Page 43 of Introducing Mrs. Collins
I have always known, as you must have, that this kind of loss is common enough, which always made me think (if I did ever think about it – I hardly did) that the feelings connected to it would also be common enough. I was wrong. My world feels overturned, and I do not know where to place my hopes now. I feel at sea, unrooted. Nothing holds meaning for me. My husband, my home, my friends, leave me cold. I can attach to nothing.
My body is very weak. Mrs Brooke says all situations like this are very different, but mine has taken a lot from me. I should feel pity for my body, perhaps, and want to care for it. I feel only anger at it. It has let me down so badly. I should never have trusted it. I feel empty, Eliza, so empty and so pointless. I should not write to you in this state, I know, but I know not how else to write.
I am assured I will rally. I assume I shall. If you have any news, I would welcome a distraction.
Yours in friendship,
Charlotte
However, just as Charlotte was preparing to have it posted, she was pre-empted by her friend: a letter arrived from Longbourn.
8th October 1812
My dear Charlotte,
This is only a short letter, so forgive me for reaching the point so quickly, but – I am engaged to Mr Darcy! You may enjoy the pleasure of saying ‘I was right!’ to me for the rest of our days! I am more happy than I can comprehend. You will have heard of Jane’s engagement already, perhaps, which only adds to my joy! There is much to organise, and so I cannot write much more at present – except to say, thank you for telling me your news, and I am tremendously happy for you! It feels like the lives of all around me are suddenly working out just as they ought!
I send you all my warmest wishes for health and happiness, my dear friend.
Yours, in affection,
Eliza (soon to be Darcy!)
After reading her friend’s news, Charlotte knew she could not send her own missive. She folded it carefully and kept it in her drawer: a small piece of her own history, told, in the end, to no one but herself.
CHAPTER XVII
Life at Hunsford felt strange over the following days. It was as if the household were suspended in time, removed from the ordinary goings on of the outside world. Lady Lucas stayed with her daughter, alongside an ever-attentive Mrs Brooke. Both of them knew, from experience, that Charlotte’s body would not recover until her spirits did. They tried to allow her time to mourn her loss, while keeping her mind a little occupied so that she might not fall further into malaise. Charlotte was, naturally, not herself. She was vacant, dry-eyed, often silent and eerily acquiescent.
If she ventured into the garden, she would walk without purpose, round in circles, not really looking at her plants. Encouraged by her mother to take up her sewing, Charlotte asked Brooke for things to mend, rather than her embroidery; she had no capacity for creativity.
Her mother’s presence gave Charlotte licence to become a little girl again, and she did, placing herself entirely into her mother’s hands. Lady Lucas gave orders for the household, was the one to get Charlotte up in the mornings and sit with her at night. Each day, Charlotte performed the activity her mother suggested. She ate whatever her mother told her to and took what remedies her mother bid her. In truth, she had never been this obedient as a child, so it was a new state for her.
At first, Lady Lucas was glad to be of use. That she could offer any comfort to her daughter was a blessing indeed in thecircumstances, but as days turned into weeks, she started to realise that her presence was not helping Charlotte any longer. While she was standing firm for her daughter, Charlotte was standing still; stuck in a state of child-like dependency. Charlotte needed to come back to her own life and with so constant a prop at her disposal, she never would.
It was with conflicting emotions that Lady Lucas informed her daughter she must return to Hertfordshire within the week. If she expected Charlotte to react like her old self – practical and capable – she was mistaken. Her daughter railed against her departure. She accused her mother of abandoning her, begging her to stay with increasing desperation. Charlotte was indignant, and she remained in a state of helplessness until the day her mother’s carriage drew up to the drive.
The trunks were loaded aboard, and her mother came to the little sitting room to bid her daughter farewell. They sat opposite each other, Charlotte unspeaking as she mostly had been of late, looking so much smaller than she had the year before.
‘Before I go—’ Lady Lucas began.
Charlotte raised her eyebrows wearily. ‘I know what you are going to say.’
‘Oh, do you? Pray, what will I say?’
‘That I must not be disheartened, and that children will come in time.’
Lady Lucas looked at her closely and took her hands. ‘I do not know whether children will come in time, my darling.’
Charlotte looked up sharply.
‘Only God can know that. I do not comfort you with a promise that it is not in my power to keep. You might have children, and you might not. But I promise you that you will find your happiness again. Whether with children or not. There is not one path to happiness. You must find yours.’
Charlotte did not react.
Her mother, frustrated, reached out and held her chin, making her look at her. ‘Youmust,’ she said again, more firmly.
Charlotte shook her hand away.
