Charlotte Collins: A Continuation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice Read online

  Charlotte Collins

  A Continuation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice

  Jennifer Becton

  Whiteley Press

  A Whiteley Press Book

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright 2010 by Jennifer Whiteley Becton

  www.jenniferbecton.com

  10 4 5 6 7 8

  Cover: Lady Morgan, portrait by René Théodore Berthon, held in the National Gallery of Ireland. (Image in public domain.)

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious or used fictitiously. Any similarity to real people, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  For

  Octavia Clark Becton

  Other Works by Jennifer Becton

  The Personages of Pride & Prejudice Collection

  Caroline Bingley

  “Maria Lucas”: A Short Story

  The Personages of Pride & Prejudice Collection

  ~**~

  The Southern Fraud Thriller Series

  Writing as J. W. Becton

  Absolute Liability

  Death Benefits—Coming 2012

  “Cancellation Notice”: A Southern Fraud Short Story

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Excerpt from Caroline Bingley

  I consider everybody as having a right to marry once in their lives for love, if they can.

  —Jane Austen

  Prologue

  1818

  The sun shone on the day of the Reverend Mr. Collins’s funeral, and Charlotte knew that her husband would have questioned the wisdom of the Almighty for allowing such fine weather on the burial day of one of the church’s devoted servants.

  As the exceedingly devout rector of Hunsford, near Westerham, Kent, Mr. Collins had always preferred to conduct a funeral in dour weather, which he felt appropriately matched the solemnity of the occasion. A light drizzle was an additional benefit, for it forced mourners to wear heavy attire despite the season. In his estimation, a funeral was a weighty thing, and no lightness or warmth of any kind was to be tolerated. So he would have been properly horrified by the impious gaiety of his own funeral day.

  Fortunately, in his extinguished state, he would not have to tolerate the day’s infernal light, for he had already departed the earthly realm for the kingdom of heaven. Should he take exception to the fine weather, he could discuss it with the Almighty face to face.

  And he probably would.

  Charlotte, however, had seen to every earthly detail; her husband was attired in his most expensive suit, mourners had remained constantly beside his body, and she was seeing to his legal affairs. But the weather was out of her control.

  Now, Charlotte stood in the doorway of Hunsford parsonage and watched the funeral procession begin its morbid journey as the unseasonably warm wind caused leaves of vibrant red, orange, and yellow to rustle on their perches and blew her somber-hued skirts, revealing more ankle than was strictly proper. Sun glinted off the hearse that bore her husband’s coffin, highlighting the buckles on the horse’s harness as he trotted briskly away from the house despite the driver’s attempts to slow him to a more sedate gait. The mourners maintained a more dignified pace. Among those men who followed the coffin were her father, who genuinely mourned the loss of his son-in-law; Mr. Darcy, who did not mourn him at all; and a host of parishioners, whose grief fell somewhere between the two.

  She watched as the procession disappeared down the drive, loath to return inside where the drawn drapes blocked out nearly all light. Even so, she fancied that her wretched light-swallowing bombazine mourning attire darkened the room still further.

  She nodded to her companions, family and friends who were also clad in black gowns, gloves, and scarves. Like the men who escorted Mr. Collins’s body to his final resting place, they too had gathered to grieve for a gentleman whom few had liked well enough to hold five minute’s conversation.

  As his widow, Charlotte felt a measure of sorrow at Mr. Collins’s death; he had been her nearly constant companion these seven years. But she had not been in love with him. She could hardly even claim to have liked him.

  Of course, Mr. Collins had not been in love with her either. Their marriage had not been his choice. The commandment for him to wed had come from on high: from his patroness, the Lady Catherine de Bourgh herself. And so, he had taken himself to visit his cousins, the Bennets, with the intention of securing a wife en famille. Upon discovering Mr. Collins’s mission and the absolute revulsion of his intended fiancée—her dear friend Elizabeth Bennet—Charlotte had pursued him, quite literally.

  Under the guise of easing Elizabeth’s burden, she had put herself into Mr. Collins’s path at social events and absorbed his conversation in private.

  In truth, Charlotte had wooed him.

  And when she spied him coming down the lane to Lucas Lodge, her family home, ostensibly to propose, she had rushed to meet him quite by chance so that he would not lose his nerve. Nearly seven-and-twenty, Charlotte was nigh on becoming a spinster and an encumbrance to her family, and marriage was the only option available to an educated woman of small fortune. And as a practical woman, Charlotte had seized the opportunity available to her, meager though it was.

  Yet, somehow she and Mr. Collins had served each other well. Charlotte had removed herself as a burden to her parents and gained a comfortable home of her own, and Mr. Collins had pleased his patroness, lifting him in her esteem. And as long as they avoided each other most of the time, their marriage was quite pleasing.

  In the early days, Mr. Collins had actually served as a somewhat tolerable companion, but after the death of their only child, Margaret, a beautiful dark-eyed replica of Charlotte who had not survived even the first year of her life, the couple had become even more disconnected, merely existing in the same household. Mr. Collins had sequestered himself with his sermons, fawned over the number of windows in Lady Catherine’s home, and consumed all the biscuits in the parsonage before Charlotte had ever had the opportunity to eat one.

  Skirting the company of assembled ladies, Charlotte disappeared into the kitchen where she discovered her childhood friend Elizabeth Darcy, the very woman who had spurned Mr. Collins. She had traveled with her husband from Pemberley, their grand estate in Derbyshire, to attend.

  Elizabeth appeared unsure of words appropriate for the situation, but she offered her a sympathetic smile.

  Charlotte broke the silence for her. “I am pleased that you have come.” She gestured to a chair that was tucked beneath her small kitchen table. “Have a seat in here away from the others and talk with me.”

  Elizabeth sat while Charlotte produced a tin of biscuits and set them on the table between them. They both selected a treat and ate in silence until Elizabeth found her voice.

  “My dear Charlotte, I am sorry for your current circumstances.”

  Charlotte smiled. “My current circumstances must not be so ne
gative, for they have brought you to my kitchen, and I have missed you, Eliza.”

  She and Elizabeth had always been good friends, but Elizabeth had disapproved of her decision to marry Mr. Collins. And Mr. Darcy found him absolutely intolerable. Consequently, they had seen little of each other over the intervening years, and the separation had caused a certain level of detachment in their friendship.

  “Tell me, Charlotte, for I have heard nothing of the particulars of what has transpired: What has happened to take Mr. Collins away so unexpectedly?”

  “A carriage accident. He was walking to Rosings Park to pay his daily compliments to Lady Catherine and was struck by a runaway mule wagon.”

  “A mule wagon?”

  “Certainly, if it had been his choice of the means by which to meet his demise, he would have chosen a vehicle of quality pulled by a perfectly matched team of horses.”

  “Indeed!” Elizabeth said.

  “But we may not always choose our circumstances.”

  Elizabeth sobered and met Charlotte’s eyes. “No, we may not. Sometimes society—and transportation—makes demands of us that we must do our best to meet. You, Charlotte, have always exceeded the demands of society, even if I have not approved of your choices. And now you have a new set of circumstances with which to deal, and I hope that happier choices will be available to you.”

  Tears welled in Charlotte’s eyes. She had hoped for happier choices too. But with the death of her husband, her protection and place in society had also vanished. She was alone, without daughter and husband, without home. Those circumstances merited her mourning, if the loss of her husband’s company did not.

  “Perhaps one day I shall meet with another Mr. Collins.”

  “Do not even joke about the possibility, my dear friend, for I believe you have done your time in purgatory. It is time for you to experience the heaven that a marriage of true minds can be. I consider everybody as having a right to marry once in their lives for love, if they can.”

  Charlotte envied her friend’s felicity in marriage, and though her example had taught her that romantic love existed, she had no plans to pursue it herself. Her sole aim was to secure what money she could from Mr. Collins’s estate and create a small, but comfortable, home for herself.

  “I thank you for your kindness. If I cannot manage happiness in my choices, then I will have to make the best of those indifferent choices that are before me.”

  “As you have always done.”

  Elizabeth fell silent, and at length, Charlotte nodded in the direction of the sitting room and said, “But now, I fear, I must do my duty to the assembled company.” She had balked at calling them guests, for that denoted people who had been invited for pleasure. Those in the sitting room appeared anything but pleased. In fact, they appeared quite ready to depart, and Charlotte could not blame them.

  Upon entering the room, her younger sister Maria Lucas came to her side and touched her arm briefly. It was the most meaningful gesture her flighty sister could manage. And her mother, now swaying under the effects of ill health, lurched to her feet and wobbled alongside. They managed to encircle her, and Charlotte wished they would have kept their seats.

  Her mother pressed her hand in hers. “Oh my dear daughter, whatever shall you do now? For we cannot possibly afford you.”

  Charlotte understood well her worries. A woman alone was at a disadvantage in society. And Charlotte was now truly alone.

  But she produced what she hoped was a comforting smile for her mother. “All will be well, Mama. Pray, take your seat and do not be concerned about my future. Worry does no good.”

  Charlotte restrained a wry smile. Indeed, it would do no good for her mother to waste feeble energies on concern for her. She was concerned enough for herself, but only decisive action would remedy her situation, and at the moment, she was rendered ineffective by duty.

  Even now, she wished she could be about the business of securing her independence, of talking to her husband’s solicitor. Alas, she must fulfill her final obligation to Mr. Collins, though in her heart, she wished that the mourners would depart.

  Why had any of them come? The scene was utterly nonsensical. No one lamented the death of the gentleman to whom she had been married, except perhaps Lady Catherine, and she could not even be put upon to visit the parsonage.

  Perhaps they had come simply to verify that Mr. Collins had well and truly departed for the mansions of heaven, which undoubtedly had as many fine windows as Rosings Park, and to ensure that he would never again bore them with his tedious conversation.

  One

  1820

  “Do not tell me that you intend to spend the rest of your days in this dreadful sitting room, Charlotte,” Maria said, settling herself on the faded upholstered chair beside the fireplace with a flounce.

  Charlotte set aside the letter she had been writing to her cousin Mary Emerson in London, abandoned the writing desk, and walked to the settee, knowing all too well that she would be unable to complete her correspondence now that her sister had joined her. In lieu of paper and quill, she picked up a cup and saucer from the mismatched tea set on the tray beside the settee. The cup was empty. She felt the pot; it had gone cold. Such a bother.

  She rang the bell for beverage reinforcements, lowered herself to the settee, and regarded the room. She had to admit that it was rather dreadful, the furniture worn, and the rented cottage small, but at least she had such comforts, and two servants as well.

  “I do intend to sit here in this room, for, despite its faults, I find it rather pleasant.”

  Indeed, it was the loveliest room in her cottage. Two comfortable chairs with curving wooden arms flanked a cream-colored settee, which had probably been white at one time. The seating area was situated in front of a modest but cheery hearth, and an old writing desk was tucked between two windows, facing south and opening toward an herb garden. As the sun made its course through the sky each day, it brightened the room and nurtured the plants outside and the occupants inside.

  “How dull.” Maria, who obviously did not feel nurtured by the small room, practical furnishings, or the sunlight, clucked her tongue as she glanced around her.

  “I much prefer the quiet life, and now that Mr. Collins has gone to his reward, I feel that I deserve mine. I shall enjoy my little home and meager income, and I shall live out my days as a very eccentric old widow.”

  “Old? Bah! You are but five-and-thirty years old, and that is not so very aged.” Maria leaned forward. “You must get out into society again.”

  Charlotte reclined against the settee. “Must I?”

  “Indeed, sister, for you have worn your widow’s weeds far longer than required, and you of all people deserve a happy existence after living with such an odious man as Mr. Collins.”

  Charlotte smiled at her sister, wishing for her sake that the world worked in such a manner, that people actually received that which they deserved, and knowing it never would. Maria had reached her early twenties and remained unmarried, but still she retained the hopefulness and innocence of youth.

  Foolish girl, Charlotte thought as she studied her sister. Maria’s blond hair had slipped its pins and now the loose strands glinted in the firelight. Without so much as checking her own coiffure, Charlotte knew that her dark hair remained neat and precise. She was never anything but neat and precise.

  Maria blew a wisp of hair out of her face. “And it would fit in with my plans.”

  Charlotte narrowed her eyes. This certainly did not bode well, and she meant to interrogate her sister immediately, but before she could demand an explanation, the door opened, and Edward entered balancing a tray of fresh tea things.

  Edward Effingham. His name was grander than his intelligence. And even if his family had managed to retain its fortune, he would not have married well. Edward was her housekeeper’s son, a young man of fourteen years with thin strawberry blond hair and a body as sturdy as a fence post. A good servant, he tended to many household dut
ies, but his mind seemed to be caught somewhere in early childhood.

  He walked into the room with slow, metered steps and placed the tray on the table as though he carried royal porcelain and not chipped pieces from Charlotte’s old set.

  He made a deep bow and rather than exiting the room unobtrusively, he said, “Mama told me to make certain that your tea is properly set for you, Mrs. Collins. She told me not to open my mouth and speak a word to you, but I cannot know if the tray pleases you without asking, can I?”

  Charlotte cast a cursory glance at the teapot and fresh cups. “Everything is as it should be. Thank you, Edward.”

  He grinned in relief and exited the room without remembering to take the old tea tray with him. The door closed with a click behind him as he returned to Mrs. Eff in the kitchen. Charlotte turned her attention back to her sister. She had been watching Edward’s departure as well.

  “He’s forgotten the old tea tray,” Maria said. “He is not the brightest lad, is he?”

  “No, but he is kind, and that often makes up for mental facility.” Moreover, Charlotte was grateful for her servants. Her family had been unable to afford much household help, and so she, Maria, and her other siblings had often been required to prepare meals or beat rugs. She certainly did not desire a return to household chores. She added, “Besides, he and Mrs. Eff have released me from most of the kitchen drudgery.”

  “It is nice to live in a home in which I am not required to cook.” Maria’s face had turned wistful, reminding Charlotte that something was amiss. “I wish to have servants of my own one day.”

  “Yes, now, tell me of these plans to which you have so subtly alluded.”

  “I know that my visit was intended to endure only a few months, but…” Here Maria paused dramatically and mustered a pouty expression. Trouble was certainly afoot. “I had hoped that I might come to reside with you here in Westerham. Mama and Papa are ever so feeble, and they have made arrangements for our brothers and sisters. I am the only child who was to remain at home. However, they will never again make proper chaperones, and I shall have no hope of meeting a gentleman suitable for marriage unless I can move about in society. I am virtually an old maid, you know.”