“It was your father, then, who taught you about gardening?” I say.
Mr. Travis nods. “When I was a boy, he used to take me through the gardens at Rosings Park and test me on my knowledge of each plant we saw. He retired only reluctantly from his position; even now he enjoys the time he spends in our garden. Mr. Saxon brings him seeds and cuttings from Rosings.”
“But you did not want to become a gardener yourself?”
“I . . . no. I did not. I suppose I haven’t my father’s artistic inclinations. Farming suits me well enough. And though I am still a tenant of her ladyship, I thought I would have more freedom as a farmer.” His tone is gently self-mocking.
My skin prickles with mirth; I press my lips together to keep myself from laughing. Mr. Travis meets my eyes and his lips tip up, just a little, at the corners; then he ducks his head and appears to focus entirely on the roses once more. I find myself gazing at the sun-browned back of his neck, the first knob of his spine just visible above his shirt collar, and have to force myself to look away.
I straighten. “I fear I am no botanist,” I say, but I find my mind returning, for the second time recently, to the book from my father’s library.
“Do you know,” I ask impulsively, “Dr. Hill’s British Herbal?”
“No,” he says, with clear surprise. “I cannot say that I do.”
“Oh.” For some reason, I am disappointed. “Well. I had almost forgotten about it, but it fascinated me as a girl. I tried to copy the illustrations, and to make my own from the flowers in our own garden—though mine were never so precise as those in the book.”
His smile teases. “So you are a botanist, Mrs. Collins?”
I remember sitting in the garden with the sun hot upon my shoulders and my sketch pad open on my lap, watching scuttling ants on the petals of peonies. But, “No,” I say. “Truly, no—mine was too superficial an interest for that. I merely . . . enjoyed drawing.”
“‘Enjoyed’?” he says, head tilted, smile turned quizzical. “Meaning, you did, but you do no longer?”
I shake my head. “I—hardly know. I seem to have left such things behind me in Hertfordshire.”
He nods slowly, consideringly, and I look away again.
The sun is rising quickly.
“I must go,” I say, and hope my reluctance is not obvious. “I will ask Mr. Collins to come out shortly.”
“Thank you,” Mr. Travis says, and I nod.
WILLIAM IS SO delighted to hear that the roses are being put in the ground that he forgoes breakfast entirely. I watch him leave, then pick up the slice of toast, only half-buttered, which he left on his plate in his haste to get out to the garden, and take a bite.
When I have finished the toast, I return to the kitchen garden and stand idle among the vegetables. From down the path I can hear voices, but they are too far away to make out the words, a murmur low as the hum of insects, and so I walk, slowly enough that I can pretend I am merely taking the air with no destination in mind.
My steps slow as the voices grow louder—or rather, as William’s voice grows louder, for it seems he requires little response from his companion.
“—three plum trees and two pear,” he is saying, “and they are exceedingly fruitful, yielding enough to keep us in tarts throughout the winter months. The apple trees are espaliered, the better to make the most of our modest space, and two are grafted so that we have eating apples as well as tart. I flatter myself that the apples from those trees are as sweet as any in the county . . . though not, of course, anything like as sweet as those grown at Rosings Park.”
I have come upon them, now, and have only to step around the boundary of a hedge to make my presence known; and yet, I am motionless, my fingertips against my lips.
“I grow all the usual herbs, of course—they are there, and there, and there—though I am particularly gratified by my lavender, which Lady Catherine, taking a turn around our garden one summer, pronounced sufficiently fragrant. We have five patches of flowers—crocuses, daffodils, and snowdrops just now, of course, and in the coming months foxgloves and hollyhocks and sweet williams just there, and down that path are pinks and cornflowers. My bees make a tremendous amount of honey, and I credit the care I take with my garden for the bounty. My predecessor was not so very involved in his garden as I am; I believe his wife tended the vegetables, but the fruit trees, such as they were, were quite neglected, and there was no thyme planted anywhere that I could find, unless it was so ill cared for that it died. I was prompt in rectifying the situation, and we now have enough thyme to use fresh in season and dry for winter. And of course there are three gooseberry and currant patches, and strawberries near the house. Lady Catherine was very gracious in complimenting our strawberries, which Mrs. Collins served with cake when her ladyship and her daughter visited us last spring.”
William pauses for breath, and Mr. Travis speaks with the haste of one who knows he hasn’t much time before the opportunity will be lost. “It is a credit to all your hard work, Mr. Collins—now, about the roses; Mrs. Collins said she was happy with the placement, and as long as you agree I would like to go over what must be done for them. They are particularly vulnerable before they are fully established—”
“Oh, I defer to Mrs. Collins on matters of taste—Lady Catherine was most appreciative of Mrs. Collins’s modest good taste when they were first introduced—indeed, her ladyship strongly commended me on my choice of wife, for she said she was glad I had married a woman of sense and humility, who was neither too lively nor too handsome to make a suitable clergyman’s wife.”
My breath is caught somewhere between my chest and my throat. I close my eyes.
“I . . . ah. I see.” I cannot tell from Mr. Travis’s tone of voice what he thinks of my husband’s bluntness.
“Oh! And we have not even begun—the vegetables, Mr. Travis—I flatter myself that my vegetables are rather extraordinary.”
I open my eyes; around the border of the hedge, I see Mr. Travis open his mouth once and close it again, as if in defeat.
“Last year, my pumpkins were very impressive, and Mrs. Collins and Mrs. Baxter had much to do putting up beans and pickles and I hardly know what. I want to put in an extra row of cabbages this year—Lady Catherine’s doctor is most eloquent on the healthfulness of eating cabbage—and we are still well stocked with potatoes, even after eating so many throughout the cold months. We have not—”
But I step forward around the edge of the hedge and into sight. It was not a conscious decision on my part; rather, I cannot bear to allow William to prattle on any longer. Mr. Travis turns to see what startled William into silence, and there is something uncomfortable, perhaps even apologetic, in his expression. My face, my entire body, feels hot with mortification.
“My dear,” William says, smiling in happy oblivion. “Was there something you needed?”
“No,” I say, whisper-soft. “I did not mean to interrupt, I was just so . . . glad that Lady Catherine’s generous gift has finally arrived, and I wanted to . . . look at it once more.”
As one, we all three turn to survey the row of scrubby bushes. When William and Mr. Travis turn back to look at me, I am in no doubt of the latter’s amusement.
“They are a sight to behold, are they not?” William says, however, his mouth set in a smile of deepest satisfaction. Then he says, “How many jars of beans did you put up last year, Mrs. Collins?”
I stare at him. “I—could not say,” I say at last.
“Well.” William puts his hands on his hips. “I would have thought it well above forty, but I was not, of course, in a position to count them personally. This year,” he says, looking at me earnestly, “we must take care to keep better track.”
Chapter Seven
It will not hold a curl, whatever I do.”
My mother’s voice was edged with hysteria. She held a lock of my hair between her thumb and forefinger and looked at Gabby, our maid, who, having been summoned, was standing against t
he wall of my bedchamber. Gabby looked back, wide eyed and silent; she was no ladies’ maid.
I was silent, too, and gazed at my hands, folded together in my lap. Until just an hour ago I had been filled with restless excitement, tapping out the rhythm of a country dance with my fingers at the breakfast table, humming a tune as I went about my work. Tonight I was to go to my first ball at the assembly room in Meryton; my mother and I had spent the last fortnight painstakingly making over one of my old gowns while I indulged in daydreams about being asked to dance by Charles Long, who had brilliant blue eyes and who had smiled at me once in church.
Until she sat me before the looking glass and began curling my hair with the hot tongs, my mother had seemed as excited as I. She always dressed her own hair, beautifully, since we hadn’t the income for a ladies’ maid. But my mother’s hair is thick; when she removes her curling papers each morning, the ringlets frame her face as they should. Mine is very fine; the curl she tried to create hung limply between her fingers. Gabby met my eyes in the glass, and I looked away, feeling oddly ashamed.
My mother dropped my hair and stepped over to the bed, where my gown had been laid out with great care. I looked at her over my shoulder; she stood with her hand pressed against her mouth, gazing at the gown with an expression of despair. “And this color,” she whispered. “This color . . . it doesn’t suit you at all, how could I not have seen that? But there is nothing to be done.”
“Mamma,” I said, and she shook her head as if trying to shake away her thoughts. Her mouth smiled, though her eyes remained worried.
“Here,” she said, and came toward me again. She smoothed my hair back from my face. “If we dress it simply, but perhaps add a ribbon . . .” She turned to Gabby. “Fetch my ribbons—we need something to complement the shade of Miss Lucas’s gown.”
Gabby left the room in a rush, and my mother turned back to me. She pursed her lips, lifting my hair, tilting her head from one side to the other. When she caught sight of the expression on my face, her mouth smiled again.
“It will be well,” she said, and touched my shoulder. “You will be lovely.”
SITTING ON A chair in the assembly room, watching the dancers through the space between the two matrons who stood in front of me, I did not feel lovely. The matrons’ voices were loud as they gossiped, and occasionally they glanced back at me over their shoulders, their faces full of compassion.
When we had entered the assembly room an hour earlier, it had seemed to me to thrum with energy and possibility. But now the room felt overly hot, and my stays were too tight, and the music sounded jarring in my ears. Being neither blind nor stupid, I had, of course, realized that I was not the most beautiful of girls; but my mother had never encouraged vanity, and my father, who always saw everyone in the kindest possible light, had called me from infancy his lovely little Charlotte, and so this was the first time that my looks had become significant to me.
I stared straight ahead at the moving figures in the dance and pretended I did not mind being an object of pity.
IT WAS A very long time before I stopped trying to change my appearance, stopped buying new bonnets and gowns in the hope that they would bring out some hidden, extraordinary aspect to my features. My younger sister came out, and I think it was seeing her easy, cheerful prettiness that finally resigned me to never possessing such qualities myself. Maria only rarely had to sit out a dance; her efforts to dress her hair and make over her gowns only enhanced looks that existed already. She is not a great beauty, but her coloring is bright, she glows with good health, and her features are pleasing. I watched the eyes of more than one man follow her at the Meryton assembly, and the knowledge settled over me like a warm cloak—nothing was ever going to make me pretty, just as nothing was going to stop my father from balding, despite the strands of hair he combed over the exposed top of his head, or give Elizabeth’s sister Mary the sweet singing voice she was trying so hard, in vain, to develop. We are as we are made.
It ought, perhaps, to have been a painful realization, but instead I felt weightless with it. The constant striving to become something I simply am not was exhausting, and, quite abruptly, I was free of it.
Or so I had long thought.
From the looking glass in my bedchamber, my reflection gazes out at me, solemn and unprepossessing. I stare back; in the flickering light of the candle on my dressing table, I can just make out the gentle networks of lines at the corners of my eyes. I do not think they were there only a few years ago, though it is hard to be certain; it has been a long time, after all, since I paid my appearance very much attention beyond ensuring it was neat and presentable. Now I look at the slope of my nose and the point of my chin; at the way my hair, brown and straight and very fine, falls around my shoulders. My eyes are dark and serious, my brows not entirely even.
Neither lively, I think, nor handsome.
The twist of bitterness under my breastbone that accompanies the memory of William’s words makes me look hastily away from my reflection. There is no sense at all in dwelling upon my embarrassment, though a thought still slithers, snakelike, through my mind: that William, with his graceless body and snub-featured face, is perhaps even less favored by nature than I. But this is uncharitable. I frown at the top of my dressing table. It is uncharitable, and irrelevant, besides. In men, handsomeness is desirable, but in women it is essential—except, perhaps, when it might detract from their appearance of piety or the seriousness of their work. Dr. Fordyce, whose sermons William is so fond of quoting of a Sunday for the benefit of the young ladies of the parish, is particularly contradictory on the subject of a woman’s appearance; we are, it seems, to be at once modest at all times and attentive to the emphasis of the beauty with which God imbued us, that we might be pleasing to men.
The bitterness is still there, at the center of my chest, but I ignore it. With quick fingers, I plait my hair so it will not tangle while I sleep. Then, still avoiding my eyes in the glass, I blow out the candle.
Chapter Eight
Charlotte,” William says at dinner, with an air of studied casualness. He pats his lips with his napkin. “I have been thinking—as the baby has been sleeping so soundly at night, might it not be time for her to move to the nursery?”
I set my fork down very carefully beside my plate, objections springing instinctively to my tongue. But he continues speaking before I can voice them.
“Lady Catherine has spoken lately of my duty—our duty—to the estate . . .”
“To Rosings?” I say—stupidly—before I suddenly understand his meaning and say, “Oh, of course. To Longbourn.”
“Yes,” William says. “Her ladyship is all selflessness—for of course she knows that when I inherit Longbourn she must find a new parson for this parish. But still she thinks of us. And she worries over the fact that we have not yet produced an heir.” He puts his fingers to his lips and lowers his eyes, as if in deference to the delicacy of the subject matter.
I could never be so vulgar as to tell him that my courses have not yet returned since Louisa’s birth, and besides, I know—from watching my own mother’s experience, with my brothers and sister crowded so close together in age—that sometimes a baby can appear before you expect it. Instead, I say, “We have—”
“A daughter, yes, I know,” William says quickly—too quickly. I can feel anger curl around the back of my head, all the unacknowledged things between us suddenly large in my mind, but he keeps talking, and I clamp my teeth together, looking down at my plate.
“But the entail,” he says. “Lady Catherine is really being considerate of you.”
Longbourn is a smallish estate, very near my parents’ home outside of Meryton. It belongs to William’s cousin Mr. Bennet, who is also my friend Elizabeth’s father. Our families have always been intimate, and Longbourn is nearly as familiar to me as Lucas Lodge; I can conjure the image of the sitting room—the blue striped paper-hangings; the pretty landscape hanging over the fireplace; the slanting light fr
om the many-paned windows with their pale curtains—with ease. That I should be mistress there, one day, was certainly a consideration when I accepted William’s marriage proposal, for the Bennets have five daughters and no sons, and Longbourn can pass only from one male in the family to another. William has, by his very existence, menaced them from afar for as long as I can remember.
Lady Catherine has never hidden her disapproval of the fact that Longbourn cannot be inherited by women. She told me, during my first pregnancy, that she hoped for my sake the baby would be a boy (“So that you needn’t go through all this travail more than once, Mrs. Collins; I was fortunate that Sir Lewis’s family did not hold with all that nonsense and that Anne could inherit Rosings!”). And when my son died just after his birth, she commiserated with me on the necessity of bearing another baby as soon as possible (“Because of course, Mrs. Collins, you married very late and haven’t as much time as younger wives do”).
When she came to visit after Louisa’s birth, she said, “Well, the child is hale enough, but I am sorry for your sake she is not the boy you will need,” and I looked down into my daughter’s round, sleeping face and saw instead the trembling frills on Mrs. Bennet’s cap, and heard her fluttering voice rising like a frightened bird’s.
“I know she is concerned for me,” I say now. “I know.”
William nods. “Then we must move the baby as soon as possible.”
“I—that is—” But my instinctive protestations die on my tongue. He is right, I know he is right, though a sharp, immediate grief pierces me. Illogical though it may be, I have felt secure with my daughter beside me at night; if I wish, I can rest my hand lightly upon her back at any time and feel the reassuring rhythm of her breathing. After watching my first child’s breaths come slower and slower until, at last, they stopped entirely, while I was helpless to do anything but hold him for the duration of his short life, I know that having her near provides, perhaps, only an illusion of protection. And yet still I wish I had not mentioned, just the other morning, the improvement in Louisa’s sleep, for William, sound sleeper that he is, is unlikely to have noticed the change without my telling him of it.
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