Chapter XVII
Life at Hunsford felt strange over the following days.
It was as if the household were suspended in time, removed from the ordinary goings on of the outside world.
Lady Lucas stayed with her daughter, alongside an ever-attentive Mrs Brooke.
Both of them knew, from experience, that Charlotte’s body would not recover until her spirits did.
They tried to allow her time to mourn her loss, while keeping her mind a little occupied so that she might not fall further into malaise.
Charlotte was, naturally, not herself. She was vacant, dry-eyed, often silent and eerily acquiescent.
If she ventured into the garden, she would walk without purpose, round in circles, not really looking at her plants. Encouraged by her mother to take up her sewing, Charlotte asked Brooke for things to mend, rather than her embroidery; she had no capacity for creativity.
Her mother’s presence gave Charlotte licence to become a little girl again, and she did, placing herself entirely into her mother’s hands.
Lady Lucas gave orders for the household, was the one to get Charlotte up in the mornings and sit with her at night.
Each day, Charlotte performed the activity her mother suggested.
She ate whatever her mother told her to and took what remedies her mother bid her.
In truth, she had never been this obedient as a child, so it was a new state for her.
At first, Lady Lucas was glad to be of use.
That she could offer any comfort to her daughter was a blessing indeed in the circumstances, but as days turned into weeks, she started to realise that her presence was not helping Charlotte any longer.
While she was standing firm for her daughter, Charlotte was standing still; stuck in a state of child-like dependency.
Charlotte needed to come back to her own life and with so constant a prop at her disposal, she never would.
It was with conflicting emotions that Lady Lucas informed her daughter she must return to Hertfordshire within the week.
If she expected Charlotte to react like her old self – practical and capable – she was mistaken.
Her daughter railed against her departure.
She accused her mother of abandoning her, begging her to stay with increasing desperation.
Charlotte was indignant, and she remained in a state of helplessness until the day her mother’s carriage drew up to the drive.
The trunks were loaded aboard, and her mother came to the little sitting room to bid her daughter farewell. They sat opposite each other, Charlotte unspeaking as she mostly had been of late, looking so much smaller than she had the year before.
‘Before I go—’ Lady Lucas began.
Charlotte raised her eyebrows wearily. ‘I know what you are going to say.’
‘Oh, do you? Pray, what will I say?’
‘That I must not be disheartened, and that children will come in time.’
Lady Lucas looked at her closely and took her hands. ‘I do not know whether children will come in time, my darling.’
Charlotte looked up sharply.
‘Only God can know that. I do not comfort you with a promise that it is not in my power to keep. You might have children, and you might not. But I promise you that you will find your happiness again. Whether with children or not. There is not one path to happiness. You must find yours.’
Charlotte did not react.
Her mother, frustrated, reached out and held her chin, making her look at her. ‘You must,’ she said again, more firmly.
Charlotte shook her hand away.
Her mother took a deep breath and sighed. ‘I have something for you.’ She removed an item from her reticule and placed it in her daughter’s hand.
Charlotte, puzzled, looked down and saw the emerald snake ring her mother had lent her many years before. ‘Why are you giving me this?’
‘Did you not once tell me it was a symbol of life carrying on?’
The gesture was not lost of Charlotte, but her own exactness could not allow for misrepresentation. ‘Well, no, that’s not quite it.’ She broke a smile at her own pedantry and then, surprising herself, she actually laughed.
Her mother joined her, delighted to see a glimpse of her daughter returning to herself. ‘Whatever it means, my dear girl, you liked this ring,’ said Lady Lucas.
‘It is rather daring, isn’t it? Dazzling,’ said Charlotte rather disapprovingly. ‘I don’t think it really suits me.’
‘It used to.’ Her mother said it as a challenge. She reached out and closed Charlotte’s palm over the ring, shutting it tight.
As Lady Lucas’s carriage pulled away, Charlotte walked back into the house and closed the door with one hand, looking at the small golden ring in the other.
She placed it on her finger and took in its effect.
As if suddenly coming to herself, she hurried upstairs, threw her old grey shawl on her bed, then began rifling through her cupboards.
Mrs Brooke was in the kitchen, finishing her morning tea, when she heard her mistress call out, ‘Brooke! I am going out for a walk!’
She was surprised – Mrs Collins had not ventured beyond the garden for a long time.
Assuming her mistress would need help preparing, Mrs Brooke made her way upstairs, only to find the bedroom in disarray and the window left ajar to allow some air in.
From downstairs, she heard the front door close with a thud.
Looking out of the open window, Mrs Brooke watched her mistress striding purposefully down the lane, a basket on her arm and a bright-green shawl wrapped around her shoulders.