musician. Then came the turn of the Collins family, and Mr Collins was eager to step forward and wring Herr Rosenstein’s hand, with promises of correspondence and earnest thanks for his many kindnesses, his interesting hints on philosophy and literature, his good-natured attentions and service to Mrs Collins and their children.

  The girls had requested permission to be present and to say goodbye to the piano man, but now that the moment of parting had come, they were overtaken by shyness, and hung about their mother’s skirts. It remained to Charlotte to offer Jacob her hand, and her thanks – for the gifts he had given them all. She made her way through a speech of gratitude without stumbling, and hoped her eyes and smile would compensate for what she could not say before others. He listened and said public words, and then lifted her hand to his lips with great tenderness, and she felt the brush of his mouth and beard: the last time they would touch.

  At the last minute, as the servants trooped out with his belongings, and the jingle of harness could be heard from the drive, Sarah and Laura broke from their mother and ran at Jacob, flinging their arms about his legs, Laura setting up a wail. Charlotte fought tears of her own, but found that in comforting her daughters, she herself caught at fortitude: ‘We shall always be grateful for his kindness, shan’t we? We shall never forget our friend Herr Rosenstein. We will remember him in our prayers every night.’

  ‘Like we remember our brother Tom?’ asked Sarah, and Charlotte hitched her breath in her throat, glad to have an excuse for wet eyes. ‘Yes, my dearest, exactly like we remember Tom.’ She bent and folded her arms around her daughters as she watched the man she loved walk out the magnificent doors, down the steps, and out of her life.

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  THE COMPANY AT PEMBERLEY WAS gathered for breakfast a few days later. With the return of Mr Darcy, decorum once more marked the rituals of the day, and Charlotte suppressed a twinge at the memory of the easiness of meals with Jacob and the children present.

  Mr Darcy made no secret of his predilection for newspapers rather than conversation at this meal, and Mr Collins had learned to remain mostly silent, his habit of prattling with nerves in the presence of great rank mercifully in abeyance. Elizabeth tapped her fingers lightly on the tablecloth, until addressed by Charlotte. The two women engaged in desultory talk concerning their plans for the day; an hour of reading with her daughters for Charlotte; the morning conference with her housekeeper for Lizzy. Elizabeth invited Charlotte to join her in selecting flowers from the conservatory and their customary river walk in the afternoon if the weather continued fine.

  A servant entered with the day’s post: on the salver
was a black-edged communiqué for Mrs Darcy. Apprehension rippled through the company, and Mr Darcy immediately laid down his broadsheet and went to his wife’s side. He used his own letter-opener, and put the missive into her trembling hands. Lizzy uttered a great cry of distress as she read, then dropped the letter, jumped to her feet, and stumbled from the room. Her husband took a swift look at it, then turned to follow his wife, calling over his shoulder, ‘Read the letter, if you please. It concerns you both.’

  Anxious for her friend, yet curious, Charlotte pushed the letter over to her husband, and requested that he convey its contents to her. But although written in a shaking hand, its message was clear and brief: Mr Bennet had died suddenly, after a day or two of illness not thought to be serious. His lady was beside herself with grief and terror, and Mary, who had penned the letter, was herself evidently too overcome by real sorrow to be verbose.

  Charlotte and her husband stared at each other over the coffee cups, trying to absorb the implications; they were now, to all intents and purposes, master and mistress of Longbourn estate. Charlotte’s mind began to revolve; she would return to the country of her childhood as the first lady of the modest society it offered. She would not have to labour so industriously. They would be able to afford more staff, a small carriage. They would have stables and horses, grooms and a cook-general. She could take down those execrable curtains in the north-facing parlour, redesign the herb garden. William could settle down – but to what? Perhaps he could collate and publish his sermons?

  Mr Collins’s thoughts were running along the same lines. ‘This means great changes for us, my dear,’ he said. ‘Far be it from me, however, to congratulate myself on our good fortune when your friend has been made fatherless, and Mrs Bennet a widow. We must proceed slowly and carefully, or be thought to be taking undue pleasure in the sad loss of others.’