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Jane nodded. Charlotte looked pained.
“Did people say that about us, the Lucases I mean, when father bought Lucas Lodge?”
“I know that there were one or two comments but it happened when we were both young. I definitely never heard the phrase but that does not mean it was not said.”
There was nothing Charlotte Lucas could say so they moved on. Jane picked up her story.
“So there is the first part, Lizzie was around people who think that way. But the aspect that has changed her the most is how men treat her.”
“Is she okay? Has she been…”
Charlotte did not know how to ask the question. Jane understood and vehemently shook her head.
“No, nothing like that fortunately. It is all to do with them dismissing her just because she is a woman. Elizabeth will be the first to tell anyone that she does not know how to run Uncle Gardiner’s business. She has never claimed that she does. But she has been immersed in that business for four years, and at a level that no one realises. She is incredibly clever when it comes to ledgers and has an understanding of what these numbers mean. But because she is a woman she is dismissed. Her contention is that men are incapable of recognising that women can be intelligent. And she has lots and lots of experience of what she calls idiot men being taken advantage of in business. And these same men see her only value as. Well I am not going to say it.”
Charlotte was not a delicate fainting flower. Her eyes narrowed.
“Really?”
Jane nodded.
“18 months ago was when she first told Mary she had been propositioned and given the opportunity to be a man’s mistress. In April she told her that it had happened two more times.”
Jane saw the muscles in Charlotte’s jaw clench.
“I do not say this next point to be cruel to you Charlotte but you and I have both been judged on our looks. It has been that way all our lives, if in different ways. I have heard my mother repeat endlessly that ‘I could not have been so beautiful for nothing’, yet I am 22 and no closer to the alter than you are. Maybe you and I are the odd ones in that we are not hardened or bitter.”
Charlotte stood and walked back and forth, a nervous reaction to the conversation. She inelegantly slumped back down on the bench.
“Well this has been a cheery conversation, has it not?”
Jane smiled and patted her hand comfortingly.
“Can I ask what prompted you to ask me the initial question?”
“Elizabeth’s behaviour at the Assembly.”
“Charlotte, stop saying these short sentences and making me ask all the questions. Elaborate!”
Jane smiled at Charlotte’s mock-chagrin expression.
“Sorry, I cannot help myself sometimes. It annoys my mother, it is my only excuse. Anyway, what I was meaning was her overall cool demeanour ever since she returned from London, but specifically the way she assisted Mary when that Mr. Darcy upset her. Although she did not raise her voice and was not overheard, she was very scathing in her assessment of him, his manners and his behaviour in a public place.”
“How did you hear, if she was not overheard?”
“I was the third person in the group, and faced out to the rest of the Assembly making sure we were alone while Eliza spoke with Mary. I heard everything she said.”
Jane indicated for Charlotte to continue.
“She said that most men were idiots, some of them were cruel, society dandies most of all. She called him handsome but then twisted his comment back at him. Let me get this right. Hang on.”
Jane watched Charlotte mumble under her breath for a moment.
“He is handsome but not enough to tempt me. His stony façade is a reflection of his heart of stone and because of that he will have to buy consequence with his alleged £10,000 a year. She even offered to stand next to him so that he had to breath her stench from trade.”
“Oh my! How did Mary react?”
“She was so startled that she stopped feeling sorry for herself. By the time she was done Eliza was smirking and Mary was threatening to find her copy of Fordyce’s Sermons and read them all to Eliza.”
