Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Charlotte’s fingers traced the edge of Mr Bridges’s parcel in her pocket. For now, it was enough to know it was there, proof that someone had marked this day as worthy of remembrance.
She ought to help with supper preparations. Cook would be laying out cold roast beef, a joint of ham, perhaps a pigeon pie if any remained, with fresh bread and cheese. The table would need setting.
Still, Charlotte sat in the window seat.
The tiny bouquet that Elizabeth had also given her earlier rested on the sill beside her.
The flowers were modest—violets and forget-me-nots, things easily gathered along the hedgerow—but their presence was companionable.
Not one of her family had spoken of the date.
But for Charlotte, the day had left a mark.
Strange, how a handful of hours could alter the aspect of everything while changing nothing at all.
The breakfast room, where she had sat this morning remained the breakfast room.
The duties that awaited her the next day would be identical to those of yesterday.
She was still Charlotte Lucas, eldest daughter, seven and twenty, unmarried and likely to remain so.
Elizabeth had venerated her. Jane had too. And perhaps—her fingers pressed against the parcel… Perhaps Mr Bridges had recognised her too, though what he saw and what it might mean were questions she dared not examine too closely.
By now, Maria had abandoned the garden for the house.
Charlotte heard her sister’s quick footsteps in the hall.
Soon the pianoforte would sound—scales first, then perhaps one of the simple pieces their mother favoured.
Maria played competently but without passion, a consequence of not having ample access to masters.
Charlotte had played once, before Maria’s talent had proven more promising. She remembered the weight of the keys beneath her fingers, the way certain chords seemed to resonate in her chest. But that was years ago, before economy had dictated that only one daughter need be accomplished in music.
Standing, Charlotte crossed the room and regarded her reflection in the looking glass. She looked older in this half-light, or perhaps she simply looked her age. The face that gazed back at her was composed, ordinary, the face of a woman who had learned to want little and expect less.
Yet Elizabeth’s words echoed: We value you. We have always regarded you with the utmost esteem.
What was it to be valued? Not merely noticed.
Charlotte was noticed daily, her presence accounted for, her actions taken for granted.
But to be regarded with true understanding, as Elizabeth and Jane had regarded her today…
that was something altogether different.
It was to be esteemed not for her usefulness, but for her own sake—the whole, intricate character of a woman whose existence was not confined to the performance of her duties.
A tap at the door interrupted her thoughts. One of the younger girls—Catherine, her hair still wild despite their mother’s earlier admonitions—peered inside.
“Charlotte? Mama says to light the candles in the parlour. Mrs Bennet stayed ever so long, and now everything is behind schedule.”
“I shall see to it directly.”
Catherine lingered in the doorway. “Mr Bridges called while you were out. He seemed quite put out that you were not here.”
Charlotte kept her expression neutral. “Mr Bridges and I spoke at the gate.”
Young Catherine’s eyes widened with the delight of potential gossip. “Maria says he fancies you, but Mama says that is nonsense because he is leaving for the North.”
“Maria says a great many things,” Charlotte replied. “And most of them are better left unrepeated.”
The young girl shrugged and disappeared down the hall, her interest already shifting to other matters. Charlotte followed more slowly and paused to adjust a vase of flowers on the hall table.
She entered the parlour, which was indeed growing dark.
Charlotte, long accustomed to occupying herself with such offices as might render her less of a burden to a household already taxed under the pretence of abundance, moved meticulously from candle to candle, trimming wicks and adjusting flames until the room glowed with warm light.
Through the doorway, she could hear her mother directing the placement of dishes in the dining room and the continued sound of Maria’s playing in the other parlour.
This was her world, complete and entire.
The next day would bring more of the same—breakfast to oversee, mending to complete, calls to pay or receive.
Next week would bring the assembly, where she would sit with the matrons and watch Maria dance.
Next month, the month after, the seasons turning and returning while she remained fixed in place like a sturdy oak among the lanes.
The thought should have brought despair, but instead Charlotte felt only a kind of reckoning.
This was her life. Not the life she had imagined at seventeen, when possibilities had seemed as endless as summer afternoons.
But her life nonetheless, and there was something to be said for knowing exactly where one stood.
She thought of Elizabeth’s fierce insistence that they refuse to withdraw, that they claim their own significance.
It was a beautiful thought, but Elizabeth had always been braver than Charlotte, more willing to risk censure for the sake of principle.
Charlotte was made of more practical stuff. She knew the value of compromise.
Yet perhaps there were different ways of refusing to disappear. Perhaps significance could be found in modest claims of joy. In admiring Mr Bridges’s gift by candlelight. In pressing flowers given by a friend. In allowing herself, for just one evening, to believe she was worth remembering.
“Charlotte!” Her mother’s voice carried from the dining room. “The table, if you please. And check that your younger sister has washed her hands. She has been in the garden soil again.”
Charlotte proceeded to the dining room but paused once more at the window.
The last light was fading from the sky. In the garden, the rose beds she had tended so carefully caught her eye.
Soon there would be buds, eager to burst into bloom, though for now all was still in the gathering dark.
But they were there, whether seen or not.
They would greet the sun tomorrow, and the day after, and all the days following until frost claimed them.
And next spring, with proper care, they would bloom again.
Perhaps that was enough—to bloom when one could, to persist through seasons of invisibility, to trust that somewhere, someone was watching and marking the beauty of it, even if that someone was only oneself.
“Charlotte?” Her mother called out again, rather impatiently now.
“Coming, Mama.”
She turned from the window and went to help set the table, her movements rote, her mind elsewhere.
In her pocket, Mr Bridges’s gift pressed against her hip with each step, a secret weight that belonged only to her.
Tonight, after the house had settled into sleep, she would discover whatever token he had thought worthy of marking her twenty-seventh year.
In the dining room, the table was already half-laid, the pattern of blue willow plates disrupted by the odd angle of a teacup here, a knife askew there.
“Maria tells me you spent the afternoon with the eldest Bennet girls,” said Lady Lucas when she could, not looking directly at Charlotte. “I hope you did not overstay your welcome.”
“Elizabeth invited me to walk in the lane. We met with Jane. I also spoke with Mr Bridges upon my return.” Charlotte began righting the dishes and aligning the cutlery by tiny degrees.
“Mr Bridges again?” her mother said, with a huff.
“He seems to find reasons to call here more frequently of late. I suppose that is well enough, if he can be relied upon to conduct himself properly. I confess I find his manner odd—too quiet for a man his age. And his father, you know, was not above speculation in trade.”
Charlotte kept her own counsel, though she rather liked Mr Bridges’s quiet manner. It was a relief from the relentless cheerfulness of other young men of his age. Mr Bridges was awkward, but his awkwardness was a kind of honesty.
“He brought a gift for Charlotte,” Maria said, poking her head around the door, her face bright with mischief. “She will not let anyone else see it!”
Charlotte startled. She had not realised Maria knew of the parcel.
Their mother’s eyes sharpened. “A gift? What sort of gift?”
“I have not yet opened it,” Charlotte said, sensing danger. Would her mother try to make something of the possible impropriety? “He asked that I wait until this evening.”
Lady Lucas pursed her lips. “Well, you may show it to me after supper. I do not like secrets kept in my own house, Charlotte.”
“Of course, Mama.” She bowed her head, though inwardly she rebelled at the command. The gift felt like a private correspondence, a message meant for her alone, and she resented the idea that her mother’s curiosity might strip it of its meaning.
The meal proceeded in the usual way—her father commenting at length on the affairs of others, her mother listing the neighbours who had yet to pay calls of late, and Maria slipping in sly asides whenever she dared.
Charlotte participated only as required, her mind tracing back over the day’s encounters, lingering on the moment in the lane when Mr Bridges had looked at her with such intent that she had felt, for the briefest instant, almost admired.
She barely tasted her food, though she made a show of buttering her bread and sipping her tea.
The parcel in her pocket pressed against her side—a secret talisman.
Were it indeed a slim volume, she wondered what words Mr Bridges had chosen, whether he had inscribed the flyleaf with the formal “Miss Lucas” or something more daring.
After dinner, the family dispersed—Sir William to his ledgers, Maria to the pianoforte, and her mother to her sitting room to compose a letter to her sister.
Charlotte escaped to the kitchen, where she thanked the cook for the meal.
When she was certain she would not be observed, she slipped outside into the dusk, the parcel still safe inside her pocket.
She walked the perimeter of the house. Her steps took her past the parlour windows, where she could see her family going about the business of their lives, so familiar that she could predict their movements minute by minute.
She closed her eyes and breathed. The ache of loneliness, so constant, seemed to ease for a moment. She was here, and somewhere out there was a man who had thought of her today, who had weighed his words and risked a piece of himself in the hope that she would receive it kindly.
She returned inside, her shoes damp with evening dew, and climbed the stairs to her room.
Charlotte lit a single candle and sat on the edge of her bed.
She withdrew the parcel at last and turned it over in her hands.
The wrapping was plain, but the knot in the string was tied with such care that it took her several minutes to work it free without tearing the paper.
When she finally opened the package, she released a deep breath. It was a book of poetry—a new edition she had seen advertised months ago in the morning paper. On the inside cover, Mr Bridges had inscribed: To Miss Lucas, whose quiet strength is the equal of any wild rose. —W. Bridges
The words leapt from the page. She read them again, and again, until the letters blurred together and she had to blink to see them clearly. She traced her finger under the line, as if by touching it she could make it more real.
She remained seated for some time. The volume rested open upon her lap, while the world beyond appeared to contract to a circle of candlelight surrounding her bed. At length, she read the first poem in a barely audible voice, yet each word seemed to linger and resound.
When she finished, she closed the book and pressed it to her chest, the volume a slender shield between herself and the infinite unknown.
The waxy paper of the cover was faintly warm from her hands.
For a moment, she let her head rest against the headboard.
Her eyes slipped shut as a tide of sensation swirled beneath the surface of her composure.
The candle sputtered, casting a flickering corona on the ceiling, and in its hushed light Charlotte allowed herself an uncharacteristic luxury: to simply exist in this improbable, fragile moment.
She was, for now, a woman alone in her room, holding a gift meant singularly for her.
She ran her fingers along the thin spine of the book, and then, almost reverently, held it at arm’s length, regarding the inscription anew.
She murmured the words under her breath—quiet strength, the equal of any wild rose—and found herself at once humbled and exalted by the flattery.
It was not the sort of thing people said to girls like her, or even the sort of thing her own mother would have believed, even had it been shouted from the rooftops.
But Mr Bridges had believed it, or at least wished to, and the impossibility of that fact only made it more precious.