‘So this is my first proposal: that I settle money on each of your daughters. Not sums so large as to tempt fortune-hunters or make them eligible prospects for that reason alone; but enough that should they wish, they may live respectable lives as spinsters, if need be; in the event of your and Mr Collins’s demise, to be able to afford modest but adequately comfortable establishments, with respectable companions, or even one other.’

Charlotte heard a ringing in her ears, and swayed, tears starting in her eyes. She stepped forward to take Anne’s hands, spilling with gratitude, but the younger woman stepped back, holding up her palms. ‘Wait, Mrs Collins. I said I had two propositions to make. You will like the second much less, I fear. But first, I wish to stress that these are two separate, not intertwined ventures. They are not conditional upon one another. Even if you respond to my second proposal with a determined negative, I will still honour my first promise, to secure a future free of anxiety and want for your daughters. In fact, if your third child is another girl, she will receive a settlement equal to that of her elder sisters.

‘But if you have a boy, Mrs Collins – I wish to foster him, and raise him to become the heir of Rosings.’

The ringing continued in Charlotte’s ears, but now it took on the quality of a knife being sharpened. Her first thought was Lose another child? I cannot. And then she was seated on the edge of a raised planting bed, her head touched to her knees, the foliage on either side of her swaying queasily up and down, and Anne was saying, with great agitation, ‘Mrs Collins, I beg you, do not alarm yourself—’

Slowly, the sensation that her surrounds were swirling around her stilled, and she sat up cautiously and cracked open one eye to gaze at Anne, who had gone so pale she was almost blue. ‘Dear God, I feared I had brought on a misadventure, that you might even lose the child. Let me call for assistance. You need something sweet to drink.’