Charlotte’s cook prepared a simple meal, made aware that both Ellie and Elizabeth needed time to adjust tofood so very different from the shellfish they had become accustomed to. Just the three of them, Charlotte, Lizzie and Ellie sat to table. Major Grant took his meal at the fort.
“Lizzie, there’s much I wish to know of your journey. But, before you begin, please don’t think the less of me.” Charlotte and Elizabeth sat in a small parlour, which overlooked Algoa Bay. Ellie, so very young and quite worn-out, had gone early to bed.
“Whatever do you mean, Charlotte?” Elizabeth paused. “Oh, I suppose ‘tis about you and Major Grant.”
Charlotte nodded, turned to look out the window, her face flushed.
“I believe he’s a good man,” said Elizabeth, “though I knew him only briefly in Madeira. It’s obvious he cares very much for you. Oh, Charlotte, as long as you’re happy, ‘tis all I care about.”
“Is that really so, Lizzie? You are now so high, married to Mr. Darcy, lieutenant governor of New South Wales. Surely you understand how English society would shun me if they knew my situation.”
Elizabeth grasped Charlotte’s hands. “You think I could disdain you? Never. I’ve just walked through your town, my breasts exposed, my chemise worn and threadbare, and my apron scarcely modest. I was to be married to a Xhosa chief—and, if we had not found a turtle nest, I had resolved to turn inland and be wed—because Ellie and little Ben were starving. Society would condemn me for it, though initially they may have had some sympathy, but only for salacious amusement at my having been taken by anoble savage. No, Charlotte, we women endure all manner of ills. That is all I know.”
She gently wiped a tear from Charlotte’s cheek. “Please, tell me of Mr. Collins. I was selfish and fled Meryton, leaving you to wed him, when, according to the law, it wasmyduty. Youmust have endured so very much.”
“Oh, he was an awful man. You had the right of it, Lizzie, when you left Meryton. Fool me! I could only see what a prize being mistress of Longbourn was and never took the time to see the cost of winning that prize. Mr. Collins was uncouth; his language base—how he came to be a clergyman? I do not know!”
Charlotte took a sip of tea; poured another cup for Elizabeth. She continued,
“But if that were all, then between Sir William and me, we could have managed him. Maybe improved his speech, introduced him to more refined, genteel society. Hah! He thought himself already so smart that none could teach him anything. Where had he got the notion that a country squire was as high as nobility? He would have the best—furniture, ostentatious decoration, the coach and four. And the meals! Lizzie, your mother set a good table, but she also knew economy and prudence. I tried my best, but he insisted on inviting our neighbours to lavish dinners and other entertainments. Not just the four and twenty in the neighbourhood, but as far away as Hatfield, St. Albans, and even Luton.”
“Upon my word, Charlotte,” said Elizabeth, “the estate could not bear such expense, for it was also supporting the Bennets in the dower house.”
“Indeed,” replied her friend, “and that was our doom. He had no understanding of finance or rents and leases; that Longbourn was owned by a trust and not by the tenant living in the manor. So he borrowed—the income from the farms paid the interest—but the debt grew through his egregious expenditure until the banks would lend no more and demanded he repay what he owed.”
“Oh, my goodness. And that is how you are here, atthe Cape?”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “The creditors came, pounding on the door, demanding payment. Sir William did his best to put them off, but piece by piece they took away our furniture and the cattle from the home farm. Collins, the coward that he is, would hide in the attic. But even he saw that he would soon be sent to Marshalsea as a debtor.”
“And you, Charlotte, surely you wouldn’t have gone with him!”
“One night, Mr. Collins had the remaining horses put to the carriage—it was only a matter of days before the creditors came for the equipage—and we drove to London. He had contacts in the London Missionary Society and saw an opportunity to escape the law in England. As his wife, I felt my duty was to accompany him.”
“You need not tell me the rest if it’s too painful.”
“Oh, Lizzie, nothing to the hardships you have endured. But, I must confess, it was hard enough. We took ship to Cape Town, and thence the journey by bullock wagon to Bethelsdorp, a missionary station some nine miles from here. At the Cape, I heard much against Bethelsdorp, and it was, indeed, a most miserable place. The houses are mean in the extreme, and the ground on which it stands is barren, so that nothing green is to be seen near the houses. There are neither trees nor gardens to relieve the eye. But all this would have been nothing if Mr. Collins had not shown his true base nature.”
“Charlotte, he is depraved? You poor, poor dear.”
“Oh, I knew he had appetites, for I had to endure him most nights of our marriage. Even during my courses.”
Elizabeth was only shocked that Collins had been a clergyman, for she knew from her time as counsellor and midwife that many men cared little for the disposition of their wives.
“You’re not shocked, Elizabeth. How so?”
“Later, I’ll explain, but I’m also a midwife. There’s little about the carelessness of men that I do not know.”
“Midwife? If you were to stay here in the district, you would have much business—the women are cared for very ill. But I digress. Mr. Collins found the nakedness of the young girls too much temptation. We had been at Bethelsdorp for only a week when he began interfering with them. At first, a touch here, an indecent hand wandering where it shouldn’t. But when he told a girl, perhaps no more than fourteen years old, that she should go with him… I will not say more, but the brethren forced him to quit the place.”
Charlotte leant back in her chair, gazing out of the window at the bay, where some whales lazily spun and twisted in the water.
“He was a silly man and determined to go into the veld—to save the heathen souls and show the brethren they were wrong to censure him; he would found his own mission and lead the Xhosa to Jesus—as if he knew the Lord! Lizzie, I refused to go. He had broken his vows to love and cherish me. In my heart, I am no longer his wife—I keep his name, for that is how people know me. Major Grant and I will wed. We are prepared to wait the seven years for his legal death, but sooner maybe, God willing. So, there you have it.”
She gave Elizabeth a heartfelt hug—such relief to talk of her shame.
“Now, when the Major returns, but perhaps on the morrow, you shall tell of your great adventure and how you came to care for the young girl, Ellie, and the dog—Bumper?—who lazes in my kitchen by the hearth.”
***
