She stood wiping her mouth, considering the familiar prickling in the skin of her breasts, slowly turning dates over in her head. First motionless as she calculated, she almost staggered as the implications darted about like fish in her mind. The bucket was dropped, the pippins rolled across the stones: she was almost certainly pregnant.
The enormity of it was too much to grasp all at once. She abandoned the bucket, went into the kitchen, and, with unusual peremptoriness, asked the housekeeper to prepare her a tray of tea and some thinly sliced bread and butter, even though she knew this would upset the household’s morning routine. At Mrs Brown’s look of surprise, she blurted out, ‘I feel faint,’ and saw the surmise in the other woman’s face. ‘Say nothing of this to the master,’ she said, and headed for the front parlour, where she knew a fire was burning.
Here she sank down in a chair, and clasped herself, encircling her stomach. A child. Another child. And for the first time since returning home, Charlotte allowed her thoughts to return to that day at Pemberley, the early morning hour she and Jacob had stolen at the hawk house together.
Deliberately, she relived those moments after she had whirled and run back into his arms following their first kiss, clutching onto him like a sailor to wreckage. They had kissed again, and then again, greedily – and somewhere in that frantic clinging to one another, all restraint was swept away and they both knew what would follow.
He had murmured something in German into her hair, and spread a hand across her hips, tilting them so that she pressed hard against his pelvis. Charlotte’s knees turned to water in a flare of terror and hunger, and she crumpled against him. Without slackening his hold on her, he walked her backwards until the bench bumped against her legs. She folded down, and he followed her, bending to lay her out on it. His arms cradled her shoulders, supported her back, and his face, inches from hers, was furrowed as if in pain.
He lifted her legs so that her feet rested on the bench, then nudged at her skirt and petticoat so that their fabric slid up over her knees and down towards her thighs. The air on her bare skin came as a shock, but nothing prepared her for the sensation of his hand sliding down between her legs, pushing them apart – and she cried out as his fingers parted and entered her without hesitation. One part of her brain registered the slickness of her own body, the ease with which it welcomed his entry. For the rest, she was a maelstrom of disbelief and overwhelming physical pleasure, a sense of gorging while growing greedy for more as the slow plunge of his fingers mimicked the movements of congress.
What happened next was beyond the realm of her imagination. He was saying her name softly as his fingers slid deep again and again, his face comfortingly close to hers, when his head withdrew and followed the same path as his exploring hand. What was he doing – surely he could not be looking at her? She watched in disbelief as his head sank between her legs, and instinctively clamped her thighs tight against his ears. But still he burrowed down, and then his mouth came to rest where his fingers were working, and Charlotte’s body was wracked with such intense pleasure, her body cracked against the bench like a bow releasing an arrow.
His fingers kept the rhythm of his penetration steady, but the sensation of soft wet mouth against soft wet opening had her arching and groaning. She felt the firm press of his tongue slide up and hit a spot so sensitive, it was almost unendurable. The world contracted to that slide and press, slide and press, and then burst as she thrashed in a series of convulsions so violent as to be almost painful. She could hear herself crying aloud, could feel that he was grasping her firmly so that she did not roll off the bench, at the same time as the thrust and lap of his tongue kept triggering new spasms. The only physical experience Charlotte had experienced this overwhelming was the labour of childbirth; and indeed, this was a swifter, sweeter echo of that abdication of the mind to the body and its needs.
Slowly, the shocks of release subsided, and his mouth and fingers quietened, as if he could sense the vast peace now flooding her veins. At last his face was above hers again, and he kissed her, and she almost swooned at the taste of her own salt.
It was now her turn to open up again, welcome him into her body, to clasp him, to murmur endearments, all the mysterious and suddenly easy rituals of romantic love, all the allusions of the poets, come to life in her arms. The feel of him sliding in, belonging, stirred her to ecstasy again and again, no longer a sharp release, but an almost tidal sense of overflowing.
Words rang in her as he moved: Home. Safe. Comfort. This was the rest she had always sought without knowing it; the purring cat rolling to offer the soft fur of her belly for caresses, the basin of steaming hot water as laces were undone and stays came off, the scatter of fresh drops as the wind shook the branches after the refreshment of rain, the hearth on an icy winter’s night.
She shut her eyes and saw again on the backs of her lids that folded triangle of a hawk on the wind, hovering, hovering, then swooping in one bursting moment of beauty.
Afterwards, they lay cocooned in each other’s arms and further encircled by the shielding greenery, spending the short hour before they had to part talking and kissing, both without urgency. They did not waste time with declarations; their bodies had spoken that part. They did, however, repeatedly say each other’s names, rolling them in their mouths.
Charlotte tried, not very fluently, to explain how Jacob’s touch, his words, his friendship had poured balm on a wound all the more grievous for being both invisible and commonplace; how their lovemaking, against every principle and precept she had ever espoused, felt like a secret consolation, a card the universe had drawn from its sleeve: see, you have lost a child, but not all is lost. ‘You have taught me that happiness is still possible. That it can take one by surprise; that while ruin, loss, disaster, and grief stalk us all, joy can also spring into our path when least expected.’
He clasped her yet more closely, his breeches still unbuttoned, her skirts crumpled as high as her waist, both of them luxuriating in immodesty. ‘If I have given you joy, my treasured Charlotte, the pleasure, the honour, has truly been mine.’
He tried to speak further words of love, but she pressed a finger against his lips. She did not require the reassurances of a young lady being wooed; she did not demand that he explain why a young man of unusual intelligence and exceptional education, one who was talented, handsome and kind, should have fixed on her: married, a mother, plain, older, with no special talents beyond the realm of the domestic, no great charms or vivacity to attract notice. It was enough that for this brief moment in the shifting of the spheres and the spinning of the globe, they had overlapped, had found each other.
She could not explain this, so contented herself with murmuring, ‘I am the one who has been given a gift, granted a boon,’ as she plaited her fingers in his hair.
‘But it could be argued that I have taken advantage of you, led you to stumble most grievously, debauched you. These are grave charges against me. I know this is a hard question, but do you not feel guilty?’
‘Of course I do. But I do not feel regret. Not one jot! I never will. Can we ever regret the draught that stills pain, even if it is forbidden? Besides, you were right about the hawks. We are all necessarily tamed. But sometimes there are moments – such moments as we have shared – oh, I cannot put it into words. I have not your facility with them,’ and she felt his mouth move into a smile against her cheek. ‘All I can tell you, Jacob, is that I will never again see a hawk – any hunting bird on the wind – without thinking of you, of this. Without feeling you close to my heart.’
Now, seated before her own hearth, surrounded by the familiar tokens of her everyday life, Charlotte forced herself to think through the implications of that glorious and forbidden encounter. What was not certain, what would never be certain, was the paternity of the child she was carrying. It was possibly Jacob’s progeny. What if it looked like him? What if it did not? What if it was as blameless a mix of her and Mr Collins’s blood as if ordained by God? What could she do? Ho
w could she protect herself and the child?
The answer came to her almost directly: nothing. She could do nothing. She was helpless in the grip of fate and nature. All she could do was to take care of her family, including this potential new child. She stretched her hands to the fire and tried to tiptoe up to the idea: another baby. She waited, and slowly, from her fingertips and toes, the sensation spread: a creeping, wild joy. Another whole human being, but also a keepsake. He or she could not replace all or even anything that Charlotte had lost, but she would gain more to love, to cherish, to nurture.
She would not share her news with Mr Collins until a little more time passed; she needed to prepare herself to face without flinching the innocent pleasure, the joyous smiles with which he would certainly respond, the congratulations he would claim from family and friends. And yet the coming child might well be his. His conviction of this would be a punishment she would willingly bear. But never was a punishment also so productive of ecstasy. And as Mrs Brown came in bearing a tray, she found Charlotte laughing and hugging herself.
1820
CHAPTER XXXVII
TOWARDS THE END OF THE winter that followed, a servant arrived with what Charlotte had come to think of as one of Anne de Bourgh’s coded messages: a suggestion that they meet that afternoon in the conservatory, where the first hyacinths from Holland were blooming. She wrote that she believed Mrs Collins would enjoy taking in their fragrance, and that she might also admire the recently acquired granadilla vine and bougainvillea tree, both exotics from the West Indies. If all was agreeable, she would be happy to send the carriage, given the unsettled weather and Charlotte’s condition.
There were a few anxious moments when Mr Collins, as the established horticultural enthusiast of the family, proposed escorting his wife on this occasion, and even bringing the girls along, but fortunately, he remembered Charlotte’s role as Miss de Bourgh’s confidante, and restrained himself, although expressing hope that in future such invitations might extend to him as well.
Charlotte made vaguely promising noises, and reminded her husband that he had an engagement with his sexton that afternoon, and a funeral to conduct the next day. Duty would have to preclude pleasure in his case. The carriage duly arrived, and it was a matter of minutes to transfer her to Rosings, where Anne waited in the scented hothouse, the air warm and damp as a kiss on Charlotte’s skin.
As was her wont, Miss de Bourgh spoke without preamble: ‘Mrs Collins, I am once again about to treat you with great injustice. I have two propositions to make to you. You will soon give birth to another child. And you and I both know that the sex of that child determines a significant portion of your future; whether or not you shall be able to take possession of Longbourn in security of succession; what lies ahead for your daughters – whether they will be able to marry according to inclination or affection, or whether they may be driven, by want, to expediency.
‘So this is my first proposal: that I settle money on each of your daughters. Not sums so large as to tempt fortune-hunters or make them eligible prospects for that reason alone; but enough that should they wish, they may live respectable lives as spinsters, if need be; in the event of your and Mr Collins’s demise, to be able to afford modest but adequately comfortable establishments, with respectable companions, or even one other.’
Charlotte heard a ringing in her ears, and swayed, tears starting in her eyes. She stepped forward to take Anne’s hands, spilling with gratitude, but the younger woman stepped back, holding up her palms. ‘Wait, Mrs Collins. I said I had two propositions to make. You will like the second much less, I fear. But first, I wish to stress that these are two separate, not intertwined ventures. They are not conditional upon one another. Even if you respond to my second proposal with a determined negative, I will still honour my first promise, to secure a future free of anxiety and want for your daughters. In fact, if your third child is another girl, she will receive a settlement equal to that of her elder sisters.
‘But if you have a boy, Mrs Collins – I wish to foster him, and raise him to become the heir of Rosings.’
The ringing continued in Charlotte’s ears, but now it took on the quality of a knife being sharpened. Her first thought was Lose another child? I cannot. And then she was seated on the edge of a raised planting bed, her head touched to her knees, the foliage on either side of her swaying queasily up and down, and Anne was saying, with great agitation, ‘Mrs Collins, I beg you, do not alarm yourself—’
Slowly, the sensation that her surrounds were swirling around her stilled, and she sat up cautiously and cracked open one eye to gaze at Anne, who had gone so pale she was almost blue. ‘Dear God, I feared I had brought on a misadventure, that you might even lose the child. Let me call for assistance. You need something sweet to drink.’
Charlotte demurred, sweeping her tongue around her dry mouth. Anne, with no ceremony, rustled down next to her, careless of mud on her skirts. ‘Forgive me – I was far too precipitate. Allow me to explain. This is no tale in which the newborn infant will be borne off by a wicked fairy. You would keep him, in your home, no doubt the pet of his elder sisters, for as long as you choose. I ask simply that once he grows sensible, and of an age to require education, that he spends time at Rosings, too; and that I take over the provision of his education. That he be raised with the expectation of inheritance, with all the advantages and responsibilities incumbent on such an expectation. That when he turns twelve or thirteen, I formally and legally adopt him, and guarantee the future of Rosings.’
She stood again and knuckled her hands in the small of her back. ‘I have no nephews or nieces, or even godchildren requiring any special attention, for whom I feel any familial affection. If Mr and Mrs Darcy should have children, my little cousins will hardly be in need of anything I can offer. I do not pay children particular notice, but there is no doubt that your girls have admirable spirit, and I like the idea of your son treading these hectares as lord and master of all he surveys, bringing his sisters under this roof. I confess I take pleasure from the thought of my mother’s amazement at such a pass – that the son of the clergyman to whom she had condescended to give a living should one day inherit Rosings.’
Charlotte’s mind pecked from among her scattered thoughts the seed that there was no guarantee that the child soon to be born could indeed call her husband father; and the mental picture of the son of a piano-tuner – one who was a foreigner and a Jew – ruling over Rosings caused a tide of hysteria to rise in her throat. She remembered very well Lady Catherine’s railing when Mr Darcy first wrote to announce his engagement to Elizabeth Bennet: ‘Are the shades of Pemberley thus to be polluted?’ Oh, if she but knew what greater potential contamination was stalking ever closer to home!
She shut her eyes again, and Jacob’s face was at once before her, intelligence and compassion in every lineament, every gesture conveying his confident manners, every word his superior education and understanding. She was not certain Rosings was even worthy of the gift of his son.
Anne once again spoke with uncanny prescience: ‘We require fresh blood, Mrs Collins. Look at me, a grown woman in a girl’s body, neither fish nor fowl, the only living child of my parents after three stillborn sons. No wonder my mother kept me at home, as if in a hothouse like this one in which we stand. And look at her, so determined to control destiny in spite of being a woman, so hardened in her insistence on caste and rank that she is unable to acknowledge what she sees, what she must see: that I am the end of the de Bourgh line. Unlike my mother, I am pragmatic. I know enough of horse breeding to know that it is time for new stock, a good hardy graft that will enable our family tree to continue branching.’
Charlotte pecked at another seed, and caught up a word: ‘Longbourn?’
‘I understand you,’ said Anne. ‘If you bring forth a son, your family’s need to look around for protection falls away, as he will eventually inherit Longbourn, a goodly estate. He will not be rich after his father dies, but he will be comfortable
and, if he is clever, also respectable. By that token, his sisters should enjoy the same benefits.
‘My intention is not to lay temptation before you. I know you are prudent, but you are not a grasping woman. My wish is that yours would be a rational, impartial decision; only secondarily, if you like, a gift to me. Your son would be happy and respectable as master of Longbourn; or he could be all those things, but also possessed of the wealth and power that would come with the Rosings inheritance. He would have the security of not one, but two estates to call his own. One would hope that he would freely house and support his elder sisters – he would certainly have the means to do so. But he would not need such wealth. Longbourn alone should provide for him, and them.’
Charlotte stumbled out her next sentence: ‘But why then settle money on the girls?’
‘Would you have them reliant on fraternal affection or obligation alone? Vulnerable to the whims of a future sister-in-law? Edged aside by the cares and needs of an expanding family?’
Charlotte was silent, remembering her brothers’ yells of delight when the news of Mr Collins’s proposal was broken to their family, the open joy with which they celebrated her no longer being their charge and burden should she remain an old maid. ‘I understand, Miss de Bourgh. You want for my daughters what I have only dreamed of for them: the dignity of independence. Believe me, for that alone, I shall be eternally indebted to you.’
Anne nodded: ‘I wish to reiterate that the two proposals are to be considered separately. The one regarding your daughters is an offer, not a bribe; it comes free of obligation, in as much as that is possible – all gifts come with invisible expectations. But I must stress that my proposal should you give birth to a son is a request, Mrs Collins, and you are free to reject it out of hand, much as I hope you will not. It is by no means intended as a sort of command, or even a strong plea, but a proposition, one I leave humbly to your consideration. I ask only that you take some time to consider it, that you do not immediately respond with a negative. Once you have fixed on a decision, you may wish never to speak of it again to a soul; or, if you believe my plan has merit, you will of course wish to consult with your husband. But I repeat, it is yours to make.’
Charlotte Page 24
