Chapter 35
By the time Mary walked into the dining room, Charlotte was already in place, presiding at the top of the table.
She seemed even smarter and more sleek than she had done in daylight, straight-backed and assured, head held high.
She fitted effortlessly into her surroundings, a perfect complement to the glowing furniture and newly gilded mirrors, the last piece of a jigsaw that completed a picture of domestic order and content.
To her surprise, Mary found herself faintly in awe of this new version of her old acquaintance.
In a few years, Charlotte would be an imposing figure; by the time she was forty, she would be quite formidable.
“I do not know what is keeping Mr. Collins,” Charlotte remarked. “He is usually a most punctilious timekeeper.”
The two women were drinking their first glass of wine by the time Mr. Collins came hurrying into the room.
“My dear Miss Bennet, how can I apologise enough? I was detained by the bishop, and it was not in my power to leave. It was most unfortunate, but as I’m sure you’ll agree, our personal inclinations must always give way to the duties owed to superior rank.”
Charlotte signalled to a servant to fill Mr. Collins’s glass. Her husband was flustered, put at a disadvantage by his late arrival.
“I regret to say, Mrs. Collins, that I might have been a little earlier had I not been incommoded by the absence of a few necessities in my dressing room. The clean neckcloths were not where I have become used to finding them.”
“I am sorry to hear it,” replied his wife evenly. “I will speak to Mrs. Hill. But I’m glad to see you are suitably attired now, and no doubt ready to greet our old friend.”
Mollified, Mr. Collins turned to Mary with a broad, accommodating smile.
“You are most welcome, Miss Bennet. I will not say to our home, as that might seem a painful allusion to a house that was so recently your own place of residence, and might have remained so, had circumstances been different. But man proposes, God disposes, as it is most justly said. I hope that gives you some comfort.”
“Why, yes, sir,” Mary replied. “We are all of us subject to the caprices of fortune.”
“Mary has just returned from a long visit to Pemberley,” volunteered Charlotte smoothly. “I’m sure you will want to hear how she found everyone there.”
As Mary recounted the particulars of her stay in Derbyshire, the air of awkwardness around the table began to dissipate, helped by the excellent red wine which Charlotte ensured was in generous supply.
Mr. Collins listened with every appearance of interest to all Mary could tell him about the various livings held by Mr. Darcy and the parsonage houses attached to them.
Once he understood that few of them produced tithes equal to those he himself enjoyed, he grew increasingly affable.
Charlotte said little, but Mary noticed she was assiduous in ensuring that every dish reached his end of the table before her husband asked for it.
The food was plentiful and of a far higher quality than Mary recalled had been served at Lucas Lodge.
“May I compliment you on the dinner, Charlotte? It really is very good.”
“Thank you, Mary. I was determined to do all I could to maintain the reputation Longbourn had always enjoyed for the excellence of its cooking. I’m very pleased if you think I’ve succeeded.”
Warmed up and calmed down with a few grilled soles and a leg of lamb, Mr. Collins turned a benevolent face towards his wife.
“My dear Charlotte is an excellent manager. As you will have seen for yourself, everything at Longbourn bespeaks taste and comfort, and always in a style appropriate to the station in which Providence has been pleased to place us.”
Charlotte did not meet Mr. Collins’s fond smile but dropped her eyes to her plate.
When he reached across to pat her hand, she did not respond.
His hand lingered above hers for only a moment before he withdrew it, busying himself with the dessert and asking Mary whether Mr. Darcy had put up any pheasants in his park.
For the rest of the meal, Charlotte was all attentiveness, helping Mr. Collins to the ripest slice of cheese or the choicest piece of fruit; but it seemed to Mary as if there was a coolness in her solicitude.
Perhaps they were merely tired. Mary felt herself to be on the edge of exhaustion and was relieved when Charlotte finally rose from the table, firmly conveying that supper was over.
“Mr. Collins, Mary and I will leave you to finish your wine. She has had a long journey and I’m sure she’s in great need of sleep, although she is far too polite to show it.”
As they left, Mary glanced behind her. The room shimmered in the candlelight, glowing with warmth and prosperity. At the table, Mr. Collins sat alone, cracking nuts with solitary concentration as he poured himself another glass of wine.
A little later, Mary lay in the dark of her old room, comforted to find that although the bed had new hangings, the springs of the mattress still creaked in the way she remembered.
As she stared up at the freshly painted ceiling, she reflected on what had been a most extraordinary day.
Revisiting the house had not proved as painful as she had expected.
Although there were moments when she found herself almost unbearably moved, as some small corner or chance encounter brought back to her such a strong sense of the past that it almost overwhelmed her, this had happened less often than she had feared.
Charlotte’s improvements had scrubbed away so much that was familiar about Longbourn as she had known it, had so efficiently erased the life the Bennets had lived there, that little remained to prompt regret for what had gone.
Charlotte herself had proved almost as transformed as the house.
It seemed to Mary as if Charlotte had grown in every way—in confidence, stature, and self-possession.
The word that best described her, Mary thought, with all its connotations of order and security, was established.
Watching her as she managed the little empire of her household and garden, as she hugged her child and marshalled her servants, as she transformed the appearance of Longbourn into a vision of her own imagining, it was impossible not to believe she had found the place in the world she had always longed for.
Judged on those terms, it seemed impossible to argue with the bargain Charlotte had made when she married.
But as Mary finally drifted off to sleep, she remembered Charlotte’s refusal to meet her husband’s eyes, the bleak impression of Mr. Collins staring into his wine as she and Charlotte left the room.
They cast a shadow over the rosy glow of her first impressions.
Mary pushed them to the back of her mind.
Rational observation, not the unreliable promptings of emotion, should be her guide.
Reason would conclude whether Charlotte’s choice had been correct, and whether it was one she might consider adopting for herself.