How could I explain to her that what she saw was his anxiousness to please, to have the proper behavior? What she saw was his clergyman face that sometimes exhausted him? But it was also his true joy and pride in his life.
“Yes, he can be ridiculous,” I said in a low tone. “But look how he has insisted on carrying everyone’s holly and ivy.” I smiled. “That is not nothing, Lizzy.”
I saw her lovely face turn to look at where Mr. Radcliffe had barely anything in his arms, more occupied with explaining to Anne how his hunting dogs would have taken that hill.
“That’s true,” Lizzy said. “If I could only believe you were truly happy, Charlotte!”
“I can only say,” I began, halting, “that I respect Mr. Collins more every day.”
“Oh, you make it sound like a chore, Charlotte!” she cried.
I bit back my retort.
Was it a chore when you husband lowered you into his lap and kissed you with a single-minded devotion? Made you feel that, for the first time, you were a desirable woman?
“I am not of a very demonstrative nature,” I said. “But it is not a chore.”
9
“If you are feeling tempted to excess romanticism, take some calves’ foot jelly. Be sure to boil the calves’ feet thoroughly first or you may find it has the opposite effect.”
-Lady Catherine de Bourgh
After we had decorated Rosings with the ivy and evergreen branches, Mr. Collins and I headed home in the growing twilight.
It had been an exhausting day and I was surprised when my husband headed back outside. I had been looking forward to working on his Sunday sermon together.
But he was not gone long when I was startled by a tremendous scuffling at the door, and great thumps that almost shook the snug parsonage.
I put my work down and ran to the door, only barely getting it open before my husband burst through, hauling a big sawed-off fir tree behind him.
“What isthat,my dear William?” I cried.
Great clumps of snow had settled on his shaggy dark head.
“It’s a Christmas tree,” he said, grinning ear to ear, his smile infectious. “We could do no better than to follow our dear Queen Charlotte’s example and put one up this Christmas! I feel like I have so much to be thankful for.”
He paused to set the tree down. It was big. It was snowy. It would leave little needles all over the house.
But then he said, “Merry Christmas Eve, best of wives. Pearl beyond price! Jewel of my heart! I love you, Charlotte.”
And I couldn’t resist him.
“I love you too,” I said, and I felt the stars shining out of my eyes.
“Did that seem healthful, my dear?”my husband asked me later, as he always did.
I hesitated.
But then I gathered my bravery together, and suddenly I did not feel as nervous. Williamlovedme.
“No,” I said.
He turned his head to me, startled. “No?” he asked.
I met his eyes. He really had the most beautiful gray eyes.
“I don’t see why we have to rush through it,” I said, putting a tentative hand on his broad chest. “I think I’d like to do it more slowly.”
