Page 72 of I Thee Wed (Pride And Prejudice Variation #2)
The grounds were wet, and pools had formed at the front entrance of Lucas Lodge. From what Lady Lucas could see through the window in the breakfast parlor, it looked like the rain would continue throughout the entire day. Charlotte began to serve her plate when the footman entered with the post.
Lady Lucas received the bundle, and after sorting through two letters addressed to Sir William and a bill from the milliner, she passed the final envelope across the table to her daughter.
“A letter for you, Charlotte,” she said. “The hand resembles Elizabeth’s, but I don’t recognize the seal. It cannot possibly be from her after her falling out with Alexander.”
Charlotte took the letter in hand and studied the script in silence, her eyes narrowing in recognition even as she hesitated to speak.
“It is her hand,” she said at last, surprised. “It is Elizabeth’s.”
“Well, do not stare at it as though it might strike you,” her mother returned with sharp impatience. “If she has written to you after all this time, then I daresay the contents must be worth reading.”
Charlotte cast her mother a brief glance of annoyance, but said nothing.
She broke the seal, unfolded the letter, and, turning first to the final page, confirmed the signature.
Her hands trembled slightly as she returned to the first page and began to read.
Her expression changed from surprise to confusion, and at last to something approaching hopefulness.
Lady Lucas, who had been watching her closely, asked with a note of alarm, “What is it? Why are you looking so strange? Has someone died?”
Charlotte shook her head. “No, nothing like that. Elizabeth has invited me to Pemberley.”
“Pemberley?” Lady Lucas blinked. “Whatever for?”
Charlotte looked up, her cheeks tinged with color. “She says she wishes to put me in the way of a rector, a gentleman of two and thirty, unmarried, personable, and possessed of a good living near the Pemberley estate. She believes we might suit.”
Lady Lucas sat straighter. “A rector? Well, that is quite promising.”
“There is more,” Charlotte said, eyes returning to the page.
“She has also spoken with the local physician, who oversees the charitable dispensary. He is a physician and a surgeon by training, eight and thirty, still unmarried, but settled and respected. He studied in London and has recently returned to Derbyshire. Elizabeth plans to speak with him regarding her own charitable efforts, and hopes I might meet him in the course of those visits.”
Lady Lucas pressed a hand to her chest. “A surgeon? That is very respectable, perhaps even better than a clergyman, considering his income.”
“And there is yet a third gentleman,” Charlotte continued, hardly believing her own words.
“An estate owner, recently come into his inheritance, a second son, now master of his brother’s estate following a fatal accident.
He is three and thirty. Elizabeth writes that should I accept her invitation, she will see that I am allowed to make each of their acquaintance in the natural course of things.
Perhaps, if fortune favors me, one of them might be inclined to offer. ”
Lady Lucas had no reply to this beyond a rather breathless question. “When?”
“May seventh. That’s four weeks from now!
There is more,” Charlotte said, rising from her chair, her voice growing soft and almost reverent.
“She instructs me to tell Father that I must have a new wardrobe so that I might appear at my best. She writes that I am to do something with my hair, though I need not worry on that score, for she will have her personal maid assist me. The same maid who dressed her on her wedding day.”
She held the letter to her breast, her eyes luminous. “Mother, I cannot believe her generosity. After all that passed, after everything, I thought she had forgotten me, or worse, cast me off entirely.”
Lady Lucas looked away, humbled and uncharacteristically subdued. “She was always your best friend, my dear. Perhaps her heart is larger than we gave her credit for. It would seem that her disappointment in love, where Alexander is concerned, has not poisoned her memory of you after all.”
Charlotte frowned slightly. “Mary and Mrs. Bennet must not have spoken of our scheme concerning Mr. Collins.”
“No,” Lady Lucas agreed, a little grimly. “I do not believe they would wish that known. Frances spoke of preserving appearances. All that happened is best kept between themselves.”
Charlotte folded the letter carefully. “I must speak with Father at once. If I am to go to Pemberley, I must have new gowns and perhaps a new pelisse. Mother, this may be my last chance before I grow too old to be thought of as a bride.”
Without another word, the two women abandoned the remains of breakfast and made their way through the house in search of Sir William Lucas, a sudden flurry of energy about them that had not been felt in years.
Charlotte wasted no time in replying to Elizabeth’s extraordinary invitation.
That very afternoon, she composed a letter full of grateful astonishment, assuring her friend that she would be most pleased to accept the invitation and would be packed and ready to travel north on May seventh.
She added, with characteristic modesty, that she would likely take the mail coach to Derbyshire when the time came, so as not to trouble the Darcys with any delay to their travels.
Elizabeth, upon receiving this reply, smiled to herself and sat down at once to pen her answer.
In it, she wrote that Charlotte was not to concern herself with coaches or timetables, for they would be passing directly by Lucas Lodge on their return to Pemberley and would stop to collect her.
All that remained for her to do, Elizabeth said, was to bring her wardrobe into order and ready herself to meet three eligible bachelors, each of whom, she emphasized playfully, was entirely unencumbered by wife, fiancée, or entanglement of any kind.