“Most things are.” Mrs Waites picked up her rolling pin again and began to work. Her hands moved quickly, but her eyes were trained on Charlotte. “And how fares Miss Bennet?”
Charlotte flinched. She had expected the question but the feelings she had been repressing for the last few hours roared back, hitting her with all the force of a hammer. “She is very well,” she managed, before a lump welled up in her throat. “That is… I mean—”
“Your husband was a good man, Mrs Collins.” The cook sighed. “A kind man, though not without his faults, as you well know. And yet in four years the only times I’ve seen you so animated and lively were those occasions when either of the Miss Bennets was around, and lately, the latter made you smile far more.”
Shock fizzed through Charlotte’s veins. She put the rest of the biscuit down.
“Do not be angry with me, please,” Mrs Waites added quickly, seeing her expression. “If I have missed the target, I do apologise.”
“You have hit it squarely,” Charlotte admitted, after a moment’s hesitation. She was too tired to concoct any sort of lie, nor could she easily evade the insinuation. “I hadn’t realised I was so transparent.”
The cook took a deep breath and lowered her voice, though they were the only two in the house. “On your first day, you asked me to always be honest with you, and I’ve never had reason to do otherwise in all these years. It isn’t my place to speak on your life or what choices you may feel compelled to make in future, but…it was nice to see you truly happy for once. That’s all. And when Miss Bennet asked me for the rum cake recipe, well.” She shrugged. “She cares for you a great deal. An unusual girl, but a kind one. What I’m saying is, not all flowers thrive in the sunshine, ma’am. Some need the shade to flourish. Do you understand?”
The silence between them dragged on. The rolling pin went back and forth, back and forth, until Charlotte began to feel slightly seasick. Tears blurred her vision. “I did try to be a good wife,” she admitted. “I had hoped if I tried hard enough, I would be.”
“You were not simply good, you were perfect,” Mrs Waites declared. “Nobody ever had a bad word to say about you, least of all Mr Collins.”
“But I never loved him, and now I am in love with someone else only months after his death.” She sniffed, and rummaged in her pocket for a handkerchief. “Does that not make me callous? Heartless?”
“It makes you human.” Mrs Waites smiled. “Go on, finish your biscuit. Now, in the spirit of honesty, for you did ask me to—”
“How can I forget when you remind me so frequently?” Charlotte muttered, a trifle sulkily.
“Perhaps you could tell me a little of what transpired, and I can try to help you untangle the knot.”
Charlotte heaved a reluctant sigh, then a second, before offering a condensed version of the tale. “And so, you see,” she complained, “Miss Bennet put me in an impossible position. I could never let it be known that I had accepted a job, for society would judge my family harshly. I also do not wish to lie to my parents, though I admit I do not want to live with them again.”
The silence lengthened. “I’m afraid that I must side with Miss Bennet.”
“But the pressures upon me!” Charlotte spluttered, rising to her feet and wringing her hands. “My parents, and the circles they move in, to say nothing of the wider—”
“I’ve always liked you, ma’am.” Mrs Waites’ mouth was set in a hard line. “You were kind to a fault, always anxious to please and be pleased in turn. But you don’t have half the senseI thought you did, if you’d throw away your own true happiness for the perceived happiness of others.”
Charlotte gaped at her, outraged. “You must see that it would be impossible for me to accept a paid position.”
“I see nothing of the sort. Difficult, certainly. Impossible? No.”
“Well, I—” She cleared her throat. “Semantics do not change facts, Mrs Waites.”
The cook arched an eyebrow. “The trouble with your class, ma’am, is that they are so concerned with doing what is perceived as right, that they do not consider who set the standard in the first place, nor why.”
Charlotte opened her mouth, thought better of it, and closed it again. “I will concede that I have been perhaps a little too honour-bound in my thinking, but I maintain that is no bad thing. However you argue it, you must agree that my duty is to my parents, to protect them from any harm as they have protected me throughout my life.” She bit back tears of shame. “They accepted my limitations and did not pressure me to marry, when most other parents thought of little else. I love them dearly, and the thought of being another kind of disappointment to them is more than I can bear.”
This was the truth, which she had never shied from, though she had never stated it so boldly before. Mrs Waites came around the table and folded Charlotte into her arms, letting Charlotte drop great rivulets of tears onto the cook’s apron.
“There, there,” Mrs Waites murmured, and eventually Charlotte quietened, wiping her streaming nose on her sleeve. “My husband is long dead and I’ll not meet him again in this life,” the cook went on, catching and holding Charlotte’s gaze with a new intensity, “but I’ve been given a second chance at love and I intend to grab it with both hands. Do you know what I would give to have one more moment with my David? If your young lady died tonight, perish the thought, what would youregret? Saying something, or not saying it? What would you do with a second chance?” Mrs Waites clucked in disapproval. “And don’t tell me there’s nothing you’d do differently. I wasn’t born yesterday, ma’am.”
The retort died on Charlotte’s tongue. She pictured Mary, cold and dead, lying pale against the silken inlay of a casket. Grief bubbled in her chest, threatening to submerge her. “Oh,” she gasped, and leaned against the table. Her knees were weak, unable to support her weight. “I do believe I have made a terrible mistake.”
“Mistakes can be undone, ma’am. Death cannot be.”
Charlotte sank back into the chair and pressed two fingers to her temple, which had begun to throb. “How did you get to be so wise?”
“It’s all the salt, ma’am,” Mrs Waites said, her lips twitching. “It has preserved my sagacity for many a long year. And while I cannot speak for all families, for some do hold to different values and traditions, I know that if you were my daughter I would want only your health and happiness. Remember I talked of my son, James?”
“Yes, but I do not see what he has to do with—” Charlotte blinked, the memory of their previous conversation seen through an entirely new light. “Wait, are you saying… And his friend whom you spoke of, were they… Oh, good Lord.” She buried her face in her hands. “You must have thought me so ignorant of the world.”
“A little naivety is not a bad thing, Mrs Collins. Perhaps before you make a hasty decision, you might speak with your family. Ask for their blessing. Surely it is worth a try.”
