Page 9 of A Study in Scarlet Women
“But how will you live? You know there won’t be enough money to keep us as spinsters.”
“I can earn money. If I were a boy, and there were no money in the family, wouldn’t I be expected to have a profession?”
“Yes, but you aren’t a boy. Mamma will have a fit at the idea of one of her daughters... working.”
“Mamma doesn’t need to agree.”
Livia sighed. “You’re deluding yourself if you think Papa will.”
She was unsentimental about Sir Henry, since Sir Henry had no use for her. But Charlotte was his pet—he was vastly amused by her combination of great intelligence, great oddity, and great silence. He regularly took her for walks, just the two of them. He bought contraband sweets for her. And he read her his favorite poems and was tickled that she could immediately recite them back to him.
“What makes you think he won’t?” asked Charlotte.
“The same reason I think he’d fly into a rage if he found Mamma having an affair. He might appear congenial, but he isn’t at all liberal in his thinking. Keep that in mind.”
Charlotte nodded, looking rather sadly at the empty plate before her.
It was the last time Livia saw Charlotte consume such a quantity of cake—or of any comestible, for that matter—in one sitting.
The next few years brought a slew of unforeseen changes on Charlotte’s part. For one, she began to take an active interest in her wardrobe—studying fashion plates, trying on different combinations of petticoats and stockings, accompanying Lady Holmes to browse selections of lace and feathers.
By extension, she paid far greater attention to her figure and stopped eating until she couldn’t swallow another bite. The day she asked for a second helping of carrots and then forewent pudding at the end of the meal, Livia drew her aside and asked whether she was ill. Charlotte shook her head.
Much to Lady Holmes’s relief, her youngest child also exerted a heroic effort in the direction of small talk. Instead of startling and discomfiting visitors with such comments as “I see you no longer write in your journal” or “I’m sorry the trip to Bath wasn’t as successful asyou’d hoped it would be,” she learned to smile, nod, and chat about the weather.
This last was not accomplished without trial and error. In the beginning she had a tendency to correct old squires’ exclamations of “We haven’t had so much rain since I was a boy in short breeches” by quoting concrete records from the parish registers, which demonstrated that there had been far greater precipitation a mere five years ago. It was after a fair bit of practice and no shortage of awkwardness that she at last grasped the point of all that persiflage, which was merely to avoid the silence of people having nothing to say to one another.
The uncomfortable silence, in other words. But since there was no such thing as an uncomfortable silence for Charlotte, it was as difficult for her to understand as it was for a man with vertigo to master the Viennese polka.
Sometimes, as Livia stood beside her, perspiring on her behalf and making every attempt to convey the correct response via telepathy, it struck her how much Charlotte resembled a foreigner who found native customs baffling and, on occasion, patently ridiculous. One time, in the middle of reading a magazine article about the possibility of life on Mars, it occurred to Livia that Charlotte was more akin to an interplanetary alien: It wasn’t only the habits and conventions of the English she found perplexing, but that of all humanity.
But eventually Charlotte cleared that hurdle. She not only learned the stark difference between asking after an old lady’s cold versus her problem with incontinence, she became adept at navigating these formerly treacherous shoals, even though Livia could tell, at times, that she was herding a situation through an internal algorithm, trying to generate an appropriate response.
But overall, her transformation appeared complete. The little girl who insisted on wearing the same dress year in and year out had beenreplaced by a young lady in ruffles and plumage. Instead of theEncyclopedia Britannica, she now readBurke’s PeerageandCornhill Magazine. And while she never slimmed to an elegant svelteness—she retained a hint of a double chin and the buttons of her bodice always seemed in danger of popping open—her tendency toward plumpness worked very well with her wide eyes and rosy cheeks.
She wasn’t beautiful, but she was darling. People responded to her the way they would a nursery rhyme character all grown up and come to life. Boys and young men became tongue-tied, their eyes busily darting from her pink, pillowy lips to the firm rise of her breasts.
Livia was half envious of this response her little sister evoked from the gentlemen and half... mournful. Who was this girl swaddled in flounces, who put honey on her face and coconut oil in her hair? What had happened to the Charlotte Livia remembered, that noted odd duck who was the only person with whom Livia felt comfortable, the only person Livia trusted?
And then, the day before they were to leave for London for their first Season together, Charlotte said to Livia, “I spoke with Papa today.”
They were walking in the fields on the outskirts of the village. The day was sunny but still cool. The countryside was a fresh, sparkling green. And Charlotte’s cream-colored dress, dainty with lace and passementerie, offered an impossibly pretty contrast against this backdrop of brightly lit nature.
Livia was feeling downhearted at the likelihood that the new Charlotte would swim in proposals by the end of the Season. Livia’s chances on the matrimonial mart were nowhere as favorable. She was a misanthrope—rare was the man or woman who didn’t deeply disappoint her. That was bad enough for a young lady, but to make matters even worse she was a misanthrope who didn’t know how to pretend not to be one.
If Charlotte were to accept a proposal, Livia would be left all alone at home.
She sighed. “What did you and Papa talk about?”
“Do you remember the day we met Mr. Cumberland? I said I didn’t want to marry.”
“You told Papa you don’t want to marrytoday, right before we are to leave for London?”
“No, I spoke to him the day after we met Mr. Cumberland.”
Livia blinked. That would have been five years ago.
“I told him I did not think the institution of marriage would suit me very well. I said I wished to look into other means of livelihood.”
