The Lovesick Maid Read online

  The Lovesick Maid

  (Charlotte Collins Mysteries - Book 1)

  A Pride and Prejudice Sequel

  A novella by Mark Brownlow

  Lost Opinions e.U.

  The Lovesick Maid

  © 2018 Mark Brownlow

  All rights reserved, US Copyright Office Reg: TX 8-542-241

  Electronic Edition

  ISBN: 978-3-903230-02-6 (ebook)

  Author: Mark Brownlow

  Cover design: James, GoOnWrite.com

  Editing: Sarah Pesce, Lopt & Cropt Editing Services

  Formatting: Polgarus Studio

  Publisher: Lost Opinions e.U.

  Paschinggasse 8/28

  1170 Vienna

  Austria

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, the product of Jane Austen’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. With the exception of passing references to well-known historical personalities or events, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  For more Austenesque creations, see:

  Web: lostopinions.com

  Twitter: @markbrownlow

  Facebook: facebook.com/lostopinions/

  For M and P

  Table of Contents

  A Rector’s Wife

  Staircase Encounters

  Return to the Booths’

  Mr Collins Makes a Discovery

  A Fine Lady

  Declining Prospects

  An Explanation

  Setting a Trap

  Confrontation

  The Foolishness of Men (and Women)

  The Harvest Festival

  Preview of Book Two

  Fiction by Mark Brownlow

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  A Rector’s Wife

  If a marriage is to succeed, then a wife must encourage her husband to pursue those interests likely to keep him engaged for long periods of time. Gardening and reading are excellent choices. One removes him from the house in spring, summer, and autumn. The other—given an ample supply of books and a warm library—occupies him during winter. And so the peace of the household is preserved all year, and a wife may go about her life without distraction.

  As it happens, Mr William Collins was a keen gardener with a particular fondness for hedges. On one warm afternoon in September, the raucous sound of his snores had long replaced the gentle click of his pruning shears. He lay at the end of his garden, lulled into slumber by soft grass, clear skies, and an alarming quantity of apple pie.

  Returning from a short stroll in the meadows behind the house, Charlotte Collins eased the back gate shut, then circled the prone figure before her like a sculptor assessing her latest work. She stooped to brush away a leaf that had settled on her husband’s hair, gave a nod of satisfaction, then walked on through the fruit trees, vegetable beds, and animal pens to reach the rear entrance of the parsonage. This led her directly into the kitchen.

  “Should your master ask, I am out visiting the Booths.”

  “Very good, Mrs Collins,” said Molly, hands punishing a lump of dough. “When might we expect you back?”

  “I shall not be long. An hour or two at the very most. And certainly in time for dinner. Is it fish?”

  “It is. If Agnes ever finishes.” Molly glanced over at the other servant, busy teasing the bones from a trout with exaggerated care. “I hope young Mary Booth is on the mend. They’ll not keep her position open forever.”

  “Ain’t nothing that will cure her sickness,” said Agnes.

  “You should show a little more faith,” said Charlotte. “Especially when your employer is a rector.”

  Agnes put down her knife and twisted toward her mistress, face crimson. “Begging your pardon, Mrs Collins, I did not intend it so.”

  “What Agnes meant to say,” said Molly, pausing to give the dough a moment’s respite, “is that Mary’s ailment is one of the head and heart. And when I say heart, Mrs Collins…” The cook raised her eyebrows meaningfully.

  “Molly Jennings,” said Charlotte. “You do not mean to suggest that Mary is…with child?”

  “Goodness, no, Mrs Collins.” Now it was the cook’s turn to blush. “Just that she is, well, you know how girls are. Fancy themselves in love. Think the world is ending just ’cause some young man won’t pay them attention.”

  “I see. Well, her heart will not heal any faster with everyone gossiping about it.”

  The two servants mumbled apologies as Charlotte left them to their tasks. Out in the hall, she paused a moment as giggles and the light tones of excited conversation rose up behind the kitchen door. Shaking her head, face caught somewhere between a smile and a frown, she went in search of a shawl.

  On leaving the house, Charlotte turned left to make her way up the High Lane that would take her into the village of Hunsford. Behind her, the front of the parsonage was a sea of gravel that ended with neat flower beds below white window frames. Ivy spread along the walls, its dark greens and reds lapping over the brickwork and around the door with its bright brass knocker shaped like a sun. In the distance, she could already see the two huge lions that flanked the entrance to the Rosings estate. A path from the parsonage to the lions—discernible even where it crossed the ruts made by the carts and horses that travelled on into the centre of Hunsford—spoke of Mr Collins’s many trips to see his patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

  As Charlotte reached the two giant cats hewn from stone, she could almost hear her husband’s urgent tones. “Make haste, dear, make haste. We dare not be late. Lady Catherine abhors lateness and we must not disappoint her.”

  This time, however, Charlotte did not turn onto the drive that led to the de Bourghs’ great home. Instead, she carried on up the lane until she arrived at the large oak that guarded the entrance to East Street and the Booths’ cottage. The tree stood like an old soldier, ever alert, but bent and scarred by age.

  Her final destination was midway up a row of workers’ cottages, their rear gardens almost touching the boundary of the Rosings woodlands. Nobody would have described Lady Catherine as truly generous and she considered the word “progressive” a grievous insult, but the mistress of Rosings held fast to the traditional debt of care to those who depended on her. The houses were small but well-maintained, the gardens meagre, but enough to grow a few vegetables and raise a chicken or two.

  The Booth cottage was easy to spot, with its small wooden awning around the front door, half-covered in a wild vine that stretched its way up and across the front of the building. The leaves were just beginning their journey toward the deep crimson of autumn.

  “It is kind of you to call on us, Mrs Collins, what with my Mary in such poor spirits,” said Mrs Booth as she opened the door to Charlotte’s knock. She was only a few years older than her visitor, but, beneath her cap, slashes of grey already coloured inky hair. Much of her beauty had faded with the burdens of motherhood, the creases around her eyes a monument to the children she had lost. Only Mary had survived.

  Inside the cottage, Charlotte’s eye fell on the smooth surface and rounded limbs of a table not yet pockmarked by use. Mr Booth had once spent time apprenticed to a carpenter, and Lady Catherine often allowed him timber from the estate. No other footman at Rosings was married or allowed to sleep outside the servants’ quarters. It was unclear quite why Mr Booth enjoyed such favour, or even why he always seemed to be ‘Mr Booth’ and never ‘Adam,’ except to his wife. The most popular thesis among patrons of the village inn was that he had earned all these privileges by once saving the late Sir Lewis de Bourgh from a compromising encounter with a visiting lady. Her exact rank w
ould grow in status with each round of ale—by the end of the evening, she was usually a Duchess.

  Mary Booth sat in an armchair near the fireplace, hands clasped on her lap, a woollen blanket drawn up about her chest. She started at Charlotte’s touch on her shoulder.

  “My dear, you are still unwell?”

  “Just a little tired, thank you, Mrs Collins. Perhaps it is the change of season.”

  “Let me have a look at you. Turn into the light.” Charlotte winced at the ashen hue of the young woman’s skin, made worse by dark, sunken eyes. She thought back to the spring and how Mary, just turned seventeen, had danced with Mr Collins at the May festival—all laughter and innocent joy as she blossomed into womanhood. The experience had left the rector quite flushed. “You look pale, Mary, paler than you should be at the end of summer, even for a maid. Do you feel any malaise? Any disaffection or complaint?”

  “No, Mrs Collins. Just tired. Don’t feel much like doing nothing but sleep.”

  Charlotte placed her hand on Mary’s, fingers tightening around something hard and unyielding. Mary opened her palm to reveal a small limewood figure with a five-pointed crown on its head. “My pa made it for me when I was little.”

  “Fathers.” Mrs Booth patted Mary on the shoulder. “Always wanting the best for their daughters.”

  “That is as it should be,” said Charlotte. “Though whether they know what is best is quite another matter.” She folded Mary’s hand back around the wooden carving. “I saw a real prince once. In London. Mind you, he had a waistcoat instead of robes. And a few more pounds about his stomach. Your prince is certainly more handsome. You would do well to keep him.”

  “It is not a prince I wish for, though.” Mary’s eyes glistened, and she turned her head away.

  Charlotte drew Mrs Booth to one side. “Have you given her anything, any tonics or draughts?” she said, keeping her voice low.

  “Just a drop of infusion from Sarah Littleworth to bring the blush back to her face.”

  “It is not working.”

  “She’s not been taking it long.”

  “Good, then perhaps it will improve her. And you are well? Your husband, too?”

  “As healthy as can be. As for Adam, it is enough to be dealing with the needs of the great house, but those young footmen will be the death of him. Too many dreamers among them, you see? You have to work hard to make something of yourself in this life. Though a junior footman at Rosings is a fine situation for any young man. It was good enough for Adam when he started out.”

  “What do you think might ail your daughter?”

  “I don’t rightly know.” Mrs Booth rubbed her hands together as if washing them. “But it will surely pass.” She said the last words tremulously, her certainty perhaps challenged by the memory of three sons taken by the fever.

  “You must worry, though,” said Charlotte. “I recall Mama would fret at every illness that befell us as children, and often fall ill herself once we were returned to good health.”

  “Well, you know how it is when you are a mother, Mrs Collins.” Mrs Booth’s hand half rose toward her mouth and her cheeks reddened.

  “I can certainly imagine how it is.” Charlotte’s face hardened for only a moment. “And you are sure it is just a sickness of the body? That there is not something else that disturbs her? People can be cruel to young women—and young women can be cruel to themselves.”

  “No…nothing of that nature, Mrs Collins.” The hesitation that preceded the answer suggested there might be some truth to Agnes and Molly’s speculations, but Charlotte chose not to press the point any further. “Like I say, I am sure it will pass. But we are much obliged for your visit.” Mrs Booth raised her voice. “I was just telling Mrs Collins how grateful we are for her attention.”

  Mary did not respond, and the slow rise and fall of her chest hinted that sleep had taken her again.

  “When next at Rosings, I will ask Mr Booth how it goes with you. We will see Mary up and about before too long.” Charlotte did not smile, though, as she spoke.

  ~ ~ ~

  Back at the parsonage, a narrow opening at the bottom of a front window suggested Mr Collins had risen from his bed of grass. He always left the window ajar when working. It allowed him to catch the sound of a vehicle so he might rush out and mark the passing of a Rosings guest or—if the day was particularly blessed—one of the two Rosings ladies, Lady Catherine or Miss de Bourgh. He paid the price of his curiosity in cold air and draughts. There was a notable dip in the hedge where he rested his arms, head craning to see a carriage bearing some great personage to or from his patroness’s residence.

  As his wife entered the house, Mr Collins poked his head around the doorway to the study, one hand on the frame, the rest of him hidden.

  “My dear,” said Charlotte. “You have been working hard on your sermon?”

  “The burden of the pulpit is a heavy one and I must preserve my reputation as a master of the spoken word. My congregation expects the very highest standard of oratory accomplishment. The church expects it. And, most importantly, Lady Catherine expects it. The good Lord has allowed me to inspire strong feelings in others, and I am duty bound to apply this gift with the utmost dedication.”

  “I am sure they will all be as impressed as they are every Sunday,” said Charlotte.

  “Molly tells me you were at the Booths. How is young…” The rector’s mouth opened and shut a few times. “Betty?”

  “Mary?”

  “Mary, yes, Mary, of course.”

  “She is well enough, though not herself.”

  “Not sickening from some fever, then?”

  “No, nothing of that nature.”

  “Good, excellent.” The head and hand disappeared, then all of Mr Collins entered the hall. “The villagers are always fearful of sickness spreading. Such is their concern that it often prevents them attending church. It only takes a maidservant to complain of a headache on Saturday and the pews are half empty on Sunday.”

  “Although, when I consider how Mary looked…” said Charlotte, face wistful. Mr Collins took a step back. “But, no, it is surely nothing.”

  “My dear?”

  “It is just…poor spirits alone, whatever the cause, should not leave her in quite such a condition.”

  “Do not alarm yourself on that account.” Mr Collins pulled himself up to his full height. “A disturbed mind may easily find physical expression, especially in the female sex. Fordyce has written extensively on the matter. Young women are particularly prone to labour under dark thoughts and sentiments. It is in their very nature.”

  “Then I shall bow to Fordyce’s wisdom,” said Charlotte. “He married late and had no children, did he not?”

  “A circumstance that allowed him to write with clarity and objectivity.”

  “As you say, husband. We are fortunate his judgment remained unsullied by experience.” Charlotte removed her shawl. “I thought I might visit Rosings tomorrow and speak with Adam Booth, perhaps see if there is something we might do for the family.”

  “Is that wise?” Mr Collins placed his palms together as if preparing to pray. “Lady Catherine does not wholly approve of such casual visits. Nor would she be pleased at your conversing at length with one of her servants. We have spoken of this before.”

  “You are right, husband, but it is not the main purpose of my visit. Indeed, it is through my wish to please Lady Catherine that I make the proposal. If you recall, she mentioned my last rendition of Haydn was a trifle pianissimo.”

  “She did?” Mr Collins’s eyes widened in alarm.

  “With Mrs Jenkinson visiting her sister in London, now is an opportune time to go to Rosings and use her instrument for practice. I believe Lady Catherine would very much approve.”

  “Indeed, she would most assuredly approve. Your dedication does you much credit. Heaven forbid that your playing should displease Lady Catherine—you must practice as often as you deem necessary.”

  “It i
s a difficult piece; I will need to spend many hours at the pianoforte. It may also mean I am unable to dine with you tomorrow.”

  Mr Collins placed a hand on his wife’s arm. “You must bear the sacrifice with fortitude, my dear. As for myself, your absence is one I welcome for the pleasure of hearing you entertain Lady Catherine in a most accomplished manner at some later date.”

  “You are wise, husband. I shall do as you say and go up to Rosings tomorrow, in the early afternoon.”

  Staircase Encounters

  If a marriage is to succeed, then a wife must also pursue those interests likely to keep her engaged for long periods of time. Charlotte had become a frequent visitor to Rosings Park ever since Lady Catherine said she might practise on a pianoforte in the room of Miss de Bourgh’s companion, Mrs Jenkinson. The regular absences from the parsonage improved both her playing and her peace of mind.

  Charlotte hummed a tune to herself as she wandered along the drive to the great house, the trees and hedging hiding all but a promising sliver of building ahead. The oaks, beeches and hazels eventually thinned, though, to finally reveal the full majesty of Rosings. As many as a hundred windows looked down on Charlotte as she walked between statues and stone urns to reach the house, then climbed the steps to the huge front entrance. High above her, the sun glinted off the open tower on the roof, its classical beauty designed to echo the palaces of Rome.

  Adam Booth opened the door to her, still a bear of a man despite his years.

  “Good day, Mr Booth.”

  He glanced behind her. “Mrs Collins.”

  “I am quite alone, unless you count Mr Haydn.” Charlotte held up her sheet music as she stepped inside.

  “Will the Austrian gentleman be joining us from Vienna?” Mr Booth’s face showed no sign of humour, anchored as it was in the trained inscrutability of a first footman.