Herr Rosenstein drew to a halt as she attended to Sarah, but pressed her arm more firmly against his side, a gesture of comfort she did not take amiss. As her daughter wheeled away in pursuit of her sister, Charlotte was once again grateful that the musician did not speak or ask questions. She did not trust her own voice at that moment, and they walked on, now more swiftly, as it was no longer clear whether the moisture on their faces was blown from the lake fountain or descending gently from the sky.
Midsummer approached, with the northern dusk glowing until late in the evening, and the sky never turning quite black, but intensifying to a warm Persian blue. On the eve of St John’s Day, Lizzy, the musician and Charlotte ambled along the main avenue that bisected the garden in the long twilight, the garden tickling and rustling around them. One could almost hear the plants growing, and every insect had a minute voice to add to the star-speckled night. Only a few sleepy birds still murmured, but small bats fluttered about like flakes of ash caught on an invisible breeze, and the air was heavy with the scent of lilac and green sap. On the surrounding hills, midsummer bonfires glowed like jewels.
‘Does all this not suggest magic?’ said Lizzy. ‘One can understand why Mr Shakespeare wrote his play full of fairy folk for this night.’ She had become an avid aficionado of the theatre during her winters in London as a married woman, and now recited the words:
If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber’d here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream.
Charlotte, content to listen and enjoy the match between the bard’s words and the whispering velvet dusk, thought not for the first time how strange it was, the way intractable, incurable grief could live alongside so much that was beautiful and tranquil, that inspired and soothed; how pain and comfort did not necessarily cancel each other out, but co-existed instead.
A few days later, news of a joyous kind came to Pemberley from Hartscrane: Mrs Bingley was safely delivered of her third child, a little girl. The proud father, with two tumbling sons, was delighted to have sired a potential replica of his beloved wife, and the small boys were already fighting one another for the honour of protecting their brand-new sister from assorted imaginary dangers. Kitty, who was in residence to help Jane during her confinement, wrote in her own letter that the infant showed every sign of mirroring her mother’s looks, and that the family was united in happiness as they welcomed the new addition.
That evening, at another informal supper around the pianoforte, the party charged their glasses and drank to the health of mother and new daughter. Herr Rosenstein played a celebratory march, and Laura and Sarah paraded up and down, swinging their arms and singing a tuneless welcome to their new cousin.
The news, although bringing happiness in the main, was not without some cost to the two ladies of the house. Mrs Darcy could only sigh at the thought of what might have been, and hope for what might still come. Charlotte feared for the impression the news would have on her friend’s spirits, and found that she, too, was unsettled. The thought of a new infant stirred memories that were painful in retrospect, and she sought to banish them from her mind and support her friend.
The musician surely could not have failed to notice the lack, after several years of marriage, of any occupant of a cradle at Pemberley. But his concerned glances encompassed not only Mrs Darcy but Charlotte as well, and he played louder and longer than usual, pieces marked by their bravura and liveliness rather than yearning melodies. The girls skipped about, revelling in his performance, which allowed Lizzy and Charlotte the respite of being able first to sit thoughtful and silent, and then to talk privately under the cover of the music.
Charlotte invited her friend to speak freely, and Lizzy confessed that the news had indeed caused her mixed feelings. ‘It seems ungenerous not to feel untrammelled pleasure at such glad tidings, but I cannot help giving way to envy. Three live children in six years! What good fortune some women do have!’ And then, seeing her friend’s face: ‘Oh my dear Charlotte, forgive me! Your daughters are precious beyond price, but I spoke carelessly. You lost a child only last winter, and this news must surely scratch at that wound. I beg your pardon.’
Charlotte assured her friend that she took no offence, as none was intended, and insisted that the news of the new child, which was hardly unexpected, was cause for congratulation, even if it did cause her some pain. ‘But I would rather have that remembrance than nothing. Where we have once loved, there will always be a tender spot. But we must strive to be rational, and to look forward with hope.’
The party broke up soon afterwards, and that night Charlotte found herself afflicted by her old tormentor – sleeplessness and the accompanying hot itching that had subsided since she had come to Pemberley. Her own words to Elizabeth notwithstanding, it was hard to be rational in the face of the twin burdens of grief and wakefulness, and she found herself wetting with tears a pillow that seemed to have turned to stone. This in turn meant that the next day began with a leaden sensation in her heart and limbs, as if she was on the verge of a headache.
Sarah, who had been much struck by her sister’s accounts of the delights of Georgiana’s chambers, now declared that she would like a turn to watch the piano man at work. And so, once again, Charlotte found herself knocking at a door, holding a child by the hand, requesting admittance. This time she was sure of her welcome, and indeed the musician ushered them in with every indication of pleasure at their company.
Sarah soon spied Georgiana’s books and hung over them longingly, eventually requesting permission to look at a translated copy of the French fairy tale, Beauty and the Beast. After checking that her daughter’s hands were clean and that the work, along with its illustrations, was indeed suitable for a child, Charlotte agreed. Sarah took herself and her new treasure across the room into the window embrasure, where she curled up behind the curtains and gave herself over to a fantastical world.
Once her daughter was settled, Herr Rosenstein turned to Charlotte with great compunction: ‘Frau Collins, I am afraid that you are not well. You look pale.’
Charlotte confessed that she had slept little the previous night, and was now troubled by the beginnings of a headache.
‘I hope no disturbing accounts from home were responsible for your troubled night. It seemed that neither you nor Frau Darcy were quite easy yesterday evening.’
‘Oh! All is well at Hunsford, I assure you. No, it was the news of Mrs Bingley’s safe delivery and the new child. Joyous as it was, it – it brought back memories.’
He waited, and when she added nothing further, he invited her to seat herself. Then, with only one hand, he picked out a melody on the upper register of the instrument, where the notes were still in tune. It was vaguely familiar and infinitely sweet, and Charlotte found to her surprise that her cheeks were wet. Herr Rosenstein did not comment on her silent tears, but continued to play. It was not until the air was finished and the room silent for a few minutes that he remarked, ‘That was a movement from Herr Gluck’s “Dance of the Blessed Spirits”. I hope it was apposite. I cannot help but notice you wear a mourning ring, Frau Collins.’ He reached for the hand that bore a ring in which Tom’s soft dark hair was enclosed, and pressed it gently.
At this gesture of kindness, Charlotte gave up the struggle for control. ‘I had a son. He was beautiful and good and loving – so loving! He was a veritable angel. Oh, he was not well, Herr Rosenstein; we were lucky to have him as long as we did – or so everyone told us. He died just before the onset of last winter. There was no worsening of his condition that we could see, but one night …’ She could barely speak. ‘One night he went to sleep. And he never woke. My husband found him in his cot, unmoving. I never got to bid him farewell. I thought I was prepared, but I was not.’
Mindful of her daughter on the other side of the room, she tried to muffle he
r sobs, but the curtains did not stir, and she spoke, at first stumbling, and then with the words pouring out along with her tears. It was somehow easier to tell the story of Tom’s short life to a stranger who had never known him than to speak of him to those who had loved him, and who had shared her loss.
It all came out: the weight of his chubby body in her arms, the scent of his skin, the adoration in his eyes as they fixed on hers as she fed or bathed him, the pleasure of watching him learn to crawl and walk, of encouraging him in achieving these simple milestones. The day she found his sisters feeding him spiders, and the hullabaloo and scolding that ensued before she began to see humour in the situation. His delight in the simplest of things: a sparrow splashing in the water trough, the quacking of ducks – which would have him honking back in return – a battered rattle he got from Laura in exchange for a tin soldier, his hearty appetite for sweetmeats. Most treasured of all, the way his face would light up every time she entered any room in which he was present, his cheeks pinking and his eyes shining, his gurgles of glee, the way he would call ‘Mama!’ as if they had been parted for weeks, not minutes or hours. The way he would run towards her, arms outstretched, the enthusiasm with which he would clamber into her lap.
‘For three and a half years, he gave me nothing but joy. Every moment with him was a shining one. And then he was gone. Just gone. Snatched away by a thief in the night. And I, a clergyman’s wife, had to accept my lot as best I could. The loss of a child is something many families, high and low, have to bear. I could not be seen to repine or rail against fate, no matter how much I might wish to do both.’
She looked again at the ring, remembering the scent of her son’s damaged head as it nestled into her neck, the silkiness of his hair tickling her face. And gave herself over to a fresh bout of weeping. It was only after the long storm of grief had passed that she realised Herr Rosenstein was still holding her hand, his long fingers passing over hers, retuning her own inner strings.
At last Charlotte made use of first her handkerchief, then the musician’s. He turned and rummaged in a pocket of his coat, slung over a chair, extracted a pewter-coloured chased flask, uncapped it, and offered it to her. She accepted, grateful to have something concrete for which to thank him, then took a cautious sip. The liquor was not something she recognised – both fiery and spicy, with a tang of fir. Calmer now, and comforted by the presence of her companion, she found herself remembering Tom’s birth, which, after the relatively easy deliveries of her daughters, had been difficult and prolonged.
1815
CHAPTER XXVIII
BEYOND EXHAUSTION, YET CHARGED WITH wild instinct, Charlotte reached for the bundle in the midwife’s arms. There was no sound of infant crying, as there had been with the births of Sarah and Laura, only a faint snuffling. Mrs Talbot had not announced the baby’s sex, an omission that frightened Charlotte. Instead, she turned to her charge and presented her with the small slick body of a son, amphibian limbs waving feebly – but what was clear, even by candle- and firelight, was that the baby’s head was grotesquely swollen, giving him the appearance of a mushroom. Mrs Talbot did not speak. She laid the damaged infant down with exquisite care, swiftly double-wrapped a cloth around both hands and put them to the child’s mouth and nose. Then she paused and looked to Charlotte, her posture and face a silent query.
A roar burst from Charlotte, stranded on her back like a beetle, blood still pouring from between her thighs. Her arms sawed at the air as she stretched them towards her newborn son.
Mrs Talbot, with the slightest of shrugs, lifted the baby and settled him on Charlotte’s chest, where, after a few anxious moments, he began to root at her breast. At that animal connection, Charlotte’s heart flooded: maybe he would live after all. She peered at the lumpy mass in place of what had been the smooth eggshells of her infant daughters’ skulls. ‘What is wrong with him? Must we not send for a doctor at once?’ she asked.
The midwife said that she had seen such a case before. ‘The doctor said it was a condition known as water on the brain. It cannot be cured, but sometimes a surgeon can drain it.’
‘Is it painful? Will he suffer?’
‘I believe it is not painful, nor an ailment that causes physical suffering. But Mrs Collins, such children do not develop as others do. Your son will always be a child, and delicate. I have been told that conditions such as this make the afflicted susceptible to other illnesses. He is unlikely to live to adulthood. I speak bluntly, but this is preferable to giving false hope.’
Charlotte looked past the puffy mass that swelled above the baby’s ears and brows. These same brows were delicate pencil arches, the ears were tiny pink shells, as were his eyelids, threaded with thin violet lines. His mouth was the perfect definition of a kiss and, as she watched in fascination, it clamped gently around her nipple, comforting them both. She had enjoyed the immediate physical connection all her children had formed with her upon birth, and the sensation of love and protectiveness was not new to her, but this time it churned through her almost violently. She would raise and protect this baby. He would survive.
She spoke firmly. ‘Mrs Talbot, please inform Mr Collins that he has a son.’
After tidying Charlotte up somewhat, and calling for Katie to help dispose of stained linen and to build up the fire, Mrs Talbot went to announce the tidings to the anxious father, who entered the room shortly thereafter, prayer book and jug of water in hand, ready to meet and baptise his progeny.
A variety of emotions rippled over his face: satisfaction at having at last sired a son, concern about his condition (for which Mrs Talbot had prepared him), a different species of concern for his wife. After ascertaining that she did not seem distraught and was in tolerably cheerful spirits, if clearly physically weak, he congratulated her warmly.
He bent over to hear her response: ‘Thank you. My dear Mr Collins, I know we agreed, in case of a son, to name him William, paying both you and my father proper respect, but I should like him christened Thomas William. Would you be so kind as to indulge me on this point?’
At such a moment, it would take a husband with the heart of a stone gargoyle to demur, and Mr Collins baptised his first-born son according to his wife’s wishes. Perhaps he feared that the child would not live long enough to make the matter of his name one of significance.
And so Tom and Charlotte passed the next weeks in her chamber, warmed by fires and proximity. Apart from his deformed head, he showed every sign of health; his colour was good, he rarely cried, and he fed hungrily and often. Their only visitors were Mrs Talbot, Mr Collins, and Tom’s small sisters, who were ushered in to see their mother and brother twice a day by Maria, who had arrived a fortnight earlier to run the household and care for the little girls during their mother’s lying-in.
A doctor recommended by Lady Catherine arrived to confirm Mrs Talbot’s prognosis, and over at Rosings the topic of the new baby’s prospects, ranging from imminent expiration to a future in the workhouse, were canvassed with gloomy vigour by Lady Catherine, who never missed an opportunity to commiserate with Mr Collins on the misfortune of producing such a frail heir. Fortunately, Charlotte was safe from all such prognostications, and Mr Collins had the good sense, for once, not to repeat his patron’s opinions on the matter to his wife.
Perhaps it was the difficulty of the labour, or the fragility of her new infant, but Charlotte remained immersed in an animal world of suckling and sleeping, her hand always on her small son. She kept him swaddled alongside her, resisting all attempts by others to place him in a cradle. As long as she could see his chest rise and fall, she was content.
Sarah and Laura sensed the change in their mother, but her maternal preoccupation made room for them also: her favourite times of day were when the girls were brought to visit her. She permitted them to clamber onto the bed alongside their new brother, and the four of them would huddle languorously together while the girls babbled about their day’s adventures, anticipated or experienced, or Charlotte told t
hem stories, or Maria, in a chair next to the bed, read or sang to them.
The rest of the world fell away; Mr Collins receded to a distant benign presence whose visits never really impinged on Charlotte’s world of warmth, the smell of wet wool and infant skin, the hours spent staring at her baby’s perfect fingers, the long dark lashes on his milky skin, the lustre of his eyes as they cleared from blue to dark brown as the weeks passed, the pleasure and relief they both gained from nursing. It was only years later that Charlotte would realise that these months – which could so easily have been a period of sorrow and anxiety – were possibly the happiest of her life.
1819
CHAPTER XXIX
THE CHIMING OF THE GILDED clock on the mantelpiece brought Charlotte back to Miss Darcy’s rooms, to Herr Rosenstein’s gaze on her face. She scrubbed at her cheeks with her fists, and glanced over to where her daughter’s feet could be seen peeping out below the curtains of the window enclosure. Their motionlessness suggested that Sarah was either asleep or lost in the world of her book, and Charlotte could relax and allow herself to feel all the luxury of having both wept and been comforted. There were no words of thanks she could utter; she had to depend on the musician’s innate sensibility to comprehend the extent of her debt to him.
This time, as they parted, with the now-familiar ritual of detaching a sleepy child from her temporary refuge and shepherding her away from Miss Darcy’s airy nest of light and colour – a small bustle that covered any innate awkwardness between the adults or reluctance to leave – Charlotte felt exhausted, yet cleansed. And beyond either of these sensations, she felt understood.
At breakfast a few days later, Mrs Darcy, who had been in consultation with the head gardener, proposed a strawberry-picking expedition. In the vast vegetable gardens that served the estate and its many souls, the fruiting beds had reached that state of plentiful glut where there was so much excess, no one could begrudge even the birds – who had grown too bold for the scarecrows and too greedy for the bird-scarer – their share. She thought both children and adults might enjoy such an excursion. The little girls should surely not find such a task too onerous if they could eat as much fruit as they wanted while filling their baskets. Charlotte suppressed a qualm at the thought of the impact on their digestions, and agreed enthusiastically to the plan.
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