Chapter 1
Bastow Parsonage
Derbyshire
Mrs. Charlotte Collins gazed down lovingly at her son, little Tobias Collins, age fourteen months.
The little one had recently mastered the art of walking and was currently toddling back and forth across the sitting room with many a proud glance at his adoring mother.
Charlotte felt a happy tear slip from her eye before she quickly wiped it away. Tobias, for all his youth, was alert to her emotions and would no doubt be distressed if he saw his mother crying.
She smiled broadly instead. To think that only three years ago, she had been a spinster in her father’s home in Meryton, Hertfordshire, facing a life of loneliness, of being a burden to her father’s family.
And then, Elizabeth Bennet had approached her with a most remarkable invitation.
Mr. William Collins, clergyman and heir to the Bennet estate of Longbourn, was the guest of Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley in Derbyshire, and was seeking a wife.
Charlotte, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth’s sister Mary traveled north to Pemberley and within a few days, Charlotte was engaged to the clergyman.
A short time later, she had married her dear William in a double ceremony along with Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy.
In short order, she was pregnant with her son and had birthed him the same day that Elizabeth’s sister, Mary, married the steward of Bastow, Mr. Edward Martyn.
For the last two years, Mr. Collins had served as a clergyman with Mr. Darcy as his patron.
The Bastow living was not quite as lucrative as the one at Hunsford in Kent where Mr. Collins had served before his marriage.
Charlotte could not repine the decrease in income since she knew both she and William were very happy here, close to the Darcys and the Martyns and away from the autocratic and irritable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who held the Hunsford living.
The door to the sitting room opened carefully and her husband entered, cautious of the location of his baby son.
“Da!” squealed Tobias, lurching toward his beloved father. Mr. Collins leaned over and picked the boy up, nuzzling his little neck to produce a cacophony of hysterical laughter.
Charlotte stood and moved forward to give her husband a loving kiss on the cheek.
Their marriage had started out as a practical one, but the last two years had seen man and wife grow to love one another.
It was not, the lady reflected, a scintillating, passionate love, but one of genuine respect and fondness.
“My dear,” Mr. Collins said, setting his son down carefully, “I fear I have bad news. Blossom knocked over the railing between her pen and Petunia’s, and Petunia has three significant gashes in her back.”
Charlotte’s delight shifted to distress, “Oh no! How are Petunia’s piglets?”
“They are not injured. The railing fell on their mother’s great back, so she protected them. I am going out to the barn now to sew the injuries.”
“Thank you, my dear.”
He left precipitously, causing Tobias to wail in disappointment. Charlotte picked the boy up and carried him to the window so that they could watch husband and father march toward the barn, which was some five hundred yards from the parsonage.
She felt tears gathering in her eyes again and firmly blinked them back.
She knew, because she had been told, that three years ago Mr. William Collins had been a groveling, sycophantic fool of a clergyman, obsequious to his patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and uniformly irritating to everyone else.
But then had come the ball at Netherfield Hall near Meryton, where Mr. Collins tripped and fell while dancing and was knocked unconscious.
He had awoken the next day, changed. Gone was the cringing fool, replaced by a blunt, brilliant man with a genius that she imagined was encountered only a few times in a generation.
Charlotte was glad she had never met Mr. Collins’s father as she would have been tempted to hit him!
He had bullied and abused his brilliant son until the younger Collins had submerged his talents to avoid beatings and verbal cruelty.
It had taken a hard knock on the head to suppress the former persona in favor of the current man, who was a polymath of the highest order.
“Mrs. Darcy, Miss Lydia Bennet,” a maid announced from the door, causing Charlotte to turn in surprise and delight.
“Elizabeth, Lydia! What a pleasant surprise” she exclaimed as she carefully lowered Tobias to the floor. “Lydia, Elizabeth wrote me that you were visiting Pemberley for several months. How delightful to see you! What brings you to Bastow today?”
Mrs. Elizabeth Darcy was carrying her own small daughter in her arms with Lydia, her youngest sister, trailing in her wake.
The latter was carrying a well filled bag, which Charlotte assumed held various garments and diapers for Baby Rosemary.
She well knew that it was dangerous to leave home without plenty of changes in clothing. Babies were invariably messy.
“Good morning, Charlotte,” Elizabeth responded happily, carefully setting Rosemary on the floor. The baby looked about with wide eyed interest before focusing on Tobias, who was clinging to his mother’s skirts with a mixture of curiosity and concern.
“Gertrude, can you please bring tea?” Charlotte asked of her maid, who nodded obediently and departed.
“We are going to visit Mary in a few hours,” Lydia explained, answering Charlotte’s initial question.
“Our sister is only a few weeks away from the birth of her baby and not willing to travel even so short a distance as the journey to Pemberley. We thought we would stop by and see you before we continued on to see her.”
Charlotte walked cautiously over to a nearby chair, with her baby still clinging to her skirts, and sat down, “I am absolutely delighted that you broke your journey to visit. How are you doing?”
“We are very well,” Elizabeth responded, and Charlotte could tell from the glow on her friend’s face that she spoke nothing but the truth. Elizabeth Bennet had been a beauty when unwed, but her marriage to a thoroughly compatible man made her even more lovely.
“I am glad,” Charlotte returned just as Rosemary looked up at her mother and opened her mouth in a giant wail of distress.
“The poor angel is working on her teeth,” Elizabeth Darcy explained, picking the girl up and rubbing her back. “She sometimes cries from the pain, but I think her two teeth have nearly broken through.”
“Precious dear,” Charlotte responded with quick compassion. “Our Tobias has eight teeth now, do you not, my darling?”
Her baby son looked up with a smile and then fixed his brown eyes on Mr. Collins’s white cat, which had followed the guests into the room and settled on a couch near Charlotte.
“Kit!” Tobias squealed, toddling eagerly towards the feline. The animal took one horrified look at the approaching youngster and fled in terror, causing baby Rosemary Darcy to squawk in delight and Tobias to begin crying.
Lydia Bennet suppressed a strong desire to clap her hands over her ears at the noise.
Really, how did mothers survive the noisiness of their offspring?
Her own mother, she knew, had handed her children off to nurses until they were old enough to be quiet in company, but Charlotte and Elizabeth were far more engaged mothers with their own tiresomely loud progeny.
“I am going outside for some air,” she told Elizabeth.
Her older sister nodded with understanding, and Lydia departed quickly.
She hurried out the back passageway and into the glebe behind the house.
When the door shut behind her with a bang, the last sounds of screaming babies faded away and Lydia relaxed.
She glanced around and then made her way over to a simple wooden bench which had been placed under a tall and elegant oak tree. The early September sun was blazing, and she would begin sweating in her gown if she did not take cover.
Once Lydia had settled onto her seat, she looked around with interest. She had visited Derbyshire a year ago when her sister Mary wed Mr. Martyn in the nearby church, but Lydia had not visited the parsonage.
Today she and Elizabeth had traveled the fifteen miles from Pemberley to Bastow and Lydia had seen the inside of her friend’s home for the first time.
Lydia’s first impressions were not particularly positive.
Charlotte’s home was far smaller than Longbourn, the Bennet house back in Hertfordshire, and poor Charlotte was making do with only six full time servants, which was completely absurd.
How could any gentlewoman survive with so little help, especially with a needy baby boy?
The furnishings, too, were very simple compared to those at Longbourn.
Mrs. Bennet, Lydia’s mother, adored pretty trinkets; every flat surface at Longbourn was decorated with figurines or potted plants.
Charlotte had very little in the way of ornaments though perhaps that was due to the baby.
Elizabeth had explained that at Pemberley, the vast estate of the Darcys, anything within reach of a child had to be carefully tucked away now that her daughter Rosemary was crawling.
The fifth Bennet daughter leaned back and slowly blew out her breath. Only two years ago, she had been extremely eager to get married; indeed, she thought that if she could be married first of all her sisters, it would be the most glorious triumph of her life.
Now that her three eldest sisters were married, Lydia was far more aware of the challenges of wedded living.
She would marry eventually no doubt, but for now, she was happy to be single and carefree and healthy.
All three of her older sisters had been quite ill the first few months of their pregnancies, and now Jane and Elizabeth were tied down by demanding, if thoroughly adorable, babies.
“Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound ...”