Chapter V
It was a hot, sticky summer’s day at Lucas Lodge.
The air was thick with warmth, and the dining room windows, though open, let in no breeze.
The Collinses had been invited to take luncheon with the family, and Charlotte, ever polite, had eaten more than she had really fancied of the generous helpings of roast chicken and potatoes.
The meal sat heavily on her, and, feeling languid and uncomfortable, she longed for a walk outside.
‘An excellent choice of meal, Lady Lucas, well suited to the day,’ Mr Collins simpered untruthfully.
Lady Lucas accepted the small compliment graciously, accustomed to Mr Collins’s manners by now. The company all reclined a little in their chairs as Sir William Lucas muttered something to their butler.
‘Have you any plans for the remainder of the summer?’ asked Charlotte of her mother. ‘Might you and Maria take in the end of the season in London?’
‘No, we have no plans to. We may visit Bath in September – your aunt is keen to see Edward before he goes back to Eton.’
‘I don’t want to go back!’ interjected Edward petulantly.
‘Don’t be silly, Edward,’ his mother chided.
‘I am not being silly. I do not like it.’ He suddenly looked much younger than his fourteen years.
Lady Lucas softened in tone. ‘Darling, you still have much to learn, and not all of it academic. Do you not miss your friends?’
‘I do not have friends,’ the boy returned sullenly. Suddenly, tears pricked his eyes, and the mood around the table changed.
Lady Lucas realised this was not now a topic for general discussion. ‘We shall discuss it later.’
Determining a change of subject was needed, Charlotte said lightly, ‘If you do go to Bath, we may accompany you.’
‘Oh?’ said Lady Lucas, rather put off by the word we in that offer.
‘Yes, it would be pleasant to take a trip together, would it not, my dear?’
‘Certainly,’ replied Collins, happily surprised by the suggestion. ‘I have long desired to visit the Pump Rooms.’
Lady Lucas blinked. ‘Well, I will tell you when our plans are fixed.’
At this point, their butler entered with a bottle of champagne and began pouring it into their glasses. Charlotte’s initial confusion at such decadence was quickly supplanted by joy as her father shared the news that Maria was engaged to be married to Mr Denny.
While Denny’s less savoury connections had given Charlotte pause in the past, one look at Maria’s blushing, giddy face allowed her to set those concerns aside, and she determined to focus on how well-mannered and honourable he had always proved himself.
It was clearly a love-match, something she had always prayed her sister might be able to have.
‘How wonderful,’ said Mr Collins, who had evidently been preparing what he would say for some minutes.
‘May God bless your union, as he has blessed ours.’ It was more succinct than anyone had expected.
He looked at Charlotte then, with such love, and as she met his eyes, she was surprised to feel tears coming.
She blinked them back and raised her glass with him.
Walking with her mother in the garden that afternoon, Charlotte launched her interrogation. ‘Has the courtship been going on all this time? The last occasion I saw them together was before I was engaged. She has not mentioned him since – not last year, or since I returned. It seems odd.’
Lady Lucas nodded. ‘I know. She has been secretive about it, or she thought she had; I had some inclination. You see, at the start, your father and I were not encouraging of the match. You can imagine why.’
Charlotte could indeed. Life in the militia shared many of the same shortcomings as life in the regulars: absence from home, unpredictability and a lean income.
‘When the militia removed to Brighton, we expected their courtship would come to a natural end. But then, of course, there followed the events concerning Lydia Bennet and Wickham.’
Charlotte felt herself lean in.
‘You will remember, Denny and Wickham were friends, but Wickham’s behaviour in Brighton, even before he left with Lydia, was shocking, and Denny had started to distance himself from him.
When Lydia and Wickham eloped, it was Denny who alerted Colonel Forster to Wickham’s nature, albeit too late.
I cannot know the truth of it, but I believe if Denny were guilty of anything, it is being too slow to react. ’
‘But what of Maria?’
‘Ah, yes. He had seen Maria that summer, when she was in London with Miss Ainshaws, and he still liked her very much, and she him. In October, he presented himself here, to your father.’
‘In October! Why have you not told me this before?’
‘Because you have had plenty to think about, my darling – last October was not an easy time for you – and because I did not know how it would play out.’
‘So, he asked permission to marry Maria?’
‘Yes, but your father said no.’
Charlotte gasped.
‘He said no, conditionally. He said that a life in the militia was not one fit for marriage, and he offered to help Denny into a career in trade; your father has excellent connections there.’
Charlotte looked sceptical. ‘But does Mr Denny want this?’
‘He does. He did. He had grown rather disillusioned with the militia since Brighton. He is now well established in London; he is at Berry’s in St James’s, with a good starting income and the prospect of taking a house within the next two years.
So, your father and I have relented. Thank goodness, because Maria would have been furious.
It will be a fairly long engagement, but they are happy enough with that. ’
Charlotte leant back, finally satisfied with the information provided.
So, a sister engaged – and not to a soldier after all but to a merchant.
She wished it could have been simpler for Maria: that her beloved, in regimentals, might have asked her freely, and she might have been able to accept, immediately, without a care.
But this was romantic nonsense; they would have had nowhere to live.
Maria would have been galloping around the country, with no money, no friends.
Charlotte also felt relieved, in a way, that even marrying a handsome soldier whom you loved entailed planning, changes, sacrifices and patience. Few unions were immediately perfect.
She looked towards the house and saw Mr Collins sitting with Edward on the terrace. It was an unusual pairing; Collins always seemed a little afraid of children, especially confident schoolboys, and Edward had always thought her husband a little odd.
Before they left later that afternoon, Lady Lucas took Mr Collins’s hand warmly and said, ‘Thank you for talking to Edward,’ before bidding them both farewell.
They walked slowly home to Longbourn – it was a beautiful evening and the path was dry, and there was nothing to hurry or compel them. Charlotte took the opportunity to question her husband on the substance of his conversation with her young brother.
After some reticence, he answered, ‘I asked him what he had meant when he said he had no friends.’
‘Oh, yes. An odd thing to say – of course he has friends.’
Collins looked curiously at her. ‘It is very possible for a boy to go through schooling without having friends. It is not the state one hopes for, but it is very possible.’
Charlotte regretted being so dismissive, realising that her husband was more likely an authority on this matter. ‘And he does not?’
‘He did have, but they have begun to be unkind to him.’
‘Why?’ asked Charlotte incredulously.
Again, Collins looked at her as if surprised at her naivety. ‘Young boys do not need a reason to turn on one another. It might be anything – one’s breeding, one’s voice, one’s gait, reading the wrong book, wearing the wrong colour…’
‘Then, what was your advice?’
‘Only to try to see it through. Their actions may stop, or they may not. But he can survive it, and that will be a path to something better – as it was for me. I told him, as I have always believed, that education is the best way of choosing the company you keep.’
Charlotte smiled and nodded; this aphorism seemed in keeping with what she might have expected him to say.
‘I also told him that of the two cruellest boys who I had the misfortune to know at Oxford, one of them is now an MP, and the other drank himself into an early grave.’
Charlotte laughed, then stopped herself. ‘Was that a comfort to Edward?’
‘I believe it was. I find comfort knowing that there is no reasoning to who finds happiness or success – the Goliath in the schoolyard might fall into nothing, and your brother might yet tame a lion.’
‘But… will he be happy at school, do you suppose?’
Mr Collins frowned, saying, a little grandly and pompously, ‘Our task in this life to is to find happiness in what we are afforded and to improve what we find.’
Charlotte turned to him curiously. ‘My mother says that. She has it embroidered on a sampler.’
‘I know,’ replied Mr Collins, with a shy smile. ‘I saw it in the parlour.’
Charlotte started to laugh, and very tentatively, as if it were a new sensation for him, Mr Collins joined her.