Chapter XI
Charlotte sat at the front of the church, on one of the hard little pews, training her eyes on her husband up in the pulpit.
While she was now practised at appearing attentive, her mind had wandered from what Mr Collins was saying, lulled by the droning of his ‘church voice’ – which was, inconveniently, more monotonous than his ‘everyday voice’.
When she tried to force her thoughts into concentration once more, he seemed to be speaking about the undue influence of modern novels on young women – a niche topic that had been stirred up by Mr Smithson’s influence – and was reading an extract from Fordyce’s Sermons.
‘What shall we say of certain books, which we are assured (for we have not read them) are in their nature so shameful, and contain such rank treason against the royalty of Virtue, that she who can bear to peruse them must in her soul be a prostitute!’
At this, Colonel Raeworth, sitting behind her, coughed, while an elderly lady at the back of the church gave a small whimper.
Mr Collins, looking down from his elevated position, seemed to enjoy the effect.
He continued with vigour, ‘Let her reputation in life be what it will. But can it be true that any young woman, pretending to decency, should endure for a moment to look on this infernal brood of futility and lewdness?’ He looked rather proud of himself, which Charlotte thought undeserving on several fronts, not least because his words were not his own.
However, even though the words belonged to another, the phrase any young woman pretending to decency affected her deeply.
That was her, was it not? She was sat here reverently in a pew: the rector’s wife, wearing a high-necked dress with hair pinned back neatly, all signs pointing to her morality and modesty – when only a few days earlier, she had braced her hands against a wall while her stays were hastily unlaced.
Her thoughts were consumed by Colonel Fitzwilliam, who sat in his family’s box to the side of the nave, at a right angle to Charlotte.
She resolutely avoided his eye, though it felt quite un-natural and gave her the beginnings of a squint.
From time to time, she felt his gaze settle on her, which was unhelpful to her resolve.
She could not help but wonder where his own thoughts tended.
Perhaps they were thinking of the same thing: the moment when her dress and stays had slipped to the floor, leaving her standing in only the lightest of petticoats.
Through it, he could see almost the entirety of her body, and he had to restrain himself from moving too quickly, too ravenously.
Instead, he had sat down on the edge of the bed, looking at her, drinking her in.
At first, she had felt too vulnerable. She had never undressed with a man before like that.
Relations with Mr Collins had been under the covers, and partially clothed.
Little had been seen; little had been explored.
And so, to be so exposed felt startlingly new, oddly thrilling and not a little disorientating.
A hundred thoughts had flooded her mind then – complicated, disordered thoughts. When fully faced with the truth of her body, she thought of what it had endured since the summer – and she felt overwhelmed by it in the moment, as if her disrobing had somehow laid her whole soul bare.
Fitzwilliam saw this. He gently pulled Charlotte to him, sitting on the edge of the bed, holding her close, making room for her to feel this wave of emotion without expectation from him. She let herself fall into him.
Fitzwilliam, too, was feeling a great deal.
He was remembering what intimacy felt like; it had been a long time.
In his youth, he had taken any opportunity that was laid before him, and there had been several for a young soldier; his charm and his uniform made a winning combination.
But in recent years, he had lost his taste for any such encounters.
He had not had the time nor the opportunity to form a true connection with anyone, and anything less had felt rather unsatisfying.
Since meeting Charlotte, he had felt things he had thought long dormant: not only desire, but desire tempered with care, ferocity met with delicacy. He wanted to protect her and consume her in equal measure. But at present, protection won out.
As Charlotte raised her head from his shoulder, he was ready to help her get dressed again, thinking that this had been too soon, too much.
But when he reached to pick up her clothes, she stopped him, holding his arm, then she slowly traced trembling fingers up and across his broad shoulders and then moved down his front.
He did not touch her yet; he was not sure whether she would want to continue and wished to let her guide the speed of their first steps, if there were to be any.
Just as Charlotte’s mind lingered on the image of her slowly unbuttoning Fitzwilliam’s shirt, revealing the dark hair across his chest and the warm skin beneath, Mr Collins voice broke into her thoughts: ‘Their descriptions are often loose and luscious in a high degree; their representations of love between the sexes are almost universally overstrained. All is dotage, or despair; or else ranting swelled into burlesque.’ His throat was a little clogged, and he had to clear it a few times between these phrases.
She hid a smirk and let her mind return.
It had not felt overstrained when Charlotte had risen slowly, drawing away from Fitzwilliam to loosen the final ribbon on her petticoat and lift it over her head.
Her hair hung loose about her shoulders as she moved towards him, where he sat watching with an unreadable expression.
She straddled his lap, her knees pressing into the bed on either side of him, and kissed him – long and deep.
His hands came to her back with surprising gentleness, and he kissed her in return, though he did not press for more.
After a moment, she pulled back just enough to search his face. ‘Are you – do you want to?’ She asked it genuinely, suddenly uncertain whether she had misread him entirely.
He gave a short laugh and said in a low tone, ‘Yes, I want to.’
She looked a little puzzled. Then, with cool, clear eyes, she said to him, ‘You are still afraid to hurt me. But I know you will not.’ She put one hand on his cheek. ‘Others have thought me weak. You do not. You know I am strong.’
‘I do,’ he replied hoarsely.
‘Treat me as such, I beg you.’
And as she kissed him now, he grabbed her by the waist, lifted her up off her feet and laid her down on the bed, his hands, his face, his body now moving as powerfully as they had wished to.
Charlotte’s hymn-book nearly fell from her hands, as she lost herself briefly in the memory, and as she pulled herself back to the present, she felt Colonel Fitzwilliam’s eyes upon her, staring. She blinked rapidly, trying to alert him to it, and he averted his gaze hurriedly.
The sermon had finished, and after they had sung the final hymn, the congregation began moving towards the door.
As she filed out, Charlotte passed the pillar where she and Fitzwilliam had once fallen against each other, and she had first felt his hands on her.
She felt a rush of blood surge within her but also the swell of a deeper emotion.
For perhaps the most intimate moment of their union had come not in the heat of passion but afterwards, when they had lain for some minutes on the bed together.
Charlotte had felt changed – not by Fitzwilliam but by herself.
She had so often felt let down by her body: by its appearance, lean and neat, with no soft abundance of flesh; by its failure to respond to her husband; by its slowness to carry a child and its readiness to part with it; by its inability to defend itself.
But then – this. How her body had danced. How it had moved, reacted and rejoiced. Her body worked! And how it worked. How it worked with his: in tandem, in harmony. She felt a new understanding of herself, and it was bold, and it was physical. But she wrestled with it. This was new.
They were not able to remain there long; Charlotte’s absence would soon be felt, and they were fearful of rousing suspicion among the staff. Charlotte, suddenly restive, rose and began to dress herself.
The light from the window shone brightly on her, casting her in silhouette before the colonel’s eyes. He gazed lazily at her and she enjoyed his stares.
‘You do not tire of the sight? You have seen it all now,’ she said mischievously.
‘I do not. I never will. You are beautiful.’
Her grin dropped at this. ‘I am not beautiful. You can flatter me without falsehood.’
He frowned, feeling stung. ‘I am not false. Why do you say that?’
‘I must say it, when you say things that do not suit me. To say I am beautiful is not—’ She hesitated as she pulled her dress back on. ‘You must have said that to other women, and perhaps they were, but I need no such lie. I know you like me for what I am. I need no flowery phrases.’
He sighed gruffly. All had been well, and he did not understand how this outburst had been provoked. ‘Charlotte, I do not like you: I love you. And I do not lie when I say you are beautiful.’
‘I am a fully grown woman—’
‘Do you not think that grown women can be beautiful?’ he asked, exasperated.
‘I mean – this – what we have – is not… it is not because you are so handsome and you think me so beautiful. It is more than that; it has to be. It has to be worth more than that.’
For once, he did not understand her, and she didn’t entirely blame him. She was wrestling with her feelings and not conveying them clearly.
‘Are you suggesting,’ he asked, his face contorted in confusion, ‘that as long as you are plain, then our actions are less scandalous somehow? More noble?’
‘No, of course not. It is only… I must know myself, or I am lost! I am plain, and I had found peace with that. I am unromantic, and I had found peace with that!’
He was quiet at first, as though weighing her words. ‘You are neither. And you know it yourself.’
She offered no reply, so he continued, more softly than before, ‘You had not found peace with that. You told me that when we first met. Because you cannot have peace without passion. Some can; you cannot. Because you are passionate. And you are beautiful.’
Charlotte longed to go to him, to let his quiet reassurances wash over her – but she found she could not soften.
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head vigorously, as if shaking a thought from her head, and walked swiftly to the door.
After listening for a moment, she hurried through it and disappeared down the corridor.
He could not follow her at such speed, for he was not yet dressed.
She had left him baffled and hurt. Their time together had been a blend of tenderness and fierceness that seemed to have suited them both.
She had been giddy, happy, serene, but this reaction had stirred discord into their alliance.
Their first argument, and he did not even understand what it was about.
He watched Charlotte from his window, striding out the back door, now in her coat and gloves, the wind beating against her, the turn of her lip stubborn against the bluster. God but she was beautiful. Why would she not hear it?
Outside the church, as Charlotte stood near Mr Collins, who was greeting the parishioners as they left, she saw Mr Smithson approaching.
‘Did you enjoy the sermon?’ he solicited, ‘It is one I introduced to Mr Collins myself.’
Charlotte answered as diplomatically as she could. ‘It is not a favourite of mine, but then I have never read many novels, old or new.’
‘But the lessons to be learnt from those words apply to the corporal world, not merely the literary.’
‘I am sure.’ Charlotte smiled broadly and excused herself, keen not to be drawn into her second sermon of the day.
She went back inside the church and began gathering up the hymn-books left in the pews, but a moment later, she was surprised by Colonel Fitzwilliam hurriedly stepping back inside.
He moved quickly towards her and handed her his hymn-book. ‘I almost left with it! Foolish! Good day, Mrs Collins.’
His eyes seemed to say more than his words did, and Charlotte, looking down at the book in her hands, saw that it was not closed fully, that some of its pages seeming to be folded.
She had the quick sense not to investigate now, so, curtsying to Fitzwilliam and taking her leave, she took it to the vestry.
There, she discovered a letter enfolded in the pages.
She removed it, folded it tighter still and pushed it up the sleeve of her coat.
When she exited the vestry, she found Mr Smithson had taken over her job of collecting up the hymn-books.
His eyes followed her from the vestry, back up the aisle of the church, narrowed suspiciously.
She returned the book she was holding, placing it into his hands, and he idly glanced down at it before putting it on the pile.
‘Did you find what you needed?’ he asked.
‘No.’ She thought quickly. ‘I was looking for my husband.’
Smithson raised an eyebrow. ‘Why, he is still in the churchyard.’
Charlotte hurried from the church, which felt chillier than outside. She found her husband conversing with a parishioner and stood by his side, talking politely and nodding, all while the letter in her sleeve burnt into her skin.