Chapter 3 #2
Charlotte looked at her friends—really looked at them.
They were none of them beauties in the conventional sense, though Jane came closest. They were none of them wealthy enough to overcome their other deficits.
They were intelligent, accomplished in their various ways, capable of deep feeling and deeper thought.
And they were all three sliding inexorably towards that social invisibility that awaited unwed women of a certain age.
“We are the sort of women,” Charlotte said, “who must make our own happiness, because no one else will make it for us.”
The words settled over them like a blessing or a curse. Somewhere in the distance, church bells chimed the hour—three o’clock. The day was more than half gone.
“Then, let us make it,” Elizabeth said finally. “Here, now. Let us be happy for this hour, at least.”
They ate strawberries and cake, the sweetness more than compensating for the bitterness of the morning. Elizabeth regaled them with an exaggerated account of her mother’s latest vexations and grievances. Jane shared gossip from Meryton, but only the best kind, for she was too good to do otherwise.
Charlotte found herself laughing heartily for the first time in weeks. This picture of contentment surprised even herself.
“There,” Elizabeth said with some satisfaction. “That is the Charlotte we remember.”
“I am still here,” Charlotte said, though she wondered if it was true. “Simply buried beneath duties and expectations.”
“Then we must dig you out more often,” Jane declared. “We have been remiss in our friendship, letting weeks pass without proper conversation.”
“You have your own concerns,” Charlotte said. “Our families—”
“Our families will survive without us for an afternoon,” Elizabeth interrupted. “Charlotte, promise me something.”
Charlotte waited, watching her friend’s face shift from playful to serious.
“Promise me,” Elizabeth continued, “that you will not let yourself fade into the wallpaper of Lucas Lodge, no matter how convenient it might be for everyone else.”
“I—” Charlotte began, then stopped. How could she make such a promise when invisibility seemed the only reasonable response to her circumstances?
“And about Mr Bridges,” Jane said suddenly, then blushed at her own boldness. “That is, if he should call again, Charlotte—”
“He is leaving,” Charlotte interrupted. The words escaped before she could recall them, and she felt both friends turn towards her with sudden attention.
“For a living in the North. He mentioned it when last he called. He spoke of a far better situation, with a cottage and thirty pounds more per annum.”
The clearing seemed to grow quieter. Even the birds ceased their calling. Charlotte kept her eyes fixed on the pattern of the blanket, tracing its weave with one finger.
“When?” Elizabeth asked.
“By Michaelmas. Perhaps sooner if his replacement can be found.”
Charlotte felt rather than saw the look that passed between her friends. She reached for another strawberry, though her appetite had fled entirely.
“He has not—that is, before he goes—” Jane began, then stopped.
“He has made no declaration, if that is what you wonder.” Charlotte was proud of how steady her voice remained. “Why should he? I am three years his senior, with nothing to recommend me but competence in household management.”
“Charlotte—”
“Please.” She looked up at last, meeting their concerned gazes. “Let us not pretend there was ever any real possibility there. He was kind to have noticed me at all.”
Elizabeth’s hand found Charlotte’s again. “You speak as though kindness were the most you deserved.”
“Is it not?” Charlotte heard the challenge in her own voice and could not suppress it. “When one is seven-and-twenty, plain, and portionless? I am not like either of you, able to refuse proposals out of principle. No one has ever thought me worth proposing to.”
“That is not true,” Jane said with unusual firmness. “You are worth ten of the silly girls who marry at seventeen. You have intelligence and real understanding, Charlotte. Any man of sense and education would see—”
“But men of sense and education also have livings to make and futures to secure,” Charlotte interrupted. “Mr Bridges will find himself a young wife in time, someone fresh and unmarked by years of waiting. And I will continue as I am.”
She had not meant to speak so plainly, to lay bare the resignation that had been weighing upon her. But here, in this clearing that held so many fond memories, with her dearest friends beside her, the truth seemed to demand its due.
“Then we are fools,” Elizabeth said fiercely. “All three of us. To wait for men to determine our worth, to measure our days by proposals that may never come.”
“What else would you have us do?” Charlotte asked. “We cannot change what we are—gentlewomen without independence, without professions, without alternatives.”
“We can refuse to withdraw,” Elizabeth said. “We can insist upon our own significance, even if the world denies it.”
Charlotte wanted to believe her. She wanted to feel the fierce certainty that seemed to radiate from Elizabeth so effortlessly.
But she had spent too many mornings watching the post arrive with nothing for her, too many evenings seated with the matrons while younger girls danced, and too many birthdays forgotten by everyone who should have remembered.
“You are braver than I,” she said.
“No,” Jane said. “You are the bravest of us all, Charlotte. To endure what you endure daily, with such grace. We could not manage half so well.”
Charlotte felt tears threaten and blinked them back. She would not weep, not on this lovely afternoon that her friends had crafted out of kindness and remembrance.
“Tell us about the roses,” Elizabeth said, seeming to sense Charlotte’s need for a shift in conversation. “The ones you are planning for the south border. I have heard it said they are to be spectacular.”
And so, Charlotte spoke of roses—of soil preparation and pruning schedules, and of the relative merits of different varieties.
Her friends listened with what appeared to be genuine interest, though she suspected they cared less for horticulture than for the animation that crept back into her voice when she discussed something she could control, could nurture, and could bring to bloom through her own careful attention.
Through the trees, Charlotte could hear the distant sound of a carriage on the main road—perhaps Mrs Bennet arriving for her promised call. She should return. She should be there to manage the visit, to ensure everything proceeded smoothly.
“I fear I must go,” she said.
“Not yet,” Elizabeth said. “Pray, just a few more minutes.”
They sat in companionable silence, three women on the verge of that social precipice that awaited all spinsters, each managing their approach to the edge in their own way.
Charlotte thought of Mr Bridges, of the careful way he had examined her sketches of the garden plans, asking thoughtful questions about drainage and sun exposure.
She thought of his hands—ink-stained, scholarly—and the way they had trembled slightly when he had handed her a book of sermons that he thought she might appreciate.
She would read those sermons tonight, she decided.
She would read them and allow herself, in the privacy of her room, to imagine what might have been if she were younger, prettier, worthier of a young man’s nervous attention.
And then the next day, she would rise and continue as she always had, because what else was there to do?
“Charlotte,” Elizabeth said. “You must know that we—that is, Jane and I—we value you. We have always regarded you with the utmost esteem.”
Charlotte suffered a flutter in her chest.
“I know,” she said, and found that she did know, had always known, though sometimes the knowing got lost beneath the weight of daily tribulations.
The church bells chimed four o’clock. This time, Charlotte did rise, brushing crumbs from her skirt.
“Thank you,” she said. “For all this. For remembering me, today.”
“We will always remember,” Elizabeth said. “Always.”
Charlotte smiled—a genuine smile, unlike the practised one she wore for morning calls and family dinners. “I believe you will.”
She left them to pack up the picnic things, insisting, and understandably so, that she must be on her way. With her gifts gathered in hand, Charlotte walked steadily, savouring these last few minutes of feeling valued, feeling like more than an unmarried daughter counting out her useful years.
As she emerged from the trees, she saw him—Mr Bridges, standing at the gate of Lucas Lodge, his hat in his hands. He started when he saw her, the colour rising in his cheeks.
“Miss Lucas,” he said. “I was just—that is, I came to—” He stopped, took a breath, and began again. “I came to wish you a happy birthday.”
Charlotte stared at him. He knew. Somehow, he knew.
“Your father mentioned it,” he said quickly, as if reading her thoughts. “Last week. I hope you do not think it presumptuous—”
“Not at all,” Charlotte said. “It is very kind of you to remember.” Even though it had apparently slipped her father’s mind.
“I have something—” He fumbled in his pocket and then produced a small, wrapped parcel. “It is nothing significant. Only I saw it in the bookshop in town and thought—that is, I remembered you mentioning—”
He handed the parcel to her. Charlotte took it, her fingers brushing his. The package was light and book shaped.
“You need not have—”
“Pray,” he said. “Open it later, if you would. I must go—evening prayers—but I wanted…” He halted again, seeming to wrestle with his words. “Miss Lucas, before I leave for the North—”
“Yes?”
He looked at her then, and Charlotte saw something in his expression that made her pulse quicken. But then he shook his head, as if arguing with himself.
“We shall speak again,” he said. “Before I go. If you would permit it.”
Charlotte nodded, not trusting her voice. He bowed, she curtsied, and then he was walking away down the lane, his stride quick and purposeful.
She stood at the gate, holding his gift and watching until he disappeared around the bend.
Then she looked down at the parcel in her hands.
Through the paper, she could feel the edges of what was possibly a slim volume.
She would not open it here, where anyone might see.
She would wait until tonight, in the privacy of her room, where she could allow herself to hope—just for a moment—that she was still capable of surprising herself.
By now, Charlotte could already hear her youngest sister’s voice calling from the house. Duty beckoned, as it always did.
But as Charlotte walked towards the house with Mr Bridges’s gift tucked in her pocket and her friends’ gifts in her arms, she felt different. Though Charlotte was not one to imagine sudden alterations in one’s character, she could not help but notice a subtle change—a growing resolve.
She paused at the door, looking back once at the path that led to the clearing where her friends had created a small paradise just for her. She glanced across the garden, admiring the rose beds. Soon enough, with patience and care, she would be coaxing beautiful flowers into bloom.
Perhaps, she thought, there are different kinds of blooming. Perhaps some flowers simply take longer to unfold.
With that thought, she stepped inside to greet Mrs Bennet, to pour tea, to perform all the familiar services of an unmarried eldest daughter.
But tonight, she would write in her journal.
She would record this day—not the forgotten birthday, but the remembered one.
The one where she had been understood, even admired.