Elizabeth Newark - The Darcys Give a Ball

“In her bodice? Oh, horror! A wonder she did not run mad!”

“I should have fainted, I am quite sure!”

“Indeed, yes. Poor, poor Juliet!”

It was felt a thoroughly reasonable explanation. Only Elizabeth, joining her husband and her daughter, as they reentered the ballroom, looked at him and then at Charlotte with her eyebrows raised.

Charlotte pressed Juliet’s hand, and Mr. Darcy handed over his semi-restored daughter to the eager attentions of Colin Knightley. Juliet clung to Colin’s arm in a manner very pleasing to him. He felt strong and protective. Excitement had taken its toll and his quiet voice and deferential manner were exactly what Juliet needed. Colin led her to the refreshment table and plied her with fruit cup. Juliet, still somewhat dizzy with the concentration of events, was yet able to notice that the cup tasted quite different from that urged upon her by Walter Elliot. She was spoiled, but not a fool when not ruled by her vanity. She began to understand that she had been artfully encouraged in a certain line of conduct. The cure had been drastic indeed, but the need had been dire. And there was a brighter side. Though in a rather different way than she had hoped, she was indeed ending the ball as a heroine.

Some fifteen minutes later, whirling demurely in Colin Knightley’s arms, Juliet came face to face with Henry and Eliza. Her eyes met Eliza’s, and she smiled. It was a small smile; when she thought of what Eliza had done, she still felt an icy finger stirring the hairs on the back of her neck. But she was beginning to be grateful. It was a new sensation for Juliet Darcy.

Sitting by Elizabeth Darcy, Charlotte pulled from her reticule yet again the note received from the hands of the Longbourn groom, though already she knew it by heart. Mrs. Spong, her housekeeper, wrote in considerable dismay; her handwriting, used more often to inventory linen or jam, was difficult to decipher. But the content was only too plain. Mr. Collins was dead of a heart attack.

“I took him his supper,” wrote Mrs. Spong in a hand that wobbled across the page. “Nothing inflammatory, nothing rich—just a poached sole with parsley sauce and a nice baked apple—he was so fond of a nice baked apple, with honey and a squeeze of lemon juice, the way Cook does them. He was reading earnestly. I put his tray down on the commode and coughed to attract his attention. He started, pulled his eyes from the page and looked up at me. ‘Mrs. Spong,’ he cried. ‘Little Nell is dead!’ And then he clutched his chest, gave a series of deep groans, doubled over—and he died. Oh, Ma’am, I dispatched Reuben at once for Mr. Merryweather, but there was nothing he could do.”

Into Charlotte’s mind came the picture of her husband as she had last seen him, sitting comfortably in bed, propped up by pillows. He had not seemed ill, once the pain in his foot was relieved. But he had seemed somewhat unlike himself. A little forlorn, perhaps? She remembered returning to his bedside to smooth his sheet and pat his hand, as if he were one of the children. Ah, well. Ah, well.

Charlotte broke the news to Elizabeth at supper. “I have not yet told the children. I want them to have this evening as a keepsake, a special memory for them both. I will tell them in the morning. And then we must leave as soon as possible, Elizabeth.”

“Of course, my dear, everything shall be as you wish. But, oh, Charlotte!”

Charlotte felt deeply her wrongdoing both in keeping this shocking news from her children, and in not setting out at once for Longbourn, but she did not want to spoil this rare evening. It meant so much to Eliza, and perhaps (and this was a source of wonder) to Jonathan. “I broke the rules once before, when I set out to catch Mr. Collins; I can do so now, in good cause. We act as we think we must, and have little idea of any but the short-term consequences,” she murmured, her marriage on her mind. “But I should do it again.”

There were no tears in her eyes. She had not wept for her husband’s passing, and this she considered a failing. She felt, she thought, not so much sorrow as a sensation that the ground had rolled out from under her. And her feet were still unsteady. But her children were foremost in her mind.

Charlotte had always done her duty by Mr. Collins. She had given him a comfortable, well-ordered home, such as he had never known. But she had also felt it part of her duty to balance his needs and wishes against those of her children. Always she had given him the respect she felt his due, as her husband and as a clergyman. Mr. Collins was not a man of intelligence or education; at best his temper might be said to be resentful or even sullen, but he was not abusive. He was easily jealous of the children, whose lives were so much happier than his own childhood had been, but he had never struck them, though beatings were commonplace enough in family life. And he was persuadable. Charlotte had learned how best to divert any harshness or injustice to the children that might arise; she cushioned the abrasion between man and child. One by one, she considered her children.

William had not been a problem. He was very much his father’s son. When he was young, he had been something of a bully, but Charlotte had worked to keep that side of his nature in check. With his father’s example before him, he always wished for the instant authority offered by the Church and the opportunity for public display vested in the pulpit. He attended a minor college at Oxford, as his father had done before him, kept the necessary terms, obtained a mediocre degree, was promptly ordained, and had been lucky enough to find a good living, at Highbury.

Mr. Collins saw no reason for Jonathan, who had no turn for the Church, to attend Cambridge as he wished. But Charlotte, recognizing Jonathan’s lively intelligence and knowing it would be good for him to widen his acquaintance and meet men of a different stamp from his father, had fought for him, persuading the father that two college-educated sons would be something of which to boast. Jonathan had done well, and now had friends among many learned biologists, botanists, and geologists, and would soon be working in London as secretary to a professor at the Royal Society.

The only problem with Catherine and Anne was to find them husbands. Mr. Collins thought all women should be married. He saw no purpose for them on earth other than as handmaidens to men; this, he said, was the Will of the Lord. But he disliked the necessary preliminaries, finding the idea of courtship somewhat distasteful when applied to his own daughters, though he could not have explained why. Explanation was not in fact his strong suit; he preferred deferential unquestioning acceptance of his pronouncements. But it was not too difficult for Charlotte to persuade him to allow them to attend assembles and private dances with their Lucas cousins, and to visit with new friends. Catherine was engaged to a very correct young man she met while on holiday at Sanditon; Charlotte encouraged Anne, the less confident of the two, to accompany her sister when she could.

And then there was Eliza. Charlotte smiled to herself as she thought of this particular daughter. Eliza, holding Henry’s hand, had come to her earlier to whisper of their engagement. Then Henry had departed to find his own mother and father. There would be no public declaration at this time, no intrusion on Fitz and Amabel’s glory, but later it would come. Consent had been given. Henry was quietly determined, and his happiness was tangible. And since then Charlotte had spoken with the Darcys, and found them both accepting of this outcome. Mr. Darcy went as far as to say, unexpectedly, that he thought Eliza was a young lady of infinite resource who would be a refreshing addition to the Darcy family. A year’s engagement was suggested, to allow Henry to find his feet, and this was acceptable to all.

What a triumph for Eliza to marry Henry Darcy. How Mr. Collins would have pranced! Charlotte felt a rueful compunction that he should have missed the chance, even as she thought how insufferable he would have made himself to Mr. Darcy. And for Eliza to marry for love, not just for advantage! “I have always had a taste for consequence,” Charlotte admitted to herself. “It is a weakness.” And she remembered advising Elizabeth, at the Netherfield ball all those years ago, not to be a simpleton and allow her liking for Mr.Wickham to make her appear unpleasant in the eyes of Mr. Darcy, a man of ten times his consequence. Her advice would not have changed. How right she had been although, she now admitted, perhaps for the wrong reasons. Elizabeth had fallen in love with Mr. Darcy and married him; her life was a success. Charlotte’s heart was glad for her friend. She herself had never been in love, and her marriage of convenience had served her purpose. But Eliza, her precious Eliza, like Elizabeth before her, had a chance of achieving not just security, but great position and prosperity, with the lasting blessing of true affection.

Elizabeth was speaking to her again. She collected her thoughts.

“You must go tomorrow, of course. But why not leave the children here? Henry will not wish to part with Eliza so soon, and Jonathan has proved so good with Lucy Baluster (such a shy child). They could follow in a day or so, for the funeral.”

Charlotte looked with gratitude at her friend. “That would indeed be acceptable, Elizabeth. There would be no public impropriety. William and Eugenia will have to travel from Highbury; my elder daughters are visiting at Sanditon. They must all be sent for, and it will be quite suitable if they all arrive at much the same time.”