Sara Waters - Dancing with Mr Darcy - Stories Inspired by Jane Austen

She was looking quite out of character, her mouth knitted in a tight knot of disapproval as she worked deftly, methodically. The salon with just the two of them seemed cold. There was tension in the spray that landed finely on her hair that Eliza had not offered and she had not accepted.

A border had been crossed: the fine line of professional and personal. Charlotte saw in her reflected pink face all the what-ifs of her life, the if-onlys, the wasted possibilities and was on the verge of falling into the bleak emptiness of it.

‘Know what, Charlotte? I think you should come and meet Mr Collins.’

The emptiness receded.

Eliza tweaked at her fringe, bending her knees to get closer then put her head next to Charlotte’s, resting her hands on her shoulders and fixing her eyes on the reflection.

‘Like seafood?’

All of a sudden, the weight of Eliza’s hands was unbearable. She saw for the first time how shrewd her eyes were; how calculating and she wanted to brush them off, free herself from the eyes, the salon and the whole sorry business. The impudence of the headset. Why should she, Charlotte Lucas of independent means and a comfortable home, entertain ideas of marrying?

‘Who is Mr Collins?’ her reflection asked. She could see she had recovered her usual pallor and poise.

Eliza took her hands from Charlotte’s shoulders, pulled down the mouthpiece, still hovering, and listened. The salon was very still. Charlotte wondered if she should get up from her chair. She was ready to go home now.

A high snivelling sound came from Eliza. Tears were falling from her eyes.

‘Well be like that, you bastard.’

A new chapter, a new book even. Charlotte thought she was letting herself down and pretended not to hear for as long as possible. Then it occurred to her that this was drama, a real-life drama reflected in the mirror before her.

‘Is there anything—’ Charlotte let the words trail, seeing herself in the mirror, the older but still attractive woman lending her worldly wisdom to the jilted youngster crying into her headset. Was the young man still there? Was he feeling remorse for his harshly spoken words? Not a bit of it, Charlotte decided. He would be brutish and arrogant and gone. Tears would not melt his heart. ‘I hate it when you cry. Whatever you cook and whoever you chose to invite will be wonderful.’ That type of happy ending was reserved for the type of books she did not read. Not to the end, at least.

Distinction blurred; a car door banged and the door to the salon was flung open with force such that it hit the wall. A man stood in the doorway, smiling. With the setting sun behind his head like a halo, he strode towards Eliza and taking her in his manly arms— ‘Charlotte, Charlotte,’ she heard her name repeated and felt a sharp tapping on her hand. He had come to take her for the meal of ready-made food. Her Mr Collins, whose presence Eliza could not endure for one evening.

A handsome young man in uniform was kneeling beside her holding her wrist.

‘Please do not kneel.’ Her words, though fully formed in her head, sounded jumbled.

‘Can you hear me?’

What a ridiculous question. Then she remembered that was what is said at disasters when the hero or heroine is dying. ‘Well, I’m not dying.’ Again the words did not come.

Eliza was still tearful, ‘She came over all, well, you know, and just slumped in my chair. I thought she had fallen asleep, she often does, but when she wouldn’t wake up I thought I’d better call you.’

‘You did the right thing, people often leave it too late and don’t want to bother us. We’ll take care of her. Do you know of any relative we can contact? I think it best to take her in.’

‘Lives on her own – as far as I know she’s an old maid.’

It dawned on Charlotte that they were speaking about her: she was the old maid. She would have liked to check the role in the mirror to see if it suited her noble profile but her head was so heavy she thought she would leave it for now. She was tired of the effort of life, tired of pretence. They had come to take her away, the fear of the old and lonely. Perhaps this is what happened in all those endings she had refused to read. It would be a new chapter in her life, hospital she supposed, for this was not the usual story. Perhaps she would be home again, back to her light, gentle life full of empty days, and that would do for the end.

Then Eliza, her practical friend, was beside her with her head close to hers.

‘This gentleman is Mr Wickham. He thinks it best to take you in.’

None of it made much sense to Charlotte and she was in no mood to be taken in, certainly not by Mr Wickham. He had already taken in enough people when what everyone needed was truth and plain speaking.

‘We may as well carry her; she only looks two scraps of nothing.’

Charlotte would have liked to look to see who they were talking about now, but she could not focus.

‘Charlotte, I want you to put your arms round my neck, I’m going to take you—’

She felt the muscles taut across his shoulders and he lifted her as if she were no more than a feather. She laid her head on his shoulder and felt the stiff cloth of his uniform on her cheek. His smell was essence of man, of horse leather and fields and cigar smoke. It was pure Mills and Boon. Her mother had always warned her against filling her head with romantic nonsense but she felt the time had come to let herself go, ‘Why, Mr Wickham.’

My inspiration: I wanted to write something giving minor characters a major role. I thought of Charlotte as the anti-heroine marrying the unfortunate Mr Collins so that at least she would have a modicum of independence. The thought of Mr Collins immediately made me want to laugh so the story would be droll. I love Pride and Prejudice but wanted a story that did not work out.

She could be sitting right next to them and they wouldn’t notice her; the teachers, the boys, the other girls. She could slip into class wearing a menstrual red jumper that brought out the grey umbers and ochres in her skin, and that pulled tight across her small peachy breasts and still they wouldn’t see her.

She was the only girl amongst us who could slowly peel a banana and bite into its flesh without the boys drooling at her. She was pretty though. Everything in the right place. And when she spoke, when she bothered, it was usually to say something considered. Not timid, like you might expect.

Then one day, I watched Mr Burdage pull her to one side at the end of Art, period three. He asked her what she wanted to do with her life. She held his eye and told him: lawyer.

Is that something you want to do, or something your family wants for you, because you have a talent in art, have you thought about studying it further?

And she smiled and asked him: was art something his family had wanted him to do?

He turned cerise and got excited and said: you know it’s all going to become clear to you at university. The different ways you can live. There will be more people who… get you. Then he turned and scurried back into his art room.

Everyone knew that I liked Mani Burdage. He had never asked me what I wanted to do with my life, even though he knew that I wanted to go to Art School. He also knew that my dad was against the idea but that I wasn’t going to let that stop me. We would be good together, Mani and me. I dreamt of living and working with him in his studio. Maybe even marrying. We would be a partnership, like Gilbert and George. Or open a shop and make and sell our work like Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas did in the nineties.

Seeing as how Mani saw something interesting in Bina, I decided to adopt her; keep your rival close, they say. Also I was confident that I would look well next to her. That once I had brought her out of herself, she wouldn’t appear layered and mysterious to him. She would be just the same as everyone else. Besides I was short on friends at the time.