Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Mrs Long’s departure allowed Charlotte to breathe easily again, and the parlour seemed brighter, almost refreshed.
Charlotte stood for a moment in the empty room, her hands still clasped before her in the posture of a dutiful hostess.
Through the window, she watched Mrs Long’s carriage rattle away down the lane, kicking up clouds of dust that hung in the air.
She ought to return to Maria’s mending. The white gloves still needed washing. The pantry inventory awaited her attention. Yet, Charlotte found herself moving instead towards the door, drawn by the restlessness that had been building since breakfast.
The path behind the house led through the kitchen garden and out towards the lane that led to Meryton.
Charlotte walked slowly, letting her fingers trail along the hedge that bordered the path.
She had nearly reached the gate when she saw Elizabeth Bennet standing in the lane.
Her friend’s posture suggested she had been waiting—or perhaps deliberating whether to approach the house at all.
“Lizzy?” Charlotte quickened her pace, unlatching the gate. “I thought you were going to call with your mother this afternoon.”
Elizabeth’s expression shifted, and a hint of mischief flickered across her features before she smiled. “I was. That is, Mama is coming later with Mary and Lydia. I merely thought to—” She stopped. “Charlotte, will you walk with me?”
There was something peculiar in Elizabeth’s manner, a barely suppressed energy that made Charlotte’s chest tighten. She glanced back at the house, where a dozen tasks awaited her attention.
“Only for a moment,” Charlotte said, stepping through the gate. “My mother will wonder where I have gone.”
“I am sure she will not miss you so soon as you suppose.” The words escaped before Elizabeth seemed to realise she had uttered them. The colour crept into her cheeks. “That is, I believe Lady Lucas must have a great deal of other diversions that demand her attention.”
Charlotte studied her friend, noting the slight restlessness, the way Elizabeth’s fingers worried at her skirt. “Lizzy, what—”
“Come with me.” Elizabeth linked her arm through Charlotte’s and guided them away from the main road, towards a rough path that wound behind a stand of oaks. “It is too fine an afternoon to waste indoors.”
They walked in silence for several minutes, Elizabeth’s pace quick enough that Charlotte had to concentrate on matching it. The path was familiar—they had wandered here often as girls, sharing confidences and dreams that now seemed to belong to other people entirely.
“Do you remember,” Elizabeth said, “when we were younger and convinced ourselves that we would never marry? That we would live as companions in a cottage by the sea, reading novels and keeping cats?”
Charlotte cleared her throat. “I remember you declaring you would only marry for the deepest love, and I said I would settle for a man with a good library.”
“And now look at us.” Elizabeth’s laugh held an edge Charlotte had not heard before. “Both of us on the verge of spinsterhood—and neither of us any closer to cottages or libraries or deepest love.”
Charlotte stopped walking. “Lizzy, why are you—”
“We are almost there.” Elizabeth turned off the path entirely, ducking beneath a low-hanging branch. “Through here.”
Charlotte followed, her confusion mounting.
The trees opened into a clearing she remembered from childhood, where they had once staged elaborate plays with Jane as their sole audience.
Today, a blanket had been spread on the grass, and Jane Bennet herself sat upon it, surrounded by what appeared to be the makings of a modest feast.
“Charlotte!” Jane stood, her lovely face bright with pleasure. “Happy birthday, dearest,” she exclaimed with energy, joined by Elizabeth.
Charlotte stood frozen at the sight of it all. On the blanket sat a cake, alongside bottles of light wine, fresh strawberries, and wrapped parcels.
“You remembered,” Charlotte said.
“Of course, we remembered.” Elizabeth guided her forward, pressing her down onto the blanket. “Did you think we would forget?”
Charlotte accepted a glass of wine from Jane. Her fingers trembled slightly. “No one else—that is, my family—”
“Your family,” Elizabeth said with uncharacteristic vehemence, “are fools.”
“Lizzy!” Jane’s gentle reproach carried little force. She turned to Charlotte—the former’s angelic eyes softened with understanding. “What Lizzy means is that we could not let the day pass unmarked. Not when you mean so much to us.”
Charlotte sipped her beverage to give herself time to fashion a response.
The sweetness caught in her throat. Around them, the afternoon hummed with the sights and sounds of early spring.
It was the sort of perfect afternoon that would be remembered always—the taste of strawberries and the warmth of the sun on their skin.
“Twenty-seven,” Elizabeth said, settling back on her elbows. “And Jane and I are catching up to you with each passing day! We are practically ancient, are we not? Soon they will be calling us the three spinsters of Meryton.”
“They already do,” Jane said, surprising the two others. “I heard Mrs Long say as much to my aunt Mrs Phillips, last week.”
Elizabeth sat up sharply. “Jane! You never said.”
“What was there to say?” Jane’s smile held a resignation Charlotte recognised too well. “She was not wrong. I am three-and-twenty, with no suitors and no prospects. Mama despairs of me daily.”
“At least your mother despairs,” Charlotte said before she could stop herself. “Mine has simply… ceased to notice.”
She spoke only the truth. Unlike Mrs Bennet, who was always pressing her five daughters to get married, Charlotte suffered no such attitude from her mother—at least not anymore.
She did not know whether to consider it a blessing or a fault.
A blessing because what young lady liked to be pressured to make an advantageous match at every turn or the latter because her mother had simply lost all hope of ever getting rid of an ageing daughter who was considered a burden.
One that fell to her elder brother, no doubt to Lady Lucas’s way of thinking.
How ironic that if the Bennet family’s home was not entailed away from the female line, Mrs Bennet and Lady Lucas might have far more in common as lamentations and vexations went.
The words hung in the air between them. Elizabeth reached over and took Charlotte’s hand, squeezing it gently.
“What is worse, do you think?” Elizabeth asked. “The despair or the indifference?”
Charlotte considered this inquiry. “The indifference, I think. At least despair suggests hope exists.”
“Oh, Charlotte.” Jane moved closer until the three of them sat in a tight circle on the blanket. “There is still hope. There must be.”
“Must there?” Charlotte heard the bitterness in her own voice and tried to soften it. “Forgive me. I am poor company today.”
“You are perfect company,” Elizabeth said firmly. “And we will not allow you to apologise for speaking the truth. Not today, not here.”
Charlotte looked between her two dearest friends—Jane, so lovely and good that her unmarried state seemed a tragic injustice; Elizabeth, whose wit and spirit had perhaps intimidated more suitors than attracted them.
They were all three caught in the same web, yet somehow Charlotte felt most thoroughly trapped.
“Mr Bridges asked after you on Tuesday,” Jane offered. “He seemed quite particular in his inquiries.”
Charlotte felt the heat rise in her cheeks. “He asks after everyone. It is his duty to know his parishioners.”
“He does not ask after everyone with such marked attention,” Elizabeth observed. “I saw him at the assembly last month. He watched you during every dance.”
“I did not dance.”
“No, but he watched you not dancing with remarkable dedication.”
Charlotte plucked at the grass beside the blanket.
Mr Bridges was everything a curate should be—earnest, kind, and judicious.
He had called at Lucas Lodge often of late, ostensibly to discuss parish matters with her father, but both times had lingered in conversation with Charlotte about books, gardening, and the proper management of charitable funds.
“He is very young,” Charlotte said.
“He is four-and-twenty,” Jane said. “He is not so young.”
“He is younger than I am,” argued Charlotte.
“By three years,” Elizabeth said. “What is three years when—”
She stopped herself, but Charlotte could finish the sentence. When you are already seven-and-twenty. When options have tapered to a trickle. When even a young curate’s attention is likened to an unexpected gift.
“Pray, open your presents,” Jane said, clearly eager to shift the conversation. She pushed the gifts towards Charlotte. “This one first.”
Charlotte unwrapped the first parcel to find a beautifully bound volume of Cowper’s poems, the pages gilt-edged and pristine. From Elizabeth, predictably. She knew Charlotte’s taste in poetry ran towards the contemplative rather than the romantic.
The next contained a set of handkerchiefs embroidered with Charlotte’s initials in Jane’s delicate hand, each corner decorated with tiny forget-me-nots.
“It is so you will remember us,” Jane said softly, “even when the world forgets to remember you.”
Charlotte pressed one of the handkerchiefs to her eyes. “You are both too kind.”
“We are not kind enough,” Elizabeth said. “Charlotte, you must know—you must believe that you are valued. That your worth is not measured in proposals received or refused, or in—”
“In years accumulated?” Charlotte lowered the handkerchief. “But that is precisely how worth is measured, Lizzy. At least for women like us.”
“Women like us,” Elizabeth repeated slowly. “And what sort of women are we?”