Epilogue
KENT, ENGLAND, ONE YEAR LATER…
The morning light at the parsonage in Hunsford fell differently than it had at Lucas Lodge—cleaner, somehow, unobstructed by the ancient oaks that had shaded her father’s home.
Charlotte Collins, née Lucas sat at her writing desk, watching dust motes drift amid the sunlight that filled her particular parlour.
The clock on the mantel—a wedding gift from Lady Catherine—marked half past seven.
Twenty-eight years. The number settled in her mind with less weight than twenty-seven had carried. Perhaps because she was no longer waiting for her life to begin. It had begun, for better or worse, months ago when she had accepted Mr Collins’s proposal.
Mr William Collins, the heir apparent of Longbourn and a distant cousin of the Bennets, had arrived in Hertfordshire soon after Michaelmas with the intention of choosing a wife from among his fair cousins.
Elizabeth had been the object of his affection almost from the moment of his arrival, and in due time, he made his intentions known.
When Elizabeth made it clear that she would not have him, he accepted her decision with all the conviction of a man who was not to be deterred and soon offered his hand to Charlotte.
Be it entirely of his own contrivance or partially hers, who was to say?
But that did not stop Mrs Bennet from having her suspicions.
The door opened, and Mr Collins entered, already dressed for his morning visit to Rosings Park. His face bore its customary expression of anxious satisfaction—pleased with his lot but perpetually concerned that he might somehow displease his patroness, the Right Honourable Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
“My dear Charlotte,” he began, then paused, seeming to search for his next words. “Lady Catherine has requested my immediate attendance regarding the matter of the new hymnal selection. I trust you will not find my absence this morning too inconvenient?”
“Not at all,” Charlotte replied, folding the letter she had been writing. “I have any number of tasks with which to occupy my day.”
He nodded, already turning towards the door, then stopped. “I nearly forgot—happy birthday, my dear. I have asked Cook to prepare your favourite cake for this evening.”
Charlotte’s pen stilled. He had remembered.
“That is very thoughtful, Mr Collins.”
“Lady Catherine herself suggested it when I mentioned the date yesterday. She was most insistent that the wife of her parson should be properly acknowledged on such occasions.” He adjusted his collar, clearly pleased to be following his patroness’s directive.
“She may even call this afternoon to extend her personal felicitations.”
Charlotte’s first impression of Lady Catherine de Bourgh had been marked by a mixture of awe and calculation.
The grandeur of Rosings, together with Lady Catherine’s imperious manner and unwavering certainty in her own opinions, left Charlotte with little doubt of her ladyship’s influence over the parish and all within it.
Yet, while others might have been unsettled by such condescension, Charlotte, ever practical, regarded Lady Catherine as a woman to be deferred to when necessary and humoured whenever possible.
She resolved that, with judicious management and a respectful attention to Lady Catherine’s preferences, she might secure both her own comfort and Mr Collins’s continued favour in her ladyship’s eyes.
She stood and moved to the window that overlooked the garden.
Her garden now, such as it was—a neat patch bordered by the churchyard wall, nothing like the rambling grounds of Lucas Lodge.
But she had coaxed life from the poor soil, tending the rose beds and setting the vegetable plot in order—triumphs that brought comfort to her first winter at Hunsford.
The morning post arrived as she stood there, brought to her by the housemaid with an apologetic curtsy. “Begging your pardon, ma’am, but there’s a letter from town and one from Hertfordshire.”
She picked up the letter from town first, recognising Jane’s handwriting immediately. She broke the seal with careful fingers, unfolding the pages with the reverence due a dear friend.
“Dearest Charlotte,” Jane’s missive began.
I trust this finds you well on your birthday.
Lizzy and I speak of you often, wondering how you fare in Kent.
She insists I tell you that she has finally finished reading the poet you recommended—do you remember?
The volume you received last year? She found it quite affecting, particularly the part about strength and wild roses…
Charlotte drew a quick breath. She had never told them about Mr Bridges’s inscription. They must have glimpsed it somehow, perhaps when helping her pack for her removal to her new home. Realising her friends had seen and remembered this otherwise minor, private thing made her throat tighten.
Upon finishing Jane’s letter, Charlotte opened the missive from Hertfordshire, written in Elizabeth’s hand, secure in the knowledge that she would soon be welcoming her intimate friend into her home, for Elizabeth, along with Sir William and Maria, was to arrive in Kent later that month.
Elizabeth’s letter had concluded with:
Charlotte, I hope you have found what you sought—not happiness, for that is too simple a word, but something more like peace. Remember what you told me once: that we must make our own happiness. I think of those words often. Be well, dearest friend. I miss you terribly.
Charlotte folded the letter and placed it in her desk drawer alongside the others—each one a lifeline to the world she had left behind. She had replied to them all, crafting careful sentences that revealed nothing of the odd satisfaction of her new life.
The morning progressed with its usual rhythm.
Charlotte reviewed the household accounts, consulted with Cook about the week’s meals, mended a tear in Mr Collins’s best coat.
She moved through these tasks with efficiency, her mind elsewhere—suspended in that curious state she had perfected since her marriage, neither fully present nor entirely absent.
At noon, she walked in the garden. The April air carried the scent of early spring. She knelt beside the rose bed and tested the soil with her fingers. The work steadied her, as it always had.
“Mrs Collins?”
She looked up to find Mr Travis, the new curate, standing at the garden gate. He was young, younger even than Mr Bridges had been, with earnest eyes and ink-stained fingers.
“Mr Travis. How may I help you?”
“I apologise for the intrusion, ma’am. Mr Collins asked me to deliver these papers for his review.” He held out a bundle of documents, probably relating to the parish registers. “And—if I may—I wanted to thank you for the book you lent me last week. It was most instructive.”
Charlotte stood, brushing soil from her hands. “I am glad you found it useful.”
He shifted his weight, seeming to want to say more. “You have quite an extensive library for—that is, Mr Collins is fortunate to have a wife so well-read.”
“My husband values education,” Charlotte said, though in truth the books were all hers, brought from Lucas Lodge or purchased with the allowance Mr Collins granted her for household expenses.
Mr Travis nodded and went on his way, leaving Charlotte alone with her ministrations. She watched him go. Another young man making his way in the world, full of hopes and plans.
The afternoon brought Lady Catherine, as promised.
Charlotte received her in the front parlour, the one Mr Collins had insisted be kept in perpetual readiness for such visits.
Her ladyship swept in with her usual commanding presence, examining every surface for dust and every corner for signs of negligence.
“Mrs Collins,” she pronounced, settling into the best chair. “Mr Collins informs me it is your birthday.”
“Yes, your ladyship.”
“Eight-and-twenty, he says. A decent age. You were quite prudent to accept him when you did—another year and your opportunities would have been decidedly limited.”
Charlotte nodded, having learned that agreement was always the safest response to Lady Catherine’s pronouncements.
“I have brought you a gift,” her ladyship continued, producing a prettily wrapped parcel. “Open it now!”
Inside was a book of household management, its pages filled with advice on everything from removing stains to managing servants. Charlotte had owned a similar volume for years, but still she expressed the appropriate gratitude.
“You would do well to study it most diligently,” Lady Catherine said. “A parson’s wife must be above reproach in all matters domestic. I trust you understand the honour Mr Collins did you in offering marriage?”
“I understand it perfectly, your ladyship.”
Something in Charlotte’s tone must have caught Lady Catherine’s attention, for she studied her more meticulously. “You are content, I trust? Mr Collins speaks highly of your proficiencies.”
Content. Charlotte turned the word over in her mind.
Was she content? She was safe, comfortable, respectable.
She had a household to manage, a garden to tend, and books to read in the evening while Mr Collins composed his sermons.
She had work that occupied her hands and enough solitude to preserve her sanity.
“I am as content as I have any right to be,” Charlotte said at last.
Lady Catherine seemed satisfied with this response. She stayed another half hour, dispensing advice on everything from the proper way to air linens to the perils of humming while embroidering. Charlotte listened with half her attention, the other half drifting to the window. The fresh air beckoned.
After Lady Catherine quit the parsonage, Charlotte went back to her garden. The afternoon was drawing on. She busied herself with tending the flowers, trimming away the faded blooms, and keeping everything in order.
Mr Collins found her there hours later. “My dear Charlotte, you will catch cold. Pray, come inside. Cook has prepared your birthday dinner.”
She followed him in, washing the earth from her hands at the kitchen pump. The dining room table had been set with their best china—a wedding gift from Lady Catherine—and two candles flickered in the brass holders.
“I hope you do not find the arrangements too simple,” Mr Collins said anxiously. “I considered inviting the Travises but thought perhaps you would prefer a quiet evening.”
“This is perfect,” Charlotte said, and meant it. The last thing she wanted was to endure an evening of forced celebration with near strangers.
They ate in relative silence, Mr Collins occasionally offering observations about his day at Rosings and Charlotte responding with appropriate interest. The cake, when it arrived, was splendid—golden, moist, and fragrant with caraway.
“I recall you saying once that happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance,” Mr Collins said, setting down his fork. “Do you still believe that?”
Charlotte considered her response. She remembered saying those words to Elizabeth, a lifetime ago it seemed, when marriage had been a theoretical proposition rather than a daily reality.
“I believe,” she said slowly, “that happiness in marriage is a choice. We choose to be as happy as our circumstances allow.”
Mr Collins nodded, clearly pleased with his wife’s answer. “Very true, my dear. Very true indeed. And I flatter myself that our circumstances are quite agreeable.”
After dinner, Charlotte retired to her parlour while Mr Collins returned to his study. She took up her needlework but set it aside almost immediately. Instead, she retrieved her journal from its locked drawer.
Twenty-eight years, she wrote. I am no longer Charlotte Lucas but Charlotte Collins, wife, mistress of a household, tender of gardens.
She paused, considering what else to record. She chose not to write of the empty ache that caught her unawares, the dreams of wandering empty rooms at Lucas Lodge, or the memory of Mr Bridges’s written words—ever present in her mind.
She wrote instead:
The other day, I finished mending Mr Collins’s Sunday coat, and he thanked me for it in his way—by quoting two verses from Proverbs over breakfast. I find I do not mind this as much as I thought I would.
There is a rhythm in it—a slow, persistent tempo that shapes each day, carving out moments of order from the uncertainties of life.
This was her choice, her life, her particular form of coming into bloom. And it was, in its own peculiar way, exactly what it was meant to be.
~ The End ~