She had shaken herself, attributing her lapse into introspection to the imminent onset of her monthly bleeding, a short stretch of time in which she invariably found herself snappish and adrift from everyday concerns. I will soon feel better, she had told herself, noticing that the fringing that edged her napkin was coming loose, and mentally earmarking it for mending the next day.

Now as she stood, hands at her waist, seeing her wavering reflection in glinting jars, she realised that such ennui and exhaustion had not plagued her for some time. The daily repetition of labour, her management of kitchen, board, and hearth brought a sense of completion to each day. There were times when she found her chores and duties tedious or unpleasant; she hardly enjoyed manufacturing soap or gutting poultry, for instance; but these and other labours never felt pointless. She realised she had the answer to her question: It was for this, she told herself.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE DAYS GREW IMPERCEPTIBLY LONGER, with first snowdrops and then celandines filling the woods with sheets of sparkle and soft light not yet reliably seen in the sky. Charlotte had set as a goal the task of making the house as comfortable as possible by the time of the much-anticipated visit by her father, sister and Lizzy in March, three months after the date of her marriage.

By then, she would have dealt with the tendency of the local bakehouse to scorch the bottoms of her loaves, repaired all the household linens that had suffered from the carelessness of the village washerwoman, smoked a sufficient store of pork, and populated the shelves of the pantry. It would take a full summer and autumn before the glinting jars these displayed would hold her own produce, but she found her husband’s income sufficient to allow the easy purchase of supplementary foodstuffs, and she soon gained a reputation as a generous chatelaine, able and willing to buy the occasional rabbit, trout, peck of chestnuts, and other titbits from the villagers to whom her husband ministered. The supply of potatoes, turnips, pippins, and quinces in the cellar was ample for their needs, and she was able to set an apple tart with cream or Cheddar before her husband most days. She learned first-hand what family life had already indicated to her: that a man who could anticipate a good dinner every day was also a man of good temper and humour.