There is a dinner at the Lucases’. Charlotte spends most of that day too listening to Collins.
Elizabeth thanks her friend. It keeps him in good humour, Charlotte says, and she is more obliged than she can express.
The One Who Listens
The kindness reached further than Elizabeth had any conception of.
Charlotte’s object was to turn Collins’s attentions toward herself and so keep Elizabeth safe from a second application.
The scheme was going well.
When they parted that night she would have felt nearly secure of it. What worried her was only that he was to leave Hertfordshire so soon.
She need not have worried.
Waiting in the Lane
The next morning Collins escapes Longbourn without his cousins seeing him. He hurries to Lucas Lodge.
Charlotte sees him from an upper window as he comes up the road.
She leaves the house at once and goes into the lane. So that the meeting will look like an accident.
The book does not hide that it was nothing of the kind.
In as short a time as Collins’s long speeches allow, everything between them is settled, to the satisfaction of both.
Her parents consent with joy. For a daughter to whom they can give little fortune, Collins as he now stands is an eligible match.
I Am Not Romantic
A few days later Charlotte comes to Longbourn herself. This news she wants to deliver in her own voice.
Engaged to Mr. Collins, Elizabeth cries before she can stop herself. It is impossible.
Charlotte’s face does not move.
Why should she be surprised, she asks. Does she find it incredible that Mr. Collins should procure any woman’s good opinion, because he was not so happy as to succeed with her?
Elizabeth recovers herself and wishes her every happiness. Her voice was only just steady.
Charlotte goes on.
“I am not romantic, you know. I never was. I ask only a comfortable home.” (Chapter 22)
Considering Collins’s character, connections and situation in life, she says, her chance of happiness with him is as fair as most people can boast on entering the marriage state.
Elizabeth answers quietly. Undoubtedly.
Then there is an awkward pause.
The Reckoning at Twenty-Seven
Charlotte’s arithmetic is set down by the book itself.
Collins is neither sensible nor agreeable. His society is irksome, and his attachment to her must be imaginary.
Still he would be her husband.
Without thinking highly of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been her object. It was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune.
It gives no guarantee of happiness. It is simply the pleasantest preservative from want.
Now she has that preservative. At twenty-seven, and never having been handsome, she knows exactly how much good luck this amounts to.
One thing troubled her. Elizabeth would be surprised, and would probably blame her.
Her resolution was not to be shaken. It was only that this particular disapproval would hurt.
Today, Choosing from Somewhere Else
This chapter passes no judgment.
Whether Charlotte was right or wrong the book does not say. It sets her reckoning down item by item and moves on.
There is a reason for leaving it there.
Before asking what Charlotte chose, you have to count what she could have chosen, and that list is shorter than we tend to assume.
We look at other people’s choices and see only the outcome. How many roads were in front of them is something we hardly ever count.
The misreading this series follows passes to the reader here. Reading Charlotte is where Elizabeth fails in the next chapter, and it is a failure available to us just as we sit here.
When you look at someone’s choice, do you count what they could have chosen first?