Chapter IV
Hannah
Wife of Charles Twyford
Charlotte was clutching her bouquet and staring at the headstone.
It has caught her eye as she left the church.
This woman had died on this very day, twenty-one years before.
Who had she been, Charlotte wondered? Just wife – that was the most she had been remembered as.
Her husband had been allocated both of his names, and he had not even died.
Well, he might have done by now, but this was not his headstone.
It was hers, Hannah’s, and she had not even been given her whole name.
And no word of who she was: no beloved or kind or gentle or any of the insipid things that were writ on the stones of some dead women.
They only ever list the gentle traits, thought Charlotte.
They never say outspoken and nearly always correct or fiercely loyal or physically very strong or excellent with horses.
No, always tender and mild, like the Virgin herself.
And this woman had not been given anything except wife.
And now, as of a few moments ago, Charlotte was wife, too.
The ceremony had run smoothly. Charlotte felt comfortable and well-presented in her pale-blue dress and pelisse; she did not feel beautiful, but then she had not expected to.
Everyone had sung well, and she and Mr Collins had spoken their vows as well as one could.
At his request, they had heard about how long love suffereth, as if they did not know by now, and at Charlotte’s request, they had sung ‘Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken’.
Mr Collins was dressed in his ordinary garb, though better turned out than usual.
In attendance were the Lucas family, Mr and Mrs Bennet, Elizabeth Bennet, and two of Lady Lucas’s friends. Charlotte’s sister Maria looked angelic as her bridesmaid, eighteen years old with blonde curls and a breathless excitement about the event that was not widely shared.
Mr Collins clutched his hat now as he stood in the doorway, speaking earnestly to the vicar of Meryton.
The Bennets had taken their leave, giving Charlotte an array of differing congratulations; Mr Bennet had wished her ‘the best of luck’ with a wry smile.
Mrs Bennet had hardly looked at her and had said, ‘Well, we all know you will have a comfortable life. I wish you well,’ while visibly wishing Charlotte ill.
Elizabeth had failed to hold her gaze for more than a moment, managing to make the phrase, ‘I wish you joy,’ sound like a death knell.
Sir William and Lady Lucas were wandering with Maria out of the churchyard, towards the gate. Charlotte stood unobserved, pondering what her own headstone might say, aside from:
Charlotte
Wife of the Revd William Collins
Frugal, perhaps. Neat and tidy. Thin hair. She was being rather hard on herself and was determined to rally before she left the churchyard, but she took this moment to be unmasked, at least to herself.
Low spirits had struck her as she walked back down the aisle after the service.
She felt unrooted and anxious. The second she left this place, she would get into a carriage and depart for a home she had never seen, a place she was unfamiliar with and a man she did not entirely like.
She reasoned that her feelings were to be expected and were, in fact, reassuringly rational.
But the rationality of her feelings did not change the difficulty in experiencing them; she felt mad.
‘My dear Mrs Collins, there you are!’ Mr Collins appeared from around the corner. ‘The carriage is ready. Shall we take our leave?’
And with that, she left her old life, and all that was familiar to her, to start anew in Kent. She braced herself.
As they arrived into the village of Hunsford, the winter skies were already darkening.
Mr Collins had fallen asleep on the journey and was snoring beside her, his head fallen back against a cushion.
She leant right out of the window and spied, not half a mile ahead, a pretty white house, with tall trees either side.
As it came into view, she noted how the windows glowed against the drizzling murk of the afternoon; the candles and fires must be lit, and she saw a figure on the doorstep.
The rattling of the carriage on the drive woke Mr Collins with a start, and he hastily arranged himself, before realising with delight that they had arrived.
He was rosy with eagerness to show Charlotte his home – their home, as she must think of it now.
He helped her down from the carriage and, walking towards the house, began his introductions.
‘Hunsford Parsonage is one of the oldest rectories in this part of the country, my dear – you will be mistress of a significant piece of history. And here – good afternoon, Mrs Brooke!’
‘Welcome back, Mr Collins, and good afternoon, Mrs Collins – what a pleasure. You must be cold; we have the fires lit.’
The housekeeper smiled warmly, and Charlotte liked the look of her immediately.
Mrs Brooke was a diminutive woman in her fifties, with a kind, lined face, wearing a smart brown dress and a bright-yellow kerchief tied about her shoulders.
She indicated the front door, inviting her new mistress to enter, and a moment later, Charlotte stood in the flagstoned hall, inspecting all around her, with Mrs Brooke helping her remove her coat and gloves.
Mr Collins showed her around the downstairs: his reading room, the drawing room, the dining room, and then a charming sitting room with bookshelves lining all of one wall and a comfortable-looking chair in one corner.
‘I had thought this could be yours, Charlotte, for your own pursuits. I am not a voracious reader, but you see I have had shelves installed recently for the accommodation of your own books, of which I supposed you might have many and like to collect more in the future.’ He paused, looking around the room, checking it was as he had left it. Then he looked at her for approval.
Charlotte felt the thoughtfulness of this gesture and, as occasionally happened, saw again a glimpse of the more thoughtful, agreeable side of her husband. Turning to him with real happiness, she said, ‘I think it is perfectly suited to me. I like it very much. Thank you.’ And she meant it.
Mr Collins’s face transformed with the joy of a scheme done well, and he gave a quiet grunt of satisfaction.
Shortly after this, Mrs Brooke showed her around the upper floors and, at Charlotte’s request, promised to save any explanation of the more intricate aspects of household management until tomorrow.
The house was not large compared to Lucas Lodge or Longbourn, but, for a country parsonage, it was ample, and it seemed to have a wealth of land around it.
There was much to explore, and Charlotte felt the excitement of it.
Once she had changed her clothes, she retired to her sitting room for the hour before dinner and started to set out her books on the shelves, choosing exactly the order and placement she would like, taking the time to examine each one, considering when she had last read it and when she might again.
Charlotte’s chief interest in reading had always been to learn.
Growing up, her father’s house did not have the vast inherited library of an old estate (as Elizabeth had enjoyed at Longbourn), so as a family, they had built their collection from scratch.
Because of this, Charlotte was not complacent about having good books to read; they still held delight for her.
She had always encouraged her father to invest in heavy tomes that could stay in the family for generations – multiple volumes in gilded binding, from Smollett’s History of England and Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire to the complete works of Shakespeare.
But these choices were not only for display and prestige – they added to her and her siblings’ education, and moreover, historical works genuinely interested her more than the sensationalist novels her friends seemed to enjoy.
Upon leaving her family home, she had not been able, of course, to bring with her all those books that were the backbone of the Lucas Lodge library, but she had amassed a collection that was squarely her own, including a dictionary, an atlas, a few smaller history books, a couple of the publications of Dr Johnson and – the only softening in her reading tastes – a wide variety of poetry.
She had collections by Cowper and Scott, Blake and Burns, Donne, Milton and, her favourite, Wordsworth, whose Poems, in two volumes looked scruffier than their neighbours on her poetry shelf, ragged from use.
Her small library arranged, she stood back and admired it.
Tea had been brought for her and left on a small side table, steaming away.
A fire was burning, casting shapes on the wall opposite, and Charlotte sat in the large cosy chair that she already thought of as hers, looking at the drizzle outside and enjoying the contrast of her own warm contented state set against it.
She wore her grandmother’s shawl around her shoulders.
There were challenges to come, she knew – she was not blind to them.
The imminent wedding night held a good deal of disquiet for her.
But here, now, she felt content. She felt, for the first time since Elizabeth’s scolding, that her decision to marry had not been a stupid one.
There was sense in it; there was comfort in it, and it was laid out before her in the pleasure of seeing her own books, in her own room, in her own house.
Mrs Collins sat back, pulled her legs up under her skirt, and took a sip of tea.