It was not just the exertion of swift walking that had sweat trickling down Charlotte’s sides: sheer mortification and mounting anger contributed. She had no delusions and harboured no false hopes: years of watching the Bennet sisters grow and bloom alongside her, of seeing the way people’s eyes slid past her to alight on Jane and Lizzy, had cured her of any propensity to vanity, any idle hopes of enchanting others with the expedient of a pretty face. But to have the contrast rubbed in by an idle, mean-spirited woman of little intelligence, to be spoken of in such terms before a gathering of near-strangers who represented the first new company she had met in a long while, was truly galling. The presence of the maidservant meant Charlotte did not even have the luxury of breaking sticks or shouting her rage in the privacy of the lane.

She had never before felt so helpless in her humiliation. And as Mrs Bennet’s words replayed in her mind, Charlotte’s rage grew. Somewhere, somehow, she swore to herself, she would have her turn. She would make something of herself. Her success would also be her vengeance. Better still, she would take something precious from a woman towards whom she had only ever shown courtesy and affability, who, as her mother’s dearest friend, stood in the place of an aunt to her.

She came to a halt as the careless words revealing her own parent’s disloyalty repeated in her head. That stung the most: the vision of her mother bewailing her lack of beauty to others. She had somehow hoped that the maternal eye would at least be partial, if not downright blind, in her case. She clenched her lids to halt tears, and muttered something about a stone in her shoe to the anxious Jenny.

In that ordinary country lane, as familiar as the back of her own hand, Charlotte stood in despair – and then another thought came to give relief. Somehow she would escape. She would go somewhere – she knew not where or how – where she was not plain Miss Lucas, a spinster of the parish of Meryton, an object of speculation and pity to her neighbours, a source of anxiety to her family. How this was to be achieved, she had no conception; but she refused to allow the practical difficulties of such a plan to interfere with the momentary respite the thought of it granted.

CHAPTER XIV