Miss Lucas Read online

  “There are few people in the world who have the capacity to know their own defects and fewer still who are willing to change them. I cannot fault him for being just like the rest of us.”

  “Charlotte, you just declared that you would marry Mr. Collins because you know yours.”

  “And I know what I am capable of. Since I am fully aware of Mr. Collins’ failings, perhaps I can improve him with time.”

  “Do you actually believe that?”

  “I must, Elizabeth. A lifetime with Mr. Collins as he is would be nigh unbearable, but I would manage it for all that I stand to gain from a marriage. Hoping that he might be better will change nothing about my choice, it is only for my own peace of mind.”

  “I loathe this Charlotte, everything about it. However, I will do my best for you. I will be as charming as possible and put your best foot forward to win over Lady Catherine. Perhaps I might be of use to you since there is no better way to deal with Mr. Collins than with another person of sense. At the very least you will not be trapped between two fools. I swear I will give you someone to gossip with while Mr. Collins’ back is turned.” Elizabeth teased, but her expression settled to something serious.

  “I respect you too much to lie to you, Charlotte. I still hope that when he proposes you’ll tell him no. Mr. Collins is beneath you, no matter the circumstances.”

  “There’s nothing beneath a woman with no other options. I want a life and a home of my own, and Mr. Collins is the only way to achieve that.”

  Elizabeth bit her lip and forced herself not to have the argument she wished to. “Then I apologize for anything I have done that has made this situation more difficult for you.”

  “It wasn’t you, Lizzy. Mr. Collins stopped himself just short of proposing out of his own desperate fear of acting without Lady Catherine’s approval. This whole trip might be for naught if the woman felt she needed to go to all this effort to approve of me instead of simply sending Mr. Collins back with her blessing.”

  Elizabeth gave a sharp squeeze to Charlotte’s hand but sat in silence for a long moment before she summoned up the courage to say, “I need to tell you something, Charlotte, before we arrive and Mr. Collins catches you off guard with it. Perhaps Lady Catherine will not be so particular as you fear her to be.”

  Charlotte didn’t speak, letting Lizzy collect herself before she blurted out the truth. “Mr. Collins has written to my father several times asking if he could come and visit. Father would have let him return long ago if I hadn’t told him that I was worried Mr. Collins was only coming to renew his offers to me and I didn’t want to endure mother’s complaints all over again. He refused the man only to preserve the peace at home, not knowing that I was lying to him, or that I was trying to keep you from making what I consider to be a mistake. An understandable one,” Elizabeth rushed, “but a mistake nonetheless. Mr. Collins hasn’t stayed away because he wanted to, or because Lady Catherine is opposed to you, but because as far as he was concerned, my father wouldn’t let him return.

  “I am sorry, Charlotte. I should have just spoken to you about my concerns instead of hampering you like a child. I don’t agree with your choice, but it is yours to make, and I ought to have respected that from the beginning.”

  “Oh, Lizzy,” Charlotte cradled Elizabeth’s hands in hers. “You’re forgiven. I know you did all of it out of care. Though I pray for your sake that you’ll never really understand why I’ve made these decisions. May it always be something beyond your experience.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Charlotte caught only a glimpse of the Parsonage as they made their way towards Rosings. Though she would have infinitely preferred going straight to her future home, there were still formalities to attend to. They were met, not by any member of Rosings’ staff or household, but by Mr. Collins posed upon the front steps, chest so puffed up with pride it was miraculous his feet were still on the ground.

  Mary disembarked before Mr. Collins summoned up the sense to abandon his place and come scuttling down the stairs. Elizabeth grinned at Mary’s glower over his dawdling and waited long enough for the man help her down. Charlotte took the sparse moment of privacy to breathe deep and smile as though she was actually happy to see Mr. Collins before she stretched out her hand.

  “My dear Miss Lucas.” Mr. Collins gave her hand a fatherly pat. “It is a pleasure to see you again. May I welcome you all to Rosings Park.” He spun on his heel and gestured to the house as though introducing it as well. “I must say, you have arrived a bit late in the day and Lady Catherine does not appreciate being made to wait for dinner, but my dear patroness said that there is only so much we can expect from young ladies traveling alone, particularly on roads during the rain. Of course, Lady Catherine’s own Barouche would have managed the journey without any difficulty and even then, since she employs only the best staff, her driver would have known the path so well that he would have been able to avoid any delays caused by the weather. But, I am sure Lady Catherine will forgive you for your tardiness.”

  Rather than ushering them into the house and reducing Lady Catherine’s wait now it was in his power to do so, Mr. Collins remained on the step and began regaling them with the history of the house itself, for some reason choosing to share an enumeration of the front windows and relating what the glazing altogether had originally cost Sir Lewis de Bourgh. Elizabeth, keeping true to her promise, took upon herself the burden of verbally nudging Mr. Collins into the house, shielding Charlotte from having to chide a man who hadn’t yet proposed.

  “Perhaps, Mr. Collins, given that we have already delayed her dinner, we should pay our respects to Lady Catherine.”

  “Do not make yourself uneasy, my dear cousin. Lady Catherine is most magnanimous to all of those who have the privilege to pay their attentions to her. However, I feel I must apologize, for it is only now that you are present that I realize I have not properly instructed you in what to expect here at Rosings park so that the sight of such rooms, so many servants, and so splendid a dinner might not wholly overpower you.”

  Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. “We will do our utmost not be overawed.”

  Mr. Collins started up the stairs. His lecture on architecture was acceptable so long as they were moving.

  When they had ascended the steps to the hall, Mary paused before the doors to smooth out some of the wrinkles from sleeping in the carriage, and Mr. Collins stopped with a condescending smile. “Do not make yourself uneasy, my dear cousin, about your apparel. Lady Catherine is far from requiring that elegance of dress in us that becomes herself and her daughter. Lady Catherine will not think the worse of you for being simply dressed. She likes to have the distinction of rank preserved.”

  Mary took the comfort in a better spirit than it was intended and Mr. Collins took that as approval to instruct them all in what they ought to expect as they followed the man inside.

  For all that Mr. Collins spoke of Lady Catherine’s preferences, he found a hundred different reasons to delay their progress through Rosings. With rapturous airs he pointed out the fine proportions and finished ornaments of the entrance, the numerous paintings gracing the halls that they passed through, the fine weave of the rugs, and on and on. The servants that they were following seemed content to pass through each room and wait beside the far door until the persistent forward motion of the rest of the group forced Mr. Collins to move on to his next subject.

  When they finally reached the intended sitting room, her ladyship, with great condescension, rose to receive them. She was a statuesque woman, covered in so many layers that Charlotte would not have been able to guess her shape or size underneath. However, there was no mistaking Lady Catherine’s height. She towered over their party in a way that Charlotte had endured from few men and never before from any woman. The unfeminine height seemed to suit her perfectly well and accompanied the stony lines of her face.

  Charlotte’s first thought upon seeing Miss de Bourgh and her companion, Mrs. Jenkinson, was that she hoped
that dinner was not, in fact, waiting for them on the table because a cold meal might do the girl in. While her mother looked sturdy enough that the sitting room could have been built around her, the daughter could generously be described as a fae-like thing. Ill would be a cruel but far more accurate descriptor.

  Charlotte paid both mother and daughter smiles that neither woman returned, while Mr. Collins finished a list of apologies for their lateness in arriving, their tardiness in entering the house,—“the young ladies were overawed by the grandeur of the glorious windows”—and reiterated thanks which he must have given a hundred times before if Lady Catherine’s abrupt waiving away of his words was any indication.

  Charlotte determinedly did not look at Elizabeth throughout the whole, unwilling to take in any indication of what her friend might make of the women before them. She knew from long experience that she might accidentally respond to the opinion she could read in Elizabeth’s eyes, and this was an introduction where Charlotte would not be served by anything less than an obsequious smile. “Despite Mr. Collins’ thorough proclamations, I wish to convey my own gratitude to you for allowing us to stay in your magnificent home, Lady Catherine.”

  Lady Catherine accepted Charlotte’s gratitude with enough gravity that someone might have guessed they had been invited to stay half a year or more. Despite that, Lady Catherine gave them a casual waive into the single sofa awkwardly placed before her. The three girls sat all in a row, Mary in the middle where she could join the other ladies in being useless in the ensuing conversation. Thanks to her sickly disposition, Charlotte could forgive Miss de Bourgh her low-voiced comments only to her caretaker, and she held nothing against Mrs. Jenkinson for being more concerned with her charge than company that wasn’t hers.

  Lady Catherine de Bourgh however, could not have been more obviously put out by their presence in her house than if she had stood up and declared it at the top of her lungs. Given his dedication to seeing every whim of Lady Catherine’s fulfilled, Charlotte couldn’t imagine that Mr. Collins was unaware of his patroness’ irritation. Perhaps Charlotte had overestimated his sense and he did not notice Lady Catherine’s obvious but unspoken disdain. The man was either unaware or apathetic, and Charlotte didn’t know which possibility spoke more ill of him.

  Instead, Mr. Collins pressed on in his exclamations about the beauty of Rosings Park and how lucky the young ladies must consider themselves to not only be in the glory of such a fine house, but also in Lady Catherine’s wonderful presence. Charlotte attempted to pile on to his compliments, thinking Mr. Collins was trying to lay the groundwork for them to flatter their way into her good graces. Lady Catherine seemed offended that either of the young ladies dared to have any opinion at all about her home, even a complimentary one.

  After enduring a few minutes of this conversation, the ladies were sent to one of the windows to admire the view, Mr. Collins attending them to point out its beauties. Charlotte feigned raptures and at the park, only to have Lady Catherine reply that it was much better worth looking at in summer. Elizabeth cast an incredulous look at Charlotte and it was all she could do not to sigh.

  Dinner was ready for them soon enough, complete with all the servants and other accouterments that Mr. Collins had extolled to Charlotte during the days she had spent distracting him for the Bennet family. As he had likewise foretold, he took his seat at the bottom of the table, by her ladyship’s desire, and looked as if he felt that life could furnish nothing greater. He carved, and ate, and eagerly commended every dish with such enthusiasm that even Elizabeth was beginning to look at Lady Catherine with something like compassion for her ability to withstand all their failed efforts to lead him onto some better topic of conversation.

  After the fowl—which Mr. Collins declared roasted to perfection—Lady Catherine set down her fork with the thump of a gavel and without looking away from Charlotte said, “Well Mr. Collins, you have brought rather genteel, pretty sorts of girls to my table.”

  “Oh yes, Lady Catherine, truly they are the best sorts of young ladies.” Charlotte did her best not to feel as desperate as Mr. Collins sounded. Lady Catherine’s hum made clear that she was not convinced by Mr. Collins’ good opinion. Charlotte straightened her spine and looked at the fine lady with all the demureness of Jane Bennet.

  Lady Catherine did not appear impressed. “Tell me, Miss Lucas, was Mr. Collins correct in his belief that you have five siblings?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Before Charlotte could say more, Lady Catherine pressed on. “And they are all younger than yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “And Mr. Collins has confided in me that the nearest in age to yourself is but fifteen?”

  There was no hint of Jane’s sweetness in Charlotte’s expression now. “My next eldest sibling is sixteen and the youngest is twelve.”

  Lady Catherine hummed again. “My goodness, I had thought Mr. Collins was exaggerating. That your parents have so many children at all is astonishing, and that there is such a gap between you and the next eldest.” She tutted. “Mr. Collins assured me that your father only had the one marriage and all six of you share the same mother, but that seems quite impossible to me.”

  Mary squeaked at the insult of this topic, and the sound startled Elizabeth out of her own shock. “I assure you, Madam, Mrs. Lucas is the only woman to ever bear the name.”

  “That means little in circumstances such as these, Miss Bennet. After all, dear neighbors are often willing to ignore all manner of youthful indiscretions when the perpetrators have been living well ever since. And goodness knows young men engage in scandalous behavior that no young lady of good birth or breeding would ever succumb to. They are the weaker sex, after all, and cannot be expected to adhere to the standard that comes so naturally to we women.”

  “My mother and father were married when I was conceived, Lady Catherine.” Charlotte snapped, unwilling to endure any more implications. “My mother says that only our Lord knows why it took them so long to have another child, or why they were blessed with five more after waiting so long.”

  “Good gracious!” Lady Catherine fluttered her napkin. “Such talk, Miss Lucas! It is unbecoming of any young lady to speak of such things!” Elizabeth opened her mouth to snap that Lady Catherine had begun it, but Charlotte grabbed her hand before she could. Logic had no place here.

  “If what you say is true, if I had known your parents then I would have encouraged them not to have any more children. In my long experience, the fewer the children the better, both for the mother and the children themselves. A household cannot be properly run where there are so many children upsetting matters and stealing away their mother’s attention from other subjects. Why, just the other day I recommended to a young lady of the neighborhood that she ought to keep herself to two children. She had the notion to have as many as her mother, but I counselled her most strenuously to restrain herself to two, one is better, but a second if it is necessary to protect against entailment.”

  Lady Catherine paused to take a long drink and then turned her attention to Mr. Collins and asked about some matter of the parish. The man sputtered for a moment before following along with the change in conversation. There was, after all, no more that needed to be said when Lady Catherine had made her opinion quite clear.

  The rest of the evening was a blur. Some part of Charlotte was aware of Lady Catherine lecturing them on travel and the awkward silence at cards, but Charlotte did not come back to herself until the tables were broken up and Lady Catherine gathered them around the fire to determine what weather they were to have on the morrow. It was so strange a way to end the evening that Charlotte would have thought she had dreamt the whole exchange if Elizabeth had not still been pinch-lipped with fury. Lady Catherine summoned her housekeeper to show the young ladies to their rooms, and with many speeches of thankfulness on Mr. Collins’ side and the most perfunctory of curtsies on the ladies’, the party disbanded.

  Due to the man’s unbroken ch
atter about the splendors of Rosings, the ladies followed Mr. Collins outside to Lady Catherine’s waiting carriage. The man bid them all a farewell without breaking his stride but then hesitated before the carriage door. He turned back to face them and Charlotte swore to never again have that same expression of conciliatory condescension when with her younger siblings. The man fidgeted for a moment, and Elizabeth stepped away to speak with Mary in the hope that Mr. Collins might take the chance to do something honorable.

  Instead, he hesitated. There was no bow, no apology for his Ladyship’s behavior, no support of Sir and Lady Lucas who he had known so well and spoken of so fondly. It was like Mr. Collins’ spine had deserted him entirely. He gave Charlotte a nod that met the barest requirement of politeness and said, “Lady Catherine is the sort of woman whom one cannot regard with too much deference on all matters.” And with that, he was gone.

  The moment the door closed, Elizabeth stepped forward and wound her arm through Charlotte’s while she watched the carriage ride away. Some part of Charlotte recognized that Elizabeth prodded Mary to ask the housekeeper about the spare pianoforte that Lady Catherine while she got Charlotte moving back towards the house at a slower pace than their company. Elizabeth gave them just long enough to venture out of hearing range and—and for Mary to prove herself undeterred by the housekeeper’s lackluster response—before she murmured to Charlotte, “We can go tomorrow. I’ll ask the housekeeper to speak with the driver and let us know if the horses will be recovered enough to see us back to my uncle’s. If they are not, I’ll send an express tonight and ask him for his carriage.”

  The fury simmering under Elizabeth’s voice forced Charlotte back into her body to respond. “I cannot.”