The Clergyman's Wife

  Dedication

  To (all) my parents,

  for putting books in my hands and letting me read them at the dinner table;

  to (my) Jane,

  for inspiring me to try;

  and to Stu,

  for Sundays, and every day

  Epigraph

  Miss Lucas perceived him from an upper window as he walked towards the house, and instantly set out to meet him accidentally in the lane. But little had she dared to hope that so much love and eloquence awaited her there.

  —Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Acknowledgments

  P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*

  About the Author

  About the Book

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  Autumn

  Mr. Collins walks like a man who has never become comfortable with his height: his shoulders hunched, his neck thrust forward. His legs cross great stretches of ground with a single stride. I see him as I pass the bedroom window, and for a moment I am arrested, my lungs squeezing painfully under my ribs, the pads of my fingers pressed against the cool glass. The next moment, I am moving down the stairs, holding my hem above my ankles. When I push open the front door and step out into the lane, I raise my eyes and find Mr. Collins only a few feet distant.

  Mr. Collins sees me and lifts his hat. His brow is damp with the exertion of walking and his expression is one of mingled anticipation and wariness. Seeing it, the tightness in my chest dissipates. Later, when I have time to reflect, I will perhaps wonder how it is possible to simultaneously want something so much and so little, but in the moment before Mr. Collins speaks, as I step toward him through the fallen leaves, I am awash in calm.

  ON THE MORNING of my wedding, my mother dismisses the maid and helps me to dress herself. Lady Lucas is not a woman prone to excessive displays of emotion, but this morning her eyes are damp and her fingers tremble as she smooths the sleeves of my gown. It is only my best muslin, though newly trimmed at the bodice with lace from one of my mother’s old evening dresses. My father went to town the other day, returning with a few cupped hothouse roses, only just bloomed, to tuck into my hair this morning. He offered them to me, his face pink and pleased, and they were so lovely, so evocative of life and warmth even as winter grayed and chilled the landscape outside, that even my mother did not complain about the expense.

  “Very pretty,” my mother says now, and I feel my breath catch and hold behind my breastbone. I cannot recall having heard those particular words from her since I was a small child. I look at my reflection in the glass and there see the same faults—nose too large, chin too sharp, eyes too close together—that I have heard my mother bemoan since it became apparent, when I was about fourteen, that my looks were not going to improve as I grew older. But the flowers in my hair make me appear younger, I think, than my twenty-seven years; I look like a bride. And when I look into my mother’s face now, I find nothing but sincerity.

  My mother blinks too quickly and turns away from me. “We should go down,” she says. She makes for the door, then pauses, turning slowly to face me again.

  “I wish you every happiness,” she says, sounding as though she is speaking around something lodged in her throat. “You have made a very eligible match.”

  I nod, feeling my own throat close off in response, a sensation of helpless choking.

  I AM LARGELY silent during the long, rocking ride into Kent. My new husband speaks enough for both of us; he has an astonishing memory for minutiae and discusses the wedding ceremony in such great detail that I find myself wondering whether he remembers that I was also in attendance. We left for my new home directly from the church; my family and a few friends all crowded, shivering in their cloaks and muffs, outside the entrance, waving as we were driven away. Maria, my sister, cried as I left; my brothers looked solemn, my father beamed, my mother smiled a tremulous smile. My friend Elizabeth’s smile looked as if it had been tacked in place, like a bit of ribbon pinned to a gown but not yet properly sewn on.

  Mr. Collins’s awkward height is emphasized by the cramped conditions of the coach. His long legs stretch out before him as far as they can go, but he still appears to be uncomfortable. The hair at his temples is moist, despite the cold, and I have to glance hastily away, feeling a lurch in my stomach that has nothing to do with the jolting ride.

  HE IS VERY warm beside me in bed. I watch him sleep for a time, tracing the relaxed lines of his face with my eyes and thinking how different he seems without the rather frantic energy he exudes in his waking hours. There is a tension about him, much of the time, that I did not recognize until this moment, until sleep removed it.

  He introduced me when we arrived to the housekeeper, Mrs. Baxter, who is broad and pleasant, and to the gruff, graying manservant, John, whose powerful shoulders are built from years of labor. The parsonage itself is exactly as Mr. Collins described it: small, but neat and comfortable, with surrounding gardens that he assured me would be beautiful come spring. His eagerness to please me was matched by his inability to believe anyone might find fault with his home, and I found his manner at once endeared him to me and irritated me thoroughly.

  Throughout the tour, he pointed out improvements here and there that had been the suggestion of his patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh. There were rather a lot of them.

  At our bedchamber he paused with his palm against the door. “I hope . . . it suits,” he said, then opened the door and bowed me in.

  The room was much like the rest of the house: comfortably furnished, if a trifle small. “Charming,” I said, and pretended not to notice the flush on his cheeks.

  We ate dinner together. I had little appetite, despite the novelty of eating a meal in my own home that I had had no hand in preparing. Afterward, I considered suggesting we adjourn to the parlor but found I could not face the intervening hours between then and bed. Tomorrow I would unpack my books and my embroidery. I would write letters. I would meet Lady Catherine, for Mr. Collins assured me that lady had vowed to have us to tea when we returned to Kent; and I would begin to learn the duties of a clergyman’s wife. But tonight—I wanted only for tonight to be over.

  “I am tired,” I said. “I think I will retire early.”

  Mr. Collins rose from his chair with alacrity. “A fine idea,” he said. “It has been a long day.” And to my consternation, he followed me up the stairs, his footsteps behind me a reminder that it will forever be his right to do with me as he pleases.

  It is
not so terrible, I think after, lying in the quiet dark watching my husband sleep. At my insistence, he allowed me time to change into my nightdress in private. And the rest was vaguely shocking, dreadfully uncomfortable, and far more mess than I had anticipated, but bearable. Mr. Collins, at least, seemed vastly pleased at the end, murmuring affectionate nonsense against my neck until he drifted off to sleep.

  I WAKE BEFORE dawn, and for a moment I imagine I am still at home. There is a presence beside me in the bed, warm and heavy against my back, and I think it is my sister, Maria, until it lets out a gusty snore against the nape of my neck. My eyes open and I find myself staring at an unfamiliar wall covered in delicate floral paper.

  For a moment, I am held immobile by the weight of all the ways in which my life has changed. And then Mr. Collins—William—shifts in his sleep, one heavy arm reaching over my hip, his long fingers brushing my stomach, and I go rigid for the barest of instants. A moment later I force the stiffness from my body, allowing my spine to relax back against my husband’s chest. Exhaling the breath I had been holding, I wait for him to wake.

  I will, no doubt, grow accustomed to mornings begun beside William.

  This is, after all, the life I chose.

  Chapter One

  Spring, Three Years Later

  I stand at the window in my parlor looking out over the rear gardens. From here, I can see William’s beehives and the flower beds just waking from their winter rest. Gravel paths meander throughout the garden; to the right, they curve toward the hedgerows, and onward toward the lane, and to the left, they bend around the side of the house toward the kitchen garden, and the pen where the pig lives, fattening, and the dusty ground where the chickens peck and squawk.

  Behind me on my writing desk, a fresh piece of paper sits ready. The salutation at the top—Dear Elizabeth—has been dry for some time. I never feel the quiet uniformity of my life as fully as when I am trying to compose a letter to my friend. Eliza’s own letters are full of amusing stories about her neighbors, both in Derbyshire and in London; her life seems full to bursting with her husband, her son, her estate, and her rounds of parties and social calls.

  Society here in Hunsford is limited, even by the standards of one who spent her girlhood in modest Meryton. Besides the de Bourghs there is only one truly genteel family with whom we socialize, and though William claims to be comfortable in all circles, he prefers to be among people whose station in life equals, or exceeds, his own; and so we spend much of our time at home, and much of that is spent apart, William keeping mostly to his book room and the garden, and I to my parlor and the nursery. This does not usually bother me, for it is easy to fill my hours with things that need doing. There is always the menu to plan, the accounts to balance, the kitchen garden to tend. I embroider a great deal more than I used to, and my designs have improved, I think. But descriptions of embroidery do not an amusing letter make.

  This afternoon, we are expected at Rosings Park for tea. Perhaps, I think with a touch of hopefulness, Lady Catherine will share some wisdom that Elizabeth might appreciate.

  THE DRAWING ROOM at Rosings Park is silent but for the sound of the pendulum clock, which marks the passing of the seconds. I sit, teacup cradled in my hands. Beside me, William clasps his hands together tightly as if to keep himself from fidgeting, something Lady Catherine cannot abide.

  The lady in question is dozing openmouthed in her chair. She has been asleep for nearly a quarter hour. I am tired as well, so tired that I yawn, the opulence that surrounds me blurring into a haze of gleaming wood and gilding. I catch William’s repressive glance as I cover my mouth with the back of one hand.

  Miss Anne de Bourgh and her companion murmur together beside the hearth, too far away for William and me to partake in their conversation. The fire blazes strongly, too strongly for the warm spring day, yet Miss de Bourgh wears a heavy shawl. Her companion, Mrs. Jenkinson, by contrast, appears flushed from the heat, though as ever she is uncomplaining.

  I shift subtly to stretch my aching shoulders and try to hold in another yawn. Chock, chock, chock goes the pendulum. I sip my tea, which is now tepid; stare down at the leaves settled in the bottom of my cup; and read the tedium of the next few hours there.

  A muffled snort; I look up to find Lady Catherine looking around the room in apparent befuddlement. She slipped inelegantly downward while she was asleep, and now she pushes herself upright, fingers fixed clawlike around the arms of her chair. Her eyes dart from me to William and back again; from the corner of my own eye, I can tell that he is avoiding her gaze, his head tipped back as though he is studying the large portrait of her late husband, Sir Lewis, which hangs on the wall behind her. I return my own gaze to my teacup. At times, William shows surprising wisdom.

  “Play, Mrs. Jenkinson,” Lady Catherine says abruptly. “It is too quiet.”

  Mrs. Jenkinson startles, interrupted, it seems, midsentence. Miss de Bourgh presses her lips together and looks at the fire as her companion rises to her feet and moves to the pianoforte, where she sits and fumbles through the sheets of music to find a song.

  Lady Catherine makes a sound of annoyance. “I hope your daughter will outgrow her ill temper,” she says, turning to me. Her voice, forceful under any circumstances, seems especially startling as it breaks the silence; Mrs. Jenkinson jumps a little on her stool. “Anne told me she could hear her wailing away when she took her drive past your home yesterday.”

  For a long moment, I keep myself very still. I think of Louisa crying for me as William and I left the parsonage to come to Rosings; she squirmed miserably in Martha’s arms as I kissed her head and walked through the door.

  Mrs. Jenkinson begins to play, and Miss de Bourgh looks up. Her eyes meet mine just briefly, and then she looks away.

  “Louisa has a happy disposition much of the time, Lady Catherine,” I say at last. “But I believe she is cutting her first tooth, and it is making her a little fractious.”

  Lady Catherine sniffs. “Anne was never so disruptive,” she says. “Dr. Grant recommended a solution that kept her very quiet; her nurse said it was a marvel. You must ask him about it.”

  I hold my tongue, actually hold it between my teeth, as William bobs his head, though my mind is filled with frantic thoughts. My eyes stray to Miss de Bourgh, to her hollow cheeks and the sharply delineated bones at her wrists.

  “Indeed we shall, Your Ladyship,” William says. “Your advice, as ever, is both timely and sensible—”

  “Yes, yes,” Lady Catherine says, waving a hand, and then she raises her voice slightly. “You play with so little feeling, Mrs. Jenkinson,” she says; Mrs. Jenkinson’s shoulders jerk, and I look down at my lap.

  “ROSES!” WILLIAM SAYS over dinner. He slurps a spoonful of soup and I glance away until he speaks again. “Such condescension on the part of her ladyship. I never expected this—did you, my dear?”

  I take a sip of my wine before answering. “No, I did not.”

  There are, we learned today at tea, to be roses at the parsonage. The garden wants improving, Lady Catherine said, and nothing but roses will do to add the necessary elegance to the house’s prospect from the lane. William, of course, was gratified by his patroness’s interest and made certain to tell her so, at great length.

  “And to think,” he says now, around a mouthful of bread, “that she even considered the delicacy of the plants—for roses, I understand, are very temperamental. That she has not only purchased them but insists upon sending someone to plant them properly and instruct me in their care—she is munificence itself.”

  “Indeed. As always.”

  He pauses delicately, then says, “Do you recall in which spot her ladyship said the roses were to be planted?”

  “Near the road, past the hedgerow path.” I can only assume Lady Catherine wishes them to be visible to all who pass.

  “Ah. Yes. I thought so.” William blinks a little too rapidly. Then he shakes his head and dips his spoon once more into his bowl.


  I watch him for a moment. “Did you have other plans for that space?”

  “I . . . Well.” I feel a pang of sympathy at the sight of his bemused expression. “It is of no consequence,” he says at last. “I thought perhaps to put a new bed of . . . But her ladyship is very good to take such an expense upon herself, to adorn our humble abode so extravagantly. Roses!” he says again, and slurps his soup.

  Chapter Two

  I am walking in the garden when I hear them—a rhythmic thunking, a man’s voice raised in wordless frustration. The sounds rip through the hush of daybreak, startling Louisa, who had finally dozed off with her cheek on my shoulder. She and I were both awake through much of the night as she cried her distress over her poor, swollen gums until I was ready to weep with exhausted frustration myself. When at last the first tentative light of dawn showed around the edges of the window curtains, I threw a shawl over my shoulders and bundled Louisa into another, crept from the room without disturbing William, and went out into the garden hoping that the cool air would soothe her. As it did, admirably, until just now.

  My boots crunch over the gravel paths, my breath puffing warm before me. John, our manservant, is old, half-deaf, and unlikely to hear me even if I shout for him. And I can imagine the way William would stumble about, pulling on his boots and breeches, were I to rouse him to warn off the intruder. And so I hurry along, Louisa keening peevishly against my neck, until at last I round a bend in the hedgerow path and see there a man bent over a pick and fighting what appears to be a losing battle with the immense tree stump on the edge of the property.

  I know him instantly, for I have exchanged greetings with him in church nearly every Sunday for the past three years. “Mr. Travis!” I say, and his head jerks up. “What are you doing?”

  “Mrs. Collins,” he says. His eyes slide to one side; he rests the head of the pick on the ground and reaches up with his other hand to rub the back of his neck, his gaze resting somewhere over my shoulder. “Please excuse me; I did not mean to disturb you.”